Contents
Message from the Chairman Message from the Vice Chancellor About BITSAA Organization Structure Statement of Accounts India Trust Statement BGM 2011 Statement Donors, How to Donate International Board MoU with BITS BITSAA’s Investments New Permanent Office Campus News – Parivartan Chapter Relations Batch Ambassadors
1 2 4 5 11 13 14 15 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Alumni Advisory Council Bridges to the Future BITSConnect 2.0 Encouraging Entrepreneurship Spark BITS-75 Trust Manoj Saxena Pre-Seed Fund Alumnus donates to CCTV BITSAA Funds Project IFOR, Dubai Class of ’81 Endowed Chair Professorship Scholarships & Student Awards New Merit-cum-Need Scholarships Batch of ’66 Scholarships Anurag Jain 0% Loan Fund New Named Student Awards - Srikanth Visweswariah Contest & Fellowship Other Scholarship Winners Prof S Venkateswaran Faculty Excellence Award New India eStore Miles BITS2MSPhD BITS2BSCHOOL BITS2Marathon
27 28 39 30 30 30 31 32 33 35 36 36 37 38 39 40 41 43 45 46 47 48
Appendix A: Donation Form (International) Appendix B: Donation Form (India)
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BITSAA International
Annual Report 2011
Message from the Chairman Dear BITSian I hope the New Year is off to a good start for you. BITSAA International celebrated its tenth birthday in 2011. In October 2001, it was formally registered in the US. We've celebrated several milestones and touched the lives of many BITSians. BITSAA is now one of the largest and strongest alumni networks in the world, and getting ready to launch some innovative projects in 2012 that can have a transformational impact on BITSians and the BITS Pilani brand. When I took over as Chairman on July 1, 2011, we set some objectives for the BITSAA Leadership and the Board in order to promote BITS, Pilani and strengthen the alumni network built on a great foundation laid by my predecessor SP Kothari. Following were the goals we set based on observations and alumni feedback from the several visits I made to different chapters and the campuses: 1. Streamline governance of alumni programs (across chapters, batches) in support of BITS Pilani's stated Vision 2020, 2. Create an eco-system of partners in industry, government and academia to enhance research and entrepreneurship at BITS Pilani, and 3. Raise at least $1M before the next BITSAA Global Meet to support "Bridges to the Future" campaign and establish a culture of giving. I'm happy to note that the BITSAA Leadership has made excellent progress towards these goals in the last year. The initiatives and actions that we've taken in 2011 are spelled out in this report. I have to make special mention of the launch of the Bridges to the Future campaign, which promises to be the biggest umbrella fundraiser in BITSAA's history and propel several exciting projects, including BITSConnect 2.0. The Alumni Advisory Council is a unique initiative that BITSAA has nurtured and will take the relationship between BITS alumni, faculty and administration to a new level. We've expanded the BITSAA Board to facilitate participation from all parts of the world where BITSians live in large numbers. None of this would have been possible without the tireless effort by all the volunteer leaders and my colleagues on the Board. I owe utmost respect and admiration for their selfless work; and continue to be amazed by the dedication of so many young BITSians who form the lifeblood of our vibrant global organization. The few years we spent at BITS bind all of us together for life. Many alumni expressed the wish to stay engaged with us at the BITSAA Global Meet 2011. I want to remind you that there are many avenues to contribute and opportunities arise throughout the year. In 2012, we'll continue pursuing specific projects that meet our three goals stated above and I plan to share updates on a quarterly basis going forward. Please register yourself with BITSAA; we now have almost 20,000 members registered and our Facebook page has more than 25,000 fans. We use various channels to spread news of the good work done by BITSians around the world, so please tune in. Chapters are regrouping everywhere and the time is ripe for the global alumni community to network with, contribute to and benefit from each other. Raju Reddy, Chairman, BITSAA International, raju.reddy@bitsaa.org
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BITSAA International
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Message from the Vice Chancellor Friends: I wish to share with you details about BITS’ plans to grow the academic programs it offers at its three campuses in India, together with the resulting growth in number of students in BITS. This growth comes soon after BITS opened its three new campuses in Dubai (in 2000), Goa (in 2004) and Hyderabad (in 2008), a move that resulted in a three-fold growth in student strength from 3,500 in 1999 in Pilani to 10,500 across its four campuses in 2010. Before doing so, I wish to share with you the many initiatives that we have taken in the last year or two as part of the project “Vision 2020, Mission 2012” we launched in 2009 with a view to continually strive for excellence in teaching and research. Specifically, these were aimed at revamping our products (read curricula), processes and infrastructure as also empowering our faculty so they may grow professionally. These include: a. Implementing an ERP system to ensure efficient and cost-effective storage and management of information concerning academic and administrative functions across all four campuses – a near-first for India, b. Undertaking a comprehensive engagement survey covering faculty, students and staff in our four campuses and on issues relating to curricula, life on campus, research, etc. – truly a first for India, c. Benchmarking and re-designing all undergraduate and post-graduate programs, while increasing the number of discipline-specific and humanities courses and emphasizing hands-on, projects-based learning, d. (Completely) re-structuring the processes for selecting faculty, while bringing in external experts to help select research-focused faculty, and e. Encouraging, facilitating and providing incentives to faculty to seek and execute sponsored R&D projects, including the use of significant portion of overheads to help faculty grow professionally. All these initiatives are well on their way to implementation. More recently, on Oct 31, 2011 Chancellor Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla has accorded in-principle approval to the direction and extent of growth in academic programs at our campuses in Pilani, Goa and Hyderabad. (The growth plans for Dubai campus are still under discussion). Currently, the total number of students in these campuses is nearly 9,700. We expect this to grow to nearly 12,000 by 2015, and to little less than 15,000 by 2020. In terms of growth rate this constitutes a modest cumulative growth of over 4.5% per annum. However, the growth in higher degree (or post-graduate) programs and in doctoral programs is expected to be very significant. In particular, we are planning for 140% growth in higher-degree programs and 650% growth in oncampus full-time PhD students by year 2020, while the number of students in the first-degree programs will grow at a modest rate of 27% only. We are convinced this emphasis on postgraduate studies will help BITS transform itself into a research-focused university, a pre-requisite to achieve its stated vision, viz. be listed as one of top three technical institutions in India by 2015, and as one of top 25 technical institutions in Asia. As many of you are aware, BITS has pioneered the “work-integrated learning program”, or WILP, since the late 1970s. WILP offers working professionals an opportunity to undergo an educational
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program leading to a formal degree from BITS, even as they continue to work on a day-job in industry. BITS has now embarked upon a program to not only revamp its WILP products and processes, but has also dedicated itself to expand its offerings to a significantly larger number of working professionals. Recent efforts at developing content, using technology-enhanced delivery of courses, and expanding the reach of WILP programs are now off the ground. Recognizing that success in growing the above programs is contingent upon many factors, some of which may be outside our control, we have rededicated ourselves to: a. Expand our existing academic programs as also launch new industry-relevant programs, particularly at the post-graduate level, b. Attract young, motivated and research-focused faculty from within and outside India, as also attract (and incentivize) young graduates to join our PhD program, c. Aggressively seek sponsored research grants from industry or government agencies in India as also from programs launched under bi-lateral agreements between India and other countries, d. Modernize and expand the physical infrastructure at the three campuses -- the investment to be made on modernizing and expanding all academic areas, all housing for students, faculty and staff in Pilani itself will be more than Rs. 400 crores. Similar investments for expanding the infrastructure in Goa and Hyderabad campus are being planned, e. Upgrade or build new teaching and research laboratories to cater to the needs for a growing bouquet of academic programs (both on-campus and WILP), and f. Upgrade network technology to facilitate closer collaboration between people across campuses, sharing of faculty, lab, or teaching/learning materials across campuses, and use of technology-enhanced course delivery. Other than raising finances from varied sources to undertake the above growth, we will engage with all stakeholders, including parents, industry, alumni and the government to ensure that we will have in place the right plans, processes, products and monitors that are necessary to succeed. I invite all our alumni and well wishers to support us in this journey in every possible manner, including sharing some of your valuable time and intellect as also with raising funds for specific projects that help BITS succeed. Bijendra Nath Jain, Vice Chancellor, BITS, Pilani, bnj@bits-pilani.ac.in
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Annual Report 2011
About BITSAA International engages in charitable and educational activities by raising funds for setting up endowments, creating scholarships, rewarding teaching and research and generally promoting the development of resources at Birla Institute of Technology and Science campuses at the Pilani, Dubai, Goa & Hyderabad. BITSAA International also aims to strengthen the ties, friendship and communication amongst former students, current students, faculty and friends of the Institute. BITSAA International provides a number of channels for people to stay connected with each other and with Birla Institute of Technology & Science. BITSAA International Inc. is a not-for-profit organization registered in New Jersey, USA (Federal EIN# 22-3835037) and has been granted tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS tax code as of August 20, 2002.
Vision Maximize the potential of BITSians and BITS, Pilani.
Mission Make BITSAA the best and most well networked alumni community in the world and positively enhance your professional and personal lives. Give back to BITS Pilani to strengthen the infrastructure, student exposure and education quality.
