IIT Bombay’s Class of 1981 will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of its graduation at its reunion on December 23 and 24, 2006, on the Powai campus of IIT Bombay. Like all prior silver jubilee batches, the Class of 1981 will commemorate its legacy towards IIT Bombay with an Alumni Project. The Alumni Project selected by the Class of 1981 is the granting of scholarships to both first-year and final-year students. Two kinds of scholarships will be granted: Merit-cum-Means scholarship to first-year undergraduate students to help fund their education through IIT, and Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships to final-year undergraduate students embarking on projects that have the potential of becoming a start-up opportunity for a new technology venture.

The following questions provide more details about the IIT Bombay Class of 1981 Alumni Project and how you can contribute.

• What is an IIT Bombay Alumni Project?
• What is the Class of 1981 Alumni Project?
• Why should I contribute to the Alumni Project?
• How did the Class of 1981 choose its Alumni Project?
• How much should I contribute?
• Why is the guideline one month's salary?
• What kind of scholarships will be granted through the Class of 1981 Alumni Project?
• Who will decide how Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships are granted?
• Who will administer the funds for the Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships?
• Will the scholarships be paid out of interest on the corpus collected?
• What are Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships?
• Is an Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship similar to seed funding or angel investor funding for a start-up company?
• Are entrepreneurs who received their seed grants from the Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship Fund expected to repay their grants?
• Who will decide how Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships are granted?
• Can I volunteer to be on the Selection Board for Class of 1981 Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships?
• Who will administer the funds for the Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships?
• How will the Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships work with IIT Bombay’s SINE business incubator?
• Can I target my contribution towards a specific kind of scholarship?
• Can I contribute funds for a specific named scholarship?
• When should I contribute?
• Okay, I am ready. How do I contribute?

What is an IIT Bombay Alumni Project?

Each year, the IIT Bombay batch celebrating the 25th anniversary of its graduation picks a project to benefit IIT Bombay and the IIT Bombay community. This project is typically a noteworthy cause that improves IIT in some manner. Alumni projects from previous batches have included building improvements such as the construction of new departments, land and environmental improvement such as the cleanup of Powai and Vihar lakes, specific hostel improvements, improvements to academic programs, as well as specific targeted funding for helping meritorious students achieve their goals.

What is the Class of 1981 Alumni Project?

The IIT Bombay class of 1981 is undertaking as its alumni project the granting of scholarships to both first-year undergraduate students and final year graduating students.

Why should I contribute to the Alumni Project?

Every academic institution that has achieved world-class status recognizes the enormous value of enduring advice, guidance, and contributions from its alumni. It is through an ongoing two-way dialogue with all its alumni that academic institutions remain connected to the outside world, and are able to change and modify their academic programs to adapt to the requirements of industry. Most world-class institutions have established mechanisms to regularly seek not only generous monetary contributions but also continuing assistance and counsel from their alumni.

The silver jubilee of your graduation from IIT Bombay is a particularly appropriate time to acknowledge the contribution IIT has made to your career. Twenty-five years after your graduation from IIT, it is likely that you are at or near the peak of your professional career. As such, you are in a position to contribute generously to worthwhile causes on campus that not only honor and cherish the value that the IIT education has brought to your career, but also ensure that future graduating batches are able to benefit from the same value.

How did the Class of 1981 choose its Alumni Project?

The Class of 1981 received considerable advice and guidance from prior batches who had celebrated the silver jubilees of their graduation and had successfully identified, raised funds for, and executed on their alumni projects. The Class of 1981 also received help and suggestions on alumni projects from the IIT Bombay Alumni Association as well as the IIT Bombay Heritage Fund. Based on this input, as well as several suggestions made by batch members, an online poll was conducted among batch members. Based on the results of that poll, the Class of 1981 selected the granting of scholarships as its Alumni Project.

How much should I contribute?

The suggested guideline is that you contribute one month’s salary to the Alumni Project. Prior batches celebrating their silver jubilees have used this guideline for raising funds, and have been able to raise sufficient funds to successfully execute on their Alumni Projects with meaningful impact and tangible benefits.

Why is the guideline one month’s salary?

The rationale is that your education through IIT has added some incremental value to your career. Many prior batches have reasonably speculated that the incremental value of an engineering education in IIT, over an engineering education elsewhere, is at least one working day’s salary per year. By now, most of us have had at least a 20-year working career. Theoretically, if you were to set aside one working day’s salary for each of your 20 working years to recognize the contribution your IIT education made to your career, you would have effectively set aside one month’s salary.

