The Chennai chapter was launched on Friday, 19th of December 2003
with 15 of us getting together at Hotel Woodlands Drive-In. A large contingent from Infosys came in and gave the numbers to the meeting.

The focus of the discussion was the IT to IIT conversion issue. Everybody had something to say on this issue. One thing was very clear that nobody was
clear about the real issues at hand. Based on the messages posted on this group there is definitely awareness that some people are working on it. We need a single mouthpiece who can give us the current ("Official") status and what role different alumni can play to enhance the chances. The petition system is a case in point.

In the meanwhile, a few suggestions have come in

1. We need to have a national event organised by the Alumni in association with the Institute which will showcase the institute to the decision makers whether
it is the committee or politicians or bureaucrats. We need to invite some of them to attend the function. The media should be out in attendance and eminent
alumni must be roped in to act as convenors.

2. In order to showcase the Institute to make it into an IIT we need to collect data to establish our case. Like the good souls who collected the data about
leading alumni, we thought it would be useful to have a count of IT-BHU guys in leading companies employing large number of our alumni especially IT companies like Infosys, Satyam, Wipro and TCS. Some of us have
volunteered to do that.

We have decided to meet on the 16th of January with the intention of collecting a larger crowd and making progress on this and other issues.

In the meanwhile, we have discussed a few issues mentioned by Anshuman. We have also identified some volunteers.

1. What should be the calendar for the chapter - i.e. when should the alumni meet.

We will meet on 16th of January 2004 and thereafter every quarter

2. How is the chapter going to be sustained. The founders may get busy how is tranistion going to happen

We have deferred this issue to the 16th Jan meeting when we will have a larger number to get commitments

3. Primary contacts for the chapter.

V.Subramaniam Chemical 1982 email: vsubu@meru.co.in
Raja Venkateshwar Chemical 1991 raja_sdi@hotmail.com
N. Jaishankar Chemical 1991 email: srijai@eth.net
Rajesh H Mechanical 1992 rajesh_harihara@satyam.com
Rajat Chaturvedi Mech 2001 rajat_chaturvedi@Infosys

V.Subramaniam and Raja Venkateshwar will represent the chapter at the various chapter level discussions

Rajat Chaturvedi will interact with the Institute

N. Jaishankar and Rajesh H will actively increase membership of the Chennai chapter

Thanks for the patient reading and hoping to keep the momentum going.

Bye

Subramaniam
1982 Chemical