Month: August 2021

Mr. Dhananjay Saheba is a Founder and Managing director of iJunxion, a company focused on value added telecom services.nnAfter graduating In Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay in the year 1977, Mr. Saheba completed his MSEE from Columbia University in 1979 and an additional qualification in Electrical Engineering from the same University in 1980.nnOut of several wonderful memories of IIT Bombay, Mr. Saheba particularly recollects the day when he appeared for the final exam on Fluid Mechanics in the Convocation Hall. After reading the entire question paper, he realized that he had probably studied from the wrong text book! The average class score in that particular exam was 4 out of 50. Another amazing experience, he fondly remembers was hitch-hiking from Borivali to Daman with fellow classmate Kiran, after having missed the train they were supposed to catch. The impact of IIT Bombay on his life was felt even years later when Mr. Saheba appeared for his first job interview with a company called RCA for a hardware designer position. “The only time I had studied this particular subject in design, was in the third year of IIT and acing that interview nearly five years later made me realize that I had infact learnt a lot at IIT Bombay,” he informed.nnMr. Saheba takes keen interest in IIT Bombay and has been an active participant in the alumni activities of the Class of ’77. He was one of the key leaders of the team that successfully organized 25th reunion of their batch. The team in fact initiated a donation drive during the reunion and carried it on for the next few years. He moreover, played a vital role in organizing the 35th reunion of his batch in 2012.  “The IITs are amazing institutions funded by the people of India. Contributing to the alumni activities of my alma mater, is a way of saying thank you to my fellow citizens for their incredible generosity. Hopefully, I am also contributing in some ways to make IIT Bombay a greater institution,” he added. Mr. Saheba continues to be at the forefront of donation programs for the Institute as well as other alumni activities such as students mentoring and Fundamatics.nnLot of people are aware that Mr. Saheba is an accomplished photographer, but not many know that he also tried his hand at acting in a Hindi movie, which was being made for television. “In my debut movie, one of the first scenes I had to do was a song and dance sequence, which was one of the toughest things I have ever done. After the third retake the director walked up to me and said – Saheba, you have no rhythm!,” he shared.

Mr. Ajay Bhagwat is the Founder and Managing Director of Renu Electronics, headquartered in Pune and having sales offices in US, Europe and Singapore. The company was one of the first in the country to be in the Global ‘products’ business and has been a leader in the industry.  Under his leadership, Renu Electronics was adjudged as the best company in Electronics, in the State of Maharashtra, several times. Mr. Bhagwat has also been a founder of several other companies and has served as a Director on the boards of various companies including KPIT Information Technology Ltd., Cummins Information Technology Ltd., Electronica Mechatronics Ltd., Prizm Electronics Inc., LR Med Inc., and many others.  Over the years, Mr. Bhagwat has been conferred the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ Award by various organizations including “Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award” by Entrepreneurs International in 2013.nnAfter completing his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay, Mr. Bhagwat did his MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Iowa, United States. During his IIT days, he was an active participant in the cultural and other activities of the institute. He was the General Secretary of the hostel and was a part of the core committee of all the Mood Indigo events, held during those years. He was moreover, the founding member of ‘Surbahar,’ the musical evening that IIT Bombay organizes till date.nnMr. Bhagwat has been a passionate supporter of fostering entrepreneurship on campus and has been assisting E-Cell in its various activities.  He is one of the founding Charter Members of the Pune Chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE ) and has led the mentorship programs for several years.  He is also the Chairman of the Electronics Committee of the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA), Pune.nnAs the latest stint of bringing IITB alumni’s together, Mr. Bhagwat co-founded the “Y Point Orchestra,” which is an IITB alumni group of music performers. The band allows the alumni to nurture and showcase their musical talent. Mr. Bhagwat himself plays Piano Accordion in the Orchestra. His other passions include playing Keyboards and rhythm instruments, Competitive bridge, Chess, listening to music, Trekking and Traveling.

