In an address to the Parliament on February 17, 2003, the President of India congratulated the IIT system on fifty years of distinction and announced the conversion of the fourteen Regional Engineering Colleges into centrally funded National Institutes of Technology.
See section 49 in the above release: ... "I also congratulate the IIT system for having completed fifty years of distinguished service to the nation. It has earned global acclaim for the quality of its graduates. Fourteen Regional Engineering Colleges have been upgraded as National Institutes of Technology."
It is more than ever that we must pull our efforts together on the lobbying efforts for conversion to an IIT. We are shortly forming an action group comprising of alumni from the US and India and the announcements will come out here soon.
Please email nominations and/or offers to volunteer to the author of this post.
Comments from the alumni :
Amit,
Thanks for the excellent suggestions!
You would be happy to know that ITBHU.org has been striving to be the umbrella alumni organization --you can already see some chatpers, more to come. Alumni meets are happening with active ITBHU.org affiliation. You will see announcements. We have opened several channels of communication with the Institute at student, faculty and director levels. Institute news will post regularly.
We definitely need driven, clear focused and positive people like you to come aboard and push this effort faster!!
Contact us by email. Let's know where you would like to volunteer. Let us know your geographical location, your technical and organizational skills/preferences that can add to our core team.
Thanks again for the comments!
Looking forward to your participation,
Editor
Posted by editor at April 1, 2003 01:34 PM
50 glorious of IIT.. it sure is a big achievement. There was a meet in Bangalore on the occasion and I was told that IT-BHU alumni are not invited for the same. Didn't pursue the matter much so don't know if IT-BHU was really not invited or it was personal opinion of somebody. But one thing comes out loud and clear.. we are not treat equally by fellow IITians.
So what we need to do. Well, I have a few points to make here that can be debated upon and the list can be further appended.
1) Bring all alumni chapters under one head.
2) Have a dedicated alumni cell in IT-BHU whose sole responsibility will be to interact with the alumni, take their guidance and keep them updated about the various happenings in our dear college. Prof Bansal has done a fantastic job in this regard but still a lot more needs to be done
3) Conducting official alumni meets in various cities. The alumni cell in the institute should decide the dates and programme for these meets and our 3rd year students who go for summer trainings to various cities should be assigned responsibility to conduct the programme successfully. Some funds should come from the institute ( can be collected by various alumni related activities and sponsorships) and the rest the participants can contribute. I have seen it being done successfully at IIMs and I think we can also emulate the same model
4) Having a separate ITBHU-Careers egroup where we alumnus can post any requirements in our respective companies. It will help bind us together.
5) Having some common forum on our website exclusively for Alumnus where they can chat, look for their friends, and put messages related to our institute
6) Maintaining a news section on our website where the institute posts news related to placements, financial needs of institutes, various events and results etc.
7) Proactiveness from College administration to get IIT status to IT-BHU.
8) I think a separate dedicated entrance to IT-BHU will help a lot. We can make hyderabad gate as the official one and see that the road leading to the gate is good enough to travel, has good cosmetic makeup and is advertised proactively as IIT Gate. Renaming the gate can help (though may involve some political issues)
The above suggestions are my own and people may differ on the subject. But I think we need to do something now and fast
amit goel
940723
Posted by amit goel at March 31, 2003 11:50 PM