BITSAA Annual Report 2014 by BITSAA International

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CONTENTS

CAREER CENTER

COVER STORY

BITSIANS’ DAY

PROJECT PARIVARTAN

14 CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS

MESSAGE FROM THE VICE CHANCELLOR

BITSAA BOARD

LEADERSHIP 2014

CAREER CENTER

SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS

CHAPTER ACTIVITIES

BITS SPARK 44 BITS2BSCHOOL 46 BITS2MSPHD 48 BITS2MARATHON 50 OTHER INITIATIVES 55 PROJECT PARIVARTAN 58 INVESTMENT COMMITTEE 62 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS

CHAPTER ACTVITIES

OTHER INITIATIVES

VOLUNTEER AWARDS 67 HOW TO DONATE 70 STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS 72 LIST OF DONORS 73 MEET THE ANNUAL REPORT TEAM

CONNECT WITH US

SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS

CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS

Dear BITSians, I hope all of you had a memorable 2014. The leadership team at BITSAA International, along with the Board, had set out specific goals for the year 2013. Thanks to your active participation and support, our Alumni Association has made exellent progress. Let me highlight some of the big achievements of 2014: BITSAA International kick started the Bridges to the Future fundraising campaign in Dec 2011 and BITSAA set out to raise the $1 Million before BITSAA Global Meet 2014. I am extremely happy to inform you that BITSAA has exceeded the expectations and has crossed $1 Million– thanks to generous donors like you. The funds raised has been supporting various initiatives for BITS Pilani and its alumni. The leadership team at BITSAA has always pursued programs that we believe will not only benefit BITS Pilani but serve as a model for other colleges across India thereby benefiting the broader society. One such initiative is the BITSConnect 2.0. Spearheaded by alumni, this project has put BITS Pilani on the map of the finest universities in the world for leveraging technology in education. It comes as no surprise that BITSConnect 2.0 recently won the EDGE award from Informationweek. BITS Pilani forged a partnership with edX, a MOOC platform comprising a worldwide consortium of universities, including the prestigious MIT and Harvard University. BITS Pilani is a contributing member, and will use edX to enhance its learning experience of its on-campus courses and will also MOOC courses to students outside of BITS. This new initiative will support the objectives of BITS in expanding its technology footprint in education using tools, technology and platform from edX. I would like to thank all our Board Members, especially Viggy Mokkarala, S P Kothari and Shashikant Kandhelwal, for their efforts to put this in place. BITSAA organized its second BITSians’ day on the 1st of August, 2014. The event saw tremendous participation from all you BITSians! BITSians’ day was celebrated across 100

Chairman’s Address offices across the globe, with Microsoft officially acknowledging the BITSians in their office by re-tweeting a photo of BITSians at Microsoft. The event was held in 45 different chapters across the globe, with more than 2500 BITSians coming together to celebrate. BITSians in remote places such as Tanzania, Africa and Ganjam, Orissa, India also came together on this day. Unfortunately, I was away from home but was lucky to celebrate the BITSians Day in Columbus, Ohio which could have a chapter of its own soon. With the help of Balraj Varma (74-79) and Shobna Varma (76-81), long time residents of Columbus and already very active in the community, particularly with the BITSians, we were able to gather over 25 BITSians on a very short notice. BITS Pilani has been awarded the inaugural FICCI Higher Education Award 2014 for “ICT Integration” 2014. The award was presented by Mr. Greg Clark, UK’s Minister of State for Universities, in the presence of Shrimati Smriti Irani, Minister HRD, and Ms. Niikki Randhawa Haley, Governor of South Carolina (USA), Mr. Mohandas Pai Chair, FICCI HE Committee. Among other things, BITS was recognized for use of ICT in online BITSAT exam since 2005, ERP integration for academic and administrative functions since 2013, TelePresence based classrooms and conference facilities since 2013, and for recent efforts to introduce e-Attendance and edX based MOOCs/SPOCs courses. This is not to mention the massive ICT infrastructure, portals and the various application services/software developed in-house and run for several years. All these achievements would not have been possible without the support of you BITSians, and I wholeheartedly thank you all! I am confident that you will continue to support us and BITSAA will scale greater heights. I also thank all the volunteers for their tireless efforts which helps us realize our goals. Starting as a three member organization over a decade back, BITSAA International is now a 200 people strong global volunteer team and serves over 40,000 alumni across the globe. Thank You Jayan Ramankutty Chairman, BITSAA International ***

BITSAA BOARD BOARD OF TRUSTEES - 2014 Jayan Ramankutty (’75)

Aditi Pany (’00)

Raju Reddy (’76)

Srikanth Krishnamurthy (’88)

Chairman

Trustee

Dr. SP Kothari (’74) Trustee & Chairman Emeritus

Viggy Mokkarala (’76)

Trustee

Shashikant Khandelwal (’97) Trustee

Abhinav Khushraj (’95)

Trustee & Chair Fundraising Committee

Trustee

Chandra Bhople (’74)

Sandhya Prakash(’87)

Niranjan Bose (’92)

Rajesh Chelapurath (’88)

Trustee

Deepak Sharma (’91) Trustee

Pradeep Sethi (’72) Trustee

Trustee

C S Goel (’74)

Vice Chair, Bitsaa Chapters Council & Trustee (ex-officio)

Sudeep Jain (’86)

Vice Chair, Bitsaa Chapters Council & Trustee (ex-officio)

BITSAA Board

BOARD OF ADVISORS Sarath Kolla (’93)

Anupendra Sharma (’87)

Advisor - Bitsaa International

Co-Founder & Advisor, Bitsaa International

Brij Bhushan (’60)

Arun Aravind (’97)

Ramaswamy Nagarajan (’61)

Krishna Hegde (’96)

Trustee & Chair, New Scholarships and Endowment Committee

Advisor - Bitsaa International`

Dr. AP Mathur (’70)

Venu Palaparthi (’87)

Advisor - Bitsaa International

Aalap Tripathy (’04) Advisor - Bitsaa International

Advisor - Bitsaa International

Co-founder & Advisor Bitsaa International

Kaushik Subramanian (’01)

Advisor - Bitsaa International`

Ashish Garg (’97) Advisor - Bitsaa International

BITSAA INDIA TRUST Dr. Ashok Agarwal (‘60)

B Ramesh (’63)

O P Jagetiya (’66)

Shiv Kumar Tayal

Sanjay Khendry (’82)

Shiv Shankar Asthana

Board Member

LEADERSHIP 2014 EXECUTIVE TEAM Rohit Koul (’02)

Chief Executive Officer & Trustee

Abhisheak Iyer (’02)

Chief Financial Officer & Trustee

Shwetha Kailash (’08) Chief Marketing Officer

Chief People Strategy Officer & Trustee

Suresh Sajja (’03)

Chief Technology Officer

Kalyan Krishnamani (’97)

Chief PR Officer

GROWTH TEAM

INVESTMENT

BITS2MSPHD

Hari Prasath (’04)

Koti Mylavarapu (‘01)

Varsha Rajshekar (‘07)

Director

Manager

Reuben George (’09)

Vasudha Nukala (‘07)

Adwait Gandhe (‘08)

Lohit Uppalapati (’10)

BITS2MARATHON

Manoj Kambadur (’05)

Divesh Kumar (‘06)

Manish Kumar (‘05)

Siddharth Gupta (‘07)

Ishaan Biswas (‘07)

Robin Garg (‘07)

Apoorvaa Deshpande (‘08)

Jyoth Kali Prasad Bhogaraju (‘12)

Manasa Gopal (‘09)

Manager

Team Leader Team Leader Volunteer

BITS SPARK Rajesh Damarapati (‘96) Director

Volunteer

Director

Manager Manager

Manager

Raghu Raman (’04)

Team Leader

Harshad Deshmukh (‘06) Team Leader Team Leader Team Leader Team Leader Team Leader

Ashwin Naik (‘08) Team Leader

Leadership 2014

BITS2BSCHOOL Anurag VNVJ (’06) Manager

Avneesh Singh (‘06) Team Leader

Animesh Tambi (‘07) Team Leader

Prateek Chaudhary (‘07) Volunteer

CAMPUS RELATIONS Utkarsh Mehrotra (‘09) Director

Shruti JP Mehta (‘03) Manager

CAMPUS RELATIONS (contd.)

COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING (contd.)

Angad S Oberoi (‘11)

Karthik Ganesh (‘10)

Member

Tanish Anand (‘11) Member

Aditi Kulkarni (‘12) Member

Amitabh Aggarwal (‘12) Member

Anjali Sinha (‘12) Member

Raghav Jajodia (‘12) Member

Shivam Darmora (‘12) Member

Team Leader

Varun Kumar Gampa (‘04) Team Leader

Priyatham Dharmana (‘11) Team Leader

Satyavihar Kothamasu (‘09) Team Leader

Kruthika Sundaram (‘04) Team Leader

Hina Jain (‘07) Team Leader

Akshit Sandooja (‘11)

Tushar Vatsa (‘13)

Dalan Mendonca (‘08)

Team Leader

Volunteer

Team Leader

Parth Goel (‘11)

Sourav Banerjee (‘13)

Kaveri Singhal (‘09)

Volunteer

Team Leader

Abhinav Gupta (‘08)

COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING

Keshav Parashar (‘10)

Rajarshi Sinha (‘11)

Kaushik Balasubramanian (‘08)

Rahul Priyadarshi (‘11)

Team Leader

Team Leader Team Leader

Nilesh Gaurav (‘07) Team Leader

Rajdeep Pundir (‘11)

Director

Bharati Makhijani (‘09) Manager

Team Leader

Lahari Uppuluri (‘07)

Chinmaya Patnayak (‘10)

Devashish Bansal (‘09)

Team Leader

Aditya Sharma (‘12) Member

Manager Manager

Team Leader Team Leader

Yashaswy Akella (‘12) Team Leader

Pradyumna Kiran (‘12) Team Leader

Ankit Chaudhary (‘05) Team Leader

Priya Venkitachalam (‘04) Team Leader

FINANCE

CHAPTER RELATIONS

PEOPLE STRATEGY

Deekshith Vanamala (‘09)

Hari Kishore (‘03)

Anitha Alappat (‘00)

Director

Gaurav Kothari (‘07) Team Leader

Abhirup Mishra (‘06) Team Leader

Anmol Gupta (‘09) Team Leader

Chandan Luthra (‘05) Team Leader

Geethika Kilaru (‘09)

Aditya Garg (‘06) Director

Rohit Agarwal (‘08) Manager

Aashish Takkala (‘07) Manager

Anubhav Agarwal (‘06) Manager

Vice President

Nidhi Gurnani (‘03) Director

Nikhitha Punna (‘05) Manager

Rohit Kulkarni (‘08) Team Leader

Sumit Kumar (‘09) Team Leader

Team Leader

Ashish Rohil (‘06)

CAREER CENTER

Basant Choudhary (‘06)

TECHNOLOGY

Deepak Balaji (‘03)

Abhisek Rathi (‘05)

Manager

Director

Rahul Thakur (‘08)

