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ALUMNI IN NEWS 2014

Contents

S.No. Title Page No.

1. BITS Golden Jubilee Meet 1

2. Birla Institute of Technology and Science ring Nasdaq bell 2

3. Harish Bhat to join group executive council at Tata Sons; Ajoy Misra new chief of Tata Global Beverages

3

4. Reliance Communications names Vinod Sawhny as CEO 4

5. Live Mint: Gharpay 5

6. Measuring the Green Quotient of Companies 6

7. BITS Pilani Alumni startup Grey Orange raises Series A funding 7

8. Sanofi names N Rajaram as country head for pharma unit in India 8

9. BITS Pilani Alumni startup Sharp Edge Learning offers e-learning solutions to the aviation industry

9

10. BITS Pilani: connects the creators of Hotmail, MapmyIndia, Onida etc

10

11. You can't foresee anything. Take the plunge: Hari Menon 11

12. BITS Pilani Distinguished Alumnus Awards – 2014 12

13. The Economic Times :, Aashish Bhinde, the go-to banker 13

14. Palampur woman's BITS batch to fund her life: Friendship 14

15. The Hind Business Line: Making your virtual meeting easy 15

16. A book for the good times by L Suresh 16

17. Ramesh Tainwala Appointed as the CEO of Samsonite 18

18. The Hind Business Line: How to make millions trading domain names

19

19. The Economic Times: Top 10 startups by BITSians, IITians, NITians

20

20. BITS world 5k run 2014 21

21. BITSAA celebrates OASIS – their cultural fest in Boston 21

22. BITS, Pilani Alumnus, Neha, Tops CAT 2014 22

23. Annual Report 2013: The year that was 23

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BITS Alumni meet

HYDERABAD, JAN 3, 2014: What is common to Onida, Hotmail, RedBus, MapmyIndia, Bharat Forge, i-Flex, Sierra Atlantic, Food King etc?

All these are some of the successful entrepreneurial ventures by alumni of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani. Giving expression and trying to encourage more such successes from the growing student strength of the BITS in it four campuses, over 1,500 alumni have descended in Hyderabad for a three day global meet at the sprawling Hyderabad campus of the premier Independent University with global repute.

BITSAA, its global alumni association is meeting in the Golden Jubilee year of the Institute with the theme of celebrating innovation, achievement and leadership. BITSians mega reunion was inaugurated by Bijendra Nath Jain, Vice Chancellor, BITS Pilani.

VS Rao, Director, BITS-Pilani Hyderabad campus, Ashok Agarwal, Chairman, the global meet (BGM), Raju Reddy, Chairman, BITSAA International and others led various events at the meet. A highlight will be recognition of select alumni as future business leaders as 30-under-30 achievers.

Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice-Chairman, Cognizant Technology Solutions; Harish Bhat, MD & CEO, Tata Global Beverages; Rajesh Hukku (Former chairman & CEO i-Flex); Raj Gollamudi, Director, Intel Capital; SP Kothari, Dy Dean, MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts, USA and a host of others will participate in panel discussions.

BGM 2014 is the second edition of BITS Pilani’s global alumni meet. The first edition in 2011 was hosted in Gurgaon. Inspired by the university’s ‘Vision 2020’ as per which BITS Pilani intends to be among the top research-led universities in Asia by 2020, BITSAA had set a goal of raising $ one million before the next BGM for faculty enrichment, student enrichment, infrastructure and community development.

Commenting on the expectations from BGM 2014, Ashok Agarwal said that "We are extremely proud to have met our promise to raise one million dollars for BITS Pilani sponsored causes and are confident that the meet will serve as the genesis of better things to come and will contribute in the university’s progress to become one of the top institutes in Asia."

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TIMES OF INDIA Jan 3, 2014

Birla Institute of Technology and Science ring Nasdaq bell Sujit John, TNN | Jan 3, 2014, 03.14AM IST

BANGALORE: Birla Institute of

Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani

became last month the first academic

institution from India to ring the opening

bell at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

Some 25 alumni gathered on December

23, at the US exchange to ring the bell.

"The Nasdaq invite to us is an indication

that the global community is warming up

to brand BITS, that it is recognizing the

research and innovation that BITSians are

doing," said Rohit Koul, CEO of the BITS

Alumni Association. Koul, a 2006 graduate

of BITS Pilani and now a software

engineer in Oracle America, is in India for

a three-day global meet of the alumni.

There are over 10,000 BITS alumni in the

US. Some 200 of them are faculty

members in top US universities like MIT,

Stanford and Princeton. Over 300 are

entrepreneurs. This includes Sanjay

Mehrotra, co-founder of SanDisk, and

Preetish Nijhawan, co-founder of Akamai.

The alumni association's chairman Raju

Reddy, who graduated in 1981, founded

Sierra Atlantic, which grew into a global

company with over 2,000 employees

before being acquired by Hitachi in 2010.

"My journey is typical of many of my fellow

alums...We even have an Emmy winner

amongst us. And a Mars Rover scientist

too," Reddy said on the occasion of the

ringing of the bell.

TOI could not find any record of any other

academic institution in India having rung

the Nasdaq bell. Some said the IITs were

perhaps extended an invitation but had not

used it. The opening and closing bell

ceremonies at the Nasdaq MarketSite in

New York's Times Square serve as

platforms to generate exposure for

companies, non-profits and other

associations, make news announcements

or celebrate milestones.

For BITS, founded by industrialist GD Birla

in 1929, the year marks the 50th

anniversary of it achieving the deemed

university status. The alumni association

also used the Nasdaq opportunity to

highlight the global meet in Hyderabad,

the second such in its history. The first

was held in 2011.

"At the last event we had initiated

discussions on a project to connect all four

BITS Pilani campuses (in Pilani, Goa,

Hyderabad and Dubai) with high definition

video conferencing facilities. We launched

that project called BITSConnect 2.0 last

January. It's proving to be extremely

useful for students to listen to lectures

from faculty in other locations, for remote

recruitment," Koul said. More than 1,200

alumni will gather in Hyderabad over the

next three days. Koul said there would be

discussions on making BITS a leading

institution in Asia. "We'll discuss research

initiatives, like creating an endowment for

research, creating academic chairs."

