About Us

The BITSAA Women's Council is an organisation that aims to provide a "platform of connections, resources and opportunities for BITSian women." It believes that, with an appropriate support system, the BITSian woman can successfully achieve her family dreams and career goals. Its mission is to empower BITSian women worldwide to achieve their dreams through BITSian networking and leadership. The idea shines stark in relevance today, when women are faced with tough choices and challenges in everyday life, in balancing career aspirations, fostering a healthy family and pursuing their personal interests. The council aims to create a pipeline of women to fill leadership positions in corporations, academia & NGOs.

Our Mission

"BWC's mission is to empower BITSian women worldwide to achieve unimagined possibilities and transformations through BITSian networking, leadership and economic prosperity"

Our Goals

• Provide a platform of connections, resources and opportunities for BITSian women
• Encourage BITSian women to reach new heights professionally
• Create a pipeline of women to fill leadership positions

The Idea

It all started with Buvana Dayanandan's article in May 2005 on work-life balance. Triggered by the issues raised in the article, a group of alumni including Anuradha Gupta, Anita Sakuru, Anupendra Sharma, Suraj, Buvana Dayanandan, Krishna Hegde, Sandeep Mukherjee and Aditi Pany met online and agreed on the need for a platform for BITSian women to connect, share ideas, perspectives and experiences and learn from each other. Thus was born the BITSAA Women's Council.

The Co-Founders for this group include Anuradha Gupta, Aditi Pany, Anita Sakuru, Bharati Balakrishnan, Buvana Dayanandan, Deeptha Ganapathy and Krithika Kalyan. The BITSAA Women's Council was officially launched in September 2005.

Chairperson

Punita Pandey graduated from BITS with a BE in Electrical Engineering in 1984. She is currently the Chairman and CEO of NetCustomer which she founded in 1999. Before founding NetCustomer, Pandey worked for Tandem computers (now a part of Compaq) and McDonnell Douglas. At Deloitte Consulting, Pandey was part of the core team that co-founded NetDox, one of the earliest startups. Then Pandey joined Healtheon, when it was just a start-up and successfully led many initiatives in client services, marketing, and business development. She came to the United States in 1987 and earned her MBA from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, in 1991.

Punita has been featured in leading media and publications such as Business Week, The Christian Science Monitor, C|NET, BBC World, TechTV, NASDAQ Report, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, Economic Times, Times of India and India Abroad. She has spoken at leading conferences such as COMDEX, Internet World, Strategic Research Institute, International Quality and Productivity Council and leading professional associations. Punita has also been a guest speaker at Stanford Business School, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, San Jose State University, and California State University, Monterey Bay. Her leadership was highlighted in a Stanford case study on netCustomer.

Executive members

Name	Title	Location
Krithika Kalyan	Press and Publicity	Mumbai, India
Deeptha Ganapathy	Press and Publicity	New York, USA
Aditi Pany	Moderator; Memberships & Database	Delhi, India
Bharati Balakrishnan	Memberships & Database	Mumbai, India

Group Mentors

Name	Title	Location
Shubhra Srivastava	Work-life balance; Working flex time	Atlanta, GA USA
Buvana Dayanandan	Work-life balance	CA, USA
Anupama Narayanan Brookins	Corporate Life	Charlotte , NC, USA
Anupama Brookins	Academics	Charlotte , NC, USA
Sangeeta Patni	Entrepreneurship	Nagpur, India
Ruchi Tandon	Social Service	Bangalore, India
Anuradha Gupta	Writing	CT, USA

Event Organisers

Name	Title	Location
Vahini Argula	Event Organiser	Bangalore, India
Ruchi Tandon	Event Organiser	Bangalore, India
Anuradha Muralidharan	Event Organiser,	Hyderabad, India
Monica Gupta	Event Organiser	Delhi, India
Priya Vattyam	Event Organiser	Bay Area, USA
Padmini Misra	Event Organiser	Bay Area, USA
Krithika Kalyan	Event Organiser	Mumbai, India
Deeptha Ganapathy	Event Organiser	New York, USA

Contact us

Visit the group homepage for further information.