Aditya Sharma (‘06)

Suhas Kashyap (‘05) Director

Susheel Tatineni (‘05)

Vice President - Operations

Aishwarya Raghavan (‘04) Marketing Head

Vivekananda Murarishetty (‘08)

Technology Manager

Anvesh Gudivada (‘04) UI Manager

Siddharth Biyani (‘09) Team Leader

Rachit Agarwal (‘09) Team Leader

Director

Manager

Yogesh Kansal (‘08) Manager

Pranshu Saxena (‘08) Team Leader

Arjun Kamath (‘05) Team Leader

Kokila Dular (‘08) Team Leader

Amey Limaye (‘08) Team Leader

Team Leader

Prathyush Reddy (‘08) Team Leader

Prakhar Gupta (‘12) Volunteer

Leadership 2014

SCHOLARSHIPS

FUNDRAISING

OPERATIONS

Aastha Mehta (‘07)

Ravi Sekhar Cherukuri (‘97)

Vishrut Shukla (‘05)

Director

Surya Santosh (‘07) Manager

Sowmyavadhana (‘04) Manager

Padma Priya (‘10) Team Leader

Shreeraman Raghavan (‘07) Team Leader

Pavan Kumar Mullangi (‘08) Team Leader

Tarin Bansal (‘08) Team Leader

Rama Satya Diwakar Grandhi (‘09) Team Leader

Naushik Desai (‘72) Volunteer

Vice President

Rekha Somasundaram (‘04) Manager

Vice President

Saagar Gadhok (‘08) Director

Sashidhar Battu (‘06)

Arun Vinayak (‘08)

Manager

Bandan Jot Singh (‘05)

Hardik Tiwari (‘08)

Team Leader

Manager

Ajay Soni (‘97)

Ankit Surolia (‘10)

Team Leader

Gaelen Pereira (‘06) Team Leader

Shubhra Sharma (‘07) Team Leader

Abhinav Yadav (‘09) Team Leader

Rohit Suvarna (‘09) Team Leader

Shashwat Nandan (‘06) Team Leader

Sanjeev Ramisetty (‘06) Team Leader

Nayan Goyal (‘10) Team Leader

Yatharth Chaturvedi (‘09) Team Leader

Team Leader

Srikanth CS (‘06) Team Leader

Sanket Jain (‘05) Team Leader

Sujay Jain (‘06) Team Leader

Sunalini Sinha (‘08) Team Leader

Siddhartha Bahl (‘10) Team Leader

Sandeep Murisetty (‘09) Team Leader

Anirudh Sharma (‘09) Volunteer

COVER STORY

’ The day all BITSians decided to go back to college. From fresh graduates to oldest BITSians alive, across chapters and batches, every BITSian walked down the memory lane, to every redi, every fest and every screwed up test. Incidents and accidents and laughing riots resurfaced, crushes were reborn, every BITSian was a campus trotting teenager this day. 4 (or 5) years packed into a day of nostalgia and reminiscence. Such was BITSians’ Day 2014. The second edition of BITSians’ day saw a jump of 150% in the number of participants, with the day being celebrated in remote locations like Ganjam, Orissa and Tanzania. BITSians everywhere sought up to meet fellow BITsians and connect with them, result being new chapters springing up in new places. The BITSAA Hong Kong chapter got created in such a way. BITSians volunteered to organize celebrations at workplaces. 45 chapters across the globe organized large scale get-togethers, with some chapters having celebrations at multiple locations within a city. Social media went abuzz with BITSians recalled their fondest #BITSMemories on Facebook and Twitter thus connecting online with their faraway mates.

14 04

Cover Story: BITSiansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Day

Latentview, Chennai

Amazon, Hyderabad

Nvidia, Bangalore

ARM, Bangalore

Texas Instruments, Bangalore

Aruba, Bangalore

Thorogood, Bangalore

BITSians in Bhopal Broadcom, Bangalore

16 04

Oracle, Hyderabad

Syniverse, Bangalore

Cover Story: BITSiansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Day

Credit Suisse, Mumbai

BITSians at EGL, Bangalore

eBay, Bangalore

Ericsson R & D, Bangalore

Google, Mountain View, CA J P Morgan, Mumbai

BITSians in Gurgaon

Factset, Hyderabad

Flipkart, Bangalore

Z S Associates, Pune

BITSians in Tanzania, Africa

18 04

VMWare, Bangalore

Cover Story: BITSiansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Day

IIM, Bangalore

BITSians in Singapore

Beckman Coulter, Bangalore

XLRI, Jamshedpur

S T Microelectronics

Cisco, India

20 04

Cover Story: BITSians’ Day

CAREER CENTER With nearly 400 days since the inauguration of the BITSAA Career Center platform at BGM 2014, we dedicate an article to sharing its growth and success so far. The idea of creating such a platform evolved with the intent to build a support structure related to career services for BITSians. Those services which donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist so far are being built from scratch and for those that are already pres ent; the team is consolidating the disparate sources into one centralised platform any BITSian would like to visit either on his desktop/laptop or his mobile device. So far a methodology of continuous product improvement made significant development efforts to build on top of the minimum viable product that was launched during BGM 2014. The successful team have acknowledged their success thanks to the support of its partners from the B-School, MS-PhD, Mentoring teams, and the BITSAA Tech team. The teams are spread across the world and are from all the campuses.

Overview of the platform The Career Center currently comprises of the three wings of Jobs marketplace, higher studies and mentoring. In terms of adding value to the community, the platform boasts of multiple facets. With a user base of already thousands of BITSians, it is quite active. With 3 jobs and applications being posted every two days, an extensive B-School and MS-PhD admit database already live and three on-campus mentoring sessions conducted in three months it is enterprising as well. Forty top notch articles ranging from higher studies to mentoring also have come out on the blog front.

SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS 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. BITSAA Merit-cum-Need Scholarships The Merit-cum-need (MCN) scholarships are a category of scholarships offered by BITS to students from weaker financial backgrounds based on their academic performance and merit. Testimonials show that the students have greatly benefitted 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 2013-14.

Scholarships & Awards Testimonials (MCN winners) Tanveesh Inani: I am a student of B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering (2nd year). I was a member of the Mechanical Association executive team as well as am a member of the Dance Club. I am grateful to the generous founder of the Rakesh Chandra scholarship and I appreciate his thoughtfulness in making it easier for students who aspire higher goals in life and to encourage them to work even harder to fulfill their dreams by supporting them financially. I belongs to a middle class family and it was difficult for me to continue studying in BITS. This scholarship has helped me in times of my need and I take this opportunity to express my thanks to you. Tanmayee Kher: I thank the donors for instituting this scholarship for the students’ assistance. Their help in lightening our financial burden is deeply appreciated. Anurag Goyal: I would like to thank all BITSAA donors for providing me this scholarship. I am currently pursuing BE (Hons.) Civil engineering. I was very happy when I came to know that I am a recipient of this scholarship. It means a lot to me as I hail from a middle-class family and my parents work very hard to fulfil my dreams. Receiving a scholarship instituted by our own alumni has motivated and inspired me to do my best in all my endeavours. I further plan to go for higher studies after my BE. Bhanu Priya: I am Bhanu Priya, a 4th year student at BITS-Pilani, Pilani Campus, currently pursuing M.Sc. (Hons) Biological Sciences and B.E. (Hons) Computer Science. Biosciences fascinates me and I wish to pursue higher education in the same discipline. I am extremely grateful to Mr. Suraj and the BITSAA Team for giving me this scholarship. Deeksha Dadhich: I am writing this to thank you for granting me BITSAA scholarship. The scholarship is very important to me and I am appreciative of your consideration. I am enrolled in BE (Hons.) Electronics and Instrumentation in BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus and wish to study Optoelectronics in active components post graduation if circumstances allow. The scholarship has encouraged me to strengthen these plans. Currently, I am paying my tuition fee mostly through a bank loan. Your support has allowed me a relaxation in the strain caused by increasing fee. I shall strive to make this donation count. Manish Ojha: I am Manish Ojha, a 2nd year undergraduate student at Bits Pilani Goa. I am from a small town Sahibganj in Jharkhand. I belong to a lower middle class family. I was delighted to learn that I have been recognized as recipient of BITSAA’s Merit cum Need scholarship for Sem 2, 2013. I’m very fortunate to benefit from your contributions. Your contributions make a real difference! Medha Pandey: I am a third year Chemical Engineering student. I have served as Joint Secretary and Editor of the Chemical Engineering Association, BITS Pilani and I am also an active member of the Hindi Drama Club, BITS Pilani. This institution has given me an opportunity to explore and enhance my capabilities and flourish as an individual. I am honoured to have been awarded the prestigious S.S. Sheshadri Memorial Scholarship and this has given me a great deal of motivation to consistently perform and excel at my academics. I am extremely thankful to BITSAA and express my gratitude to the donors for the same.

Priya Agarwal: I’m Priya Agarwal, a third year student pursuing B.E. Civil in Bits Pilani. I’m a proud recipient of BITSAA Alumni Scholarship. This scholarship grants me the opportunity to focus on higher studies and helping me in achieving my future goals. Scholarships of this kind motivate girls to excel in every aspect. I’m really thankful to BITSAA again for considering me the deserving candidate for this scholarship. Motivated by your support I’ll also try to do something for quality education among girls in future. 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:

We highlight 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.

Scholarships & Awards Winners (2013-2014) Project: Mudra - A Braille Dicta Students: Sanskriti Dawle (2012A7PS083G) Aman Karan Srivastava (ID No. 2012A7PS126G) Shaikh Saif Ali (ID No. 2013A4PS183G) Project description: Project Mudra aims to tackle the abysmal rates of Braille literacy. A working prototype using a single celled refreshable display and a non visual application has been developed. In the future they plan to build smarter and more intelligent systems in order to impart customised and tailored knowledge to the user. More information can be found at http://projectmudra.com. Testimonial (SuRa award winners): “We are deeply honoured to receive the SuRa award. It will really help us in our next step i.e. testing our prototypes in a school for the blind. Apart from the financial support, the award will also enable us to use the Institute’s 3D printer which is a major part of our prototyping. We feel very grateful for receiving recognition and support from our own college - it will ‘kickstart’ the next phase of Project Mudra.“ BITSAA-IRU Partial Travel Grant supports the travel expenses of students participating in academic events of International repute. BITSAA awarded two travel grants in 2014. The winner details are given below: Student Name Amount Conference Talati Nishil Rakeshbhai INR 25,000 ISOCC 2014, Jeju, South Korea V. Neeharika INR 25,000 2014 International Conference on Optical MEMS and Nanophotonics, Glasgow, Scotland Zero Percent Loan scholarship is aimed at providing assistance for various academic purposes such as under graduate studies at BITS, paper publications, attending international conferences, seminars and competitions, MS/PhD applications etc. In the year 2014, Bitragunta Siva Prasad was awarded 1,100 USD through our 0% loan scholarship. Other scholarships and awards 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. (27 applications in 2014 compared to 16 in 2013). 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 (2014): Apoorva Musunuri (2010B2A2096H) Kratarth Goel (2011A7PS105G) Vishaal Mohan (2011AAPS006H) Prof. I J Nagrath Student Project fund The “Prof. I J Nagrath Student Project fund” 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. Winners (2014) Project: Design and Development of Power Quality Improvement Circuit for Household Applications Students: Navneet Tripathi (2013A8PS383P) Ghazi Ahmed (2011A8PS319P) Vaibhav Garg (2013A3PS587P) Faculty: Dr. Pradyumn Chaturvedi Project Description: Due to massive use of non-linear loads (semiconductor devices) in household applications, the power quality of the electrical network degraded because they extract lagging reactive power from the source/grid. It results in poor power factor, less efficiency and increased cost of electricity generation. It also disturbs the neighboring supply networks. Electricity distribution authorities also motivate for improving the power quality indices such as power factor and supply current harmonics. Therefore, it is proposed to design and develop a versatile power quality improvement circuit which can be used anywhere without much complexity in circuit implementation. 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. 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 ID No. Amount Event Sahil Aggarwal 2011B1A2820P INR 20,000 World Business Dialogue, Germany Saurabh Maurya 2012A7PS055P INR 10,000 Jagriti Yatra 2014