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Board of Trustees Raju Reddy (’76) President & Chairman
S P Kothari (’74) Chairman Emeritus
Viggy Mokkarala (’76) Trustee
Brij Bhushan (’60) Trustee
Aditya Mathur (’70) Trustee
Chandra Bhople (’74) Trustee
Niranjan Bose (’92) Trustee
Deepak Sharma (’91) Trustee
Sarath Kolla (’93) Trustee
Nagarajan Ramaswamy (’61) Trustee
Pradeep Sethi (’72) Trustee
Srikanth Krishnamurthy (‘88) Trustee
Aditi Pany (’00) Trustee
Aalap Tripathy (’04) Trustee & CEO
Rohit Koul (’02) Trustee & COO
Kaushik Subramanian (’01) Trustee & CFO
Rajesh Chelapurath (’88) Trustee & CIO
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Executive Team Aalap Tripathy (’04) Chief Executive Officer
Rohit Koul (’02) Chief Operations Officer
Kaushik Subramanian (’01) Chief Financial Officer
Rajesh Chelapurath (’88) Chief Investment Officer
Raghuraman (’04) Chief Human Resources Officer
Suresh Sajja (’03) Chief Technology Officer
Abhisheak Iyer (’02) Chief Marketing Officer
* On Feb 1, 2012, just before the publication of this report, Rohit Koul (’02, Pilani) took over as CEO of BITSAA international and Vijay Sharma (’06, Pilani) became COO.
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Board, BITSAA India Trust OP Jagetiya (’66) Trustee
Ashok Agarwal (’61) Trustee
Sanjay Khendry (’82) Trustee
Uzma Baralaskar (’03) Trustee
B Ramesh (’63) Trustee
Srikanth Sayiri (’04) Former Manager
Board of Advisors Anupendra Sharma (’87) Co-Founder & Former Board Member
Venu Palaparthi (’87) Co-Founder & Former Board Member
Sandeep Arora (’87) Co-Founder & Former Board Member
Ashish Garg (’97) CEO Emeritus & Former Board Member
Krishna Hegde (’96) CFO Emeritus & Former Board Member
Arun Aravind (’97) Former COO & Board Member
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Leadership Team
Heads
Managers
Team Leaders Hari Prasath Vinod Ramachandran
ALUMNI MEMBERSHIP
Vignesh Venkatraman (Director)
Ravi Anand Mayank Tiwari Raghav Gupta Shashank Sharma
TECHNOLOGY
Aakash Goel Chetan Bansal
Prateek Agarwal Kalyan Krishnamani (Vice President)
Giridhar Prasanna Kaushik Balasubramaniam
Chandy Benjamin
Raman Garimella Chandrika Maheshwari Eshita Shah Revathi Muthukumar
COMMUNICATIONS & SOCIAL MEDIA
Goonjan Mall Sukanya Vijayakumar (Director)
Nirnay Chajjer L V K Chaitanya
Mahima Jain
Krishna Teja Chavali Y L Chaitanya Rohit Kumar VV Krushidhar Reddy
Sherin (Director, Awards) SCHOLARSHIPS Arun S K (Director, Scholarships) ACADEMIC COUNCIL
Vijay Devabhaktuni
Keerthy Pethaiyan (KRFEA & Mantra Awards) Leela Krishna Anna (MCN Scholarships) Hari Kishore (Travel & Loan Scholarships)
Gauvra Mukherjee Mayank Mohta Varun Boonlia Ishan Srivastava Vivaswan Pathak Aniket Ponkshe
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BITSAA International
CAMPUS RELATIONS
Annual Report 2011
Sourabh Agrawal (Director)
Shailendra Gupta
Rahul Kotnala
Saurabh Ladha
Richa Dwivedi
Utkarsh Mehrotra
Kushal Das
Govindham Yadav
Ishaan Pahuja
Vivaswan Pathak
Deepan Kishore Kumar
Utkarsh Mehrotra
Gautam Mediratta Sriram Jayaraman Md Aamer Fazal Khan
Pavan Srikanth Bade (Campus Connect)
Ayoosh Bansal Sidhartha Patra Sanchit Sekhwal
NEWSLETTER
Ashwin Gowda (Director)
Anusha Sirigiri Mayank Mathur
Mohit Yadav Shivansh Srivastava Simrandeep Singh
Shwetha Kailash (President; Director, OOBI) CHAPTER RELATIONS
Vandith PSR
Vishrut Shukla (Vice President) BITS2BSCHOOL
Anurag VNVJ
Sadhya Sharma Manoj Muthavarapu Ashish Khandelwal
FUNDRAISING
Arun Ashokan (Vice President)
Japa Anil Kumar
Apu Battan Arpit Sharma
Vigneshwaran Chandran (Director)
Bala Kamallakharan
BITS2MARATHON Karthik Vijayakumar (Director) CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP
Mahesh Krishnamoorthy
Nakul Jamadagni
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Annual Report 2011
SANDPAPER
Satish Polisetti (Chief Editor)
BITSAA MILES
Dilip Adityan
BITSAA INVESTMENT
Koti Mylavarapu (Director)
Soumya Sen
Ritesh Nagpal
Armaan Sinha
Madhukar Reddy Banuri Ashwin Varma
Sanket Shah (Recruitments) Hareesh Jeyaraman (Awards & Recognition) Pramod Vadlamani (Portal Admin)
HUMAN RESOURCES
Garvit Sharma Ragahvendra Datta Paleti Akhil Mehta Divesh
BITS.Aid
FINANCE
Ankit Saraf Rahul Parsani (Director)
C Dushyant Rao Rishikesh B G Aishwarya Raghavan Varun Shah
CAREER CENTER
Rohan Sripad
Sarvani Yadavalli Sana Zaman Hitesh Mantrala
LET'S PROMOTE BITS, PILANI
Deepak Malani (Director)
Ankur Arvind Shravani Vatti
Neil C Jog Mohit Batra
Rohit Ratnaparkhi
Manish V
Sumanth G
Imam Khalid
Shreya Singh
Manish Sharma
Shashikant Khandelwal (President) EMBRYO
Stueti Gupta (Vice President)
Vishal Goel
Atish Kathpal (Director) BITS2MSPhD
Soumyadeep Ghosh
Manish Kumar
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Annual Report 2011
Statement of Accounts Jan 1, 2011 to Dec 31, 2011 Opening Balance (as on 31-Dec-2010)
$39,505
Revenues/ Donations/ Cash Flowing In Operational Revenues BITSAA General Fund Corporate Matching Contributions E-Store Total Donations: Non-Endowed Initiatives Bridges to the Future Faculty Enrichment Fund Community Enrichment BITS Connect 2.0 Student Enrichment BGM Fund Travel Loan Fund (Anurag Jain & Yugaa) Saxena Foundation (Setup by Manoj Saxena) Ram Niwas Yadav Scholarship (Setup by Dasra & Ravi Yadav) Vijay Bajaj CCTV (Infrastructure Improvement) One Day Salary Campaign (’86 Batch Fundraiser) Mantra Awards (Setup by Anupendra Sharma) Santha Iyer Scholarship (Setup by Suraj Krishnan) Shaurya AGV Initiative (All-Terrain Fully Autonomous Ground Vehicle) BITSAA Seattle Chapter Other Initiatives Total BITSAA Chapter Event Registrations BITSAA Global Meet 2011 East Coast NJ Summer Cricket 2011 Silicon Valley Chapter Workshop 2011 Silicon Valley Chapter Fall Get Together 2011 Silicon Valley Chapter Annual Golf Event 2011 BITS2Marathon World 5K Run 2011 Silicon Valley Chapter Workshop Series Total Total 2011 INCOMING CASH FLOW
$24,708 $1,047 $64 $25,819
$84,350 $11,936 $13,425 $2,175 $15,698 $13,000 $10,000 $4,444 $3,500 $1,695 $1,200 $1,150 $1,000 $600 $250 $164,423 $2,100 $850 $500 $430 $375 $170 $100 $4,525 $194,767
TOTAL INCOMING CASH FLOW -- INCLUDING OPENING BALANCE ON 31-Dec-2010
$234,272
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BITSAA International
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Expenses/ Disbursements/ Cash Flowing Out ** Operational Expenses BITSAA.org Website/Legacy Website Maintenance Online Payment Gateway Fees (Credit card processing) Attorney Fees BITSAA Conference Call Infrastructure (Hi-Def/Calliflower) Travel Grant to Prof. Rajiv Singh Wire Transfer Fees for disbursements Miscellaneous Total Disbursements: Non-Endowed Initiatives BGM Fund - World Contributions & Registrations Saxena Foundation (Setup by Manoj Saxena) IFOR (Intelligent Flying Object for Reconnaissance) Ram Niwas Yadav Scholarship (Set up by Dasra & Ravi Yadav) Undisbursed amount with Pilani Rakesh Chandra Scholarship Mantra Awards Certificates for 2009 Santha Iyer Scholarship (Setup by Suraj Krishnan) Travel Scholarships Travel Loan Fund (Anurag Jain & Yugaa) Total Disbursements: BITSAA Chapter Event Registrations East Coast NJ Summer Cricket 2011 Houston Get Together 2010 Silicon Valley Chapter Workshop 2011 Silicon Valley Chapter Annual Golf Event 2011 Silicon Valley Chapter Sports Meet 2010 Silicon Valley Chapter Welcome 2009 Silicon Valley Chapter Annual Golf Event 2010 Total
$6,435 $2,016 $1,240 $1,018 $475 $270 $148 $11,602 $8,988 $10,000 $16,600 $4,444 $3,857 $1,500 $1,155 $1,150 $907 $309 $48,912 $850 $475 $420 $375 $219 $135 $100
TOTAL EXPENSES
Excess Funds for Future Operations and Disbursements ** Excess funds may be allocated towards BITSAA.org Website/Processing Fees
$2,574 $63,088 $171,184
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Annual Report 2011
BITSAA India Trust Statement BITS Pilani Alumni Association India TRUST 6-3-1113/3, Medha Building, B S Makta, Begumpet HYDERABAD - 500016 STATEMENT OF AFFAIRS AS AT 31ST MARCH 2011 LIABILITES
AMOUNT
Corpus fund Analog Design Fund Less : Paid During the year
AMOUNT 10000
500000 10000
ASSETS
Current Liabilities & Provisions Audit Fee Payable Accounting charges Payable Expenses Payable
AMOUNT
Cash at Bank
490000 Axis Bank Ltd
Surplus fund Opening Balance Less: Deficit During the Year
AMOUNT
158598 5583
153015
11030 3500 6981
21511
674526
674526
674526
As Per Our Report of even date in Form 10B
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Annual Report 2011
BGM 2011 Statement Receipts (in Rs.) Sponsorships
11377500.00
Expenses (in Rs.)
