The best insights are caught easily when they are narrated by people who were a part of that particular event. VV Ramanan, ID No: 1966E04032 responded to our request and took time to give the details. Read on!

A group of Bitsian alums drawn from across four decades has been working away over the past three months to revive a comatose BITSAA Bangalore chapter. The impetus for this revival is the impending global meet in Delhi. It was felt that for the chapter to send a delegation that is commensurate with its membership rolls, efforts must be made to bring Bitsians out of the woodwork where they have unfortunately crawled into in the recent past.

The first of several planned BITSAA get togethers was, not uncharacteristically, a "music and lachaa" session held on June 19. The music itself had a "kal aaj aur kal" motif with musicians representing the "past", the "present" and the "future" generations of Bitsians. The Bitsian community in Bangalore is gifted with some outstanding musicians and a wide cross section was on display at the event. Goes without saying that there was no dearth of "lachaas" and the delayed start due to the vagaries of the power gods contributed significantly to the quality and quantity of this Bitsian staple!

The music offered on stage was nothing short of astounding. There was "Agam the band" (with Bitsians Harish "Vodka" Sivaramakrishnan, Ganesh "GNR" Nagarajan and Praveen "TPK" Kumar - class of '02) with their unique carnatic/rock fusion. They appropriately kicked off the event with their own composition "Brahma's Dance" (please google them and listen to their music - you will be amazed). They were followed by a BITS Pilani music club band led by Ashish Jain and Anirudh Wadhwa of the class of '10. They did a good mix of Bollywood and western rock, old and new.

The program was rounded out by the NYOTH ("Not Yet Over the Hill") quartet of Sunil Nanda, Vijay Athreye, Pradeep Viswanathan and Philip Thomas, all Bitsians of the '70s vintage and "guest" singer VV Ramanan (of the class of '71) rendering evergreen hits from the 60s and 70s like "Proud Mary"," Hidden Treasure" etc.. These are just 4 out of the many members of NYOTH who brought the house down at Oasis 2008. By the way, do check out their Youtube recordings as well. The acoustic session also featured Ram Gulwady (class of '78) who came all the way from Mumbai to take part in this bash!

The music was outstanding, the atmosphere electric, the food wholesome and delicious, and the Bitsian bonhomie very much in evidence. But for this Bitsian, what was remarkable was how Bitsians of rather disparate vintages jelled together as if they were all batch mates. We had in the audience Prof VL Swaminathan (ME '67), Prof TLS Rao (Prof. of Mech Engg who left BITS in '73) representing the old timers (at least one '57 grad was expected but unfortunately could not make it) and hordes of '10 graduates who put off their trips home after PS so they could attend.

A great many people worked behind the scene to make this happen. The "young brigade" made up of Arjun Kamath and CK Shwetha ('09) Rachit Chandra, Kaushik Kashyap, and Ashish Jain ('10) and the "steady hands" of Dr. KRV "Raja" Subramaniam and Krish (President and Secretary of the Bangalore chapter). As always, there were "angels" like Dean Nattu spreading the word about this event on FB, Twitter etc.

The event was held at Unnati Center off Old Madras Road. Unnati (www.unnatiblr.org) is a vocational training and social transformation program for underprivileged youth. The money BITSAA spent on renting the venue goes for a good cause.

Here's a piece of news that will definitely transport our readers to the corridors of FD2 where A4-ites showcase their carefully built projects during APOGEE. Umashankar Nagarajan, a Mechanical Engineering student graduated from those very corridors in 2007 to being part of a team that is revolutionizing the field of robotics today. Armed with his Mechanical Engineering degree from BITS, Pilani, he went on to do his MS from the highly esteemed Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg.

Today he is a PhD student at The Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He works with Prof. Ralph Hollis and Dr. George Kantor on 'Dynamically Stable Mobile Robots' with special emphasis on a robot called "Ballbot". Aptly named, this robot moves on a single spherical wheel.