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 BGM’14, where selected proj-

Scholarships & Awards ects 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. Finalists at BGMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;14: 1. Project Magellan (Goa): Team: Vinit Gela, Tejas Gokhale, Chaitanya Modak, Ninad Kulkarni, M. S. Suraj, Gaurav Baglekar Project Description: To develop a vehicle that can navigate autonomously on a road in a combat scenario, differentiate between various kinds of vehicles (enemy tanks, civilian vehicles, etc.), detect humans and navigate accordingly on a road to the desired destination. Finally the robot will communicate the acquired information to a local server. 2. Project Sthairya (Pilani): Team: J. Krishna Murthy, Gourav Kumar, Bhargav Jha, Abhishek Modi Project Description: To build an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to aid in the Navigation of a Swarm of Ground Robots in GPS-Denied Environments 3. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Pilani) Team: Tushar Anupam, Gaurav Kaushik, Vedant Sapra Project Description: To develop semi-autonomous UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES (quadcopters) which will be able to precisely navigate and coordinate with other UAVs, efficiently communicate, process videos in real time to detect objects and transmit live data wirelessly to a ground control station. 4. Project Anant (Pilani) Team: Hemant Kumar Singh, Akash Gupta, Parth Garg, Dr. Rikamntra Basu Project Description: To develop and launch a nano-satellite but also to test two new emerging and cost effective technologies, FPGA based on board computing and MEMS based microthruster propulsion system. 5. AcYut (Pilani) Team: Kaustubh Nawade, Tarang Shah, Akshay Morey, Shreyas P Dixit, Pranet Verma, Anand Parwal, V Aditya, Pratyush Kar Project Description: Design, Development and Engineering of a 28 DOF Humanoid Robot capable of stable walking, object detection and obstacle avoidance. 6. Robocon (Pilani) Team: B Naveen, SP Arjun Ram, Anirudh Ramesh, A Rushyant Reddy, Srigiriraju V P S Sai Krishna, Shah Tejas Yogesh, Varun Prabodh Sharma, Joel Ruben Antony Moniz, Anumula Sai Venkat Reddy Project Description: To design two robots which will perform a set of pre-defined tasks, one being autonomous and the other manual controlled 7. Grease Monkeys (Goa) Team: Shashank Bassi, Akshay Agarwal Project Description: To create a formula-style open-wheel open-cockpit racecar 8. Parallax Error Lens (Hyderabad) Team: Sampanna Kahu, Srijan Kumar Sharma Project Description: Making laptops touchscreen in innovative, easy, cheap and eco-friendly way.

SC Rastogi Scholarship (Was not awarded in the year 2014-2015) Prof. SC Rastogi Merit Scholarship is an award instituted for encouraging students in Biological Sciences stream. Prof. SC Rastogi retired in 1993 as the Head of the Department of Biological Sciences Group from Pilani. Prof Rastogi was involved with BITS, Pilani for more than 35 years and published more than 60 papers and 13 text-books in his illustrious career. He believes that biological sciences as a subject needs encouragement and that is the motivation for instituting the scholarship. Srikant Vishweswaraiah Analog Design Award The award and the fellowship have been instituted in the memory of Srikant Visweswariah, an alumnus of BITS Pilani. Srikant Visweswariah graduated with a degree in Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani in 1971. He lost his 2-year battle with cancer in April 2009. Srikant graduated nearly at the top his class at BITS, chose a career in the Indian Air Force when the whole wide world was open to him. While serving in the IAF he did his M.Tech from IIT, Kanpur. He was persuaded to take early retirement from the IAF by no less a person than Mr Abdul Kalam, the former president of India so that he could lead a team of engineers to develop the avionics for the Light Combat Aircraft for the IAF. When Srikant was satisfied that he had done his bit for the LCA project and the nation, he took on a variety of assignments – from being a co-founder of a software company to the group R&D manager at General Motors, but most of all, he did, what he loved the most – travel the world. Winners 2014-2015: First Prize - Sakdeo Amogh Vivek Second Prize - Karan Bhargava Third Prize - Anoop Rajeev Shashi Kishore Research Excellence Award (Was not awarded in the year 2014-2015) Shashi Kishore Research Excellence Award is aimed at promoting research in the field of Economics. Ankur Kumar, the winner of 30U30 Awards, 2012 (’06B3A7G, M.Sc. (Hons.) Economics & B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science Engineering) instituted the award in name of his parents – Mrs. Shashi Prabha (Mother) and Mr. Kishore Sah (Father) to honor students who demonstrate excellence in research as part of academic research or independently in the field of Economics. Mr. Sah currently works as a Deputy Regional Manager with Central Bank of India and Mrs. Prabha is a homemaker. R P Vaid Award The R. P. Vaid Award was instituted by the alumni in honour of Prof. Vaid. The first award coincided with Prof. Vaid’s retirement. A cash prize of Rs. 5,000 is awarded to a deserving Chemical Engineering student, studying in Pilani campus.

Winners 2014-2015: Kaushik Raj - “I am grateful to BITSAA and the Chemical Engineering Association, BITS Pilani for bestowing the R.P.Vaid award for 2014 upon me. It serves as a testament

Scholarships & Awards to my passion for Chemical Engineering and will be an encouraging factor for me to pursue higher studies in Chemical Engineering. This award comes as a result of hard work, persistence and most importantly enjoying what I do. At this point, I would like to thank the faculty of Chemical Engineering at BITS Pilani, my parents, my brother and my friends who have continued to support and inspire me.” Prabhat Award The “Prabhat Award for Best Outgoing Student in Physics” has been instituted by BITS alumnus Mr. Amit Garg (‘89 Physics) from 2010 for a period of three years. The award will be given out in the II Semester (January - May) and consist of a certificate and a cash award of INR 10,000 to one student. Winners 2014-2015: Gorthi Bhavana Deepthi - “I am honoured to have received the Prabhat award for the best outgoing student this year. This award and recognition from the faculty and alumni of BITS Pilani has inspired me in my attempt to pursue research in Physics. It has given me the courage that I needed while stepping into the outside world. I would like to thank Mr. Amit Garg for this excellent initiative, I am hopeful that this will encourage more BITSians to enter Physics research in the future.” Ranvir Trehan Tennis Trophy BITSAA announced the Ranvir Trehan Tennis Tournament Trophy to be given to the Winner of the Tennis tournament at BITS Open Sports Meet ( BOSM ) as a token of thanks for Ranvir’s contribution to the BITSConnect project. Ranvir Trehan, the founder of SETA corporation, is the single biggest donor in the alumni history of the Institute. He graduated from the erstwhile Birla Engineering college, Pilani in 1961 and was the first ever student to attend college on a sports scholarship. Winners 2014-2015: Shri Ram College of Commerce Brij Bhushan Badminton Trophy BITSAA announced the Brij Bhushan Badminton Award to be given to the Winner of the Badminton tournament at BITS Open Sports Meet ( BOSM ) as a token of thanks for Brij’s contribution to the BITSian ecosphere. Brij Bhushan is currently retired from Reston Consulting Group, which he founded in 1986. RCG provides Systems Integration services in the field of telecommunications to the US Federal Government. Brij graduated from BITS Pilani in December, 1964 and subsequently taught there from 1966 to 1969 and had a return engagement during Fall of 2006. Brij holds a Masters from Auburn University (1970) and has completed course work towards Doctor of Engg in EE at Concordia University, Montreal Canada. Brij and his wife Champa (also a BITS alumnus) live in the suburbs of Washington DC and have three grown up children Anju, Anita and Anup. Winners 2014-2015: Shri Ram College of Commerce

Leuna Herkawat Award The Leuna Harkawat award was instituted in memory of Leuna Harkawat, an alumni of the 1987 batch, one of BITS Music Club’s greatest voices, who lost the battle to cancer on April 19, 2003. Leuna, who worked at UNICEF, was an enthusiastic supporter of many worthy children’s causes including Asha.  An annual award of Rs. 5,000 is given to the winning team of Tarang, a music competition at Oasis, the annual cultfest of BITS Pilani. Winners 2014-2015: Shiv Nadar University 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, Mantra Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Mantra Award for Social Leadership and Mantra Innovator of the Year Award. Winners 2014: Sahil Aggarwal – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership Chandeesh Gurajala – Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership Shreyansh Jain – Mantra Award for Innovator of the Year Prannoy Pilligundla – Mantra Award for Innovator of the Year Distinguished BITS alumnus Award BITS Pilani Distinguished Alumnus Award is awarded to the alumni in recognition of their significant and outstanding contributions.The selection was based on the impact of one’s contribution to (a)dissemination or creation of knowledge, (b)enrichment of lives of people, (c)distribution or creation of wealth, or (d)promotion or establishment of high ethical standards in private or public life, as also upon the person’s integrity and stature, and who thereby makes his alma mater proud.

