San Francisco Bay Area Chapter

Report on the San Francisco Bay Area Professional Forum

The San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the IIT Kharagpur Alumni Association conducted its third Professional Forum on Nov, 18th from 2-5pm at the Westin Hotel in Santa Clara.

The Forum is a quarterly event with a Key Note Speaker, a "Meet the Leaders and Innovators" platform, an IIT Foundation update and a networking session. The audience ranges from fresh graduates to CEOs and founders, mostly IIT Kharagpur alumni.

Raj Khanna, VP Finance at Sun Microsystems and VP of IIT Foundation, gave an update on the vision and roadmap of IIT Foundation. The Foundation has taken up the task of establishing IIT Kharagpur as the premier institute in India and one of the leading institutes in the world. Some of the projects that the Foundation is spearheading are a VLSI lab, Internet connectivity in every dorm room, an IIT Kharagpur office in Silicon Valley, and financial support for top students and faculty. The IIT Foundation works closely with the administration, faculty and the students at IIT Kharagpur and is a major catalyst in the Institute's pursuit of academic excellence.

Maple Optical Systems (Formerly Maple Networks) was the featured company in the "Meet the Leaders and Innovators" platform. This platform has been designed specifically for companies founded or lead by IIT Kharagpur alumni to discuss their story, idea and company. Ashis Khan (1981 RK ECE), one of the founders of Maple Optical Systems, described that his company's products provide carriers the ability to effectively mine the bandwidth of their fiber infrastructure, and to provision, scale, and manage bandwidth over many wavelengths. They have received over $60 million in VC financing.

To explore career opportunities with Maple Optical, send an e-mail to Ashis at ashis@mapleoptical.com .

Rajiv Gupta (1984 LLR CS), General Manager of the E-speak Operation, Internet Business Unit, at HP, was the Key Note Speaker. Rajiv is responsible for productizing HP's e-speak technology - an open platform designed specifically for the development, deployment, and intelligent interaction of e-services.

"E-speak will change the world", stated Rajiv. The talk was an interactive discussion between Rajiv and the audience. Rajiv observed that E-Speak is more than a technology. It is an "open marketplace for a new economic interaction model" -- that allows businesses to interact with each other in a seamless integrated fashion. E-speak has three key components - SFS, a Service Engine and Service Village. The "E-Villages" interact with each other providing services to each other and to the end user. In the near future, a small business will be able to set up their online service within 15 minutes using E-Speak. E-Speak has gained a lot of acceptance within HP and outside mainly because of immense persistence by Rajiv and his team. "Rajiv's passion about what he does instilled confidence in me. He is very inspirational." exclaimed an attendee. Rajiv got his B. Tech (Hons.) from IIT Kharagpur and MS and Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology. He holds more than 20 patents in processor, algorithm and systems design.

The networking session then carried on for another hour with lively interactions amongst the audience.

Three Professional Forums are scheduled for next year, with the next one planned for Feb 2001.