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Thursday, January 30, 2014 - 12:25 IST BY BHAWNA GUPTA

Harish Bhat to join group executive council at Tata Sons; Ajoy

Misra new chief of Tata Global Beverages Bhat is the second

serving group

executive to join the

top strategy body

reporting directly to

Cyrus Mistry, after

Mukund Rajan, who

was earlier involved

with Tata’s PE arm.

Tata Sons has appointed Harish Bhat, presently the managing director of Tata Global Beverages Ltd (TGBL), as the sixth member of its group executive council (GEC). The council was set up last May to provide strategic and operational support to the new chief of Tata Group, Cyrus Mistry. Mistry had created GEC last year handpicking a team of young executives, both internally within the group and from outside.

The GEC, which also includes Mistry, took on the responsibility for all the roles earlier performed by both the group corporate centre (GCC) and the group executive office (GEO). It works closely with and partners the boards, CEOs and senior managements of various Tata companies.

Other members of the GIC include NS Rajan, who leads the strategic function of human resources; Mukund G Rajan, who oversees brand, communication, ethics and corporate sustainability; Madhu Kannan, heading business development and public affairs and Nirmalya Kumar, who is responsible for strategy at the group level and bringing customer centricity to the fore across group companies.

Bhat is the second serving group executive to join the top group strategy body reporting directly to Mistry, after MukundRajan, who was earlier involved with Tata’s PE arm. NS

Rajan was roped in from E&Y; Kannan was previously chief of BSE and Kumar is a former professor at London Business School.

Bhat joined the Tata group as TAS probationer in 1987 and has worked with Tata Tea Ltd and Titan Industries Ltd.

In his career with the Tata group, Bhat—an alumnus of BITS Pilani and IIM Ahmedabad, graduating top among classmates in both institutions and winning IIM Ahmedabad's gold medal for scholastic excellence—has served as the COO of the watches and accessories business of Titan and has worked in senior level roles with the jewellery and telecom businesses. He was also involved in some key strategic moves over the past two decades, including the launch and nurturing of many iconic brands, as well as the acquisition of Tetley. In 2012, Bhat had taken a brief sabbatical to write a book on the Tata group.

Tata Global

Meanwhile, hot beverage giant TGBL, which is also a partner for Starbucks in India, has elevated Ajoy Misra to take over the reins from Bhat, as the managing director of the company from April 2014. The board of directors of the company has also decided that Bhat will remain as a non-executive director of TGBL.

Misra is presently executive director and deputy CEO of the firm. A Civil Engineering graduate from BITS Pilani with an MBA from FMS, Delhi; Misra is currently based in the UK. Previously he was with Indian Hotels for nearly 30 years and was leading its sales and marketing function. His prior roles include heading sales for the Taj Group and being area director in the Sri Lanka and Maldives regions.

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Reliance Communications names Vinod Sawhny as CEO February 11, 2014 | Sainul K Abudheen

Reliance Communications Ltd, a fully integrated

telecommunications services provider, has appointed Vinod

Sawhny, former president of Bharti Retail, as its chief executive

officer.

A BE (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from BITS Pilani and

MBA from Xavier School of Management (Jamshedpur), Sawhny

was president at Bharti Retail and joint president at Bharti Airtel

from 2002 to 2012. He was also a member of the Airtel management board during this

period. Prior to that, he was managing director of Spice Telecommunications. Earlier, he was

vice president at Godrej GE Appliances.

Started in 2002 and owned by Anil Ambani, Reliance Communications (formerly Reliance

Infocomm) has established a pan-India, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent

(voice, data and video) digital network that is capable of supporting services spanning the

entire communications value chain, covering over 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages. It

owns and operates an IP-enabled connectivity infrastructure, comprising over 277,000

kilometres of fibre optic cable systems in India, the US, Europe, the Middle East and the

Asia Pacific region.

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FIRST PUBLISHED: SUN, FEB 16 2014. 10 25 PM IST

Gharpay: New offline payment service for online purchases Gharpay is an entrepreneurial venture of Abhishek Nayak that he founded right after completing his graduation from BITS Pilani. A Biological Sciences graduate, Nayak chose not to sit for campus interviews while his classmates picked up cushy jobs.

Starting his own enterprise occurred to Abhishek Nayak when he was in the third year of college. But, unlike most entrepreneurs who prefer gaining some work experience and some savings in the process, before taking the entrepreneurial plunge, Nayak decided to take the big leap immediately after graduation. “I knew that I would enjoy being an entrepreneur because I had very diverse interests and skills,” says Nayak. Together with Arpit Mohan, a batchmate at BITS Pilani, he co-founded Gharpay Technology Services Pvt. Ltd, the holding company of Gharpay, in January 2011, a month after graduating. Mohan, who graduated in Electrical and Electronics, is the company’s chief technology officer, and Nayak is the chief executive. His first venture was a chance discovery. “I got the idea after seeing my father struggle with online payment options,” says Nayak. Sensing a business opportunity in providing cash-on-delivery services to a market that is yet to trust online banking transactions, Nayak enquired with some e-commerce entrepreneurs. None had a reliable cash-on-delivery (COD) provider. “It seemed like there was an untapped demand for COD,” Nayak recollects.

Nayak and Mohan met at the entrepreneurship club at BITS-Pilani, where they picked up “valuable lessons”

on networking, market research, product development and doing sales. These takeaways came in handy when they founded Gharpay in Hyderabad, a city, Nayak says, was a natural choice given its proximity to Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune—which are all “an overnight train journey away.” The activities at the club coupled with some hands-on experience of working on small projects during holidays helped them get their feet off the ground in the initial days. “I knew what has to be done in the early few days,” Nayak says.

The initial investment came from their parents. Both Nayak, who hails from Visakhapatnam, and Mohan, who grew up in Muscat, Oman, borrowed Rs.5 lakh to bootstrap the firm, and began operations from a rented residential apartment. Put simply, Gharpay, which means at home in Hindi, is an offline payment service for any digital product such as travel ticket, insurance or movie ticket. Its business model was simple. Gharpay would collect payments from customers who place online orders from websites of Groupon, Thomas Cook and Naukri, and would credit the amount to the respective company. Gharpay charged a transaction fee (the firm’s revenues) on every cash-on-delivery order successfully executed. On an average, Nayak says, they pocketed about 2.5% on each successful transaction. Gharpay only dealt with digital products, which meant they couldn’t work with brands such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra and other e-commerce providers who did roaring business selling goods online. The fledgling firm didn’t have the wherewithal to deliver tangible goods at the doorsteps of customers.

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Companies/XOwvF2JNZOJCyMoJndReBO/Gharpay-New-offline-payment-

service-for-online-purchases.html?utm_source=copy

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Feb 19, 2014

Abhishek Humbad: Measuring the Green Quotient of Companies

Abhishek Humbad carries a picture in his wallet. It’s a class photo, he says, that reminds him of what he was. The picture is not that of his graduating class at BITS-Pilani, where he studied electronics and electrical engineering; nor is it of his batch from IIM-Bangalore, where he sharpened his entrepreneurial skills. It is from Class XII, a time when he was a shy introvert who was driven by the idea that he’d do well if he studied well.

He wasn’t far off the mark. Humbad’s student life has, in many ways, shaped his career and life so far: As a fourth-year engineering student at Pilani, he founded and registered his company NextGen PMS.

The idea for this business came from the triple bottom line concept which encourages corporations to think not merely in terms of profits, but also the two other Ps—the planet and people. NextGen was formed on the premise that it would help companies measure the non-profit aspects of their operations—for example, their carbon footprint, energy consumption and sustainability efforts. Once measured, these parameters could be improved with various interventions. Twenty-one at the time, Humbad was uncertain about many things but he was sure of this: He didn’t want to work for anyone. But then, at a business plan competition, he met a student from NIT Jaipur, RichaBajpai, who had similar ideas. The two have been together since, leading NextGen as co-founders on its impressive entrepreneurial journey.

What started as a small venture incubated at BITS-Pilani is now among India’s

fastest growing companies in the cleantech and sustainability space. NextGen operates in six countries with top corporates as clients. The 50-member team is drawn from the best universities across the globe.

NextGen’s first client was Intel India; the chip-maker was keen on measuring its carbon impact. Business grew as Humbad and his team started expanding to other areas: They even worked on water with Jalgaon-based drip irrigation manufacturer Jain Irrigation. “We built capacity slowly to help companies design their sustainability strategies and renewable energy policies,” says Humbad.

But consultancy by itself has a limited scope for revenue generation. In this context, NextGen’s first breakthrough came while working with Bangalore-based IT client, consulting firm Mindtree. Both soon realised that the effort could be a lot more effective if they had a tool. Mindtree soon moved from being a client to a partner and helped design a carbon management tool which, today, is being used by NextGen customers across sectors and geographies. The software product, called P3, has built-in modules and the capability to help clients measure most of their non-financial parameters.

The second, more recent, step-jump for NextGen’s fortunes was the government’s new CSR policy (finalised late last year). The Companies Law mandates all Indian corporations earning over Rs 5 crore profit to invest 2 percent of their profit before tax in CSR activity. “This has opened up a big market. Roughly 18,000 companies fall under this bracket,” says Humbad.

Read more at: http://forbesindia.com/article/30-under-30/abhishek-humbad-measuring-the-green-

quotient-of-companies/37205/1#ixzz3TdX8MTdX

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Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - 10:30 IST BY SAINUL K ABUDHEEN

Warehousing automation venture Grey Orange

raises Series A funding from Tiger Global, Blume

Ventures, others

Gurgaon and Singapore-based warehousing automation venture Grey Orange Robotics Pvt Ltd has secured an undisclosed amount in its Series A round of funding from Tiger Global Management and Blume Ventures. The round also saw participations from Alok Rawat, president of FG Wilson FZE; Dileep Nath, co-founder of Kanbay which was acquired by CapGemini; and a few other individual investors. The funds will be utilised for hiring, research & development (R&D), scaling up operations and also for international expansion.

Grey Orange was founded in 2009 by BITS Pilani alumni Samay Kohli and Akash Gupta (CTO). The duo had earlier built AcYut, an indigenously developed series of humanoid robots. A warehousing automation company, Grey Orange makes products for materials handling. The company's flagship product is the Butler System, a fleet of mobile robots that can manage order fulfilment inside a warehouse.

It claims that this helps companies increase their efficiency and reduce operational costs. The team built the Butler System after noticing that most industrial automation products are rigid, non-flexible and take a long time to install and to achieve their full capacity. Grey Orange’s system works via proprietary machine learning and swarm intelligence algorithms. The firm says it is currently serving some of the largest companies in e-commerce, third party logistics and retail.

“We are in fact being quite selective in whom we decide to partner with, as we start manufacturing our next generation of robots. We will be starting off with installations in Singapore and some other international markets,” said Kohli, CEO of Grey Orange.

“Supply chain efficiencies are going to be a pivotal factor for global trade and it’s exciting to support a company that’s looking at solving this problem. We are also glad to see they’re targeting a global industry pain point, from day one,” said Sanjay Nath, managing partner at Blume Ventures.

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Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - 13:33 IST

Sanofi names N Rajaram as country head for pharma unit

in India BY JASLEEN KAUR BATRA

Global pharmaceutical major Sanofi has named N Rajaram as the country head and general manager-pharmaceutical operations in India. He would report to Shailesh Ayyangar, vice president, South Asia, Sanofi, and managing director, Sanofi India Limited. N Rajaram holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from BITS, Pilani and an MBA in International Business from the India Institute of Foreign Trade.