Most of us may overlook the immense innovation behind this revolutionary idea for robot mobility. However, Ballbot is the first of his kind, venturing into a terrain previously inhabited only by his multi-wheeled cousins. Ballbot's researchers proclaimed in a preliminary experiment paper, "One is enough!" Ballbot is tall enough to interact meaningfully with people and can cope with collision. So someday not too long from now, Ballbot may be able to carry and fetch things or help the disabled.

BallBot has been receiving his fair share of fame, being featured in the September issue of Popular Science and being discussed at tech-forums and on gadget shows all over the world. Check out the links below to see him action.

The mere idea of CDCs is daunting to any BITSian - what with labs, assignments, and the never-ending saga of tests and tuts . And as everyone knows - EEEites clearly have it the worst. Tell someone that an enthusiastic EEEite managed to squeeze a month-long coaching class to train for the UPSC exams into that hectic third year schedule and they will look at you blankly and gasp, "How?"

Ask Anupama T. V, from the '04 EEE batch at the Goa campus. She recently bagged the fourth rank in the 2010 UPSC exams and is on the way to achieving her dreams.

Along with Anupama, several BITSians feature on the UPSC ranklists this year including - Praveen P. Nair (rank 21), D. Divya (rank 37), Nyalakonda Prakash Reddy (rank 125), Aravindhan P. (rank 164), Laya Madduri (rank 201), vinay Kumar Kantheti (rank 291) and Vijay Rama Raju V. (rank 517).

The UPSC exams require extensive training and a well-chalked out plan to be successful, as these few have proven to us. In true BITSian style, we'd like to congratulate them on 'cracking the exam out of shape' and wish them the best as they set out to make the world a better place. They have certainly done their alma mater very proud.

22 year old Ishan Mata has made us proud. He topped the physics examination at the prestigious Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) 2010 held jointly by the IITs and IISc, Bangalore. Amongst 5578 other students who also appeared for the exam, Ishan scored 77.6% marks and emerged victorious. He has also topped the Joint Entrance Screening Test (JEST) 2010 required for PhD admissions at institutions such as IISc, Bangalore, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Inter University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune. He scored a phenomenal 99.98 percentile in this exam.

Ishan is a final year dual degree student pursuing his MSc (Hons) Physics and MSc (Hons)Mathematics. Though Ishan was admitted to the BE(Hons) Electrical & Electronics Engineering discipline he switched to this dual degree due to his immense interest in Physics. He is now anticipating interview calls from several renowned institutions in India. Ishan desires to pursue his PhD in Theoretical Physics. Ishan explains how his father a veterinary doctor has guided him throughout his school days. His interest in Physics was nurtured well by both his parents and the BITS faculty.

Full Story: Link

The First function of "Professor L. K. Maheshwari Foundation, Pilani" was organized on April 14, 2010 at BITS, Pilani. The highlights of the function are summarized below.

The function started at 5.15 PM with Vedic Shlokas, Saraswati Vandana and lighting of the lamp. Dr. V K Chaubey, Secretary of Prof L K Maheswari Foundation threw light on Prof L K Maheswari's career profile, contributions and achievements in BITS Pilani, his passion for education, research and entrepreneurship in the field of electronics & instrumentation, motivation for setting up the Trust and the proposed activities of the Foundation.

Prof G Raghurama, Director designate BITS Pilani read citation of Dr. Chandrashekhar highlighting his laurels, contributions in the field of Microelectronics & VLSI design at national level. He expressed deep appreciation for his involvement in initiating and strengthening Microelectronics program in BITS Pilani. He announced the unanimous decision of the Trustees to confer the First Distinguished BITS Alumnus award- 2010 to Dr. Chandrashekhar.

Prof. L K Maheswari honoured Dr Chandrashekhar with Citation, Memento of Distinguished Alumnus award and a shawl. Dr. Chandrashekhar accepted the honour with utmost humility and expressed his heartfelt gratitude towards the Trust for his selection.

Dr. Chandrashekhar delivered the fist talk under Distinguished lecture series on the topic "Research and education trends in electronics" . His all comprehensive insightful talk covering present status and future projections in electronics engineering and education enthralled one and all.

