BITSAA Annual Report 2017 by BITSAA International

BITSAA

I N T E R NAT I ONA L

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chairperson's Message

BITSAA Board

BITSAA Leadership 2017

BITSAA Global Meet 2017

BITSiansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Day 2017

Scholarships and Awards Team 15 Chapter Relations Team

Back2School Team

BITS2Fitness

BITSAA Investment Committee 36 Distinguished Alumnus Award 38 2017 BITSAA Leadership Awards 2017

Statement of Accounts

List of Donors

How to donate

CHAIRPERSON'S MESSAGE Dear BITSians, I hope 2017 has been a year of progress, fulfilment and success for you as it has been for us. At BITSAA, we had set ourselves some ambitious goals, and I am pleased to say that we have made outstanding progress on each front. BITSAA International organized BITSAA Global Meet 3.0 at Dubai, which was attended by nearly 400 delegates. It was our first overseas BGM and a resounding success. We also announced BITS Accelerate-an endowment fund that will focus on the three areas of (i) Student Enrichment through tuition scholarships, travel grants etc., (ii) Faculty Enrichment through endowed Faculty Chairs, Research Grants, Faculty Excellence Awards, and (iii) Infrastructure by upgrading existing infrastructure as well as adding state-of-the-art facilities like laboratories, sports facilities etc. The baton has now been passed, and the next BGM will be held in Goa in 2020, for which we will soon be sending out the details to you. On 4th August 2017, the 5th edition of BITSians’ Day was organized across 29 countries and 103 locations covering diverse countries and regions like India, Australia, Canada, USA, the Middle East and the continent of Europe. Apart from this, there were many informal celebrations in various offices and universities where alumni proudly celebrated the BITSian spirit. From tree plantation to hiking the Alps, there were some unique celebrations which stood out. We also organized the BITSians Day Giving - our first ever social media fundraising Campaign, which have been used to support tuition scholarships, travel grants, project funding etc for students. In 2017, BITSAA launched its very own Instagram account, and published the first edition of the annual Alumni Magazine ‘The BITSian’. These initiatives were well received by the BITSian community and will go a long way in binding it together. The bond between BITSAA and our alma mater has also been strengthened by creation of an Alumni Relations Cell at BITS Pilani led by Dean, Alumni Relations. The purpose of this cell is to connect with the BITS Pilani global alumni network and involve them in the Institute’s development plans in association with BITSAA (BITS Alumni Association). The cell has also launched BITS ECHO - A Newsletter consisting of breaking news, stories and instant appeals that would be of prodigious interest to Alumni. These are being regularly hosted on the BITSAA website. These are just some glimpses of the success story of BITSAA, which would not have been possible without your unwavering faith in us. I heartily thank you for your unstinting support and hope that you will continue

to propel us to reach greater heights and make an impact on the BITS alumni community. I would also like to thank the volunteers whose tireless efforts have helped us grow from a 3 member organization founded 15 years back to a 150+ member community serving 40000+ alumni. I urge all of you to contribute to this dynamic network in any way you wish. It will be a very gratifying experience to create an impact in the lives of your fellow alumni and your alma mater. Thank You Jayan Ramankutty Chairperson, BITSAA International

BITSAA BOARD BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2017 Jayan Ramankutty (’75) Chairperson

Raju Reddy (’76)

Dr. SP Kothari (’74)

Trustee & Former Chairperson (2012-14)

Trustee & Chairperson Emeritus

Viggy Mokkarala (’76)

Rajesh Chelapurath (’88)

Trustee & Chair Fundraising Committee

Chief Investment Officer & Trustee

Shashikant Khandelwal (’97)

Shobna Varma (’77)

Trustee

Abhinav Khushraj (’95)

Sandhya Prakash(’87)

Pradeep Sethi (’72)

Sanjay Khendry (’82)

Srikanth Krishnamurthy (’88)

Sanjay Agarwal (’82)

Vivek Pendharkar (’75)

Anu Hasan (’83)

Trustee

Ashok Agarwal (’60)

Smarajit Dey (’75)

Trustee

BITSAA Board of Advisors Sarath Kolla (’93)

Brij Bhushan (’60)

Member, BITSAA Advisory Board (Trustee 2010-14)

Member, BITSAA Advisory Board (Trustee 2008-14)

Ramaswamy Nagarajan (’61)

Niranjan Bose (’92)

Chandra Bhople (’74)

Deepak Sharma (’91)

Aditi Pany (’00)

Anupendra Sharma (’87)

Member, BITSAA Advisory Board (Trustee 2011-14)

Member, BITSAA Advisory Board (Trustee 2008-15)

Member, BITSAA Advisory Board (Trustee 2012-15)

Member, BITSAA Advisory Board (Trustee 2008-15)

Member, BITSAA Advisory Board (Trustee 2009-15)

Co-Founder BITSAA International & Member, BITSAA Advisory Board

Venu Palaparthi (’87)

Co-Founder BITSAA International & Member, BITSAA Advisory Board

BITSAA India Trust Ashok Agarwal

B Ramesh

O P Jagetiya

Shiv Shankar Asthana

Sanjay Khendry

Shiv Kumar Tayal

BITSAA LEADERSHIP 2017 Executive Team Ravi Sekhar Cherukuri (’97)

Vishrut Shukla (’05)

Chief Executive Officer & Trustee

COO & Trustee

Deekshith Vanamala (’09)

Kaushik Balasubramanian(’08)

CFO & Trustee

CMO

Kalyan Krishnamani (’97)

Rajesh Chelapurath (’88)

Chief PR Officer

CIO

BITS SPARK Rohan Manchanda ('09), Convener

BITS2BSCHOOL

Kunal Jindal, Team Leader

Prateek Chaudhary ('07), Manager Praharshitha Kv, Volunteer

Rajesh Damarapati ('96), Director

Animesh Tambi ('07), Team Leader

Aakriti Goel, Volunteer

Manish Shukla ('07), Team Leader

BITS2MSPHD

Arjun Baskaran ('08), Volunteer

Avneesh Singh ('06), Team Leader

Ashwin Naik ('08), Manager

Arpita Yadav , Team Leader

Manasa Gopal ('09), Team Leader, BITS2MSPhD

TECHNOLOGY Rakesh Komuravelli ('02), Director

Pulkit Gupta, Volunteer

Sai Prameela Konduru ('11), Manager

BITS2FITNESS

Achal Gupta, Team Leader

Pratyush Mahapatra ('11), Director

Sumit Binnani ('11), Volunteer

Robin Garg ('07), Manager

Srikant Potipireddy, Volunteer

Suchita Pati, Manager

Likhita Ravuri ('11), Volunteer, BITS2MSPhD Parth Bhogate ('11), Volunteer, BITS2MSPhD Samarth Hegde ('09), Volunteer, BITS2MSPhD

Siddharth Gupta ('09), Volunteer, BITS2MSPhD

Saahiti S. (), Campus Volunteer

CAREER CENTRE

Vikas Goel ('08), Volunteer, BITS2MSPhD

Nilesh Kulshrehta (), Campus Volunteer

Pranjal Kalra ('08), Manager

Kartik Sathyanarayanan (13), Volunteer, BITS2MSPhD

FINANCE

Rohit Tipnis ('11), Team Leader

Karthik Iyer (08), Volunteer, BITS2School

Neeti Pokharna ('10), Manager

Hafsa Wani, Team Leader

BITS-AMP

Ramya Ballamudi, Team Leader

Devendra Mittal, Volunteer

Sandeepa Garlapati ('02), Manager

GROWTH TEAM

Ankita Singh, Volunteer

Vineesha Satwani ('10), Team Leader

Reuben George ('09), Manager

Shivani Taskar, Volunteer

Shekhar Kanodia ('06), Team Leader

Mohit Batra ('08), Volunteer

Vilom Oza, Volunteer

Vani Macha ('05), Team Leader

Prateek Sharma ('07), Volunteer

Gautam Bothra, Job Hunter

AkhileshAgrawal ('10), Volunteer

Shivam Masuriha ('10), Volunteer

Aditya Murarka, Volunteer

CAMPUS RELATIONS

Vineet Agarwal, Volunteer

Manav Fakey, Volunteer

Abhinav Gupta ('08), Team Leader

Ayush Rawat, Volunteer

Amit Gantasala, Volunteer

Nirmal Kumar Jaluru (), Volunteer

INVESTMENT

Dhruvi Sanghvi, Volunteer

Sachin Soni (11), Volunteer

Koti Mylavarapu ('01), Director

Nidhi Narang, Volunteer

Vikas Sharma (), Campus Volunteer

PEOPLE STRATEGY

Jyothi Mocherla. Volunteer

Abhishek (), Campus Volunteer

Parth Shah ('10), Team Leader

Shubham Gupta, Volunteer

CHAPTER RELATIONS & OUTREACH

Lakshmi Raj (01), Director Srikar Goud Nagelli ('07), Manager(Europe) Ayush Agarwal ('09), Manager (India & APAC) Avinash Gopinathan, Manager(US)

