IIT DELHI ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS: PLANS FOR 2010-2011

Dear Fellow Alumni & Friends

On this momentous occasion of the Golden Jubilee Year of our institute, I wish to congratulate everyone who has brought it success. Congratulations are due to the Director, the Faculty and the entire staff at the institute who have moulded and continue to mould such eminent alumni and diligent students. Congratulations to our alumni and students for making our institute proud with their assiduous efforts. Finally, congratulations to all our entire countrymen for recognizing the achievements of our institute and giving it a world renowned brand image.

It is indeed an honour for me to connect with you in such a benign environment as the President of IIT Delhi Alumni Association. I thank you all.

Our Alumni Association has now close to 35000 elite members. Each alumnus has different expectations from the Alumni Association; and my Strategy for next year is to meet these varied aspirations of the Alumni.

The new programs I propose to implement during 2010-2011 are:

a)      Alumni Assist Alumni (AAA or the Triple Ace) Program: The young alumni seek the embrace of their senior alumni in the initial years for assistance and support in the career path. Since our senior alumni have already reached in such positions so as to elevate the emergent alumni, I propose the introduction of this program. The senior alumni who help in this direction shall be known as our Triple Aces.

b)      Professional Head Hunters Program (PHHP): We are now in touch with International Head Hunters who always have very attractive and lucrative opportunities for all our alumni. We shall pursue them actively for the benefit of our alumni.We also hope to leverage our web portal in this direction to generate flattering opportunities for our alumni and at the same time generate resources for our Alumni Association.

c)       Enhanced Networking: Be it a business interaction or pure nostalgia, the Reunion of the alumni is always a resounding accomplishment.

1.       Starting this year, I propose to have the Annual General Meeting and the Annual Get-Together as separate functions. While, I have some names in mind for the second event, I welcome your suggestions

2.       As far as Batch Reunions are concerned, currently, the first Reunion of the batch occurs officially after 25 years i.e. the Silver Jubilee Reunion. During my active involvement in the IITDAA activities for the last few years, I have learnt that the Alumni seek a 10^th year and 15^th year Reunion too. A few such unofficial Reunions have been a huge success with nostalgia and giving back to our alma mater ruling high among the alumni. Therefore, I propose to introduce the 10^th year and 15^th year Reunion for the alumni.

In addition to the networking benefit to the alumni, IITDAA shall benefit by engaging them and their young minds to augment its activities.

3.       The outstation Alumni normally moan that the IITDAA programs are mostly for the NCR residents. While the IITDAA chapters are organizing their own Reunions, I propose to start IITDAA organized Reunions for the alumni outside the NCR.I shall encourage alumni from all Chapters to have a Networking holiday at the Chapter which decides to organize the Reunion. Interest in this direction has already been expressed by some Chapters.

d)      Giving back to our Alma Mater: I have classified these activities into a few categories:

1.       For the Students: I propose to introduce a Student Alumni Mentorship program where the alumni shall assist the students right from studies at the institute up to their first job. The experience of the alumni in the industry and the academic excellence of the students shall form an ideal interface.

2.       For the Faculty: This shall be a very important aspect next year with the prospects of foreign universities entering our country. With better salary offers expected from the foreign universities, it shall be difficult to retain good faculty at our institute. We shall come up with programs which with your support shall induct and retain top level faculty at our institute.

3.       For the Institute Facilities: In this direction, whatever we do will never be enough. In this Golden Jubilee year of the institute I propose to introduce the GOLDEN ALUMNI WALL OF FAME.

All alumni who shall contribute an amount of Rs 1 lakh and above to our association shall be recognized as GOLDEN ALUMNI and shall find their name on the Wall of Fame at our website. Those who contribute Rs 5,00,000 and above shall find their name on the Wall of Fame on our website as well as  at the IITDAA office. As I look at it, this amount is a pittance and all of you would have earned an extra n of times of this amount just by having a brand IIT attached to your name. On top of that having your name written in GOLD LETTERS ON THE WALL OF FAME is like SONE PE SUHAGA.

e)      Giving Back to the society: We have a huge number of alumni who have reached Leadership positions. These alumni may be leaders in industry, leaders in civil services, or the truth leaders. We propose to have programs by them which shall be of benefit for our other alumni and for the society in general.

f)       Alumni Reach: The most important aspect of any association is its reach to as many alumni as possible. We have currently 20 Chapters, 11 in India and 9 overseas. I propose to increase them by at least 25% during the next year. We have already made good progress for a Chapter in Europe. More energy shall be directed this year towards keeping all Chapters active by having regular interactive participation and communication.     

The above list of programs is definitely not exhaustive. In addition to the regular programs of this year I propose to start a Mega Project. I propose to call it:

IIT Delhi Research & Recreation Park

The key facilities in it shall be

i)        Centres of Excellence: These shall be structured R&D interfaces between the institute and industry in areas of interest to both.

ii)      Centre for Inno-Ventures: This shall be an Entrepreneurship Development Cell for the students and the alumni. It will encourage them to take up projects from the nascent stage of R&D to pilot plant production to commercial production and marketing.

iii)    IIT Delhi Alumni Club: A lot of alumni have been waiting for this club which shall have accommodation, sports and a number of Recreation Facilities.I hope to end this wait soon.

All the above projects need your active support for implementation. I seek your input on the above as well as suggestions on additional activities, we can take up to imprint the name of our Association in the annals of success.

THANK YOU

Warm Regards

Shashi Munjal

President

IIT Delhi Alumni Association