Welcome to the ITBHU Chronicle, November 2008 Edition Alumni World Section.
Alumni Association Update
Election for Council of Representatives is over
Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008
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As we are aware, the Phase II of CoR (Council of Representatives) election is complete The CoR election Phase I and Phase II has come to an end by November 30, 2008, except for voting for a seat. There are 128 council members from alumni and 16 from students. Thus nominations for student members from all the 16 departments have been received. The list of candidates is posted online on our website:
In very few (only 2) cases we received more than one nomination for the same seat (or constituency). In such case, we informed all the candidates to consider withdrawing their nominations to avoid voting process. Despite this, there were two cases with more than one nomination.
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CoR election-voting process:
For any seat with more than one nomination, the issue is resolved by holding online voting process, for which we have set up an online poll at our election site. The polling can be viewed at: https://www.itbhuglobal.org/elections/pollingbooth/
We have used Drupal Advanced Poll to set up poll booth:
The voting is done by the respective class only (such as Mechanical 1999 for alumni and Mining dept. for students). The online voting has various safeguard mechanisms for conducting fair election, which is monitored by our independent Election Commission.
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Future CoR elections:
The first meeting of elected CoR members (both alumni and student members) shall be held during beginning of December 2008. The meeting will be by email only. After brief introduction, major alumni activities shall be planned.
The next CoR election shall be held after two year, i.e. during Oct-Dec 2010. There will be also a CoR by-election to resolve minor issues and to fill out any seats which become empty. It will be held after one year, i.e. during Oct.-Dec. 2009.
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About CoR
The Council of Representatives (CoR) is a legal body to help our alumni association in the day to day functions. It has members from alumni and students. The council will represent interests of alumni, students, faculty and staff for our alumni association.
For student, it is one representative from each dept (total 16). For alumni, it is one representative from each branch/year.
Our association has 3-tier structure: bottom is 7,300 (current) registered members, CoR with 100-200 members and top is Board of Directors (BoD) with 17 Directors.
BoD makes all executive decision and directs the working of our organization. CoR members elect BoD and help them in making informed decision.
Thus the responsibility of CoR members will be (“alumni” include alumni, students, faculty and staff):
-To elect BoD by voting process
-To help BoD in making day-to-day decisions
-To discuss about any alumni related issues such as alumni projects, funding, chapters, etc.
-To act as a communication link between BoD and members
-To vote on key issues as and when needed
-To put forward problems faced by own community (from class/department)
The term for CoR member is for two years and next election is planned for the end of 2010. Once elected, a CoR student member shall serve for full two years, even if he/she leaves college earlier. Most of the work involves participation in discussion by email exchange.
The advantage of CoR is that not all 7,300 members can be consulted every time for decision making (it is not possible). With CoR, the number is manageable. Also by communicating with CoR member, a message can be sent to entire class/department effectively. This also gives the opportunity for a class/batch or department to put forward its view/suggestion/complaint to BoD officially, so that it can receive special attention.
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Alumni Meet and Reunions
National BHU Alumni Meet 2009 (NBAM 2009)
@ Nov 30, 2008
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(The following info is provided by Dr. (Ms.) Padmini Ravindra Nath, Member, Alumni Cell & Joint Organizing Secretary, "NBAM 2009". She can be contacted at: padmini_1109@hotmail.com.
Prof. D. P. Singh is Chairperson of Alumni Cell of BHU. He is also Professor Emeritus of Department of Mining Engineering, IT-BHU. He can be reached at: dp_singh@live.com)
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It gives us immense pleasure to announce the “National BHU Alumni Meet 2009 (NBAM 2009)”, a Meet of our Alumni from all disciplines.
The “National BHU Alumni Meet 2009” and seminar on “Mahamana’s Vision for a Self Reliant India: Current Issues and Future Prospects” will be held on January 29-30, 2009 on the campus of your Alma Mater.
The venue for the Meet will be Swatantrata Bhavan on the BHU Campus at Varanasi.
For details of the meet, registration, accommodation and deadline for registration, etc. please click on the following Link:
http://www.bhu.ac.in/alumni/BHUAlumni.pdf
This information is also posted on the official university website: www.bhu.ac.in at Alumni Cell.
We look forward to welcoming you on the campus on January 29-30, 2009.
