Dear Alumnus/ Alumna,
This is Nagarajan, BTCH-81, and now Dean of International & Alumni Relations at IIT Madras. My new resolution is to stay in touch with alumni through weekly messages posted on LinkedIn & Facebook. Hope you find these useful & informative….
Last week, the Director, Prof.. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, presented to the faculty a draft of IITM’s “Strategic Plan 2020”, which we’ve been formulating in the Deans’ Committee for the past 2-3 months. Their inputs are being received, and an update will be presented to the Board of Governors on Friday, March 21. After BoG approval, the Plan will be circulated in document form to all stakeholders. Stay tuned…. By the way, March 21 will also see the inauguration of our 3rd Womens’ Hostel, Sabarmati.
Last week also saw the announcements of the first “Institute R & D Awards”. The “Lifetime Achievement Award’ was conferred on Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala; the “Mid-Career” awards were presented to Profs. AN Rajagopalan (Electrical), RI Sujith (Aerospace) and Sundarpal Ghosh (Chemistry). The “Junior-Level” awards went to Profs. A Arockiarajan (Applied Mech), Arun Tangirala (Chemical) and Madhulika Dixit (Biotechnlogy). The awards will be presented along with Distinguished Alumni Awards, and the Excellence-in-Teaching Award (instituted by our alum, Marti Subrahmanyam @ Stern School of Business, NYU), on “Institute Day”, April 17.
The week of March 10 saw the celebration of the entrepreneurial spirit on campus in the form of “E-Week”. In addition, the following campus activities are of note:
• Launch of the “”Center for Technology & Policy” on March 12 at a function in IITM Research park
• Selection of 5 faculty recipients for grants of Rs. 3-5 lakhs under the alumni-funded “Socially Relevant Projects” scheme
• Allocation of “Travel Grants” to nearly 70 students under the IITM Alumni Association of North America (IITMAANA) TG scheme and the ‘’80 batch “Excellence-in-Research” TG scheme; nearly Rs. 15 lakhs were disbursed to UG & PG students attending conferences, competitions, and internships.
• A talk by our alum, G Sunderraman (BTEE-76; Godrej India) on Friday in or “Leadership Lecture series” featuring alumni
• An “”International Fair” held on Friday & Sat by our Office of International Relation to publicize overseas exchange opportunities among our students
• “Research Scholars Day” on Sunday, March 16 to celebrate our M.S. & Ph.D. student population (which, together, is appr. 30% of our total student strength of 8,000).
• The Dept of Mathematics held their annual conference “FORAYS” over the weekend. This was sponsored partially by alumni.
• The Indo-German Center for Sustainability conducted a workshop to disseminate the work & findings.
• The monthly Board meeting of IITMAANA (via telecom) and the monthly Executive Committee meeting of the IITM Alumni Association (IITMAA) were held during the week.
A busy week on campus indeed, but no different from any other…. IITM is a “happening place”, and alumni have played a key role in making it so. Hope to see many of you here during 2014….
In the meantime, here are some links you might want to check out:
• IIT Madras: http://www.iitm.ac.in
• Office of Alumni Affairs: http://acr.iitm.ac.in
• Office of International Relations: http://ww.oir.iitm.ac.in
• IITMAA: http://www.iitmaa.org
• IITMAANA: http://www.iitmaana.org
• Chennai 36 blog for students, alumni & faculty: http://acr.iitm.ac.in/chennai36
Indian Institute of Technology Madras | भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान… iitm.ac.in
Official website of the Indian Institute of Technology…