Prof L K Maheswari shared his long journey of learning experiences at BITS Pilani since his student days. He shared his mission and vision behind setting this Foundation and expressed hope that Foundation will be proudly owned by students and faculty of EEE & Instrumentation groups of BITS Pilani to further its activities. He expressed heartfelt gratitude to his family members in supporting him to establish the Foundation and also thanked his colleagues, alumni who rendered whole hearted support in settling the Foundation. He thanked his elders, teachers, friends of Pilani community who came to grace the occasion.

Mr Manoj Dadich, a BITS Alumnus from Freescale India attended the event and appreciated the objectives of the Foundation.

The program ended with vote of thanks by Prof Surekha Bhanot.

Exemption under Section 80 G of Income-Tax Act -
Contributions to the Trust Fund are exempted u/s 80G of the Income-Tax Act. Contributions may be made through bank draft in favour of "Professor L. K. Maheshwari Foundation" payable at SBBJ, Pilani. SBBJ account no. 61089065700, Pilani branch code - 1398

Links: Complete details about the LKM foundation including office bearers, objectives, trustees, and correspondence address can be found in this PDF.

It was a proud moment for the BITS, Pilani - Dubai (BPD) family as it held its first alumni meet on June 3, 2010 - in view of the institute's 10 th year celebrations. Arjun Goyal along with other alumni played an active role in contacting his batch mates and others.Eventually, BITSians made it to the meet, some lucky ones accompanied by their better halves. Most of them were visiting their Alma Mater for the first time since their graduation, and naturally were thrilled to be back in the campus. The meet commenced with Ms. Saraswathy Ganapati, an alumni as well as a current faculty member in BPD, thanking the Institute for moulding students into confident individuals. Dr. Priti Bajpai then regaled students with memories amid huge applause. She thanked the alumni for treating BPD as family and for always giving back to the Institute in every way possible.

Members of the alumni then took centre stage to entertain starting with a performance by Mr. Sandeep Saha from the class of 2006. He requested for a moment of silence in the memory of late Prof. Venkateswaran before starting with his performance. While Sandeep sang a Lucky Ali song to the tunes of his guitar, Abraham Mathews from the batch of 2008 sang a beautiful number 'Raat kali ek khwaab mein aayi. Anusha Venkatraman from the class of 2008 mesmerised the audience with her classical dance performance. Sukriti Kakkar from the class of 2007 danced to a famous Bollywood number. Gurpreet Singh from the class of 2009 concluded the evening by performing a high-energy bhangra dance to the cheers of his batch mates.

    

The Director, Prof. Dr. M. Ramachandran, interacted with the alumni sharing his thoughts and feelings about the Institute. He inspired the alumni to be more active and become more closely associated with the Institute. Chiranjeev Mukherjee from class of 2005 took up the task of asking alumni and faculty about how the Institute has evolved and helped them over the years. Students from various batches strolled down memory lane talking about their favourite professors and time with friends. It was a great pleasure to know about their accomplishments in professional lives. Faculty members Dr. Shazi Shah Jabeen and Dr. Neeru Bhagat recalled incidents from the past and thanked the alumni for coming together.

Ms Nahid Afshan gave the vote of thanks which was followed by a standing ovation to the beloved Director, Prof. Dr. M. Ramachandran , who is retiring this year. The alumni and faculty members then shared memories over dinner. They gathered along to pose for the shutterbugs to capture the essence of the moment. Finally the evening ended with the alumni returning with overwhelmed hearts and a pledge of making this meet a more regular affair.

Gauhar Jaan, a simple girl from Calcutta transformed Indian music ever since she became the first Indian to record on a gramophone. Gauhar was born Eileen Angelina Yeoward, an Armenian Christian and later converted to Islam after her mother Victoria Hemmings became Badi Malka Jaan. Malka Jaan was a poet herself and was publishing Urdu verses during her times.

