IIT Alumni, Victoria

IITAV is delighted to invite you to our annual Holi event “Holi Hungama”. Come celebrate Holi with us!

Another great event organized by Nikhil Kumar, rekindled our fond IIT memories.  Many stories shared by the participants certainly enriched the evening. All of us had a good time, the conversation could have gone on for several more hours and the time just flew by.

Many thanks to Sunny Chandra for hosting the event at his Café. It is much appreciated.

On 25 September, IITAV hosted an informative presentation and discussion on the exciting opportunities provided by the advent of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in Australia. The highlight of the event, which was held in collaboration with Swinburne University of Technology, featured an address by Mr.Will Irving, Group Managing Director,Telstra Business.

In an engrossing style, supported with beautiful slides, Will covered two aspects of information and communication technology:

(i) Transformational Technologies including. Broadband, Devices & interfaces, M2M (the internet of things), Cloud and Big Data and

(ii) Innovation opportunities to increase connectivity encompassing home, work, business, hospitals, patients and education.

Will highlighted how information technology has been transforming our lives at an ever increasing speed. Apparently, the internet data transfer speed has grown from 0.25 mbps to 100 mbps in recent years and it will hit 200 mbps in the not too distant future.

Will outlined the vast opportunities for innovations that Broadband and internet are opening up. Innovations will make your home smarter so that everything is at your fingertips, wherever you are in your home. Innovations will enable you to work and interact with colleagues from just about anywhere and anytime. Innovations will interconnect all aspects of your business from within and without. Innovations will utilise data for disaster management. Innovations will connect your local General Practitioner and your pharmacy with the main hospitals in the state. You will be able to monitor and look after your own medical needs with guidance from your computer using tele-diagnostics and a central database. Innovations will help to develop enhanced learning aids and virtual laboratories.

In short, be prepared for a smart world in which everything will connect and communicate. Of course there will be challenges along the way. Standardisation and efficiency will be required. There will be issues of trustworthiness of the data, legalities about ownership of the data and about the systemic risks and how to mitigate them.

The event was attended by more than 40 IIT alumni, industry people and Swinburne University staff. Mr. Nikhil Kumar, IITAV’s Co-ordinator-Networking events, introduced Mr. Will Irving. Dr Raj Rajakumar, IITAV President, thanked Will for sharing his exciting insights and presented him IITAV’s Certificate of Appreciation.

IITAV and Melbourne Business School’s (MBS) Innovation Club jointly organised a networking event on 19 June 2013 on the topic “The Innovation Paradigm – From iDEA to iNVESTMENT”.

Dr Lim, Associate Professor at MBS and Sameer Babbar, IITAV member and MD of SVB group, talked about idea generation, entrepreneurial growth and funding from their research and practical experience. This was followed by a stimulating panel discussion moderated by Mr. Nikhil Kumar, IITAV’s Coordinator – Networking.

Sameer Babbar highlighted several issues faced by a young entrepreneur like defining the product and appropriate market segment and pricing of the product. On the investment front, he suggested that investors look for people skills and commitment to the idea and cautioned future entrepreneurs to avoid pretend-preneurs, and vulture capitalists.

Professor Lim’s advice to budding entrepreneurs is to immerse themselves in an entrepreneurial ecosystem since the founder and founding conditions are the key to shape the culture of an organisation. He stressed that a strong, fundamental disciplinary background with knowledge-brokering across technical domains can provide ideas for entrepreneurship, citing the success of biotechnology firms as an example.

He pointed out that Australia is an untapped opportunity that could provide a jump start for Asian communities to test their products and services before entering the western world.  On the other hand, he said that scaling, funding and access to overseas market are the biggest obstacles for entrepreneurship in Australia. He suggested that a lean start-up along with early ties with funding organizations is a key to growing low-risk entrepreneurial firms in the current climate.

Dr. Raj Rajakumar, IITAV President, thanked Dr. Lim and Mr Babbar for their talks and MBS Innovation Club for hosting the collaborative event.  The event was well received by the attendees who also appreciated the networking opportunity before and after the event.

On 14 December, 2013, IITAV organised a site visit to Eco Pacific P/L, in South Dandenong, Victoria. Members had the opportunity to get a direct glimpse of what a typical SME looks like and what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur and manufacturer in Victoria.

The Managing Director of Eco Pacific P/L, Dr Jai Kaudinya and Dr Rachana Kaudinya, both IITAV members, hosted the event.  Jai and his colleagues described the history of the business and their products. Jai has a PhD in Heat Transfer and before coming to Australia he worked in Russia, Japan and Germany on a number of heat transfer related projects including one related to space travel. That experience gave him the lead into the innovation which helped him start this venture.

Eco Pacific uses innovative technologies in their ducted heaters, evaporative air coolers and fresh air ventilators that they manufacture for the residential market. The members saw, first hand, the assembly line for the evaporative coolers which sit in the rooftops of some of the houses in Melbourne. They were also shown a government regulatory heater trial in progress to test a new generation heater.

At the end of the factory tour, Jai and Rachana treated the visitors to delicious refreshments and snacks.

We were delighted to have Greg Woodruff, Engineers Australia representative, join us for the visit. IITAV President Dr. Raj Rajakumar welcomed the members and thanked Jai, Rachana and their Eco Pacific colleagues and Nikhil Kumar, IITAV’s Coordinator-Networking events.

IITAV wishes Eco Pacific a bright and successful future.