Rajaram had moved to Sanofi early this year as COO after a three-year stint at Bharti Airtel. At the telecom firm he served as chief marketing officer for around two

years; his last position was CEO - data & digital. Prior to that, he had spent over two decades with FMCG giant Unilever.

Rajaram will be responsible for driving Sanofi’s growth plans in the pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare segments. Commenting on his new role, Rajaram said, “This is a very exciting opportunity for me. The pharmaceutical industry is witnessing a rapid change in different aspects such as innovative healthcare delivery and patient care. The prospect of playing a responsible role in making a difference in the lives of people is very exciting and fulfilling.”

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Sharp Edge Learning offers e-learning solutions to the aviation

industry, claims to be PAT positive May 8, 2014 | Sainul K Abudheen

Jaipur-based Sharp Edge Learning Pvt Ltd, which provides digital learning material to the aviation sector in both on-ground and in-flight operations, claims to have trained more than 3,500 learners to date. The start-up, which provides content to a few major international airports in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Europe for training their employees, is now looking to rope in more than 10,000 learners this year.

The company was founded in 2011 by BITS Pilani alumni Arpit Mehta, Harshit Gupta and Sourabh Gupta (Harshit and Sourabh are not related). Mehta had previously founded Edventure Labs where he developed education apps to accelerate the overall brain development of kids aged between and 5 and 12. While Sourabh had earlier worked at JP Morgan, Harshit founded Foreigninternship.com, which helps students find lucrative internship opportunities across the globe.

A BITS Pilani incubatee, Sharp Edge was originally started as an e-learning venture for the engineering, K-12 and medical sectors. According to the company, over 50,000 students from more than 70 colleges have used its e-learning solutions to date. The company later diversified into the aviation segment.

Sharp Edge has developed a learning community for aviation professionals, and caters to all the learning needs of aspirant pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers and on-ground operations staff. While the solution incorporates multimedia interactive content and adaptive assessment engine to learners, it also lets

them interact with fellow learners to ensure peer learning.

Key target market

“We have a strong network in GCC and Europe and naturally these are our key target markets. However, we would like to move to North America and Australia next year, since all these geographies have well-developed infrastructure to support e-learning initiatives,” said Mehta. “India is still a very nascent market for aviation solutions. However, we expect the market to open in another four-five years,” he added.

Sharp Edge has partnered with flight schools and training academies across various countries, where it also provides support for instructors and regular updates year-on-year. Learners can sign up on its portal to access the solutions. In terms of challenges, Mehta said that the aviation sector is a closed space and so making inroads in it is hard. “It was really tough to penetrate the market initially, since the content creation and subject matter required high expertise compared with other sectors. But that has been one of our strong points.”

With 40 people on board, the start-up is largely competing with the brick-and-mortar training institutes in the aviation sector. A self-funded company to date, Sharp Edge is now looking to raise capital to fund its growth. “We are still contemplating internally on the size of our requirement. While product development will consume a small portion of the money, a major chunk will be used for growth and expansion,” Mehta said.

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BITS Pilani: College that connects the creators of Hotmail,

MapmyIndia, Onida 16 May, 2014, 09.18AM IST

NEW DELHI: They all graduated from BITS Pilani as did Maharashtra Chief Prithviraj Chavan, founder of SQL Star International Ltd., Ashok Kumar Agarwal and filmmaker Mani Shankar. A new book, "BITS of Success: Inspiring Stories of BITS Pilani Alumni," by the institute's alumni Harsh Bhargava, Kinnera Murthy and Anu Khendry takes the reader through the journeys of 50 individuals who realised their dreams through perseverance and determination, be it as entrepreneurs, technologists, scientists, teachers or artists. Creators of Hotmail Sabeer Bhatia, FoodKing Saratbabu Elumalai, MapmyIndia Rakesh Verma, Onida Gulu Mirchandani and Buddh International Circuit Manoj Gaur, to name a few, were all driven by the passion to realise their dreams. Bhatia studied in BITS Pilani for two years before moving to Caltech on a scholarship. Elumalai, who as a boy helped his mother sell idlis on the streets of Chennai, is, today, living his dream of attempting to make India hunger-free. His desire to tackle his two major concerns - empty stomachs and jobless youth in the country - led him to set up a successful food chain which now provides food and employment to lakhs of people across India. According to Elumalai, "Entrepreneurship is like a Japanese bamboo tree. In the first six years, it grows only six inches and then in six months, it shoots up to 90 feet." Mirchandani, who graduated in mechanical engineering from BITS Pilani, founded Mirc Electronics to manufacture television sets under the brand name

Onida along with his brother Sonu and Vijay J Mansukhani. Verma earned a mechanical engineering degree from BITS Pilani in 1972. "The early 2000s saw the birth of MapmyIndia, the country's first interactive mapping portal which was launched even prior to Google Maps. The idea was to help users browse maps easily and get directions from point to point within India," the book says. D Balasubramanian, director of research at LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, says of his chemistry professor at BITS Raja Rao, "He made atoms dance before our eyes when he taught the periodic table, chemical bonding and so on. He inspired us into learning and practicing science and that too chemistry. This set my goal forever and I decided to pursue M. Sc and PhD in Chemistry." Each story gives a glimpse of how passion, perseverance and determination have helped the person realize his or her dream. The stories showcase experiences in a variety of contexts such as team-building in corporate environments, setting up companies and undertaking new ventures for the benefit of society. All the achievers give credit to BITS for providing them with the right environment for honing their skills and helping then develop networks that they believe has served them well throughout their careers. They all built successful teams and created enduring brands. The book, published by Universities Press, is an initiative of BITS Alumni Association, Hyderabad, to commemorate the golden jubilee of BITS Pilani (1964-2014).