Winners 2014: Prof. Anil Pahwa (Professor at Kansas State University) for Academic Teaching and Research Prof. Gurindar Sohi (Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison) for Academic Teaching and Research

Scholarships & Awards

Dr. Chandrashekhar (Director, CEERI, Pilani) for Professional Management of Businesses Mr. Pradeep Kashyap (Founder and CEO, MART) for Social Entrepreneurship Mr. Raju Reddy (Founder and CEO, Sierra Atlantic; Chairman, BITSAA International) for Entrepreneurship S Venkateshwaran Faculty Excellence Award (Was not awarded in the year 2014-2015) The award is instituted by the generosity of BITS Alumnus Mr. 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 are the 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 thought.” Prof. S Venkateswaran joined this Institute on 30th January, 1974 as a faculty member and later served in various capacities as Dean, Deputy Director, Director, Vice Chancellor and Advisor till 31st December 2009. During his tenure, the Institute expanded and also established new campuses in Dubai, Goa and Hyderabad. He was an outstanding administrator, excellent human being and was highly respected by students, staff, faculty and alumni of the Institute. He was a well-known personality in education in India and abroad. BITSAA 30 under 30 Awards (Still in progress, the results are expected to be out only in the month of October 2015) At the end of 2005, BITSAA instituted the 30 under 30 awards, to be given every three years, to recognize and honor outstanding BITSians under the age of 30 who have demonstrated excellence in one or more of many areas. These awards are dedicated to all those young BITSians who thought and acted differently, who challenged the status quo, rewrote the rules, and created their own paths, to the best examples of what it means to be a BITSian. Batch of 2006 Excellence in CS award “Batch of 2006 Award for Excellence in Computer Science” - commenced in 2013, aims to recognize students from BITS Pilani, (Pilani campus) who exhibit a consistent streak of technical accomplishments in the field of Computer Science. The award offers a citation and an initial cash prize of INR 30,000 to the winner. In addition, additional prize money of up to a maximum of INR 70,000 would be available to the awardee for one year from the time of declaration of the award. The additional prize money will be provided depending on the awardee’s current nature of work and future goals. For example, it can sponsor part of an undergraduate thesis, a visit to a stellar conference, or support towards scaling the awardee’s startup. The awardee is required to work out details of how the additional prize money will be utilized and be prepared to justify them to the alumni who have contributed to the award. The alumni reserve the right to not sponsor any request which does not align with the awardee’s individuality which contributed to him/her receiving the award and which do not contribute towards his/her technical growth. For example, this money cannot be used for vacation, for personal expenses or for general purpose education related expenses like graduate school application/ graduate school fees/simply attending a conference. Unlike the first round money of 30K, this reward needs to be accounted for by the awardee. Winner 2014-2015: Joel Moniz (2012A7PS106P)

S.E.Iyer Scholarship 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 is proud to be a BITSian and is glad to have the opportunity to give back to his alma mater. The Santha E. Iyer educational scholarship is initiated 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. She believed that “Education for girls is the most critical foundation for a society to truly progress.” The scholarship is merit cum need based and is available only to female students from the Pilani campus. Winners of I sem 2014-15: Vrinda Poddar 2014B4PS802, Bhanu Priya 2011B1A7515, Priya Agarwal 2012A2PS517, Neha Agarwal 2013A3PS493 S.S Seshadri Scholarship This scholarship was instituted in honor of S S Seshadri (BITS 1992) who died in a tragic accident a few years ago. The first award was announced in the first semester of 2002-03. The scholarship sponsors full tuition fee for a III year student on merit-cum-need basis. Winners of I sem 2014-15: Harsh Kumar 2012A7PS065 Class of 1966 - 1971 Scholarship 1966-71 batch 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 is to be utilized to award MCN scholarship for female students. Apart from MCN scholarship, the Class of 1966-’71 initiatives also support the following: - 4 awards, each of Rs. 10,000 for BITS students for their outstanding contribution at APOGEE - 4 grants, each worth Rs.5,000 for undergrad students and 2 grants, each worth Rs.10,000 for post-graduate students for publishing papers in reputed journals. Winner of I sem 2014-15: Ramya Mittal 2013A2PS630 Rakesh Chandra Scholarship The Rakesh Chandra Scholarship has been instituted by Rakesh Chandra, an alumni from the class of 1964. Rakesh Chandra graduated from BITS Pilani in December 1964 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. Rakesh did his Masters (Operations Research) from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1967 and completed course work towards Ph.D from New York University. He joined IBM Corporation in 1967 and has worked in US, Mumbai, London, and Paris with IBM. He currently works with IBM in US and lives in Wilton, Conn in US.

Winner of I sem 2014-15: Davinder Pal Singh 2013A3PS010

Scholarships & Awards Pendyala Vamsi Krishna This scholarship was instituted by BITSAA International in honor of Pendyala Vamsikrishna or “Vamsi” (‘92). Vamsi died in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. The scholarship was instituted in the first semester of the academic year 2002 - 03. The scholarship sponsors full tuition fee for a II year student on meritcum-need basis. Winner of I sem 2014-15: Roshini Chhabra 2013A1PS661 Arun Kumar Agarwal Scholarship he Arun Kumar Agarwal Scholarship has been instituted by a 2012 graduate to honour his father. Mr. Arun Kumar Agarwal always believed in helping the needy of the society and facilitating the basic necessities by providing help in every possible way. In continuing his efforts and vision, this scholarship is aimed at helping the young students to remain dedicated to the academics and helping them continue climbing the ladder by reducing a hurdle in their path to success. Winner of II 2013-14 scholarship: Abhishek Kathuria 2013B2PS802P Bhushan Bhatia Scholarship The Bhushan Bhatia Scholarships have been instituted by Brij Bhushan, an alumni from the class of 1964. The name of the scholarship has been derived from Brij’s surname and his wife Champa Bhushan’s maiden surname Bhatia. Winner of I sem 201415 scholarship: Hardik Verma 2014A1PS674G, Ganisha Bhawsar 2014B3PS800G

Ashok Agarwal Scholarship The Ashok Agarwal Scholarship has been instituted by Dr. Ashok Agarwal. Dr. Ashok Agarwal graduated from BITS,Pilani in December 1964 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. Earlier he did his I.Sc and B.Sc also from Pilani. He did his MS and Ph.D from the University of Minnesota. He worked at Bell Labs from 1966-1969 and was a Professor at IIMC from 1969- 1987 and Ford Fellow to Sloan School MIT and University of Minnesota . Ashok is the Founder of SQL Star International ltd, Cyber Media India Ltd, ACS Techonologies Ltd.and Era software systems (P) ltd. He is now Chairman of Special Interest Group on e-governance of Computer Society of India and the Indian Representative on IFIP TC8. He is now settled at Hyderabad India. He is married to Deepa and they have two children, Achal and Ekta both settled in USA. Winner of II sem 2013-14 scholarship: GSSKP Teja 2013AAPS323H Hiralal Agarwal Scholarship The Hiralal Agarwal Memorial Scholarship has been instituted by Bhasker D. Agarwal (’70). This scholarship is awarded to a student who is a native of Faizabad, UP. Bhasker is Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Information Systems and Services, Inc. (ISSI), which he founded in 1987. ISSI’s VisualHOMES software products provide complete property management and real estate software solutions for affordable housing programs. The company’s customers include some of the largest and most well-run housing agencies in North America, managing over one million residents and hundreds of thousands of residential housing units. Bhasker graduated from BITS Pilani in 1970 and holds a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. He has recently founded the Hiralal Agarwal Foundation to provide web-based skills development opportunities to students of low income families in the city of Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh. Bhasker and his wife Sarla live in the greater Washington, DC area and have two grown-up children, Rajan and Anurag. Winner of II sem 2013-14 scholarship: Ayush Gupta 2013A3PS493P

Scholarships & Awards

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CHAPTER ACTIVITIES OASIS 2014 IN BOSTON Reunions are always nostalgic and short but leave profound and everlasting memories. The year 2014 witnessed another glorious Bitsian reunion in the US – Oasis 2014 in Boston. Oasis was recreated this time, not in Pilani but in Boston on 9th Nov 2014. This was the first Oasis organized outside Pilani with more than 160 people attending the event. There were representations across all the four campuses from different batches. The idea was to cast the magical spell of Oasis in Boston as it used to be celebrated in Pilani and provide a platform for socializing and bonding among BITSians of all batches. “We were not sure how the event would turn out nor did we know how many people would come as it is the first time in history that Oasis is conducted outside BITS. However the support and attendance which we got was overwhelming” says Ajay Koul, BITSAA NE Chapter Head (Batch ‘98) This Gala event kick started with a warm reception and the BITSian Junta who came with their families were served their favorite dishes like bread pakoda, banana rabri and paneer maggi with “shikanji” grabbing the maximum attention. This was followed by powerfully nostalgic music and dance performances and some entertaining musical games all steered by hilarious emceeing. For more coverage of the event, do checkout the following YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62wFKrjhn4I BITSians across various batches and campuses bonded well and together put up an extraordinary performance and made the event a very memorable one. The amount of fun and excitement this Boston Oasis has created gives us hope that this tradition will continue.

Chapter Relations

BITS 80s REUNION It was a chilly November in the San Francisco Bay Area. There was palpable excitement in the air. Suvashish Ghosh (‘83 batch) – the master mind sowed the seeds which bloomed to this beautiful reunion. Suvashish along with a group of energetic BITSians – Vijay (‘83), Vikas (‘83) and Ratnesh (‘82) Nivi Padhy (‘85) Anu Murari (‘86) Rajiv (‘80) Venu (‘80) Sriram (‘87) and Sudha (‘86) – formed the core committee spanning the batches 80 to 89, championed this reunion. Having lived years not knowing one’s own batch mates, the notion of motivating and uniting BITSians several degrees apart was a tall order. And if you thought biking to Pahadi was hard, this was a step harder. But the rewards and the descent after the accomplishment paralleled the same heights and sights that Pahadi had injected into our BITSian lives. The Reunion clocks started ticking fast and the core committee got into the full swing of preparations, right from scouting for venues, figuring out events to crafting the agenda. Elaborate thoughts and endless lacha sessions resulting in getting the “where”, “when” and “who” questions answered. The team decided that the reunion had to be a long weekend and they all settled in on the Thanksgiving holidays. Thanksgiving would allow families to travel together and also meet the extended BITS family. The committee also got together and whipped up music, drama and ELAS/HAS for starters. Creative one-off activities with local attractions were thrown in as optional choices. Armed with a decent “agenda” the committee were all ready to jump into action. Initially the core team did face hiccups in getting registrations with enthu meters very low. However it was the exact opposite with the music gang, whose enthu caused needlebending readings. The spotlight was on the music night which was to be the crown jewel of the reunion. The feverish pitch towards the music night began earnestly in the month of October. Virtual rehearsals, conference calls etc. indicated that music night was going to rock on Reunion. The enthusiasm infused video clips of music night practices acted as a catalyst in turning around the re union registration. It served as the perfect trailer to build momentum. It was further bolstered by another music event, a karaoke night in Los Altos, Bay Area with an open invitation to the larger BITS crowd. Finally all the planning paid off and the celebrations kick started from Nov 28th to 30th 2014 in San Francisco. RAF night was organized and Amitabh Bachan’s Don was screened which added more excitement. It was enjoyed by BITSians, their spouses and the kids too. A series of events like fashion show, ELAS/HAS plays, antaskhari, and dumb charades engaged all the BITSians thoroughly. This was followed by Photo-shoots which provided a nice break between ELAS/HAS events and the music night. Set in a beautiful location of Presidio in SFO, the customary group and batch photos turned up some interesting nuggets like the “Bookends of the Reunion: 80 + 89 batch photo”

