BITSAA Global 30 Under 30 Awards

BITSAA Global 30 Under 30 Awards - 2012
Dear BITSian
BITSAA Global 30 Under 30 Awards team is pleased to announce the final results awaited by every
member of the BITSAA community. We created these awards in after encountering many amazing
young BITSians, who had done so much but were not yet known. These Global Awards were a way to
not only recognize and honor outstanding BITSians under the age of 30 who have demonstrated
excellence in their respective fields, but more importantly, to showcase these beacons of inspiration to
the others around them.
The 2012 BITSAA 30 Under 30 Awards Committee:
Prof. B N Jain – Vice Chancellor, BITS Pilani
Kris Ramachandran – Advisor to Chairman, Aditya Birla Group
Ashok Agarwal – Entrepreneur, Adjunct Professor, BITS Pilani-Hyderabad
Prof. Reena Aggarwal – Professor, Georgetown University
Prof. Krishna Saraswat – Professor, Stanford University
Anurag Jain – Serial Entrepreneur & Former SVP of Dell/Perot
Raju Reddy – President & Chairman, BITSAA International
Phanindra Sama – Entrepreneur; Winner of 30 Under 30, 2009
Manoj Saxena – Tech Entrepreneur; General Manager, IBM Watson
Thanks to all of them for choosing an outstanding group of 30 BITSians from 135 nominations received.
The final list of 30 has been selected after multiple rounds of evaluations by the panelists and a rigorous
selection process.
The winners include 5 role-model women and represent all our campuses. For the first time, a special
mention is being made for a music group that was created by a group of mostly under-30s and making
waves in India. There is no 30 under 30 Award, but this group deserved to be singled out for what they
have built.
We sincerely thank all BITSians who nominated themselves or their peers. The winners are role-models
for many generations of BITSians. Those who did not make it in the final 30 definitely showed high
potential to be leaders and stand as pillars of inspiration.
Thanks & Regards
Sherin Kurian, Director, Awards
Rohit Koul, CEO, BITSAA
Anupendra Sharma, Co-Founder, BITSAA
On behalf of
The BITSAA 30 Under 30 Awards Committee
BITSAA Global 30 Under 30 Awards – Winners (Short Bio)
The year of entry at BITS (BITS Batch) is listed next to the winner’s name
Academia / Research & Development
1.
Vishakha Gupta (2000): Notable research in Virtualization; actively promote women in
computing; recipient of the Intel PhD Fellowship award, recipient of Verizon Fellowship. She
completed MS from Carnegie Mellon University and PhD in Computer Science from Georgia
Institute of Technology.
2.
Soumya Sen (2001): Multi-disciplinary research in computer networks and economics; 4
patents; IEEE INFOCOM best paper award; co-founder of a pre-startup that offers pricing
solutions to Internet Service Providers; completed MS & PhD from University of Pennsylvania.
3.
Shruthi Sridhar Vembar (1999): Specializing in experimental research and currently focused on
malaria research at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. She is a winner of seven awards and scholarship
including the EMBO Long-Term Fellowship given for novel, proven scientific accomplishment in
life sciences, the Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship awarded by EU to researchers
working on third world projects; PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Pittsburgh.
Arts, Literature & Culture
4.
Prabhu B Doss (1999): Filmmaker & photographer with National and International recognitions;
"Yamagandam" - short film directed and produced by him was screened at the prestigious
Cannes Film Festival - Court Metrage – 2011.
5.
Dushyanth Sridhar (2004): Passionately researches on Sanskrit scriptures and delivers the
resulting content through his discourses; rendered over 250 lectures in 11 cities in India in 4
languages; appeared in 3 TV channels and has recorded two albums.
6.
Sarvani Yadavalli (2004): Avid Kuchipudi dancer; She performs, choreographs and conducts
dance workshops; more than 150 performances including inauguration ceremony of 2010
Commonwealth Games; honored with the national ‘Nrithya Shiromani’ award by Yuva
Sanskrutik Sangh, Cuttack and ‘Nrithya Vilasini’ title by Nrithyathi Kalakshetra.
Entrepreneurship
7.
Abhishek Humbad (2005): Founder, NextGen, one of India's fastest growing energy and
environment companies; selected as India's portfolio cleantech company of 2010 by CII and the
World Resources Institute, Named India's emerging startup of 2011 by Business Today and Asia's
top 100 social entrepreneurs by FYSE (Foundation for Youth Social Entrepreneurship, HK).
8.
A R Gopi Krishna (2004): Entrepreneur, floated the company Purple Pesto Technologies Pvt Ltd
with the vision of creating Mosquito-Free India; acquired P.V.Bio-chem India Pvt Ltd,Hosur
increasing the company’s turnover over 3 times within a year.
9.
Gaurav Mathur (2000): Founder of 3LM, providing enhanced security and manageability for
Android/iOS devices; 3LM successfully raised capital from Accel ventures in addition to angel
funding and has since been acquired by Motorola Mobility within 9 months.
10. Lohit Sahu (2005): Founder and Director at Phyzok Learning Solutions LLP, creating solutions to
improve the education delivery in schools; listed as one of the top 10 young Entrepreneurs by
Businessworld Magazine in 2011; Star Entrepreneur of the year award at the 5th Indira
International Innovation Summit
Invention & Innovation
11. Chetan Bansal (2008): 3-time Google Summer of Code Recipient, selected for Microsoft Paris,
lead product development for several Web startups; selected as Kairos Global Fellow; 4
published research papers; Winner of Mantra-CEL Award for Innovation, 2011.
12. Tejas Chafekar (2005): Works at Tesla Motors in Silicon Valley in the powertrain R&D team;
Winner of many scholarships from ASME, BPCL, TATA and NTSE. Developed an innovative
concept of preparing handmade paper from harmful and allergic weeds which is termite
resistant; published five papers; Won one of 5 KVPY fellowships given by IISC Bangalore for his
innovative design for paper manufacturing. Graduated first in Mechanical; MS from University of
Michigan.
