Dallas

by Abhishek Bhutra _______________________________________________________________

The North Texas Chapter of IIT Bombay Alumni Association (IITB-AANT) kicked off its activities by hosting its first professional event - luncheon reception for Dr. S.L. Narayana Murthy, Dean of Resources, IIT Bombay, on Sunday October 3, 1999, at Arthur Anderson Gallery, the Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. The featured speaker for this event was Kanwal Rekhi, entrepreneur and 1967 alumnus of IIT Bombay. The event was attended by over 50 fellow alumnus from the Dallas-FortWorth metroplex and some even coming from Austin.

In his opening talk, Dr. S. L. Narayana Murthy (Dean, Resource Development, IIT Bombay) spoke about the current state of the institute, recent accomplishments, vision, and the role of the alumni in IIT Bombay's "tryst with excellence". The vision of the institute and the steps underway to enhance the "soft and hard infrastructure", are exemplary and will enable this IIT to be one of the best schools in the world. He notified us of the joint No. 1 rank in India and Top 6 in Asia, which was recently bestowed to the institute. Audience were informed of some the changes taking place at the institute like opening of new school of management, interdisciplinary programs in energy systems, biotechnology etc and widening of the scope of education by starting weekend programs for the professionals. However at the same time the institute is facing several challenges to maintain its top of the line stature due to limited resources required for staying abreast with the latest technology and its crumbling infrastructure. As a result there is an immediate need for injection of funds one of the source of which is alumni contributions.

This was followed by a refreshing and inspiring talk by the keynote speaker, Mr. Kanwal Rekhi, who is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and social worker from Silicon Valley. By mentoring, inspiring and grooming South Asian and other entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley, Mr. Rekhi has been instrumental in fueling the new silicon economy. "I attempt to combine the business of investing with the ideal and mission of generating value for the society," said Mr. Rekhi. He recently donated two million dollars to IIT Bombay for the establishment of the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology. He dwelled on the need for us to be responsible for the well being of our country in general and alma mater in particular by contributing financially towards their development. He also enlightened everyone about the need to be enterprising and undertaking business ventures of our own.

The event ended with an open discussion on the feedback received from the questionnaire conducted at the beginning of the event. Based on common response, it was decided to host a Happy hour and an outdoor picnic in the next couple of months. Please watch out for more details on these upcoming events. Also, if you are an IITB alumni from the DFW metro area and are not enrolled in the iitbaant egroups mailing list, please send a mail to abhutra[!]hotmail.com or rmenon[!]att.net.