Wednesday, October 17, 2007

 

E-Digest#02: Past Events

1. Felicitation Function for IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumni Award for the year 2007

IITDAA Distinguished Alumni felicitation function was held on 10th August 2007 at Vishwakarma Bhawan, IIT Delhi for felicitating the awardees of the Distinguished Alumni Awards & the Distinguished Alumni Service Awards for the year 2007. Prof. V. S. Ramamurthy, Chairman, BOG, IITD & Patron, IITDAA and Prof. Surendra Prasad, Director, IITD & Chairman, IITDAA felicitated the awardees. The event was a grand success and was well attended. Messages of appreciations were also received from the awardees.

IITDAA recognizes the outstanding contributions made by an alumnus of IIT Delhi through their achievements and brought glory to the name of the Institute.

IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumni Awardees for the year 2007:

1. Mr. Sanjay Khosla, ( B.Tech., Elect - 1973)

Executive Vice President & President, International Kraft Foods, USA

2. Prof. Mohit Randeria, (B.Tech, Elect- 1980)

Physics Department, Ohio State University, USA

3. Dr. Rajiv Laroia, (B. Tech, Elect - 1985)

Technology Chief, Qualcomm Flarion Technologies Route, USA


IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumni
Service Awardees for the year 2007:

1. Mr. Lalit Mohan Mehra, (B. Tech., Mech - 1966)

CEO, Widramal Sales Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi

2. Mr. Sandeep Tyagi, (B.Tech. CS&E,. -1990)

Founder & MD, Inductis, USA

Mr. Sanjay Khosla


Mr. Sanjay Khosla received his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1973. He completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University in 1998.

Mr. Sanjay Khosla is presently President, Kraft International of Kraft Foods, Inc., based in Chicago, USA.


Shortly after graduation, Khosla started his career in sales with Philips India, paving his way to a successful track record in running global businesses and building brands. Mr. Khosla joined Kraft from a successful career at Fonterra Co-operative Group, one of the world’s largest diary companies and New Zealand’s largest multinational company. At Fonterra, Khosla was Managing Director and led the company’s USD 3 billion consumer and foodservice business where, in 3 years, he orchestrated a business turnaround. Prior to Kraft and Fonterra, Khosla enjoyed a successful international career with Unilever for 27 years. There, he served in positions of increasing responsibility culminating in his role as Senior Vice President, Global Beverages and Chairman of Unilever’s USD 4 billion beverages category based in Holland. He orchestrated the excellent growth of Liption worldwide through the “Paint the World Yellow with Lipton” business program.


Described as a visionary, a change
agent, an institution builder and a global professional, Mr. Khosla has taught courses at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland and Columbia University in New York on managing international brands and business. In 1998, he was named “Marketing Superstart” by the prominent US marketing industry publication advertising age. He serves on the Board of Directors of NIIT, India’s leader in IT enabled education.

Prof. Mohit Randeria

Prof. Mohit Randeria received his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1980. He obtained M.S. Degree from the California Institute of Technology, USA in 1982 and Ph.D. Degree from Cornell University, USA in 1987.


Prof. Mohit Randeria is presently Professor of Physics at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, USA.


Prof. Randeria started his academic career as an Assistant Professor of Physics at SUNY Stony Brook in 1989, after a few years of post-doctoral work at Cornell and Illinois. He then joined the Argonne National Lab in Illinois as a Staff Scientist in the Materials Science Division, and after four years there, resumed his academic career at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (FIFT), Mumbai in 1995. He spent nine years in the Theoretical Physics Department at TIFR as Reader, Associate Professor, and Professor. Since 2004, he has been a Professor of Physics at Ohio State.

