IITAV Special Feature Event A DATE TO NOTE:  A FUN DIWALI EVENT ON SUNDAY, 1st NOVEMBER, 5.30 pm - 9.30 pm Spirit of India Function Centre, Preston The Management Committee is busy planning our Diwali event on Sunday 1st November.  It will be a joyous event with entertainment, delicious food and networking for members, families and friends. Please note this special event in your diary. We are looking forward to your attendance and active participation. Bring along your friends and families too! Details of the event will follow in due course.

IITAV held its AGM on 3rd May 2015 at Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn.  The Annual reports by the President and Treasurer were presented and accepted. The new Management Committee for 2015-16 was elected unanimously.  This was followed by a constructive discussion and suggestions for the development of IITAV for consideration by the new committee.   Minutes of the AGM, President's and Treasurer's annual reports have been circulated to the members and can be found here. 2015-16 Management Committee (Profiles)   Raj Rajakumar - President   Nikhil Kumar  - Vice-President   Rachana Kaudinya - Treasurer   Sridhar Karuppasami - Secretary   Dilip Desai - Committee Member   Ravi Singh - Committee Member   Abaran Deep - Committee Member   Rakesh Saraf - Committee Member   Vipin Gaindhar - Committee Member Thank you for continued support and co-operation. Please feel free to contact us with your comments and suggestions and any queries. We look forward to your active participation and contributions to the growth and impact of IITAV.

At the May AGM growing our contact and visibility with IITs and IIT Alumni Associations in India was discussed.  It was suggested that we have an IITAV member volunteer as our primary liaison contact with each of the IITs.  We thank our members as noted below for taking on this role and look forward to working with you. IIT-Bombay – Pandu Maruti IIT-Roorkee – Dr Yogendra Vashishtha IIT Delhi – Manjit Lekhi IIT Kanpur – Satish Varma We request volunteers from our IITAV family to nominate for the liaison roles with other IITs including IIT Chennai, IIT Khargapur and IIT BHU. We are also delighted to report that Dr Nalin Sharda, IITAV member, has been appointed as a Global representative of IIT Delhi Alumni Association.

IITAV Feature session On Creating Change Through Humanitarian Engineering 30th July 2015 Rasika Mohan, Director of Development Partnerships - Engineers Without Borders (EWB), led the session.  EWB has over a decade of experience in engaging the private technical and engineering sectors in developing and leading community development projects across South and South East Asia. EWB is an award winning provider of innovative and engaging engineering education programs, a DFAT supported provider of technical assistance programs to developing communities, and a pioneer in developing and trialling innovative technical and market based solutions to solve problems. Rasika described the main activities of EWB covering awareness/outreach, probono engineering, capacity building, technical and non-technical innovation, study tours and design education, and industry engagement. It was interesting to hear that EWB conducts field based programs with 6 Aboriginal communities, and with a range of community partner organisations in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia and Timor Leste on issues relating to water and sanitation access, renewable technology, education, sustainable infrastructure, climate change and resilience, and social entrepreneurship. The benefits of taking a collective impact based approach to work (i.e. the government, community, and private sectors need to come together to facilitate sustainable change for communities) and the role of engineers and scientists in such activities were discussed. The interactive session was quite vigorous and  ways in which IITians here can contribute to the work of EWB were also explored. Rasika has sent a thank you note to IITAV for holding the event:  “ I just wanted to drop you all a quick note to say thank you for inviting me to speak at the IITAV event last week. I hope that the information I presented piqued the group's interest, and I hope that EWB can find some genuine supporters from the IITAV community. It would be great to channel the energy of the IIT and more broadly Indian community in a positive way.”   It was great to have a good attendance of our members and guests despite the cold and windy weather that evening. We were privileged to have Mr Srini Srinivasan, Victorian Multicultural Commissioner, and Professor John Webb OAM of Swinburne University, who served in the Australian High Commission in India from 2005 to 2008, attend and participate in the discussion.  Dr Dilip Desai, Committee Member, chaired the session effectively and Dr Raj Rajakumar, President thanked the attendees and presented a certificate of Appreciation to Rasika on behalf of IITAV. Thank you to Swinburne University, IITAV Corporate member, for hosting the event.