Rashmitha Reddy, Volunteer

Sparsh Maheshwari ('12), Team Leader

COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING

Abhinav Gupta ('09), Volunteer

Rahul Priyadarshi ('11), Director

Aparajita Roy ('07), Team Leader

Yashaswy Akella ('12), Team Leader

Raghuram Salguti ('09), Team Leader

Anshul Mittal, Volunteer

Mayuri Mutha ('09), Volunteer

Vaibhav Gupta, Volunteer

Sahaj Dasot ('11), Volunteer

Sahila Aggarwal, Volunteer

Sneha Choudhury ('09), Volunteer

Himanshu Gupta, Volunteer

Tanya Khanna, Volunteer

Devesh Pandey, Volunteer

FUNDRAISING Gaelen Pereira ('06), Vice President Praneeth Iragavarapu, Director Sameer Gurijala, Director

Yatharth Chaturvedi ('09), Manager, Communications

Basant Choudhary ('06), Manager (Mumbai)

Ritesh Nagpal, Volunteer

Prakyath Iyyapu, Manager, Core Fundraising

Nishamathi Kumaraswamy (01), Manager

Shubhi Jain, Volunteer

Swathi Kotaru ('10), Team Lead, Sponsorship

Tushar Gupta, Volunteer

Eswara Sai, Team Lead, Webmaster

Venkatesh G, Volunteer

OPERATIONS

Sanchit Samnani, Volunteer

Roopal Joshi, Volunteer

Ankur Arvind ('06), Director

Shruti Garg, Volunteer

Kokila Dular, Volunteer

Saagar Gadhok ('08), Director

Parth Garg, Volunteer

Sarthak Sethi ('09), Volunteer

Anand Ramachandran ('05), Volunteer Naman Munot, Volunteer

E-STORE TEAM Andy Harsha, Volunteer

SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS

Rama Satya Diwakar Grandhi ('09), Vice President Pavan Kumar Mullangi ('08), Director Anurag Krishna, Director

Harsh Thakar ('09), Team Leader

Sriram Keerty, Team Leader

Abhinav Mehta, Team Leader

Adyasha Padhi, Team Leader

Ankit Bansal, Volunteer

Rohit Valluri, Volunteer Shreeraman Raghavan ('07), Team Leader

BITSAA GLOBAL MEET 2017 A Grand Alumni Reunion in Dubai In January 2017, the breeze brought to Dubai not just a new year, but also a new chapter to an ongoing story – that of the BITSAA Global Meet (BGM). This time it was BITSian renaissance in the Arabian City of Dreams, in the third edition of BGM at BITS Pilani Dubai Campus (BPDC). On the morning of January 6th (Day 1), curtain to BGM 2017 was raised with the vivacious beats of the ‘Ayala Dance’ - a traditional, Emirati folk performance. At 9:00am, MP Sharma, Chairperson of BGM 2017 Organising Committee, lit an ancient tallow candle and warmly welcomed all BITSians to the third edition of BGM. HE Anurag Bhushan, Consul General of India in Dubai, was next to welcome the audience. Dr. Eesa M. Bastaki, President, University of Dubai, then delivered the Inaugural Address where he highlighted how there is no competition, only cooperation, between world class universities. The Keynote Address by Ranvir Trehan followed. His audacious adventures of leaving one stream and delving into another resonated with the message, ‘Explore. Dream. Discover.’

Bots & Robots panel initiated the series of panel discussions at BGM 2017. Sunit Rikhi, Uday Sreeram, Gurinder Sohi and Samrat Kulkarni explored present-day technology landscape and innovations. Dream Sparkers was the next panel where Sanjay Nath, Barath Subramaniam, Rajesh Raju, Samay Kohli and Nishith Rastogi discussed what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. The last panel for the day was Yearn to Learn and Earn; SP Kothari, Autar Kaw, Bhuvanesh Awasthi and Harsha Singh shared perspectives on the current education landscape. There were also couple of special sessions. One was an interview by Sandhya Prakash with Dushyant Sridhar, a BITSian, techie, upanyaskar and speaker in Sanatana Dharma. Another was a discussion between faculty and alumni on extending the BITS & BITSAA Connect.

One of the most sought after events of BGM 2017 - the Speed Mentoring session with Venture Capitalists for innovators, entrepreneurs and start-up enthusiasts - also happened on 6th. 32 applications, 17 participants, 5 VCs and 2 advisors - these are some stats from this session! Of course, Day 1 was not just all work and no play! A reverberating Drumming session with the audience playing African drums to Bollywood music, Laughter Yoga (that's right, we do yoga a little differently around here!) and Campus Tours brought in the fun factor. As the sun set over BPDC and the vibrant nightlife of UAE began, all 400 BITSians headed to the BGM Gala Nite where Ashok Galgotia, Vice Chairperson of BGM Organizing Committee welcomed everyone. A guest address by HE Talmiz Ahmad, Former Indian Ambassador to UAE, KSA and Oman followed. Then Dr. Pawan Aggarwal had the hall erupt in bursts of laughter during an illuminating talk on the Mumbai Dabbawalas. Each one also got his/her own cap and Dabba, complete with the BITS logo! The night closed with echoes of encore to music, dance, laughter and photo sessions with the Class of 1975 – 1981, the largest batch contingent at BGM 2017. Day 2, January 7th, began with ‘Sounds of Silence’ - a gong meditation session by Zareen Dadachanji. A discussion on giving back to the society by Harsh Bhargava, BP Agrawal, Raghu Rajagopal, Rahul Chovva and Ajay Chaturvedi in the first panel - Different Strokes - set the tone for the day. ‘Make In India’ panel followed with Rajat Gupta, Vikas Papriwal, Jayan Ramankutty, Vinesh Bhimani and Shirish Chinoy talking about industry in India. The panels’ series of BGM 2017 was aptly closed with the last panel on Corporates & Ethics where Pratap Katharikuppam, Dushyant Sridhar, Mani Subramaniam and Sandhya Prakash explored the existence of integrity and ethics in modern day corporate world. Before heading out to the desert for the final event of BGM, delegates were given a short lesson on nature in the desert, by nature aficionado Ajmal Hasan. We were truly prepared for the desert, just in case we bumped into a snake! :) BGM 2017 concluded with a magnificent Arabian Nite in the desert, in the company of a breath-taking sunset, adventurous dune bashing and sand boarding, leisurely camel treks, fragrant Arabic henna and a warm desert campfire. Kaleidoscopic Tannura and fire dances, vibrant belly dances, electrifying music by NYOTH band and BPDC students, a scrumptious BBQ dinner, and a grand Golden Jubilee celebration of 1962-1967 Batch - all came together under the desert skies on January 7th to bid farewell to yet another confluence of BITSian spirit and memories!

Check out https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUzFVsa9qTpFqiwCeOhdtxw for a visual re-capture of BGM 2017. This narrative wouldn’t be complete without thanking all those who made BGM 2017 happen – all the delegates who attended BGM 2017, the Organizing Committee comprising of MP Sharma, Ashok Galgotia, Kesar Kothari, Jilani Sheikh, Mudit Goel, Sandhya Prakash, Hari Govind, Subash Thakkar, Lalit Jain, Sanjay Agarwal, Ravi Kumar, Ramanathan K, Sanjeev Punj, Ujwal Kalpavraksh, Ghurair Shaikh and Anitha Alappat, the 100-odd student volunteers and the BDPC Administrative team. Thanks also to all our valuable sponsors including Aditya Birla Group, Inventure and Gulf News, to name a few. Thus, BITSAA Global Meet 2017 passed on the flame to BITSAA Mumbai and Bangalore Chapters and the Goa campus. BGM 2020, get set to add to this BITSian story! `

BITSians’ DAY 2017 The first week of August marks the beginning of a semester for a student at BITS PILANI. Following next is a potpourri of studies, all-nighters, assignments, club meetings, college fests, messed up tests, and so much more. For BITSians who have already graduated, the first Friday of the week provides an opportunity of reliving these moments through the tradition of BITSians’ Day - started in 2013 by the BITS Alumni Association (BITSAA).

BITSians’ Day 2017 was celebrated on Friday, 4th August around the world with BITSians’ coming together in more than 113 locations spread across 29 countries to connect with their fellow alumni and relive their college memories. It was announced with the unique Game of Thrones Map. The buzz was created by giving BITSians an opportunity to pick a favourite character from the show as the mascot for their city location Meetups were also organized in 22 universities in India and 7 abroad. Apart from the planned celebrations, the entire weekend witnessed several impromptu meetups in offices, universities and neighborhoods, with an outpouring of the BITSian spirit. BITSians’ Day was organized for the first time in Shanghai(China), Manila(Philippines), Phnom Penh(Cambodia), Antwerp(Belgium), Trondheim(Norway) and Copenhagen(Denmark) Distribution of venues by geography: 1. US/Canada – 38 2. India – 25 3. Europe – 19

A number of BITSians celebrated the event by participating in a cause of their choice - be it a tree plantation drive in Jaipur, or the pride parade celebrations in Stockholm.

But the community also proved that BITS will always rule their heart, with or without a huge celebration. Whether it was the celebration in the armed forces, a lone BITSian in Nairobi, another at Tesla celebrating with a drive or an inspiring message from Campbell Island, Great Nicobar, the day witnessed the alumni utilizing the power of social media to connect to their fellow BITSians. News platforms â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The Hindu and Inshorts covered the success of BITSiansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Day this year.

Social media platforms played a key role in raising awareness amongst the BITSian junta about the significance of the day and the events planned. A month before the D-day, BITSAA launched “Back2BITS Weeks” – weekly contests focused on sharing memories from the BITSian life like hangout places, traditions, etc. A couple of unique campaigns warrant mention here. ‘Meet your alumni’ aimed at connecting alumni seeking guidance on a particular topic with fellow BITSians. Another campaign called ‘The BITSian Heroes’ brought forth individual stories from people about how a fellow BITSian had a huge impact on their life. This BITSians’ Day, BITSAA also launched the annual magazine - The BITSian with the theme ‘BITS Then and Now’. The magazine featured interviews from Directors of all BITS campuses highlighting how the institution has grown and changed over the years. It encompassed stories across a gamut of its alumni and topics from life of the first BITS batch of 1946 to more recent stories like lifting of curfew from the girls’ hostel which set a precedent for the country. The magazine can be read here: https://issuu.com/bitsaa/docs/bits_then_ and_now. Also, a 36-Hour group fundraising campaign- The BITSians’ Day giving campaign was organized and the two biggest groups donated 10% of the entire amount raised to a BITSian cause of their choice. And finally, as the D-day dawned, several BITSians put up small video clips as their Whatsapp statuses and Facebook stories to exhibit the feelings of solidarity and belongingness. This special occasion is growing with leaps and bounds every year in significance as a unifying bond for BITSians across the world and the BITSian junta is eagerly looking forward to many more such spectacular celebrations in the future.

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS TEAM Annual Update The scholarships team at BITSAA is dedicated to support and encourage students by managing alumni supported scholarships and awards. The scholarships cover tuition fees, international conference travel cost and graduate school application fees. The awards recognize the excellent work done by students in various fields of academics and entrepreneurship. The team aims to encourage the students to pursue excellence and ensure that no student at BITS Pilani is denied a holistic educational experience due to lack of funds.

1. BITSAA MERIT-CUM-NEED SCHOLARSHIPS The Merit-cum-need (MCN) scholarships are a category of scholarships offered by BITS to students from weaker financial background based on their academic performance and merit. Testimonials show that the students have greatly benefited from the MCN scholarships, as a part of their financial burden is alleviated and they are able to concentrate better on their academics. This motivates us to look for more avenues for providing such scholarships to deserving students. Thanks to the generous donations from BITS alumni, BITSAA currently manages ten MCN scholarships helping about 18 students in total every year. Below table presents the list of winners of various MCNs in the academic year 2016-17. MCN Scholarship winners (2016 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2017)

Name

Campus

Scholarship Name

MANSI BANSAL AYUSHI AGARWAL VRINDA PODDAR NEHA AGARWAL ADITYA RELHAN ASHUTOSH AGARWAL RADHIKA SONI DIVYA RATHORE MOHIT JAISWANI

Pilani Pilani Pilani Pilani Pilani Pilani Pilani Pilani Pilani

BARTANWALA MUSTANSIR AZIZ

Pilani

SIDDHANT DWIVEDI SHIVAM SINGH RAHUL ANIL KUMAR KASLIWAL ANJALI ARORA

Pilani Pilani Goa Goa

Shantha E Iyer - 1st Year Shantha E Iyer - 2nd Year Shantha E Iyer - 3rd Year Shantha E Iyer - 4th Year S S Seshadri Memorial M R Dalmiya - Male M R Dalmiya - Female BITS Alumni Class 66-71 Rakesh Chandra Vamsi Pendyala Prasanna Kalashati Memorial Arun Kumar Agarwal Divya Dileepan Bhushan Bhatia Bhushan Bhatia

Name

Campus

Scholarship Name

RISHABH BHARADWAJ

Goa

SHRAJAL JAIN

Pilani

S S Seshadri Memorial Vamsi Pendyala Prasanna Kalashati Memorial

KONDAPI S SANJAY SRIVASTAV

Pilani

Arun Kumar Agarwal

PRAKHAR SRIVASTAVA

Pilani

Divya Dileepan

ROSHIKA CHATUR

Goa

Bhushan Bhatia

NANDU KEVAL DEEPAK

Pilani

Dr. S K Aggarwal

SHREYANS JAIN

Hyd

Ashok Agarwal Scholarship

TESTIMONIALS NEHA AGRAWAL I am Neha Agarwal .My id number is 2013A3PS493P. I am from Bhilwara (raj). My interests are playing basketball, calligraphy, dance, listening music. My dreams are very high and I want to do something great in my life. I am very thankful to the donors because they are helping those who are really talented and also need these scholarships. Also these serves as driving force for other students to study harder. PRAKHAR SRIVASTAVA My name is Prakhar Srivastava and currently I am pursuing MSc Economics and B.E. Computer Science in BITS Pilani, Pilani campus. I am from Allahabad and would be starting my 4th year from August 2019. My family consists of three people which includes me, my mother and my sister. My mother is a housewife and sister is currently pursuing masters. My interest lies in field of computer science in field of designing and analyzing algorithms and data structures. Apart from studies I am a sports enthusiast having been member of college Hockey team and an avid runner. I want to sincerely thanks the donors and BITSAA members for helping in my college studies financially via Divya-Dileepan Scholarship. With the increasing fee of college, help from you both is keeping me away from worrying about difficulties which my family faces in financial matter. But with hard work which I am putting in my academics and generous help which I receive I will surely make my way from these obstacles. Again thanking you for the scholarship as it really uplifts my confidence to perform well.

2. BITSAA AWARDS BITSAA bestows awards to meritorious students, alumni and faculty in various categories. The categories include Research & Development, Arts & Literature and Sports for students. For alumni, the list of categories is much more diverse to include Social Entrepreneurship & Community Building, Entrepreneurship, Invention & Innovation and Leadership as well. As many as 50 people receive awards from BITSAA every year, and this is only possible because of the strong support and funding from the BITSian community. The complete list of awards given by BITSAA are as below:

Name of the Award

Link to the awards page

Applicable for

Category

Srikant Visweswariah Analog Design Award and Fellowship

http://www.bitsaa. org/?page=SrikantAnalogAward

Students

Research & Development

Prof. Suresh Ramaswamy Memorial Award

http://www.bitsaa. org/?page=SuRa_Award

Students

Research & Development

R.P. Vaid Award

http://www.bitsaa. org/?page=rpvaidaward

Students

Education

Prabhat Award for Best Outgoing Student in Physics

http://www.bitsaa. org/?page=prabhataward

Students

Education

Ranvir Trehan Tennis Trophy

http://www.bitsaa. org/?page=ranvirtrehan

Students

Sports

Brij Bhushan Badminton Trophy

http://www.bitsaa. org/?page=bhushan_badminton

Students

Sports

Mantra Awards

http://www.bitsaa. org/?page=mantraawards

Students

Entrepreneurship

APOGEE Awards(Courtesy-Class of 1966-'71)

http://www.bitsaa. org/?page=apogeeawards

Students

Education

Distinguished BITS Alumnus Award

http://www.bitsaa.org/?dist_ alumnus

Alumni

Various Categories

Prof S.Venkateswaran Faculty Excellence Award

http://www.bitsaa. org/?SVenkateswaranAward

Faculty

Prof IJ Nagrath Faculty Excellence Award

https://www.bitsaa.org/page/ijnagrath-faculty-award

Faculty

We highlight some of the awards in detail below. Professor Suresh Ramaswamy Memorial Award This award is to honor the memory and lasting impact of Professor Ramaswamy in the lives of students he mentored. It aims to institutionalize his legacy, and promote activities that embody his spirit and enthusiasm for nurturing students. A prize of Rs. 40,000 is awarded every year to a team of students (max. 6 students) from any department of Goa campus, in order to encourage and nurture them to work on a student project. The recipients of the award will be chosen by a competitive peer-review process in the previous semester to the award. Interested students have applied to the award with a sound proposal of the project. For the year 2014-15, proposals were restricted to science and engineering. They were judged on their innovation and feasibility. Winners (2016-2017): Project: Cosmic Ray Flux Measurement & Analysis Students:

Sanket Deshpande (2014B5A3599G) Lucky Kapoor (2014B5A3449G) Pankaj Tiple (2013B4A7381G) Vibhav Joshi (2013B1A1935G)

olving high altitudes and space exploration. They have harmful effect on the human body and cause anomalies in electronic devices. In our experiment we aim to study the variation of the flux of cosmic rays with altitude. We know that these particles on interaction with the atoms and molecules initiate reactions which might be harmful to the overall system whether it might be Sanket Deshpande body or an electronic device. a human Hence precautions are taken to ensure that such interactions are kept to a minimum. However, exposure to cosmic rays varies with altitude, so, shielding from these cosmic rays will have different requirements depending on the altitude. Lucky OurKapoor experiment strives to provide the data which will ensure that the shielding is done according to the altitude at which

Project description: Cosmic rays and comprising particles are of extreme importance to scientific pursuits involving high altitudes and space exploration. They have harmful effect on the human body and cause anomalies in electronic devices. In our experiment we aim to study the variation of the flux of cosmic rays with altitude. We know that these particles on interaction with the atoms and molecules initiate reactions which might be harmful to the overall system whether it might be a human body or an electronic device. Hence precautions are taken to ensure that such interactions are kept to a minimum. However, exposure to cosmic rays varies with altitude, so, shielding from these cosmic rays will have different requirements depending on the altitude. Our experiment strives to provide the data which will ensure that the shielding is done according to the altitude at which the device will be used. We intend to carry-out this assignment in near-space conditions. The aim is to develop a payload which will reach an altitude of 25 kms above sea level and develop a cosmic ray flux versus altitude profile. Please find more info about this project here. TESTIMONIAL (SURA AWARD WINNERS):

Sanket Deshpande is a third year undergraduate student pursuing MSc. Physics and BE Electrical and Electronics Engineering at BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa Campus. He is an avid enthusiast in technical projects and started working on this project from his first year itself. He believes in the idea of learning via application and has developed a majority of his understanding about high energy physics and electronics while pursuing this project. Sanket has also worked as a founding member and embedded systems designer at Project Mudra and also developed an algorithm to retrace paths of cosmic ray muons at the GRAPES Experiment, TIFR (along with Lucky Kapoor). He held the post of Vice President of SEDS Celestia, the astronomy and astrophysics club of the campus and currently holds the position of President of IEEE BITS Pilani Goa Student Branch."

Lucky Kapoor is currently in his 3rd year pursuing a dual degree in M.Sc.(Hons.) Physics and B.E. (Hons.) Electrical and Electronics Engineering. He has worked on several interdisciplinary projects and has an avid interest in High Energy Physics and Detector Design. He has been a part of this project for the past two years and

focuses mainly on the application of the concepts of Physics to various problems. As a member of Electronics and Robotics Club and Team Robocon of BITS Goa, he has worked on several design and electronics problems. Along with Sanket Deshpande, he has developed an algorithm to retrace the path of muons for the GRAPES-3 experiment. He has served as the Secretary of SEDS-Celestia and is the current coordinator of Physics Association, BITS Goa.

Pankaj Tiple Pankaj is an undergraduate student, currently pursuing B.E.(Hons.) Computer Science and M.Sc. Mathematics at BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus. He is profoundly interested in the study of behavior and effects of cosmic rays and ways to prevent direct contact of cosmic radiations with electronic devices and the human body. He has been working on Project 'Cosmic Ray Flux Measurement & Analysis' since the beginning of his 1st year and is presently doing necessary processor coding and inventory management. His other research interests are Cryptography and Offensive Network Security. He was also the Coordinator of the Astronomy club, SEDS Celestia.

Vibhav Joshi Vibhav Joshi is a dual degree undergraduate student pursuing MSc. Biological Sciences & Chemical Engineering at BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus. He looks over the mechanical and payload integration aspects of this project. His other research areas include Optimization of Pyrolysis process, genetics of CL/P, Artificial fixation of CO2 and water and Piezoelectric behavior. He has an enthusiasm for astronomy and has been the the Treasurer of SEDS Celestia. Other than the technical interests, he has been the Creative and Research Head of Dept Arts and Deco.

3. MANTRA AWARDS The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) at BITS Pilani aims to create future leaders at BITS Pilani. CEL not only seeks to create all-round leaders, but also focuses specifically on students who break new grounds in the field of entrepreneurship, innovation and social ventures. In addition, CEL aims to empower and inspire BITSian women to play a significant leadership role. The Mantra awards were instituted by CEL, in 2009, to recognize and reward outstanding students who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential and/or entrepreneurial initiative. Anupendra Sharma, co-founder of CEL, Investment Partner at Siemens Venture Capital in Boston, and CEL Alumni Advisor had initiated the creation of the Four ‘Mantra Awards’ namely : Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership – 2 awards (1 male, 1 female): For outstanding achievement in areas of leadership, with a particular focus on at least 1 outstanding achievement in a chosen category, and consistent demonstration of all-round leadership potential.

Mantra Entrepreneur of the Year Award: For outstanding achievement in entrepreneurship demonstrated during the stay at BITS, either in writing business plan(s), starting social or commercial ventures, or creating commercializable innovations on campus. Mantra Award for Social Leadership: For demonstrating a commitment to social leadership either through the creation of sustainable ventures or for contribution in not-for-profit events on campus. Mantra Innovator of the Year Award: For demonstrating an ability to invent or build innovative products or ideas in the labs. (Optional Award) Total award prize per campus : $400 ( needs to be divided equally amongst awards given out )

BITS, Pilani - Pilani Winners Arnav Anand – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Male) Arnav Anand is a dual degree student pursuing Electrical & Electronics Engineering along with Economics from BITS Pilani. He comes from a defence background and has done his schooling from Sanskriti School, New Delhi. During his time in college, he has played a key role in a multitude of organisations on campus. He is presently the Vice President at 180 Degrees Consulting. Additionally, as a member of the Consulting club on campus, he has represented BITS in a variety of case competitions. Being passionate about sports he was a past member of the Committee of Students’ for Sports Activities, responsible for the successful organization of BOSM - a sports fest with participation from over 100 colleges and a footfall in excess of 8,000. He has also represented the football team for four years and has won laurels for the college. A passionate traveler and mountaineer, he has completed his ‘Basic Mountaineering Course’ from Atal Bihari Institute of Mountaineering in Manali and has also been a member of the Mountaineering Club on campus, in the hope to encourage others to take up the sport. Not one to sit idle, he has spent his summers adding value at organizations like Ernst & Young and Bhabha Atomic Research centre, and hopes to continue the same with Microsoft next summer. Shivani Taskar – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Female) Shivani Taskar is a final year undergraduate student at BITS Pilani. Over the four years of her life in BITS, she has played an active role different organisations ranging from being the President of Consulting Club, Consulting Director of 180 Degrees Consulting as well as contributed to the Department of Theatre and the Debating Society. She was chosen from 80+ branches of 180 Degrees Consulting in 33 countries as one of 15 "Impact Fellows" in 2017. In that program, she worked on a live engagement in South Africa to empower people, in conjugation with the government of Malawi. Apart from this, she has held

the distinguished position of Finance Director at the Harvard US India Initiative. She also spearheaded different initiatives at her internships in DSP BlackRock, Deutsche Bank and Fitch Ratings. She is an ardent globetrotter, having travelled to 16 countries so far. Vishal Golcha – Mantra Award for Social Leadership Vishal is a fourth-year student pursuing a dual degree course in M. Sc. (Physics) and B.E. (Computer Science) at BITS, Pilani. He is really passionate about algorithms, deep learning and has been working on several projects based on the same. He enjoys listening to good meaningful Hindi music, and is a football fanatic. He considers Nirmaan an integral part of his life right from his first year, when he started teaching in a nearby village called Baas. He acknowledges that contributing to the society even in little ways has always made him happy. He really enjoyed leading Nirmaan last year, where as a group they had great accomplishments starting from being able to construct ten toilets in Baas successfully to establishing one of their livelihood projects, Unnati, as an SHG. He would really like to thank Chandrakanth Venisetty, who, he thinks, has been focal in driving various things they were able to accomplish. He would also like to thank Sangeeta madam and the whole Nirmaan team for his achievements. Ishan Sharma – Mantra Award for Entrepreneur of the Year Ishan Sharma is an undergraduate student pursuing Computer Science Engineering and Masters in Economics at BITS Pilani. He completed his schooling from Delhi Public School RK Puram where he was the Head of Programming of his computer club and President of the Aerospace Society. While in BITS, Ishan was part of DVM as a core developer and successfully completed the prestigious Google Summer of Code Program. In his third year Ishan went on to cofound investu.in, a goal based investment platform owing to his strong interest in finance and computer science. Currently he is aiming to scale his startup across Gurgaon, Bangalore and Hyderabad and open up the platform to other financial assets like personal loans and fixed deposits. Joy Mukherjee – Mantra Award for Innovator of the Year Joy Mukherjee is a third year undergraduate student pursuing dual degrees in Physics and Computer Science. He has been actively involved in several projects on Physics and Aerospace Technology, and has worked with the university Formula Student, Hyperloop and Student Satellite teams. In the past, he had undertaken research projects at VSSC-ISRO, IUCAA and NCRA. Joy has been the recipient of several awards at competitions and conferences organised by DST-India, Autodesk, NASA, ISRO, the French Embassy and others. He has been awarded the KVPY-SB fellowship and the BITS Pilani Merit Scholarship, and has

also been invited to the Nobel Prize Series, India.

BITS, Pilani – Goa Winners Heer Joisher – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Female) Heer is a pre-final year undergraduate pursuing a double major in Biological Sciences (M.Sc.) and Electrical and Electronics Engineering (B.E.) at BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa campus. During her time at college, she has actively participated in various community-oriented events. She was the Female Student Representative on the Standing Committee of Disciplinary Action, where she attended to the cases of indiscipline on campus. She was also the nominated member of the panel of Internal Complaints Committee (Sexual Harassment). Being a part of these bodies, she fulfilled the responsibility of successfully representing the student community at BITS Goa for various social issues. In her second year, she was a part of the Peer Mentorship Program core committee, leading a team of 55 students who mentored 600+ freshers with regards to the campus lifestyle, course structure and evaluation system in BITS Pilani. Heer is a hard-working, thoughtful, and a highly motivated individual who aims to set up novel initiatives using advances in science and technology in order to bring about constructive change in the society. Vishwa Prakash – Mantra Award for Social Leadership Vishwa Prakash is a final year undergraduate, currently pursuing his B.E. (Hons) in Chemical Engineering at BITS Pilani K.K. Birla Goa Campus. From his school days, he was interested in extracurricular activities. He was the Head boy and has represent`ed his school at the National level in drama. His driving quote is “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow know what you truly want to become.’’ Entrepreneurship has always been very close to his heart. He was the President of CEL and has led Coalescence, an annual e summit of BITS Pilani Goa. Along with his studies, he is also working with a Waste Management firm (based in Bangalore). He launched their operations in Goa and helped them in generating revenue worth ~2 million INR in just 6 months. Till date, he has managed to save around 300 tonnes of waste from going into the landfills. He is currently working at the Panchayat level to make them Zero Waste locality. Once done, this project will impact the life of ~35k people. He is also working to make his campus a Zero waste campus. His thesis ‘’Bio-toilets in Indian Railways’’ identifies the flaws in the current system and provides commercial solutions. The final report has been submitted to RDSO and MoEF (Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change). Once approved, it can lead to a job creation of ~10000 people all over India. He was won several social initiatives awards at National level, including the social initiative award for ‘’My

Green Idea’’ organized during Quark ’18 (Tech fest of BITS Pilani Goa). His other interests lie in reading novels. Lokesh Garg – Mantra Award for Entrepreneur of the Year Lokesh is currently in his third year, pursuing a dual degree in M.Sc. Economics and B.E. Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani, Goa Campus. From his childhood, he is inclined towards technology and solving real life problems and aspires to build a company, which would solve hyperlocal problems all around the world. He is currently working on a startup on similar lines, ZConnect, which helps in improving the intra-community interactions. In short, it is an all new Hyper Local Social Network. Currently it has won at various BPlan competitions. They plan to launch the platform in three other colleges in Goa. Patil Siddhant Vitthal – Mantra Award for Innovator of the Year Siddhant is a third-year undergraduate student, currently pursuing his B.E. (Hons) in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering from BITS Pilani K. K. Birla Goa Campus. His passion is to develop innovative and affordable solutions to problems in his interest, so as to make a valuable contribution to the ongoing research. During the last summer, he worked at Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute - Chennai where he got an opportunity to work in ‘Image Processing and Machine Learning’ and design and develop the entire suite for Automated Fabric Analyzer. An offshoot of this, he has presented this work at an IEEE Conference. He always focuses on specializing and understanding the required software development tools and optimizing the solutions for achieving a high throughput and rich quality of the output. Besides this, he has also made valuable contributions in the trending research areas of ‘Analog Electronics’ - designing optimized amplifier circuits, ‘Digital Design’ - designing circuits capable of performing high-speed Vedic Mathematical calculations and ‘Finance’ - asset allocation strategies. He strongly believes that one should spread the potential knowledge one has acquired through his in-depth research and experience. After the academic hours, he conducts sessions for opening the young innovative and creative minds by teaching them the applications of theory taught in the classroom to the outside practical world. He loves playing Casio and Football in his leisure time.

