IITM Alumni Meet at Hyderabad on 27 June 2008

By Phani Arega, [1994-BTME]

The collective IQ zoomed and the seminar hall at the Centre for Organization Development (COD), Hyderabad came alive on 27-Jun-08 evening with impassioned and thought provoking discussions as close to 100 IIT-ians of various vintage and campus affiliations converged to attend this professional event by Hyd IIT Alumni on the theme "Collaboration between Academia and the Industry in Technology Research".

After initial hour long session of registration, refreshments and networking, Mr. Phani Arega(IITM94, President IITMAA Hyd), anchoring the program, heralded the interesting proceedings with welcome message and brief bio of Prof. Ananth (Director of IITM).

Next Prof. Ananth spoke with his characteristic combination of wit and wisdom that engaged and entertained the audience. He touched upon the various activities shaping up the Golden Jubilee year at IITM, which included an international journal, book writing project, focused Indo-German initiatives, Golden Jubilee lectures series for students and a stunning Coffee Table book celebrating "Fifty years of IIT Madras" edited by Alumni. He also mentioned that the convocation hall at SAC would now be air-conditioned and demonstrated a video of proposed retractable roof proposed for Open Air Theatre (OAT) in IITM Campus. The latter part of his speech was devoted to discussing India's first university driven research park, the IIT Madras Research Park - a research campus focused on furthering the collaboration between eminent business houses, start-ups and IITM towards producing applied innovation in the real world. The research park consisting of three towers is being built on an 11.5 acre campus with a projected investment of around USD 60mn and located within cycling distance from the campus. Interestingly over 80% of the available space in the first tower that is coming up has already been booked. Also there is a "credit based" governing mechanism in place that offers credits to companies occupying the research park, based on a variety of parameters, that reward effective collaboration between the companies and the academics at IITM as explained by Dr. Sandhya Shekar, CEO of IIT Madras Research park. The speeches were followed by a hectic Q&A session with Prof Ananth & Dr Sandhya and ranged from the focus on alternative Energy research in the Research Park to sea water de-salinisation initiatives.

The program quickly moved on to a panel discussion (PD) on topic "Collaboration between Academia and Industry in Technology Research". The panel was constituted by eminent alumni from Technology industry, Academia and Venture Capitalists: The Pearl Reunion of the Class of 1978 will be held between December 28 and 30, 2008 (Sun - Tue). The venue is IIT Madras. '78 Alumni are requested to contact B. Gautham (78 BTMT) for more information.

• Mr. Srinivas Mandavilli (IITM89, MD of Mentor Graphics)
• Mr.J.A.Chowdary (IITM84, MD of NVIDIA Graphics)- PD Moderator
• Prof Ananth (Director of IITM)
• Dr. Rajeev Sangal (IITK75, Director of IIIT Hyd)
• Mr. Sarath Naru (IITM79, Managing Partner of VenturEast)

The PD raised challenging questions on all fronts ranging from the roles and responsibilities of academicians in ensuring effective collaboration with the industry to the wisdom of tempering expectations on the level of detail that the industry would want to engage academicians with, on their projects. Mr. Mandavalli, stated that his company has a record of good collaboration with academic institutions, and cited that academicians working on a sabbatical, inside the organization have proved to be very effective in increasing the bonding and accountability. Dr. Sangal underlined the importance of validity life span of idea and division of responsibilities between industry and universities in the joint venture.

The audience was very participative with many interesting and passionate questions. The discussion had to be concluded even when the enthusiasm levels were high, because of time constraints. Besides alumni of all IITs, interested members of TIE Hyd Chapter and Colleagues of Alumni also attended the event to learn about the IITM Research Park. About 10 non-Hyderabad resident alumni also attended the event which included Prof Satyanarayana (IITM84, Professor IITMadras), Mrs Alamelu(IITM85, ex-Secretary IITMAA).

The attendees got the IIT and alumni news updates too: Prof. Ananth’s speech mentioned IITM Golden Jubilee Celebration in 2009. Brochures of IIT Alumni Global Conference of Dec08 were distributed and event’s key features were also announced to the audience.

The event was coordinated by Phani Arega(IITM94 President IITMAA Hyd) with valuable help from: Murali(IITM98), K Ravi(IITB98), Suneel(IITM05), Neeraj(IITB07), Ramanan(IITM75), Ramamohan(IITD03), Gaurav Jain(IITM07), Manoj(IITR05), Gaurav Totuka(IITM06), Vinay(IITG06), Vamsi(IITM05), Nihal(IITK99), Sirish(IITM98), Praveen(IITK98), Bharath(IITM98), Venkata(IITK02), Suresh Chandiran(Alumnus friend), Mrs. Ramya Arega(Alumnus spouse)

All the event photos are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/paniithyd27Jun08/27Jun08Event

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