IITaV
Newsletter
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December
2017 |
Issue No. 17 |
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President's Message
Dear
IIT Alumni,
Welcome to this edition of our newsletter that reports on
our professional and social events during the last six
months. It has been a busy period since our AGM in May
with two professional events and three social events. The
organisation has also continued to grow steadily with a
lot of participation from our associate members which is a
welcome addition as it brings us closer to the student
community of IIT Alumni here in Melbourne.
The professional events included a tour of the Centre for
Hybrid Energy Systems (CHES) at CSIRO in July and a talk
on applications of deep reinforcement learning in
artificial intelligence by a visiting professor from IIT
Madras in August. On social networking front, we had three
events that included an informal networking event at Glen
Waverley Novotel in June that seems like becoming an IITaV
tradition every year. This was followed by our
Diwali celebration on the boat in October and a picnic at
the Jells Park just last week.
We now have 85 members which include 20 associate members
who have joined the organisation recently. I would like to
welcome all of our new members to our family and thank the
student members for their active participation and
feedback on our on-going activities. I also thank our
Corporate Members i.e. Swinburne University of
Technology, Envision IT and the University of Melbourne
for their continued support.
In addition to growing in numbers, the committee has also
established closer ties with similar IIT alumni
associations around the globe. We have now established
introductory relations with three other IIT Alumni
associations at Sydney, Singapore and Greater Houston. I
look forward to strengthening of these new relationships
and a closer engagement with our alumni interstate and
overseas.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank current and
past Committee members and their families for your great
contribution and commitment that allows us to organise
these professional and social events regularly. With your
continued dedicated efforts and the ongoing support from
all of our members, we will continue to actively organise
and participate in more networking events in the coming
year.
With best wishes for the coming holiday season and a Happy
and Prosperous New Year,
Nikhil Kumar
M: 0417103795
nikhil_kumar@bigpond.com
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Picnic
@ Jells Park
December 17,
2017
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To mark the
end of the year 2017, IITaV held a family picnic
at Jells Park on 17 December 2017. Weather
Gods smiled and provided us with a superb day.
With crisp air and perfect temperature, people
were delighted to relax amongst the twittering of
birds. And the 36 attendees felt that all was
right with the world. Or at least with Jells park
and their picnic!!!
Families brought
their delicacies to share, satisfying the culinary
cravings of the attendees. More satisfying when
you come hungry after a game of Cricket. Almost
all participated and was fun. It was a good
to see children enjoying their soccer. And the
ladies socialised with an exploring walk.
Some members commented on their recent pollution
experiences in India and China and it was indeed
good to breathe such clean unpolluted air. On the
whole, every one had a great day out with lots of
fresh air and plenty of smiles. ( More
Photos)
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Diwali
Celebrations
October 15,
2017
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IITaV
Members, Families and Guests celebrated Diwali
festival with the usual exuberance onboard the
palatial double decker boat, CAROL DEE of the
Party Boat Cruises. Sun shining, Wind breezing
through, Smiles all around - Melbourne reserved
its perfect spring day for us !!!
The 4hr cruise
took us through Victoria Harbour Docklands, Port
of Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay-Williamstown. The
returning trip to Docklands captured Melbourne’s
stunning city views. Seeing Melbourne Star
illuminated with Indian colours was a treat to
watch!!!
A large floor
area on the top deck with a bar provided the
perfect entertainment for our dance loving crowd
with natural scenery forming the backdrop. A
variety of food helped to entertain our taste buds
with drinks galore!!!
Thanks to Sangeeta Singh, Pallavi Saraf and other
Committee Members for their hardwork and tireless
effort over many months to bring this entertaining
event to our Members. Its great to see all our
Members and families together. Thanks to
Diwakar and Ashok for capturing the moments!!! ( More
Photos)
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Introduction to
Deep Reinforcement Learning
Prof
B Ravindran, IIT Madras
24 Aug 2017 |
IITaV organised a networking event on 24th August 2017 at
University of Melbourne campus and invited Professor
B
Ravindran for a talk on “Deep Reinforcement
Learning”.
Prof. Ravindran is an Associate Professor in Computer
Science at IIT Madras. He has nearly two decades of
research experience in machine learning and specifically
reinforcement learning.
Deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods have achieved
significant successes recently by marrying the
representation learning power of deep networks and the
control learning abilities of RL. This has resulted in
some of the most significant recent breakthroughs in
Artificial Intelligence such as the Atari game player and
the Alpha Go engine from Deepmind.
The event was attended by IITaV members; and the
University of Melbourne staff and students. IITaV
President Nikhil Kumar thanked Prof. Ravindaran for his
interesting and informative talk and presented a
certificate of appreciation to him.
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Tour
of CSIRO’s Centre for Hybrid Energy Systems (CHES)
27th July 2017
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IITaV Members
had an opportunity to visit CSIRO's Centre for Hybrid
Energy Systems (CHES) on Thursday, 27th July 2017. CSIRO
has established this centre based on its expertise and
capability in energy storage, renewable energy systems,
hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, fuel processing,
systems design and construction, and integration of energy
technologies.
CHES is a collaboration
hub for researchers & industry to develop and
demonstrate new hybrid energy systems. The scientists
utilise the centre to look at challenges and opportunities
related to integration of hybrid energy systems with
renewable energy technologies, and investigate long term
renewable energy storage technologies (hydrogen,
ammonia, methanol) and on the export potential of
Renewable Energy from Australia in the form of
transportable fuels.
About 30 IITaV members visited the centre. CSIRO staff
made a presentation on CHES and then took the members on a
tour of the Centre. The visit was concluded with a
networking session and refreshments.
Thanks to Dr. Sarbjit Giddey for organizing this event.
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Informal
Networking Event @ Novotel, Glen Waverley
29th June 2017
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IITaV Members and their
families had an informal get together at Novotel Glen Waverley.
Our informal events are best way to meet and greet other members
and their families in a relaxed atmosphere over some nibbles and
drinks. No fixed agenda keeps things flexible. In our last event,
Rajasekar Ravi briefly presented his view on Energy sector and
shared his business ideas amongst other members for possible
collaboration.
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IITaV
AGM 2017
13th
May 2017
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IITaV
held its AGM 2017 at Swinburne University of Technology,
Hawthorn, on 13th May 2017 and elected the Management
Committee for 2017-18 unanimously. Around 20
IITaV Members attended the event and shared their thoughts
to help shaping the IITaV events for the upcoming
year. Please find the AGM
Presentations and MoM.
IITaV
President for 2016-17, Ravi Singh, presented a summary of
IITaV activites held during last year. He told the
audience that the objective, "Promoting professional
development and social interaction between Members,
together with growing the Membership base" drove last
year's Committee activities. He thanked the support
extended by all IITaV Members and their family to the
Committee's activities. IITaV Past President Arun Kumar
appreciated the excellent leadership of Ravi Singh in
leading the Committee last year.
In the absence of IITaV
Treasurer, Rachana Kaudinya, the incoming President,
Nikhil Kumar presented the Treasurer's report for 2016-17.
Treasurer's report had every cent accounted, and the
audience commended the effort of Rachana Kaudinya for
maintaining IITaV accounts meticulously.
Incoming President for 2017-18, Nikhil Kumar thanked the
efforts of Ravi Singh and Abaran Deep and presented them
with a token of appreciation. He welcomed the new
Committee Members and requested the continued support of
all Members to the Committee's efforts.
IITaV acknowledges Swinburne University of Technology for
allowing us to use their facilities for the AGM, with
special thanks to the support of Prof Ajay Kapoor and Dr
Paleneeswaran Ekamabram. ( More
Photos)
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IITaV
interactions with other IIT Alumni Associations
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This year IITaV has reached out beyond Victoria and
established introductory relations with three other IIT
Alumni Associations, IIT Alumni of Australia (IITAA)
in Sydney, IIT Alumni Association of Singapore (IITAAS), and
IIT Alumni Association of Greater Houston (IITAAGH). It is
indeed very heartening to note that IITians, wherever they
are, are always very pleased to meet with IIITians from
other parts of the world.
IITAA, IITAAS and IITAAGH Houston have all extended their
cordiality to meet and greet IITaV members while they are in
their respective cities, where possible. IITaV would be glad
to reciprocate their hospitality and meet and greet their
members passing through Melbourne.
Arrangements now exist whereby IITAA, IITAAS and IITAAGH are
on the mailing list of IITaV and vice versa. Wherever an
email from the other IIT associations is of general
interest, it is passed on to our members.
