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PanIIT Chicago Report
Posted on Friday, December 25 @ 01:00:39 MST by gops
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Thanks to those who attended and contributed to making the PanIIT event at Chicago a success more than ever before. IIT Roorkee's presence was not only evident through its leadership, but also by the number of attendees, which went up to about 150 from about 40 at any such previous conferences. We missed those who could not make it.
The way the four days went, you may like to join us at our bi-Annual meet, this time on a cruise. The details will be announced shortly.
With entrepreneurship and innovation in a global economy as the theme
and a galaxy of star speakers and delegates from the industry, academia, politics and other walks of life the PAN IIT 2009 Conference in Chicago turned out to be a grand event.
The IIT RAANA executive committee was represented by President Purnima Gupta, Vice-President Vinay Deshmukh, Secretary Parag Rastogi and Vice-President Entertainment Harpreet Singh.
Purnima Gupta, our President, represented RAANA at the PanIIT Leadership Circle meeting in the evening.
Surendra Kumar Goel represented the Association as one of the Judges for PanIIT Distinguished Alumni Awards. On the 8th they were there to lend a helping hand to the organizers of the event and
had a face to face meeting with Dr Suresh Saxena , Director, IIT-Roorkee. Other distinguished alums present were Subodh Bhargava, Ram Autar Goel and Roopa Gir.
During our informal conversation with Director Saxena, in the posh lobby of hotel Schaumburg Renaissance, he talked about wide ranging issues from research at the IIT's to the opportunities available for collaboration between the students, the faculty and the alumni. IIT RAANA members reiterated our commitment to help the students in many different ways.
The event was chaired by a Roorkeeite Ray Mehra, with lots of support from other area Roorkeeites like Ajit Pant, Anoop Verma, Tarun Kumar, Vivek Varma etc. They and their wives reinforced their hands on experience in event management with activities ranging from sorting badges, printing certificates and arranging the booths through the night of 8th.
The event was inaugurated on the 9th by the honorable minister of state for HRD Smt. Purandeshwari with a message from the union minister for HRD
Mr.Kapil Sibbal . In her well researched speech, Smt Purandeshwari
highlighted the need for innovation in a developing country and the
theories behind it. Perhaps the highlight of her event was her
reference to Swami Vivekananda's address to the parliament of religions
held in Chicago in 1893 and the relevance of his teachings in a global
economy.
Mr.Bill Clinton's charisma was evident in the pin drop silence and
rapt attention that he commanded in his speech to a jam packed audience
followed by a conversation with Ray. His inspiring speech motivated us all by showing real, tangible examples of innovations that solve social problems. President showcased
the work that he has done so far all over the world and showed us how some of his
team's simple innovations have transformed the day to day lives of those
living in abject poverty.
Some of the other plenary speakers were Dr. Myhrvold, CEO, intellectual
ventures, Mr.Sam Pitroda, Mr.Aneesh Chopra, CTO, US Government; Tulsi Tanti,
Chariman, Suzlon Energy Limited;Ambassador Meera Shankar; Umang Gupta ,CEO
Keynote systems. The parallel sessions were equally enlightening and thought provoking.
The spirit of Roorkee was quite evident when the Alumni were together on the 9th and the 10th evenings way past midnight. On the 9th we introduced ourselves and on the 10th we had a nostalgic entertainment program led by Harpreet. Kul Bhushan Razdan and Preetam Singh broke the ice with their jokes. Musical items were presented by Krishna Kumar, Abha Singh and Sunil Bhatnagar, while Piyush Kumar with an accomplished actress and wife Kashish, Harish Goyal and Manoj Goel presented humorous skits. Harpreet's qavvali was an instant hit.
Roorkeeites had a formal meeting on the 11th morning to discuss
the progress the alumni association and the heritage fund have made
so far and chalk out strategies for the future in collaboration with the
administrators, faculty members, alumni and the students of IIT, Roorkee.
Meanwhile, our President , Purnima Gupta who has already made her mark as a writer and as the Founder member of the Writers' Forum, had organized a meeting and presided the session on the 10th. On the occasion Abhay Bhushan (IIT-K), the Founder President of PanIIT movement, presented the writer's awards to the distinguished authors of the year, Praveen Gupta and all the writers of 'Reflections by IITians'.
Some of the other highlights of the event were --
1. The students whom IIT RAANA had sponsored for the conference won
the second prize in the entrepreneurship competition.
2. The first prize in that competition was also bagged by Roorkeeites.
3. Kailash Kher enthralled the audience with his mystic sufi music. The event was planned by Sunil Hali and Ravathi Natesan.
4.The Roorkee booth shaped up quite well after some initial hiccups.
The posters on display were well appreciated and so was the DVD that
walked us down memory lane with the glorious history of the institute .
In the end , it appeared that most delegates had their objectives
fulfilled at least to a reasonable extent - be it networking , business,
entertainment, jobs or gaining knowledge. Please do inform us if you happen to know someone whom we forgot to recognize for her/his contributions to the success of the event in this report. If you would like to share photographs of this event please send them to Sridhar Gopaluni.
Regards,
Vinay
Vice-President-IITRAANA
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