3440046.00
177500.00
Epicenter (Food & Venue)
2436700.00
791922.00
Entertainment: Kingdom of Dreams Advertisement: Times of India
Advertisements Registrations BITSAA International BITSAA Delhi
1675470.00 356000.00
On the Spot
Event Manager
1117297.00 800000.00 297385.00
PR Agency: Perfect Relations
60000.00
Online Broadcasting
Do Attend (Online)
1352000.00
Pilani Trip
151324.00
Total Registrations
4175392.00
Pilani Trip
456116.00
Pilani Trips
47500.00
Delegate Kits
247570.00
BGM Store
57100.00
Printing Expenses
Auction
17000.00
Pre BGM Expenses
33372.00 365643.00
Music Club Expenses Travel & Stay
81707.00 195672.00
BGM Store Total Receipts
15834992.00
Misc. Expense
10925357.00
Total Expense
4452454.00
Net Savings
457181.00
Amount Received & Expenses incurred By "BITSAA International"
Donations and Sponsorships collected in the US
$35674.00
Cost of publicity in the US (T-shirts and transport) Post BGM amount paid for Student Team at BITS Dubai Total Expenses
Balance at "BITSAA International"
$8688.00
$8000.00 $16688.00 $18986.00
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Donors 1960 Satya Bagaria Brij Bhushan 1963 Sudhish Aggarwal 1966 VV Ramanan Subhash Kwatra 1970 Jagdish B Acharya 1971 Pankaj Dhingra 1972 Shailendra Mishra 1975 Inder Koul Soumitra Sengupta 1976 Brahm Potu Lajpat Lakhanpal Raju Reddy Yogesh Shinde Biren Jain Rajiv Marwah Ravinder Kichloo Mustaque Ahamad Brahm Potu Iyer (Manian) Subramanian Gurindar Sohi Sajan Jacob Sudhir Rao Mustaque Ahamad Viggy Mokkarala Nasir Memon Naresh Kumar Khanuja Gautham Lath 1977 Mohan Xavier 1980 Vijay Bajaj 1982 Ratnesh Sharma 1983 Jayathirth P 1985 Sundeep Gupta Ajoy Kodali 1986 Siva Kumar Nuti 1987 Aravind Ramachandran Sridhar Ramanathan Rajesh Aerat
1988 Rajesh Chelapurath Anu Hasan Diwakar Pingle 1989 Rahul Jain 1990 Nataraj Ganapathy Jayasimha Raju Mayank Jain Pirasanna Venugopal Reva Modi 1991 Ramesh Nnarayanaswamy Surendra Kulhari 1992 Sivasubramanian Krishnakumar 1993 Sarath Kolla Vijayakumar Tawker 1994 Ashish Shah 1995 Deepak Balakrishnan V Dinesh Kumar Srivatsa B Kedilaya 1997 Sangeetha Narasimhan Srini Swaminathan 1998 Karthik Sampath Gaurav Mathuria 1999 Dolly Fernando Ujaval Gandhi Deepa Thandaveswara Sandhya Krishnan Suraj K Kanishka Raja 2000 Mahesh Krishnamoorthy Vigneshwaran Chandran Lakshmi Katyayani Dhulipala Karthikeyan 2002 Addala Bhargav Abhisheak Iyer Sindhura Ganga Rajesh Agrawal
Nilesh Yerawar Varun Shibani Bhagwat Gouraj Yadav Chandra Deepty Kolisetty Sreedivya Gowra 2003 Hari Kishore Himanshu Chauhan Priyanka A Sandeep Pal 2004 Aruna Kesavan Swati Prusty Satish Surath Mohammed Sameed Shafi Mouleeswara Reddy Y Sravan Edavelli Bongu Bharat Manoj B Kumar 2005 Vinod Ramachandran Anand Ramachandran Vinod Ramachandran Shrayans Jain Alok Vij Pavan Kumar Manoj Sanda Prashant Kumar Sandip Mahanta Sasidhar Sista 2006 M Uday Bhanu Sharma Pravanjan Das Mahesh Jakhotia Sweta Chandramouli Aditya Yadav Sindhura Malireddy Megha Reddy Pavithra Baskaran Jaskaran Singh 2007 Yashkumar Gandhi 2008 Onkar Bagaria 2010 Vijayaraghavan K Unclassified S Parthasarathy
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Donate How can you contribute? If you live in
Make cheque payable to:
Donate online
India
BITS, Pilani Office of Alumni Affairs, Attn: Prof Arya Kumar, BITS Pilani, Pilani, Rajasthan 333031
---
US
BITSAA International, Attn: CFO, BITSAA International, 1560 Sunnyvale Saratoga Road, Suite 200, Sunnyvale, CA 94087-4597
Please visit http://www.bitsaa.org/bridgestothefuture and click on the apt fund
Other Countries
Office of Alumni Affairs, Attn: Prof Arya Kumar, BITS Pilani, Pilani, Rajasthan 333031
Visit http://www.bitsaa.org/bridgestothefuture (NOTE: your credit card may reflect some nominal foreign currency transaction charges)
In all cases, please: 1. if sending a cheque, use the donation forms included in the appendices of this report. 2. write the Project ID of the project that you wish to have your contribution apply to, and your batch (year of entry to BITS) in the memo area of the cheque or comments area in the online form. If you are not sure about what project to donate to but still want to make a difference, you can donate directly to the general fund (online). Further, if you don’t specify a project ID, then your contribution will also go into the general fund where it will be used for the project with the most need. 3. send an email to bridgestothefuture@bitsaa.org with the details of your donation for tracking purposes
While cash (credit card, cheque, wire transfer, etc.) is the simplest way of donating, there are other ways to donate, like stocks and securities, life insurance policies etc. Gift Matching Many employers, acknowledging the importance of higher education, provide for a matching gift when the donor designates a contribution towards BITSAA activities. The amount of the match is dependent on the corporation's guidelines. To determine if your employer provides a company match, please contact your human resources department. Please contact the BITSAA Finance Team <finance-team@bitsaa.org> or reach out to BITSAA CFO Kaushik Subramanian (kaushik@bitsaa.org, (408) 368-8528) if you have questions or would like to send in the Employer Matching paperwork. Life insurance policies If the original need for which a policy was bought no longer exists, a gift of this asset can be rewarding, particularly if the policy is fully paid up.
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Donating Stocks and Securities You can also consider making a gift of appreciated stock (or mutual fund shares) rather than a cash donation. A gift of appreciated property often provides increased tax benefits. A signed instruction letter has to go out from you to your broker/ custodian regarding this. Learn more about the (double) tax benefits and other details. Bequests Gifts by bequest enable a donor to make significant contributions that may not have been possible during life. While determining the final distribution of a donor’s estates, the donor can designate a portion of their assets towards any of giving options on the table via BITSAA or via any other choice that can be created in consultation with BITSAA and BITS. Other methods Depending on a donor’s unique circumstances and financial situation, there are several other avenues that can be availed of to contribute. These include donating tangible personal property, gifts in trust, charitable gift annuities, and so on. Please contact the BITSAA Investments Team <investment-team@bitsaa.org> or reach out to BITSAA CIO Rajesh Chelapurath (rc@bitsaa.org) if you have questions or would like to know more about the paperwork.
Please visit bitsaa.org for more details.
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BITSAA, Truly International
BITSAA International, registered as a non-profit in the USA, is well on its way to becoming truly international. The number of board members has been expanded from 14 to 20 in order to represent all parts of the world where significant alumni activities happen. Specific provision was made in the by-laws to include six Chapter Leaders on rotation from across the world. Pradeep Sethi ('72-'77), Srikanth Krishnamurthy (’88’92) and Aditi Pany (’00-’04) from India, and Ramaswamy “Nagi” Nagarajan ('61-'66) from Australia join the board as Trustees.
In addition, the Board
unanimously adopted a motion to appoint CS Goel ('74‘79) and Sudeep Jain ('86-‘90) as Vice Chairs of the Chapter's Leadership Council. Punita Pandey ('80-'84) and Arun Aravind (’97-’01) step down from the board this year. BITSAA thanks them for their commitment and significant contributions to BITSAA in the years that they have been Trustees. Starting this year, board members will also lead committees on different aspects of BITSAA's work – fundraising, alumni membership, chapter development, technology, audits, etc. This will enhance the working relationships between different groups within BITSAA.
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MoU with BITS, Pilani The administration at BITS, Pilani has been tremendously receptive of BITSAA's ideas. In 2011, BITSAA engaged with BITS Pilani leadership to clarify issues pertaining to the governance of the funds raised by alumni. The goal of the MoU is to have an accountable, central, tax-deductible way for Global BITS alumni to contribute funds to. This will enable a transparent and productive working relationship between BITS, Pilani (the University) and BITSAA International (on behalf of all individual Chapters and BITS alumni in general). This effort was spearheaded by Viggy Mokkarala ('76-‘81) and Kris Ramachandran ('67-‘72). This is a big step towards achieving the formal accounting process and transparency that BITSAA has always wanted. BITSAA has agreed that the funds raised by BITSians globally (US, India and elsewhere) will all go into a single account at BITS (independent of BITS's own accounts). Funds from BITSians in India can go directly into this account whereas those in US will be routed through BITSAA International into the same. This enables tax-benefit to the tune of 100% for all alumni (more in certain categories).
