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Much to celebrate
It's been a year since I was chosen President of Pan IIT USA and my dedicated team of volunteers on the Executive Committee has done much to make us all proud in the last twelve months. For example:
- We announced the first ever Pan-IIT American Alumni Leadership Awards at IIT 2009 conference. Hundreds of nominees were evaluated by a team comprised of representatives from all IITs; we hope to make this an annual event. Jai Rawat spearheaded this herculean effort.
- We brought alive a long-talked about initiative to create "charter members" among the alumni program. We are using the name Pan-IIT Leadership Circle (PLC) to describe the hundred or so alumni who have committed their time, money and ideas to the cause of alumni at the pan IIT level. While the initial launch has focused on the USA only, the India team is expected to launch their piece of this in 2010. We expect to limit overall membership of this group to under 400 alumni. Roy DaSilva leads the invitation-only PLC initiative.
- Finances and governance are managed ably by our CFO, Ashok Gupta. In support of full transparency, we post financial information with the minutes of monthly board meetings.
- Sid Chowdhary is responsible for supporting over a dozen Pan IIT Chapters all over the United States. Chapter events are held year around and you should take a look at your own area to see how you can participate. He is also responsible for managing the board and executive committee meetings and posting minutes promptly.
- Electronic communication with alumni and the outside world has improved. Our updated website iit.org, now has a Google Page Rank of 8 up from 6 a year ago. (This is the same level as ucla.edu and ibm.com, with a budget of less than 0.1 of either of those sites.) We also have a email newsletter which enjoys click rates in excess of 20% for every issue. Suresh Bazaj leads the web effort; Amita Suhrid and Smita Goel Bagla manage the newsletter.
The volunteer executive committee is overseen by a Board of Directors which includes representatives from each of the seven IIT campuses that have IIT alumni. Our chair is distinguished alumnus Umang Gupta; here is an interview with him that was posted in an earlier newsletter. In future issues of the newsletter, you will get to meet two newer board members who are also distinguished alumni: Raj Singh and Kanwal Rekhi.
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Quick Survey, make your voice heard
In October 2009, Midwest Chapter President Ray Mehra and his tightly-knit team in Chicago, pulled off a fabulous Global Conference. While the 2010 conference will be held in the New Delhi area, North America will host the 2011 event. This will also be close to the Diamond Jubilee of the IIT system. Several North American chapters are vying for the event. Before we decide the venue, we want to get your opinion. Please take a few minutes to fill out the seven question survey, please click here.
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