Prof. Randeria is an acknowledged expert in the area of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics. His research interests are focused, at present, on high temperature superconductivity, strongly correlated systems, and ultra-cold atomic gases. Prof. Randeria is the author of over hundred research papers in Condensed Matter Physics. He is the recipient of a prize in Condensed Matter Physics, awarded in honour of Nobel Laureate Phillip Anderson by the International Center of Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy in 2002. He ahs also been awarded the Swarnajayanti Fellowship in 1998, the B.M. Birla Science prize in 1999, the S.S. Bhatnagar Award in 2002, and the George A. Miller Visiting Professorship at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2002-2003.

Dr. Rajiv Laroia


Dr. Rajiv Laroia received his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1985. He obtained Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland, College Park in 1992.

Dr. Laroia is presently Senior Vice President of Technology at Qualcomm, USA.


Dr. Laroia joined Siemens Research Labs in Munich, Germany after graduating from IIT Delhi. In 1992, he joined AT&T Bell Labs after obtaining his Ph.D. in 2000, Dr. Laroia founded Flarion Technologies, a venture backed company to develop and commercialize a novel all-IP mobile wireless broadband technology. He served as the CTO of Flarion and in that role provided the vision and led the development of technology and products for the company. In 2006 Flarion was acquired by the wireless technology giant Qualcomm, where he currently serves as Senior Vice Present (Technology).


Dr. Laroia is one of the world’s leading researchers and innovators in the field of communication. He holds more than 50 patents and has more than 100 others pending. His early research focused on wire-line communication. He has significant technology contributions to V.34 and V.90 International Standards for sending data over telephone lines. The technology he invented is used in virtually all dial-up modems in the
world.


Since 1997, Dr. Laroia has been working in the filed of mobile wireless communication. The technology he and his team developed at Flarion is now incorporated in all three major next generation international wireless standards UMTS LTE, UMB and Wimax. Dr. Laroia has won numerous industry awards. In 2006 he was inducted to the to the Innovation hall of Fame at the University of Maryland. He is a fellow of the IEEE.

Mr. Lalit Mehra

Mr. Lalit Mehra received his Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 1966 with a Gold Medal as the best all rounder student and a Silver Medal for having stood first in the Mechanical Engineering Department

Mr. Mehra is presently CEO, Widramal Sales Pvt, Ltd. In New Delhi.


Professionally he specialised in the sale of equipment and material and know-how for the wire and cable industry through his own company. He was associated with the Alumni Association and Senate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and also served on a panel of the PHD Chamber of Commerce

Lalit is Chairman of the Tara Vati Ram Gopal Mehra Foundation, which provides medical assistance and scholarships to the needy; operates two Homeopathic Dispensaries in New Delhi and runs a fully equipped out patient Medical Centre in East Delhi. The Medical Centre and the Mobile clinic attached to the Centre serve about 250 patients every day. He is Secretary of the Nirmal Shiksha Kendra, which, fully funded by the Tara Vati Ram Gopal Mehra Foundation, runs a school in New Delhi with a strength of about 350 Children, from the underprivileged sections of society, who pay no fees. The same establishment also offered vocational training courses to help increase the income generating capability of participants till the time L&DO felt this was a misuse of the premises. While he was Director of the Shanker Lal Memorial Education Foundation he was involved in establishing the Alwar Public School at Alwar in North India.

Having joined the Rotary Club of Delhi South in 1969-70 he served his Club and District in various capacities and led the Group Study Exchange team to District 676 in Tennessee, U.S.A. before serving as Governor of District 3010 in 1984-85. During 1984-85 he was the Chairman of the Rotary News Trust, which publishes Rotary’s regional magazines. He has the distinction of having trained incoming District governors of Rotary. As Chairman of THE POLIOPLUS CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE for India, Sri Lanka and Nepal during 1986-90 and, later, Vice-Chairman of the NATIONAL POLIOPLUS IMMUNISATION COMMITTEE, he spearheaded the movement to eradicate Polio. He set up Rotary Foundation (India) and was its Founder Secretary.