13. Suvonil Chatterjee (2010): Co-founder of Xplorer which explores innovative ways to make
travelling a delight; creates his own flavor of programming language C named ‘Ceasy’; Created
‘Selena’, an autonomous bot built on AIML and Project Head-o-tronics while in school; MantraCEL Innovator of the Year, 2012.
14. Siddharth Loganathan (2000): Inventor of 3 patents for stent-graft and embolic device
technologies used for treating stroke; these patents have been made to commercial product
called LUNA AES saving lives of over 25 patients afflicted with stroke. MS NYIT, MBA, UCLA.
15. Ramji Venkatasubramanian (2000): Derived a theory that functional performance of a heart
valve is closely related to initial tissue properties; passionate researcher, co-founder of a
startup company called "Living Discoveries LLC" that is working towards improving breast cancer
diagnosis using digital mammography; inventor/co-inventor in 8 inventions (4 patents pending,
2 trade secrets and 2 invention disclosures in-review); PhD from University of Minnesota.
Leadership
16. Divya Devarajan (2001): Assistant Collector, Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh; works with the
vision to be a ‘change maker’ on a wide range of projects; She was chosen as the Best Officer
trainee of her batch of Central Civil Services in the foundation course for all round excellence
with 3 academic Gold Medals.
17. Saurabh Ladha (2008): Led the IFOR (The Intelligent Flying Object for Reconnaissance, UAE’s
first fully autonomous aerial robot) team to success and continues to mentor his juniors;
founder of BITS360 for Dubai campus; founder of ‘Jashn’, annual intercollegiate cultural festival
of Dubai campus; Embryo lead for Dubai campus; pursuing masters from Stanford University.
18. Satish Polisetti (2002): Multi-talented leader; Founder of a promising startup Picatcha and a
non-profit start-up Edumile.org. Led Sandpaper and Newsletter teams for BITSAA; significant
contributions during the first BITSAA Global Meet; completed masters from UC Berkeley.
19. Akash Raman (2004): Several leadership positions; CEO(India) at Oodio – a photography services
startup, CEO – Engineers for Social Impact(E4SI), Founding President for CEL at Goa campus and
Manager for BITS2MShD at BITSAA; completed his masters from Harvard University.
20. Aalap Tripathy (2004): Exemplary leader who is immensely responsible for growth of BITSAA
International. Major achievements include the first ever BITSAA Global Meet, establishment of
Chapters Council, launch of $1M Bridges to the Future Campaign, conception of BITSConnect
2.0; pursuing his PhD from Texas A & M University.
Professional Achievement
21. Srinath Nagarajan (2001): Youngest manager to head Strategy for a 400 Crore consumer
computing business; instrumental in launching the "ME" brand of Tablets in India; Amongst top
61 winners of the Economic Times Young Leaders Award 2011.
Social Entrepreneurship & Community Building
22. Tarun Cherukuri (2002): Teach for India Fellow after leaving a high paying job at HLL; Fulbright
Nehru Scholar 2011-2013; Joint Japan-World Bank Scholar 2011-2013; Pursuing Master in Public
Administration/International Development at Harvard University
23. Abhijeet Gan (2000): Co-founder of Rite Water, made a significant impact on the availability of
drinkable water to villagers in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh; Rite Water has
set up more than 60+ community water centres; recognized by Ministry of Rural Development;
co-founder and director of OCTAVE Business School.
24. Keerthi Kiran K (2004): Co-founder and managing trustee of Youth Factor that inspire youth to
step to social sector; conceived ‘Grassroutes’, one of the most prestigious fellowship for youth
in India; Keerthi has been featured by ‘The Week’ as one of the Indian Gems of the year 2011;
invited by former US president Bill Clinton to the Clinton Global Initiative University 2011;
pursuing MBA at Duke - Fuqua.
25. Ankur Kumar (2006): CEO of the social enterprise Let Me Know(www.letmeknow.in); featured in
June '11 edition of Careers360 magazine and in leading dailies The TOI, The Hindu.
26. Divya Nawale (2003): First BITSian woman and also the youngest to step onto the continent of
Antarctica, as an Environmental Leader to represent India on an International Expedition; led
her India team in Strategy and Fundraising for setting up a 100% renewable energy-powered
Education base in Pench Forest Reserve in Maharashtra.
27. Mayur Patnala (2002): Co-founder of ‘Nirmaan’; founder and president of ‘Yuva Varadhi’;
conceptualized Education Helpline in collaboration with Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, toll free
counseling centre for students.
28. Yashveer Singh (2004): Founded and runs, National Social Entrepreneurship Forum (NSEF);
awarded Global Shaper 2011 by World Economic Forum; recognized as Unsung Hero; Agent of
Change by Deccan Chronicle and one of the 100 heroes from across the globe by Hindustan
Times.
Sports
29. Raman Garimella (2006): Avid biker; logged more than 17,000km (cycling + running) in
13months in training and races & events; 2nd youngest Super Randonneur from India; COO,
Hyderabad Bicycling Club (HBC).
30. Mahesh Krishnamurthy (2000): Co-founder of BITS2Marathon / BITS5K to promote BITSians for
running; completed 5 full and 8 half marathons; PhD from University of Cincinnati.
Special Team Award
Most outstanding team accomplishment for a group of BITSians under the age of 30.
Agam : Multiple award winning Contemporary Carnatic Rock band by young BITSians; chosen as
the best band in South India by none other than Oscar Award winning Indian musician - A R
Rahman; associated with the Cancer Patients Aid Association; performed in the second season
of Coke Studio @ MTV.
Detailed Bios
Academia / Research & Development
1.