Dr. Amol A. Gokhale  took over as Director of Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL) in February 2013. Ever since he joined the DMRL (part of DRDO) in Hyderabad in 1985, Dr. Gokhale has been involved with the development of light alloys, metal foams and high temperature materials for aerospace and defense applications. He supported transfer of titanium sponge technology to public sector unit KMML in Kerala recently. He moreover, led collaborative projects with Russia and Belarus on advanced light materials.nnBesides a B.Tech. Degree in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science from IIT Bombay, Dr. Gokhale holds an MS (1980) and PhD (1985) in Metallurgical Engineering, both from University of Pittsburgh, USA. During his second year at IIT Bombay, Dr. Gokhale was among the bottom 10% students of his class. However, good counselling and support from batch mates turned things around and he graduated with a second position in his class. A pep talk by Prof. G.S. Tendolkar on health management, during his IIT days, also made a lasting impression on Dr. Gokhale. “The stories of crocodiles in the Powai lake were making round, but never trusted till some of us came face to face with the aquatic tetrapod during one of the boating sessions! Friday night movies along with dinner and musical sessions on the terrace of H7 meant ultimate relaxation for us. The Mood Indigo of 1978 was another memorable event, when I played a little part as the Music Secretary of the Gymkhana. IIT Bombay was the first place where I ventured into singing in public.  The hobby graduated to taking lessons in Classical Music,” he recollected. He also got into the habit of reading during this time.nnDr. Gokhale has forged strong links with IIT Bombay by promoting high quality research in Mechanical, Metallurgical and Chemical Engineering departments through collaborative projects related to advanced materials and process development.  These interactions have proved to be mutually beneficial to the institute as well as to DRDO. He has several joint publications with faculty members of IIT Bombay to his credit. He played an important role in the initiation of two new DRDO-supported research projects in Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Sciences (MEMS) Department. Besides these, several IIT students and DMRL scientists have been supervised or co-sueprvised by Dr Gokhale for their M. Tech. and Ph. D. thesis. “I have miles to go on this front, the possibilities of my contributing to the growth of my alma mater are endless,” he concluded.

Mr. Shankar Narayan is the Regional Sales Director of HCL Technologies. He leads business development for HCL Technologies for HiTech industry segment in the West Coast. Mr. Narayan has more than two decades of experience in sales and business development across diverse industries such as automotive, manufacturing, food, pharma, fertilizers and chemicals, systems and controls and lately IT.nnSince 2013, he is on the IITBHF board as a Treasurer, where he manages the financial aspects of the Foundation and oversees the compliance and audit of its book of accounts. He works closely to ensure that the donor interests, experience and stewardship is fostered and has taken several initiatives to transform IITBHF activities, infrastructure and methods. These include, Database cleaning, updating Web Infrastructure and  creating iCAN – an endowment in the US. He also plays a significant role in partnering with the Board and EC members to drive greater alumni interactions nationwide, supporting, reviving and fostering new chapters. Playing Bridge is his hobby.

Mr. Saumil Majmudar is the Co-founder and Managing Director of EduSports, which is India’s largest school sports enterprise and manages the sports/ Physical Education programmes in 400 schools across 80+ cities in India and overseas (UAE, Qatar, Nepal) – helping over 300,000 children get healthier and fitter through the magic of sportsnnnAfter completing his B.Tech. in Met. Engg. & Mat. Science, from IIT Bombay in 1993, Mr. Majmudar did PGDM from IIM Bangalore. He has also undertaken a Basic Mountaineering Degree from Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and pursued Ignite Entrepreneurship Programme at Cambridge, UK. At IIT Bombay, he resided in Hostel No. 7 and was the Sports Secretary, Sports Councillor and a member of the NSO’s Badminton and Inter-IIT Football team. “IIT Bombay was a revelation for atleast three things – finding that the guys who ragged you the most, turn out to be your best buddies, learning to appreciate home-cooked food a lot more, and that many smart folks could actually balance academics and lukhagiri,” he fondly recollects. Even while building EduSports, he found his stint as a Sports Secretary very helpful. “I am perhaps one of the few IIT-ians, who has applied what he actually learnt at IIT!,” he adds.nnMr. Majmudar started his career in 1995 at Wipro’s Global R&D, as a part of the International Sales team. However, he decided to follow his heart and turned entrepreneur in 1998, first in technology and later in sports. Over the last 15 years as an entrepreneur, he has experienced pivoting, raising funds from Angels and VCs, building a team, getting early customers, failing and then re-building a platform to scale the business. Since 2003, he has been trying to build a business around getting children to play and started SportzVillage, which later morphed into EduSports. Mr. Majmudar has been listed in the ‘Top 50 Leaders Impacting Indian Education’ by Education World. He has received ‘CII Emerging Entrepreneur Award’ by the Confederation of Indian Industries and has been featured on CNBC’s ‘Young Turk’ and Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate.nnReading, Karate (holds a brown belt and hopes to get a black belt soon), playing football, badminton, and mountaineering are his hobbies.

