Category: Alumni in News

Dr. Ajay Sethi is a Venture Partner at Accel India. He obtained his Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1990. He also acquired his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rice University in 1996. His Ph.D. dissertation received the ‘Best Paper Award’ at the High-Performance Computing conference. He earned a Certificate in Finance from the University of California, Berkeley in 2000.nnAfter completing his Ph.D., Dr. Sethi joined Oracle in the Bay Area in 1997. This was the beginning of the internet era and everyone needed a scalable and flexible platform to store the exploding amount of data that was being generated and, as a result, Oracle grew rapidly. This also amplified the need to parallelize the execution of programs written in procedural languages. Dr. Sethi leveraged the parallel and distributed computing/compliers experience he’d gained during his Ph.D. and B. Tech. studies. He moved to Bangalore in 2000, just before the dot-com bubble burst.nnIn 2005, Dr. Sethi left Oracle to start his own company. The Indian startup ecosystem at the time was nascent and his first startup ‘Ziva Software’ was amongst the initial cohort of companies that raised institutional venture capital in India. ‘Ziva Software’ was selected as an innovative startup in India and was nominated to present at the Mobile World Congress.nnAfter an enriching startup journey, Dr. Sethi joined Accel India – one of the largest and most successful venture capital firms. As a venture partner, he had the opportunity to work with and advise hundreds of startups; several of which scaled up rapidly to become household brand names in India and across the world.nnDuring his work at Oracle and Ziva, Dr. Sethi filed several patents in the areas of parallel programming, mobile search engine technology, search networking etc. More recently, one of the papers authored by him was voted and ranked amongst the top-35 papers (out of a total of 1800 papers published between 1987 and 2011) by the International Supercomputing Conference.nnRecollecting an instance from the monsoon rains in 1987 when he was at IIT Bombay, Dr. Sethi said, “We had returned back to IIT Bombay after our summer vacation and the entire campus was thoroughly drenched by the beautiful monsoon rains. Cack sessions were in full swing. And then everything changed. One of my friends tragically lost his 16-year-old sister due to the monsoon-related localized flooding.”nnIntrospecting further he asks, “Why are we here? Are we destined to live the roller coaster life dictated by the unrelenting karmic cycle – or do we have the ability to script the captivating drama in our lives? Can we influence at least the ending of our lives? There’s nothing unique about these questions; Indic rishis have posed these questions since millennia. But these questions have stayed with me since that traumatic day”.nnDr. Sethi, in collaboration with his batchmates and several IIT Bombay faculty members helped define and jump-start the IDEAS Program, a Legacy Project of the Class of 1990. In the first three years, the IDEAS Program supported more than 100 teams; several of them graduated to the next level and a few of them successfully raised funding from investors. But why IDEAS Program? Dr. Sethi explains that there are two ways to create value: inside-out thinking and outside-in thinking. Inside out thinking manifests as cutting-edge research and, subsequently, as ventures that commercializes IP-led innovations. Outside-in thinking manifests as customer centric and market-centric ventures that strive to identify customer pain-points or market gaps. In order to maximize value creation, it is important to expose innovators and creators to both these mechanisms so that they can choose the most suited value creation engine that meets their needs.nnThe IDEAS Program makes the mechanics and frameworks of outside-in thinking available to everyone at IIT Bombay. Its goal is to support any IITian willing to roll-up his/ her sleeves to gain invaluable experiential knowledge. In order to do this in a scalable manner, the IDEAS Program is an alumni supported program that leverages the expertise and experience of past entrepreneurs to contextualize frameworks and mentor teams through different stages of their journey with relevant actionable insights.nnDr. Sethi’s hobbies include traveling and says, “I love visiting places and, together with my family, have been fortunate to travel to and explore several countries across the globe. I am also a sports and outdoors enthusiast. I got to observe creative geniuses and magicians while playing football, hockey, volleyball (despite my 5’3” height!), etc. for H2 and greased my way to the “Sports Colour” award”nn nnMotivation towards contribution to IIT Bombay nn“Whilst collaborating with hundreds of startups at ‘Accel’, I realized that there are distinct patterns that enable early-stage startups to validate their ability to create value, and later-stage startups to accelerate their growth trajectory. In order to share these learnings with more entrepreneurs, I worked to build a not-for-profit platform that caters to the broader Indian startup ecosystem. During the Silver Jubilee Reunion of our batch in 2015, the Class of 1990 donated generously to start/ support Legacy Projects. One of these projects was the IDEAS Program which enabled anyone at IIT Bombay to get a jumpstart on his/her entrepreneurial journey. Given my experience and interests, this was a wonderful way for me to contribute back to IIT Bombay”.nnSharing other interesting facts about his time at IIT Bombay, Dr. Sethi, said, “I’ve been interested in spirituality from my IIT Bombay days. I used to see the beautiful golden spires of the pagodas in Igatpuri during my train rides between Bhopal (hometown) and Mumbai. Curiosity led to learn about the Vipassana technique and, around a decade back, I finally attended the long-overdue, 10-day silent Vipassana session. This and subsequent sessions intensified the yearning to understand the connection between science and spirituality. And if you look at the big picture – these two should be the two sides of the same coin – complementary paths for observing and understanding the ultimate reality. This led me to write ‘Songs of Science’, a book that explores the foundations of science and to define Indic science’s worldview that can accelerate scientific enquiry about the nature of reality”