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Silicon Valley alumni mixer on Nov. 16-The Report
Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008
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(Chronicle note: The following report is forwarded by Anshuman Singh. He can be contacted at: singh.anshuman@gmail.com. The report is also posted on the website of Silicon Valley Chapter at:
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Thanks each and everyone of you for making the 5th IT-BHU Silicon Valley Chapter Alumni Meet a huge success! We hope that the event could relive some of your old fond memories of our Alma Mater. We hope all of you who could not attend this time would definitely make it for the next big event around Holi!
A special thanks to Mr. Deepak Ahuja, CFO - Tesla Motors, for enlightening us about Tesla and also showing us his own Tesla car. Given the short notice, we are really glad that he could attend the meet and give the pep-talk. The audience thoroughly enjoyed it. Lest we forget, a special thanks to Mr. Padam Jung, Meta 1958, for attending the meet. He was the seniormost alumni attending any of our meets till now!
Couple of things:
1. Our next meeting would be declared by the volunteer team in the next couple of weeks.
2. We plan to hold a Mega Event around Holi. All inputs from you would be highly beneficial.
3. Please try and let the volunteer team know about any alumni you know in the Bay Area who might not be connected to the alumni chapter. We would like to reach out to the maximum numbers.
Last but not the least, thanks to Mr. Vikram Jung for taking the lead and coordinating the volunteers for this event.
Thanks and warm regards,
Volunteer team!
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Mid-west chapter alumni meet at Chicago planned on December 20 - Announcement
Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008
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The meeting of Mid-West Alumni Chapter of IT-BHU Alumni Association is planned for December 20, 2008 (Saturday) at Chicago (Lunch/Dinner TBD-To Be Decided).
The venue will be Ashyana Restaurant in Downers Grove, IL (Chicago area). Please invite friends who are our Alumni and might not be on our list yet. The meeting is open to all alumni (& Families) of BHU IT as well as other Disciplines from the mid-west region of USA (IL, IN, MI, WI and MN)
Hoping to hear back soon!!
Regards,
Lakhwinder Singh (Civil 2006)
Naresh Jain (Electrical 1974): M: 630 699 8900
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Additional Links:
Website for Mid-west chapter of IT-BHU Global Alumni Association
Direction and details of Ashyana Restaurant
Photos of last year’s meet
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Alumni News
Umesh Modi (Chemical 1972), Chairman of Modi Group
Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008
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‘I’m fairly hands-off in my approach’
Getting into an elevator at the Modi Tower in Delhi’s Nehru Place one starts to feel the onset of an important meeting. Umesh Modi’s office is one the eight floor and it is from here that he runs the Modi Group of companies, an eight company consumer and specialty goods focused conglomerate. On a temperate day in late October when the markets have dipped to their lowest point in the month, Modi chairman, president and CEO of Modi Group of Industries does not seem perturbed in the least. He puts it rather simply, “We are not affected by either the stock market crash or the devaluation of the rupee because most of our businesses are privately owned which protects us from adverse movements in the former and in the case of the latter our foreign debt exposure is negligible except for a small Euro loan we took for our Bihar Sponge Iron business years ago”.
Modi admits that these decisions cannot be attributed to sheer smartness but are a reflection of lessons he learnt in the past and applied to the present, an ability which reveals itself as one of Modi’s main strengths.
He started his career in1972 as a 23-year-old chemical engineer from Banaras Hindu University at Modi Steel Mill in Modinagar under the tutelage of his father and has been focused ever since on growing the group.
As is the case with most family run businesses, Umesh Modi’s family is involved hands on with the business. His wife, Kum Kum Modi serves on the board of a few of the group companies. Of his four children his older son, 33-year-old Abhishek has followed his father’s footsteps in choosing chemical engineering as his stream during undergraduate studies and then got a MBA from Harvard Business School. Today he runs the Group’s Sugar and Distillery business. His daughters, Meghna and Himani have been involved with running the Modi Revlon and Modi Senator business. His youngest son, 17-year-old Jayesh is currently studying overseas and will most likely join the family business on completion.
Modi Group of Companies today is stable, self-sustainable and even successful but it hasn’t let Modi forget the old days. He recalls, “In the 1970’s and 1980’s the group needed to be on the right side of the government as everything depended on the licensing game”.
