IIT Bombay Heritage Fund (IITB-HF)

IITBHF Southern California Chapter

Event Report, September 19, 1999

by Gaurav Sukhatme and Kalyani Sukhatme

The Southern California chapter of the IITBHF held its second meeting of the year on September 19, 1999. The event was held on the Caltech campus in Pasadena. The event was primarily an opportunity for Southern California Alumni to meet with Professors S. P. Sukhatme and S. L. N. Murthy, the Director and Dean Resource Development, respectively, of IITB. The keynote address was given by Mr. Raj Mashruwala (BTech ME 75), currently VP of Sales and Marketing at TIBCO Inc. in Palo Alto, CA.

The event was attended by approximately 50 alumni from the Southern California region (roughly spanning the area between and including Santa Barbara and San Diego). Compared to the New York and San Francisco arms of the IITBHF, the Southern California Chapter is relatively new. It was thus a pleasant surprise to see the enthusiastic participation of so many alumni at the event.

The event began at 11:00 a.m. in the sunny courtyard of the Beckman Institute on the Caltech campus. Amir Khan (President of the Southern California Chapter, BTech EE 90) was the master of ceremonies and introduced the speakers to the audience. He gave a brief overview of the Southern California chapter and asked the rest of the audience to introduce themselves to each other. This done, Mahesh Krishnamurthy (BTech CSE 85) said a few words about the Heritage Fund itself; its genesis, plans and organization.

Amir kicks off the proceedings Prof. Sukhatme speaking to alumni

Amir next introduced Prof. S. P. Sukhatme, the Director of IITB. Prof. Sukhatme's theme for the day was 'A Tryst with Excellence'. He spoke, extempore, for an hour, sharing with the audience his view of what IIT is about, and what it should aspire to be. He argued strongly for an IIT, which, in the future, would be internationally known for its overall strengths in research and teaching. IIT has more than fulfilled one of its missions, which is excellence in undergraduate technical education. The question now remains - 'What steps must IIT take as an institution to place it amongst the ranks of the truly world class universities of higher learning?' Prof. Sukhatme's vision for this includes raising adequate funds, continued recruiting of excellent faculty, and a strategic plan to nurture IIT's nascent research strengths to provide a path for rapid, focused, development. He updated the audience with current developments at IIT, including the new centers and buildings that have sprung up. He also cited the generous financial support of Kanwal Rekhi (BTech ME 67) and Nandan Nilekani (BTech EE 78) towards the School of Management and School of Information Technology.

Prof. Sukhatme presents Mahesh with a certificate of appreciation

Towards the end of his talk, Prof. Sukhatme praised the founding members of the IITBHF for their dedication and hard work in making that organization an instrument of change in the fundraising profile of the Institute. Prof. Sukhatme and Prof. Murthy presented Mahesh with a shawl and a certificate as a mark of appreciation for his hard work in the IITBHF.

Dr. and Mrs. Tekal Nath chat with Prof. Sukhatme Junta… Grub

Alumni interest in the various aspects of IIT's administration, fundraising and student activities was evident in the deluge of questions that followed. The session ended with the questions still continuing as the group moved outdoors for a buffet lunch. During lunch in the courtyard of the Beckman Institute, alumni and their families socialized with Prof. and Mrs. Sukhatme and Prof. Murthy. Pradeep Bhandari (BTech ME 78) met P.V. Hariharan (also BTech 78) - the two were at the same hostel at IITB and have lived in the Southern California region for several years, each not knowing the other was living nearby. Other alumni revived old contacts and made new ones.

After lunch, Amir introduced the speakers for the afternoon. The first speaker was Asha Rangnekar Knott (PhD Chemistry 67), a prominent Republican from Orange County. She spoke with pride about her years at IIT (pre-dating an actual hostel for women) and her involvement with political activism in the United States. She underscored the need for Indians living in the US to make their voices heard through political means.

Dr. Asha Rangnekar Knott and Dr. Tekal Nath reminisce about the early days of IITB

The next speaker was Tekal Nath (BTech CE 62, MTech 64). Of all the alumni in the room he claimed seniority - and with good reason - he was a member of the first graduating BTech class of 1962. He started his career as an IITian with a small bunch of others at the Worli campus of IITB. During his second year, he remembers visiting the Powai location (the site selection for the new campus had just been completed). He was there at the laying of the foundation stone of the Institute on March 10th, 1959, when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India came to Powai for the ceremony. It was Pandit Nehru, of course, who spoke so eloquently on August 15th, 1947, about India's '… tryst with destiny'. Prof. Sukhatme's vision for the future of the Institute draws inspiration from those very words. Dr. Nath showed the audience pictures of an IITB they had never seen, the construction of the MB, the first hostels and first department buildings. These have since been digitized and are available on the IITBHF website.

Raj Mashruwala, happy to be lecturing to Prof. Sukhatme, rather than the other way around

The final event of the day was the keynote address by Raj Mashruwala (Mashru to his batchmates). Mashru is one of the founders of TIBCO Inc., a very successful software company in Silicon Valley, with an unusual management model. He spoke about the management model invented at TIBCO, which relies on an almost deliberate absence of formal planning and encourages employees to react to business opportunities at extremely short notice. This sort of 'don't plan, react' method has been at the cornerstone of TIBCO's success in the past decade. Recent thinking in the corporate world has been that such a model (which encourages an organization to be nimble and opportunistic) is perhaps applicable to some aspects of other organizations (including Universities). After his talk several alumni wanted to chat with Mashru about his thoughts on various aspects of organizational structure and management.

The event concluded with Amir thanking all the speakers and the alumni who attended. An informal social session followed as some prepared to drive home and other lingered on, for the proverbial cack session.

The IITBHF Southern California Chapter event was organized by:

Amir Khan AKhan0786[!]aol.com
Mahesh Krishnamurthy kmahesh[!]yahoo.com
Hussain Bhatia dhbhatia[!]earthlink.com
Kalyani Sukhatme kalyani[!]caltech.edu
Gaurav Sukhatme gaurav[!]usc.edu
Sandeep Sane sane[!]caltech.edu
Amit Manwani amitm[!]caltech.edu

For more information, or if you want to become involved with the activities of the Heritage fund, please contact any of the organizers by email