Vishakha Gupta
BITS Batch – 2000
B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science, Pilani Campus
Vishakha is a research scientist in the Systems Architecture Lab of Intel
Corporation's research arm, Intel Labs. After graduating from BITS, Pilani, she
received a Master's in Information Networking from Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her Ph.D. is from the Georgia Institute of Technology
(advised by Prof. Karsten Schwan), where she studied resource scheduling in
virtualized and heterogeneous environments. Such heterogeneous platforms are
showing great potential in the industry’s push to exascale computing and Vishakha
furthered the community’s understanding of how to manage such platforms with
papers that have been published in top conferences/journals. During her stellar
academic career, she received several awards including the Verizon M.S.
scholarship, and the Intel Ph.D. fellowship. Her research interests now include
cluster interconnects and software in support of novel multicore organizations and distributed
object systems. In addition to her academic achievements, Vishakha is also active in promoting
women in computing. She is also active in the Grace Hopper Conference community, which is an
annual conference for women in computing. Vishakha now lives in Portland with her husband
and enjoys exploring the many worthy dessert and coffee shops that the city has to offer, hiking,
traveling and she wants to fly small aircrafts some day.
2.
Soumya Sen
BITS Batch – 2001
B.E. (Hons.) Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering, Pilani Campus
Soumya’s multidisciplinary research on computer networks and economics have
won several awards, including IEEE INFOCOM 2012 best paper award, Vodafone
Wireless Innovation project finalist, and has received wide media coverage in MIT
Technology Review, The Wall Street Journal, Politico, ACM Tech News, and many
others. He is a co-founder of Datami, a startup that offers pricing solutions to
Internet service providers. Soumya is also a founder and General co-chair of the
Smart Data Pricing Forum that brings together academics and industry professionals
every year through international workshops and collaborations, and is a co-editor of
an upcoming book on this topic. Soumya got his MS & PhD from University of
Pennsylvania, and is currently a research associate at Princeton University.
3.
Shruthi Sridhar Vembar
BITS Batch – 1999
M.Sc. (Hons.) Biological Sciences, Pilani Campus
Shruthi is a highly motivated scientist whose goal is to make an impact on Indian
education and research. Having obtained her PhD in Molecular Biology from the
University of Pittsburgh, Shruthi moved to the Institut Pasteur in Paris to carry out
her post-doctoral research in malaria biology. This has brought her one step closer
to moving back to India for an academic professorship. She is a winner of 7 awards
and scholarships, including the Mellon award from the University of Pittsburgh for
graduate students, the EMBO Long-Term Fellowship for novel, proven scientific
accomplishment in life sciences for post-doctoral researchers, and the Marie Curie
International Incoming Fellowship awarded by the EU to promising globally mobile
researchers. Her research has been published in top peer reviewed journals and
presented at international conferences. Shruthi is also a feminist and idealist and
her social consciousness has led her to volunteer for organizations like AID-India, US.
She has also pursued her love for languages as a volunteer for Samskrita Bharati. Traveling and
art are her great passions and Shruthi spends a large part of her time outside work either on the
road or painting.
Arts, Literature & Culture
4.
Prabhu B Doss
BITS Batch – 1999
M.Sc (Hons.) Biological Sciences, B.E. (Hons.) Civil Engineering, Pilani Campus
Prabhu, currently working as a Technical Lead at Infosys, Bangalore, is a very active
filmmaker/photographer. His works have got national and international recognition.
He makes short films and PSAs/Ads/documentaries. “Yamagandam” – short film
directed and produced by him was screened at the prestigious prestigious Cannes
Film Festival - Court Metrage – 2011. The film was also selected and screened at the
prestigious International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa 2011 - Debut Indian shorts
category. Prabhu is the script supervisor and the Asst. Director of a Tamil feature film
"Pizza" released in Oct 2012. (Director - Karthik Subbaraj). He is one of the creative
consultants for the legendary music director - Ilaiyaraaja's official website Raaja.com. Also when at BITS, he was chosen after a national level selection process,
by SPIC MACAY, to intern with HH Dalai Lama, as part of the Gurukkul initiative. "Live
again" - a music video, directed and produced by Prabhu B Doss for BITSIAN band AGAM featuring Shreya Ghoshal, has won the coveted ‘IndieGo Music Awards 2011’. He was selected
as Top 50 Short filmmakers by Anurag Kashyap, Sudhir Mishra and Chakri Toleti as part of
Largeshortfilms. com. He was also selected to make a film for India’s largest shortfilm festival –
“XUV memorable stores”. Apart from film direction, he is a co-writer for yet to be named Tamil
Feature Film, to be directed by a veteran filmmaker. He is currently making a documentary on
“Bharatanatyam-Karanas”.
5.
Dushyanth Sridhar
BITS Batch – 2004
M.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry, B.E. (Hons.) Chemical Engineering, Pilani Campus
He started learning Sanskrit and Tamil scriptures from the age of five under his mother’s
supervision and also showed inclination to public-speaking and Carnatic music. His first public
discourse on Ramayana was in Pilani campus, while he was a sophomore and that was attended
by Late. Prof.S.Venkateswaran, Prof. L.K.Maheshwari, the deans and a group of
students. This later became a regular feature and he rendered over twelve
discourses on campus. After graduation, he entered the Market Research industry
and started working in Mumbai (where he currently works for a leading
consultancy services firm). Alongside, he started receiving advanced training in four
revered Sanskrit scriptures (Sri Bhashyam, Gita Bhashyam, Bhagavad Vishayam and
Srimad Rahasya Traya Saram). He cut his first album on Ramayana with 36 hours of
English musical discourses and this was released by Mr. Nitish Bharadwaj (Actor).
