IIT Bombay alumni to celebrate alma mater's golden jubilee

Tag : golden jubilee

India Post News Service
NEW YORK: Alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),Bombay, will celebrate their alma mater's 50th birthday with aGolden Jubilee Conference at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in TimesSquare, NYC, from July 18 through 20. The US is home to anestimated 50,000 alumni or 30 percent of IIT graduates worldwide.Announcing the conference at a press conference at the ConsulateGeneral of India in New York on June 25, Sudhakar Shenoy, Founder,Chairman and CEO of IMC Inc., made a presentation on the conferencetheme -- Looking Ahead: The Next Fifty Years. "IITians are goodwillambassadors," he said.
"They bring about economic and cultural fusion, are advocates offree trade; are agents for collaboration, are thought leaders andbelieve in a culture of 'giving back' to the communities they livein and to the country of their origin." While immigration anddecline of math and science education in the US constantly makeheadlines in the media, IIT alumni have been quietly strengtheningthe engineering, business and academic backbones of America sincethe 1960's.
Firms founded by IIT Bombay Alumni have created tens of thousandsof jobs in America; some of these firms are traded on NASDAQ, and afew alumni are featured on the Forbes List of America's richest.Besides making distinctive contributions to many Americanindustries, IIT alumni are also raising their children inenvironments of educational excellence.
Already over a thousand IIT Alumni in the US have given back to IITBombay in a variety ways, Shenoy pointed out, through funding andchampioning new IT, management and bioengineering schools; throughinfrastructure projects; academic projects; faculty academicnetworks for enabling collaboration with top US schools on researchetc.; and enabled alumni networking around the world.
"Our goal is to raise awareness of what can be achieved throughglobal collaboration and education by viewing the achievements ofthe IIT System and to continue the dialog for future growth," addedShenoy. "India has come a long way since the days of the nakedsadhus and snake charmers. We want to create awareness and show theworld what India can deliver to the world.
In today's economic scenario, India has no choice but to grow, andwe want to be the ambassadors of that growth." Victor Menezes spokeof how the alumni was working towards leveraging IIT to reflectIndia's growth and needs and towards expanding access to education.The alumni said they were supportive of the India's government'smove to allow reservations in these elite institutions for thebackwards castes.
Educational institutions in India were facing capacity constraintsacross the board, Menezes said. "From kindergarten schools to postgraduate schools there is a dire need for more capacity induction.The Indian government is doing a noble thing by trying to get theOBCs into mainstream institutions," he added. Shenoy furthered thatthought by adding that the alumni has had several meetings on theissue and have come up various ways by which the backward castestudents can be ensured entry to the IITs.
The conference theme of Looking Ahead-the next 50 years, focuses onglobalization and collaboration among corporations and Institutesof higher learning; education reform for a borderless society;excellence in research (new knowledge); and philanthropy as venturecapital for social engineering.
The Golden Jubilee conference is expected to attract 1200 attendeesfrom around the world, for three days of networking,knowledge-sharing and thought leadership. Already 600 attendeesfrom 325 organizations from over 43 different industries haveregistered.
The conference will feature eminent speakers such as Ronen Sen(Ambassador of India to US), Jamie Dimon (CEO, JP Morgan Chase),Frank Wisner (Vice Chairman, AIG and former US Ambassador to India)and many others from business, academia and not-for-profits. Theevent is co-chaired by Victor Menezes, Retired Senior ViceChairman, Citigroup, and Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman, Infosys.