Mr. Rajendra Laad is a management and technology consultant providing vision and strategy for big data governance, integration and analytics. Prior to consulting he was a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Pristine Infotech – a provider of mobile and Business Intelligence Analytics (BIA) solutions. He spearheaded development and management of mobile and BIA platforms and drove mobile platform to reduce labor costs by 35% while improving workforce productivity and realizing margin improvements of 3%-5% for customers, alongwith increasing their revenues. Before joining Pristine, Mr. Laad founded GURU Technology and partnered with client executives to establish vision, strategy and engineered solutions of millions of dollars, while collaborating with multi-functional teams across the globe. He earlier, worked at Lotus and Informix.nnnBesides a B.Tech. Degree in Electrical Engineering, Mr. Laad holds an M.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering (1985) from IIT Bombay. He later undertook management courses in, New Businesses in Established Organizations,  Efficient Project Management, Leadership for Senior Executives, and Effective Meeting Management. Mr. Laad has co-authored a patent and has delivered presentations at various IT conferences and user groups. He is a member of IEEE and TiE.nnAccording to Mr. Laad, the time spent at IIT Bombay was the best phase of his life, where he was able to forge ever-lasting friendships. Recalling Holi celebrations on Campus, he says, “The bhang prepared in my hostel H4 was infamous. In my 3rd year, few mess workers placed copper coins in the bhang, increasing its effect manifold. It is said that one keeps repeating actions after consuming bhang and that year I experienced it myself! I tried to make my friends laugh and in the process, laughed uncontrollably. Later I went to my room and slept. That was the deepest sleep I have ever experienced, where I dreamt of floating in the air like a trishanku.”nnnThe education and extra-curricular activities, offered at the Institute, played a pivotal role in shaping him and his career. He was involved in several student activities during his college days such as in GS Sports, Hostel Council, Mood Indigo and Inter-IIT Sports Meets and played various sports like volleyball, hiking/trekking and kabaddi. Alumni activities are just a continuation of his association with IIT Bombay. “It is imperative to give back to one’s alma mater, which lays the foundation of one’s life. Additionally, in today’s competitive landscape, IIT Bombay needs support and involvement of its alumni to raise its brand in the world,” adds Mr. Laad.nnMr. Laad enjoys biking, watching sports on TV and travelling.

Mr. Atul Narkhede is the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and Joint-Managing Director of Great Software Laboratory Pvt. Ltd. (GS Lab) and leads the business and technology strategy for the product development services company. He is also a co-founder and CTO of kPoint Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a technology spin-off from GS Lab in the interactive search-able video space. Prior to joining GS Lab, Mr. Narkhede was a Fellow at Strand Genomics, Bangalore, architecting the flagship data-mining and scientific visualization product Avadis from Strand. Avadis is currently deployed with premier R&D pharmaceutical organizations throughout the world, as well as bioinformatics departments in universities and research labs. Earlier, he was the Chief Architect at Tessera Systems Pvt. Ltd, Hyderabad, where he led the definition and implementation of the declarative ‘Web Services Definition Framework’ product at Tessera. He was also a member of the high-end graphics group at Silicon Graphics Inc, Mountain View, CA where he worked on graphics microcode and compilers for vector programming for custom graphics-accelerator ASICs. He has two publications and seven patents to his credit.nnnMr. Narkhede received his B.Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1993 and he did his MS in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Recalling his undergraduate days, he says, “We used to ignore security warnings about swimming in the Vihar lake and routinely went for swimming in the lake. One week it rained a lot, resulting into overflowing of the lake and imagine our surprise when we saw a large crocodile by the pipeline, near the railway track. A huge crowd gathered to view the reptile and drove it back into the water. We never went swimming in the lake again!”nn“My tryst with IIT Bombay was one of the most stimulating, exciting and enriching experience of my life and I like to relive those moments by associating with folks who share this common legacy. Besides the networking opportunities offered by this activity, it helps me stay in touch with friends and fellow alumni. The Chapter also provides a platform for making a positive change in the society by bringing thoughts of leaders and innovators into public domain. Alumni activities also help me give back to the IITB in a small measure, it is my way to express my gratification and gives me immense satisfaction,” shares Mr. Narkhede.nnAn avid traveller, Mr. Narkhede enjoys jogging, cycling, trekking and spends weekends wandering around the Sahyadris and long Himalayan treks. He infact, took several months off to undertake an unplanned, solo trip, all across India to explore the country. “It was a great experience, which reaffirmed my faith in the Indian society,” he adds. Mr. Narkhede also takes keen interest in Hindustani Vocal music and Sanskrit, and have driven some of the earliest online Sanskrit documentation projects in the 90s.

Mr. Abhishek Mangalick is the Chief Executive Officer at Ecosense Sustainable Solutions Pvt. Ltd..  He did his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 2004. Soon after his graduation, he joined Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited as Engineer Projects and served there for one-and-a-half years.nnnMr. Mangalick founded V2Learn in 2006 to create technology based educational solutions for the Indian and US market. The organization successfully implemented online tutoring in Mathematics in American schools, winning accolades from various quarters for its highest quality products, and works closely with various State governments. In 2010, he moved on to establish Ecosense.

