Singapore, April 2012

Reading the signposts of a changing landscape

Pan IIT APAC

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C O G D

01Day1

Hightlights

Day one began with Minister S Iswaran inaugurating the Pan IIT Conference. It was followed by Mr Ho Kwon Ping's speech about how Asia can strive for ethical wealth creation. It was interesting when Mr Ping opined about how in Asian triumphalism, we should not fall victim to simple hubris. I went on to hear the business tycoons' debate about business and innovation challenges in today's world.

02Day 1Highlights

There'snot a soul in Singapore who

doesn't love the traditional Chinese Lion dance! As Mr Nathan arrived for Pan IIT, the lion-dance troupe welcomed him with

bells, drums and blessings.

Asday one come to a close, The IITians trudged off to their Annual General body Meeting, where they elected their new President and Executive Committee. That done, they all proceeded to Harry's at Millenia Walk for two quintessential quenchers: Cricket and Beer. Harry's was exclusively open for Pan IIT participants, who enjoyed their F&B with the IPL screening on a 90 inch screen.

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03 Quiz and WTWG

The Quiz and WTGW transported 100 odd IITians back in time to those challenges and

debates amidst the sylvan surroundings. We got to experience times when we had to match our sloshed wits against

those of other "high-thinking" IITians over a contest of words, trivia or verbal concoctions. Our

very own VP of IITAAS (2010-12), Indrajit Lahiri (IITKgp' 85) was thekey organizer of this

event.

Raj Jayaraman (IITB' 85), the WTGW event conductor and the Quizmaster,

Suhrid Devsharma (NIFT 91), ensured that the 100 participants

were entirely engaged and racked their brains. The winning teams were in for a

suprise, they received 10 sleek HTC mobile phones !

04In Conversation withMeira Chand

The event was organized by nine lovely ladies of IWA Singapore (Indian Women's Association). IWA endeavours to bring the Indian community together by giving them a platform to connect, support, and network with each other whilst living Singapore. Our very own IIT Shakti member, the Social Chair of IWA, Piu Lahari was instrumental in organizing this conversation at Pan IIT and also for putting together the write-up!

Adifferent sky", by

Meira Chand, is a modern Asian epic and to me personally, a

thought-provoking novel. It reminded me of times when I would question myself

about Singapore, the cosmopolitan island and if it could truly be my home. I had enjoyed every bit of Meira's book and was thrilled to attend her

talk, "Weaving stories from the sands of time".

05 Inauguration byMinister S Iswaran

The conference was inaugurated by Minister PMO &

Second Minister for Home Affairs & Trade and Industry, S Iswaran.

He went on to express that "Innovation

is a key source of competitive advantage in a higher value-added economy,". In fact, he

emphasized that industries will need to leverage on design, technology and a skilled labour force to

create products and services for their own domestic markets, as much as for the rest

of the world.

I agreed with Mr S Iswaran's viewpoint on why Asian economies have to move away from their

dependence on the low-cost manufacturing business model. "As manpower costs increase, energy prices

rise and Western currencies weaken in relative terms; some Asian economies are losing their value proposition

as a low-cost manufacturing centre for global markets."

06Business andInnovation Track

TheBusiness and

Innovation track was moderated by Mr Arjun

Malhotra (Founder HCL Technologies). The panel consisted of Mr

R. Gopalakrishnan (Executive Director of Tata Sons), V Shankar (Group Executive Director, SCB) and Ashank Desai

(Founder & Ex-Chairman, Mastek). I recollect how the panelists went through the changing role of Asia in response to Mr. Ping's comments on

how Asia's triumph would not come easily. The panelists opined that there were some macro shifts

occurring in consumption and growth due to which the centre of the financial universe would have to move east.

Mr R. Gopalakrishnan drew an analogy

between a fly and an organization. "The fly has a complex eye, it sees different things in different ways, and

likewise successful organizations have to seek multiple perspectives and move in a self-correcting fashion towards their

target. It is important to understand how to drive organizational innovation and at the same time instill values and principles,

which are in turn essential to managing change and innovation.