He later released three more albums (in Tamil) in Chennai on ancient scriptures. He
then became a regular speaker in some of the leading TV Channels like Star Vijay,
DD Podhigai, Sri Sankara and SVBC. Till date he has rendered over 600 discourses in
4 languages (English, Tamil, Hindi and Kannada) across 11 cities. Of the accolades received, he
cherishes the ‘Sollin Selvan’ (‘Mastery in Eloquence’ - Tamil) title the most and he is one of the
youngest speakers in this field. He is a visiting faculty for Management at a leading Business
school in Mumbai and this has interestingly aided him in delivering lectures on ‘Management in
Ancient scriptures’ at various forums. He researches on some of the lesser known Sanskrit and
Prakrit works and writes to various spiritual magazines. He aims to bring awareness about the
rich culture of Indian Scriptures through his discourses, at the same time clearing the air on
some of the baseless superstitions surmounting them.
6.
Sarvani Yadavalli
BITS Batch – 2004
B.E. (Hons.) Chemical Engineering, Pilani Campus
Sarvani, an epitome of dance coupled with strong fortitude and talent, is an avid
Kuchipudi dancer. An engineer by profession, Sarvani is highly passionate about
dancing. She started performing at the age of seven and staged shows in
different national and international events including the inauguration of
Common Wealth Games, 2010, Konark Dance Festival, Rukmini devi Arundale
dance festival, Cuttack Mahotsav etc. She has toured South East Asia performing
and conducting workshops propagating the rich Indian cultural heritage. Her
choreographies enthral the audience transporting them to another world. Dance
exponents and media have time and again commended her as one of the best
dancers of her generation. She was honoured with the national “Nrithya
Shiromani” award by Utkal Yuva Sanskrutik Sangh and with the title “Nrithya
Vilasini” by Nrithyathi Kalakshetra. Using the Indian classical dance form, Sarvani proposes to
take up several social issues and address them in her attempt to perpetuate peace and
harmony.
Entrepreneurship
7.
Abhishek Humbad
BITS Batch – 2005
B.E. (Hons.) Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Pilani Campus
Founder, NextGen, one of India's fastest growing cleantech company, also one of
India’s largest out of college startups. It has presence in 6 countries with Fortune
500 clients across 16 sectors. The team has commercialized first of its kind
revolutionary technology to generate Bio-CNG at prices much cheaper than
conventional CNG. NextGen has collaboration with Mahindra and Coromandel
Fertilizers to setup India’s first Bio-CNG plan to power telecom towers by
replacing existing diesel power; generating cheaper, greener and more reliable
power. Working with Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the Reserve Bank of India
on Non-Financial Reporting in India; working with the British Government and the
Swiss Government on Climate Change Policy. In his free time, Abhishek enjoys
playing, watching and betting on football.
8.
A R Gopi Krishna
BITS Batch – 2004
M.Sc. (Hons.) Physics, B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, Goa Campus
Gopi Krishna floated the company Purple Pesto Technologies Pvt Ltd with the
vision of creating Mosquito-Free India; acquired P.V.Bio-chem India Pvt Ltd,Hosur
increasing the company’s turnover over 3 times within a year. He has got couple
of new projects in Agarbathis and detergent sector recently to enrich the
business. Recently he made his entry into IIM-Bangalore to pursue MPEFB. During
his free time, he tries to brainstorm new ideas into his little pocket notebook,
network with those with his business interests and do a lot of research. Whenever
possible to take a break from work, he does some soul searching and do
adventurous travel too. He is a great movie buff and a great foodie.
9.
Gaurav Mathur
BITS Batch – 2000
M.Sc. (Tech.) Information Systems, Pilani Campus
After BITS, Gaurav joined Intel (Bangalore) as a software engineer. He then went
on to earn an MS-CS degree from UMass Amherst and joined Google (Mountain
View) in 2007. He worked on multiple projects at Google before he moved to the
Android team, which saw explosive device growth during those years. In 2010, he
left to start his own venture "3LM" as its founder and CTO with the intent of
focusing on mobile device management in the enterprise space. 3LM successfully
raised capital from Accel ventures and angels. 3LM was subsequently acquired by
Motorola Mobility in 2011. Today, 3LM is an independent subsidiary of Motorola
and Gaurav continues to provide executive leadership to the team.
10. Lohit Sahu
BITS Batch – 2005
B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, Pilani Campus
Lohit is the Founder and Director of Phyzok Learning Solutions LLP, a firm which
creates education delivery mechanisms combining arts and technology. An artist
himself, Lohit was a Music Clubber, member of Ragamalika, member of CEL and
president of Madhyansh (cultural assoc for students and staff from central India)
while on campus. Lohit started his first venture after his first year, which also got
him awards at national and international business plan competitions. BITS 75
Charitable Trust has generously sponsored the Phyzok studio equipped with state
of the art industrial standard audio/visual recording and fx studio for its ongoing
production of "educational sitcoms". The Businessworld Magazine listed Lohit
among top 10 young Entrepreneurs in India for the Year 2011. Lohit received the
Star Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Year 2012. Lohit's venture is the
subject of a Case-Study on Entrepreneurship published by Pearson's. Lohit is also a mentor for
BITS Pilani's "New Venture Creation Course" and has been a judge at national business plan
competitions.
Invention & Innovation
11. Chetan Bansal
BITS Batch - 2008
M.Sc. (Hons.) Biological Sciences, B.E. (Hons.) Chemical Engineering, Goa Campus
Chetan is a final year dual degree student at BITS Pilani, Goa campus. He has
been interested in technology and entrepreneurship, He strongly believes that
technology can be used to solve most of the challenges being faced by mankind.
He is interested in the latest gadgets, music, fiction and travelling. He recently
started with his thesis in Web Security at INRIA Research Center, Paris & Imperial
College, London. As a part of his thesis, he discovered several security
vulnerabilities and was awarded a 2000 USD bounty by Mozilla. He is also
working for the tech team of StartUp Leadership Inc as Senior Manager
(Technology). He is 3-time Google Summer of Code Recipient, selected for
Microsoft Paris, lead product development for several Web startups; selected as
Kairos Global Fellow; 4 published research papers; Winner of Mantra-CEL Award for Innovation,
2011.
