Big guns come together to promote brand IIT

Date: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 8:58 AM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

H-1B lobby groups are very happy that 60 Minutes furthered their cause of
raising the yearly quota of H-1B visas. Their goal is to convince Congress
that Americans are no longer capable of handling high tech jobs so it is
necessary to import people that can. An important part of their campaign is
to denigrate American education in order to prove why companies need to
import more Bombay University graduates.

The 60 Minutes show was just the start of the hype and ballyhoo we will be
seeing soon. Just wait until Bill Gates gives his speech.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/comp/articleshow?artid=32448004

The Times of India Online
Printed from timesofindia.indiatimes.com >India Business

Big guns come together to promote brand IIT

HARIHAR NARAYANSWAMY

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2002 11:18:48 AM ]

MUMBAI: What's making the likes of Bill Gates, Rajat Gupta, Victor Menezes,
and Vindi Banga gather in Silicon Valley in the second week of January? Some
of the world's highest-flying professionals are coming together to promote a
brand — and no, it's not a new, new, geeky thing.

It's 50 years old, but this is the first formal attempt to create and
promote awareness about the Indian Institutes of Technology, put together by
IIT's mega-watt celebrity alumni.

Says McKinsey's Rajat Gupta, an alumnus of IIT Delhi, "Brand IIT in general
has lagged behind the quality of the alumni and it is time to correct this
discrepancy."

It's perhaps most fitting that the 50th anniversary of the first IIT — IIT
Kharagpur, which was set up at an erstwhile prison camp — should be
celebrated in Silicon Valley, with American TV's 60 Minutes and the world's
richest man in attendance.

After all, the IITs have produced the likes of Victor Menezes, vice-chairman
of Citibank, Rajat Gupta, managing director of McKinsey, Kellogg Business
School's Mohanbir Sawhney, venture capitalist Kanwal Rekhi, Vinod Khosla,
Former US Airways chief Rakesh Gangwal, MS 'Vindi' Banga, chairman of HLL,
Nandan Nilekani of Infosys... the list could go on. Not to mention that the
Silicon Valley IIT alumni association can probably muster much larger
numbers than Kharagpur's.

"While an IIT is among the top five global educational institutions, an MIT
or a Stanford are better recognised brands," says Silicon Valley-based Dilip
Venkatachari, president Cashedge and a 1981 batch IIT Madras alumnus, who is
one of the main co-ordinators of the event.

An aberration which the organisers of the IIT 50 hope will be corrected in
the years to come. BusinessWeek, in a cover story, called IITians the
"hottest export from India."

IIT50, largest event ever staged by all IITs under a common aegis over the
17th and 18th of Jan is an attempt to convert the success of IITians into
lasting benefits and mindshare for the IITs themselves. Says NR Narayana
Murthy, chairman Infosys and a speaker at IIT50, "Brand promotion is
important for every institution, including the IITs."

Mr Narayana Murthy will share the podium with the likes of Bill Gates and
John Hennessy, president of Stanford, among other guest speakers and alumni
across all IITs.

The scale and importance being attached to the event can be seen by the fact
that the directors of all the seven IITs (Kharagpur, Madras, Bombay, Kanpur,
Delhi, Guwahati and Roorkee), are flying in for the occasion, and discuss
their collective vision for the IITs.

And while it may be some time before Brand IIT acquires its rightful place
in the pantheon of haloed academic institutions, there is no doubting that
this January will see the congregation of some of the best and the brightest
that India has produced to chart the course of Brand IIT.

(From The Economic Times)

© Bennett, Coleman and Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

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