Chapter Relations

As the final evening of the reunion rolled out, the excitement and anticipation towards the Music night continued to climb higher every minute. The melodies started rolling out with “Deewana Hua Baadal” “Neele Neele Ambar Par” intertwined with the rocking tunes like “Jaane Jaan”, “Piya Thu.” The audience got into the groove heading out to the dance floor. The music night went on for 4 plus hours with nonstop hits that kept coming like a juke box set on automatic. It was a blast from the past with great song selection and brilliant performances. Challenged by geographies and very little practice time, the music night team put up an amazing show. All good things come to an end. This reunion perfectly resonated nostalgic memories, unlimited joys, boundless happiness of good old college days. The BITS80 Reunion was one such reunion which was a journey in itself and truly lived up to the tagline: Reconnect, Relive and Renew the Bitsian Bug. For more details on the event – Check out (https://www.facebook.com/BITS80s)

KHWAAB BITSAA Delhi Chapter team comprising of members from 1960 entrants to 2010 were feeling restless after the hiatus post the tremendous success of the first ever BITSAA Global Meet hosted in January 2011. They were looking at another exciting event that could attract maximum participation of alumni from the region. Over many brain-storming sessions and feedback from a survey sent to all members, the idea of an event that combines the charm of a musical evening with a celebration of a landmark event emerged. As BITS Pilani celebrated its Golden Jubilee, the Delhi NCR chapter decided to host â&#x20AC;&#x153;Khwaabâ&#x20AC;?- an event that would be a Musical tribute to 50 years of incarnation of BITS Pilani as a deemed university on August 29, 2014. On this occasion, they planned to honor the Super Stars who founded the association. They also felicitated the first batch graduates who entered Birla Engineering College or Birla Arts & Science College, all affiliated to Rajasthan University, in 1960 and graduated with a degree from BITS Pilani in December 1964. Maj. Gen. K B Narang (Retd.), an alumnus of first ever 1946 Entry batch of Birla Engineering College was among them on this momentous occasion and addressed the audience. He was honored by the VC, Dr. B N Jain & later by General (Dr.) Vijay Kumar Singh, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, (Retired), Minister of State for External Affairs Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region & Minister of State with Independent Charge Overseas Indians' Affairs, Government of India who had graciously accepted our invitation to grace the occasion as the Chief Guest. An emerging star from the Indian Idol Talent search Anuj Sharma was shortlisted for the Live In Concert of about 60-90 minutes duration. They had the good fortune of having our own Atul Mishra ( '77) who came in as a guest from Mumbai as our very versatile singer. The BITSAA Delhi team worked tirelessly to plan & meticulously execute the plan, with generous support from sponsors Mahagun the Platinum sponsor, World Trade Centre Manesar & Ambuja Cements Limited as Gold sponsors, Sesa Sterlite as a Premium sponsor, MapmyIndia as Seat Sponsor, NTPC Limited, Ashiana Homes, VE Commercial Vehicles Limited & Srijan Technologies as Silver Sponsors, and many other BITSians who supported this event as partners in their individual & corporate capacities. The team met face-to-face almost every week to go through the planning aspects of the event. For the first time in the history of BITSAA Delhi Chapter, the event was fully booked almost fifteen days before it started. There were confirmations from 470 alumni & their spouse based out of Delhi NCR region, with distinguished BITS guests & faculty members and & representatives from BITSAA chapters across the country the total attendance exceed 550 plus children below 12 years! Dr. B N Jain Vice Chancellor BITS Pilani & Mrs. Madhu Jain graced the occasion as Guests of Honor; Prof. G Raghurama Director BITS Pilani Campus & Mrs. Geetha B, Prof. K E Raman, Director BITS Pilani Goa Campus & Prof. Meenakshi Raman & Dr. Arya Kumar President BITSAA Pilani joined the event as Honored Guests. Prof V S Rao, Director, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus &

Chapter Relations

Prof. R N Saha, Director, BITS Pilani Dubai Campus & Dr. R K Metal Director Special Projects BITS Pilani who had last minute engagements that kept them from joining the event and sent their best wishes. Dr. K M Birla Chancellor, who had to travel out with the PM’s delegation to Japan on the same day, also sent his best wishes. It was finally a dream come true for the BITSAA Delhi NCR Executive Committee. As mentioned by Mr. Pradeep Sethi (President BITSAA Delhi NCR), in his personalized message: “Our next Khwaab: May BITSAA DELHI NCR have the privilege & honor to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of BITS Pilani with BITS Pilani brand being recognized as an Ivy League Institution of Learning & Research across the globe in the year 2039!”

BITS SPARK INVESTMENT ROUND 4

BITS Spark is an initiative by BITS alumni, supported by BITSAA, which mentors budding BITSian entrepreneurs. It comprises of three pillars - Spark Angels, Spark Mentors and Spark Connect. The website of the Spark team is bitsspark.org Spark Angels Spark Angels is the funding arm of the BITS Spark initiative. It comprises more than sixty angel investors and six angel groups and syndicates. The BITS Spark Investment Round 4 received a notable 43 number of applications from BITsian start-ups in the months of June and July. The entire process, that is, from the invitation of applications to the finalists pitching to the network, stretched across a duration of six weeks. The evaluation of the applications was looked over by a 14 member steering committee comprising of a subset of angels from the BITS Spark Angel network. A few prominent BITSians in the entrepreneurial space who are part of the committee include Preetish Nijhawan – Co-founder of Akamai Technologies, Anupendra Sharma – Co-founder of Startup Leadership Program, Phanindra Sama – Founder of RedBus, Satish Gupta – Executive Chairman of SenSen Networks and Sundi Iyer of Indian Angel Network.

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BITS Spark

The steering committee picked the 3 startups Nayi Disha, Targeting Mantra and Top Talent after two levels of filtering. The 3 start-up finalists pitched to the entire BITS Spark Angel Network that currently has about BITSian angels and other early stage funds. The 3 start-ups received $1.2 million in investment interest. The start-ups were doing remarkable on the funding front as well. Grey Orange Robotics raised $10 million in Series A funding from Tiger Globzl, Blume Ventures, Alok Rawat (President of FG Wilson FZE), Dileep Nath (Co-founder of Kanbay acquired by CapGemini). Target Mantra, one of the 3 IR finalists, raised $1.1 million from three investors, namely, 500Startups, Nexus Venture Partners and One 97 Mobility Fund. Gigstart, IR 4 applicant raised $210 thousand from Rohit Bansal and Kunal Behl (Snapdeal Founders), Alok Sawhney (GSF Accelarators). Interestingly enough, Alok Rawat from BITS Spark was the largest investor in the syndicate. Another IR finalist, Nayi Disha is in the final stages of raising $300 thousand from BITS Spark Angel Network. The BITS Spark Portfolio companies include Tabtor, e-GMAT, SolarTown, Frame Bench, Grey Orange Robotics, Exotel and GigStart.

BITS2BSCHOOL INITIATIVES BITS2BSchool is a closed group of more than 3000 BITSians. Over time we have started many initiatives to bring the alumni together with the purpose of increasing the BITSian intake in the top business schools of the world. The initiatives range from organizing coffee meet ups, audio conferences, writing blogs, publishing e-interviews, maintaining and sharing alumni databases and forums for MBA admit related discussions. It also includes a holistic analysis of the BITSians admitted to business schools and understanding the admission trends.

Coffee Meet-ups Team usually organizes one coffee meet up every 2-3 months. Recent invitees of the meet ups include alumni from Duke, Kellogg and INSEAD MBA programms. Every coffee meet up sees a participation of around 8-10 MBA applicants.

InterviewBay Deal With support from the Fundraising Team, we have signed an agreement with InterviewBay. com to assist BITSians with B-school interviews and also act as a FR avenue to BITSAA. Salient features of the deal include:  10% discount offered to BITSians on services offered by InterviewBay  10% sale proceeds donated to BITSAA

Going Digital We have collaborated with the Career Center team to leverage the technology platform provided them. Primarily BITS2BSCHOOL has shifted its alumni database onto the Wordpress platform and is also using the ‘Knowledge Center’ (KC) platform to engage with audience through blogs, application advice and e-interviews.

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BITS2BSchool

Alumni Database

We continuously strive to update our database with the latest MBA admits. So far we have captured more than a total of 430 BITSian admits across the globe. Last application year saw around 30 BITSians enter the top 20 global schools such as Wharton, LBS, Tuck, Darden, Duke etc. Currently the online data base has the following features:  List-view report of the entire directory  Detailed view of each BITSian on a single click  Search to the directory based on specific criteria

Blogs / e-interviews We aim to publish one blog entry/ e-interview each month and share it with the BITS2BSchool group. In the recent past alums from LBS, Wharton etc have contributed in such interview sessions. Thanks to WordPress technology of the ‘Knowledge Center’ platform, publishing articles is now a self-administered job handled by BITS2BSchool independently.

Forums / BITS2BSchool Portal Going forward we will provide an extra push to the ‘go-digital’ goal. We intend to publish more interactive content, enhance existing functions and ultimately, engage with users in a sustainable manner.

BITS2MSPHD INITIATIVES Our Vision  Provide guidance and support to BITSians who apply to MS/PhD programs  Establish an active community of BITSians comprising of graduate program alumni, current graduate students and graduate school aspirants  Increase awareness among undergraduates about graduate school and research

BITS2MSPhD Forum http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bits2msphd A forum that allows BITSians aspiring to join graduate schools to connect with BITSians who are currently in graduate schools or have completed their graduate study.  More than 4800 members comprising MS/PhD applicants and alumni  A rich repository of 10000+ messages on application processes, profile development etc.  Between 100-200 messages posted per month with 1800+ messages in 2013-2014

Admit Database A vast collection of BITSians who have been admitted to various graduate school programs in the world since the last 8 years. Total number of students admitted: 232 (Highest documented number of admits in BITS2MSPhD records)

Monday Learning Articles A popular weekly article series for the graduate school applicants to throw light on all aspects of the graduate school application process

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BITS2BSchool

 13 articles published for the Fall 2015 application cycle  4th successful year of running this initiative

Application Support Webinars Cross - campus talks by BITS2MSPhD, which were attended by hundreds of BITSians from all campuses as well as online. These talks address a range of topics from the decision to apply to grad schools to the minute details of the application process. 3 such webinars were held in 2014

Grad School Ambassador Articles and Chat Sessions A first time initiative where BITSians at various graduate schools volunteer to be BITS2MSPhD Ambassadors for their universities and provide university-specific advice and information.  Ambassadors write articles providing an overview about their university based on personal experiences  The article is followed up by a live online chat session with the ambassador where he/she addresses a range of questions asked by participants.  12 such sessions were organized in 2014 with overall positive feedback from ambassadors and applicants!

