A Real good Article !

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  1. manjuap

    manjuap New Member

    India's tech tigers home in to the past

    TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2003 11:58:22 AM ]

    SAN JOSE: Invited to deliver the keynote address of the Golden Jubilee of the Indian Institute of Technology held last week in Silicon Valley, Bill Gates decided to a bit of background research before the speaking gig. So he went to the IIT website, and then, just for comparison, to the MIT website.

    On the MIT site, he says, the big news was that the coffee house on the campus was closing down because people weren't spending enough money there. On the IIT Mumbai website, the hot news was that they had caught a leopard on the campus recently.

    "That's something U.S universities can't offer in terms of experience," Gates joked to some 2500 IITians packed standing room only into San Jose's Fairmont Hotel Conference Hall last weekend. Then, the world's most famous tech-head, who is a college dropout but not given to easy praise, spoke thusly to the Indian tigers of technology, "The IIT...is an incredible institution that has changed the world."

    There were whole families and generations of IITians. At 84, Arya Bhushan is an IITian who predates the IITs. He is an alumnus of IIT Roorkee (1940 batch), which is the oldest engineering school in Asia (established in 1847) but has been "upgraded" to an IIT only recently. His son Abhay Bhushan (1965, IIT Kanpur) is a VC in Silicon Valley. Then there is the famous family firm of Infosys' N.R.Narayana Murthy and Sycamore Networks' Desh Deshpande, both IITians married to sisters Sudha (IISc, Bangalore) and Jayashree (also IITian). Less well known but equally distinguished is their brother Shrinivas Kulkarni (IIT Delhi), an astrophysicist at Caltech.

    But on this day it was the larger IIT family that was celebrating. The IITs have a strong individuality. Loyalty to campus and hostel is immense. For years now, the IITs have been organizing solo, and often haphazardly. Now for the first time, they were coming together on a pan-IIT scale involving all campuses. "Can we fly formations?" asked Hemen Godbole, one of the organizing committee members. "You bet we can."

    They could. and the outcome was staggering. In addition to the 2500 IITians who turned up, more than 1000 were turned away because there was simply no space at Fairmont's cavernous convention center, the largest available venue in the Valley. One IITian counted 48 Guptas, 35 Singhs, 34 Jains, 26 Sharmas and 23 Agarwals (or variation of that) besides an assortment of Boses and Bannerjees, Balakrishnans and Balasubramanians (shortened in typical IIT lingo to unmentionables). Another counted 62 IITians from Oracle, 59 from Intel, 29 each from IBM and Sun Microsystems, 22 from Stanford University, and 21 from Applied Materials,

    "Next time, we are going to hold it in a stadium," boasted Monishi Sanyal, an organising committee member.

    Just as well. Sometimes, the atmosphere was gladiatorial – and occasionally sophomoric. Despite the pan-IITian kinship, there is still a sporting rivalry between the campuses. Redolent of school days, at an inter-IIT quiz, partisan crowds cheered their teams and barracked others (Kharagpur won).

    Grown men (including CXOs and high executives) momentarily left their responsibilities and role-modeling to hoot and jeer; there were even hai-hais. Some of it was such good fun that they even began planning Mardi Gras and Mood Indigo in the U.S.

    Each IIT played up its strength – Kharagpur its antiquity (it was the first to be established), Kanpur its U.S connection (it was established with American help), and Bombay its entrepreneurial output. IIT Delhi, probably the least ballyhooed outside newbies Guwahati and Roorkee, raised cheers from its supporters by announcing it had won last year's the inter-IIT sports meet (it also got the single largest individual donation -- $ 5 million from alumnus Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystem.)

    But beneath all the fun and laughter, the IITians quietly worked on where they are headed next. For many, the answer is – home, to India. Not necessarily physically, but also mentally, intellectually, and emotionally. And for some, not necessarily mentally, intellectually and emotionally (they have already given), but also physically.