The government’s logic for licensing according to Modi is that “production needed to be optimised since excess would lead to imbalance between what the government’s perception was of demand and supply.” This is why the government exerted control while doling out licenses.
But what made Modi learn most of his lessons was the steel business he started in the 1980’s. Using non-coking coal to make scrap iron, the group founded the Bihar Sponge Iron Company in the 1980’s. Modi says his, conversation with the then ICICI chairman Nadkarni who later went on to join IDBI, encouraged him to get funding from foreign banks for the project. However the 1991 opening of the economy and the devaluation of the rupee impacted the company’s foreign debt. Modi recalls the rupee de-valuing from from Rs 7 to Rs 24 against the deutsche mark in 1991.
Additionally, because of the devaluation, steel prices went up by 40% and the government had to bring down import duty from 35% to 5% to stabilise prices. ‘Unreliability of exchange rates’ was exactly the lesson which has protected Modi today from the upheaval in the international financial markets and devaluation of the rupee. After the episode of the early 1990’s Modi stayed away from foreign funding and depended largely on internal cash flows to fund his businesses.
However, the opening up of the economy also gave Modi an opportunity to make a foray into the consumer goods industry. In 1993 Revlon came into India through a tie-up with Modi Mundipharma. Starting with Rs 8 crore revenue in 1995, today the company makes Rs 183 crore and is projected to grow to Rs 524 crore in the next five years. “We can proudly claim to have grown the Revlon market in Sri Lanka and are also looking towards expanding in Pakistan and Bangladesh.”
Not forgetting his core businesses, in 1998, Modi revitalised his sugar company to create an energy efficient sugar plant which lowered the cost of preparing sugar. His philosophy through the 90’s and even now has been to adopt a low risk approach. “I want to focus on profitability, low debt and low foreign exposure in terms of debt,” he says.
Modi reminisces that the 1980’s were days of nationalised banks, strong unions, socialist leanings and requirement to stay in the good books of the government. 1989 saw a split in the group between Modi and the brothers, something which was triggered by the, downturn in the textile industry which led to losses within one of their group companies ultimately leading to a dispute between the brothers and the nationalised banks. The nationalised banks led by RBI went on to ban the entire group because of the inability of one of the company’s to pay its outstandings.
Ever since, Modi’s approach to business has been largely conservative but courageous. He took the bold step of initiating joint ventures and alliances with European and American companies in the 1980’s when it was not as much the norm as it is today. Modi’s logic was simple, “In order to build modern plants, have world-class partners and obtain a technology edge to succeed, the group needed to form alliances with overseas companies”.
Modi’s personal work ethic does not allow him to put himself before the organisation and he sees his role as a trustee of the organisation. It’s little surprise he expects the best from his employees. “I expect sincerity from my people and once I have shared the strategy to be followed, I’m fairly hands-off in my approach.” He also prides himself on being a quick decision maker and if an idea is not working he does not keep trying to beat up on a dead horse idea. He personally spends his time strategising and expects this to be followed by strong execution.
In fact, it was ability that allowed Modi to recognise in early 80’s that pharma was the field of the future and went on to form Win Medicare in collaboration with Sterling Drug USA in 1982. Although the beginnings were humble, (a school was used as the first factory), the company progressed rapidly. In the early 1990’s, Modi enhanced his pharma practice focusing on specialty products through a 50:50 Joint Venture with privately held Mundipharma group. The track record speaks for itself, growing from Rs 67 crore in 1993 to Rs 421 crore in 2008.
Today, the Modi conglomerate stands at eight companies with cumulative revenues of Rs 1,800 to Rs 2,000 crore. The company’s debt exposure is to the tune of Rs 200 crore. Sugar, cosmetics, pharma are the main areas they are in now and are looking to enter the liquor market.
Umesh Modi personally reviews the profits and losses of all his businesses, a habit he picked up from his father. His father Rai Bahadur Modi, did this himself everyday at his steel plant as it reminded him and his people to focus on the value of the business in terms of money rather than product numbers. Needless to say, Modi’s role model for multiple reasons is his father not least of which are the latter’s disciplined drive, sense of accountability, quick decision making ability, his focus on strategy, implementation and open communication.