BITS2MARATHON ANNUAL UPDATE POWERED BY The BITS2Marathon team profusely thanks Hiree for the success of the event. It wouldn’t have been possible without Hiree’s valuable contributions. The BITS2Marathon was held on the 30th November 2014 in memory of Late Prof I. J. Nagrath. The marathon which comprised of a 5kms and 10kms category stood out due to the fact that unlike many marathons, it was held across multiple cities in India, China, UAE, USA, Europe and Australia which saw over 500 participants. It was however interesting how things got into swing for the preparations of the event. With dedicated representatives for the tech team, communications team, fundraising team, volunteers from each city and a race director heading over all matters, the planning and execution for the event were done in perfect sync. The Tech team were responsible for designing the registration page and successfully restarting the BITSAA merchandise page. The communications team worked on the publicity front doing the mailers and also was instrumental in strategizing the whole event. The fundraising team was able to raise an amount of INR 50,000 from a BITSian start-up – MyNoticePeriod. As mentioned earlier, the marathon was held across multiple cities which included Mandawa, Chennai, Mumbai, London, Nagpur, New Delhi, Bay Area, Shanghai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Paris with a 500+ registration count. The marathon did see a participation from BITSians and non-BITSians alike and post its completion there was a mechanism put into place wherein a form was circulated to confirm from runners if they ran and to also collect their running time which was co-ordinated by the respective city volunteers. People who successfully completed the distance were issued certificates as a mark of acknowledgement. The most noteworthy thing though is that an archive of all run pictures collected based on location has been made on the BITS2Marathon Facebook page. After an overview of the BITS2Marathon event from its very start to the end has brought forth the point that the creation of a strong, constant and active BOTS2Marathon is crucial. The team will will focus on finding alternative ways to influence healthy lifestyle amongst BITSians. The BITS2Marathon is also bound to work closely with the BITSAA chapters in various cities to build momentum leading up to events and to effectively coordinate the run day and post run logistics.

BITS2Marathon

5K/10K Run, Mumbai

5K Run, Bangalore

BITS2Marathon

5K/10K Run, Nagpur

5K Run, Delhi

5K Run, Mandawa

5K Run, Chennai

5K/10K Run, Richmond Park, London

5K Run, Shanghai, China

OTHER INITIATIVES BRIDGES TO THE FUTURE A multi-million dollar initiative, with its genesis in BGM 2011, to support alumni led programs in four key areas. Faculty Enrichment Student Enrichment BITS Connect2.0 Community Enrichment : AtmaNirbhara

NAMED TRAVEL & TUITION GRANTS BITSAA International Scholarships is an initiative to encourage the pursuit of excellence and to ensure that no student at BITS, Pilani is denied a holistic educational experience and the opportunity to compete with the best due to a lack of funds. BITS, Pilani alumni have donated over $65,000 to BITSAA International over the years to create 10+ scholarship initiatives spread across all the BITS Pilani campuses.These scholarships have sponsored tuition fees, travel expenses for attending conferences and application costs towards pursuing graduate studies for the students apart from encouraging excellence in academics,sports and liberal arts. Alumni Connect

ALUMNI CONNECT

BITSConnect 2.0 enabled BITS Pilani to set up the largest deployment of Webex for any University and this technology is also available for the alumni to use and connect with one another. (Alumni Connect) The infrastructure can be used by alumni in two ways. (Alumni-Alumni & Alumni-BITS)

BATCH AMBASSADOR PROGRAM

Batch Ambassador Program

Soliciting you to be a BITS Pilani Batch Ambassador. The Batch Ambassador program aims to create batch-wise groups for each batch starting from 1956. Batch wise groups would provide a platform for enabling lost friendships, having intellectual discussion, selforganizing trips, fund-raising, discussing opportunities, learning latest of BITS activities and giving something back to the society together.

BITSAA MILLION MILES CAMPAIGN

BITSAA Million Miles Campaign

BITSAA-SVC will consolidate donated Airline Frequent Flyer Miles and award travel tickets to deserving candidates in BITS for international travel to present technical papers.

BITS ALUMNI MENTORING PROGRAM

BITS Pilani - Alumni Mentoring Program

BITS Alumni Mentoring Program (“BITS-AMP”) helps students and alumni navigate and AMP-lify and enrich their lives beyond BITS. Through mentoring interactions facilitated by BITS-AMP, a student or alumnus will be able to meet and benefit from life experiences and advices provided by alumni mentors. BITSAA Credit Card

BITSAA CREDIT CARD

BITSAA International has partnered with Capital One to launch its newest fundraising program – a BITSAA branded credit card for BITS alumni in the US. This custom credit card has the most memorable and favorite campus picture on the background.Capital One will make valuable cash donations to BITSAA for every purchase you make.

BACK TO BITS - SABBATICAL

Back to BITS : Sabbatical

BITSAA International and BITS Pilani bring to you a unique and fulfilling way to give back to your alma mater. ‘Back to BITS’ is an effort by the BITSAA Campus Relations Team to connect alumni with the BITS campuses to have a sabbatical at BITS Pilani. We have to warn you that all the nostalgia and being around students can make you feel much younger than you are.

HOST A BITSIAN

Host a BITSian : Hospitality for Fundraising Initiative

This Initiative aims at making use of the opportunity provided by an alumni offer to accommodate a BITSian individual or family on holiday or work for Fundraising for BITSAA. The money raised goes as a donation to BITSAA for its various other initiatives. BITS2IAS

BITS2IAS

BITS2IAS is an initiative for BITS Pilani students and alumni who aspire for Indian Civil Services. The Indian Civil Services is considered as the backbone of India and carries great respect and responsibilities. Even though corporate jobs offer lucrative salaries with incentives, a majority of youngsters still compete and crave entry into the prestigious Indian Civil Services held by the UPSC. BITS Embryo

BITS EMBRYO

Embryo is a project to foster strong collaboration of BITS students and faculty with the alumni and friends of BITS Pilani. Through lecture series and collaborative projects, the students can get exposure to the cutting edge technology. It also gives an opportunity to network with the Alumni and friends of BITS, who are reputed academicians and industry leaders.

Other Initiatives

BITS-75 CHARITABLE TRUST & CENTER FOR BITS-75 Charitable Trust and Center for Emerging Technologies EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES BITS-75 Trust aims to promote technology entrepreneurship among BITS students and faculty and inculcate in BITSians the mind-set of ‘Job Creators’ rather than mere ‘Job Seekers’ in the society. One of the major initiatives is to work closely and help BITS set up a 21st century “Center for Emerging Technologies” in Pilani. The trust was formally launched in April 2008 but was conceptualized in 2006. Its members have been proactively interacting with the BITS administration in refining the ideas and action plan. By the time the 70-75 class met for their 35th Coral Jubilee Reunion at BITS during 24-27 Oct 2009 they managed to raise approx. INR 23 lakhs from just 35 contributors. Other members of the BITS 70-75 class continue to pitch in and the class has now raised over Rs. 30 lakhs from 50 contributors. The trust envisions contributing both in Cash and in Kind.

CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP - CEL

Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership(CEL)

The vision of this initiative is to Inspire BITSians to play a prominent role in leading diverse entrepreneurial activities in the Country and make a significant contribution in global entrepreneurial innovation. The idea for CEL was seeded by the BITSAA Center for Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital (CEVC), with the vision of promoting the spirit of entrepreneurial thinking among the BITSian community . The students and the Institute shared this vision and came together in record time to set up the center. The concerted efforts of the students, alumni and faculty resulted in the Centre (set up within a short span of 6 months) being named as one of the top 5 centres of Entrepreneurship among Indian Universities.

BITSAA LINKEDIN GROUP

BITSAA LinkedIn Group

BITS Pilani is the first Indian University to have a network on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is being used by most business schools and universities in the USA to network efficiently. As a BITS Pilani Alumni, we’d like to invite you to make use of a valuable, sophisticated and growing networking/job-search tool available to our alumni: the BITS Pilani Alumni Group on LinkedIn.

PROJECT PARIVARTAN

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Project Parivartan

The Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani has had the benefit of visionary leaderships in its founding chairman Dr. GD Birla and later Dr. KK Birla as the Chancellor, who wished to see a great institute in the desert town of their inheritance. The earlier Directors Prof. Lakshmi Narayanan, Dr. CR Mitra and Vice Chancellor Dr. S Venkateswaran created and led committed teams to convert the vision into reality, and BITS Pilani is today acknowledged as one of the best educational institutes in India. However, in the changing world scenario, the Institute needs to develop a well-defined strategy to realize its dream of being one of the leading universities in the world. With this aspiration in mind, Prof. LK Maheshwari, who took over as Vice-Chancellor in 2006, formed a task force to outline the strategies to be adopted towards ‘Vision 2020’, with an aim to be among the top 3 Science & Technology institutions in India by 2015, and among the top 25 in Asia by 2020. In our journey towards Vision 2020, we have identified specific near-term goals to be achieved by 2012. The Mission 2012 project, launched in 2009 under the Institute’s new strategic plan, focuses on six thrust areas: 1. Academic Programs and Pedagogy: Steps are being undertaken to redesign the BITS academic curriculum to meet the requirements of the changing environment while retaining its key strengths. BITS will continue to focus on enriching the Work-Integrated Learning Programs (WILP) and the Practice School (PS) program in the coming years and devise new programs for the human resource development needs of the Industries. The Institute is also nurturing Entrepreneurship through business incubation, with Rs. 7.55 Cr funding for Technology Business Incubator (TBI) at Hyderabad or augmenting TBI in Pilani. 2. Research and Consultancy: The research infrastructure in the campuses will be upgraded. Faculty members will be encouraged to seek greater funding and support from government agencies and industries to take up research in advanced areas.

At the Goa campus, total funding for ongoing research projects is over 680 lakhs, with funding agencies such as DRDO, DST, CSIR etc. The Institute aims to increase PhD student strength from 400 in 2010 to 1800+ in 2020. 3. People: A focused effort to recruit talented research-focused faculty is being put in place. A new performance appraisal system is also under preparation. The Institute aims to increase faculty strength from 650 in 2010 to 1540+ in 2020. 4. Campus Life: Steps will be undertaken to increase the overall engagement and satisfaction of faculty, staff and students, including eco-friendly campuses and improved quality of life through access to quality health care, schooling, recreation, security, transportation etc. 5. Infrastructure and Facilities: The institute has started 3 new campuses in the last decade. These campuses will require constant maintenance and upgrades of infrastructure. On his visit to BITS Pilani on 12-14 Nov 2011, Chancellor KM Birla announced a 400 Cr. Modernization plan for the Pilani campus. This ambitious plan, called Project Parivartan, will include the construction of an underground academic block designed by a leading architect; construction of new hostels, new staff flats, recreational zones, pedestrian bridges, sunken zones, an amphitheater with a capacity of 4500; and renovation of existing infrastructure. The new Academic Building is a state-of-the-art building, and a major addition to the campus in recent years. This building has 23 modern classrooms (capacity 70 to 200 seats), a 200-seater auditorium, and will host the Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s computing lab & facilities, the departments of Computer Science, Mathematics, Management, Economics & Finance, and Humanities & Social Sciences. Built in a sunken plot in front of the Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic clock tower, the facility has a rotunda and landscaped avenue adding to the grandeur. This has a total built up area of about 1,60,000sq ft. and has been built at a cost of Rs. 75 Crores. The building has been designed by the well known Architect Mr. Hafeez Contractor. New student hostel with a capacity of 201 single bed room, new faculty housing with 121 houses and 33 KVA substation works are almost complete. Major renovation and augmentation of student hostels, academic blocks and faculty housing is planned over a period of three years and work is in progress. 6. University Administration: The multi-campus nature of the institute poses unique challenges in administration. A comprehensive review of the existing administrative and academic structure is underway. New non-teaching positions are being created to help the faculty to reduce their involvement in routine administration and thereby focus on teaching and research. With active support from sponsors, senior management, staff and students, along with passionate alumni wholeheartedly participating in all these efforts, Vision 2020 is on its way to becoming a reality.