Further the protocol and
responsibility for accounting and oversight has been clearly defined. BITS has also opened a separate bank account for BITSAA funds. Further, BITS has agreed to: 1. Provide quarterly unaudited statements 2. Provide annual audited statements 3. Staff a dedicated contact person for BITSAA CFO to liaise with on a regular basis on matters relating to BITSAA funds In future, this will enable online visibility to BITSAA account so that the BITSAA CFO and BITS can operate efficiently with no need for back & forth communication for quick turnaround visibility of funds, in tune with the Chairman’s stated goal of streamlining the governance within BITSAA/BITS, and achieve "fundraising accountability." For more details, visit bitsaa.org/governance.
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BITSAA Investments 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 BITSAA’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). Some of the highlights of BIC’s 2011 activities and points to note include: •
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 $112,052 (December 6, 2011 close). This pool of capital supports several scholarships and awards as enumerated in other parts of this annual report.
•
The BEF has generated an annualized return of 6% p.a. since inception through December 31, 2010. Year-to-date, as of December 6, 2011 the BEF had an investment rate of return of -2.8%, after adjusting for a disbursement of $6,250
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for various initiatives, reflecting the headwinds being faced in several financial markets worldwide. During the year to date, relief in the form of a depreciating rupee (versus the US dollar) to the tune of about 15% (that helped reduce the BEF’s obligations in rupee terms by these levels) was negated by the 25% increase in tuition at BITS (this served to increase initiative disbursements tied to tuition levels) from Rs.1 lakh p.a. to Rs.1.25 lakhs p.a. •
All of BIC’s/BEF’s activities (including principles and parameters guiding these actions) and obligations are published (semi-annually) in detail via reports called the Investment Policy Statements. Two such reports were published by the BIC this year (in January and in August) to keep the Trustees and BITSAA Leaders group abreast of happenings at the BEF. These reports are available online at www.bitsaa.org under the endowments section.
BITSAA Finds Permanent Office Since inception, BITSAA International has had its registered office in the residences of its CFO or the executive team. Every time, the CFO moved due to job requirements, BITSAA's office moved. Over the past decade, BITSAA has shifted states, cities numerous times. In accordance with Chairman Raju Reddy's stated goal of streamlining the governance within BITSAA, regular BITSAA donor Vijay Bajaj ('80-'84) generously offered a part of his sprawling Sunnyvale office for BITSAA's purposes. The BITSAA Executive Team jumped at the opportunity and have since very gratefully accepted his offer to setup a permanent office for BITSAA at Sunnyvale, CA. This office shall also serve as a mailstop for BITSAA's Silicon Valley Chapter. New Address: 1560 Sunnyvale Saratoga Road, Ste 200, Sunnyvale, CA 94087-4597 Alumni like Bajaj are the reason BITSAA thrives and is able to create and deliver global projects benefiting BITS Pilani - it's brand and our pride as its alumni. Vijay Bajaj, we salute you for your generosity and understanding and acknowledge your support in making us a stronger, better-organized alumni association befitting our alma mater.
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Campus News Chancellor announces project ‘Parivartan’ Chancellor Kumar Mangalam Birla announced the BITS Pilani campus modernization plan named ‘Parivartan,’ to construct a new, state-of-the-art academic building at a cost of about INR 400 crores. The plan also includes restoration and modernization of all existing buildings and infrastructure. The modernized campus will also have an expanded road network, a new amphitheater, a new students hostel building of 150 rooms and a new faculty residential area with emphasis on making the campus cyclistand pedestrian-friendly. The Director of the Pilani campus, Prof G. Raghurama, said that the new plan envisages retaining the greenery and heritage of the present campus while simultaneously creating state of the art buildings for teaching and research. The Chancellor made this announcement in a function held at the BITS, Pilani auditorium on Monday, Nov 13 2011 organized in honor of senior members of the Board of Governors and Birla family members. Founding Governing Body Member and doyen of the Birla family, Mr. B. K. Birla and Smt (Dr.) Sarala Birla unveiled the foundation stones for the new buildings. Architects Brinda Somaya and Hafeez Contractor of Mumbai presented the master plans for the proposed buildings.
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Chapter Relations Across several countries, 50 chapters and more than a 100 Yahoo! Groups exist; however not many are active and some have faded. Strong chapters demonstrate a strong brand and a global presence. We are now in the process of rejuvenating and organizing chapters across the world, to engage greater numbers of BITSians and provide an effective platform for all alumni to network, find mentoring /career opportunities and organize events near them. A “Chapter Development Team" will be led by Trustee Chandra Bhople ('74-'79) to encourage and manage the affairs of BITSAA's chapters. The new Chapter Relations Team headed by Shwetha Kailash ('04-'08) and Vishrut Shukla ('05-'09)
has
been
instituted
in
executive
capacity to further this goal. A parallel move will bring all Chapter Leaders on the same platform called BITSAA Chapters Council in order to centralize Chapter administrative activities. CS Goel ('74-‘79) and Sudeep Jain ('86-‘90) have been unanimously appointed as Vice Chairs of the Chapters’ Leadership Council by the Board.
The BITSAA Board – the highest governing body of BITSAA International now has 5 members from the Global Chapters Council. The Vice Chairmen of the Chapters Council are ex-officio members of the BITSAA Board of Trustees.
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Batch Ambassador Program At BITSAA International, we think it is our responsibility to help BITSians relive fond memories of campus, to bridge the present and past, and thereby provide a platform enabling lost friendships, intellectual discussion, self-organized trips, fund raising, exploring opportunities, learning the latest about BITS and giving something back to the society together. In this mission, batch-wise groups have been created for each batch starting from 1954. Ambassadors were sought from each batch and the response was phenomenal. These Ambassadors will coordinate communication within each batch to achieve the afore-mentioned goals.
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Batch Ambassadors Batch of 1954 Chand Malhan Batch of 1955 Krishan Mittal Batch of 1956 Krishna Vavilala Batch of 1957 Ramakrishna Iyer Seshan Batch of 1958 Rao Kancherla Sukhvarsh Jerath Batch of 1960 Vijay Kumar Raina Inder Bery Batch of 1961 Subhash C Sahni Batch of 1962 Devesh Behari Saxena Batch of 1963 Rajeshwar Chopra Dr.Chandra Shekhar Sharma
Batch of 1971 R.K.Kaul Surendra Kumar Swami Batch of 1972 Shiv D Baheti Som Dutt Dadheech Navneet Kothari Batch of 1973 Tarun Kumar Roy Choudhury Batch of 1974 R.K.Vaish Chander Shekhar Goel Batch of 1975 Lalit Agrawal Batch of 1976 Nasir Menon Yogesh Kumar Batch of 1977 Yaganti Narasimha Rao Batch of 1978 Solomon Raj
Batch of 1964 Deepak Khosla
Batch of 1979 Rajendra Gupta Aditya N. Shrivastava
Batch of 1965 OP Singhi
Batch of 1980 Rajiv Agrawal
Batch of 1966 VV Ramanan
Batch of 1981 Sharath Choudary
Batch of 1967 S L Agarwal
Batch of 1982 Sanjay Khendry Alok Sood
Batch of 1968 Arun Jain Ravi Kant Mittal
Batch of 1983 N. Jayasankar
Batch of 1969 Ranajit Sen
Batch of 1984 Amit Kumar
Batch of 1970 Jagdish Acharya
Batch of 1985 Mahendra Damani
Akella Akka Surya Prakasa Rao Rajesh Balay K.Vikram Batch of 1987 Venu Palaparthi Siva Murthy Batch of 1988 Dr V Sivaramakrishnan Batch of 1989 Rahul Jain Batch of 1990 Sunil Sapra Anupam Adeeb Harshawardhan honmode Batch of 1991 Balakrishnan Gopalan Iyer Batch of 1992 Siva Natarajan Sumanram Aarthi Rishi Amitabh Batch of 1993 Sherif Aziz Batch of 1994 Smita Surajeeta Jyotiprakash Batch of 1995 Chandrasekhar Goda Mridul Sharma Dr. Jagannath Sahoo Batch of 1996 Nagarajan Pattabiraman Chandra S Batch of 1997 Amit Thakral Avinash Modi Batch of 1998 Manish Baphna
25
BITSAA International Batch of 1999 Kalyana Chakravarty V (aka - Kalcy) Manoz Palaparthi Sarvesh Verma Shruthi Vembar DeviKishore Adiraju Batch of 2000 Bharati Balakrishnan Vamsi Chillara Lokesh Kumar Raja Batch of 2001 Vijay Nair Ojas Sabnis Venkatasubramanian R Roma Fatima Shailesh Giri Amit Goyal Anand Ravi Sharma Aurovind R Batch of 2002 Sreedivya Gowra S Vijay Gaurav Nalavade Mukundhan K.V. Varun Manchanda Sandeep Pramalingam Sindhura Ganga
Annual Report 2011 Vijay Pothi Raj Govindaraj Amandeep Singh Hariharan Nandakumar Batch of 2003 Pilani Priyanka A Abhishek Mangipudi Bhargavi K Shibanka Das Biswas K N Trinadh Dubai Mayank Agarwal Batch of 2004 Pilani Divya Balakrishnan Sarang S. Parsodkar Manish Purohit Sriram Dubai Rohit Pandey Goa Aishwarya Balaji Goud Clintson Paul Mohan Kumar Batch of 2005 Pilani Rajendra Kumar Aniruddha Ghosal
Raj Shekhar Bhushan Khandelwal Nirupam Anand K Sandeep Goud Manish Gupta Basant Choudhary Dubai Shrey Sanger Hitesh Hasija Goa Prashant Kumar Arpit Agarwal Kiranmai J.Hareesh K Sudhanshu Teja Masina Ravi Teja Pabbisetty Satish Batch of 2006 Dubai Naman Haksing Goa Sai Pradeep Rahul Rai Rajiv Chemudupati Ankur Kumar Ramanuja Mangla Battu Sashidhar Ishant Arora
Batch Ambassadors can be emailed at xxxx-batchadmins-yyyyy@bitsaa.org *xxxx- year of entry *yyyyy – campus (Pilani, Goa or Dubai)
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Alumni Advisory Council In response to calls from alumni and students at BGM 2011, an ‘Alumni Advisory Council’ has been established consisting of senior academics and industry professionals across the globe to strengthen the level of engagement of alumni in important issues of BITS. The council will lend its expertise to help BITS on several topics, including curriculum development, Practice School, work-integrated learning, faculty induction, research agenda, etc. Fifteen distinguished alumni, representing the who's who of BITSians, were recommended by BITSAA and have been invited to be on the Council by BITS. •
Prof Goverdhan Mehta ('55),
•
Mr Prem Jain ('68),
•
Prof Dorairajan Balasubraniam ('55),
•
Prof M Balakrishnan ('72),
•
Prof Ashok Agarwal ('60),
•
Prof Reena Aggarwal (’74)
•
Prof Aditya Mathur ('65),
•
Dr Raju Reddy ('76),
•
Prof Krishna Saraswat ('63),
•
Mr Dilip D'Souza ('76),
•
Prof SP Kothari ('74),
•
Mr Anurag Jain ('88),
•
Mr Kris Ramachandran ('67),
•
Mr Aashish Bhinde ('89) and
•
Mr Madhu Kannan ('88)
The Council will meet twice a year with the Vice Chancellor and the Directors and Deans of all campuses.