For this reason, the suggested guideline is that you contribute one month’s salary to your batch’s alumni project.

What kind of scholarships will be granted through the Class of 1981 Alumni Project?

Two kinds of scholarships will be granted:

1. Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships will be granted to first-year undergraduate students that demonstrate a financial need to help fund their education through IIT.
   
   
2. Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships will be granted to final-year undergraduate students that wish to embark on projects that might turn into a start-up opportunity for a new technology company.

Who will decide how Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships are granted?

IIT already has an existing mechanism and an existing fund to grant merit-cum-means scholarships to deserving first-year students who demonstrate the financial need. The Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships will leverage this mechanism. Funds collected for the Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships will be specifically identified, and will not be commingled with the existing IIT scholarship funds. Funds collected for the Class of 1981 Merit-cum-Means Scholarships may have somewhat different rules for disbursement than existing IIT scholarship funds. For example, in order to maximize the effectiveness of the scholarship grants, it is likely that the threshold level for granting Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means scholarships will be different than the current threshold levels for IIT scholarships.

Who will administer the funds for the Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships?

The administration, accounting, and auditing mechanisms will be leveraged from the existing facilities IIT already has for its merit-cum-means scholarships. As such, it is anticipated that the Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships will be able to maximize use of funds for actual scholarships, as there will be minimal incremental administrative overhead. Regular reports, including amounts disbursed, amount remaining, and other financial details will be made available to the Class of 1981 through the IIT Bombay Alumni Association and the IIT Bombay Heritage Fund.

Will the scholarships be paid out of interest on the corpus collected?

It is expected that the scholarship amounts will be distributed from both the interest generated on the funds raised as well as from the corpus itself. It is expected that over some defined lifetime, such as ten years, the entire fund, including interest and the corpus itself, will be fully disbursed. After that point the Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarship will cease to exist and no more scholarships will be granted. A final accounting report will be made available to the Class of 1981 after the fund closes, indicating how the monies from the fund were disbursed over the entire lifetime of the fund.

What are Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships?

Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships are intended to seed the creation of new industrial value in India through encouraging final-year undergraduate students to consider technology start-up ventures. Final-year graduating students who are undertaking B.Tech. projects that have start-up potential, or have other ideas for new technology ventures, may approach the fund for scholarships. The intent of these Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships is to enable sufficient funding for the final-year student to pursue his or her technology start-up idea. The project undertaken must have the potential for the creation of new commercial or social value in India. The student may use the scholarship money for additional research, for building prototypes, for building proofs-of-concept, or other purposes that will help further develop and test their innovative ideas.

Is an Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship similar to seed funding or angel investor funding for a start-up company?

It is similar in intent but not in its financial or legal structure. Like seed or angel investor funding for a start-up company, the goal of an Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship is to foster new technology innovation to the point where a determination can be made whether a particular idea is feasible to develop further for commercial or social benefit. Unlike an angel investor’s fund, however, the Class of 1981 Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship Fund will not be a holder of any equity or debt in the start-up. A typical seed investment from an angel investor in a start-up is financially structured as either a convertible promissory note or as actual equity in the start-up. By contrast, a Class of 1981 Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship is an outright grant of money to a final-year student.

Because the scholarship is a grant, not a loan, by design there is no mechanism that legally requires the scholarship grantee to pay anything back to the fund. This also means that even though you may have contributed to Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship fund, and you may have been instrumental in the granting of scholarship awards from which successful companies were launched, you will not be considered an equity shareholder or a creditor in such companies.

Are entrepreneurs who received their seed grants from the Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship Fund expected to repay their grants?

Every final-year undergraduate student who receives a Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship will be asked to sign, in their scholarship award acceptance letter, a good-faith intention to pay the fund back should their start-up idea be successful. Specifically, this declaration will be a good-faith intention by the awardee to pay back approximately 10 times or greater of the amount of the scholarship grant back to the fund, should their innovation turn out to be commercially or socially successful. This will be a best-effort, good faith declaration on the part of the awardee, with no legal binding on the awardee to actually do so. It is expected that successful awardees will honor the intent of this declaration, even though there is no contractual commitment on them. Any monies collected from such paybacks will go back into the general fund and will help in the issuance of additional Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships and will extend the lifetime of the fund.