12. Tejas Chafekar
BITS Batch – 2005
B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, Goa Campus
Tejas innovated a method to prepare writing paper from harmful and allergic
weeds which is termite resistant. This project spanned over a few years with a lot
of careful experimentation and analysis. This will give a way to eradicate the weeds
which otherwise cause nuisance to the society. This project was recognized and
appreciated by IISc Bangalore. After graduating from University of Michigan
(specializing in systems and controls), he is currently working at Tesla Motors (an
electric vehicle company). This is a small company and is the only company making
only pure electric vehicles. He is passionate about renewable alternatives of
energy and strongly feel that the renewable energy is going to dictate the future.
He is involved with the design and controls of electric powertrains (which include
electric motors, batteries, hybrid controllers etc) for electric and hybrid electric
vehicles. Tejas says : “I urge all my fellow BITSians to think out of the box and do not consider
any idea (however foolish it may sound) as worthless. Jot them down as they come to your
minds and keep thinking on them...One day you will find a solution!”
13. Suvonil Chatterjee
BITS Batch – 2010
B.E. (Hons.) Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering, Pilani Campus
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 the Vice President of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership, he is in charge of
Conquest, one of India's biggest startup challenges. When he is not sketching various
avatars of Angry Birds, he is either designing user-experiences for tech startups like
Sunglass, Framebench, Gharpay etc. At present, he is developing a system that
revolutionizes the way astronauts are weighed in space-stations. He co-founded
Xplorer which explores innovative ways to make travelling a delight. And just for fun,
he is writing his own programming language, Ceasy, a childish transformation of C.
He was Mantra-CEL Innovator of the Year, 2012. He is a foodie, loves his fantasy
novels and Enya's music.
14. Siddharth Loganathan
BITS Batch – 2000
B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, Pilani Campus
Siddharth (Sid) Loganathan currently works in the advanced technology
development group at Stryker Corporation, one of the world’s leading medical
device companies. Prior to Stryker, Sid was the lead engineer at NFOCUS
Neuromedical where he was a co-inventor on 3 patents in the hemorrhagic stroke
space. These patents helped NFOCUS raise over 20 million dollars in venture capital
investment and more importantly, these patents were developed into a commercial
device called LUNA AES that has been successfully implanted in over 30 people,
saving their lives. Sid has won "Best Inventor" awards for his numerous
contributions to intellectual property at NFOCUS and an “Outstanding Trainee”
award at Stryker. Sid did Masters in ME from the New Jersey Institute of Technology
and is currently pursuing an MBA from UCLA's Anderson School of Management. He
was selected to be a 2009 Fellow in the prestigious Startup Leadership Program in Silicon Valley
and has served as the Director of Admissions for two years, helping SLP implement global
admission processes that mirror the best practices followed at the top business schools. Sid is
extremely passionate about making health care more affordable and accessible to everyone. Sid
loves to travel and swim in his spare time.
15. Ramji Venkatasubramanian
BITS Batch – 2000
B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, Pilani Campus
Ramji Venkatasubramanian is a passionate researcher and innovator. He holds a
Ph. D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota with over 12
conference/journal publications and has won several awards including the
doctoral dissertation fellowship. In his role as Senior Scientist at St. Jude Medical,
Ramji has been an inventor/co-inventor in 8 inventions, been closely involved in
the new product development of surgical/transcatheter tissue heart valves and
also been the recipient of a STAR award for extraordinary performance, which has
been received by less than 2% of the employees. He is also a co-founder of a start
up that is working towards improving breast cancer diagnosis using digital
mammography. In his free time, Ramji likes traveling with his wife,
watching/playing football & cricket and running with his dog.
Leadership
16. Divya Devarajan
BITS Batch – 2001
M.Sc. (Hons.) Physics, B.E. (Hons.) Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Pilani Campus
Divya is the one with lot of ideas and always yearn to give shape to them. As VP of Rural
Entrepreneurship division, CEL, she had an opportunity to work with rural women, understand
their hardships, their aspirations and the reality. Forming the women in Garinda
(village near Pilani ) into Self- Help Groups and linking their income generation
activity of paper bags to Akshay (the co-operative store inside the campus) was one
such idea which took shape. This experience was a trigger to the deep yearning to
be a change maker. While volunteering with AID India (Chennai Chapter) after
graduation, she was part of the NGO team evaluating the ‘Activity Based Learning’
system introduced in Government schools of Tamil Nadu and assessing its
outcomes. With one master stroke, Mr.Vijaya Kumar, the IAS officer behind the
plan, made this improved learning system earlier accessible to elite children now to
millions of poor children studying in Government run schools in Tamil Nadu. This is
when she realized that the Government, as an institution can create the largest
impact on millions of lives, for the better or worse. She took the Civil Services Exam and joined
the Andhra Cadre of Indian Administrative Service. She was chosen as the best officer trainee in
both the professional courses and district training by winning the Satish Dua Gold Medal. With
an opportunity to learn and work on wide range of issues like rural development, tribal welfare,
urban planning, gender issues, Self-Help Groups, she says the journey has been exciting so far.
17. Saurabh Ladha
BITS Batch – 2008
B.E.(Hons.) Electronics and Communication Engineering, Dubai Campus
Saurabh is the Founder and ex-Team Leader of IFOR (Intelligent Flying Object for
Reconnaissance) that placed first at the 2011 International Aerial Robotics
Competition at N. Dakota, USA. Fusing his love for aeronautics and robotics he
formed the team to build UAE's first fully autonomous aerial robot. The
competition required the robot to infiltrate an unknown indoor environment,
avoid obstacles, avoid detection by cameras & laser barriers, find a target pen
drive and bring it back - all without any human intervention. He and his team
finished the design and construction of the vehicle in a record time of 9 months.
Apart from his technical deft, Saurabh is a gifted public speaker and negotiator.