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Bridges to the Future The BITSAA Leadership dreams that one day in the near future, BITS alumni will be able to make a sustaining contribution to the continued success of BITS and BITSians worldwide. Accordingly, the "Bridges to the Future” fundraising campaign was kicked off in December 2011.
The goals are modest 1. Raise $1,000,000 in this fundraising drive. 2. Ensure 100% participation - every alumnus gives something; no amount is too small. 3. Cultivate a culture of annual giving - so that an alumni endowment can be set up and grown. BITSians can donate to the General Fund or to any of the named causes listed as under. All contributions are 100% tax deductible in India and in the USA. A short summary of the projects we hope to undertake and their scope follows:
Faculty Enrichment: 1. Young Faculty Excellence Award- This award recognizes a BITS faculty from one of the four campuses for excellence in inspiring and engaging teaching that stimulates discovery and inquiry, in research and innovative projects, and in their professional achievements and commitment towards BITS. It is an annual award, which will be presented to the selected faculty member towards the end of the second semester every year. The first such award was instituted with a generous grant by Kris Ramachandran ('67, Pilani) and comprises of a rolling plaque, a citation, and a cash award of INR 100,000 (PROJECT ID: FE001) 2. Endowed Chairs - A one-time endowment of Rs. 44,00,000 will endow a named chair (donor to decide the name) for a period of 20 years. It can be done by an individual donor, an entire batch or even on behalf of your company. Chancellor Kumar Mangalam
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Birla has kick started this program by creating 7 Endowed Chairs funded by the Birla family. A detailed document is available on request. (PROJECT ID: FE002)
Student Enrichment: 1. Student Projects Fund – BITS students are participating in top international engineering competitions (and winning!) This fund will provide seed funding for such projects (PROJECT ID: SE001) 2. Tuition Scholarships - This fund will help students in need to make sure they are able to continue their studies. (PROJECT ID: SE002) 3. Travel Grants - This fund will support student travel for paper presentations at international conferences. (PROJECT ID: SE003)
Infrastructure: 1. BITSConnect 2.0 - this project aims to connect all 4 BITS campuses with dedicated high-bandwidth interconnect for the purposes of distance learning, research collaboration and remote recruitment. We envision establishing videoconferencing facilities in dedicated small classrooms as well as in faculty offices. BITSAA has worked with BITS administration very closely on this project and has fully driven the procurement and bidding process. The cost of the project is expected to be in the range of $1,000,000, split equally between BITS and BITSAA. Our goal is to raise at least $500,000 for this project. (PROJECT ID: INF001). Please visit bitsconnect20.bitsaa.org for details.
Community Enrichment: 1. AtmaNirbhara – This project's goal is to setup a Community Resource Center in Pilani, Rajasthan (PRC-Pilani Resource Center), to house community development activities like vocational training, placement assistance, primary education assistance for rural children, self-help groups for women, micro-finance and micro-credit facilities, etc., for the communities in and around Pilani. (PROJECT ID: COM001)
Please visit the Bridges to the Future website for more information.
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Encouraging Entrepreneurship Multiple BITSian groups have sought to encourage entrepreneurship both among students and alumni. BITSAA has been the origin for a lot of good work done in the area, like the creation of CEL and channeling alumni support and funding (e.g.: Manoj Saxena Seed Fund). BITS-75, a trust formed by the batch of '70'75, has been a role model for BITSian groups
that
entrepreneurship community.
aim
to
promote
in
the
BITSian
The batch raised money to
fund an entrepreneurship project, evolved a thorough RFP process to whet BITSian startups and developed a phased plan for the growth of the startup they picked – Phyzok demonstrating their kit to students in Chennai
Phyzok – that would involve the batchmates themselves
as
facilitators.
Twenty-five
BITSians responded to their call for mentors in different areas of expertise. Satish Thatte leads as Project Manager. In order to elevate BITS as an entrepreneurshipfocused school, BITSAA has advanced Spark, a program that will have a 3-5 year horizon. The program will concentrate on asset building – creation of funding avenues to support BITSian entrepreneurs, and brand building – promotion of successful entrepreneurs in the media and BITSAA channels. The effort will be led by Abhinav Khushraj ('95-'99), Chandra Bhople
Spark Mumbai, Jan 2012
('74-'79) and Vijay Sharma ('06-'10). Khushraj has been conducting the course, New Venture Creation, at BITS for two semesters now.
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Saxena Pre-Seed Fund Mr. Manoj Saxena (’82-‘86, MMS, Pilani) is a successful and celebrated serial techentrepreneur and the founder of the Saxena Foundation. He is currently a senior executive at IBM heading the famous Watson project. He had approached BITSAA International to help set up a fund for encouraging the fledgling yet innovative start-up ideas coming out of BITS Pilani. The Saxena foundation, in association with BITSAA International (BITSAA) and Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL), recently setup the Saxena Pre-Seed fund for student entrepreneurs. In addition to investing small amounts of pre-seed money in BITSian student start-ups, this Fund will also bring in expertise
and
mentorship
to
help
selected
Manoj Saxena (’82)
student
entrepreneur teams learn the ropes and successfully kick-start their ventures. The Fund has been piloted in 2011 with an initial corpus of INR 5 Lakhs ($10,000). The Pilot received a huge response and quite a few start-up ideas from across Pilani, Goa and Hyderabad campuses. These were shortlisted to about 12 promising teams who are now going through a final round of judging. The Jury panel comprises of 2 very acclaimed alumni (Mr. Satish Gupta and Mr. Satish Thatte) and 2 senior faculty members (Prof. Arya Kumar and Prof. Saby John). The results are expected to be announced by end of February 2012.
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Alumnus Donates to CCTV Realizing the need for more sophisticated video infrastructure in Pilani, BITS Alumnus Vijay Bajaj (‘80-’84, Pilani) made a donation of $7000 to the Department of CCTV to purchase video equipment. The donation was made in memory of Mr. Rajendra Kumar Sahgal and this helped CCTV purchase a technologically advanced camera, which significantly eases the current process of recording videos in the Pilani campus and reduces delivery times. Vijay Bajaj (’80)
Earlier, the CCTV department had to digitize and convert each
video (taken on borrowed cameras) and the videos were of inferior quality. Thanks to Mr. Bajaj’s donation, this new investment greatly improved the efficiency of the CCTV department. The new equipment was used during Oasis 2011 and was greatly appreciated by the student body and visitors during the cultural festival. The Student Union of BITS Pilani, the Department of CCTV and the BITSAA community appreciate Mr. Vijay’s contribution and hope that this will inspire future BITSians and other alumni to step in and contribute to various infrastructure development
initiatives
on
the
campuses.
Alumni contributions of this type will help our alma mater to continue offering excellent infrastructure, academic and otherwise. Leaders including Arun Aravind (’97-’01), Vijay Sharma (’06-‘10) and Kaushik Subramanian (’01-’05) coordinated the donation, along with Nitin Gangahar and Govindam Yadav (’08) on campus.
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BITSAA Funds IFOR Saurabh Ladha (’08, Dubai) conceptualized project “IFOR: Intelligent Flying Object for Reconnaissance' in 2010 to build UAE's first fully autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle. His team faced a major challenge - funding agencies in the UAE were almost exclusively channelized towards public universities and government initiatives. Already part of the Campus Relations
team,
Saurabh
realized that BITSAA could help. He contacted Vijay Sharma (’06) for help on the project.
