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IIT50 Event, Jan 17th and 18th @ Silicon Valley

Day 1:    

Day 2:          

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IIT50 at Silicon Valley: A Recap

By Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, 1987 IIT-KGP, CSE, RK

2003 began with a fantastic IIT50 Celebration in the Bay Area, January 17-18th. It was a momentous occasion for all of us to cherish and savor. The volunteers and organizers did a simple fabulous job.

I attended the IIT Foundation Board meeting on Friday and got a glimpse of the IIT Foundation's efforts during the last year. We also discussed the goals for the future and changes we need to make in the structure of the organization. It was heartening to see the pride the board members (all IIT-KGP alums) had for the alma mater and the dedication they have to do something for the same.

The IIT50 celebration got kicked off on Friday evening with a very slick program, in an auditorium packed full with over 2000 people. The event began with an opening clip, highlighting the achievements of some IITians, who have not yet received the coverage of their more famous colleagues. Included in this clip were congratulatory messages from John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, who said that there were close to 1000 IITians in Cisco, from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com and from Charles Vest, the President of MIT.

Then Rajat Gupta, Managing Director of McKinsey, introduced Bill Gates, who was the keynote speaker. Bill Gates expounded his theory of continued cooperation between academia and industry and between US and India. He believed that such cooperation will benefit the entire humanity and will help push education to people. He talked about giving back to the world through improving health conditions and reducing the digital divide. He was extremely appreciative of the contribution of IITians. He also acknowledged top-class set of skills, which they brought to the table. He was supportive of the stringent process of admission into IITs. His words were: If you get the inputs right, you will definitely get the right output. Rajat Gupta was glib and very-organised. He recited couple of Sanskrit hymns and had the audience enthralled. You felt really proud to be an IITian as those luminaries just spoke glowingly of the intellectual talent of IITians.

An informal dinner in a nearby campus was followed by entertainment from Prasanna, an IIT-M grad who mixes carnatic music and rock music to create what might be called ear-drum splitting melody.

The second day of the IIT50 celebrations in California started with quite an impressive speech by Robert Blackwill, US Ambassador to India. I was totally impressed by the fact that he made sure that we viewed this as a political statement by the Bush administration. He made absolutely unequivocal statements, regarding India and Pakistan and terrorism, very strongly endorsing India's position. He even took issue with one questioner who suggested dialogue to address terrorism issues. He referred to the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the Srinagar Legislature and the Indian Parliament in the same sentence while denouncing the attackers.

The rest of day 2 consisted of parallel break-out sessions on three topics: Innovation, Leadership and Community Value. I attended the Leadership session primarily because it featured Arun Sarin, the newly appointed CEO of Vodafone (an IIT-KGP alumnus) and Narayan Murthy (Founder and Chairman of Infosys). Others on the panel were Shailesh Mehta, (Former CEO, Providian Financial), Vinita Gupta (CEO, Quick Eagle Networks), Manoj Singh (managing Director, Deloite Consulting) and Subra Iyer (CEO, Webex). Key discussion point was on what defined a leader, is it inbred or needs to be trained. All of them discussed various defining features of leadership from motivating people, setting direction, having vision, tackling problems, tacking calculated risks, showing business acumen, to having character. It was a very informative session, interspersed with little details about their careers.

Murali Manohar Joshi, India's HRD minister was a no-show for the post-lunch keynote session. Instead his speech was read out by Purnendu Chatterjee, a KGP-ite. He also gave his own speech on giving back to alma mater and helping IIT thrive. Then the directors of all the IIT's addressed the attendees. The most pleasant surprise was hearing the IIT-M Director, Prof. Ananth. He was head and shoulders above the others in the content and delivery of his speech and kept the audience in stitches.

There was then the eagerly-awaited inter-IIT quiz. Amidst fan-fare and shouts of tempo, IIT-KGP won this (together with IIT-K). We led the tempo cheers after that.

Following that was another keynote address by John Hennesy, the President of Stanford University. He was again praising the contribution of IIT and IITians in a very reverent tone. The sentence, which caught everyones attention, was: "I have not spoken before an audience with a collective IQ higher than this". He did say that he wanted to see the system of meritocracy to continue at IIT.

The IIT-KGP alumni had another session with our Director, Prof. S.K. Dube and Deputy Directory, Prof. S. Lahiri. The meeting room was packed with enthusiastic alumni, eager to hear them speak. He said that he was fortunate to serve as a director of such a great institute and he was extremely happy after seven months on the job. The Director outlined the various initiatives that IIT wants to pursue going forward. He promised that one faculty member would be put in charge of each of those projects and we could get in touch with them directly to be involved. He handed out some brochures, outlining that mission. He wanted IITians to make intellectual investment in IIT by donating time. He also wanted us to be more actively involved in sponsoring projects. He encouraged both industry and universities to build partnerships with IIT and wanted us to do our own part in promoting this. He promised to appoint a Dean of Alumni, who would ensure greater interaction between the institute and its alumni. He also announced that IIT is making impressive progress in bio-technology. IIT is offering an MS in bio-technology, with an MBBS being an admission requirement. Two areas, which he stressed needed the most help from alumni, were arranging collaborative projects with IIT and drawing quality faculty to the institute. Q&A session was energetic, with sparks flying.

In the evening, we had the banquet dinner and dancing. Robert M Berdahl, the Chancellor of UC Berkeley spoke at the banquet, which a was gala event with formal attire. He was effusive in IITians praise and pointed out the similarities between the IITs and UC-Berkeley, including matching colors of gold and blue.

A word about the IIT-KGP booth ... it was just wonderful. The volunteers did a fabulous job, pulling the rabbit out of the hat in getting the booth organized in less than 2 weeks. The booth and the volunteers stood out and we were the envy of all other IITs. Anil Kshirsagar, President of IIT Bombay Heritage Fund said that his fellow alums were complaining about their blue shirts against our bright golden t-shirts that stood out. An IIT-M alum, who was a booth volunteer and organizer, mentioned how they should have done what we did -- say more by saying less, and how the IIT-KGP booth materials were designed well, to be read clearly from a distance.

The general level of camaraderie was very high. People were very happy to be there and glad to meet people from other IIT's. A lot of networking contacts were made. I personally found it valuable to see and hear so many well-known public figures and achievers in person.

All in all, it was a very worthwhile effort and will help a great deal in motivating IITians to contribute to the well-being of India.

IIT-KGP Alumni Volunteers that helped make this event succesful: