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IIT alumni come together to help their brethren

Written By Maitreyee Boruah | Updated:

In today’s world, most youngsters find themselves ‘lost’, as they don’t have mentors to guide them to successful careers.

In today’s world, most youngsters find themselves ‘lost’, as they don’t have mentors to guide them to successful careers. However, students of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will get a chance to learn from the experience of about 20 top corporate honchos —- mostly former IITians —- in the forthcoming IIT Global Mentorship Programme to be held in the city today.

A bunch of about 60 students from different IITs across the country will participate in the mentorship programme which is conducted with the aim of “alumni helping alumni” in a “pay it forward” model. 

The programme was initiated by a group of IIT alumni to unlock the power of under-utilised alumni for the benefit of former and current IITians, and it is run by IIT Mentorship Team (MOT). “Our goal is to facilitate IIT alumni to help each other. We have an extremely powerful but severely underutilised resources and we aim to unlock the power of our alumni network for their benefit,” said Neeraj Gupta, a member of MOT.

The initial focus of the programme is one-on-one mentoring of the new graduates in four tracks —- entrepreneurship, corporate career, academics and research and development.

“The programme will help participants gain valuable insights, irrespective of whether they are fresh graduates, mid-level managers or the CEOs. The programme is facilitated by a group of experienced professionals, business leaders, entrepreneurs and thought leaders in diverse domains from around the world,” said Gupta.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO and managing director of Infosys Technologies will deliver the keynote address in the event. Gopalakrishnan, a former IIT-Madras alumnus, will have a chat on mentoring with D Ashok, chief executive officer, Gossamer Consultants, another former IIT- Madras alumnus.

Mentors taking part in the event include Aji Arjun, director, Talent Acquisition, Yahoo;  Ashok Misra, chairman, India and Head of Global Alliances of Intellectual Ventures; MD Ramaswami,  director, Polama.com; Madhu Chadda, director, Saat Rang Productions and Personality Matters; Madhusudan V Atre, president, Applied Materials India; Parag Dhol, director, Inventus Capital Partners and Paritosh Segal, senior VP, Patni Computer Systems, Head of Innovation and Research Lab.