Within
a
week,
Arun Aravind (’97) and he were charting out a plan. A turning
point
in
the
BITSAA-IFOR relationship came when Vijay convinced Saurabh to speak at the BGM 2011, helping his team quickly build a network, which contributed greatly to IFOR's funding. Aalap Tripathy (’04) stressed on the importance of building a prototype, something that would convince alumni to believe in the project. Prof. R.K. Mittal and Dr. A. Kumar, team mentors (and also BITS alumni themselves), were of the same opinion. Thus began work on the 'IFOR Alpha', the first prototype. Although the prototype demonstrated only part of what the team aimed to finally build, it was enough to get everybody on the BITSAA team excited. The prototype also allowed the team to swing a dynamite deal with Intel, which invested USD 30,000 in the project with the promise that they would be allowed to mirror research conducted at the IFOR lab for their demonstrations, with IPR still being retained by BITS.
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Within three weeks, BITSAA raised USD 10,000 through the BITSAA Student Projects Fund. The funds received allowed the team to purchase critical parts and fulfill travel requirements through a loan. IFOR struck gold at the International Aerial Robotics Competition in August 2011, beating out PhD teams from Georgia Institute of Technology, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, University of Michigan and several others. Alumni who were instrumental in the fundraising effort were Prem Jain (’68), Viggy Mokkarala (’76), Raju Reddy(’76), Ashok Agarwal (’61), Aalap Tripathy (’04), Arun Ashokan (’96), Arun Aravind (’97), Prateek Agarwal (’06), Rohit Koul (’02), Sarath Kolla (’93) and Vijay Sharma (’06).
Team IFOR with other delegates at the International Aerial Robotics Competition
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Class of ’81 Endowed Chair As per a recently introduced policy change at BITS, an alumnus / a class of alumni, a corporate entity or a member of the Birla Family can promote excellence and leadership in teaching, research and innovation by creating a named “Chair Professorship” at BITS, Pilani. Chancellor Dr. Kumar Mangalam Birla had initiated this effort by creating seven such endowed Chairs in 2011. Several BITS batches are contemplating creating such chairs to facilitate wider and deeper interaction between practicing engineers/scientists and BITS faculty. Alumni from the class of 1981 responded to the appeal by BITS, Pilani and BITSAA to become the first alumni batch to set up a “Chair Professorship” at BITS Pilani. An endowment to support the Chair Professor for a period of 20 years is created with a seed fund of Rs 44 lakh. The money is invested in stable, interest-generating instruments in India. This is not the first time that the batch of '76-'81 has given back in a significant capacity. With their overwhelming support and leadership, they raised funds for the award winning “India’s first humanoid” ACYUT, developed at BITS, Pilani. The batch has also made a mark with their eagerness to contribute in kind through BITSAA - Raju Reddy, the current Chairman of BITSAA, Viggy Mokkarala, Global Fundraising Chair, Dilip D'Souza, a member of the first Alumni Advisory Council and Lajpat Lakhanpal, who drives Project Atmanirbhara, all belong to this distinguished class. The batch also has several star academics among their ranks - Prof. Gurindar Sohi (UW Madison, USA), Prof. Amit P Sheth, Prof. Nasir Memon (NYU Poly)
to name a few.
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Merit-Cum-Need Scholarships The year 2011 has been a very fortunate year for the BITSAA Scholarship team & BITS, Pilani with the kick off of four new MCN (Merit-Cum-Need) scholarships. As always, these scholarships are a pointer to the BITSian spirit that stays for life and keeps the bond with BITS alive forever. We are extremely pleased to announce the following new scholarships, which would not have been possible without the support of our alumni who have always gone the extra mile to give back to their alma mater. 1. Kancherla Kameswara Rao and Kancherla Rama Civil Engineering Scholarships Kancherla Kameswara Rao and his wife Kancherla Rama support the Kancherla Kameswara Rao and Kancherla Rama Civil Engineering Scholarships. Mr. Kameswara Rao is a civil engineering graduate from the class of 1962 and has now retired and come back to India after having lived in the US. He has always believed in giving back to the society and is involved in numerous philanthropic activities. The main intent of this scholarship is to encourage students in the Civil Engineering discipline. Only Civil Engineering students from the BITS, Pilani – Pilani Campus are eligible for this scholarship. One student from the final year (Civil Engineering single degree program) will be awarded a one-time amount of Rs. 50,000/- as scholarship based on their performance in the Civil CDC (Compulsory Disciplinary Courses) semesters. It is an MCN scholarship and will be processed along with the institute MCN scholarships subject to the above conditions.
2. Shri Chaman Lal Scholarship The Shri Chaman Lal Scholarship is instituted by Mr. Vijay K. Aggarwal in memory of his elder brother late Shri Chaman Lal, who in spite of his handicap of blindness worked hard all his life and lived life the way it should be lived. Mr. Vijay is an alumnus from the class of 1967 and he graduated in telecommunication. He is currently based out of the US. For Mr. Vijay, this scholarship is his way of giving back to BITS while paying a tribute to late Shri Chaman Lal whom he so deeply respects. This is an MCN scholarship open only for the 4th year students of the BITS, Pilani – Pilani Campus and awards one winner a one-time amount of Rs. 50,000/- based on the performance in the previous semesters. This scholarship will be starting from the academic year 2011-2012.
3. Santha E. Iyer Scholarship The Santha E. Iyer Scholarship is instituted by Suraj E. Krishnan, who graduated from BITS, Pilani in June 1993 in Physics and Chemical Engineering. Suraj is currently a Management Consultant and resides in the US. He initiated this scholarship in memory of his mother Smt. Santha Iyer, who fondly cherished the day that all girls across India would have full access to a holistic education. This is an MCN scholarship open only for 2nd year female students of BITS, Pilani – Pilani Campus. The scholarship will give one winner every year an annual grant of 50,000/- till her fourth year i.e. four annual grants of 50,000/- each provided a minimum CGPA criterion of 7.5 & financial need criteria are met. This scholarship will be starting from the academic year 2011-12.
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4. Ram Nivas Yadav Scholarship The Ram Nivas Yadav Scholarship has been started by Mr. Yadav, a distinguished Mathematics graduate from the BITS class of 1961. He is currently leading a blissful retired life in the US and sees this scholarship as an opportunity to thank BITS, Pilani. Giving back to his alma mater is not something new to him though. In fact, right after college he taught as an instructor in the Mathematics department for 4 years at BITS, Pilani before moving to the US for his Masters. Under this scholarship, every semester, two students, at least one from Mathematics major of 1st or 2nd year will be given one-semester full tuition fee grant. This scholarship is only for students of the BITS, Pilani – Pilani Campus and will be processed along with the institute MCN scholarships. It starts from the academic year 2011-12 and there are some additional merit, financial & domicile conditions that are to be met in order to be eligible for the scholarship.
These new scholarships will be an excellent boost to BITSAA Scholarships that already receives an overwhelming number of queries about MCN scholarships and other scholarship provisions. Unfortunately, the current BITSAA hosted MCNs support less than 1% of total students. It is this interest and enthusiasm from current BITSians to excel in spite of financial constraints that drives BITSAA Scholarships to reach out to alumni who would want to contribute their bit in whatever way they can.
Class of ’71 Scholarships The batch of ’66 (‘66-‘71) collected funds at the time of their Silver Jubilee reunion for instituting various scholarships and awards to benefit students of BITS Pilani. Currently the accumulated sum amounts to 16 lakhs INR. The annual interest from the corpus will be utilized to award: Scholarship for female student A scholarship amount of Rs.20,000 will be awarded for two semesters for a 2nd year female student. BITS SWD will select awardees as part of the regular MCN program.
APOGEE Awards Four awards, each of Rs.10,000, to be awarded to BITS students for their outstanding contribution at APOGEE.
Financial assistance for paper publication in reputed journals and attending international conferences Four grants each worth Rs.5,000 each for undergrad students, and two grants worth Rs.10,000 each for post-graduate students are to be awarded for publishing papers in reputed journals. The grant is open to students from all BITS campuses.
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Anurag Jain 0% Loan Fund Every year a number of BITSians get selected for esteemed international conferences, internships, fellowships, summits, etc. Last year, BITSAA received 53 funding requests citing travel from BITSians across the 4 campuses. Out of all the requests received, 37 were conferences, 14 for internships abroad and 2 for global summits. BITSAA currently supports students through full travel grants, in collaboration with BITS in some cases, BITSAA Miles Program and through 0% loans. Anurag Jain ('88-'92, EEE, Pilani) came to know of the huge demand-supply gap between the number of funding requests from students and scholarship recipients (about 10%) from CEO Aalap Tripathy (’04-08) and Fundraising VP Arun Ashokan (’96-’00). He immediately made an unsolicited offer to create a Travel loan fund with a $10,000 seed amount now named the "Anurag Jain 0% Loan Fund”. The Scholarships Anurag Jain (’88)
team led by Arun SK and Hari Kishore worked diligently to establish the fund.
Anurag Jain 0% Loan Fund will be used to provide zero interest loans to worthy students for internship related international travel, for travel and attendance costs for international conferences, competitions and seminars, for US graduate program application costs and for graduate studies abroad. Following Anurag’s donation, BITSAA’s Travel Fund pool now stands at $17,000. BITSAA will be able to support about 15-17 students through the Travel Loans Program (about 20% of anticipated demand). Rwitajit Majumdar (2005HS41658P) and Gaurav Manik (2008C6PS437H) received assistance through this program in 2011.
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BITSAA Student Awards 2011 BITSAA hosts a series of named awards every year for the students at various campuses of BITS. Currently there are 6 awards hosted by BITSAA every year. The major milestone for 2011 was the establishment of Srikant Visweswariah Analog Design Contest and Fellowship as an endowed award through BITSAA India Trust. Srikant Visweswariah Analog Design Contest and Fellowship Srikant Visweswariah Analog Design Award and Fellowship is the first fully endowed award through BITSAA India Trust. This is a major milestone after BITSAA India attaining 80G and 12A non-profit organization status registered with Indian Government.