BITS, Pilani - Hyderabad Winners Sai Sampath Balineni – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Male) Balineni Anantha Sai Sampath is currently in his final year of Civil Engineering at BITS Pilani Hyderabad. He believes in experiential learning and for the same

reason he has been involved in various activities like helping the civil engineering department in organizing talks as an event coordinator, networking with various student representatives and working with Scio Benevolent Foundation in all its Vidya programs where he got an opportunity to share his knowledge with the students of government school in Keesara area. His passion towards Graphic Designing and VFx landed him up in DoTA and DoVE, two technical and crucial departments which help with creatives for the Institutes' fests and initiatives and served the position of Joint Secretary of VFx Club. He inculcated interest in VFx among the students by planning and organizing related workshops. He was the student coordinator for Spree 2016. He was the General Secretary of BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus, wherein he did his best to improve the institutes' food options by introducing new food joints; proposed and implemented various student hygiene and activity-related ideas like health faucets, reading tables apart from his conventional duties. He never expects anything from anyone and truly believes that one has to be on toes and yet be relaxed to reinvent oneself from experiences. Monica Adusumilli – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Female) Monica Adusumilli is a fourth year Computer Science student from BITS Pilani Hyderabad with an exceptional academic record and outstanding leadership abilities. She is very enthusiastic and novel in her approach to problem solving, be it in real time or in her discipline. She enjoys interacting with people as she believes every person's story tells us something new. Monica was elected to the Students’ Union of BITS Pilani Hyderabad for two consecutive times as the Member of Students Mess Council in her second year and as the Cultural Secretary (Girls) in her third year, which depicts the trust student body has placed in her leadership abilities. As a member of the Students Mess council, she was successful in working ‘for the students and with the administration’ to bring about changes in the quality of mess food. She was very successful in coorganizing Pearl, the National Annual Cultural Fest of BITS Pilani. She co-headed three talks by eminent personalities like Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Gen. Bikram Singh, Mr. Daggubati Venkatesh which attracted audience from all over the country. From coordinating between various clubs as the Cultural Secretary to pulling off an event like ethnic day for the very first time, no matter how big or small the work, Monica can be trusted to get it done to perfection. Her ability to juggle so many things at the same time is her biggest asset. Three words sum up this vivacious young woman, dedicated, dependable and down to earth. K. Venkata Purneshwar – Mantra Award for Social Leadership Purneshwar is currently in third year pursuing B.E.(Hons) Civil Engineering from BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus. With the passion to serve the society from the

start, he has been actively involved in NSS and Nirmaan from his first year. He is currently serving as the President of NSS BITS Hyderabad and also as the panel member of Nirmaan Organization BITS Hyderabad. As a part of these NGOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s he participated in many programs some of which are School Adaption program, Computer Literacy, health camps, surveys, women empowerment programs and many. He is also the Orphanage contact team lead for IGNITE 2018 (Nirmaan fest), helping to bring 400 orphans to college for three days to participate in many activities. He is also the coordinator of Social Innovation cell, a body of NSS, which aims to solve the problems faced by people around us in innovative way. Harshit Soni â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Mantra Award for Entrepreneur of the Year Harshit Soni is a 2014 Batch Electronics and Communication Engineering student at BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus. He has a keen interest in entrepreneurship. He loves digital marketing and is on the path of developing an expertise in it. He had read the book 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' back in his standard 9th and it inspired him to explore entrepreneurship. He started his first startup right in his 1st year of college which aimed to connect different colleges across India. He, then, worked in a few startups to gain some experience and get exposure to how things work. He gradually realized that his core interest lies in marketing and therefore started reading and working more in the same. Later, in his 3rd year, he started working on creating a platform for artists, SmileMiddle (www. smilemiddle.com), which is getting him good learning about running a startup and helping him dive deeper into the exhilarating world of entrepreneurship. Parakh Gupta â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Mantra Award for Innovator of the Year Parakh is currently an undergrad student at the BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus enrolled in the M.Sc. Physics program and B.E.(Hons.) Mechanical Engineering program. He works in the field of robotics after being fascinated with the field from his early days in the campus. He began his journey in robotics by making small vehicular robots which could follow lines and act according to gestures. He explored these and participated in the technical fests of the colleges. Following this, he started work on a humanoid robot in his first year which became the highest funded student project of the campus. With its success, he started exploring more complex systems and delved deeper into vehicular robotics and Internet-of-things. He has tried making various wireless things which could talk to each other using internet databases. After exploring Internet Of Things, he started looking at aerial robotics and began working on a flight controller that he wrote from scratch and implemented it on a quadrotor VTOL vehicle. This experience has really stuck with him and fast-forward to today, he is still pursuing aerial robotics. He believes he is hooked to these adrenaline-filled

projects and loves to learn through practical applications in these projects.

BITS, Pilani - Dubai Winners Rahul Jain – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Male) Rahul Jain is a final year student in Electronics and Communication Engineering branch at BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus. The past 3 years at BITS Dubai have been a transformative journey for him. During his college years, Rahul has been associated with a lot different extracurricular activities. He is the President of the entrepreneurial association called Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE) where he organized various talks by renowned personalities and competitions related to case study and stock market simulation. Along with that, he is the President and one of the founding members of UAE’s first student branch, IEEE Power and Energy Society (IEEE PES). Along with this, he has his name related to top events known all around the world. He has been the licensee and organizer for HULT Prize (world's largest student competition for social good) and TEDxBITSPilaniDubai. He has been instrumental in drafting BITS Pilani Dubai's constitution for two consecutive years as a part of Corroboration and Review Committee. Sharon Aldrin – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Female) A multi-faceted explorer, Sharon Aldrin, a 4th year ECE student, believes that the blend of hard-work and experience, sets the path for success. Currently the Placement Coordinator, she has worked in almost every department and event on campus. A versatile sportsperson, who enjoys learning new sports, she is presently the Captain of the Girl’s Cricket Team. She headed the sponsorship and marketing for the biggest inter-university sports festival-BITS Sports Festival 2017 with previous years experiences of heading the sponsorship team for Recharge and playing a vital role in the previous Event Management Committee of BITS. In the span of three years she has paved her way from being a member to being part of the core executive team in various associations, clubs and events organized by the college. She is also the Vice-President of the Design Club and the General Secretary of ASME association at college. These three years of willingness to learn new things and explore new sectors have made her a person who is open to challenges and enjoys working under pressure. Her venture in implementing new ideas and working with various teams has always kept her motivated. She owes the vast exposure that she has received over the years, to BITS for giving fair opportunities to progress and display one’s aptitudes.

Harshal Mittal – Mantra Award for Social Leadership Harshal is a final year undergraduate student at BITS Pilani, Dubai campus pursuing B.E.(Hons) Computer Science. He believes that everyone can make a difference in an individual's life and thereby in the society, by having right vision and drive. Positive changes help the world move forward. Harshal has been a part of varying social activities right from his childhood. Since his joining in BITS Pilani, Dubai, he engaged himself in the activities of The Social and Environment Club. He is the current President and former Vice-President of the club, making the mark as a leader by involving the club in newer initiatives and by taking the club to greater heights. He has been associated with a large number of social initiatives which inlcude events for special needs children, tree plantation drives, mental health awareness campaigns, blood donation campaigns, recycling campaigns, cancer awareness campaigns, walkathons, clothes and stationary collection drives and many more! He loves what he does and he does what he loves, and he uses this passion and dedication to bring about changes in the society; one step at a time. "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." Gowtham S. – Mantra Award for Entrepreneur of the Year Gowtham Sundaresan is a final year undergraduate student pursuing Computer Science Engineering at BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus. He grew up and completed his schooling in Bangalore, India. He co-founded a startup - Lancify in Dubai that seeks to solve the problem of youth un-employability by connecting student freelancers to projects at growing businesses. Lancify currently operates for students all over the UAE and has won 3 awards within a year of inception. Gowtham is an avid traveller and backpacker who loves to spend time in different countries to live as a local. He has volunteered and done internships in parts of Europe and North Africa. He is a techie with a flair for Android and blockchain development. Mihir Prabhudesai – Mantra Award for Innovator of the Year Mihir believes that life is all about the mindset, that it's about perspective. For others, living might be about following the trend, settling with what one gets. But for him, he believes he has found what he loves. Though some people say that life is short, he thinks that life is not short, and that one just got to do more. So, just in the last one year, he made a game which has 4.95/5 rating on Google Play, automated the campus’ attendance system, build a cement automation app for Aditya Birla Group, converted hostel mess data into an online database, created an online intra-college marketplace website and transformed his hostel room into a Jarvis. In conclusion, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who wait for an opportunity and those who create one. He believes that