Mr. Lalit Mehra has taken keen interest in the growth of his Alma Mater. He established the Tara Vati Ram Gopal Mehra Foundation Scholarship for a needy deserving student at IIT Delhi in 1967 immediately after his graduation. He has been instrumental in setting up the Mehra Chair Professorship in Design & Manufacturing Technologies. He has also contributed towards improvement in hostel infrastructure as well as to the setting up of the Pearl Award (Batches 1965 to 1969). He has also instituted the Dr. P.L. Kapur Memorial Award in the Department of Physics. He played a significant role in the formation of the IITD Alumni Association and especially the concept of automatic membership of every graduating student through the IIT fee structure.

While at the IIT, he played a leading role in the establishment of several Extra Curricular Activities – notably the student publications; the Film club; the free discussion group etc. – and was the first General Secretary of the ECA – the forerunner of today’s student organizations

Mr. Sandeep Tyagi

Mr. Sandeep Tyagi received his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from IIT, Delhi in 1990. He completed his MBA from Columbia Business School, New York, NY in 1994.

Mr. Sandeep Tyagi is presently Vice President and Head of Transformation Services, EXL Service. He is also the Founder and Managing Principal of Management Consulting and Outsourcing firm –Inductis, which is now a part of EXL Service. He has been responsible for setting the firm’s direction, sustaining a winning culture and developing new business opportunities since the year 2000. Inductis, since then, with its unique mix of world-class business consulting and state-of-the-science analytical capabilities & infrastructure has been helping diversified financial services companies in the areas of marketing optimization and risk management.

Mr. Sandeep Tyagi has been advising Fortune 100 clients and executives at leading companies about high-end analytics, outsourcing, marketing strategy and technology for more than a decade. Prior to founding Inductis, he was partner at the Mitchell Madison Group (MMG), an eminent global strategy consulting firm. He was the leader of MMG’s Pricing and Product Design Practice and co-leader of the eCommerce Practice.

Mr. Sandeep Tyagi is Charter Member of TiE, an organization focused on nurturing entrepreneurship and a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). Mr. Tyagi has been named a 2006 Forty Under 40 Award recipient in New Jersey.

Mr. Sandeep Tyagi is an active member of IIT Delhi alumni. He has served as a Vice Chairman and Board Member of IIT Delhi Excellence Foundation—an organization that works to support the development of IIT Delhi into a world-class institution.

Mr. Sandeep Tyagi is based in New Delhi, where he lives with his wife, Anupama, and two children Anand and Khushi.

2. Convocation 2007

Convocation 2007

The 38th Annual Convocation of the Institute was held on Saturday, the August 11, 2007 at 9.00 A.M. in the Dogra Hall. Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, was the Chief Guest and he delivered the Convocation Address. Prof. V.S. Ramamurthy, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Delhi presided over the function. A report on the Institute's major activities and achievements

made since last convocation, was presented by the Director, Prof. Surendra Prasad.

At this convocation 1380 students were awarded Ph.D., M.Tech., MBA, DIIT, M.Sc., M.Des., M.S.(Res.) and B.Tech. Degrees. Of these 911 students received post-graduate and 469 undergraduate degrees as per following details:

Degrees Awarded

B.Tech. 357

M.Sc. 70

D.I.I.T. 18

5-year Integrated M.Tech. in Maths.& Computing 26

5-year Dual Deg. Prog. (M.Tech. & B.Tech.) 86

M.Tech. 603

M.Des. 20

M.S. (Research) 5

M.B.A. 55

Ph.D. 140

Total 1380

In addition, 84 of the graduating students received the Awards/Medals/Cash Prizes for their special achievements.

This year's President's Gold Medal and Director's Gold Medal were awarded to Rahul Garg and Shashwat Sehgal, both from Computer Science & Engineering, respectively.

At this convocation, the Institute also conferred the Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) on Prof. U.R. Rao, Chairman of the Governing Council of Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad and an internationally renowned space scientist who has made original contributions to the development of space technology and its extensive application to communications and remote sensing of natural resources.