07Learn Symposium

Thesymposium was attended by the

IIT Directors from Chennai, Indore, Mandi, Ropar; the Presidents of SMU, National University of

Singapore and Singapore Institute of Technology; the Provosts of the SMU and Singapore University for Technology and Design (SUTD) and the Deans IIT, Guwahati and the Lee Kong Chian

School of Business at SMU. There was also participation from Tata Consultancy Services and A*Star (the statutory

research board set up by the Ministry of Trade and Industry).

TheLEARNsegment was sponsored and hosted by SMU (Singapore Management University). It was a collaborative symposium for IIT Directors and the senior management of the Institutes of Higher Learning in Singapore. It aimed at encouraging an exchange of ideas and initiating joint projects between participating institutions.

08 Learn Symposium

The participants felt that it would be useful to organize an iconic Asian Innovation annual event where IITs, Singapore universities, public sector organizations such as A-Star and VCs could get together to encourage innovations and the commercialization of these innovations. Also, IIT directors expressed the need for greater alignment between industry and academia particularly at the undergraduate level. The IITs hope to explore how 6 months of class time could be productively used for industry and academic collaborations. For example, IIT students could spend a semester plus the summer working with a company and a partner institution in within India and abroad.

The participants discussed topics like enhancing collaborations between academic

institutions, the private sector and government agencies; comparisons of environments that promote or thwart

technological innovations; how universities can enhance their impact on the economic and educational fronts, the different models and experiences of

academic and research institutions in managing innovations.

09Day2

Hightlights

As I walked in to Suntec on Day two, I looked at the schedule of events. Conversation with Balki, Mr Nathan giving signed copies of his memoirs, the power-packed Tech track, interactive Q&A with DPM Tharman and three parallel tracks in Banking, International business and Entrepreneurship. Wow, now that is one incredible list!

10Day 2Highlights

FormerPresident S.R. Nathan and DPM handed over mementos to luminaries and sponsors gracing their presence at the conference, as tokens of appreciation. Designed by a non-profit organization called Protsahan, the mementos were 'Madhubani' (indigenous Indian art form) paintings. It was a splendid, novel idea, I thought, and noble even, that the proceeds for these mementos contributed to a charitable cause. The IIT Shakti group, the wives of IIT alumni members and women IIT alumni were monumental in contributing in whatever way they could to make the conference a huge success. In fact the memento distribution to 150 guests was handled entirely by the Shakti-ites!

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11Balki Talk

On a rare sunny evening at Singapore, Balaji Ramanujan (IITM'94) picked up his phone and dialled a number. He was quite unsure how his friend, Rajagopalan Balakrishnan would react to his voice after nearly 7 years.... In fact, the person on the other end of the phone was delighted "Sure, I'd love to come down to the Pan IIT conference and we'll catch up!" And that paved way for the famous "Balki talk" at our conference.

Whenasked how he comes up

with such mind-blowing ideas, Balki, in his ever so causal style responded "Clear

your head. When you are patient and have loads of empty room in

your head, the idea just drops in. And Oh! don't forget to use a P&G shampoo".

WhenBalaji (moderator of the event)

was curious to understand what "kind" of IITian would be suitable to cast in his movie, to which

Balki replied "The guy's who got a bit of Rajnikanth in him!" The Talk ended on that note with most of us burst

out laughing.

12 Balki Talk

Balaji went on to show us some of his creative eyebrow-raising advertisements. The audience got to laugh like a drain over some of his Camilin, Tata Tea Jaago re and Tanishq advertisements. I personally love the commercials and the concept made perfect sense!

13An Unexpected Journey

On the second day of the conference,

The Chief Patron of the Pan IIT APAC 2012 Conference, former President Mr S R

Nathan, kindly agreed to sign copies of his book of memoirs "An Unexpected Journey - Path to the

Presidency" to the first few lucky participants in the conference.