Umesh’s personal style is informal and astonishingly he is able to make do without a computer and his desk impressively has very little paper, a trait he attributes to his quick decision making ability. Modi, though a tough taskmaster, takes pride in the fact that he has had 200 people who have stayed loyal to him since 1974. He has braced the present day trend of layoffs by not conducting any mass retrenchments. “I’ve been able to hold on to my people because of my group’s strategy of being a consistent paymaster although not the highest paymaster,” he explains.
The reason Umesh is able to wear his successes today on his sleeve is because he recollects tougher times like the time in 1993 when he made the decision to close his 2,600-people steel mill. “It was by far the most difficult business decision I have made but I had to, because the mill was unable to function cohesively,” he admits. The redeeming element of this incident says Modi was that 500 people from the steel plant got replaced in other businesses, and some at the same level and salary such as the operations manager at the steel plant came over as the Revlon operations manager.
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Home page of Umesh K. Modi
http://www.modigroup.com/aboutus1.htm
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Vinay Dixit (Mechanical 1989) senior director of Asia consumer centers, McKinsey & Company
Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/26/style/luxury08-Dixit.php
Vinay Dixit is the Senior Director of Asia Consumer Centers at McKinsey & Company and leads the Insights by McKinsey service line. He joined McKinsey's Shanghai office in February 2008.
Before joining McKinsey & Company, he worked for more than 12 years for General Motors in various positions based in China, Singapore and India. His leadership roles included Head of Marketing for the Asia-Pacific, Vice President of Marketing and Vice President, Sales and Service for GM India. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of GM India. During his career with General Motors, Mr. Dixit was responsible for the marketing of nine brands across 15 Asia-Pacific markets; managing development of GM brands in the Asia-Pacific with special focus on targeted brand positioning. Some highlights of his achievements include launching the Chevrolet and Opel brands in India, developing the strategic portfolio plan for the ASEAN and India sub-region and operating the GM Alliance Councils with Fiat, Isuzu and Suzuki.
His earlier experiences were with Hindustan Unilever Ltd. and Maruti Suzuki India Limited. At Uniliver, he was responsible for the beverages portfolio in western India, where he helped execute the merger of the Brooke Bond & Lipton divisions. With Maruti Suzuki, Mr. Dixit helped launch the Maruti 1000 in India.
Mr. Dixit is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from IT-BHU Varanasi. His other interests include golf and music - he is a former captain of the Indian Chambers Golf team in Shanghai and a member of a band performing Indian music in China.
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Profile of Vinay Dixit on LinkedIn:
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Alumni Profile
GRE EDGE-Providing help for GRE preparation-by Yogish Lavanis (ECE 1991)
Praharsh Sharma ECE2010 @ Nov 30, 2008
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Yogish Lavanis (IT-BHU, Electronics 1991) has teamed up with Anand Kannan (IIT-Madras, Electronics and Communication 1993) and formed the unique company for training students for Graduate Records Exam. The company, Valued Epistemics Pvt. Ltd. (www.vepl.com) was formed in September 2004 and Wisdom.in learning platform was developed through intense R & D in technology, pedagogy and cognitive psychology. The platform promises to deliver high quality, online personalized learning to the student’s PC or to his GPRS enable mobile phone. Powered by this platform, www.GREedge,com was launched in August 2008 exclusively for GRE preparation. Most of the training is provided through internet. According to company’s website. “GRE Edge is a series of Adaptive Learning Programs for GRE, delivered through your mobile phone or computer. It gives you the freedom to learn at your convenience - through your Mobile, PC, Blackberry or PDA. Students can access GRE Edge through mobile when on the move, and by PC at home.”
Anand Kannan Yogish Lavanis
Managing Director Director and Co-founder
(IIT-Madras) (IT-BHU)
Details about them can be found on: http://www.greedge.com/people-behind/
Additional Links:
1) Press-release about greEDGE.com and Shaastra tech-fest at IIT-Madras
2) Making the mobile phone that teaches - Interview with Yogish and Anand
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Short Q & A session
(Yogish Lavanis answers questions about greEDGE.com.)
Q-1: When did you start the company, how did you get the idea for this venture and who are your partners?