4. BITSAA-IRU PARTIAL TRAVEL GRANT BITSAA-IRU Partial Travel Grant supports the travel expenses of students participating in academic events of International repute. BITSAA awarded the following travel grants in 2017 as per the details given below:

Student Name

Amount

Conference

Deliwala Ravish Ashish

INR 25,000

ISQED

Priyesh Shukla

INR 25,000

Anant Sharma

INR 17722

Piyush Rath

INR 6897

SUDEEP MISHRA

INR 25000

Vasudha Varadarajan

INR 11300

Sanket

INR 17730

ICIEE The 24th International Conference on Neural Information Processing (Core A conference) Guangzhou, China The 8th International Conference on Surface Plasmon Photonics The 18th International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED 2017) The 8th International Conference on Surface Plasmon Photonics Dual Band Antenna For Portable Consumer Devices

5. OTHER SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS 5.1. GRADUATE APPLICATION SCHOLARSHIP The BITSAA Graduate Application Scholarship provides financial assistance to students for their applications to MS/PhD programs. This initiative is a small step towards ensuring that the financial burden of applications does not get in the way of the students for securing admission to an ambitious program at top universities. The cost of applying to graduate programs has risen considerably in the last few years. Even for people applying to just six universities, the cost of tests and application fees can be easily over 1000 USD. There are additional costs for getting transcripts and applying for visas. Since application process has become expensive, BITSians face greater financial pressure and are often discouraged from applying to many of the top universities. The idea is for BITS alumni to pay for a significant part of the costs, making the application process more affordable, and encouraging more students to apply to top schools. The number of applications for the Graduate Application scholarship increased significantly in the past year. (37 applications in 2017 compared to 23 in 2016). Currently, BITSAA awards three graduate application scholarships of 500 USD each, in every academic year. We hope that the program will eventually become self-sustaining, with people who receive the scholarship in one year paying for the next generation of BITSians to apply.

All students who are currently pursuing their undergraduate/graduate degree in any of the BITS campuses are eligible to apply for the scholarship. Winners (2017): Achyudh Ram K(2013B3A70439G) Nidhi Kadkol (2014A7PS0026G) George Joeseph (2013B5A70112G) 5.2. PROF. I J NAGRATH STUDENT PROJECT FUND The "Prof. I J Nagrath Student Project fundâ&#x20AC;? has been instituted by Brij Bhushan, an alumni from the class of 1964 in honor of Prof. I J Nagrath, who served various roles at BITS from 1952 to 1999. Prof. I J Nagrath retired as the Deputy Director after serving at BITS in educational, administrative and managerial roles. He is an excellent academician who taught many generations of BITSians and also the author of several well known books in Electrical & Electronics Engineering. The project fund aims to encourage students and faculty in EEE department at Pilani campus to undertake projects in labs of their choice and gain a handson experience. 5.3. BITSAA BITSMUN TRAVEL SCHOLARSHIP The BITSAA-BITSMUN Travel scholarship has been initiated with a purpose of supporting BITSians participating in leadership, public speaking, entrepreneurship events, both within India and abroad in 2014 by two BITS Pilani graduates Sachin Jain (class of 2011) & Aman Gupta (class of 2012). The winner details are given below: Name Rijul Arora

I.D. Number 2014B3A30645G

Amount INR 20,000

Event HPAIR, Harvard

6. NEW INITIATIVES: In the last one year, we have initiated a new travel scholarship, and started a pilot project to support large student projects on campuses. 6.1. SUPPORT FOR THESIS @ ABROAD BITSAA Support for Thesis program is aimed to support on-campus students who wanted to pursue their Thesis at locations outside India. Name Vasu Sharma

I.D. Number 2014A4TS374P

Amount INR 30,000

Event University of Freiburg

6.2. STUDENT PROJECT FUNDING This initiative is to identify and support potential ideas which are innovative and impactful from the

current batches of BITS. BITSAA has previously supported projects such as IFOR and AcYut, which have bagged many awards in various international platforms. We initially started with a Project Showcase which was conducted during BGMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14, where selected projects from all campuses were showcased with prototypes. Our long term goal is to establish Student Project Funding as an annual exercise where Scholarships team provides a platform to shortlisted projects to publicize themselves among the BITS community and attract sponsorship for their projects. PROJECT 1 SAE BAJA GOA Baja SAE is an intercollegiate design competition run by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Groups of undergraduate students from universities across the world design and build small off-road cars. The goal in Baja SAE racing is to design, build and race off-road vehicles that can withstand the harshest elements of rough terrain. There are multiple dynamic events, usually four per event, as well as a single four-hour endurance race. The dynamic events include hill climbs, chain pulls, manoeuvrability events, rock crawls, and suspension & traction events. Static events, such as written reports, presentations and design evaluations are provided by participating teams. This is when the teams are judged on ergonomics, functionality, and producibility of their cars; ensuring that the final placement of the team does not rest solely on the vehicle's performance but rather on a combination of static and dynamic events. Required reports detail the engineering and design process that was used in developing each system of the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vehicle, supported with sound engineering principles. Lakshya Agarwal and Team - GreaseMonkey team PROJECT 2 AEROBITS Team AeroBITS is a team from BITS Pilani, Pilani campus which focusses on building specialized radiocontrolled planes suited to perform various tasks autonomously. Team AeroBITS, a subset of the RadioControl Club of BITS Pilani, was started in the year 2015. This year, for the very first time, a team from BITS Pilani is aiming to compete in AUVSI SUAS, Maryland, USA. The competition was held in June 16-19, 2017. The problem statement involves building a surveillance drone capable of achieving autonomous takeoff, navigation and landing, coupled with autonomous detection of targets of interest present in the field. Mandar Khapekar and team

CHAPTER RELATIONS TEAM Annual Update Events organized by various Chapters A. BITSAA Hyderabad Chapter Annual Dinner Meet February 2017 Key Highlights: • Representation from 1960 to 2009 batches • Fun filled event with Food, Drinks, Dance and Music • Performances by Dance Club and Music Club of BITS Hyderabad Campus • Startup talks

1. MCN Scholarship Winners(2015-16)

B. BITSAA Silicon Valley Chapter (BITSAA SVC) BITSync 2017: 2nd edition of the pan American BITSian conference September 8th and 9th 2017

Key highlights: • After the grand success of BITSync 2016, the BITSAASVC decided to expand the event to 2 days instead of one. The conference had a good mix of professional and social events. • It was a truly unifying experience to see 450+ BITSians across 40+ batches attend the event, showcasing the true BITSian spirit • A panel of 40+ speakers was put together by the commendable efforts of SVC chapter consisting of 20+ volunteers • The event kicked off with a fireside chat between Kelly Ahuja (CEO, Versa Networks) and John Chambers (Chairperson, Cisco) on Friday (Sep. 8th) and discussion covered a range of topics ranging from the formative years of Cisco to John’s leadership style to his unabashed support for Prime Minister Modi and his role of Chairperson of the US India Business Council. • The night ended in wonderful music and dance performances by the alumni. The music club performed old melodies and new dance hits • The Saturday session started off with an address by Prof. Souvik Bhattacharya, the VC of BITS Pilani who discussed the huge strides made by BITS Pilani and the vision of the institution. It was also very refreshing to see a lot of students participating from campus through BITS Connect infrastructure. • The opening keynote was by Joel Peterson (Chairperson, JetBlue Airways). All the attendees received free copy of his book “10 Laws of Trust” • The app was revamped to integrate Augmented Reality features and pointing the camera at different images such as clock tower, BITS temple, BITS logo etc did different things. • Panel discussions on topics ranging from Industries disrupted by Technology, Lessons from Entrepreneurial journey, AI and race to singularity, Mindful Career Growth and Social Entrepreneurship. • A new type of session was introduced this year called the “Startup Demo Hour” in which BITSians got an opportunity to pitch their startup ideas in front of friendly audience and VCs. • The closing keynote was yet another highlight of the event. The husband and wife team of Deepa and Thampy Thomas (Founder,Elxsi) talked about their life journey. Deepa spoke about how she could help Thampy recover from acute diabetic condition and tips for maintaining healthy lifestyle