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You can't foresee anything. Take the plunge: Hari Menon By Nikshubha Garg |Posted 25-May-2014

To Hari Menon, the skill and ability to organise and plan things matter the most in life. Unfortunately for him, his friends at BITS Pilani didn’t quite agree. “I organise myself and my belongings all the time. So, during my hostel days at BITS, Pilani, friends would secretly come into my room and mess things up just to annoy me. They knew I would lose it if things weren’t where they were supposed to be. That is how much I hate being

disorganised,” laughs Menon.

But the Bangalore-based entrepreneur’s love for order came in handy when it was time to launch India’s largest online grocery store, BigBasket.com which, Menon claims, stocks over 10,000 products and 1000 brands.

Becoming an entrepreneur

Menon was born into a middle-class family in Bandra, Mumbai, in 1963. “While growing up, I was completely influenced by my parents and their ideology about ‘settling’ in life. I was expected to study and get a stable job. That’s your first sign towards making it big,” he recalls. But it was an urge to experiment that prompted him to try out something new. It was during a client call that he and his colleague, VS Sudhakar, went on to build India’s first online store, fabmart.com, as far back as 1999. “Two years later, both of us, along with four other friends, started a chain of physical grocery stores called Fabmall which was later sold to the Aditya Birla Group in 2006,” explains Menon. Post 2006, the group parted ways to pursue their own individual dreams and goals, only to get back together in 2011 to launch BigBasket.com. And then, there was no looking back.

See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/you-cant-foresee-anything-take-the-plunge-hari-

menon/15326175#sthash.rykRJnjf.dpuf

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BITS Pilani Distinguished Alumnus Awards – 2014 Sunday, July 13, 2014, We are happy to share with you that BITS Pilani has decided to give the '"BITS Pilani Distinguished Alumnus Award' in 2014 to the following alumni in recognition of their significant and outstanding contributions. Prof. Anil Pahwa (Professor at

Kansas State University) for Academic Teaching and Research

Prof. Gurindar Sohi (Professor at

University of Wisconsin-Madison) for Academic Teaching and Research

Dr. Chandrashekhar (Director,

CEERI, Pilani) for Professional Management of Businesses

Mr. Pradeep Kashyap (Founder and

CEO, MART) for Social Entrepreneurship

Mr. Raju Reddy (Founder and CEO, Sierra Atlantic; Chairman, BITSAA International) for Entrepreneurship

Please join the Chancellor and all of us, the faculty, staff, students and alumni of BITS Pilani in congratulating them on their successes. The selection was based on the impact of one’s contribution to (a) dissemination or creation of knowledge,(b)enrichment of lives of people,(c)distribution or creation of wealth, or (d)promotion or establishment of high ethical standards in private or public life, as also upon the person’s integrity and stature, and who thereby makes his alma mater proud. The awards will be presented during the Convocation 2014 at Pilani/Goa/ Hyderabad/Dubai.

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Meet Avendus Capital's Aashish Bhinde, the go-to banker,

who raises money for tech companies

BaijuKalesh, ET Bureau Jul 14, 2014, 06.16PM IST

MUMBAI: Early in his career, Aashish

Bhinde was clear that he wanted little to

do with computers. At BITS Pilani, he'd

opted for electrical and electronics

engineering to avoid the subject. But

today, the executive director of Avendus

Advisors is much feted as an investment

banker who raises money for tech

companies and advises on buying and

selling them. Last month, he helped online

event ticketing company BookMyShow,

raise Rs 150 crore from Saif

Partners, Accel Partners and Network 18.

In 2012, he had helped it raise Rs 100

crore from private equity fund Accel

Partners. The same year he advised

redBus.in to sell itself to Ibibo Group, a

subsidiary of South African mass media

company Naspers, for an undisclosed

sum.

He'd also helped India's largest online

retailer Flipkart purchase digital store

Mime 360, making him the go-to banker

for high-growth capital."He's a bulldog who

will not take no for an answer,'' says

Ashish Hemrajani, founder and managing

director of BookMyShow.

"When we were looking for a banker to

lead our digital and technology practice,

Aashish, given his entrepreneurial

background and strong orientation to

technology, was the obvious selection,"

says Deepak, Avendus Advisors

managing director.

Bhinde never loses patience say those

who have worked with him. "He was so

persistent that he got us what we wanted,"

says Hemrajani of BookMyShow. Before

settling on the role of investment banker,

Bhinde tried his hand at various things. He

sold affordable paints as an intern in Asian

Paints, then marketed soaps and

toothpaste at Colgate for two years. After

that he helped build Peerlesss Audio, a

startup that made high-end audio products

for export. Then came the experiment in

entrepreneurship -Audiovortex, which

aimed to be a B2B platform for audio

components. It got an early financial

commitment of $1.1 million from VIEW

Group but the venture wasn't successful.

"My conviction as an entrepreneur got

tested. And my respect for entrepreneurs,

however small they may be, reached

another level." Some went bust, but some

survived like MakeMyTrip as they

remained true to their conviction, says

Bhinde, who joined the fund and learned

the ropes of investing in startups.

Still, his best deal came right at the

beginning, when he married BITS Pilani

batchmate Bindu. "First deal in life, yeah

that's a fair statement. My best deal so

far," says Bhinde, 42, who plays

badminton and cycles to keep himself fit.

The couple has two children. Bindu, a

successful entrepreneur runs The Little

Company chain of daycare centres.

Bhinde also has a spiritual side to him.

"You get on a treadmill and keep running

but at some point, you need to engage in

some sort of introspection, contemplation

and ask yourself if you are heading the

right way."

14

TIMES OF INDIA

Palampur woman's BITS batch to fund her life

ShimonaKanwar, TNN | Jul 21, 2014, 03.57AM IST

CHANDIGARH: The agony and trauma

of Seema Sood, an alumnus of Birla

Institute of Technology & Science

(BITS), Pilani, who was afflicted by

rheumatoid arthritis 21 years back when

she was a student, has brought together

her batch of 1985 scattered all over the

world.