We hope to continue and further build on these
relationships. |
Member
Achievements
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Dr
Arora receives Award for Excellence in
Internationalisation of Research:
Dr.
Meenakshi Arora (IITaV Member) and Prof. Ashok
Muthupandian (Faculty of Science) are the 2017
winners of Award of Excellence in
Internationalisation of Research for their Melbourne
India Postgraduate Program (MIPP). This
University of Melbourne award recognises
outstanding contributions to internationalising
research and research training, including through
development of international partnerships and
networks which may include the contribution made
by individuals and / or teams of academic and / or
professional staff to development specific
international research or research training
programs or joint research centres or to the
institutional relationships that underpin
international research and the University’s
international standing.
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Rajesh Kataria's GlassCo Australia
Pty Ltd , National Finalist, 2017 Ethnic Business
Awards
Our IITaV Member,
Rajesh Kataria's GlassCo Australia Pty Ltd had
been selected as a National Finalist for the 2017
Ethnic Business Awards that celebrate diversity
and success against odds. The award ceremony was
held on 28th October 2017 in Sydney and was
presided over by federal ministers, diplomats,
delegates and distinguished business leaders. The
program was televised on national television
including SBS television.
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IITaV
Gold Corporate Members
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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, said.
Swinburne has been ranked one of the world's top 400
universities by the prestigious 2015 Academic Ranking of
World Universities (ARWU). This result places
Swinburne among the top 3% of universities in the world.
Swinburne was named one of the world’s top 400
universities by the Times Higher Education University
World Rankings 2014–2015. In 2015, Swinburne was ranked
for the first time in the Times Higher Education Top 100
Under 50 Rankings, an index of the world’s top
universities under the age of 50.
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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.
We are able to achieve this through decades of experience
in industry, developing 100+ innovative projects and
technology alliances (see below). This enables us deliver
products that are seamlessly integrated, diligently
automate tasks and streamline business processes.
Microsoft technologies and agile methodology provide a
base platform for all our projects. The projects however
invariably involve disparate software and hardware from
vendors such as Adobe, Autodesk, Cameras, CISCO, Devices,
Equipment, Hadoop, Hortonworks, IBM, MongoDB, Oracle, Pay
by Phone, RFID, SAP, SenSen Networks, Sensors etc. We
maintain alliances with all major and many niche
technology vendors.
Envision IT products has consistently won awards right
from TravelSmart (2004) to Encarp for employee parking
management (FMA 2011 Runners up) to our new product –
Audispect that eases Audits and Inspections and saves
40-85% in routine workload. In addition, we develop
product for global and government organisations that run
their core business. |
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The University of Melbourne has
had a long standing involvement with India. During its
formative years, The University of Melbourne received
high recognition when Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India
(1899-1905), invited Professor Masson, Chair of
Chemistry at The University, to India to advise on the
establishment of the Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore. Later, at the time of Indian Independence,
Professor David Derham, who was to become Vice
Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, was involved
in drafting the Indian constitution. Today The
University of Melbourne is engaged with the Indian
Institute of Science and the Indian Institutes of
Technology Kanpur, Madras and Kharagpur through the
Melbourne-India Postgraduate Program, which offers
graduate researchers the opportunity to work under joint
supervision with leading academics from The University
of Melbourne and one of the program’s Indian partners.
Currently, the University
of Melbourne has more than 40 IIT alumni either working
as academics or enrolled in PHD. IIT student
association@Melbourne has recently been established. The
University of Melbourne is pleased to join IITaV as a
Corporate member. This collaboration would provide IIT
alumni working/studying at the University of Melbourne
various opportunities to engage with IIT alumni living
across Victoria.
IIT Student association @ Melbourne could be
contacted by email or phone:
Mr. Mukesh Soni (President)
M/ +61 4329 28 786
F/ +61 3 8344 4290
mukesh.soni@unimelb.edu.au
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Contact
Us
We take this opportunity to thank
everyone for their contributions. 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.
Previous editions of the newsletter are available here.
Thank you.
IITaV Management Committee |
Indian Institutes of
Technology (IIT) are the premier institutes of engineering
education in India.
IITaV is the Alumni
Association for IIT alumni in Victoria.
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