The book captures the essence of his journey through life, interspersed with glimpses

of quintessential Singapore life and anecdotes of his own tumultuous professional and political career, that

eventually culminated in him becoming the President of one of the fastest economically growing,

infrastructurally sound and safest economies in the world -

Singapore.

Thecrowdimmediately made a beeline to the stall where his books were on sale, knowing that this was the opportunity of a lifetime to meet with the legend. The excitement was palpable and as I walked up to organizer Mr Murali Akella (IITR'06) to ask for his views, he put it aptly, "There are hundreds of people who want to shake hands with him, but in 20 minutes, Mr Nathan can probably only sign about fifty. I never had to apologize to

so many people in one day and turn them away!"

14

Mr. Nathan was very pleased in turn at the overwhelming response that the conference attendees displayed, and as he was walking away from the stage, after signing and leaving a personalized message for about 65 people, he stopped in his tracks as he glanced a young boy of about 10, holding out a grubby piece of paper in his hand, asking "Autograph, sir?". He took his own pen out, signed it with a smile, and posed for the camera. Picture perfect is what I thought.

15Science andTechnology Track

The track consisted of four speakers giving their individual perspectives on changing landscapes across the Science and Technology field. Prof Tan Chorh Chuan (President, NUS) took us through the history of R&D development in Singapore, specifically highlighting the need for Asia to accelerate R&D in bio-medical sciences. Nobel Laureate Prof Kurt Wthrich (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2002) spoke about evolving technology breakthroughs and his work in developing Nuclear Magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. What was interesting, was that the notorious "1980's Mad-Cow" disease was eradicated because of the "3D protein structures at Atomic resolution by NMR in Solution"

Mr Shekar Mitra (Senior VP, P&G),

spoke about the importance of recognizing changing trends in consumer needs and building

technology around these very needs. Later, in Mr Anantha Krishnan's ( CTO, TCS India) talk, I could clearly see the

potential of "Frugal Innovation" in emerging markets and how it can make substantial innovations with little

resources, making opportunity a reality.

16 Conversation withDPM

It was interesting to

understand how Singapore can address urban solutions like clean

water and the environment. Cities like Singapore have experience in a

whole range of urban solutions and this can aid to provide a standard of living in India

that is acceptable to a broad mass of people and spur economic growth.

From a fairly young age, people need to

understand other parts of Asia besides their own country. This is extremely important for Singapore.

We have fairly strong relationships with China and East Asia and we have relatively weak linkages with India in education until the last five or six years, when it has been growing rapidly," said Mr

Tharman. I understood that 15 per cent of Singapore secondary schools already have tie-ups with India, but

much more can be done.

Itwasinsightful to attend Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam's conversation with Mr Vijay Iyengar (Managing Director, Agrocorp and IITB'84).DPM said that Asia is growing in importance and Singaporeans need to understand the region and its complex connections better. In fact, the "Genius of India" offered by the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology

is welcome in this regard.

17

The panel discussion was moderated by

Mr Subroto Som with Prof. Lito Camacho and Mr Tarun Mehrotri providing

perspective on investment banking prospects and Mr Pulak Prasad and Mr LN Sadani on private equity

opportunities.

Wehad Prof.

Lito Camacho, Vice Chairman of CSFB Asia-Pacific give

us the key note speech. His theory was that Indian and Chinese banks should not go out and acquire cheap assets in the West but look to grow stronger at home by facing up to global competition and servicing Indian companies abroad. It was interesting when Mr. Prasad differed from Prof. Lito's analysis of Indian and Chinese bank strategy for growth.

Mr Tarun's view was that investment banking model is changing with regulatory and capital restrictions and that profitability and employee

compensation will be under pressure. It would be very interesting to watch how the industry would evolve in the next few

years. Mr Prasad and Mr Sadani explained the importance of private equity in a bottom up,

entreprene urial country like India.

