Click here to apply for Mantra Award - 2013.

Dear BITSians

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) at BITS Pilani aims to create future leaders at BITS Pilani. CEL not only seeks to create all-round leaders, but also focuses specifically on students who break new grounds in the field of entrepreneurship, innovation and social ventures. In addition, CEL aims to empower and inspire BITSian women to play a significant leadership role.

The Mantra awards were instituted by CEL, in 2009, to recognize and reward outstanding students who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential and/or entrepreneurial initiative. Anupendra Sharma, co-founder of CEL, Investment Partner at Siemens Venture Capital in Boston, and CEL Alumni Advisor had initiated the creation of the Four ‘Mantra Awards’ namely :

1. Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership – 2 awards (1 male, 1 female): For outstanding achievement in areas of leadership, with a particular focus on at least 1 outstanding achievement in a chosen category, and consistent demonstration of all-round leadership potential. Rs. 5,000 each in prize money.
2. Mantra Entrepreneur of the Year Award: For outstanding achievement in entrepreneurship demonstrated during the stay at BITS, either in writing business plan(s), starting social or commercial ventures, or creating commerializable innovations on campus. Rs. 5,000 in prize money.
3. Mantra Award for Social Leadership: For demonstrating a commitment to social leadership either through the creation of sustainable ventures or for contribution in not-for-profit events on campus. Rs. 5,000 in prize money.
4. Mantra Innovator of the Year Award: For demonstrating an ability to invent or build innovative products or ideas in the labs. (Optional Award)

Eligibility

These awards shall be open to all current, full-time students of BITS Pilani (on-campus or Practice School), excepting:

• CEL student member on the Award selection Panel
• Any past winner of Mantra Awards in that category
• Any student with a record of indiscipline and/or malpractice at BITS Pilani.

Cases where eligibility is not clear will be decided by the Award Panel.

CEL will also proactively seek out people to nominate as recipients of these awards.

The Panel

The Panel will include faculty members and students from all the four campuses.

In order to ensure fairness, the identity of the student on the Panel shall be known only to the Panel members and the CEL Student President.

The faculty members for the next year’s Panel will be decided by the Panel members, with advice from the CEL Faculty Coordinator and Student President.

Faculty members may serve the Panel for more than one year. Student members may not serve for more than one year.

Calling for Nominations

· The Panel would call for nominations beforehand by electronic submission.Click here for the application form.

· CEL should also proactively nominate deserving candidates.

· CEL student body would be responsible for coordinating the awards.

· Advertisements calling for nominations shall be put up on campus. They would also be marketed electronically, through email etc.

Selection Process

The selection process will be in two steps.

1. Candidates submit a short write-up on their achievements electronically.
2. If required, more information would be requested from the candidates

Winners would be announced at the event. All nominees would be invited.

Mantra Awards 2012 Winners

Pilani Campus

Vemuri V.L. Ambarish - Mantra Award for Social Leadership

Ambarish has graduated with a Mechanical Engineering Degree from BITSPilani. He has joined Dell Global Analytics as a Business Analyst. He has been the Vice President of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership on campus. He has been an active member of the Rural Entrepreneurship Division, Pilani and has worked as a teaching volunteer for disabled at the National Society for Equal Opportunities for the Handicapped, Mumbai. He enjoys applying practical fabrication knowledge to build mechanical devices, and is a keen automotive enthusiast, having been consecutive National runners-up of the Mahindra Auto Quotient in 2009 and 2010.

Aaksha Meghawat - Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Female) 

Aaksha Meghawat is an all-rounder in the truest sense of the word. She has held several leadership positions throughout her BITSian career from being the Coordinator of the Out-of-Box Conference, Conquest 2011, member of the Election Commission Panel, Master of Ceremony of the AVB Memorial Inauguration to Captain of the BITS Pilani Athletics team for BOSM 2011. She has been a consistent academic performer and her versatility stems from her passion for diverse things such as her love for coding, technology, economics and art to marathon racing and travel.  Aaksha, a big believer in efficiency, aspires to create systems and products in the future that will add true value to society and people’s lives.

