As the alumni efforts are getting more structured and this web site is gradually taking a professional form to reflect better inter networking and over all involvement of alumni in the development of the institute, in general, and EcE Dept, in particular, we are feeling ever greater need for volunteers with varied backgrounds and experiences as well as a few from current EcE students. There is something for everyone to contribute. Depending upon time and resources you can afford to commit on alumni activities and depending upon your preference for the mode/type/way to "give back" to the alma mater you would find that site is structured in a way that you have an important role to play.

For the time being, following are the main issues for which we are requesting everyone's help. If you would like to take incharge and would like to lead of any one of these activities please contact any of the volunteers or myself. You are also welcome to suggest and lead any other priority issue that you might feel strongly about.

1) Keeping the Site Alive

Volunteers have spent lot of time in getting the site up with tons of loads of information. One of the most important task (which, if not not more, is as important as to get the initial infrastructure up) is to keep the site regularly updated and prevent it from becoming another dormant site like many previous attempts. There are number of sections which needs active contribution from every single person. Required effort/time for students and alumni to contribute is bare minimum. For example campus placement data, distinguished alumni listings, career development forum, tech forum  etc.needs to be kept updated. The site is interactive. Anyone who has any information to share can simply go to the web site, click on relevant section and post anything on site. We request everyone's contribution in this regard.

2) Career Development Forum

Our goal is to build an exhaustive technical and informative database of contacts, career feedback, useful tips or information pointers etc. from as many of past EcE-passouts as possible. And also to extract easily presentable and veiwable statistics. Target audiences and corresponding aims are follows -

a) Current students; so that they can make an educated career choice as well as to provide them an idea of what best EcE ITBHU can potentially offer them. Aim is also to help them locate resources and required information needed for applying for summer internships, applying for MS/PhD, applying for MBAs etc.

b) Relatively recent passouts; so that they know where to look around for technical contacts and feedbacks from senior and more successful alumni if they want to explore new horizons in their professional life such as further education, a management degree, switch in profession, starting a new venture etc.

c) Alumni volunteers team; so that they know whom to contact if they needed technical, professional, corporate or institutional help in starting, organizing or executing projects to help institute.

d) Outside world and prospective students; so that they know better about great career options available at EcE IT-BHU.

e) Alumni; just to serve general curiosity about our alma mater's progress!

Please look at the Career Development Forum (CDF) section on the EcE chapter blog. We plan to keep on updating this statistics year by year.

The way alumni can help is very simple. Anyone who went through the mind boggling processes of applying for MS/PhD or an MBA (CAT/GMAT etc.) or finding a prestigious internship or a rewarding job should visit our CDF and fill out one of many feedback forms available. We believe that it would give students a good contact database and a good source of past-feedback, tips, information pointers etc. about planning their future. It would also reflect the over all distribution of career options that students from EcE-ITBHU choose.

3) Technical Forum

We have started a tronics forum (electronics tech forum) on an experimental basis. The aim of the forum is to get the current students (especially) and everyone else an exposure to the latest technology/issues/problems so that they can make an educated choice about their future careers. The forum is in very nascent stage. We expect that as the  time passes by it would get momentum and start functioning of its own without our intentional intervention. But to begin with we request alumni primarily  in technical industry and educational institutions to take out sometime for regularly visiting the tech forum and posting the latest happenings in their areas of their expertise to keep everyone informed and motivated about the cutting edge world that lies in front of them. One can post news articles, links to online resources, pointer to intersting/path-breaking journal articles etc. We believe it would also require bare minimum time commitment from anyone who wants to contribute something.

4) Model Development Center and Industry Sponsored Projects

We got the basic structure of Model Development Center (MDC) framed. Its running successfully. Please visit the site. Above mentioned technical forum can be considered as one theoretical supporting arm of this MDC. Firstly, what we need now is to develop this center as a full fledged electronics enthusiasts dream center. For this we need people with little bit of vision to come together and decide what to buy. Secondly, we need to find out a few national competitions where we would like MDC to take part. Preparing MDC for that also comes under this task. Thirdly, for longtime now we are trying hard to kick start a process of industry supported/encouraged/sponsored projects with students -- maybe in terms of technical competitions on the lines of Hughes Software Competition. Funds are not the primary aim. Alumni are willing to fund the effort. What we need more importantly is the involvement of corporate in terms of motivation, encouragement, guidance, problem formulation etc. Students would take much more interest in executing such projects if they see the possibilities of a cutting edge summer internship or a full-time job in future. In return industry can also attract and search much better young talents for future employment with comparatively much less effort. It would also keep them well informed about modern technologies. We strongly believe that this probably the best way keep people motivated towards core technology. Alumni primarily in indian tech industry who would like to help us make this effort a success are requested to please respond to any of the volunteers (links bottom of left hand panel) or to me .

This section needs some serious support and time commitment from EcE enthusiasts ... past and present alike.
 
5) Distinguished Alumni Database

We have posted a temporary list of distinguished alumni. The aim is to provide a clear impact at the first sight to the outside world about the strong past that we posses. Again the targeted audience forms a big spectrum -- including prospective students, current students or recent graduates (whoever has has doubts about their alma mater!) as well as external world. This list needs to be as exhaustive as possible. We need everyone's contribution for that. We need to clearly reflect our strong alumni presence in technical, educational and corporate worlds. In today's highly competitive world you better sell your strong points well or just perish.

The way alumni can help is again very simple. If you know anyone who can be a source of motivation, simply visit the site and  please post his name, graduation details (if available) and contact information. Volunteers would do the job of contacting the person.

6) High Speed Internet Connection

One and single most important thing missing from Banaras is a high speed network. No one questions the need and importance of reasonably high speed ethernet in students academic progress, we think we do not need to elaborate that it is not going to be an easy job to get a high speed connections at student hostels in Banaras. Still, alumni are collecting there effort together to do a feasibility study analyzing various options available in India vis a vis cost, reliability, usefulness, infrastructure-demand, time-frame, etc about getting a high speed network either into the hostels or MDC in EcE department. We need more volunteers to evaluate (in terms of cost, usefulness, accessibility, time frame, reliability etc) various options available to us. People experienced in networking and alumni working with computer and networking companies are especially requested to please respond and contribute. We need plan/aim for big goals. Even if we can provide high speed connectivity to a few computers in say MDC or in EcE library its going to be very useful for students.

This section also needs some serious support and time commitment from EcE enthusiasts ... past and present alike.


7) Developing Department Web site in itbhu.ac.in

A temporary version of one independent research page with brief biographies and list of publications for each faculty has been prepared and posted on EcE chapter of IT-BHU. Faculty publication lists that we have posted on our  web site needs to be cross checked with faculty and needs regular updates. We should also get the biographies/awards/achievments updated and cross checked. We believe that current students can help us best here. Targeted audience is the outside world and our ultimate aim is to port these pages on ece department web site within official IT-BHU web site -- http://www.itbhu.ac.in. As ITBHU currently does not have resource to update and maintain the pages regularly, we have decided to take up this job. We believe no one needs any explanation why this effort is important. Its very difficult to prevent inferiority complex creeping in the young minds and new comers if seniors forget their responsibility of regularly publicizing and reminding them of their own strengths. Also to receive due respects from outside world you rather sell your strengths better.

In this regard, students and alumni can help us in two ways. One by assisting us in updating the information and getting it cross checked. And secondly by helping the volunteers to help develop itbhu.ac.in.




If you would like to contribute in any of these efforts or if you think there something else that you would like to contribute please contact any of the volunteers or write to mukul["DOT"]agrawal["AT"]ece00.itbhu.org .


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