Soon after the Times of India highlighted

the fact that she had petitioned for the

right to die again after six years, her

former classmates began raising funds

to support her for life. Former students

settled in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jammu,

US, Europe and the Gulf have come up

as a BITS family to take care of Seema.

Most of them have not met her or even

spoken to her while she was a student,

given the large number of 550 students

in a batch.

They are working out the modalities of

setting up a corpus that can also be

used for other alumni in need. One of

them actually drove down 230 km from

Jammu to Palampur, Seema's native

place, to meet her and hand over the

contribution.

15

Making your virtual meeting easy

N RAMAKRISHNAN, July 28, 2014.

Blue Jeans Network provides interoperable vide-conferencing service

“There are 200 billion minutes of audio conference calls done around the world annually,” says Alagu Periyannan. It is this huge chunk that Alagu is eyeing through his latest venture, Blue Jeans Network that facilitates video conferencing in offices. Blue Jeans provides an interoperable cloud-based video conferencing service that connects participants across a range of devices and platforms.Normally, video conferencing platforms are not interoperable, which means the user of one platform cannot connect to another one on a different service. This is what Blue Jeans is trying to change and make video conferencing as easy as slipping into a pair of blue jeans.

An electrical and electronics engineering graduate from BITS-Pilani, Alagu, now in his mid-40s, did a Master’s in Computer Science from North Carolina State University at Raleigh, before joining Apple, where he worked for about eight years. After that, Alagu was in a couple of start-ups in Silicon Valley. He teamed up with another Valley tech veteran and entrepreneur-in-residence, Krish Ramakrishnan, to start Blue Jeans Network in 2009.

“Blue Jeans was a simple concept. We felt that video was starting to get adopted quite a bit,” Alagu, Co-Founder and CTO, says during a recent interaction in Bangalore, where the company has an R&D centre. There were different companies offering video conferencing on different platforms, and there was Skype.

“Yet you walk into any business, all the work was done through audio conference calls,” says Alagu. The reason for that was cost and complexity. “You walk into a conference room and you see a speaker phone on the table, within 30 seconds you can get into a conference call if I give you a phone number and a meeting ID to punch. If you walk into a conference room that has all the video equipment, you don’t even know how to start a call. Most of us are technology savvy, we still struggle,” he says.

First prototype

The first prototype of an interoperable system was developed out of the company’s office in India, then in Pune, even before Blue Jeans got funded. Rather than build high-end hardware, they wanted to achieve it by off-the-shelf systems. They have clients in the US and have started selling in Europe.Video conferencing is more expensive than audio conferencing – about 20-30 cents a minute versus up to 10 cents a minute for the latter – but Alagu sees this going down over time.He estimates that video conferencing accounts for a billion minutes now and Blue Jeans should have 30-40 per cent of that now. Blue Jeans has raised $100 million from venture capital firms through several rounds. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Blue Jeans has 300 employees, including a 100 at its Bangalore centre.

16

Updated: August 7, 2014 12:12 IST

A book for the good times

Author L. Suresh’s debut novel

The Pilani Pilgrims takes

readers back to the best of

their college days

Through the mid-80s and early 90s,

Chennai Central witnessed a strange

sight once a year. Hundreds of young

men, lugging suitcases and

backpacks, would congregate on

Platform Number 1 in the late hours of

a July night, waiting for the Tamil Nadu

Express to pull in. Amidst many hi-

fives and much back-slapping, there’d

be a mad scramble for seats as the

shrill whistle blew. It never really

mattered who sat where though, for

with almost 700 engineers-in-the-

making headed to a remote town in the

middle of a desert near Delhi for

college, the train was theirs for merry

making over the next 32 hours.

For author L. Suresh, this annual ritual

marked the beginning of the four years

that changed his life as a civil

engineering student of BITS Pilani. It is

this journey that he takes readers on in

his debut book The Pilani

Pilgrims (Notion Press).

The book traces two timelines, the first

of nine alumni who head back to

college for a reunion, their memories

often harking back several decades,

and the second, of a college fresher in

2010, cautious about starting life anew

in a faraway place. As their stories

slowly unfold toward each other, they

finally converge for a big reveal.

“Pilani, to me, was this mystical,

almost paradise-like place, and BITS,

surrounded by desert all around, had

its own optic-fibre network, its own

Internet backbone, with never a water

problem, never a power cut, lush

lawns and peacocks for company,”

says Suresh. It is this ethos that lets

him couch the story in terms of

reverence — Pilani as the site of

pilgrimage, and the alumni trekking

back in time, as pilgrims. Nostalgia

certainly frames this story, but Suresh

says, it is as much about friendships

forged that last lifetimes, and the

discovery of passions that lead to your

true calling.

The last is true for Suresh himself, who

came to author-hood the long-winded

way. Far before he joined college,

Suresh harboured the desire to

become a writer. But the lack of choice

back then, ensured he enrolled in a

professional course. He made up for

this by spending his years there

writing, editing, printing and publishing

for the college magazine, association

journals and press clubs. “I remember

our typeset process with presses

manned by hard-core Rajasthanis who

knew not a word of English. They

understood letters like kindergarten

children do, in standing, sleeping and

curved lines. So we’d spend entire

nights at the press proofing page after

page, till we arrived at the zero-error

copy.” This rigour stood Suresh in

good stead through his brief stint at

Hewlett Packard, 10 years in

17

advertising and another eight years as

a freelance branding consultant. The

plot of The Pilani Pilgrims story lay on

the backburner all along though, but

after 14-hour days of writing for work,

Suresh found that fatigue trumped

creativity when he sat down to write

his book. A year ago, though, he finally

gathered his guts and quit. “With no

job and the fear of God in me, this

book wrote itself in nine months.”

But debut books in this age of the

Indian publishing boom are, as Suresh

puts it, like abandoned orphans. The

answer to this plight he found in Steve

Jobs’ ‘Connecting The Dots’

commencement address. “I realised

that as an engineer and technology

writer, I knew how to leverage

technology to my advantage; through

advertising I’d honed my writing skills

for various needs and as a consultant,

I’d done the branding for numerous

products and companies. Because my

experiences had been lateral, not

linear, I could draw from all of it for this

book.”