Abhinav Mahajan - Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Male), Mantra Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Abhinav Mahajan bearing ID No. 2007C5AB716P, have developed a very intellectual and dynamic personality in college by involving in various extra-curricular activities, ranging from co-founding Manufacturing Engineering Association to leading a team to compete in Human Powered Vehicle Challenge organized by ASME in Montana State University, USA in 2011. I have coordinated various events of the association and the one of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), conducting India level prelims of international event Student Design Challenge (problem statement provided by NASA). In one occasion I got a chance to share the dais in our college auditorium with Dr. Nikolaos Mavridis, founder & Director, Interactive Robots & Media Labs and Rachel Armstrong, TED Speaker & Sustainability innovator, addressing a gathering of over 1500, as a speaker for the APOGEE INNOVATORS PROGRAM, APOGEE (BITS Annual International Technical Festival), 2011. Currently, I am working on my start-up TEEVRA Cycles, designing customized human powered vehicles. Winning various prestigious B-Plan competitions across India has acted as a fuel for me and my team to achieve our endeavours.

Suvonil Chatterjee - Mantra Innovator of the Year Award

Described by his friends as a coder who is heavily invested in design, Suvonil is currently in his third year of Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering at BITS Pilani. As a member of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership, he is leading a team of creative minds involved in the creation of Stimulus X, a social entrepreneurship game. He has also been a part of various technology start-ups, Rovio, dplay tech, FrameBench and GharPay to name a few, where he designs user-experiences to facilitate work flows. At present, he is developing a system that revolutionizes the way astronauts are weighed in space-stations. And just for fun, he started writing his own programming language, Ceasy, a childish transformation of C. He is a foodie, loves his fantasy novels and Enya's music. 

Hyderabad Campus

Shruthi Vishwanath - Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Female)

Shruthi studies Economics and Chemical Engineering at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus. She is passionate about classical music, was the founder-secretary of the Classical Music Club at BITS and the Coordinator for SPIC MACAY since its beginnings at Hyderabad. Shruthi has been a delegate at the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) Harvard Conference, and a delegate at the World Business Dialogue (WBD) at Cologne, Germany. She was the Indian Ambassador for WBD for 2011-12. Shruthi has also been the first Union Cultural Secretary at BITS Hyderabad and a Teach for India Campus Ambassador. She aims to pursue a career integrating her passion for music and entrepreneurship.

Siddhartha Bahl - Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership (Male)

Just a 2nd year student, Siddharthais pursuing B.E(Hons.) in Computer Science Engineering. Currently a core member of Centerfor Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL), he is also heading 'Baithak', the regional cultural association of 5 North Indian states. Apart from 'Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations', he has also been selected as a delegate by the U.S. Congress to the prestigious 'Global Young Leaders Conference'. He ideated, formulated and founded the ‘Student Mentorship Program’, a program structured on the idea of 'networking through nurturing'. Being an excellent orator, he has won many awards in debating competitions and MUN's. He is a networking ninja and likes developing new contacts. As a leader, he sets himself a target of leading the change and believes in leaders mentoring their teams rather than micro-controlling them. Ideologically, he is profoundly influenced by the thoughts of Swami Vivekananda. An ardent management enthusiast and an aspiring business entrepreneur, he is always on a hunt for learning opportunities and values experience a lot. 

Kunal Bhatia - Mantra Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Kunal is currently in his 3rd year, pursuing Msc Economics and BE Computer Science from Bits Pilani,Hyderabad.  Passionate about entrepreneurship, he likes brainstorming over existing community problems and how can a service/product that simplifies the problem can be made into a business model.  He has been an active member of Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) of his college and currently leads its finance department.  Kunal has 2 start ups to his name.  BlueTie Outsourcing- registered in 2010, BlueTie is a firm providing Internet Marketing and Social media marketing services to website owners present all over the world. It is in its 3rd year of operation and has been running smoothly after its initial year of founding.  Trippin' Unlimited- is a travel organization providing customized vacation solutions to college students. Trippin' has conducted 3 successful trips, bagged the second prize in Ground Reality, b-plan competition of Bits Hyderabad and has been selected for pre-seed funding by the Saxena Foundation, all in just its first year of operation.

Kunal's also actively involved in other activities apart from Entrepreneurship. He plays football for a B-Division club in Delhi and is presently the captain of his college Football team. He has won medals at state and zonal levels in Taekwondo and participated in state level marathons as well. His other hobbies include reading, philately, swimming and playing chess. After his graduation, he plans to do MBA from either India or a reputed Ivy university in USA. 

