Chicago

by Prof. Vinayak Dravid _______________________________________________________________

IIT Alumni Association

Mid-West Chapter Event September 26, 1999

The third IITB AA mid-west chapter event for 1999 was held at the spacious banquet hall of the Viceroy Restaurant in Lombard, IL, on Sept. 26, 1999. The event's highlight was the presence of Prof. S.P. Sukhatme, Director of IITB and Dr. Hemant Kanakia, entrepreneur and alumnus of IITB (1975, H8).

The event started with mingling and chatting prior to the luncheon, highlighted by the presence of one of the earliest batch-mates (1966) to the newest (1999). The crowd (more than 70) was diverse with family and kids taking advantage of the rare sunny day in Chicago-land (arranged specially by the local organizers). Many of our alumni traveled long distance for this special event, some from the remote parts of prairie land of Indiana and Iowa! Following lunch, our local master of ceremonies, Sukumar Thanawala (1984, H6), set the stage for the event with brief remarks about the IITB AA mid-west chapter and introduced yet another local organizer, Vinayak Dravid (1984, H4). Vinayak spoke about the IITB HF mission, the relevance of the mid-west chapter in that context and the local flavor of mid-west chapter objectives and plans. Vinayak ended his brief remarks by welcoming Prof. Sukhatme to Chi-town.

Prof. Sukhatme, with his characteristic - honest, no-nonsense, right from the heart- style articulated his mission and vision for IITB. Prof. Sukhatme's speech preceded by a pretty nifty video about IITB, made by our own IITB Education Department. It was clear from the looks of the audience that they were almost taken away to our beautiful campus and it was a pretty good dose of nostalgia for all. Following the video (which is available as a CD-ROM), Prof. Sukhatme spoke, quite informally, about the latest scoop at IITB, ranging from changes in JEE entrance examination to plans for new initiatives in research and education. He emphasized that research is becoming an important part of IITB faculty and students.Prof. Sukhatme entertained questions from audience, which ranged from gender issues in faculty hiring to new academic programs in IT.

Following Prof. Sukhatme's talk, Dr. Hemant Kanakia spoke about his experience in starting Torrent Networking and outlined his personal thoughts in his talk, appropriately titled: From Y-Point to Torrent: A journey of Thousand Detours! As it is well known by now, Hemant's Torrent Networking Technologies was recently purchased by Ericsson for $ 450 million. Hemant gave his personal impressions about the anxieties and excitement of starting your own company, emphasized the role of IITB alumni network and how he benefited from advice and assistance from other IITB alum. Hemant joked about the name of his company and how his friend who suggested the name for the company, chose to opt for dinner in Manhattan instead of stock options! Hemant answered all sorts of questions from the audience, ranging from when to think about starting on your own to challenges in formulating business plan from scientific ideas.

Following Hemant's speech, Ashish Kothari, another local organizer, spurred the audience with remarks about our vision for mid-west chapter and how we would like to see every member to participate in formulating the course of the chapter starting with our next event. A few free T-shirts were thrown to those with great suggestions!

The event ended with vote of thanks to all participants, our guests and sponsor for the event, Valuecom. It is a reminder to all that although the dreaded Chicago winter will be upon us soon, there is plenty of room for in-door event before the Buckingham fountain starts again in April!

Your humble mid-west organizers (ghodas!): Vinayak Dravid (v-dravid[!]nwu.edu), Ashish Kothari (akothari1[!]hotmail.com), Gopi Sethumadhavan (gopisethu[!]hotmail.com), Sukumar Thanawala (sthanawala[!]qrm.com), Nitin Vaish (nva738[!]merle.acns.nwu.edu) with considerable help from Pradyumna Prabhumirashi.