Mumbai :
It was a congregation of BITSians from across the globe, aimed at bringing alive a mega reunion of all Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani student batches spread across four campuses, five decades and seven continents.
The BITSAA Global Meet (BGM) 2014 at the Hyderabad campus coincided with the golden jubilee celebrations of BITS Pilani. Octogenarians and sexagenarians going back to 1950s, when BITS Pilani was called Birla Engineering College, went down memory lane as more than a 100 BITSians shared their experiences at the meet. BITSAA is the global alumni association.
Ranging from Padma Shri D Balasubramaniam of the 1953 batch, to young achievers from the current batch who have incubated their own companies and started research projects, an array of BITSians shared their perspectives.
Some of the hot ventures by current BITSian students that were represented at the event included Exotel, a smart virtual phone number for businesses; Cubito, a smart car-pooling service; Amaterasu Electronics, offering home automation and voice control solutions for India; Sattva Healthcare, a low-cost fetal heart monitor which can give sufficient warning to medical practitioners and save lives, along with several others.
Since 2005, every three years, the organisation presents 30-under-30 awards, to honour outstanding BITSians under the age of 30 who have demonstrated excellence in their chosen area. At BGM 2014, some achievers who showcased their work included Phanindra Sama, Founder and CEO, RedBus, an online bus ticket booking service; Kavikrut, co founder of Mobile Medics Healthcare, a venture aimed at solving the last mile problem of rural healthcare through travelling teams of doctors and mobile vans. The latter was later acquired by the Piramal group to start Piramal eSwasthya. Mahesh Ramasubramanian, a specialist in producing computer graphics imagery for feature films was also felicitated. He has been associated with movies such as Madagascar 3, Shrek, Over the Hedge, Bee Movies and Monster Vs Aliens among others.
Commenting on 50 years of BITS Pilani, V.S. Rao, Director, BITS Pilani Hyderabad, said with Vision 2020, the institute would aim to be one of the top universities in Asia by 2020.
As a run-up to BGM 2014, top BITSians rang the opening bell for Nasdaq. Plans were also announced for the next BGM to be held in Dubai in 2016-17.
source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Industry> Education / The Hindu Bureau amritanair.ghaswalla@thehindu.co.in / Mumbai – January 09th, 2014