Message from the Event Chair

Dear PAN IITans,

You all will be pleased to know that the preparations for the PanIIT-2008 event planned at IIT-Madras campus during December 19 - 21, 2008 are well underway and the PanIIT-2008 team is working towards delivering a world-class conference.

With 75 days to go before the event, the entire Program has been finalized. All Super-Star Speakers, Star Speakers and Panelists have confirmed their participation. We have done nine Outreach programs at key cities reaching out to several hundred alumni.

The PanIIT-2008 event with its central theme: ?Inspire, Innovate and Transform? is built around Six Tracks viz. Education, Research & Technology, Infrastructure, Rural Transformation, Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

The Event consists of 9 Plenary Sessions and 18 Track Sessions, the content of all of which is being shaped by the Program Team, Track Leaders, 100+ renowned panelists and McKinsey, our Knowledge Partner.

All the Sessions are being aligned to answer two Key Questions:

1. What must PAN IIT do in the specific domain and what are the deliverables?
2. How must PAN IIT execute the Projects identified?

One of the key differentiators of the PanIIT-2008 is that the Program Team, using the event Website, is enabling Delegate-Speaker interaction. Through this forum, the delegates can network with the Speakers well before the event, share expectations, shape the content and make the sessions more focused. Of course this implies that you all register early.

While the Primary Track is designed to be extremely content rich, heavily focused on the event Theme and Track Topics and ultimately lead to a concrete set of Projects for the PAN IIT movement to pursue, the Program Team has also worked-out the following set of associated events to provide added value to the participants:

As in the past, the Program also includes a parallel Family Track to meet the expectations of 300 to 500 family members who are going to attend PanIIT-2008.

Of the family members, 90% will be women with a mix of home makers as well as those with a career. The Family Track has been designed with a variety of sessions and on-campus & off-campus activities.

This Track will run parallel to the Six Thematic Tracks. It will have Interactive Sessions as well as Keynote sessions involving accomplished individuals from Arts, Culture, Fitness & Lifestyle, Business and Politics. The Program Team is meticulously working to ensure that the sessions offer a rich variety, balanced content and enduring value to the participants.

All the Thematic Track Sessions and the Family Track Sessions are open to all the Delegates and Family.

The Program Committee has also created a wholesome Entertainment Track spanning across all the conference days as follows:

Dec 18 - Event Curtain Raiser: "Masquerades", A Dance Drama : an adaptation of Man in the Iron Mask by Kalakshetra Group, which received rave reviews recently at Beijing
Dec 19 - Musical Evening: Down Memory Lane, Compered by Ameen Sayani
Dec 20 - Musical Evening: A Popular Western Band

With such rich and varied content, we are sure that PanIIT-2008 Event will give a holistic experience to you and your family.

Full details of the PanIIT-2008 Program will be made available soon on the event web-site www.paniit2008.org which is very active with weekly updates now.

Through a link to the Travel and Hospitality Partner's website, now booking can be done for Travel, Accommodation and Local Sight-seeing trips. An all-in-one Freedom Package has also been created specifically for individual Alumni living in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. For the benefit of those who will be traveling to the event with little children, a Cr?che will be run on the Campus.

On behalf of PAN IIT and the Team of 100+ Alumni and Student Volunteers who are working hard to deliver you a great experience in the form of PanIIT-2008, I extend a warm welcome to you all.

Register Now at http://www.paniit2008.org, and be there for PanIIT-2008 !

Regards
B Santhanam
Event Chair - PanIIT-2008