Alumni in the news - Nov 7

Pranav Mistry ('05) makes up things as he moves. "I now realise that many ideas I came across during my IIT-Bombay days are getting done in places like MIT in the US, and everybody is giving a lot of attention," Mr Mistry, who is in Mysore to talk at the Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) conference. A PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s famed Media Lab, Mr Mistry, 28 ... called SixthSense, the prototype is made of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant-like mobile wearable device, while the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket via bluetooth. Mr Mistry has filed a patent application for the device.

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Sixth Sense featured in the New York Times Bits Blog ... more.

It has been 25 years of entrepreneurship for Pramod Chaudhari ('71). A successful entrepreneur, he describes his experience as an exciting journey full of ups and downs. After his engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Pramod Chaudhari worked for a multinational company for a few years. Later, he decided to start his own venture. Passionate about green technologies, he established Praj Industries in 1984.

It was not an easy ride. He failed many times but that did not deter him from taking new initiatives and moving ahead. His never-say-die attitude and optimism made sure he built a world-renowned company. Under his leadership, Praj focusses on offering innovative solutions to add value in bio-ethanol, bio-diesel, brewery plants and process equipment and systems for customers worldwide.

Praj has been creating innovative technology platforms to make biofuels a sustainable choice toward making a greener planet.

Praj was recently conferred the 'Forbes Best Under a Billion Company' in Asia, for the second consecutive year, based on its consistent growth and profitability over three years.

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In a Conde Nast Traveler article about Mumbai titled "It's Mumbai, yaar" ...

"Bombay's contrasts drive you crazy, but they are what make it the bustling metropolis that it is," says Nikunj Jhaveri, forty-five, a lifelong Bombayite. "Bombay is like a rose. Roses come with thorns."

A courteous bon vivant with an Italian belly laugh, Jhaveri is part of the swish SoBo set: incestuous, interwoven, and snobbish, more Upper East Side than India. If they don't date each other or serve on the same boards, then their kids attend Cathedral School together (author and pundit Fareed Zakaria is an alum). "Townies," they are called by the "Burbies" of NoBo.

Jhaveri was my husband's classmate at IIT Bombay, India's top engineering school. Although he comes from a prominent business family—his brother deals diamonds out of New York—Jhaveri gave it all up to work for nonprofits and run an IT consultancy that takes him to Geneva and across the globe. But, he says, he is happiest in Bombay. When I ask if he would like to move to New York like his brother, he stares at me as if I am mad and asks, "Why?"
 

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