This year's Distinguished Alumni Awards were conferred on Mr. Sanjay Khosla - a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering 1973 batch student and presently President, Kraft International of Kraft Foods, Inc., Chicago; Prof. Mohit Randeria - a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering, 1980 batch student and presently, Professor of Physics, Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio; and Dr. Rajiv Laroia - a B.Tech. Electrical Engineering 1985 batch student and presently, Senior Vice President of Technology at Qualcomm, USA in recognition of their outstanding contributions made by them in their respective areas/fields.

The Institute also conferred the Distinguished Alumni Service Award on Mr. Lalit Mehra - a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering 1966 batch student and presently, Chairman of Tara Vati Ram Gopal Mehra Foundation and Mr. Sandeep Tyagi - a B.Tech. in Computer Science 1990 batch student and presently, Vice-President, and Head of Transformation Services, EXL Service. In recognition of their significant efforts and contributions made by them for the development and progress of the Institute.

Delivering the convocation address, Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia stated that this institution has built an Indian brand name which is recognised around the world. The IITs stand out as outstanding examples of institutions providing top quality engineering education at the undergraduate level, not only in India but around the world figuring regularly in global lists of the top 200 universities. Shri Ahluwalia added that you are fortunate to be entering your working life at a time when India seems well on the way to occupying her rightful place in the world. This transformation, which has now begun, will play itself out over the next two or three decades. Your generation will benefit from it enormously. I have no doubt you will see much more rapid

change than our generation did, and you will find it both exciting and challenging. The first is pace of growth, the second pace of technology change, and the third globalisation. The three are closely interrelated and mutually reinforcing. As far as pace of growth is concerned, the economy is growing at about 9% and with the right economic policies we can maintain that growth rate, and perhaps even improve upon it, over the next twenty years. With population growing more slowly at 1.5% and also decelerating, it means our per capita income will grow at 7.5% or a little more. At that rate, per capita income will double in 9 years, he said. The second reason for rapid change is that technology is changing much faster. That is certainly true in the area of information and communication technology. The IT and communications revolution has changed the way people organise their lives and their businesses. It has created new businesses which could

not exist earlier. And yet, it is remarkable how recently and rapidly this has happened.

In his address, he also mentioned that the Indian educational system is at cross roads. I look at it as the age-old conflict of quantity versus quality. With a billion plus population with more than one fifth of them in an age group to be educated, quantity is a social responsibility. On the other hand, in the globalized world of today on the threshold of a knowledge era, quality education is a necessity. The challenge is on reconciling quantity with quality. The challenge is not only to the educators but to all- the government, the ducationists and the community as a whole.

Welcoming the Chief Guest, Prof. Ramamurthy stated that Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission and a well known economist of international standing, has been intimately connected with the Indian economy for nearly three decades. Resurgent India will

remember him as the midwife of the Indian economic reforms of the nineties that laid the foundation stone for what we are seeing in the marketplace today.

On this occation, Prof. Surendra Prasad, Director, presented a brief report and highlighted the activities, achievements and future plans of the Institute. Prof. Prasad informed that in a recent survey conducted by the INDIA TODAY, IIT Delhi was ranked at No. 2 among the top engineering colleges in India. He stated that IIT Delhi is committed to provide excellent human resource to meet national needs and global expectations. It is a unique institution and a dream destination for those who wish to be leaders in the technology areas and management. IIT Delhi is internationally recognised for delivering excellent education at UG level. It is our constant endeavour to do well in carrying out innovative research & development activities as well.