18Education and

Development Track

Moderated by Dr Raj Srivtsava, Dean Provost SMU,the Education track panel comprised of Mr PD Rai, Minister of Parliament, India ; Ms Sonal Kapoor (CEO, Protsahan India Foundation) , Mr Hemant Kanakia , (Technopreneur) and Mr Pradeep Gupta (Chairman, The Cybermedia Group)

It was intriguing when Mr Rai spoke about Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the

Indian Governments concerted efforts at universalizing elementary education across

India. When Ms Kapoor opined how education for street children was linked to their livelihood , and how it could add value to their

'jobs' in retail outlets, for example.

Mr Gupta, also the Chairman of the

Board for IIT Alumni Trust elucidated on the various avenues that IIT Alumni can explore to

provide education to marginalized people. I told myself to surely participate in a few. Mr Kanakia spoke about

how IIT alumni, along their path of success, had to stick to the ethics of their paths.

19

Mr Sanjeev Sinha (IIT Alumni Association, Japan) highlighted the

opportunities in Japan and the huge untapped potential for collaborating with Japanese companies looking to expand business in Singapore and India

across diverse areas like Infrastructure Manfacturing, Education and Services.

True to its name, the session had a crucial agenda: to collaborate with various IIT Alumni

Associations across APAC and form strong liaisons. The moderator, executive

committee member, Mr Piyush Agarwal (IITK) recounted his internationally diverse experience and emphasized on the importance of global diversity as a

key to unlock social and business networking.

20

"MrAshok Kalbag

(Pan IIT Association) spoke about the mission of Pan IIT Organization:

to enhance the IIT Brand, engage with IITs and provide a forum of Advocacy. He listed a wide range of activities of Pan IIT including: The Indo-US collaboration for Engineering education, IITians for ITIs, Entrepreneur Mentorship Program, Research Ecosystem, and urged IITians to participate.

Mr Inderjit Singh ( IIT Alumni Association Australia) recounted that although 500 IITians reside in Australia there was a dire need to raise the awareness of IIT as a brand in Australia. Gautam Mukerjee (IIT Alumni Association, Malaysia) engaged the audience about Malaysia's growth plans designed to enhance the country as a high technology hub. He emphasized on tapping a pool of opportunities with collaboration between IITs and institutes across Malaysia.

21 The Handshake

With mentors in Mr Arjun Malhotra (Founder and ex-Chairman, HCL Technologies and Board member of TiE Global), Mr Karan Thakral (Chairman of TiE Singapore), Mr Vijay Iyengar and Mr Pradeep Gupta, the scene was set for a power-packed confluence of opportunity and innovation. Packed, was the word. There were 65 attendees at least, and knowing that each one of them owned a company, invested in some, I felt humbled by the turnout!

The Handshake had four other speakers - Mr Rajesh Krishnan and Mr

Prabhat Ranjan from Brick Eagle Pte Ltd, a real-estate investment company; Mr Sourabh Sarkar and Mr Ram

Badrinathan from Karm Yog Ventures, an education-focussed investment firm; Mr Yinglan Tan, an entrepreneur and incubation

specialist with the NRF (Prime Minister's office, Singapore) and Mr Sanjeev Sinha from Japan, who spoke of

potential opportunities in Japan.

'The Handshake', was hosted in partnership with

The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE). The organizers Murali Akella (IITR'06), Dhruv

Jain (IITR'04) and Vikram Doshi (IITR'06) ensured participation from diverse backgrounds - Real Estate, Technology,

Education, Venture Capitalism and Finance. The event brought together CXOs, with a balanced representation from the Investor and

Entrepreneurship communities to maximise business and networking opportunities.

22The Handshake

Mr Malhotra spoke about his story through entrepreneurship and life. I heard him say, "I

tried to retire twice so far. Each time, the effort lasted for all of a week's time at best. My wife says that she

married me for better or for worse, but not for lunch! That makes me forever on the lookout for newer things to do." This showed, very simply, the

energy, drive and creativity that an entrepreneur brings to

the table.

Asthe event came to a close, Murali quipped "Probably the world's first entrepreneur was the snake, when he sold the Apple to Eve!" That left the audience in splits and well primed for their networking over wine and cheese over the next half hour.

23Gala DinnerHighlights

Amritsoon invited his steering

committee on-stage to convey thanks, and also called three surprise members who were

instrumental in making the Pan IIT a runaway success - Mr Pillai, Mr Tharman and Mr Nathan! In a classic display of enthu", the team broke out in slogan - "IIT ka tempo high hai!"

24 Gala DinnerHighlights

Soon, Sudipto invited the floor to dinner. I couldn't help the smile that crept my lips - the

many odours that wafted through were becoming increasingly tough to resist! After a dance performance by

MDIS, a concert by Suspended Animation, a student rock band from IIT BHU, winner of the

inter-IIT online rock competition, followed.

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25Pandit Chaurasia

Performance

At the Gala Dinner, the Master of Ceremonies, Sudipto Ghatak (IIT Kgp'86) invited the legendary flute player, Pandit. Hariprasad Chaurasia, on stage. Co-organized with SPIC MACAY, the concert saw Pt Chaurasia accompanied by Ms Seetha Manognya on the Tanpura, Mr Sonar on the flute and Mr Shubankar on the Tabla. For the next 45 minutes, the audience in the packed Raffles City Convention Centre were enraptured by the beauty of his melodies. Over 600 guests, notably President Tony Tan and DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam joined in the thunderous applause as he concluded.

26DistinguishedAlumni Award

Towards the end of the Gala Dinner, Mr R. Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director of Tata Sons was presented with the Distinguished

Alumni Award of recognition, by President of Singapore, Mr Tony Tan.

Mr S.N.Venkat (IITD '84), executive committee member delighted us all by reading out a citation on

Mr Gopalakrishnan's achievements through life.

27MDISPerformance

We had a brilliant dance performance by the students of

MDIS. I particularly enjoyed the break-dance

solo by one of the students. Superb coordination, I must say!

28 IIT Rock Band

The band members literally rocked the

show. They covered all genres of music, as IITians traversed memory lane, yet again. The best

part was when Akanhsha, the female vocalist and Shukdev, the male vocalist took turns to do phenomenal blends of

Western and Bollywood music. Hats off to the guitarists, Aditya, Kushagra and Annirudh the drummer, Lalit

for jamming impromptu and satiating every IITians request!

Approximately 50.6 cups of coffee and 15 meetings later, using a Google spreadsheet to

empirically analyze performance of 16 odd bands (yes, us IITians have a way of putting numbers against everything!),

we came to a conclusion that IIT BHU would have this opportunity to showcase their talent to the 600

guests at our conference! IIT Kanpur and IIT Kgp were first and second

runners-uprespectively.

Itall started when music lovers from the Pan IIT steering committee got together to discuss about inviting a local Singaporean rock band. The President of IITAAS (20120-12), Amrit Barman insisted on inviting an IIT band. It seemed fair to encourage our fellow IIT students to perform at the conference. But the impending question was which one? That led to the conceptualization of the first of its kind "you-tube rock competition", encouraging bands from across 16 IIT

bands to participate.

Check out for more pictures here

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Media and Press Coverage

An incubation and entrepreneurship cells to

encourage budding IIT entrepreneurs.

A Global IIT netconnecting with

associations ac

workalumni

ross the globe.

Collaboration with SINDA and IITAAS' "Social Responsibility" wing to

reach out to youth and children across Singapore.

Liaisons with and Indian

academia.

Singaporeuniversities in

Podcasts with luminaries and business leaders

So, what's your idea? Let's discuss!

Join us at www.iit-alumni.org.sg or write to us at secretariat@iit-alumni.org.sg

Heres what you can get involved with ..

SPIC MACAY

i n f o t e c h

"Here in the place of that Hijli Detention Camp stands the fine monument of India, representing India's urges, India's future in the making. This picture seems to me symbolical of the changes that are coming to India

-Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India in the first IIT convocation address at IIT Kharagpur 1956

IIT Alumni Association - SingaporePO Box 543, Crawford Road Post Office, Singapore 911902