PanIIT Board Meeting January 19 2003, San Jose, California, USA

Attendees

Board Members

Executive committee attendees

Observers

Point of clarification raised by Prof. Dhande: This meeting cannot be called a board meeting till the board is officially convened. Also, the directors cannot be officially members of the board till they get formal clearance from their respective Boards/MHRD, Govt. of India.

2) Introductions of Attendees

3) Election of Chairman and Secretary for Meeting

A. Prof. Misra was elected the chairman of the meeting (proposed by Anil Kshirsagar and seconded by Prof. Dube; passed by voice vote).

B. Later in the meeting, Anil Kshirsagar was proposed by Prof. Dube and seconded by Prof. Ananth and elected as the secretary of the meeting

4) Introductory Comments by Chairman of the Meeting

The chairman expressed happiness at the success of IIT50 and the momentum built up at the event, particularly with reference to audience participation. He discussed the background for the PanIIT movement starting from the May 19th meeting at Connecticut which involved preliminary discussions of alumni and distinguished alumni. He highlighted the key decisions made at the meeting namely, to create a Pan-IIT voice, to form a PanIIT Advisory Council, to have a 50-year celebratory event and a series of following PanIIT events, to initiate alumni engagement on IIT governance and vision, and the creation of a pan-IIT board. He expressed happiness at the progress made on these issues with particular reference to the meeting of the advisory council earlier in the morning and the IIT50 event on the previous two days.

Following the introductory comments, the chairman announced that the board was formally convened and that the official representatives of the various IITs were invitees to the board meeting pending approval from the government.

5) Constitution of the Board

Following the introductory comments, there was a discussion on the constitution of the board. The following was agreed upon.

A. The Directors and representatives of the IITs agreed in principle to their membership on the board subject to other approval guidelines. They would be considered as invitees for this board meeting.

B. Mr. Narayan Murthy and Mr. Rajat Gupta were nominated as the Chairman and co-Chairman for future board meetings. These people were chosen based on their prior involvement in PanIIT efforts and their stature and acceptance.

C. The composition of the board was decided to include the following:

- The Chairman and co-Chairman to be nominated by the board

- The Directors of each IIT

- Two representatives from the alumni associations of each IIT.

Two representatives were chosen to ensure adequate geographic representation and to ensure quorum in meetings irrespective of location

It was decided that if there is ambiguity in the definition of the alumni association, the directors will decide on the alumni nominees

D. The PanIIT board will be a global worldwide organization.

6) Goals of the PanIIT organization

The following goals were decided based on a discussion of the proposals from the
Connecticut meeting and some recommendations in the advisory council meeting earlier
in the morning.

1. Protection of branding – common branding of all IITs
2. Networking opportunities – events, SIGs, professional endeavors
3. Engagement with IIT governance and vision
4. Co-operation with faculty development at IITs
5. Sharing of best practices and costs

7) Guidelines for the PanIIT Board operations

ii. Naming convention:

Organizationally, the board will be referred to consistently as the PanIIT board
(no hyphens, no space). However, for purposes of branding, etc., the words IIT
will be used. Logos and letterheads will be determined based on the
recommendations of the branding group.

iii. Executive councils:
While there will be one global board, there will be multiple executive councils
based on geographic areas
(a) The board formally recognized the executive council for North America,
chaired by Abhay Bhushan for this year.
(b) An equivalent setup in India will be considered and initiated by the board.

iv. Signature PanIIT meetings:
The national PanIIT executive council will make recommendations to the PanIIT
Board. An event needs to be "blessed" by the board to be called a major PanIIT
event. Preferably, the signature events will be limited to once a year.

v. Physical address:
For now, the PanIIT board can be reached at the following physical
addresses:
(a) Within North America: IIT Bombay Heritage Fund
IIT Bombay Heritage Fund
20440 Town Center Lane, Suite 4B1,
Cupertino, CA 95014, USA
Phone: (408) 252-1664
(b) Within India: IIT Delhi campus

vi. Other operational guidelines will be decided by a committee to be formed later.

8)Guidelines to the North American PanIIT executive council from the PanIIT Board

ii. Creation of a committee to decide further organizational details: Further details
on the charter, constitution, and by-laws of the organization will be determined
by a committee consisting of Partha Ranganathan, Sandeep Pandya, Prof.
Vasudev, Noorali Sonawala, Ravi Kumrah, and others. It is also recommended
that this committee get legal counsel on the right status for this organization
(501©(3), c4, or c6 or c7 – charitable profit organization, non-profit but tax-
exempt hobby organization, mutual-benefit organization, or alumni association).

iii. Funding model:

(a) The board recommends that the PanIIT executive council will not explicitly
raise funds. Fund raising will continue to happen through individual
foundations
(b) Funding will get done through a budget at the beginning of the year. For
this year, the EC will come up with a budget by the end of this month. It is
recommended that the EC break up the budget into a corpus fund and
operating funds.
(c) Each IIT foundation will pay a minimum amount per year. The advisory
council recommends $30,000 for this year. A decision on the exact amount
will be taken once the budget is formulated and approved. The option of
directing a percentage of the funds raised by the alumni associations to the
PanIIT EC was also discussed, but the board reserved its decision for a
future meeting.
(d) Events sponsored by the PanIIT EC will be self-funded to be break-even or
generate a surplus through gate membership and/or event sponsorships
(corporate or individual). Risk coverage will be provided by funds from
the alumni associations.

9) Other actions

ii. Formation of the PanIIT Board alumni sub-committee
The board formed a sub-committee comprising of the alumni presidents to
address the two issues:
(a) How do we focus on key alumni services without losing primary
objective of mobilizing resources for getting IITs to be first-class?
(b) How do we define the value provided to an individual alumnus
through the PanIIT effort?
The committee will come up with recommendations that the board will
consider at a later date.

iii. Documentation of IIT50
The board requested Mr. Monishi Sanyal, chairperson of the IIT50
organizing committee to submit a written report documenting the value
generated from the PanIIT event in the bay area and documenting the
lessons learnt for the future. Mr. Sanyal was also requested to provide
financial accounting of the event.

10) Action items

i. Complete constitution of the board: IIT directors to nominate second alumni
representative to the board (no time frame decided) (owners: IIT directors)

ii. Activate the email group for the PanIIT Board: Individual IIT alumni
representatives (with help from Partha if needed) to take care of this. (time
frame: two weeks) (owners: PanIIT board alumni representatives)

iii. Send "dark minutes" to the directors for approval: Partha to send minutes to
the chairman and secretary of the meeting. The board would like to further refine
the wording of some of the goals. (time frame: two weeks)(owner: Partha)

iv. Initiate PanIIT executive council in India: (No time frame)(No owners yet)

v. Report from the constitution and by-laws definition committee for North
American PanIIT EC (Timeframe: Feb 20th)(Owners: Partha/Sandeep
committee)

vi. Constitution definition for PanIIT Organization (No timeframe yet)(No owners
yet)

vii. Send North American PanIIT EC Budget to board for approval (Timeframe: Feb
20th)(Owners: EC)

viii. Report on IIT50 (Timeframe: Feb 20th)(Owners: Monishi and iit50 organizing
committee)