I knew Anand Kannan since 1993 when we were post graduate students at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. After IISc, we went in different ways, but stayed in touch. I joined the cellular development division of Motorola while Anand did his PhD at Purdue and later worked with Nokia in Dallas in R&D and Product development. After gaining a fair amount of expertise in industry, both of us independently were thinking about going on our own. We met in the later half of 2004 and brainstormed on different business models.
The company, Valued Epistemics Pvt. Ltd (www.vepl.com) was incorporated in September 2004 and began operational execution in April 2005. We decided to create a end user facing product that is world class. A product, which would not just meet the user's need effectively, but also create a vastly superior user experience. Further, the product had to be technology intensive, innovative and with an ability to be delivered globally, in a highly profitable business model.
We are passionate about Learning/Teaching and were keen to apply advances in technology (Internet, Mobile, Computation, and Human Computer Interface) to learning in order to create highly superior learning experiences. This led us to create Wizdom.in, a technologically advanced platform capable of delivering personalized learning experiences on the online medium.
Q-2: What are the different ways to prepare for GRE? How do you help a student achieve higher score in GRE?
There are a number of books and guides that are available in the market for preparation for GRE. Besides, you have a number of websites that host tests, preparation material and tests. There are a number of coaching institutes that aid in preparation.
The student undergoing a program with us accesses the lessons at www.GREedge.com. Our method of preparation differs greatly from these conventional methods of learning. Our lessons are interactive and online, which the student can access either on his mobile phone or his computer. This gives him the flexibility to study anytime, anywhere, an aspect which a working professional or a busy final year student finds to be of immense benefit.
More importantly, GREedge.com's unique technology (Millisecond Score Booster Technology) enables us to continuously measure the learning process of the student, just as a diligent teacher would observe the student. Smart algorithms running on our servers analyze this data and evaluate the student on various parameters, identifying his strengths and weakness. We assign a trained Student Facilitator and Analyst (SFA) to each student, who monitors the student's performance and provides personalized counsel on how he could improve. The SFA might adapt the lessons based on the student's needs and of course clarifies all the doubts and difficulties faced by the student.
Feedback from our past students has indicated that the technology and personalized attention from the SFA have created highly satisfying learning experience and helped them in GRE.
Q-3: What are the various Categories of GRE preparation services that you provide? Who are your typical customers?
GRE, as you very well know is a test whose scores are used by most American universities as one of the selection criteria for admission to their graduate programs leading to MS and PhD. We offer a set of flexible online programs that satisfy different student needs in Verbal, Quantitative and writing development skills. The student could subscribe to the right one based on his/her needs. You could get the complete list from:
GRE is an online test conducted all through the year. The test is adaptive, which means that the student gets one question at a time and the difficulty level of the question changes based on how the student answers. All our programs offer extensive practice on online adaptive tests, which simulate the kind that the student will face in GRE. Besides, at the end of each learning session, we provide meaningful data and graphs that helps the student to improve his time management and achieve the right balance between accuracy and speed.
Q-4: Is there any other aspect that you would like to talk about?
GREedge.com runs on Wizdom.in learning platform (www.wizdom.in) which has been developed by us through intense R&D. The platform aims to create highly personalized learning experiences. This calls for an inter-disciplinary effort in technology, pedagogy, cognitive psychology and instruction design. The results of delivering GRE preparation programs, involving online training in Verbal and Quantitative skills have been quite satisfying. However, we feel that a lot more can be achieved, especially as the computation power and multimedia capability of user devices increase, along with the increase in data rates and computational power of the backend servers. I would like to draw attention to the fact that advanced personalized learning has been defined as one of the fourteen grand challenges of the century by the National Academy of Engineering
We will be happy to hear from people passionate about this idea – in design/development, marketing or channel development.
We would like to invite partnerships and alliances, especially, those who might be interesting in utilizing the Wizdom.in platform for delivering personalized learning services in different areas of learning.
Finally, to the young students at IT-BHU – work hard; be passionate about your interests and develop strong foundations during your undergraduate days. Enjoy every moment at IT-BHU, the university offers a lot of opportunities for all round development of young minds. It is up to you to realize and use it to the maximum!!!
... and those of you planning to take the GRE, do visit www.GREedge.com.
Best wishes to all .......
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Copyright © 2008-2013 by ITBHU Global Alumni Association
Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP
Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP