IIT Delhi Dean and Director Reception (July 10th, New York)

The IIT Delhi Excellence Foundation organized a reception for a high-level delegation from IIT Delhi which was visiting the United States, on July 10.  The delegation comprised of Prof. Surendra Prasad (the Director), Prof. Manoj Datta (Dean, Alumni Affairs) and Prof. Balakrishnan.  The reception was hosted by Ash Gupta, EVP and Chief Risk Officer of American Express, in the stately Amex Boardroom at the World Financial Center in New York
 
More than 40 IITD alumni attended the event (including some senior alumni in the NY/NJ area), which started with cocktails and hors d’ouevres.  Rakesh Kaul, Board member of IITDEF, welcomed the IITD delegation and all alumni.  This was followed by short (and sweet) speeches by the Prof. Prasad and Prof. Datta, who shared new developments at IIT Delhi (e.g. there are 11 hostels now – 9 boys’ hostels and 2 girls’ hostels) and highlighted the importance of alumni contributions to IIT Delhi.  Prof. Prasad also gave away the Distinguished Alumni Award for 2006 to Ash Gupta – Ash was conferred the award last year, but could not make it to the convocation.
 
Dinner provided an opportunity for the alumni to interact with each other, talk about old times, and contribute to making ‘magical things happen’, as Rakesh eloquently puts it.  Om Sharma (Director and Sr. Fellow, United Technologies), our guest speaker, then gave a fascinating presentation on his experiments with aircraft and rocket engines.  He talked about his achievements in his long and illustrious career, and was very modest in crediting IIT Delhi for how he’d only put in application what he had been taught there.
 
IITDEF would like to thank Amit Garg (Aravali, 97), Nidhi Phozdar (Kailash, 99) and Inderpreet Singh (Aravali, 98) for leading the organization of this event and making it a big success.  Pictures of this event are available online at http://picasaweb.google.com/iitdinny/IITDDirectorSReceptionAtAmexBoardroom
 
Our next event will be a talk by Prof. Subramanian Swamy, Harvard professor and ex-professor of Economics at IITD, on or around August 16.  This promises to be another riveting event, so please stay tuned for details
 
Best Regards
IITDEF NY Executive Committee
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