IITK Foundation
The IITK Foundation is a volunteer, not-for-profit,
organization dedicated to the betterment of IIT
Kanpur by mobilizing its alumni and raising funds.
It is a U.S. based organization with 12 Board members
and an executive committee of five officers (Chairman,
President, Vice President, CFO, and Secretary).
The IITK Director, the Dean of Resource and Program
Generation (DRPG) and the President of IITK Alumni
Association are the permanent invitees to the Foundation
meetings and events. The IITK Foundation is the
sole channel of fund-raising from IITK alumni in
the USA. The chairman or a designated board member
is a permanent invitee to the IITK Alumni Association
Board meetings. In addition to the board of directors,
the foundation has an advisory committee consisting
of prominent alumni.
The IITK Foundation was established in 2000 by
Prof. Arakare Vasudev, Deepak Bhagat, Umang Gupta
and Anil Bhandari. Umang Gupta served as its first
Chairman, Prof Vasudev as its first President and
Deepak Bhagat as its first CFO/Secretary. A prime
mover behind the creation of the foundation was
a visit in 1999 by IITK Director Dr. Padmanabhan,
Infosys Founder Mr. Narayana Murthy and the chairman
of the IITK Board of Directors Mr. Bhartia.
The foundation was granted by the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) of the USA granted a Tax-Exempt 501
Chap (3) (Tax ID: 94-3370645) and a Public Charity
Status on January 4, 2001. This provision gives
the Foundation Donors the maximum tax benefits in
the US, and allows the Foundation to seek for ‘Donor
Matching Funds’ from the donors’ US
based corporations.
The current board consists of Abhay Bhushan, Ram
Misra, Rakesh Pandey, Anjali Joshi, Salil Dave,
Raj Bordia, Anand Jagannathan, Rakesh Sharma and
Professor Akshai Runchal as a former IITK faculty.
The executive board consists of the following officers:
Ram Misra– Chairman
Abhay Bhushan - President
Rakesh Pandey - Chief Financial Officer
Salil Dave – Secretary.
The post of vice president is currently open.
Previous Directors Who have Served on the
Board:
These include Prof. Vasudev Arakere, Umang Gupta,
Deepak Bhagat, Anil Bhandari, Satish Bhalerao, Gunjan
Bagla, Atul Garg, Surbhi Kaul, Jeet Bindra, Sanjiv
Sahay and Siddharth Dasgupta. The foundation appreciates
the selfless service these people rendered to the
foundation. Many of these people are still continuing
to advise the foundation.
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Foundation
Achievements:
The foundation achievements
since its launch in 2003 include:
• Raising over $5M for various projects
and activities
• Serving as a catalyst for launching
the following very successful programs:
(a) Electronic Alumni Newsletter
(b) Web-site development
and hosting
(c) Seeding the PanIIT movement
(d) Seeding chapters in
the U.S.
(e) Change in the AA Constitution
(f) IITK-Stanford and IITK
– Caltech student exchange programs
(g) Started Annual Gift
Campaign
(h) On-line donations through
Indolink
(i) Donations for the following
Infrastructure improvements;
•
Pioneer Batch (1965) for PBCEC Building (Visitors'
Hostel)
•
Batch of 1966 for furnishing of Auditorium
•
Batch of 1967 for Park-67
•
Frontier Batch (1968) for Faculty Lounge
•
Batch of 1969 & 80 for Outreach 69-80
Building
•
Batch of 1972 for Yoga/Aerobics Hall in New
Sports Complex
•
Batch of 1974 for Central computing facilities
in Hall-3
•
Batch of 1990 for Auditorium stage lightings
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Revised Strategic Charter of the Foundation
In 2010, its board members adopted a revised strategic
charter for the foundation. The foundation serves
as a strategic resource for IITK in taking the current
resource generation effort to the next level, defining
a vision for the institute, faculty recruitment,
attracting foreign graduate students, and improving
the quality of student life on the campus,
Expansion of the current resource generation effort
We need to provide a new direction to our fund raising
efforts – going beyond the past efforts to
raising money for buildings or chairs or fellowships.
The DRPG has already set up a departmental advisory
committee whose charter is to indentify departmental
research related needs. The stakeholder on this
effort from IITK will be the DRPG, DORD and HODs.
Vision 2020 As previously mentioned, the foundation
developed and articulated the Vision 2020 for IIT
Kanpur, and presented it to IITK Board of Governors,
Faculty, and Alumni base. Now the ownership of Vision
2020 is with IITK, and the foundation will track
progress in this area. It will provide IITK an advisory
support. The main stakeholder on this effort is
the director.
Faculty Recruitment Faculty shortage is a serious
issue among IIT’s. IITK is not an exception.
The foundation and IITK will work together to create
an Academic and Research Alumni Network for recruiting
and developing faculty. In order for this network
to succeed, the IITK will form a committee of representative
s from each department, which will work with a designated
foundation representative. Foundation’s role
here will be to line up the candidates and monitor
the follow ups leading to a final disposition on
a candidate. The main stakeholders from IITK on
this effort will be the Dean of Faculty Affairs
(DOFA) and the department heads (HOD).
International Graduate Students Recruitment The
faculty recruitment initiative could also be combined
with an effort to recruit foreign graduate students,
particularly doctoral students.
Establish an Industrial Relations Board IITK needs
to form a body consisting of representatives from
industry to tap on the industry resources. This
interaction will not only bring in new financial
resources but also add relevance to the ongoing
research at IITK. The primary focus of IRB should
be Indian industry or MNC’s in India.
Replicating the IITK Foundation Model Around the
World Working with IITK, we will help in establishing
a group in India, Canada, UK/Europe, Australia and
Japan who can drive fundraising initiatives.
Helping Budding IITK Entrepreneurs The foundation
should reach out to successful IITK alumni entrepreneurs
in India and USA to provide guidance to aspiring
IITK entrepreneurs.
Improving the quality of life of students on the
campus This effort most likely will be multi-dimensional.
It could be related to the student’s academic
advising or counseling issues. The memorandum on
suicide prevention written by the foundation members
in 2008 is one example of what Foundation can do.
The IITK stakeholders on this are DOSA, DOAA and
Head of Counseling.
Helping IITK in any other IITK Initiatives as Requested
by IITK The above mentioned items do not preclude
the foundation from working with IITK on any other
initiatives taken up by IITK.
Operating Procedures:
The objectives of the operating procedures of the
Foundation are integrity, transparency, accuracy,
responsiveness, consistency and proper checks and
balances. The Board guides the activities of the
Foundation through monthly Board meetings, which
are typically held on the first Monday of each month.
An agenda is published in advance and the Board
meeting minutes are captured by the Secretary. All
strategic and expense related decisions are made
by passing Board resolutions.
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Academic
and Research Alumni Network of IITK
Mission
To partner with IITK in its effort to recruit
and develop the best faculty.
Key Activities
The network will focus on the following activities:
- Faculty recruitment
- Short term visits by
IITK faculty to the labs of network members
labs
- Visits by them to IITK
- Research collaborations
- Mentoring junior faculty
and graduate students from IITK.
Current Focus: Faculty
Recruitment
Network Involvement
- Identify potential faculty
candidates (from the students, post-docs
and other researchers that network members
interact with).
- Discuss with them the
opportunities available at IITK and connect
them with the proper IITK contact.
Current Status
- A Google Group has been
created with over 130 members. Most of the
IITK academic departments have posted a
brief introduction to the Department and
the Department’s strategic priorities
on this.
- Members are requested
to review these, provide feedback and comments
to the Departments, and most importantly
suggest potential candidates.
Request for Engagement
If you are an academician or a researcher and
want to be a part of this network, please contact
Raj Bordia at: bordia@u.washington.edu |
MEET OUR DIRECTORS
Ram B. Misra (IITK/BT/ME/1968)
Ram B. Misra is Chairman of the IIT Kanpur Foundation.
Ram has been part of the foundation pretty much
since its inception in 2003 and has served as Secretary
(2003-06) and President (2006-09). Ram is Chair
and Professor in the department Information and
Operations Management in the School of Business.,
Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA.
Prior to joining Montclair State University in 2002,
Ram was an Executive Director of Strategic Business
Development at Telcordia Technologies (formerly
Bell Communications Research). He has over 24 years
of telecom industry experience that spans Bell Laboratories,
Bell Communications Research and Telcordia Technologies.
He received his Ph.D. in Operations Research from
Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas.
Abhay Bhushan (IITK BT/EE/1965)
Abhay Bhushan is President of the IIT Kanpur Foundation,
and is the past president of IIT Kanpur Alumni Association.
Abhay joined the IITK Foundation in 2004 and served
as its CFO (2004-2009). He is the founding past
president of Pan-IIT USA, and is the recipient of
IIT Kanpur’s Distinguished Alumnus Award.
He is also Chairman, ASquare, Inc. In 1965, Abhay
joined MIT, obtaining Master degrees in EE and Management.
From 1967 to 1974, he worked at MIT and pioneered
the development of the ARPAnet (forerunner of Internet).
From 1974 to 1996, Abhay worked for Xerox. In 1996,
he co-founded Portola Communications and served
as its president and chairman. The company was acquired
by Netscape in 1997.