Srikanth Visweswariah
Srikant Visweswariah Analog Design Award and Fellowship is instituted in the memory of Srikant Visweswariah, an alumnus of BITS Pilani. Srikant graduated with a degree in Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani in 1971. He lost his 2-year battle with cancer in April 2009. During a visit to BITS in 2005, it was pointed out to Srikant that the study of high frequency analog electronics is relegated in recent times in favor of computer science and digital electronics at BITS. He felt that it was unfortunate that India is slowly but surely losing skills in this critical area. Appropriately, Srikant's wife Sandhya and daughter Sanjana have instituted this award to help mitigate this problem by encouraging talented youngsters at BITS to take up this field of study.
The award and fellowship are disbursed as two phases. The first phase is the analog design competition to be organized during or before APOGEE as deemed fit by the APOGEE Organizing Committee at BITS, Pilani. The first three winners are entitled for the award money, 5000 INR, 3000 INR and 2000 INR respectively. The second phase of the award is a fellowship of 20,000 INR(to be inflated 2500 INR every 3 years) that shall be awarded to the student winning the analog design competition if he/she takes up a project on analog electronics and related fields in his/her final semester at BITS, Pilani. The award and fellowship program officially started in 2010, but became an endowed award in 2011. The capital money is deposited in Fixed Deposit Scheme with Axis Bank at ROI 8.5% which will be renewed every 5 years along with the unused money from the interest gained per year. The endowment is for a span of 15-25 years depending on the fluctuations in the interest rates. The first prizewinner Rakul Viswanath (’06, Maths/E&I) acknowledges the donors - “The award and the fellowship have surely served as a very strong motivation for me to continue working on Analog VLSI. I wish to convey my gratitude to the donors and request that the goodwill continue.” Special thanks to Uzma Barlaskar (Former CMO, BITSAA International), Aalap Tripathy (CEO, BITSAA International) and Nilesh Rathi (Former Director, Scholarships Team).
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List of 2011 Award Winners Scholarships and awards established before 2011 Award name
Winner (ID)
Ashok Agarwal Scholarship
Sangapu V Subrahmanya Narasimha Sai (2010A3PS111H)
S. S. Seshadri Scholarship
Prawal Agarwal (2008B3A7525P)
BITS Alumni Class of 71 Scholarship
Bhandari Kirti Shivprakash (2009B4A7393P)
Rakesh Chandra Scholarship
Nishant Sangal (2009A2PS364P)
Vamsi Pendayala Memorial Scholarship
Pooja Choudary (2009A4PS747P)
Prabhat Award
Devyani Patra (2007B5A3577P)
RP Vaid
Ayush Kanwar (2008A1PS474P)
Graduate Application Scholarships
Sunalini Sinha (2008A1PS495P) Arjun Gopalan (2008A7PS130P) Prasanna Giridhar (2008A7PS215H)
Travel Scholarships
Amit Badlani (2008A3PS157P)
Mantra Awards
Pilani Rohit Agarwal (2007A1PS430P) Sharathchandra Holla (2008A8PS263P) Raghav Mimani (2007A1PS383P) Apurva Misra (2007A3PS217P) Ankit Gupta (2007B4A7404P) Goa Dhairya Sanghvi (2008A8PS265G) Pooja Dave (2007A3PS079G) Swetansu Mohapatra (2007B4A1586G) Hanu Prateek Kunduru (2007A8PS285G) Amitabh Mishra (2008C6PS548G) Chetan Bansal (2008B1A1690G) Dubai Vidur Khurana (Mech) Archi Goyal (Comps) Praveen Bansal (E&C) Rushda Anwar Shahid (Biotech) Aditya Narain (Comps)
Extra-curricular Awards Award
Winner(s)
Brij Bhushan Award for BOSM Badminton
TITS Bhiwani
Ranvir Trehan Award for BOSM Tennis
IPS Academy Indore
Leuna Herkawat Award for Oasis Tarang
Music Club, BITS, Pilani
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Prof S Venkateswaran Faculty Excellence Award The award was instituted by alumnus Karthik Krishna in the name Prof. S Venkateswaran, former Director & Vice Chancellor of BITS, Pilani who was very close to his heart. In Karthik’s own words, “The biggest issue faced by educational institutions today is the lack of faculty. Faculty members are a key part of student development and hence it is important for alumni to do their maximum to help retain, encourage and develop faculty. This is my humble effort to contribute to this.” Prof. S Venkateswaran joined this Institute on Jan 30, 1974 as a faculty member and later served in various capacities as Dean,
Prof S.Venkateswaran
Deputy Director, Director, Vice Chancellor and Advisor till Dec 31, 2009. During his tenure, the Institute expanded and also established new campuses in Dubai, Goa and Hyderabad. He was highly respected by students, staff, faculty and alumni of the Institute. He was a well-known personality in education circles in India and abroad. 1. Establishment of the award i. A yearly contribution of 100,000 INR shall be made by BITS alumnus Karthik Krishna for a period of 5 years. ii. The award is to be named Prof. S Venkateswaran Faculty Excellence Award instituted by Karthik Krishna(1993). iii. The award commenced in academic year 2011-12 iv. The Excellence Awards shall be announced each year before the end of Semester II (January-June) v. One Faculty Excellence Award shall be awarded each year. vi. The award shall consist of a rolling Plaque (with name of the winner inscribed), and framed along with a certificate and a cash award of INR 100,000. vii. All shortlisted candidates shall be presented with a certificate of appreciation. 2. Eligibility i. Any full-time faculty member of BITS, Pilani at its Pilani, Dubai, Goa, or Hyderabad campuses are eligible to apply. ii. The faculty member must have experience of at least three years at any of the BITS campuses and less than ten years post qualification experience at universities including BITS. iii. The faculty member must be at least an Assistant Professor at BITS. iv. The faculty member must not have won any other faculty excellence award the previous year.
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3. Selection i. Applications will be received based on nominations whereby any full-time faculty member teaching at any of the BITS Pilani campuses – Pilani, Dubai, Goa, or Hyderabad may nominate herself/himself , accompanied by a Letter of Support from another faculty member of the Institute. ii. Any full-time faculty member teaching at any of the BITS Pilani campuses – Pilani, Dubai, Goa, or Hyderabad may nominate a fellow faculty member, accompanied by a Letter of Acceptance from the nominee. iii. The selection panel consists of four members. Two will be from BITS and two from alumni. Two members from BITS shall be directors from any two campuses of BITS. The alumni members for the first two years will be Karthik Krishna and Mukul Chawla, both from the 1993 batch. They might want to delegate the nomination responsibility to BITSAA/BITS thereafter. iv. The Committee will shortlist a max of 6 from the received nominations and announce the shortlist. v. The faculty member’s shortlist shall be assessed based on the professional achievements provided on the Application as well as on the essays. vi. Students and other faculty members will be invited to give their recommendations for the shortlisted candidates and 3 nominations will be selected out of the 6. vii. A personal discussion will also be held with the applicants via teleconference or video conference. A few measurable parameters for selection, by no means to be considered exhaustive, are listed below. a. Innovation in Instruction (creative methods/courses which enhanced the students’ understanding and learning) b. Professional Achievement (publications, projects, committee membership etc.) c. Contributions to BITS Pilani (involvement in activities outside the classroom) d. Commitment to student success (success of students in his/her courses, involvement of students in his/her projects/publications) e. Contributions towards neighborhood societal development. 4. Management of the Scholarship i. The nomination process shall commence at the earliest. ii. The decisions regarding the awards shall be taken within 3 months after the start of the nomination process. iii. The selection committee, consisting of Karthik Krishna and Mukul Chawla and two directors from BITS (Pilani/Dubai/Goa/Hyderabad), shall evaluate the applications and select the recipient of the Excellence Award. The decision of the Committee shall be final and binding. iv. BITS will be responsible for publicizing the award internally in all campuses as well as calling for nominations. BITSAA International shall advertise the details of the award winner to the alumni community through various channels. v. All the Applications shall be shared to BITSAA International for publicity. 5. Presentation of award i. The award shall be presented during the technical festival of the BITS campus to which the faculty belongs to in the presence of a BITS alumnus or VC/Director of the campus.
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Launching the New India eStore Thinking about what’s happening at Pilani campus for Oasis? Wondering what t-shirts are being sold on Goa campus this October? Curious about the Hyderabad campus’ festive merchandise? BITSAA is delighted to announce the re-launch of its India e-store for the alumni. This time, we partnered with GoUntucked to make a wide range of merchandise available to our Indian junta. Going forward the e-store will be updated on a regular basis, with new designs from various events from all the Indian campuses. Winning designs from regular design competitions will be up on the e-store accompanied with the suitable merchandise
for
sale.
The
eStore
team
appreciates your valuable feedback on how much you like the merchandise, how pleased you are with buying from the new Indian e-store, how we could improve and enhance the store to make your overall experience as rich as possible. Visit http://www.bitsaa.org/?page=eStoreIndia to order!
