Newsletter January 2007

The World Economic Forum identifies about 30 to 50 companies as "technology pioneers" every year. This year, WEF has chosen Strand Life Sciences started by our 1975 EEE alumnus, Dr. Vijay Chandru.  [More]

BITSAA 2006 year-end fundraiser raised more than US$16,000 for alumni directory, website and more!  [More]

Currently, due to excessive emphasis on the theoretical nature of subjects taught, students may not be equipped enough to live up to the requirements of the industry.  [More]

Kauffman Fellows Program is a famous program in the US for a small number of young people looking to become venture capitalists.  [More]

The students at BITS Goa Campus want to see more BITSian Alumni visit their campus. These students are hungry for guidance and interaction with Alumni. [More]

Thanks to BITSians Dinesh Ramanathan (VP) and Gopal Garg (Director), a PS-2 station at Cypress Semiconductor's San Jose headquarters was started this year.  [More]

Prasanna Krishnan led a 4-member team, and she was Co-Chair of the PE VC event. She worked at it last year, was then elected to lead this event this year.  [More]

PSoC stands for Programmable System on a Chip, a unique mixed-signal technology which has found applications in iPods, Adidas Shoes to Solar Panels.  [More]

Trinity Ventures, a leading investor in early-stage information technology companies, has added Pinnacle Co-founder Ajay Chopra to their team.  [More]

Jayan Ramankutty is a BITSian entrepreneur with companies like Lara Networks, Empowertel and YuMe Networks to his name.  [More]

The World Economic Forum identifies about 30 to 50 companies as "technology pioneers" every year. These are companies from around the world that develop and apply the most innovative and transformational technologies in the fields of information technology, renewable energy and biotechnology/health. The work undertaken by these companies holds the promise of significantly affecting the way business and society operate. Each innovation is another step in society's attempt to harness, adapt and utilize technology to change and improve our world. This year, WEF has chosen Strand Life Sciences started by our 1975 EEE alumnus, Dr. Vijay Chandru.  Strand Life Sciences motto is "Algorithms for life". They are the first instance of academic entrepreneurship in this industry in India. Strand's award winning data mining platform, avadis has been used to develop a variety of applications in research biology and discovery chemistry. Strand also makes tools that push the frontiers of predictive science.  Dr. Chandru believes that Innovators do not change the world, though the users of their innovation do! Congratulations Dr. Vijay!
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Kauffman Fellows Program is a famous program in the US for a small number of young people looking to become venture capitalists. This is indeed a numbers game, and as BITSians enter the world's top business schools, work at some world-famous institutions, start companies, win awards for Business Plan Competitions and innovation, this is going to be a great path for our own to enter the World's Most Famous VC firms. This year we have two semi-finalists. The names are confidential but the Sandpaper team wishes them good luck! Watch this space for more in the next issue!
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Tim Draper, legendary VC from Silicon Valley, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson and its global network of VC firms, gave the opening speech at the Wharton Private Equity VC Event. He talked about changing the world through entrepreneurship. He gave many inspiring messages, with great slides about innovation, technology etc. and talked about dedicating his life to working with entrepreneurs.

Prasanna Krishnan, a BITS alumnus and currently a 2^nd year Wharton MBA student introduced Tim. At the end of his speech, Tim sang a song titled the "Risk Master" - and during the song, stopped momentarily backstage to dance, twirl and flip Prasanna, and then returned to stage, who joined him to sing the last lines.

Prasanna Krishnan led a 4-member team, and she was Co-Chair of the PE VC event. She worked at it last year, was then elected to lead this event this year.
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Trinity Ventures, a leading investor in early-stage information technology companies, has added Pinnacle Co-founder Ajay Chopra to their team.

Ajay has over 20 years of operating experience at senior management and board leavel with start-ups, private companies and public companies. Prior to joining Trinity Ventures in 2006, Ajay co-founded Pinnacle systems, a seminal media technology company that pioneered consumer generated media creation. Ajay graduated from BITS with B.E in EEE and further went to pursue MS in EE at Suny, Stonybrook, USA.
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Jayan Ramankutty is a BITSian entrepreneur with companies like Lara Networks, Empowertel and YuMe Networks to his name. For his next venture Jayan is looking for like-minded BITSians with interests in the following areas.

    Next generation IP video delivery systems - P2P

    Mobile services - video publishing, LBS etc

    Internet infrastructure - cable, wimax

If you have interests in these areas and are looking to do something new then please feel free email Jayan at jayan@bitsaa.org
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BITSAA 2006 year-end fundraiser raised more than US$16,000 for alumni directory, website and more! Thanks, everyone, for your generous contributions!
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The students at BITS Goa Campus want to see more BITSian Alumni visit their campus. These students are hungry for guidance and interaction with Alumni. Their Goa campus hospitality is peerless with free accommodation for BITSian Alumni at the brand new guest house. The Goa campus administration likes to treat BITSian Alumni like royalty. Ashish Garg, Chief Editor of Sandpaper, gave a lecture on "Career Guidance" on his recent trip to the BITS Pilani Goa campus. About 500+ BITSians showed up. The lecture theater was packed with so many people that it was tough to breathe. Ashish talked about BITSAA, Sandpaper, BITS2BSchool and BITS2MSPHD initiatives and shared many interesting anecdotes. So if you are considering that vacation in Goa, stop by and say hello to our juniors at the BITS Goa campus. They'll love it! Email garg@bitsaa.org to plan your next Goa trip with a stopover at the BITS Campus.



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Currently, due to excessive emphasis on the theoretical nature of subjects taught, students may not be equipped enough to live up to the requirements of the industry. Their inability to relate the theoretical concepts to real world situations undermines their value in the market. National Instruments (NI) touts experiential learning as the next big thing in learning. It essentially aims to bridge the gap between skill sets required by the industry and the skill set engineering students are equipped with in universities. They have been pushing for concept of Virtual Instrumentation, a platform that enables experiential learning. BITS Pilani has adopted NI's technique to few of its engineering courses.
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Thanks to BITSians Dinesh Ramanathan (VP) and Gopal Garg (Director), a PS-2 station at Cypress Semiconductor's San Jose headquarters was started this year. Three students from Pilani Uzma Hussain, Arun Karthik and Satish Polisetti have already arrived in San Jose to start their PS-2. Their manager is another BITSian, Ashish Garg. The first day they landed in Milpitas, California they bumped into a BITSians' wife in a grocery store and then a BITSian and his wife at an Indian restaurant. Now who says there are only 1500 BITSians in the Silicon Valley?
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PSoC stands for Programmable System on a Chip, a unique mixed-signal technology which has found applications in iPods, Adidas Shoes to Solar Panels. BITSian Alumni at Cypress Semiconductor convinced the Cypress management to open its first PSoC University lab in India at the BITS Pilani Goa campus. More than 160 students on the campus were trained on the PSoC technology that serves as an excellent learning tool for students.
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