According to Vikram Sampath Gauhar created an exceptional template in order to showcase Hindustani music in a mere three minutes. An accomplishment that inspired Vikram Sampath to write his second book 'My name is Gauhar Jaan!'-the life and times of a musician. According to him this book was a fortunate accident when he stumbled upon a well-documented archival script about her life. It took Vikram two years of extensive research and assistance from Dr. Suresh Chandvankar of the Society of Indian Records Collectors in Mumbai. It is Suresh who sent him a CD of her songs which managed to inspire him further more. Vikram also spent some of his time in Calcutta where Gauhar spent most of her glorious times. Here he learnt about her discovery by recording expert Frederick Gaisberg and how she through her mesmerizing voice had captured a phenomenal audience in her times. Inspite of a glamour lit life Gauhar died at an early age of 57 in Mysore. She was a pampered extravagant artist with immense accomplishments in Indian music.

Vikram, an engineer by pedagogy scripted his book from information he collated over the years. Vikram was awarded the Fellowship at Berlin's Institute for Advanced Studies and 'Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars,' was his first work. The tone of his book is both historical and that of a biography. It also deals with the advent of the gramophone in England. It also is set in the once rich Bengali society with brief studies of the thumri.

The most notable feature of the book is its author who had a keen interest in the topic. His research shows to be both genuine and offering a historical perspective of Indian music then. It makes an honest effort to bring back the love for Hindustani music in India.

Vikram Sampath Books: Link

Dr. B. P Agrawal (alumnus of BITS from class of 1968), founder and president of the nonprofit corporation Sustainable Innovations, emerged the winner of this year's Energy Globe World award. His innovative project was voted the best by the audience at a colourful ceremony held on June 3 in Kigali, Rwanda. He has also received the $100,000 Lemelson-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Award for Sustainability. Last year, with the partnership of the Indian Institute of Health Management Research and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Agrawal launched Arogya Ghar, for which he won a second World Bank Marketplace Award, where mobile kiosks-based clinics are used to deliver health care to villages and urban slums in India. He said he would use the $100,000 to expand Arogya Ghar "to have more kiosks to deliver health care to 100,000 people, 50 villages this year."

MIT noted that 80 percent of health problems and 5 million deaths per year in developing countries are linked to inadequate water and sanitation. 'This, coupled with the lack of medical attention for rural villagers, highlights a dire need for reliable access to clean water and health care, problems that Dr B P Agrawal aims to solve,' the university citation said.

He conceived Aakash Ganga, a self-sustainable domestic rainwater harvesting system, to provide safe drinking water in perpetuity. Aakash Ganga is now poised to provide drinking water to 250,000 people by 2012. Dr. Agrawal who grew up in a small village in Rajasthan, India, had to carry water daily in his childhood and this experience gave him an idea for the rain water harvest project dubbed, "River from heaven," that today serves 10,000 people with clean safe water.

Speaking after his victory, the award winner expressed that people should never give up on finding solutions to major issues in society, emphasizing that these initiatives, however, should be in line with environment conservation as well. Way to go sir, you are truly an inspiration for all the budding innovators hoping to contribute to the environment and society in their own way.

Chitra Lele a student from BITS, Pilani recalls how her life at BITS was also a race for being competent in her field. She used to pen her thoughts and it was her mom who discovered Chitra's flair for writing. She holds degrees in software engineering and computer management but chose a profession which was unconventional. She is the inspiration behind several people's lives through her motivational lectures, books and other riveting articles. Chitra is already associated with several peace initiatives.

Recently she was awarded the Creative Giant Awards 2009 from the Home of Letters (India) for her contribution to the field of poetry. Her writing has won her accolades from world leaders including the President of India, President of Ireland, President of Croatia, Premier British Columbia, The World Peace Organization and several others.

Chitra also has been in the Limca book of records twice for her exceptional work. The first one is for receiving maximum number of responses from world leaders for her book "The 6 Spheres of Life: Unlocking the door to success and happiness", primarily aimed at youngsters in order to motivate them towards a successful life ahead. She managed to collect these responses in a record time of 68 days. The second entry was for being the First Indian to receive the prestigious 'Peace Maker Award' from the Peace Writers Organization, USA.

We take this opportunity to congratulate Chitra for her achievements.

Full Story: Link1
Link2

We've never been short on budding entrepreneurs in BITS. So here's introducing you to another group to add to the illustrious list. VIPASHYIN LABS, came out with a bang, featuring in Outlook Magazine's '25 Start-Ups under an Investment of Rs 10 Lakh' across India. This Bangalore based venture is the combined efforts of BITSians - Harsha Konduri and Ravi Kiran, Usman and Pradeep. Outlook declares that their 'Wow Factor' is that they help students raise their achievement rate and increase efficiency of teachers at a nominal cost. Breaking even in September 2009 was a great step for the fledgling start-up.

In the newest development, Vipashyin Labs is now a PS-1 Station and has young enthusiastic second-year students working and being inspired by their BITSian seniors. Tradition never dies and some things don't change.

Vipashyin Homepage: Link

WTS or Wireless Telecommunication Symposium is a yearly meet exploring the most current technology in the field of mobile communications and wireless networking technology. This year over 52 papers were submitted at this conference from countries such as US, UK, Taiwan, France, China, Iran and Finland. Amongst them was Jyoti Arya's paper titled "Unified 3GPP and 3GPP2 Turbo Encoder using Runtime Partial Reconfiguration" which was the only Indian entrant. She had co-authored this paper with Rishi Mathur and Dr Shikha Tripathi. At the conference the paper bagged the best undergraduate student award which was presented to Jyoti by Steven Powell, General Chair, WTS at the symposium held at Tampa, Florida this year.

The paper details the development of common turbo encoder for two main 3G wireless communication technologies, 3GPP and 3GPP2. This has been in line with the recent growth in the fabrication of single handsets supporting all wireless communication standards used globally.

Their research bore fruit when after a year of hard work they implemented both the encoders on single FPGA. Rishi, ex-student EnI and Jyoti, a final year EEE student at BITS, Pilani worked under the able guidance of Dr. Shikha, ex-faculty, EEE, BITS, Pilani; when all three were at BITS, Pilani campus. Way to go BITSians!!

The paper can be found at the following IEEE link: Link

Another Bangalore based start-up features in our newsletter today. Strangely, A4-ites seem to be dominating the foray of our discussion today. Sudip Dutta, from the batch of '04, is another one of BITS, Pilani's Mechanical Engineer is the Managing Director and CEO of Aporv. Aporv is an organization that immediately catches the eye for its ethnic flavor and pure innovation behind the thought that went into it's conception. It is basically an attempt to bring the authentic handicraft to wider audience and marketing a bit of a product's history and its own story in order to sell it. Wood marquetry, Kalamkari paintings, Rajasthani toys, Madhubani paintings, Bodo weave bags, Kinaura jewellery…the website has handcrafted products from all over India. An interesting part about Aporv is that the company doesn't decide on the product price and leaves that for artisans to judge for themselves.

Sudip is a veteran in the arena of management and has huge expertise and a knack for this work. He is the BITSAA Alumni of the Month, June 2010 so you can read about his achievements, his take on life, why he loved Blue Moon shakes and lots more here. (http://www.bitsaa.org/members/blog_view.asp?id=572273)

A tidbit that might be interesting is that the inspiration for Aporv actually came from outside the country. Sudip Dutta was working with a corporate firm in the US when his official travels took him to China. What fascinated him most was how the country cherished its arts and crafts and marketed it differently. It got him thinking. And before long - with the help of a trusted team, Aporv was born to do exactly what Dutta wanted - add value to art and bring about social change. Cheers to this Art n' Dee alum!

Show your support for Aporv! Check out: Link

Another Mechanical Engineer from BITS, Pilani has been making news recently - and in an entirely different sector of achievement. Gunender Kapur who is also a graduate from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University, established himself as a leading retail and consumer executive and on February 2, 2010. TPG Capital, the global private investment firm, announced their association with him. Serving in a senior advisory capacity, Mr. Kapur today assists TPG in focusing on investment strategies in the consumer and retail sectors in India.

He started his career as a Management Trainee with Hindustan Unilever and soon became the Executive Director, Foods and Senior Vice President, Foods - South Asia Region. Starting in the year 2004, Kapur served as Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of Unilever Nigeria Plc till he joined Reliance Retail in 2006. At Reliance Retail Ltd, he most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Food & Grocery Division.

Full Story: Link

The team BPGC_WS from BITS Pilani - Goa Campus is on its way to add another milestone to the journey of BITS Pilani, Goa. The team led by a second year chemical engineering student Nishant Prasad, along with Vidya Shankar, Rishikesh B.G and Santosh Prabut is all set to take up a Global Business Challenge displaying their Business Management Skills to the world, representing India in Kuala Lumpur this August. The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) on Monday announced BITS Pilani Goa as the winner of the national round of the 2010 CIMA Global Business Challenge, an international business management competition designed to bring out the best in potential business leaders among students. It came on top among seven colleges competing to represent India at the global final to be held in Malaysia.

There were a total 169 teams from all over India who participated in the competition. The finalists went through a rigorous selection process, which include a case study report submission and a regional final before they made it to the India Final. Team BITS Pilani was declared the winner by a team of judges that comprised of reputed industry leaders. The winning team will now represent India and compete with teams from 12 other countries at the global final to be held in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) in August 2010. We wish the team luck for the final round and hope that it charts another memorable win for the college and the country.

To know more about the CIMA Global Business Challenge, visit http://www.cimaglobal.com/en-gb/Events-and-cpd-courses/globalbusinesschallenge

Full Story: Link

The Srikant Visweswariah Analog Design Award for the year 2010 has been won by Gaurav Mahajan, a IIIrd year student at BITS Pilani. Gaurav received a cash award of 5000 INR. He is also eligible for the Srikant Visweswariah Fellowship of INR 20,000 if he pursues a project on analog electronics in his final semester.

The second prize went to Arup Mukherji currently in his IVth year at BITS Pilani.

The Srikant Visweswariah Analog Design Award and Fellowship have been instituted in the memory of Srikant Visweswariah, an alumnus of BITS Pilani. Srikant graduated with a degree in Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani in 1971. He lost his 2-year battle with cancer in April 2009. Srikant accomplished a lot in his life but was loath to talk about any of it. He 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 retire early from the IAF by no less a person than Dr 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 (LCA) 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 - founding a software company, managing R&D group at General Motors etc. But he did what he loved the most - travel the world.

While Srikant dabbled in business now and then, his real passion was academics and in particular microwave, radar and signal processing. During a visit to BITS in 2005, Srikant learned that the study of high frequency analog electronics has been relegated in recent times in favor of computer science and digital electronics at BITS. He felt that it was unfortunate that India (and to some extent, the world) is slowly but surely losing skills in this critical area. Appropriately, his family has instituted this award to help mitigate this problem to a small extent by encouraging talented youngsters at BITS to take up this field of study.

Mr.GK Pillai, of the 1973 batch (Electrical & Electronics) of BITS, Pilani (Rajasthan) was instrumental in the revival of Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) Ranchi as its Chairman and Managing Director (CMD). Prior to his joining HEC, he was the chief executive at India-US joint venture companies like Fisher Sanmar, Tyco Sanmar and was also associated with Instrumentation Ltd, Palakkad (Kerala), for a period. A company which was running into losses for the past five years before he took over had under his dynamic leadership reported net profits for the last three years. In an interview to the Financial Express he talked explicitly about the various strategies he had planned in a major overhaul to bring the company back on track.

"The short-term plans for the company is to grow its business and at the same time, increase its profitability. This growth and profitability will come from the existing range of products and services. However, in the medium term, we would like to grow the company's business by means of various diversification plans and entering into new segments like defence, railways, nuclear, etc" says Mr Pillai.