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Project Parivartan

INVESTMENT COMMITTEE ASSET STATUS 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). The BEF currently supports the following endowments, with a current annualized obligation of around USD 7,000:

2014 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 $133,906 (12/31/2014 close) reflecting an average annualized return of +5.7% since inception.

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For the last five years ending 2014, the BEF had an investment rate of return of +6.3%. The BEF, which has investments allocated in similar amounts into equities and fixed income, generated a return of +3.4%, for an unrealized capital appreciation of $4,564 during 2014. The returns were weighed down to some degree by the cash levels sitting in the account (meant for BITSAA Operations and initiative disbursements). During the year, the rupee depreciated marginally from 61.9/ USD on Dec 31, 2013 to 63.2/USD on Dec 31, 2014. The academic year 2014-2015 saw an increase in tuition to the tune of +14% (from INR 1.57 Lakhs p.a. to INR 1.79 Lakhs p.a.), a significant rise in USD terms for our obligations tied to tuition fees. We remain in decent shape to weather such storms in the form of USD depreciation or tuition increases or a below expected performance in any given year.

BITS2BSchool

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 ALUMNI AWARDS

Prof. Anil Pahwa

(Professor at Kansas State University) for Academic Teaching and Research

Prof. Gurindar Sohi (Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison) for Academic Teaching and Research

Mr. Pradeep Kashyap (Founder and CEO, MART) for Social Entrepreneurship

Dr. Chandrashekhar (Director, CEERI, Pilani) for Professional Management of Businesses

Mr. Raju Reddy

(Founder and CEO, Sierra Atlantic; Chairman, BITSAA International) for Entrepreneurship

Distinguished Alumni Awards BITS Pilani has decided to give the ‘”BITS Pilani Distinguished Alumnus Award’ in 2014 to the following alumni in recognition of their significant and outstanding contributions. The selection was based on the impact of one’s contribution to (a) dissemination or creation of knowledge, (b) enrichment of lives of people, (c) distribution or creation of wealth, or (d) promotion or establishment of high ethical standards in private or public life, as also upon the person’s integrity and stature, and who thereby makes his alma mater proud.

Prof. Anil Pahwa

Prof. Anil Pahwa received his Bachelors (Honors) degree in Electrical Engineering from BITS Pilani in 1975. Prof. Pahwa came to the United States from India in 1977 to pursue graduate studies in power and energy systems. Since 1983, he works at the Kansas State University, United States. He is currently a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He is a very active IEEE member having 1 U. S. patent and over 150 publications. Prof. Pahwa was selected as a Jefferson Science Fellow by U. S. National Academies for the year 2014-15. He was also elected as a Fellow of IEEE in 2003 for contribution to power distribution system automation and restoration. He was awarded the IEEE’s Power and Energy Society (PES) Douglas M. Staszesky Distribution Automation Award for 2012. Prof. Pahwa was awarded the Logan-Fetterhoof electrical and computer engineering faculty of distinction chair in 2012. He has had extensive international experience. From 2007 to 2011, he served as the electrical engineering coordinator for a World Bank-funded project to strengthen higher education in Afghanistan.

Prof. Gurindar Sohi

Prof Gurindar S Sohi holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani in 1981. Prof. Sohi has been a faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1985. Over the years in his work, Prof. Sohi focused on innovative techniques for finegrain and instruction-level parallelism in high-performance microprocessors and has had stellar accomplishments in the field. He has received widespread recognition for his work. He received the 1999 ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes award “for seminal contributions in the areas of high issue rate processors and instruction level parallelism” and the 2011 ACM/ IEEE Eckert-Mauchly Award “for pioneering widely used micro-architectural techniques for instruction-level parallelism”. At the University of Wisconsin he was selected as a Vilas Associate in 1997, awarded the WARF Kellett Mid-Career Faculty Researcher award in 2000, and was selected as a WARF Named Professor in 2007. He is a Fellow of both the ACM and the IEEE and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2009.

Dr. Chandrashekhar

Dr. Chandrashekhar obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from BITS Pilani in 1971 and 1975 respectively. Thereafter, he moved to CEERI, Pilani where, after serving as a post doctoral fellow, he joined the institute as Scientist ‘B’ in August 1977. He has been serving as Director of CEERI since 2003. Dr. Chandra Shekhar has served as a member of Governing Bodies of CSIR, AcSIR, BITS-Pilani, NIT Kurukshetra, UIET Kurukshetra University and Mody University of Science and Technology. He has also been a member of CSIR Society, Society for Semiconductor Laboratories of ISRO, and on the Board of Directors of Central Electronics Limited. He is a Fellow of IETE, Honorary Fellow of Metrology Society of India and a life member of Indian Physics Association, Semiconductor Society of India and IndoFrench Technical Association.

Dr. Chandra Shekhar has been awarded UNESCO/ROSTSCA Young Scientist Award in 1986, CEERI Foundation Day Merit award in the year 1988, ISHEER Science Councilor Award in 2005, Prof. L K Maheshwari Foundation Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2010, Doctor of Science (honoris causa) by NIT Kurukshetra in 2012 and IETE Diamond Jubilee Gold Medal award in the year 2013.

Mr. Pradeep Kashyap

Mr. Pradeep Kashyap graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from BITS Pilani in 1969. Mr. Kashyap co-created Project Arogya with Novartis to address TB in rural India using local youth as Health Entrepreneurs which won several national and international awards. Mr. Kashyap devoted his professional time on free basis throughout his social work for public good. He has served on national committees of RBI, NABARD, SIDBI, Ministry of Rural Development, etc., to represent the cause of the poor and recommend schemes and strategies for addressing poverty through livelihood creation and marketing support. He has pioneered new concepts of Inclusive Marketing, 3M model of Livelihoods Promotion, 3i approach to innovation and participatory research tools which are recognized globally and adopted by many NGOs, donors and companies. Mr. Kashyap was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award 2013 by Rural Marketing Association of India. He was honored by Star News with the Talent Management Leader 2011 Award. He was chosen for the Spandan Award 2011 for inculcating Human Values in Management. He is a recipient of the Jamnalal Bajaj Award 1991 for his outstanding contribution to rural development. In recognition of his knowledge leadership he was invited to serve on Prime Minister Office and Chief Minister Committees on employment generation in the informal sector.

Mr. Raju Reddy

Mr. Raju Reddy received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani in 1981. Mr. Reddy’s “Sierra Atlantic”, a start-up in Silicon Valley bound and grew to employ over 2400 people with operations in several countries within a span of 17 years. The company was ranked consistently among the best managed companies and has won several Awards over the years for the product and business success. Sierra Atlantic was recognized as one of the Top 10 Best Employers in South China, Silicon Valley’s 75 Most Admired Companies and Top 25 great places to work in India. Mr. Reddy serves on the BITS, Pilani General Body. He is the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors, BITSAA International. He currently serves on the board of Grey Orange, EspressoLogic, Seclore and Prizm Payments (a Hitachi company); and previously served on the board of RedBus (acquired by Naspers) and Cognovision (acquired by Intel) and Hitachi Consulting. Mr. Reddy is actively engaged in the community and serves in leadership roles in various non-profits and enjoys working with young entrepreneurs in a mentorship role. He currently serves on the Board of India Community centre in Milpitas, California. He also serves as a Member of Advisory Board at India-West Publications, Inc. He serves as a Trustee of Puente. He is a Charter Member of TiE. He also co-founded SIPA (Silicon Valley Indian Professional Association) in 1987.

VOLUNTEER AWARDS

In 2013, we launched the BITSAA International Volunteer Awards - our tiny way of appreciating the excellent work put forth by our volunteers. We continued with the tradition, with BITSAA Awards 2014 where the BITSAA International members were recognized for their high quality work in the below categories: Most Successful Team - Given to the team(s) that has shown remarkable commitment, excellent execution beyond the listed goals, and credible collaboration across teams. All BITSAA teams are eligible to be nominated in this category. Exceptional Leadership - Given to the individual(s) who has proven to be an exceptional leader with proven integrity, interpersonal skills, goal setting for team, and carrying the team along with him/her. This category is intended for Managers and above, but exceptions will be made if there is sufficient justification. Outstanding Volunteerism - Given to the individual(s) who put in efforts outside of his stated project tasks, has excellent communication skills, and is result driven. This category is open to all Volunteers and Team leaders. Outstanding Newcomer - Given to the individual(s) who joined BITSAA recently, but proved to be an invaluable resource to the team, and the organisation, through his/her dedication, leadership, and commitment. As the name suggests, this is open to any leader who is a newcomer. Executional Excellence: Given to the individual(s) who has been an excellent team player and been consistent with delivering goal results in a timely manner. This category is open to all Volunteers and Team Leaders. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2039; n an organization the size of BITSAA International, it is not easy to narrow down the list of recipients for the BITSAAAwards, but choices we did make. The winners of BITSAA International Volunteer Awards 2014 are listed in the next page. Also mentioned alongside are selected commendations received from the winnersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; colleagues for the excellent work done by each winner.

Volunteer Awards

Most Successful Team

Marketing & Communications “Set Social Media records for BITSians’ day 2013..Well executed BGM marketing campaign... Well executed NASDAQ PR campaign” Career Center “For the utter dedication and determination with which the team worked to roll out the BITSAA Career Center, a portal that holds great promise to BITSians around the world to support each other in their careers.”