Appreciating the efforts and contributions made by its alumni, he stated that our alumni have extended significant support to the Institute for its academic and research programmes by way of instituting chairs in various fields at the Institute. As on date, 30 Chairs are in operation at the Institute. The Institute has been actively involved in collaborative programmes with national and international organizations/ universities to remain at the forefront in scientific and technological development and to share the knowledge for mutual benefits. IIT Delhi has currently 49 MoUs/Agreements with Foreign Institutions/Organizations and 37 MoUs/ Agreements with Indian Institutions/Organizations. The main objectives of collaboration include exchange of students and faculty, joint research, and fellowships for training and research at doctoral and post-doctoral levels, he said. Recognising the efforts and contributions made by the faculty

of the institute, he said, the quality of an academic institution largely depends on the faculty. Our Faculty is one of the finest in the country and is recognized internationally for their quality of research. They contribute a lot for the development of the nation by being associated with a large number of decisionmaking bodies in providing advice on policy matters and technical issues. Many of our faculty members serve on the editorial Boards of reputed journals, review papers for publications, serve on committees for recruitment of professionals, and are on the Boards of many institutions and organizations. Several faculty members have been bestowed with honours/awards and elected as fellows of several professional national/international bodies. Our academic programmes cover a wide range of science and engineering disciplines. In B.Tech. Programmes, for which the entry is through the Joint Entrance Examination, we have steadily increased our intake and during the year 2006-2007, 2265 UG students were on roll. The enrolment of postgraduate students during the year 2006-2007 was 2666. These figures

include 767 women students. There were 20 foreign students from 9 countries pursuing undergraduate/postgraduate education at the Institute. In order to make IIT Delhi more

international in character and to make better use of international intellectual resources, we are constantly working towards increasing the strength of international students and faculty in the campus, he said.

He informed the gathering that in order to motivate the students, the Institute has instituted a scheme for grant of partial financial assistance to Ph.D., M.Tech., M.Des., M.S. (R) and MBA students and post-doctoral fellows working in various projects for attending international conferences. Under this scheme, a grant of Rs.20,000/- is given to the selected student as partial financial assistance and during the year, a total of 46 students have been given this grant. It is proposed to increase this number to 80 during the current year. With regard to the sponsored research and consultancy activities of the Institute, he reported that the Institute accords importance to research and development projects sponsored by various agencies and industry. During the year 92 Sponsored Research Projects with a total funding of Rs. 38.82 crores were undertaken. Consultancy assignments worth Rs. 16.55 crores were undertaken at the Institute during the year. These include 816 Consultancy Jobs worth Rs. 12.71 crores undertaken by

IRD, 45 Technology Development Projects / Contract Research Projects worth Rs. 3.26 crores undertaken by FITT and 15 HRD Programmes with a value of Rs. 57.56 lacs organized by FITT. He further added that to remain in the forefront on the scientific and technology development and to share the experience and knowledge, the Institute is actively involved in colla-borative programmes with international organizations/universities. A large number of collaborative Research Projects are under operation with Institutes/Organisations of Belgium, European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and USA. Major research project activities have also been undertaken in the areas of national importance. Emphasising the need for practical training of students and later their placement, he said “Training & Placement is an important activity of the Institute. The T&P Unit is mainly

responsible for arranging practical training of the undergraduate students to meet their degree requirement and to provide world class job opportunities to undergraduate and postgraduate students after graduation for suitable jobs in the industry and various private and public sector organizations. During the year under report, the T&P Unit invited Senior Executives of major industries / organizations to give preplacement talks to the students at the Campus which helped them acquire better knowledge about various organizations prior to the commencement of campus interviews. During the report period, 275 campus / local interviews were organized as a result of which 873 students were placed.” One of the important tasks taken up by us at IIT Delhi in the last one year was to set up clear goals for taking the Institute to the next higher level in the next 5 years, together with a road-map to meet these goals. The entire Institute, and the Deans and Deputy Directors have collectively participated in this effort and we are determined that through these efforts, IIT Delhi will make a significant movement towards becoming a world-class Institution of higher education and research. As part of this process, some of the new initiatives taken include the setting up of a School of Biosciences, a facility for nano-fabrication and a facility for micro-engineering and manufacturing, he said.


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