Who will decide how Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships are granted?

A selection board consisting of Class of 1981 Alumni, as well as additional distinguished invited IIT Bombay Alumni from other batches, will meet annually to decide on the granting of Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships. Proposals will be solicited from final-year undergraduate students for technology start-ups, based either on their B. Tech. Projects or other ideas. Based on the innovative nature as well as the potential commercial feasibility or social benefit of each proposal, this board will make a determination as to the number and size of scholarships granted.

Can I volunteer to be on the Selection Board for Class of 1981 Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships?

Volunteers are welcome. The initial selection board will be constituted at the reunion event on December 23 and 24, 2006, under the leadership of Mr. Milind Gokhale, CEO of the IIT Bombay Alumni Association and himself a Class of 1981 alum. It is expected that Board members will change and rotate on an ongoing basis. Class of 1981 alums with leadership experience in industry and academia, as well as in social, environmental and governmental organizations, either in India or outside, will be ideally suited to serve on the Selection Board for Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships.

Who will administer the funds for the Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships?

Like the Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarships, the administration, accounting, and auditing mechanisms will be leveraged from the existing facilities IIT already has for its merit-cum-means scholarships. Regular reports, including amounts disbursed, amount remaining, and the success of any ventures launched through the fund’s seed funding, will be made available to the Class of 1981 through the IIT Bombay Alumni Association and the IIT Bombay Heritage Fund.

How will the Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarships work with IIT Bombay’s SINE business incubator?

SINE (the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship) is a business incubator at IIT Bombay that supports technology-based entrepreneurship, with the goal of converting research activity into entrepreneurial ventures. SINE provides the physical infrastructure, IT systems support, networking, mentorship, contacts with the venture capital community, and consulting advice to budding entrepreneurs with innovative ideas. SINE is not restricted to IIT Bombay final-year undergraduate students. By contrast, the Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship Fund will be restricted to final-year undergraduate students, and will specifically be targeted towards funding innovative B. Tech. Projects and other ideas with entrepreneurial potential.

It is anticipated that the Selection Board for the Class of 1981 Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship Fund grants will work closely with SINE, and will likely include members from the SINE Governing Board. It is also anticipated that awardees will leverage SINE facilities during their undergraduate final year, and that after their B. Tech. graduation some subset of these awardees may move to SINE as full-time business incubation candidates.

Can I target my contribution towards a specific kind of scholarship?

Yes, you can target your contribution to either the Class of 1981 Alumni Merit-cum-Means Scholarship Fund, or to the Class of 1981 Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship Fund. You can also contribute separate amounts to both funds.

Can I contribute funds for a specific named scholarship?

Yes. If you contribute to either fund an amount equal to or greater than INR 2,50,000, or USD 5,000 or equivalent, one of the scholarships disbursed from that fund will be named as per your choice. You can designate that the scholarship be named after yourself or any individual of your choice.

A named scholarship does not imply that your specific contribution is set-aside in a separate account, or that separate scholarship grants in your name are made only from your contribution. Limitations on administrative overhead preclude such handling of your contribution. Your contribution will be commingled with other contributions to the fund in a common pool. When scholarship awards are granted from the fund, one of the award letters from that fund each year will refer to the grant as the named scholarship in the name you specified. Recognition will also be accorded on the IIT Bombay Alumni Association web site for the named scholarships granted each year from the Class of 1981 Alumni Entrepreneurial Seed Scholarship Fund.

When should I contribute?

Contribute now. You can make your contribution at any time, either before, during, or after the Class of 1981 25th Alumni Reunion which is to be held at IIT Bombay on December 23 and 24, 2006. It is strongly suggested you contribute before the reunion event, so that your contribution can be recognized during the reunion event.

Okay, I am ready. How do I contribute?

If you live in India, the instructions for donation are at http://www.iitbombay.org/alum/fundraising/HowToDonateIndia.htm

If you live outside India, the instructions for donation are at http://www.iitbombay.org/alum/fundraising/HowToDonate.htm (includes information on US corporations that match donations)

Both the above pages also have a pledge form that can be used to specify the purpose of the donation. Please make sure you select either the Scholarship or the Entrepreneurship options of the legacy project.

You can also pay by credit card, by going to
https://www.iitbombay.org/IITBFund/OnlineDonation/creditcardpayment.asp. On the form, you can select either the Scholarship or the Entrepreneurship options of the legacy project.