Swapnil Vats - Mantra Award for Social Leadership

Swapnil is pursuing B.E (hons.) Mechanical Engineering at BPHC. His start-up Valonia engages students and helps them excel in their areas of interest. Valonia already has impacted nearly 2000 students.  Hereceived the Bal Shree Honour for creativity in writing by the President of India during his school days and later also received The President’s medal for leadership and team spirit in Scouts and Guides. He has a way around with people, likes reading autobiographies, travels a lot, and likes adventure sports and debating on political issues.
A member of an international community of social entrepreneurs ( Makesense ),  he has also been a part of projects with NSEF, BalBhawan, JagritiYatra and is extremely passionate about giving back to the society.

Darshit Shah - Mantra Innovator of the Year Award

Darshit is a Second Year student at BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad Campus with a keen interest in all things computers. He has been programming in various languages for the last 8-10 years as a hobby and is now looking to turn it into a full time career option. However he does not code in only high-level languages such as .NET but also enjoys writing low-level assembly code and debugging it. Darshit is a entrepreneur at heart and has been working on various ideas since his first year in college. He is currently working on two projects both based on microprocessors and assembly level programming. Apart from technology, he also enjoys swimming and photography.

Goa Campus

Kunjan Gandhi - Mantra Award for Social Leadership 

Kunjan a 5th Year undergraduate student at BITS Pilani (Goa), has his interests and achievements scattered into a diverse spectrum- from being a Tata JagritiYatra Alumnus, to being in love with Physics; from being engrosed into Electronics and Electrical to having this great passion for learning new languages and playing Foolball! In the same fashion, his contributions to Nirmaan in the past four years have also been diverse. As a project coordinator of SAP at Nirmaan Goa, he led transformation of two Government-Run Schools into Model Schools by upgrading their Infrastructural Facilities. During his tenure as the President, he played a pivotal role in building an strongand organized Team at Nirmaan Goa. His contributions led to building of strong ties with various organizations like NABARD Bank, NCUI and Father Agnel’s Ashram and Zuari Industries Limited; which helped accelerate the women entrepreneurship program and promote hygienic living in communities in Sancole region of Goa. Currently he is serving as the Director, Livelihoods with Nirmaan overlooking operations at 4 different locations.Being a part of Nimraan, he has learnt a lot about the top down and bottom up approaches to solving social problems and has realized that the world is in dire need of executors than planners. He aspires to use technology as aiding tool for societal development. He firmly believes that good leadership skills, the attitude of problem solving and being able to build a strong culture are three most important virtues of a social change maker.

Tanmaya Sanghvi - Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership

Tanmaya is a senior undergraduate student at BITS Pilani Goa Campus. She is pursuing a Master’s degree in Economics and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. The past three years of her college life have witnessed her involvement in a spectrum of activities which have established in her the inclination and expertise of being an effective leader. Tanmaya was the Co-coordinator for the Department of Finance and Asset Management for Quark-2012, the Annual Techno-Managerial Festival of BITS Goa. She led a team of 100 to oversee the monetary front of every aspect of the festival. An environment lover, Tanmaya has served as the Co-coordinator of the Environment Protection and Awareness Club of BITS Goa. She was a part of the college team for the Great Power Race in which the college secured 9th position internationally. She is currently working towards starting a company which is an online financial tool aimed at ‘Simplifying Stocks’. It serves as a complete resource for beginners and an efficient tool for professionals, to provide them the much needed confirmatory opinion before investing. She worked as a summer intern at Ernst and Young in the Risk Advisory Services. With her keen interest in Economics and its various applications, she sees herself pursuing a Master’s Degree in Finance in future. In her spare time, Tanmaya likes visiting offbeat places and engages in adventure activities like mountaineering, SCUBA diving, rafting and snorkeling. She enjoys vocabulary challenges, meeting and interacting with new people.

Mudit Gupta - Mantra Innovator of the Year Award

Mudit is a final year student of M.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry and B.E.(Hons.) Electronics and Instrumentation at BITS, Pilani - K.K. Birla Goa Campus. He is fascinated by intelligent machines and resulting system behaviour when these intelligent machines interact. He supports the vision that such swarms of intelligent machines will result in innumerable useful products. He is working in the same domain. He was selected for the prestigious Google Summer of Code (GSoC) twice (2011 and 2012). During GSoC-2011 he worked for University of Michigan on multiagent complex systems and during GSoC - 2012 he worked on making Network Simulator - 3 (ns-3) capable of participating in complex systems simulations. He worked on various projects under faculty members and worked with various start-ups both as a consultant/freelancer and intern. He was the Sub-Coordinator of the Drama Club (2010-2011) and founding member of the Automobile Club (2010-2011). He is presently persuing his undergraduate thesis in the field of Artificial Intelligence on Multiagent Systems. He loves theatre arts, digital photography, FOSS and Robotics. 

Akhil Singh - Mantra Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Akhil is the Co-Founder of Spectrum Apparels and Cubito.in and is currently pursuing his MSc(Tech) degree in Information Systems from BITS Pilani K.K. Birla Goa Campus.He co-founded Spectrum in, remarkably, his first year of  college., Spectrum is now one of the biggest players in the niche market of Bulk Apparels in the country and counts corporates such as Google and almost all reputed colleges of India as its clientele. He has been the finalist in Power Of Ideas conducted by IIM Ahemdabad and Economics Times and was the youngest finalist in Conquest 2011. He, with his team, aims to change the way people travel in India through Cubito.in as they believe that public transportation in india is not a pleasure and its mode should certainly change and to do this they are working hard on the technology. He truly believes in the power of meditation and can be found listening to The Bealtes, Bob Dylan and Coldplay whenever he gets the time. For him entrepreneurship is not about opening new and innovative ventures, it is simply a way of life.

Dubai Campus

Saurabh Ladha - Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership 

Saurabh is currently pursuing his Masters in MS&E at Stanford University, after graduating with the Director's Medal for Overall Outstanding Achievement from BITS Pilani Dubai Campus. He was the founder of BITS360 for Dubai Campus, the founder of Jashn, the annual inter collegiate cultural festival of BPDC and also the largest student organized cultural fest of UAE. He was also the founding member of Embryo in his second year at BITS. As Founder and Team Lead of the IFOR Team of BITS Pilani Dubai Campus, he led a team of 8 students that built UAE's first fully autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle that Ranked First at the International Aerial Robotics Competition, held at North Dakota, USA. He completed his Practice School at NComputing., Ltd  in  USA. Saurabh Ladha is also a guitarist in free time and debater. 

Sanchit Sekhwal - Mantra Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Sanchit is a final year (B.E Hons.) electronics and communication engineering student at BITS Pilani Dubai Campus and is currently pursuing practice school 2 programme. He has been the vice president of the student council and is also a member of student council constitution drafting team, which in turn will bring changes in the election and voting procedure in the campus. He is the co-founder of JASHN ( inter-collegiate cultural fest) where he lead a team of 75 students to organize the event. He was the BITSAA campus connect leader and was member of Bits embryo team . He also handles BITS Alumni Cell. He has been involved in organizing many events like Ethnic day, Diro’s tea party , TEDX-BITS-Dubai. He is currently the chief election coordinator of hostel representative elections. He has a keen interest in sports like cricket , squash and likes to listen to music. 

Nigel Domnic Pereira - Mantra Innovator of the Year Award

Nigel joined BITS Pilani Dubai Campus in 2009 selecting Mechanical Engineering as his stream.Being an environmentalist, he would always research on Global warming,Climate sustainability and Waste Recycling. But then, researching isjust a small step in this world. Hence, he decided to go the extra milewith three of his friends they came up with a green idea called 'GreeNext' which would provide advanced technologies to recycle electronic waste through metal extraction and also recycle plastic waste to crude oil in an environmentally friendly process called pyrolysis. They participated in the Raymond Big Idea 2012 and came in the final round  which comprised of 20 finalists from 250 nominees. They also took this idea on the Entrepreneur TV show where hequalified as one of the  top 100 finalists from over 4,000 contestants. He loves playing football, drawing, ambigrams, writing short stores and participating in clean up drives. 

Disha Sharma - Mantra Award for Social Leadership

Disha, currently pursuing her 3rd year in Electronics and Communication Engineering is driven by the idea of making life useful to make this world a better place. She was a part of the council since her 1st year, as the Cultural and Sports Representative and then in the 2nd Year as the Gen. Secretary of the Student Council. Also what brought her closer to what she liked to do was the Make a Difference Club , of which she was the Secretary too. Being associated with social awareness campaigns, peace drives, various walkathons and other fund-raising events since school also continued at college level in the form of initaiting the paper recycling campaign in college, carrying out the can collection drive, breast cancer awareness campaign, setting up stalls for charity and various other activities on campus. Hoping to create more awareness amongst the youth she strives to make a difference in the society at her best possible level.