So off came the writer hat, and on

came the ad-man hat. “AIDA,” he says.

“Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

That’s what will make people pick up

the book.” His 45-day campaign and

communication plan took off on August

1, BITS alumni day, and spans

promotion efforts on social media and

elsewhere, targeted first at the captive

ex-BITSian readership and eventually

the larger public. “You don’t need

insider know-how to get this book,”

says Suresh, “Anyone who’s ever

been to college will enjoy this story.”

18

Samsonite to focus on Latin America, says next CEO

Ramesh Tainwala

Sagar Malviya, ET Bureau Sep 3, 2014, 05.58AM IST

MUMBAI: In 1981, luggage maker VIP

Industries rejected a management trainee

job applicant, something quite routine for

Asia's largest luggage maker. But three

decades on, VIP has to fight to protect its

market share against a company headed

by that very individual. Ramesh

Tainwala—the rejected candidate 33

years ago—will take over as the chief

executive officer of Samsonite, the world's

largest travel luggage company, on

October 1.

Samsonite's global turnover is 12 times

larger than VIP's, and in India it equals the

latter's net sales. "When I got rejected, it

made me more curious about the industry.

It was like when a child is denied an ice

cream and he craves for it," Tainwala told

ET in his first interview after

Samsonite announced his promotion as

global chief last week.

However, Latin America and not India will

be the immediate focus of Tainwala, 55,

whose mandate once he takes the reins is

to more than double the US multinational's

revenues to $5 billion by 2020 from $2.1

billion now with an operating profit of 20%.

"Brazil is ten times smaller than the Indian

business. We need to change that

especially by using India specific

learnings," he said.

The BITS Pilani post graduate admits that

a lot of what he has learnt about consumer

behavior comes from Bollywood. "Movies

predict human behavior both at the

emotional as well as rational level," says

this self-confessed movie buff who claims

to watch more than a dozen movies every

week, and more when he hops on a long-

distance flight.

19

22 September, 2014

How to make millions trading domain names

NEW DELHI: It is not just bullion and shares that can be traded to make millions. Now, trading Internet domain names is becoming big business. Domain names purchased

for as little as ₹100 are being resold for lakhs or crores now.

Take the example of Prakhar Bindal, who founded a company called Axsiom to act as an exchange for trading domain names. Bindal bought a domain name called legalapp.com for $69 and then sold it for $100,000. He bought obituaries.in for only $2 and sold it for $1,200. Similarly, hashish.com fetched $65,000 after he bought it for just $8,000. Bindal, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, now helps others find buyers and sellers for a commission.

“Trading domain names is already big in the US and Europe. In India not many people are aware of the potential. We are organising seminars and awareness campaigns to encourage youngsters to invest,” said Bindal, who is now looking to start a new service where even retail users can start buying and selling domain names.

Bindal started Axsiom while he was studying at BITS Pilani. The business grew during while he studied at IIM-Calcutta. He has already got some of the world’s largest companies, some of them Fortune500 firms, such as Walt

Disney, Microsoft, IBM and Shell, as customers.

“The latest example is the famous American television series Entourage, which is coming out as a full length movie. They bought the domain name, ‘entouragethemovie.com’, from us. (We acquired it for) $10 and sold it for $1, 000,” he said.

Bindal said he earns 95 per cent of his revenues from the US and has sold around 850 domain names till now globally. The reason why many start-ups or established companies buy domain names is because it is 100 per cent unique and no one else can own it. Also, it gets better search rankings on search engines like Google, he said.

Going forward, Bindal is also in discussions with the Bombay Stock Exchange to create a proper exchange for such domain names.

“It might take up to two years, but we are optimistic (that) it will happen. It is not only a question of the BSE, but rounds of clearances by the Government, like SEBI approval and many other regulatory reasons,” he said.

Looking at such possibilities, Bindal expects to list around eight-lakh domain names on his platform by next year, from around 1.25 lakh right now. That should take his revenue between $10 million and $15 million in next two years. The optimism rises from the recent decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to open up domain name registration beyond the .org and .com. to allow generic names like hotel and shiksha.

20

Top 10 start-ups by BITSians, IITians and NITian

21

BITS world 5k run 2014: Nov 2014. BITSAA organized the 6th edition of BITS world 5k run on 30th November, Sunday. This run is dedicated to Late Prof. I.J. Nagrath. Various chapters across the globe organised the run and a lot of alumni participated in the same.

Birla Institute of Science and Technology Alumni Association celebrates OASIS – their cultural fest in Boston

Nov 25, 2014

Nostalgia is a word surrounded with pleasant vibes, fondness and youthful energy. To be able to take that energy and create a tangible effect sometimes takes hundreds of people. That is exactly what BITSians in Boston did on November 9th, 2014 when they created history as well as re-lived history. Approximately 150 BITSians gathered to celebrate OASIS in Boston, interestingly the first ever held outside Pilani. Ajay Koul (90-94), the president of BITSAA New England chapter, decided to create history by organizing this cultural fest for the very first time, outside the Pilani campus. BITS alumni, from all four campuses (Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai) came together to showcase talent, network with each other and meet up to start a brand new tradition here in Boston which they hope to continue annually going forward as well.