    For years now, IITians have taken the rap, justifiably perhaps, of having abandoned India for greener pastures abroad, even though they were educated at state expense. According to ball point estimates, more than half of the combined IIT output of 125,000 graduates now works outside India, mainly in the United States, burnishing the world of technology with engineering and managerial skills nourished in the Indian hothouse with Indian taxpayer money.

    They are present in some 200 cities across the world from Ahmedabad to Zurich, including such unlikely places as Ho Chi Minh City and Dar-es-Salaam. There are more graduates from IIT Mumbai in New York (471) than New Delhi (157), more in San Francisco Bay Area (686) than Bangalore (238). In fact, the Bay Area chapter of IIT Mumbai Alumni has the second highest membership (825) after the home ground Mumbai itself (1018).


    But the biggest IIT brands were actually on stage, dispensing gyan and guru dakshina (the directors of all seven IITs and several senior faculty were also present, invited by their rich and famous wards). Some, like Umang Gupta, Desh Deshpande, Sanjay Mittal, Arjun Malhotra, Purnendu Chatterjee, and Kanwal Rekhi were familiar faces, having worked alumni network for several years now. But many others like Vodaphone's CEO designate Arun Sarin, Deloitte and Touche's Manoj Singh, and Webex's Subrah Iyer, are only now returning to the alumni network in a public way.

    What the IIT50 also showed with some success was that IITians are not just good techheads, but have acquired a range of experience and expertise in public life and public policy that may be useful to India outside the science and technology arena. The saga of IITian success in science and technology, entrepreneurship, and even management (McKinsey's Rajat Gupta; Citicorp's Victor Menezes; United Airlines Rono Dutta) is well chronicled. But now IITians have spread out over a staggering range, holding senior positions in companies as varied as oil giant Schlumberger to grocery chain Safeway to financial services Berkshire Hathaway and handling jobs from finance and accounting to management strategy (less well known fact: some 1500 IIT graduates are in the Indian civil and foreign service).

    In fact, one of the star attractions at the IIT50 was a little known IITian, Manohar Parrikar, better known now as the current chief minister of Goa and possibly the first IITian to hold such a high public office (Congress Party honcho Jairam Ramesh and PMOs Sudheendra Kulkarni are also IIT alums). In one interactive session, Parrikar related how his IIT experience has gone a long way in shaping his performance as an administrator and politician.

    At IIT campuses, students run the hostel mess, a position alumni says, trains them better than any political finishing school. Apparently, the mess that Parrikar was elected to run was a real mess. Pilferage by lungi-clad cooks had short-circuited the mess budget. By the simple expedient of having the cooks exit with their lungi worn down (instead of half rolled up), Parrikar returned the mess to normal. It is a lesson he says he is applying to Goa, a state that has returned to some political and financial stability after years of turmoil.

    By the end of the day long Silicon Valley fete, it became apparent that IITians now look at an even great role than mere philanthropists or facilitators for transfer of capital and technology.

    Some meetings spoke of organizing IITians in U.S to go back and teach on campuses either as full time faculty members or guest lecturers (one big myth is all IITians flee and flee into industry; 25 per cent of IIT Mumbai faculty is IIT alumni).

    Others committed time and money for public policy. Influential voices like Vinod Khosla urged Stanford University President John Hennessy to consider starting campuses in India. It was a vigorous churning of ideas, and for once, the impression that IITians have abandoned India after leaching it was sought to be dispelled.
     
  2. Myoptimism

    Myoptimism New Member

    Thanks for the article Manjuap.
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Looks like a copyright violation to me.
     
  4. Myoptimism

    Myoptimism New Member

    Maybe so, but it was quoted, so maybe not.
     
  5. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Just because you can't include this in your UIU dissertation, Rich, don't be jealous! :D
     
  6. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Following that logic, one could take another author's book, put it in quotes, and then publish it. No.

    The issue here is "fair use." While certainly an amorphous concept (how much is fair?), reprinting an entire article certainly falls outside "fair use." And as for "quoting," the author wasn't even listed, not to mention the full citation.

    Posting the link would have been more appropriate.
     

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