Kick off – Chat between Kelly Ahuja and John Chambers

Panel Discussions

Music Night

C. BITSAA Delhi NCR Chapter The Delhi Chapter organized a musical evening and dinner get-together with alumni in November 2017. 1132143

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BackToSchool TEAM Annual Update VISION 1. To help BITSians make a well informed decision on pursuing higher studies (MS/Phd + Bschool) abroad. 2. Establish a community of BITSians (students and alumni) to engage in communication about graduate studies and programs. 3. Guiding BITSians on ways to improve their profiles and get better admits. COMMUNITY LINKS BITS2MSPhD: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bits2msphd/ BITS2BSchool: https://www.facebook.com/groups/238673429575065/ INITIATIVES TAKEN During the course of 2017, many initiatives were taken to help out BITSians to make better decisions while applying. CAMPUS TALK Each year, the BackToSchool team delivers a talk on campus using Telepresence/Webex which discusses general guidelines while applying for masters/PhD. This talk was delivered on Dubai campus in 2017. MONDAY LEARNING ARTICLES (MLA) A weekly series of articles which talk about the various parts of the application like GRE, SOP, LOR were put out for applicants. A total of 15 MLA articles covering the basic parts of the application were sent out every Monday over the course of 4 months during the peak application cycle. These were posted on the BITSAA webpage as well for easier accessibility (https://www.bitsaa.org/page/bits2msphd-a-resource-for-ms-phdaspirants) ADMITS DATABASE An admits database was collected and released to the applicants so that they could get in touch with BITSians in their desired fields and branches. This database ( and previous years databases) also helps students judge their profile in the face of historical data and help them understand what universities can be considered safe, moderate or ambitious for their profile. TRANSCRIPTS The BITSAA back to school team worked with campuses to simplify the transcript process. Previously, it was required to physically mail a form along with Demand draft to get the transcripts mailed. This was simplified by contacting professors at different campuses and agreeing on a simple mechanism for transcripts which involve scanned forms and online payments.

Bits2FitnessTEAM Annual Update BITS2Fitness Team was constituted in March 2015 as an expansion of the BITS2Marathon Team, to promote healthy lifestyle among BITSians across the globe. The team did not want to restrict itself to just one sport â&#x20AC;&#x153;Runningâ&#x20AC;?. The BITS2Fitness team has successfully diversified itself to encompass a range of fitness activities and events, and has attracted a huge following of 1780 members on its Facebook group. Various initiatives and events were organized by the team in 2017, which lead to a jump in its Facebook engagement. BITS Marathon was organized on 15th April 2017. 118 people registered through the BITSAA Website. 58 BITSians agreed to volunteer for the event (through the Google form). Many BITSians also got their spouses and friends along for the run.. An estimated ~1500Kms were covered during this event , and it was a huge success. BITSAA e-certificates were also sent to all the participants.

Meet BITSians in Sports: This is a series of interviews with BITSians who are significantly involved in sports and can serve as role models to inspire a health consciousness among the BITSian community at large by sharing. The interview series was continued in 2017, with interview # 10 to # 13 being shared during the year to inspire the BITSian community towards a healthier lifestyle. To get regular updates, please join their FB group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/BITS2Fitness/

BITSAA Investment Committee Annual Update As stewards of excess capital and various endowed funds for BITSAA International, the BITSAA Investment Committee (BIC) has the primary objective of generating proceeds (via investment income and/or capital appreciation) to administer BITSAAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current endowed (fully or partially) initiatives. The BIC endeavors to achieve its objectives via appropriate investments within a combined investment portfolio called the BITSAA Endowment Fund (BEF). As of December 31, 2017 the BEF supports the following endowments (excluding a short-term initiative by the 87 batch), with an annualized obligation of around USD 13,000: NAME Pendyala Vamsikrishna Memorial Scholarship S.S. Seshadri Memorial Scholarship

CAMPUS

PURPOSE

INSTITUTED

Pilani

50% tution fee to a II year student (merit-cum-need)

2002

Pilani

50% tution fee to a II year student (merit-cum-need)

2002

Leuna H Scholarship

Pilani

Rs 5000 Award to winner of Tarang - a music competition at Oasis

2003

RP Vaid Scholarship Bhushan Bhatia Scholarships Hiralal Agrawal Memorial scholarships

Pilani

Rs 5000 Award to a deserving chemical engineering student

2003

All

50% tution fee for 2 students (1 male and 1 female) in III Year, need based

2009

Pilani/Goa/ Hyderabad

Fixed amount need based scholarship towards tution awarded to a student from Faizabad distric, UP

2009

Ranvir Trehan Memorial

Pilani

Trophy and prize awarded to the winning team of tennis tournament at BITS

2009

Pilani

Trophy and prize awarded to the winning team of badminton tournament at BITS

2009

As needed by the 85 HH Officials - currently aprox. USD 1500/Q

2015

Towards travel grants request upto USD 500 p.a.

2015

Towards BITSAA operational expanses, upto USD 500 p.a.

2015

Towards BITS SPARKS, initiative related expanses, upto USD 1000 p.a.

2015

Bhushan Badminton award 85 Helping Hands Seema sood Plus Travel Endowment Opex Endowment SPARKS Endowment

Pilani/Goa/ Hyderabad Pilani/Goa/ Hyderabad Pilani/Goa/ Hyderabad Pilani/Goa/ Hyderabad

83 Batch- Anjali Seth Initiative

N/A

Semi Annual disbursement of USD 500 to Anjali by her batch

2016

SuRa Award

Goa

Prof. Suresh Ramaswamy Memorial Award - Annual disbursement of INR 40k to student team on Goa Campus

2016

N/A

As needed by the 85 HH Officials - currently on a staggered schedule

2017

All

Towards graduate school applications, upto USD 500 p.a.

2017

85 Helping hands - Jose Thomas Kids Bhushan Bhatia Graduate app Scholarship

2017 Highlights The BEF has grown over the years (since its inception value of approx. $10,000 in April, 2003), via a combination of investment returns and new endowments, to $356,557 (12/31/2017 close) reflecting an average annualized return of +5.4% (incl. significant portions of the fund in cash assets dictated by needs) since inception. In 2017, the BEF, which has investments allocated in similar amounts into equities and fixed income, generated a return of +10.4%, for an unrealized capital appreciation of $27,790. The returns were weighed down by excess cash levels we maintained the year required by some of the short-term initiatives in place. Peeling the layers, our equity investments had an above average year with a return of +24%. Two new Endowments, as shown in the table above, came into effect in 2017, resulting in new contributions of $26,813 into the BEF while there were disbursements for

various initiatives to the tune of approx. $11,000. We continue to remain in decent shape to weather storms from time to time in the form of USD depreciation or tuition increases or a below expected performance in any given year.

Publication of Investment Policy Statements All of BICâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s/BEFâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s activities (including principles and parameters guiding these actions) and obligations are published in detail via periodic reports that are available online at www.bitsaa.org under the endowments section.

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS AWARDS 2017 The “BITS Pilani Distinguished Alumnus Award” has been instituted by BITS Pilani to recognise and honour those alumni who have brought laurels to their alma mater by making significant and outstanding contributions to their profession, their businesses, and/or to the society. BITS Pilani has decided to confer the BITS Pilani Distinguished Alumnus Award 2017 to the following alumni for their significant and outstanding contributions:

S. NO.

Name and Affiliation