He was faced with the unique challenge of raising thousands of dollars for IFOR in
UAE, where research grants are reserved for public universities. Rising to the task,
he secured the financial support of BITSAA International and simultaneously
leveraged a prototype to swing a dynamite deal with Intel. In exchange for using
IFOR to showcase the mobility of the Atom processor, Intel agreed to fund almost the entire
project. Apart from IFOR, Saurabh was very active on campus and adopted a leading role in
shaping student life. He is the the founder of Jashn (Inter-collegiate cultural festival) and
BITS360-Dubai (Virtual tour) and was elected to several student bodies such as the Student
Council Cabinet and the IEEE Student Chapter. His contributions to BITS won him the Director's
Medal for 'All-round achievement' and the Mantra Award for Outstanding Leadership in 2012.
He is currently pursuing M.S. at Stanford University and his hobbies include debating, acting and
playing the guitar
18. Satish Polisetti
BITS Batch – 2002
B.E. (Hons.) Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Pilani Campus
Satish Polisetti is incredibly multi-talented Leader, Writer, Editor, Entrepreneur and many other
quills in his hat. He has successfully lead Sandpaper team & Newsletter for BITSAA over many
years and elevated the professional quality through the signature BGM 2011
Souvenir effort. He lead the Content & Agenda team alongside Pradeep Sethi and
Rishabh Kaul landing the Whos who of BITSian luminaries from all around the world
and aligning the speakers to various panels deftly during the first ever BGM. He was
most satisfied recently with driving 'Batch of 2002 Fundraiser for BITS Connect 2.0'
(80+ batchmates coming forward (and growing) to pledge/donate - highest batch
participation ever till date --It was shown as an example in the recent "Beneficiaries
turn benefactors in 10 years" Newsletter and sparked interest in the 94 Batch etc. It
also helped BITSAA to make the Corporate matching process more streamlined). He
is an avid entrepreneur with a promising startup - Picatcha Inc - that he founded
during his Masters at Berkeley and has secured couple rounds of funding and few
customers already. (Their company closed some big brands like MARS as customers). He started
a non-profit - Edumile.org along with Shamlu Dudeja, Chairperson, Calcutta Foundation and few
others. They launched their pilot project letsgraduate.org to become 'Kiva for Indian Education'.
They are in the early stages (supporting 4 students) but received good recognition as Global
Finalists at GSVC 2011 & winning Youth Business Development Competition 2011 at University
of Oxford. After his graduation, he also started helping a Haas faculty at UC Berkeley Center for
Executive Education by giving guest sessions to executives from Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
19. Akash Raman
BITS Batch – 2004
B.E. (Hons.) Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering, Goa Campus
Akash has worked with Ashoka Innovators for the Public, Engineers for Social
Impact (as CEO), BITS Pilani (as Visiting Faculty), Infineon Technologies
(Singapore), BITSAA, and a few research institutes over the course of his life.
During the time at his respective occupations he has been involved with strategy,
consulting, fund-raising, teaching, development, and chip & algorithm design. He
holds the distinction of being one of the youngest university faculty members in
India, as well as being one of the youngest CxOs in the country. Akash is a
graduate from Harvard University and the 2004 batch of the Goa Campus. He has
been a recipient of several fellowships, including the Harvard University
Fellowship, the Starting Bloc, and the Sandbox fellowships. Akash currently
serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Oodio (US & India), a position he recently
graduated to after being the Operations Head (India) since the inception of Oodio. Oodio works
with the top 100 wedding photographers in the US and India and provides them digital post-
production and design services. Apart from work, he recently acted as a lead in a short film that
was nominated as the official entry to the Tacoma Film Festival (Seattle), won the award of
excellence at The Indie Fest, worldwide and was screened at numerous other film festivals.
20. Aalap Tripathy
BITS Batch – 2004
B.E. (Hons.) Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Goa Campus
An exemplary leader who has been responsible for the resurgence of BITSAA during his tenure
as CEO. Aalap was able to bring together 30000+ BITSians across 50+ BITSAA
Chapters and 70+ e-Groups under one global umbrella. During Aalap's tenure at
BITSAA, BITS alumni conducted their first-ever BITS Global Meet (BGM2011), raised
$300k for BITS Pilani, created five new scholarships, disbursed several faculty and
student grants at the BITS Pilani campuses in India. A global chapter leadership &
Batch Ambassadors Council to unite BITSAA's activities worldwide was created.
BITSAA Volunteer community grew from 80 to 200 at the height of projects.
Flagship projects which demonstrate BITS alumni's passionate, forward-thinking
nature for their alma-mater were envisaged and deployed. BITSConnect2.0 (a
multi-campus, multi-platform video conferencing and telepresence solutions
benefiting 10,000 students & faculty @ $1.5 Mi) & BITSSparks (creating an ecosystem to promote BITSian entrepreneurship) are two examples. In a nutshell,
Aalap made it possible for passionate BITSian's anywhere in the world to come together, join
forces, dream up and execute game-changer projects for BITS Pilani through the BITSAA
umbrella. Aalap is currently pursuing his PhD from Texas A & M University where he is working
on efficient algorithms for information filtering on many-core processors. He has published
several conference and journal articles in the areas of semantic computing, parallel &
distributed processing, petascale data analytics, system-on-chip architecture. He considers
himself "really lucky" to have mentored over 30 senior design projects in the CSE Department in
diverse areas from wearable gesture recognition to chemical sensing with IR spectroscopy.