Exceptional Leadership

ravan Menta, Chapter Relations S “Built Ch-R team in India from ground-up.... Instrumental in Ch-R BGM 2014 deliverables... Perfect Succession Planning” Suhas Kashyap, Career Center “...he would be a great asset to the organization down the road” Aditya Garg, Chapter Relations “Exceptional contribution to Chapter Relations.|Established e-Store as vibrant portal”

Outstanding Volunteerism

Priya Yedlapalli, Scholarships “...a very enthusiastic person, always keen to take up more tasks. She will soon be a great leader in the Scholarships Team”

Outstanding Newcomer

Priyatham Dharmana, Marketing & Communications “...he is the sole reason that the Annual report 2012 went out...What he did in the next 10 days was beyond his call of duty...I have not found a more committed guy than him” xecutional Excellence E Surbhi Singh, Scholarships “...has taken complete charge...she has put in a lot of effort in the streamlining the processes and engaging with the donors” Susheel Tatineni, Career Center “Outstanding contribution and dogged perseverance to operationalize a vision even during trying personal times...Working with tremendous professional mannerism within deadlines” Bharati Makhijani, Marketing & Communications “Long term planner... Seamlessly communicates with all teams...Has always honored the deadline” ekha Somasundaram, Fundraising R “Exceptional revival and management of e-store” Varsha Rajshekar, BITS2MSPHD “Smooth transition and takeover of BITS2MSPHD group...successful management of old and new initiatives”

Sumit Kumar, People Strategy “Amazing commitment...Super responsive” Rohit Agarwal, Chapter Relations ”Momentum for BITSAA Database project for 1 year” Sowmyavadhana V, Scholarships “Sowmya has been a great asset to the team in the past one year, right from the time she joined the team”

HOW TO DONATE? BITSAA International Donation Form (USD) Donation from Rest of the World DONATION INSTRUCTIONS Please fill this donation form, scan it and email us at finance-team@bitsaa.org with subject “BITSAA International Donation” and we will get in touch with you. Or Please fill this donation form and send it via postal mail to: BITSAA International, Attn: CFO, BITSAA International, 1560 Sunnyvale, Saratoga Road, Suite 200, Sunnyvale, CA 94087-4597, USA DONOR INFORMATION (required) Name: ___________________________________________________________ BITS Batch (year of entry) and Degree: _______________________________ Street Address: ___________________________________________________ City, State, Pin, Country: ___________________________________________ Phone number: ___________________________________________________ E-mail address: ___________________________________________________ DONATION DETAILS (required) Recurring donations

Yes, please send me reminders for donation every ___ months No, I would prefer to make a one-time donation

Donation mechanism

Enclosed a cheque payable to ‘BITSAA International’ Want to deposit directly to BITSAA Bank Account. Please send me instructions

ALLOCATION INSTRUCTIONS (required) Please mark ‘✔‘ against each initiative that you would like to contribute to along with the allocation amounts: BITSAA General Fund USD _____ Faculty Enrichment (Endowed Chair) USD _____ Faculty Enrichment (Young Faculty Excellence Award) USD _____ Student Enrichment (Student Projects Fund) USD _____ Student Enrichment (Tuition Scholarships) USD _____ Student Enrichment (Travel Grants) USD _____ Other/Create Endowment (see below) USD _____ CREATING A “NAMED” ENDOWMENT A time-limited endowment in your name or in the name of a loved one can be created with a reasonable sized donation. See http://bitsaa.org/?page=naming_rights for details. Please contact finance-team@bitsaa.org for further details.

DONATING SECURITIES Have you thought about donating securities to BITSAA International? BITSAA can sell your securities and apply the proceeds towards the initiative or program of your choice. Yes, I am interested. Please contact me to discuss details

How to Donate?

BITSAA International Donation Form (INR) Donation from India DONATION INSTRUCTIONS Please fill this donation form, scan it and email us at finance-team@bitsaa.org with subject “BITSAA International - India Donation” and we will get in touch with you. Or Please fill this donation form and send it via postal mail to: Office of Alumni Affairs Attn: Prof. Arya Kumar, BITS Pilani Pilani, Rajasthan, 333031, India DONOR INFORMATION (required) Name: ___________________________________________________________ BITS Batch (year of entry) and Degree: _______________________________ PAN Number: ___________________________________________________ Stret Address: ___________________________________________________ City, State, Pin, Country: ___________________________________________ Phone number: ___________________________________________________ E-mail address: ___________________________________________________ DONATION DETAILS (required) Recurring donations

Yes, please send me reminders for donation every ___ months No, I would prefer to make a one-time donation

Donation mechanism

Enclosed a cheque payable to ‘BITSAA International’ Want to deposit directly to BITSAA Bank Account. Please send me instructions

ALLOCATION INSTRUCTIONS (required) Please mark ‘✔‘ against each initiative that you would like to contribute to along with the allocation amounts: BITSAA General Fund INR _____ Faculty Enrichment (Endowed Chair) INR _____ Faculty Enrichment (Young Faculty Excellence Award) INR _____ Student Enrichment (Student Projects Fund) INR _____ Student Enrichment (Tuition Scholarships) INR _____ Student Enrichment (Travel Grants) INR _____ Other/Create Endowment (see below) INR _____ CREATING A “NAMED” ENDOWMENT A time-limited endowment in your name or in the name of a loved one can be created with a reasonable sized donation. See http://bitsaa.org/?page=naming_rights for details. Please contact finance-team@bitsaa.org for further details. DONATING SECURITIES Have you thought about donating securities to BITSAA International? BITSAA can sell your securities and apply the proceeds towards the initiative or program of your choice. Yes, I am interested. Please contact me to discuss details

http://bitsaa.org/donations

STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS Beginning balance Jan 1, 2014 $143,705.00 Cash Flow In (Revenues/Donations) Revenues General Fund $32,603.84 Student Enrichment $7,520.00 Faculty Enrichment $11,350.00 1983 Batch Help fund $3,250.00 1985 Batch Help fund $30,975.00 1988 Batch Go 2 BITS $400.00 9T Fund $3,200.00 BGM Fund - World Contributions $4,841.35 BITSAA Seattle Chapter $300.00 E-store $670.89 Gift Matching $6,018.62 Interest $0.07 NASDAQ bell ringing group $13,000.00 Prof I J Nagrath Outstanding Teacher Awards $10,300.00 Student Projects Fund $2,025.00 Tuition Scholarships $125.00 Total Revenue $126,579.77 Cash Flow Out (Expenses/ Disbursements) Operational Expenses Yourmembership.com $6,958.94 Bluepay Fees $2,732.10 Business Cards $488.32 Amex Fees $482.20 Cauliflower $200.00 Dropbox for 3 years $297.00 Wire fee $130.00 Flickr $24.95 Miscellaneous $630.69 $11,944.20 Disbursements: Non-Endowed Initiatives 2006 AECS Award $1,180.00 Anurag Jain Travel Grant Award $1,100.00 BGM World fund contributions $6,684.98 BITSAA Seattle Chapter $3,178.46 BITSMUN Scholarship $170.99 General Fund $780.21 Mantra Award $500.00 NASDAQ Frames $2,885.89 Prof Suresh Ramaswamy Family Fund $10,500.00 $26,980.53 Total Expenses $38,924.73 Ending balance, Dec 31, 2014 $231,360.04

LIST OF DONORS Batch of 1960

Batch of 1984

Batch of 1965

Batch of 1985

Brij Bhushan Champa Bhushan Shivan Subramaniam

Batch of 1973

Damodar Periwal

Batch of 1974

SP Kothari S Balakrishna Sutapa Chattopadhyay

Batch of 1975

Mukesh Chatter Priti Chatter

Batch of 1976

Yuhong Yu Nasir Memon Kartikeya Mayaram Amit Mukherjee

Batch of 1978 Aditya Singhal

Batch of 1979 Suresh Kabra

Batch of 1980 Jai Shekhawat

Batch of 1983

Kishore K Bopardikar Vijay Raghavan Rajesh Gupta Suriyanarayanan Rajagopalan Srini Kopparapu

Sanjay Jain Mayank Chopra Ranjan Biswas Smita Kolhatkar Tarminder Sethi Anoop Kumar Maheshwar Umasankar Sundar Vanchinathan Ajoy Kodali Doraiswamy Ramabadran Rajesh Yannam Dilip Mundkur

Batch of 1986

Amit Khandelwal Sivaprasad Narahari

Batch of 1987

Uday Sreeram Smita Brunnermeirer Jaideep Mavoori Sandeep Arora

Batch of 1988

Ujjalaksha Basu Rajesh Chelapurath

Batch of 1989

Laxminarayan Chakrapani

Batch of 1990

Subramanian Rm Harsh Honmode Chinmoy Panda Kingshuk Jagat Honmode Pradeep Chennavajhula Dharmarajan S Anupam Adeeb Monalisa Sahoo Srikumar Kuttuva

Revathy Sreedharan Srinivas Sridharan Mahesh Hegade Nataraj Ganapathy Amitabh Chand Rajesh Desingu

Batch of 1991

Siddharth Swarup Rajesh Balakrishnan

Batch of 1992

Krishnakumar Sivasubramanian Niranjan Bose

Batch of 1993

Karthik Kuppusamy Viswadharani Kumar

Batch of 1995 Sovrin Tolia

Batch of 1997

Shashikant Khandelwal Ajay Soni

Batch of 1999

Swarna Mohan Neeraja Natarajan Badhri Varanasi

Batch of 2000

Mayukh Saubhasik

Batch of 2001

Sakshi Arora Nasrullah Husami Ravi Subramani Ramakrishnan

Batch of 2003

Divya Nawale Akhilesh Reddy Endurthy

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Batch of 2005

Bandanjot Singh Deepak Varma

Batch of 2006

Ananth Dileepkumar Anurag Vnvj Gaelen Pereira Harsh Yogendra Bhavsar Jithin Parayil Thomas Kannan Sankar Krushidhar Lekkala Mansi Verma Onkar Dixit Poorva Agrawal Prakhar Prabhakar Pranshu Sharma Rajat Tibrewal Rizwan Hudda Sanjeev Kumar Shashank Sharma

Batch of 2007 Prabhav Joshi Sudeep Gupta

Batch of 2008

Avinash Kumar Lakshmi Neeraja Vinjam Nihar Todupunoori Ragupathi Soundara Rajan

Others

Amar Kapadia Anandh Haridh Anish Seth Ashok Gopalakrishnan Ashok Roy Deepthi Raju Gautam K Nirmal And Vinuta Nirmal

Gita Rao-Prasad Himanshu Bhartiya Jayesh Goyal Jitender Sandadi Kalpana Gopalkrishnan Kaustabh Duorah Mahesh Yalavarti Malathi Bollampally Nishet Dayal Onkar Parrikar Pamela Mummareddy Prasad Lingareddy Prasad Subramani Prathap Paragi Priya Jain Rajagopal Raghunathan Ram Venkateswaran Ramesh Pasapula Ranga Beeram Ranjan Biswas Ravi Nagabhyru Roma Bose Satish Polisetti Savita Goel Shankar Khadye Shatajeet Gandhi Sirisha Gopisetty Sriganesh Karur Srikkanth Sridhar Srinivasa Reddy Sundeep Gupta Udaya Ravi Shankar Bhavanasi Udayan N Borkar Vikram Gupta

Despite our best efforts, we may have unintentionally missed some of the names or gotten the batches mixed up. Any inconvenience is regretted. Please write to us at comms-team@bitsaa.org and we will get it fixed

Thank you donors!

MEET THE ANNUAL REPORT TEAM Director - Marketing & Communications Team

Kaushik Balasubramanian (‘08)

Editor - in - Chief

Keshav Parashar (‘10)

Editors

Yashaswy Akella (‘12)

Pradyumna Kiran (‘12)

Priyatham Dharmana (‘11)

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JOIN US

Contribute to BITSAA International Have you ever wanted to give back to your Alma Mater? Have you ever wondered how it would be to be working with your fellow BITSians once again? Are you looking to hone your leadership skills? Are you interested in experiencing what it is like getting things done in a global organisation? Are you passionate about creating impact among the BITSian community?

Here is a chance for you to turn these ideas into a reality and a platform to convert your passion into change. Please write to peoplestrategy-team@bitsaa.org and grab the opportunity to contribute to one of the most prestigious Alumni Associations!

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Write to us at comms-team@bitsaa.org