IT-BHU Silicon Valley Alumni Mixer 2008
16 November 2008
Mountain View, California, USA

The IT-BHU Alumni Association (Silicon Valley Chapter) organized an Alumni Mixer on Sunday, 16 November 2008 at the Passage of India Restuarant in Mountain View, CA. This was the second event of this calendar year, and was attended by almost 50 alumni. Some people had driven almost 50 miles to attend the event, some had never been to such an event before. And some had not seen their hostel roommates for more than a decade! Evidently, one could sense the buzz and excitement in the room!

The mixer was kicked off by Vikram Jung (ECE1985), with the ubiquitus call sign, 'Hala BHU!', from the days when long distance phone calls were a luxury for most students! The entire group then joined in the chorus to sing the BHU Kulgeet, which brought back fond memories of college life. After that, the group received a briefing about the latest updates at the institute from Anshuman Singh (ECE99), who has been actively involved in connecting alumni networks with the IT-BHU administration.

The guest of honor for the event was Deepak Ahuja (Ceramics 1985), who is Chief Financial Officer of Tesla Motors in San Carlos, California. Tesla Motors is an automotive startup company that is making important technological advances to speed up the large scale adoption of electric vehicles. After the vibrant Q&A round that the group had with Deepak, many people went out to the parking lot to see the $130,000 gleaming blue Tesla Roadster that Deepak had driven to the event.

After the formal presentations, people got a chance to network over samosas, gulab-jamuns and chai. Several people also volunteered to work with the organizing committee for the year 2009. The volunteer list would be published shortly. As a result, the committee decided to organize alumni meets every quarter from next year, of which the first will be a family event around the time of Holi. The committee also said it will also work towards reaching out to more alumni in the California area.

A special thanks to all the alumni and their families who could attend this meeting and specially Padam Jung (MET, 1958) - the seniormost alumni at the event! The volunteer team extends its wishes to all alumni and hopes to connect with them for the next event.