Professional Achievement
21. Srinath Nagarajan
BITS Batch - 2001
B.E. (Hons.) Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Pilani Campus
Srinath joined HCL Infosystems in 2009 to lead strategy for the consumer computing
business. He was responsible for bringing over 35 content and application
partnerships in place prior to the launch of ME Tablets in Oct 2011. Post that he
went on to head marketing initiatives for the ME Tablet and was instrumental in
creating the brand and position the Tablet in the India market to take it to a market
share of 15%. In parallel, he was working on expanding the mobility business in
other emerging markets. He successfully executed the launch of the tablets in UAE,
Oman, Kuwait and Qatar. Recently, he has transitioned into his new role as the
business head for MEA for mobility and PC computing and leads HCL’s foray into
Middle East, Africa, Russia and CIS markets. Prior to joining HCL, he was part of the
founding team of a start-up Indepay networks. He secured a $4 million deal with the
Government of Rajasthan to enable financial inclusion for below poverty line population across
29,000 villages and spearheaded Indepay’s foray into rural markets/ Government projects. He
also created India’s first wireless railway ticketing kiosk by forging strategic relationship with
Indian Railways. He was also selected by the Economic times as one of the top 61 young leaders
of Corporate India in 2012 through the Economic Times Young Leaders Award program. He also
Co-founded Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) while at BITS Pilani.
Social Entrepreneurship & Community Building
22. Tarun Cherukuri
BITS Batch – 2002
B.E. (Hons.) Chemical Engineering, Pilani Campus
Teach for India Fellow after leaving a high paying job at HLL; Fulbright Nehru
Scholar 2011-2013; Joint Japan-World Bank Scholar 2011-2013; Pursuing Master in
Public Administration/International Development at Harvard University. He was
elected as U.S President in a simulation of US elections among Fulbright scholars in
Nashville 2012. He is passionate about bringing in science to electoral politics,
policy design, implementation and feedback. He wants to demonstrate that a
person with a calling for public service can win an Indian election with integrity,
intelligence and innovative management. And in the process, develop a replicable
model for pursuing politics as a noble endeavor. He dreams that this pursuit will
organically lead to the creation of an institution like 'Indian School of Politics and Public
Administration' which crashes the barriers to entry into public life.
23. Abhijeet Gan
BITS Batch – 2000
B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science, Pilani Campus
Abhijeet, as a co-founder of Rite Water, has made a significant impact on the
availability of drinkable water to villagers in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and
Madhya Pradesh. Even after getting the most coveted consulting job in one of the
Big 4 Consulting cos. post MBA, Abhijeet decided to return to his hometown and
started Rite Water. Through use of simple and sustainable technologies for treating
chemically contaminated water, Rite Water sets up water treatment plants based
on sustainable products developed in house in affected villages and provides safe
water to the people. In just few years, Rite Water has set up more than 80+
community water centres in water quality affected villages of Maharashtra,
Chattisgarh & Madhya Pradesh providing safe drinking water to more than 100,000
people on daily basis. These people who had no option but consume contaminated
water are getting safe chemical free water through these centres. Abhijeet’s work in the area of
providing fluoride free safe water to villages in Maharashtra has been recognized by Ministry of
Rural Development.
24. Keerthi Kiran K
BITS Batch – 2004
B.E. (Hons.) Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering, Pilani Campus
Keerthi Kiran co-founded Youth Factor (ww.yofa.org), a for-impact organization to
engage youth in development sector. He conceptualized and lead Grassroutes
fellowship program for young people to travel to organizations based in rural India
and work on developmental programs. His last job was with Ashoka:Innovators for
the public. Keerthi has been featured by ‘The Week’ as one of the Indian Gems of the
year 2011. He was also invited by former US president Bill Clinton to the Clinton
Global Initiative University 2011. He currently is pursuing a MBA degree from the
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. At Pilani he was involved with Sponz, CEL,
EDC and ELAS. In his free time he enjoys reading books on contemporary India and
following cricket.
25. Ankur Kumar
BITS Batch – 2006
M.Sc. (Hons.) Economics, B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science Engineering, Goa Campus
Ankur is currently working as a Software Developer with Oracle Corporation in
Bangalore. He joined Let Me Know(www.letmeknow.in) as a Content Writer in
2009. Grew up in the role and converted it from being a non-profit organization to
a self-sustaining and powerful social enterprise, providing low cost and effective
advertising solution to start-ups, SMEs, NGOs and colleges for disseminating youth
opportunities. He currently leads a team of 80 passionate souls as the CEO. Ankur
is also an avid writer, has contributed for various online blogs and has won several
writing contests at national level. He has been invited as a guest speaker by many
colleges like Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh where he delivered a talk on
“Role of Technology & Social Media in Driving Start-ups.” He has featured in
leading Indian newspapers, magazines and has been selected for various
international conferences. Ankur has worked with the BITSAA Sandpaper team,
was awarded Travel Scholarship and was selected as the Batch Ambassador for his batch. At
campus, he was a member of college Carom team, Dept. of Journalism & Media Affairs, Arts n
Deco and Kala clubs. He also led the Economics Association as its Sub-Coordinator.
26. Divya Nawale
BITS Batch – 2003
B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, Pilani Campus
In 2009, Divya became the first and only BITSian woman and also the youngest
BITSian(at age 23) to step onto the continent of Antarctica as an Environmental
Leader to represent India on an International Expedition along with young people
from 45 other nationalities. Her Antarctic dream started in Room 5106 of the
Lecture Theatre Complex at Pilani when a BITS alum shared his experience of
visiting and conducting research in Antarctica during his Silver Jubilee reunion
visit to the campus in 2006. Since her return from the expedition, she has worked
on numerous environmental initiatives at a grassroots level as well as with Major
Corporates across India and has spoken/presented at various International
conferences in Europe.In 2011, she worked to set up a 100% renewable energypowered education base in Pench Forest Reserve in Maharashtra with a mission
to create local awareness on Water and Bio-diversity Conservation and help the Forest
Department move towards a sustainable livelihood for the Rangers. An avid dancer, she recently
was adjudged runner-up at a National Ballroom Dance Championship event and continues to
explore newer dance forms with each passing year.