@The White Lounge - June 2015 This event was held at The White Lounge, Tuscan Bar on Bourke Street, Melbourne. Thank you again to the attendees for your participation. The camaraderie and constructive discussion on potential ways forward for IITAV were much appreciated. The main points which were discussed are below. Please feel free to give your feedback. Consider including South Indian dishes at our Diwali event. Ideas for events/activities which could help to increase impact of IITAV, building on the progress achieved so far were explored. General support for a major event early next year for which content, funding and sponsorship avenues need to be explored. Such an event could include IIT directors/senior staff, industry and government representatives. It was suggested that support from the Victorian government may be feasible and worth pursuing.(Read More)

@The Hotel Windsor - April 2015 This well-attended session was held at The Cricketeers Bar in The Hotel Windsor. The attendees enjoyed the evening of discussions and the outstanding collection of cricketing memorabilia. Photographs of English and Australian teams from the 1800’s and 1900’s adorned the walls and a Sir Donald Bradman bat and memorabilia signed by Shane Warne take pride of place.

IITian Sundar Pichai is New CEO of Google Google announced a surprise corporate overhaul recently, forming a new parent company  Alphabet to include Internet search and a handful of independent companies.  Google will be one of the units, headed by the current company vice president Sundar Pichai. Originally from Tamil Nadu province in southeast India, Pichai received a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He also has a Master of Science from Stanford University and a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  More information can be found here. Alumni Helping To Create An IITian Start-up Ecosystem An interesting article on how IIT alumni are helping young IITians through funding their start-ups has been published in the Economic Times . The full article by Rajiv Singh can be found here. Ten Brilliant Innovations By IIT Students That Prove India Is A Pool Of Talent From a scooter that charges faster than your phone to a technology that makes walking on water possible, the young minds at IIT have come up with some brilliant ideas that will convince you that our country is one powerhouse of talent! Take a look at 10 mind-blowing ideas that were a result of their hard work and patience.   E-scooter   Drones   Walking on water ride   Re-writable T-shirts   Alcohol Sensing Helmet   Earphones Untangler   A dual pin stapler   Hemometer   Guardian   3D display and user interface Read full article in the India times here. One more IIT announced in India’s 2015 Budget In his budget speech, Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister, said that Indian School of Mines in Dhanbad will be converted into an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), apart from setting up a new IIT in Karnataka. (Read More)

We welcome Akshaya Nirvikar and Parthasarathy Bhaumik  into our family of IITAV Members and take this opportunity to thank all Members for their continued participation in IITAV activities.

Swinburne University of Technology is an Australian public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. Swinburne operates five campuses in two countries and has an enrolment of students across vocational, undergraduate  and postgraduate levels. Swinburne houses advanced labs such as Design for Ageing, Smart Structure and Factory of Future labs. “Being a corporate member of IITAV, we benefit from collaborations and industry experts to create a new forum for engineering students,” Professor Ajay Kapoor, Dean of Engineering,  said. (Read More) Established in 2002 in Melbourne, Envision IT develops software products for global markets. This includes Standalone, Cloud based SaaS, Enterprise, Line of Business and mobile applications.  Envision IT products are known for their ease of use, high productivity, efficiency and reliability. Typically, our products offer an ROI under 3 months.(Read More)

We take this opportunity to thank everyone for their contributions. Special thanks to Raj Rajakumar and Sridhar Karuppasami for their efforts in producing this newsletter. To help us improve the newsletter, please send your feedback and contributions (news, views and memories) for the next issue to mail@iitav.org.au or Contact Rakesh Saraf(0414 853 557, rakesh.saraf@oracle.com). Previous editions of the newsletter are available here. Members are also requested to update their profiles at our website. Thank you. Rakesh Saraf (On behalf of the IITAV Committee)