Rakesh C Pandey (IITK/BT/ME/1978)
Rakesh Pandey is CFO of the IITK Foundation. He
joined the foundation in 2006 and servesd as its
Secretary from 2006-09. In 2008, he was elected
president of the IITK Alumni Association. He is
a Distinguished Research Scientist at Olin College
of Engineering and Executive-in-Residence at Northeastern
University. Rakesh had a long tenure in Research
at Bose Corporation spanning research, innovation,
product development, business start-up, sales and
marketing. He launched and ran Bose’s subsidiary
in India (1995), started Bose Technology Center
in India (2003) and created the Center for University
and Industry Research (2008). Rakesh holds a Master’s
from Penn State University.
Salil Dave (IITK/BT/CS/86)
Salil Dave is Secretary of the IITK Foundation.
Salil joined the foundation in 2011. He is a Senior
Director in the Microsoft IT Global Strategic Initiatives
team. In his 25 year career he has covered a range
of industries and roles, including a decade at Microsoft,
6 years at supply chain software pioneer i2 Technologies,
and 5 years at the Indian Revenue Service.He has
an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad,
and an MPA from Harvard University.
Akshai K. Runchal
Akshai joined the foundation in 2008 and has been
instrumental in initiating the IITK industry alliance
program. He is an internationally known expert in
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). For the past
40 years he has consulted in CFD, combustion, environmental
pollution, and heat and mass transfer processes.
Akshai received his Ph.D. from Imperial College,
London (UK, 1969) and a Bachelor of Engineering
with Honors from PEC (Chandigarh, India, 1964).
He has taught and guided research students at I.I.T.
(Kanpur), UCLA (Los Angeles), Cal Tech (Pasadena),
Imperial College (London) and CSU (Northridge).
Rajendra Bordia (IITK/BT/ME/79)
Rajendra Bordia joined the IITK Foundation in 2011
and is leading the effort on the IITK Academic and
Research Network. He is currently a Professor and
has been a faculty member in the Materials Science
and Engineering Department at the University of
Washington, Seattle since 1991. From 1998 to 2005,
he was the Chair of his Department. Prior to his
academic career, he was a Research Scientist in
CR&D of DuPont Co. (1986 to 1991). He received
his M.S. (1981) and Ph.D. (1986) from Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY. He was a Visiting Professor at IITK
in 2007-08. His current research is primarily on
materials for next generation energy systems.
Anand Jagannathan (IITK /BT/EE/1974)
Anand joined the IITK foundation in 2011 and is
leading the effort of creating an IITK Entrepreneurial
Advisory Group. Anand is an experienced serial entrepreneur
who has founded four companies and is launching
his fifth company, Newzstand. He is the founding
CEO of Responsys Inc, a company that went public
(MKTG) in 2011. Anand also co-founded Banyan Systems,
a worldwide leader in enterprise networking which
was publicly traded as BNYN, then spun off as EPRE
and SWBD. He has also founded, Reach Software, an
early leader in email and workflow solutions; and
iStorez, an online shopping company that pioneered
‘deal centers’. Anand started his career
at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories. Anand has
a Ph.D. from Rice University (Houston, TX).
Anjali Joshi (IITK/BT/EE/1981)
Anjali Joshi joined the foundation in 2008 and
played a key role in the Vision 2020 initiative.
She is a currently a Director of Product Management
at Google where she leads groups focused on the
software, network and computing infrastructure,
translation products, and internationalization/
localization of Google products. Most recently,
she has been integral in managing Google's Fiber
to Communities effort. Prior to joining Google,
Anjali was Executive Vice-President of Engineering
at Covad Communications. Anjali spent several years
at Bell Labs working in the areas of voice and high
speed data communications. Anjali has a Master’s
in Computer Engineering from SUNY and a Masters
in Engineering Management from Stanford University.
She was recently selected as one of the top 50 IITK
alumni
Rakesh Sharma (IITK/MT/NE/1978)
Rakesh Sharma joined the IITK Foundation in 2011
and is responsible for fund-raising activities.
Rakesh worked as a financial analyst at MET for
many years before opening his own company. Among
his friends, Rakesh is known for his two loves –
IITK and astrology. He has been organizing Astrology
and Palmistry seminars at Arsha Vidya Gurukulan,
PA for last 15 years. He has read the palms of many
famous people.
Making Contributions to IITK
Making financial donations to IITK is very easy.
Please follow this link:http://www.iitk.ac.in/drpg/givingiit.htm
or mail your checks, payable to IITK Foundation,
to IITK Foundation, 3838 Mumford Place, Palo Alto,
CA 94306
www.iitk.ac.in