News

Obama CTO at PanIIT2009

President Obama's CTO Aneesh Chopra will join over 3000 IIT Alumni from across the world to participate in the PanIIT 2009 Global Conference in Chicago. Leaders from industry, academics and government sector will address challenges and opportunities in key areas such as Alternative Energy, Healthcare, Digital Infrastructure and Climate Change.

Nandan Nilekani info czar

India gets Info czar ... Infosys co-chairman Nandan Nilekani ('78) will steer an ambitious scheme to provide a Unique Identification (UID) number to all Indian citizens. Mr. Nilekani will have the rank and status of a Cabinet minister, joining Jairam Ramesh as the second IIT Bombay alumnus in the Union Cabinet.

IIT Bombay gets cream of the crop

Cream of the crop: 69 of top 100 JEE rankers pick IIT-Bombay ... of the top 100 JEE-2009 rankers, considered the elite group among engineering aspirants around the country, 69 students preferred to join IIT-Bombay over any other IIT.

IIT Bombay ranked number one

IIT Bombay was ranked #1 in a recent survey of colleges in India. For many years now, it has attracted some of the best students, faculty and recruiters. At least 50% of the students in the top 100 list in the high-stakes Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) usually pick IIT-B, adding to its stature as a Mecca for aspiring engineers.

Agni 2009

Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan on the sidelines of the launching ceremony of 'Agni', the Formula Student 2009 car of IIT Bombay Racing team.

Renaissance of IITs

Fifty eight years after the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was founded in Kharagpur, the IITs at Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, and Roorkee have a lot to be proud of. IIT graduates hold important positions in academia and industry in India and abroad. 60 Minutes, an American TV newsmagazine, focused on undergraduate education at the IITs and hyperbolically described them as "Harvard, MIT, and Princeton" put together, and Business Week ran a cover story on undergraduate education at the IITs. The 50th anniversary of IIT Bombay at Mumbai prompts us to see how well they have met their goals and to discuss the opportunities ahead.

alumninews-19jun09

The beautiful score for Doctor Zhivago that won an Oscar in 1965 will always be fresh and alive, thanks to Debasish Mahapatra’s ('97) efforts of digital remastering. He is the first and the only Indian to receive the CEDAR UK award in 2002 for this endeavour. But with the launch of the Limca Book of Records 2009, Mahapatra’s achievement has spread throughout the country.

Largest origami in the world

Himanshu Agrawal from Origami Mitra Club along with nine students from IIT-Bombay spent 12 hours folding one sheet of paper-35 feet x 35 feet - to create a 20-feet high origami giraffe which sets the world record for the Largest Origami Giraffe.

Knives are out in the BJP

The blame-game has begun in the Bharatiya Janata Party. Sudheendra Kulkarni ('80), who undid the BJP's election campaign in 2004 with the 'India Shining' slogan and fashioned the 2009 campaign which has taken the BJP to a low of barely-above-100 mark, has written an article for Tehelka. Anil Chawla, his classmate at IIT Bombay, has circulated an 'open letter' by way of a rejoinder to Sudheendra Kulkarni's article.

IITB students counsel freshers

The convocation hall at IIT-Bombay was filled with the anxious faces of those who were hoping to get placements and branches of their choice after they got rank-listed in IIT-JEE 2009. Around 500 candidates from the OBC category turned up on the first day of the counselling session held on the IIT campus. This time, IIT-B officials have come up with the idea of getting second and third-year IIT students to act as counsellors. Around 50 students from IIT-B are currently counselling the candidates on career-related issues.

Alumni News

- Adil Zainulbhai the McKinsey India Managing Director marvels at how Indian entrepreneurs are now setting the standards for project execution because they can do it cheaper and faster.

IITs to market patents with help from investment firms

IIT Bombay recently joined hands with Intellectual Ventures (which has drawn criticism for being a "patent troll" — those who acquire patents not to develop products but to pressure companies to pay licensing fees) to seek support in marketing and licensing patents the institute holds.

IIT-B gets a $1.5m boost for research in Nanotech

Applied Materials has signed an MoU with IIT Bombay to pump in $1.5 million over the next three years for cutting-edge research in the areas of semiconductor technology, including on the development of state-of-the art flash memory, photovoltaic and electrochemical energy conversion devices.

Jairam Ramesh in UPA Ministry

Jairam Ramesh ('75) has been appointed as Minister of State of Environment and Forests with independent charge in the new UPA Ministry. He is a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha representing Andhra Pradesh.

IIT runs in the family

The Karkares of Pune are feeling celebratory because one more member of the family has got admission into the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). "I'm glad our entire family has studied in IIT," says Shrikrishna Karkare.

JEE 2009 results announced

A little over 10,000 students have cleared the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) out of the 384,977 candidates who took the exam on April 12. Like last year, IIT Bombay zone again boasts of the maximum number of candidates (3,379) to have cracked the JEE and forty-six candidates from the zone figure in the top 100 on the merit list. The IITs have implemented a 10% relaxation in the cut-off for the OBC category vis-à-vis the general category.

IIT Bombay develops GIS software

IIT Bombay has developed a low-cost Geographic Information System (GIS) software which can be used for resource management by community development programmes, government sectors, NGOs and industries.

A Renaissance of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)

Fifty eight years after the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was founded in Kharagpur, the IITs at Chennai, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, and Roorkee have a lot to be proud of. Many IIT graduates hold important positions in academia and industry in India and abroad. The 50th anniversary of IIT Bombay at Mumbai prompts us to see how well they have met their goals and to discuss the opportunities ahead.

IIT Bombay #1 in India and #30 in Top 100 Universities in Asia

IIT Bombay has been ranked highest among Indian varsities at #30 followed by IIT Kanpur at #34 in the first regional ranking of Asian universities from QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd (QS), the compilers of the Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings.

Nandan Nilekani named to the Times 100

Nandan Nilekani ('78) has been named to the 2009 TIME 100 - The World's Most Influential People ... A middle-class kid from a small town, he rose to become a co-founder and co-chairman of Infosys Technologies and a key player in India's growth story.