BITSAA Initiatives   

BITS Pilani has signed a MoU with Intel India for higher education and research purposes. In the recently conducted Intel India Student Research Contest (IISRC) 2005 -2006, 21 teams participated from various lead institutions in India, which included BITS Pilani apart from several IITs, NITs, IIITs etc.In a nail biting finish Ninad B. Kothari and Manish Kumar Saxena, students from BITS Pilani bagged the First Runners Up position for the project titled "Design of Low Power Network Processor for Zigbee Wireless
Protocol." The prize included a cash grant of Rs 50,000/-.Intel gave opportunity to the students to exploit the innovative streak in their minds, which would ultimately encourage them to have a more scientific outlook. BITSians have once again displayed that meeting challenges and delving into unknown domain is a part of the rich academic experience that they gather at BITS.

Consequent upon retirement of Prof. S. Venkateswaran from the Vice-Chancellor of the Institute, Prof. L.K. Maheshwari, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Director, Pilani Campus has taken charge of the Office of the Vice-Chancellor with effect from the forenoon of 18th July, 2006. He will also perform functions of Director, BITS-Pilani, Pilani Campus till further orders.

Brief Profile of Professor L. K. Maheshwari
Professor Maheshwari obtained his M.Sc (Physics) degree from the University of Lucknow (India), and M.Sc. (Tech) and Ph. D. degrees in Electronics from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (India). He has served on the faculty of BITS since 1971 and has held academic positions as Lecturer, Associate Professor and Professor. Besides, he has also held administrative positions as Chief, Instrumentation Centre; Dean, Research and Consultancy; Deputy Director (Academic); Director, BITS - Pilani Campus and Pro-Vice Chancellor of BITS during last 35 years.Professor Maheshwari has published over 80 research papers in the areas of Semiconductor Electronics, Instrumentation, Educational Development and University-Industry Linkages, etc. both in national and international journals and proceedings of conferences. He has also published four books in the area of Analog and Digital Electronics.Professor Maheshwari has worked on the selection and expert committees of several institutions and organizations. His areas of specialization are Semiconductor Electronics, Instrumentation, Educational Development, Internationalization of Higher Education, University-Industry Linkages, etc.Professor Maheshwari has visited a number of Universities/Institutions in USA, Canada, UAE, Mauritius and other countries and participated in establishing educational collaborations with many Institutions. He has also delivered lecturers in many international and professional forums. He is the recipient of the year 1995 'Scientist of the Year' award established by the Gian Chand Jain Memorial Foundation, Ambala (India). He is a Fellow of Institution of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineers, India; Member of IEEE, USA and WACE, USA

BITS, Pilani is organizing a convention on Energizing Entrepreneurship in Academia through Innovation to be held on 6th & 7th October 2006.The convention would provide a forum for showcasing new ideas, potential products, designs and prototypes to entrepreneurs, angel investors, bankers, venture capitalists and scientists having passion for promotion of entrepreneurship.

Participation in convention would offer an opportunity to get new ideas objectively evaluated by various interest groups
involved in the promotion of entrepreneurship and networking.The primary objective of the convention is to raise responsiveness towards entrepreneurship through innovation. If you have an idea and can think through its Usefulness, Uniqueness, Market Potential, How to retain competitive edge, Technical Feasibility, Pricing etc. send your entry in by 31st August 2006. The acceptance of your proposal for participation in the convention would be confirmed by 7th September. The selected entries would amply gain in terms of furthering the feasibility of converting an idea into business proposition. The convention also proposes to duly recognize the merit of selected ideas.There is a possibility of an offer to avail Technology Business Incubator (TBI) facilities as well as gain access to varied activities of Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) at BITS, Pilani. For more details click HERE

Sagnik Nandy, Shashikant Khandelwal, Ashish Garg , Nishi Gaddam and Praveena Vajja created a video to communicate BITSAA activities around the world to BITS freshmen students and their parents. In a short span of 30 days, they interviewed 39 BITSIANs and created this video which was going to be played in the Audi to freshmen students at the Pilani and Goa campuses. It conveys the idea that the BITS journey continues even beyond BITS Pilani, and there is a strong and well knit alumni network out there to help them in the journey.This is truely a big family and we are proud to be BITSIANS. The video can be viewed at: http://www.bitsembryo.org/video.htm (using Internet Explorer on a Windows machine). Alternatively, you can download the file from http://www.bitsembryo.org/files/bitsaa.wmv (Right click, save link target as...) We would like to specially thank Chandra Bhople, Prof. L K Maheshwari and Prof. Rahul Banerjee for their encouragement and support. Kudos to all the 39 BITSians (including many movers and shakers) who spared their valuable time for this effort on a very short notice.

BITS.aid is a community to AID all BITSian volunteering activities - the global face of BITS volunteering program. It is the forum for BITSians who want to participate in leading initiatives or volunteering for the community. It started off with 4 projects and 20 members in mid 2005, a year later they have grown to 11 projects and a 100+ team with volunteers in 29 cities across the globe. The past year, the team organized an event (Young Stars) in Bangalore and helped raise funds for a few projects. They joined hands with various organizations, some led by BITSians others where BITSians are volunteering.

Organizations that they joined hands with this quarter are ASHA, MyIndia, Parikrma, Yuva. If you wish to volunteer for any of these organizations or the various other projects do register yourself and get in touch with the project lead. You will find the details at http://www.bitsaa. org/BITSaid/projects. php . BITS.aid urges BITSians who are volunteering to come forward and share their experiences and inspire the rest of us. Soon they would be introducing a Project Management Module within BITS.aid to manage projects better. This would provide an overview to the project leaders on what tasks are running and how many volunteers are actively volunteering. Uthra from the BITS.aid team is driving the efforts for the project "Lend-A-Hand", for which a few events are being organized. Please get in touch with Uthra for the details.

You can reach her at : uthra.chandru@gmail.com Many BITSians are running the Bangalore Marathon on September 17 2006
to raise funds for the various projects under BITS.aid. Those of you who would be interested in running for a cause please do get in touch with Karthikeyan at :karthikeyan_ v_kk@yahoo. com