27. Mayur Patnala
BITS Batch – 2002
B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, B.E. (Hons.) Computer Science Engineering, Pilani Campus
Mayur is the co-founder of Nirmaan Organization and is currently serving as the
Chairman of Governing Board. He founded Yuva Varadhi and serves as the
President. He conceptualized “Education Help Line (EHL) - Toll-free counseling
center for students” and is truly an inspiration to youth. Nirmaan Organization is
formed with a mission to contribute towards achieving a developed India
focusing on education and livelihoods for the underprivileged of the country.
Currently, the organization is operating with 400 voluntary members spread
across 6 chapters with headquarters at Hyderabad. The activities of Nirmaan span
from providing education to the needy, creating self-help groups and vocational
training centers to running school adoption programs. Yuva Varadhi, a national
federation of student social clubs in universities/colleges and not-for-profit
organizations is established with a purpose of bringing together small social
groups/clubs/organizations into a bigger umbrella so as to facilitate larger social impact. Yuva
Varadhi encompasses of 600 volunteers from 34 colleges and 7 not for profit organizations.
Currently Yuva Varadhi is working in sensitizing youth in three focus areas by taking up projects:
i) Education ii) Environment iii) Anti-corruption.
28. Yashveer Singh
BITS Batch – 2004
M.Sc. (Hons.) Economics, Pilani Campus
Yashveer founded National Social Entrepreneurship Forum (NSEF) to address talent
inequity in development sector and influence youth culture in India by inspiring,
educating, and supporting university students for social innovations &
entrepreneurship. NSEF has undertaken social entrepreneurial activities through a
number of initiatives and have weaved the “development” element into various
youth-targeted entrepreneurial programs in Indian Universities. Additionally,
Yashveer has served as an honorary advisor to early stage start-ups. Yashveer has
been awarded prestigious Youth Action Net 2012 Fellowship – as 1 of the 20 young
social entrepreneurs representing 16 different countries by International Youth
Foundation and was recognized as Global Shaper 2011 by World Economic Forum.
As the President of Student’s Union BITS Pilani 2006-07, Yashveer co-founded the University
VISION 2020 Plan as the only student Task Force Member.
Sports
29. Raman Garimella
BITS Batch – 2006
B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, Goa Campus
After graduation from college, Raman has logged more than 18,000 km in training and races
including cycling and running. He decided to include running as cross-training
and runs half marathons from time to time. While at BITS, he was involved in
everything Football which included conducting championships, making football
teams and representing the Institute in competition. He was also an integral
part in making SPREE, a national-level festival for the first time. He became the
2nd youngest Super Randonneur from India after finishing 200, 300, 400 and 600
km bike rides in the last season. His longest ride is covering 605 km in under 40
hours in Feb, 2012. He has represented Andhra Pradesh at two National Cycling
Championships so far. In September 2012, he won Gold at the AP State Road
Cycling Championship. Raman been working with Hyderabad Bicycling Club
(HBC) for more than 2 years now. HBC is a 3,000+ members strong not-for-profit
organization based out of Hyderabad, which is doing remarkable work in the
areas of urban connectivity, fitness, sport and community building through
cycling. He is also getting increasingly involved with the popular local runners group Hyderabad
Runners. Though his major focus is on cycling currently, he will definitely pursue his running
goals. According to him, competing in triathlons a few years from now is on the cards.
30. Mahesh Krishnamurthy
BITS Batch – 2000
B.E. (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, Pilani Campus
Co-founder of BITS2Marathon/BITS5K to help budding runners achieve their
dream of running a Marathon and motivation BITSians all around the world to
bring running into everyone’s life and thereby promoting a healthy lifestyle. The
5K/10K races are conducted every year simultaneously in different parts of the
world. The race is designed to achieve self fulfillment of completing the run rather
than being a judged competition. Mahesh has completed 5 full and 8 half
marathons so far. He also has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering with focus on
Dialysis access from the University of Cincinnati. Currently he is part of a
Pennsylvania based medical device startup that has a novel technology for
creating fast and reproducible anastomotic (arteriovenous connection) connector
implants for dialysis access that minimizes the long term failure rates present in
the case of standard arteriovenous connections. Dialysis access dysfunction is one of the main
causes of morbidity and hospitalization in the US and accounts for more than $1 billion of
Medicare expenditure per annum. He is also a reviewer of Biomechanical engineering journals.
Mahesh has also received fellowship awards from the American Society of Nephrology (ASDIN)
conferences.
Special Team Award
Most outstanding team accomplishment for a group of BITSians under the age of 30.
Agam (band)
Agam is a multiple award winning Contemporary Carnatic Rock band consisting of
predominantly BITSians. All the band members have a full time IT jobs. But that does not deter
them from pursuing their passion, Music and have been managing their delicate balancing act as
a team for a few years now since their inception in 2004. They have been performing with gusto
at various places. They are a regular at Hard Rock Cafe in Bangalore and other cities in India,
Storm Festival, Octoberfest, Mad Festival in addition to all the renowned concert venues in the
south, the recently concluded BGM in Delhi etc. In fact, they helped the BGM 2011 team by
producing the BGM Anthem Song which was used widely for all publicity efforts and they did
this at no cost. Agam was chosen as the best band in South India by none other than Oscar
Award winning Indian musician - A R Rahman whose comment was "When I first heard them, I
thought the lead vocalist was really fantastic! The way they rendered their composition was
great" is a jewel in the crown for Agam. Agam, apart from using their talent for their creative
pleasure, have also been engaging in raising awareness about cancer. In October 2010, Agam
partnered with Shreya Ghoshal to produce a album "Live Again" and do their small bit to spread
awareness on breast cancer and support the victims. Agam is proudly associated with the
Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) http://www.cpaaindia.org/ to raise funds for supporting
and rehabilitating cancer patients. They performed at Coke Studio @ MTV Season 2 in 2012.
Recently they released their debut album - “The Inner Self Awakens” which has already created
waves.