Outreach

IIT Alumni Meet at Hyderabad

June 27, 2008

The seminar hall at the Centre for Organization Development (COD), Hyderabad came alive on 27th June 2008 in the evening with impassioned and thought provoking discussions as close to 100 IIT-ians of various vintage and campus affiliations converged to attend this event organized by the Hyderabad IIT Alumni on the theme "Collaboration between Academia and the Industry in Technology Research".

After an initial hour-long session of registration, refreshments and networking, Mr. Phani Arega (IITM 94, President, IITMAA Hyd), anchoring the program, set the tone for the proceedings with a welcome message and brief bio of Prof. Ananth (Director of IITM).

Speech by Prof. Ananth
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 for the Golden Jubilee year at IITM, which included an international journal, book-writing project, focused Indo-German initiatives, Golden Jubilee lecture series for students and a stunning Coffee Table book celebrating "Fifty years of IIT Madras" edited by the Alumni. He also mentioned that the convocation hall at SAC would now be air-conditioned and demonstrated a video of the retractable roof proposed for the Open Air Theatre (OAT) in the 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 11.5acre campus with a projected investment of around USD 60mn and is 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. And, there is a "credit based" governing mechanism in place that offers credit to companies occupying the research park, based on a variety of parameters. This is to reward the 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 seawater de-salination initiatives.

Panel Discussion
The program quickly moved on to a panel discussion (PD) on the topic "Collaboration between Academia and Industry in Technology Research". The panel constituted eminent alumni from Technology, Industry, Academia and Venture Capitalists:

•	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 the validity life span of an idea and the 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, due to time constraints. Besides alumni of all IITs, interested members of TIE Hyd Chapter and Colleagues of Alumni also attended the event to learn more 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).

News Updates on PanIIT 2008
The attendees were updated with all the latest happenings at the IIT and the Alumni front. Brochures of the IIT Alumni Global Conference scheduled for December 2008 were distributed and the events key features were also announced to the audience. Prof. Ananth also made a special mention of the IITM Golden Jubilee Celebration in 2009 in his speech.

Alumni behind the Hyderabad Event
The Hyderabad meet 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) and Mrs. Ramya Arega(Alumnus spouse)

All the event photos can be viewed at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/paniithyd27Jun08/27Jun08Event