People from the most recent batches were seen mingling with senior batches. The mixed ethnic and western attire perfectly reflected the diversity in age, culture and campuses, and yet the food opened up the dialogue between various generations and alumni from various campuses. Most people really enjoyed the popular drink from BITS – the “Shikanji”, which was attractively placed to kick off indulgence into nostalgia. The journey down memory lane continued as people began to sit down around aesthetically placed oval tables, as the digital presentation visually took everyone back to their college days, through sounds, pictures, familiar lingo et al. With the house lights down, some even had wet eyes going down their own personal journeys. With emotional euphoria at its peak, live music kicked in with a song by Ajay Koul, specially written for this occasion, “ BITS Pilani jaisee koi jagah kahan…” followed by 4 hours of non-stop entertainment including songs that each one could relate to, from their college days, and stories of first time singing on stage were related . Hilarious emceeing by Apparao Karri (92-96) and Lita Das (05-09) didn’t let people disengage away from the stage performances while the live band and energetic music urged people to dance along. The energy of the room certainly grew exponentially as everyone had “the time of their life”. We spoke to a few who undoubtedly said that this was the best party of the year and that the organizers had done a phenomenal job putting this all together. They even had the fashion show for the kids, a replica of “Fash-P” (abbreviated for Fashion Parade) they used to have at BITS Pilani. Other BITSians displayed their classical dancing skills and some created a Bollywood medley with an enchanting choreography. BITSians from Dubai led a game of songs where each table competed to win by guessing songs from the tunes.

22

Manash Pratim Gohain, TNN | Dec 27, 2014, 11.28PM IST

Delhi student tops CAT, first girl since 2009 to score

100 percentile

NEW DELHI: Delhi girl tops Common Admission Test 2014 becoming the first girl since 2009 to score a 100 percentile. Neha Manglik is also the only girl

among the 16 candidates who scored 100 percentile in the entrance exam for admission to India's premier Indian Institutes of Management and 70 other top B-schools in the Country. Neha, a student of chemical engineering from BITS, Pilani has completed her schooling from Ahlcon Public School, Mayur Vihar, Delhi before joining engineering. "I had worked hard for this but 100 percentile is something one can never be sure of." The CAT 2014 results for admission to 19 Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs) including six new ones and other business schools for the year 2014 was announced on Saturday. CAT 2014 convenor Dr Rohit Kapoor told TOI that 16 people including a girl had scored 100 percentile this year. "While we are still to confirm how many of those who scored 100 percentile are from IITs, atleast 3-4 must be from these institutes." Last year eight students had managed to score 100 percentile. Also, ten people had scored in 99.99 percentile bracket, including a girl. On Neha's performance Kapoor said: "We want to congratulate her for the achievement. It's a rare distinction

for girls on CAT. She has done remarkable well in both the sections of the test and we like to wish her success as we need women leaders. IIMs has in the recent years are trying to make the campuses more inclusive and in at least last three years more girls are scoring high in the test." Speaking about her preparation, Neha said: "I had been doing mathematics and logical puzzle thanks to my father since my school days and so my basic preparation has been done there. For the final test I have been preparing for a year." An aspirant to IIM, Ahmedabad, Neha said: "Right now my aim to go to a good college and learn the management principles which will come handy in all walks of life." Giving credit to her alma mater and the importance of co-curricular activities Neha said: "My schooling has been very good. Most important thing they taught me is the along with academics even my co-curricular activities are equally important and that has really helped me develop my personality. Similarly for BITS, they have zero attendance policy and encourage us to do well in other fields which helped me." To fellow female aspirants Neha's advice is "Girls are as good as boys and always remember one who wins is the one who things we can. The moment they believe they can do there is no stopping them. They have to change their perception on themselves."

23

Annual Report 2013

Some of the big achievements of 2013 are given here.

Biggest ever Fundraiser in the history of BITSAA International: BITSAA International, kick started the Bridges to the Future fundraising campaign in Dec 2011 and BITSAA set out to raise the $1 Million before BITSAA Global Meet 2014. BITSAA has exceeded the expectations and has crossed $1 Million– thanks to generous donors. The funds raised has been supporting various initiatives for BITS Pilani and its alumni.

BITSConnect 2.0 – The game-changer: The leadership team at BITSAA has always pursued programs that we believe will not only benefit BITS Pilani but serve as a model for other colleges across India thereby benefiting the broader society. One such initiative is the BITSConnect 2.0. Spearheaded by alumni, this project has put BITS Pilani on the map of the finest universities in the world for leveraging technology in education. It comes as no surprise that BITSConnect 2.0 recently won the EDGE award from Informationweek.

Student, Faculty and Social Enrichment Initiatives: The Bridges to Future fundraising Campaign has created funding for 2 Faculty Chairs, 5 Student research grants, over 20 scholarship and awards. The funds raised will continue to fund these projects and elevate brand BITS to greater heights. The ‘Alumni Advisory Council’, which was established after the last BGM, consists of senior academics and industry professionals from across the globe and strengthens alumni engagement on issues important to BITS. This allows BITS to lead its pack in all endeavors. BITSAA also adopted a wonderful social initiative Atmanirbhara – Pilani Resource Center, started by the ’75 batch and raised awareness and funds for it through its global chapters.

Nurturing Entrepreneurship:Recognizing the immense talent among entrepreneurs in India and of young BITSians, we launched BITS Spark with the vision to make BITS Pilani one of top 3 universities for entrepreneurship in Asia. In less than two years, this program has shown outstanding results in creating, nurturing, and building some of the finest next generation startups coming out of India.

BITSAA rings the NASDAQ Opening Bell:One of the core pillars of BITS Pilani’s achievements is its alumni widely regarded for their contributions to society in diverse fields such as business, research, education, arts, philanthropy and public policy among others. A wonderful testament to this was the invitation extended to BITSAA to ring the NASDAQ opening bell – On December 23rd, 2013, BITSAA rang the opening bell at NASDAQ, signifying 50 years of BITS Pilani, India’s #1 ranked private university. The event served as an apt curtain raiser for BGM 2014. I want to thank each one of you for making the BITS Pilani brand synonymous with innovation, achievement and leadership today.

First ever BITSians’ day: BITSAA International organized the first ever BITSians Day on August 2nd 2013 – BITSians from across the world turned up to work wearing their BITS T-shirts. BITSAA Chapters in cities organized dinners, lunches and met with fellow BITSians in their cities. Amidst sharing pictures, sharing nostalgic BITSian memories and reliving the ‘good old BITsian Days’, BITSians broke all Social Media Records on August 2nd.