We wish him the very best for his endeavors.

A two day Tech Baazar was hosted at BITS, Pilani on March 26-27 2010 showcasing small innovations and new products evaluated under the able scrutiny of established entrepreneurs and industry experts. The event saw 85 participants and 33 projects from functions such as engineering, pharmaceutical, biological, IT and finance. Participant institutions included Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon, Manav Rachna College of Engineering, Faridabad, Faridabad Institute of Technology, Career Institute of Technology and Management, Faridabad, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) and Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIM-K).

Tech Baazar 2010 was a breeding ground of original ideas going through the test of feasibility and growth potential. A team of experts comprised of Dr Rakesh Kumar, Director, Braahmam Net Solutions Pvt Ltd, Mr Sashank Verma, Cleanstart Pvt Ltd, Mr Vijay Rajgopal, Aavishkar Venture Management Service, Mr Tarun Bansal, Sagacious Research Gurgaon, Dr K S N Rao, Scientist, CEERI Pilani, Dr P K Seth, Director, Tiger Bells Animation Ltd, Mr Gagan Chada, ValueFirst Ventures and Mr Abhinav Kushraj, Strategy and Business Development, Nokia. Their active interaction with enthusiastic participants was a marked achievement for the event. They mentored these ideas by sharing their own experience and by providing strategic insights.

Prof Arya Kumar, Unit Chief, Entrepreneurship Development and IPR Unit of BITS said, "We have been trying to create an ecosystem for venture creation through innovation. In this year's Tech Bazaar, special efforts were made to scrutinize proposals having greater chances of success and to provide due support - through networking, seed funding and mentoring. There has been tremendous enthusiasm and participation in this year's Tech Bazaar."

Tech Baazar 2010 also hosted various competitions and the following projects received special honor, I Prize - Nano silica aggregate solutions for recycling in industries. II Prize - Near Surface Monitoring and Structural Health Monitoring of Structures Repaired with FRP. III Prize - Green Plastics. IV Prize - Eppendorf Cleaner.

Full Story: Link

It is a task never before undertaken by any alumni fraternity. It bears witness to the fact that the BITS alumni association follows their mission with unimaginable passion. The batch of 1975-80 visited BITS for their Silver Jubilee event in October 2005. Barun Baruah, an alumnus from the same batch encountered a tragic accident just before starting for the event and succumbed to injuries on October 7, 2005. A tragic and unfortunate occurrence transformed into a resolute pledge to keep Barun alive, atleast in good memory.

BITSAA Alumni Trust was formed to cater to the needs of the Mess workers at BITS, Pilani and to provide support to their families. A group insurance scheme was launched for this purpose on 20th August 2006 to commemorate Barun's birthday. The alumni batch intended to bring social transformation through active community service. On May 12, 2008, Sunil Nanda and Gautam Mazumdar held extensive brain storming sessions with the Alumni Trust and the BITS Staff Housing Kalyan Samiti. This eventually led to a MoU which proposed a facility to be built for local community development. Chandan Sengupta and Shivas joined the cause and along with Sunil Nanda and Gautam Mazumdar became the four pillars of this project. The community center aims at furnishing a library, a hall for vocational training and a classroom. The center also proposes to promote active social change via numerous educational activities.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held on February 28, 2010 at Gyan Vihar opposite the ISKON temple with Prof LK Maheshwari, Vice Chancellor BITS,Pilani as the Chief Guest. Other notable people who were also part of the event included BITS Prof RK Mittal Deputy Director (Administration), Prof BR Natarajan (Dean Nattu) Vice President BITS Alumni Association, Prof Rajiv Gupta, Prof MK Kasiramka, Prof NV Muralidhar Rao, Prof I Bhat, Prof Sureka Bhanot, Prof Suman Kapur, Prof Nirupama Prakash and Prof Arya Kumar. A phenomenal turn out of both alumni and current students during the event bears testimony to the encouraging spirit that the community shares in common.