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Miles BITSAA Miles continues its host of success stories in sponsoring the travel requirements of the students and faculty from BITS, participating in prestigious international conferences far and wide, in the field of science, engineering, economics and management. In 2011, Miles sponsored the travel requirements of Prof. Rajiv Singh for his presentation at the IEEE conference on Intelligence Transportation Systems held at Virginia Tech. This initiative was carried out at short notice, considering arrangement of tickets, thanks to the collaboration with the United Airlines Charity program. The BITSAA charity miles account within this program has the benefit of accumulating the frequent flyer miles donated by BITS Alumni, which is then used to issue tickets to the chosen scholars. The program in its pilot phase has raised over 250,000 miles and awarded travel support to 4 worthy candidates in both the Pilani and Goa campuses of BITS-Pilani. There is already a current application from an Assistant Professor of Mathematics in BITS Pilani for participating in Mathematics conference. There is also an urgent need to raise 150,000 miles to award two more deserving candidates by 2011. We urge the BITSian community to contribute miles to help us fulfill the dreams of these scholars. All you have to do is pledge your United Mileage Plus account miles in the online donation form at http://www.bitsaa.org/?page=Miles#Form. Please note that the miles from the One-Pass program of Continental Airlines can be donated as well - they can be converted to United Mileage Plus miles, for free! If you have miles that are about to expire, donating to BITSAA Miles will re-activate the account and in addition, the remaining miles will be redeemable for the next 18 months, on top of helping a fellow BITSian in need. For more details please visit this webpage.
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BITS2MSPHD BITS2MSPhD is an initiative for BITS Pilani students and alumni who have set their sights on pursuing MS and Ph.D. programs from the world's leading universities and institutes. In 2011, BITS2MSPhD continued to create impact on the BITSian community by providing support and guidance to prospective applicants. Our achievements for 2011 include the following: •
119 students (60 from Pilani and 59 from Goa) got admission to MS and/or Ph.D. programs in 81 different universities for the Fall 2011 semester. There were a total of 371 admits offered to these 119 students; 36% of the admitted students were offered some form of financial aid.
•
The membership of the group has grown to more than 3200 current students and alumni (as of November 2011). This is an increase of nearly 40% in the last two years.
•
Dhruv Balwada (MS student, University of Florida) conducted an online talk for MS/PhD aspirants at all three campuses, in conjunction with BITS Embryo.
•
A series of weekly email articles under the title "Monday Learning" was initiated in October 2011. These articles tried to chart out for the applicants in the current year, different milestones during their application process, and provided pointers for reaching those milestones.
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BITS2BSCHOOL 2011 has been eventful for BITS2BSCHOOL. The group is now 2800+ strong with increasing requests from on-campus students to join and leverage the group’s expertise to aim for top B-Schools. This year saw BITSians in 12 of the top 15 of Financial Times’ Global MBA programs, including Harvard Business School, INSEAD, Cornell-Johnson, and ISB. We had Vidyashankar MV, a HBS 2+2 student, deliver a tri-campus (Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad) video talk to 300+ students on programs targeting final year college students and Naveen Patha, LBS Alum, guiding Hyderabad campus students on planning for an MBA and starting-up early while in college. One of the major activities currently underway is the “BITS2BSchool Goes to B-School” program. The aim of this program is to increase brand “BITS, Pilani” recall factor among the admissions committees at top-25 B-Schools around the globe with help from Campus Ambassadors in each school. 25+ BITSians from 25 Schools around the globe and covering 4 programs have already volunteered to help us. An e-interview series with this year’s admits to delve deeper into their journey from BITS to B-School has been initiated for the benefit of future applicants. There were “B-School Coffee Chats” conducted by Stanford GSB and LBS Alums in Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad for the general benefit of current applicants. As practiced every year, a B-School directory with information of Alumni from the 1990 batch to the present batch has been released. The process to avail this directory is being automated through a registration page on BITSAA.org, so members are just a form away to get in touch with BITSian MBAs. This form would also help in capturing data to better understand the needs of BITSIANS. Since 2006, the group assists prospective applicants by way of discussion forums, lecture series and application tips. All BITSians who want to master the admissions process and get a coveted seat in their dream business school are welcome.
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BITS2Marathon The BITS2Marathon group is a group for fellow BITSians and alumni to help budding runners achieve their dream of running a Marathon (42.195km). The initiative was started by BITSians, who are also recreational runners, with the main aim of promoting running within the BITSian community and to use it as a means to network and stay connected
with
friends.
You
can
find
out
more
about
the
group
at
www.bits2marathon.com. The hugely successful 5k run in various global locations best exemplifies the enthusiastic BITSian. The run served a dual purpose of both helping reconnect with old batch mates as well as raise contributions for the BITSConnect 2.0 program. The 3rd edition of BITS 5K Run, co-hosted by BITS2Marathon and BITSAA on November 6th, 2011, was a huge success with over 150 BITSians hitting the roads in 30 cities across the world. We had people crawling / walking and some running the 5k. Clearly, the best part of the run was the ‘finish’ and the post run ‘latcha’ session. The main goal of the run was to motivate BITSians all around the world to bring running into everyone’s life and thereby a healthy lifestyle. Although the general idea was to run as a bunch and meet other BITSians in the process, the run was virtual and we had many runners running a route of their choice on the same day! This run also raised close to $500 for the BITS Connect 2.0 program, through the contributions by the runners.
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Appendix A: BITSAA Donation Form INTERNATIONAL Please fill this out and mail to: BITSAA International, Attn: CFO, BITSAA International,1560 Sunnyvale Saratoga Road, Suite 200,Sunnyvale, CA 94087-4597 DONOR INFORMATION Name: BITS Batch (year of entry) and Degree(s): Street Address: City, State, Zip: Phone Number: Email Address: DONATION AMOUNT Recurring Donations Donation Mechanism
Yes, please send me reminders for donation every ______ months No, I would prefer to make a one-time donation I’ve enclosed a check payable to ‘BITSAA International’ I will donate by credit card on www.bitsaa.org/donations
Please mark ‘X’ against the initiative(s) that you would like to contribute to, along with the allocation: ______ BITSAA General Fund Donate: $______________________ ______ Faculty Enrichment Donate: $______________________ ______ Student Enrichment Donate: $______________________ ______ BITS Connect 2.0 Donate: $______________________ ______ ATMANIRBHARA Donate: $______________________ ______ Other/Create Endowment (specify) Donate: $______________________ ______ BITSAA Miles Program Donate: _________________Miles United Airlines Mileage Plus Account Number: ______________________ Miles Expiration Date___________________ In case of other airlines, if you are willing to pledge a minimum of 30000 miles, please mention the name of the airlines. We will contact you regarding the same. CREATING AN ENDOWMENT: A time-limited endowment in your name or in the name of a loved one can be created with a reasonable sized donation. For example, a $44,000 endowment donation can create an annual disbursement covering 25% of the tuition fee at BITS Pilani for 20 years.
> The numbers above are based on Year 2012-13 annual tuition of Rs.1.25 Lakhs (USD $2500) p.a. > BITSAA International reserves the right to review and modify the amount, periodicity, and duration of the scholarships /awards at intervals and during circumstances deemed appropriate and / or extraordinary by BITSAA Such circumstances include, but are not limited to, fee inflation in excess of assumptions (currently 18-20% p.a.), or a prolonged period of financial market distress that depresses investment returns below our current 6% assumption > Minimum duration of endowed scholarships is 10 years (25%, or 40%, or 80% of annual fees) BITSAA will gladly customize the endowments to meet the desire of donors. For example, for a given amount we can reverse engineer the endowment, and so on. Please contact us to do so. DONATING SECURITIES Have you thought about donating securities to BITSAA International? BITSAA can sell your securities and the proceeds used towards the initiative or program of your choice. Appreciated securities (stocks/mutual funds) held for more than one year can result in double tax benefits. If you are interested, please contact us at finance-team@bitsaa.org and we will send you more information to coordinate this transfer to BITSAA International. Yes, I am interested. Please contact me at my email ID.
No, Thank You.
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Appendix B: BITSAA Donation Form INDIA Please fill this out and mail to: Office of Alumni Affairs, Attn: Prof Arya Kumar, BITS Pilani, Pilani, Rajasthan 333031 (Please mention “BITSAA International” in the covering text and send us an email at finance-team@bitsaa.org) DONOR INFORMATION Name: BITS Batch (year of entry) and Degree(s): Street Address: City, State, Zip: Phone Number: Email Address: DONATION AMOUNT Recurring Donations Donation Mechanism
Yes, please send me reminders for donation every ______ months No, I would prefer to make a one-time donation I’ve enclosed a check payable to ‘BITS Pilani’ with instructions about the funds I will donate by credit card on www.bitsaa.org/donations
Please mark ‘X’ against the initiative(s) that you would like to contribute to, along with the allocation: ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ ______
BITSAA General Fund Faculty Enrichment Student Enrichment BITS Connect 2.0 ATMANIRBHARA Other/Create Endowment (specify) BITSAA Miles Program
Donate: Rs______________________ Donate: Rs______________________ Donate: Rs______________________ Donate: Rs______________________ Donate: Rs______________________ Donate: Rs______________________ Donate: __________________Miles
United Airlines Mileage Plus Account Number:___________________ Miles Expiration Date___________ : In case of other airlines, if you are willing to pledge a minimum of 30000 miles, please mention the name of the airlines. We will contact you regarding the same. Creating an endowment: A time-limited endowment in your name or in the name of a loved one can be created with a reasonable sized donation. For example, a Rs 44 Lakhs endowment donation can create an endowed chair for 20 years. Please contact us for more information. DONATING SECURITIES Have you thought about donating securities to BITSAA International? BITSAA can sell your securities and the proceeds used towards the initiative or program of your choice. Appreciated securities (stocks/mutual funds) held for more than one year can result in double tax benefits.
•
You receive gift credit and an immediate income tax deduction for the fair market value of the securities on the date of transfer, no matter what you originally paid for them.
• •
You pay no capital gains tax on the securities you donate. You can direct your gift to a specific fund or purpose.
If you are interested, please contact us at finance-team@bitsaa.org and we will send you more information and coordinate this transfer to BITSAA International. Yes, I am interested. Please contact me at my email ID.
No, Thank You.
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