Mr. Rajesh Radhakrishnan is a consultant and advisor to senior management of companies from the engineered products, manufacturing and education sectors. He was trained cross-functionally across customer-facing and back-end functions. His international, cross-cultural training includes on-the-ground experience managing businesses in North America, India, France/ Western Europe, Brazil, Indonesia and China. He is currently the Director at Eaton, a $22B electrical and industrial products manufacturer, with responsibility for Strategy, Mergers-Acquisitions, Business Development. Prior to this, he had Vice President responsibilities in three functional areas – Marketing, Strategy- BD Business Development -M&A Mergers & Acquisitions, and P&L Profit & Loss management of International Operations – at Tecumseh Products in Michigan ($2B), Pentair in Minnesota ($3.5B), Larsen & Toubro ($12B) in India, and Elgi Equipment ($200M) in India.nnMr. Radhakrishnan has a B.Tech. in Metallurgy from IIT Bombay and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, with specialization in Strategy, Marketing & Finance. Sharing his memories of IIT Bombay he says, “I still remember coming to IIT Bombay as a scared kid from a small town in Kerala, and then going on to build my confidence on a variety of things ranging from debating in the Hostel GBM seniors feared by all for their verbal skills, being on the quiz team, editing the campus magazine, being Social Secretary who had to go talk to young ladies from South Bombay colleges to arrange socials, … and earning a Lit Scroll and a Best Sportsman in the final years. Earning a cohort group with whom we have strange languages & rituals, but at the end of the day we have the loyalty and love of brothers & sisters.  After the 25-year reunion, it feels that I can pick up the phone and call about 100 people in 50 different cities around the world at 8pm and say, “arrey boss, I am in town – can we meet?”  OR “boss – I need some help with.”nnHe adds further, “I will never forget the patience and gentleness of Professors PK Rao and NB Ballal, my dept head and BTP guide, who were gentle with me but did not hesitate to give me tough love so that I would focus more on academics (while acknowledging my enthusiasm for Department and campus activities) … and helped me to get back to basics in my 3^rd and 4^th years.”nnHe is passionate about Asian Americans as a constructive and engaged voice at the table in the future of Michigan, and creating meaningful coalitions among Asian Americans of widely different national backgrounds building on common shared values of family & community, the immigrant experience & drive for excellence, and social justice. He serves on the Board of Directors of Asian Pacific Islander APIA Vote Michigan and as a Parent VP of Diversity & Inclusion at the Roeper School. Mr. Radhakrishnan served during 2000-2012 in leadership and on the boards of several non-profit organizations in the US and India – organizations like the Cleveland Education Fund, Southeastern Youth and Family Services in Milwaukee, Compatible Technology International in Minneapolis, and IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation.  Rajesh volunteers with his kids at the Humane Animal Society (India), Michigan Humane Society, and Puddingstone Farms, a woman-owned farm in Southeastern Michigan.nnMotivation towards contribution to IITB:nnVolunteering with the IIT Alumni group is a duty to one’s family, it is an honor to be part of the family that shaped me, and it is a pleasure to do what I can.

Mr. Pramod Chaudhari is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Praj Industries Limited which is considered to be India’s most successful biofuels company. His career spans over 40 years of professional and entrepreneurial endeavour. After completing his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1971, he started working as an Production executive on shop floor at Force Motors. He worked with the company  till 1975 and then went on to join Widia (India), where he handled Technical Sales & Services of Cutting Tools till the year 1981.  It was in the year 1984 that he  established Praj. Since then he has built Praj into a global company. Today, he is intensifying the company’s activities into the knowledge domain of biotech processes and systems in the global arena. The focus is on clean technologies coupled with alternate feedstocks for renewable energy sources. To strengthen his corporate expertise, he attended Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School in 1995. He has contributed to the National Biofuels Policy as a member of the Committee on Development of Biofuels – Planning Commission, Government of India, for introduction of renewable fuels to India.nnMr. Chaudhari, has been actively engaged with IIT Bombay for many years. He has contributed significantly towards up-gradation of facilities at the Institute including expansion of laboratories, sponsoring chair professorship and in an advisory role on various committees. He is member of Governing Board of SINE (Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship) at the Institute and Member of the IIT Bombay Advisory Council. IIT Bombay recognized his contribution towards modernization of laboratory by naming it the ‘Parimal and Pramod Chaudhari Laboratory for Cell Culture’. He has instituted a chair professorship called ‘Pramod Chaudhari Chair Professorship for Green Chemistry and Industrial Biotechnology’. Praj Industries is also associated with IIT Bombay through ‘Praj Industries Chair Professorship for Energy Sciences and Engineering’ and; ‘Praj Bioprocessing Laboratory’ under DBT-Pan IIT Centre for BioEnergy.nnHis most cherished moment at IIT Bombay was when he participated in Shramdaan by IITB to build a school near Patan (Dist. Satara) after Koyna earthquake. In his leisure time, he likes to read, watch films and mentor young entrepreneurs.nnMotivation towards contribution to IITB: Belief and confidence from next generation youth to take India to newer heights.