Dear Alumnus/Alumna,

Those of you who know Tamil will enjoy this the most, but the others will get an eyeful (& earful) also—a Thanthi TV program on IIT Madras: http://www.thanthitv.com/schedule/schedule.aspx?pgid=1101. You’ll see that it’s very nicely done, and kinda makes you proud to be an alum of IITM….

Last Sunday, the students conducted an “Open House” for CFI—Center for Innovation, sponsored during our Silver Reunion by our ’81 batch. It has now become “the” techie hangout on campus, spawning innovations and start-up’s by the dozens. Here are some links to newspaper reports:

http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/IIT-M-Students-Exhibit-a-Plethora-of-Innovations/2014/09/22/article2442617.ece

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/140921/education/article/iit-madras-open-house-innovation

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Fest-gets-students-to-think-out-of-box/articleshow/43123139.cms

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/chen-events/bringing-ideas-to-life-a-journey-of-inspiration/article6432329.ece

In alumni news, AravindSrinivasan (B.Tech., CS ’89) was recently appointed Editor-in-Chief
of the ACM Transactions on Algorithms (TALG). The ACM is the world’s
largest professional society for computing, and TALG is its flagship
journal on algorithms.

In faculty news, a company incubated by Prof. Shankar Narasimhan (BTCH-82)–Gyan Data Pvt. Ltd.– was awarded a joint Indo-UK project in partnership with Bharat Petroleum from India and Process Systems Engg. from UK.

I (along with 2 alumni, the Student Secretary for I& AR, and 2 of our Staff) attended a Workshop in IIT Kanpur over the weekend involving alumni Deans of the seven original IITs. It’s an annual exercise to share best practices, and this time, we tried to identify some causes common to all IITs. One that we came up with was to identify and compile a list of alumni who have made a significant impact on the world. The IIT brand is built best by showcasing our immensely successful alumni. The need for brand building still exists outside the USA & India. Just as the “60 Minutes” show brought IITs into the limelight in the U.S., we need another push to make the brand go global. This will help us attract the best minds—students and faculty—from all geographies, resulting in the “meeting of unlike minds that breeds innovation” (as Prof. Ananth used to mention in his memorable talks).

Finally, another call for nominations for the “Distinguished Alumnus 2015” awards…. There’s less than a month to go (Oct 15^th is the deadline), and the online nomination link is at:http://acr.iitm.ac.in/daa/