Mr. Girish Nayak is currently the Chief – Service, Operations and Technology at ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited. Mr. Nayak pursued his Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1991. He completed his postgraduate diploma in Business Administration from IIM Ahmedabad in 1994.nnMr. Girish Nayak is a finance professional with 27 years of experience across the banking and insurance sectors. He has spent his career with the ICICI Group across various companies and functions, responsible for a diverse range of businesses like project finance, corporate finance, and private banking. He was also a part of the e-commerce team of the bank which was responsible for launching many of the initial internet properties of ICICI Bank, including the direct banking businesses in Canada and the UK.nnOver the years, Mr. Nayak has won many awards, both as a private banker and as a technologist, including the Asia Insurance Review-Celent IT Leadership Award and the MintSAP Digitalist Award.nnMr. Nayak fondly remembers his years on campus as perhaps the best period of his life. The bonds of friendship made in those years have stood the test of time and have only grown stronger.nnMr. Nayak’s initial volunteering for alumni activity started with the organization of the 15-year reunion for the Class of 1991 (C’91) in 2006. He was one of the batch leads for C’91 during the Silver Jubilee Reunion (SJRU) in December 2016. The reunion saw Girish Nayak B.Tech., 1991 Chemical Engineering 11 an enthusiastic turnout with over 140 alumni coming together to IIT Bombay’s campus. The C’91 batch also raised a record-breaking Rs. 8 crores in terms of pledges for their Legacy Project earmarked for student-related causesnn nnMotivation towards contribution to IIT Bombay nn“IIT Bombay has contributed tremendously into making me the person I am today. Volunteering for alumni activities is, therefore, an opportunity to give back. It is my way of saying thank you to my alma mater which has given me so much! It also gives me an opportunity to stay connected with the Institute and the faculty.”

Mr. Kiran Shesh is a consultant to the Continuing Education Program (CEP) Office at IIT Bombay. He completed his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering in 1988 and his MBA from the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management (SJMSoM) from IIT Bombay in 2004.nnMr. Shesh started his career as a sales professional and moved up the ladder developing other skills like Business Finance, Operations, Team Development leading up to General Management. He also has over 25 years of industry experience, mainly around industrial products in the manufacturing sector. Prior to his association with IIT Bombay’s Executive Education department, he successfully led business operations and expansion initiatives. He has worked in multinational corporations like Sulzer, Monsanto, and his last corporate position was as Managing Director of Pall India and VP South East Asia. Pall India is a 100% subsidiary of Pall Corporation US, a $2.7 billion filtration company.nnHe is a professional certified coach from International Coach Federation (ICF) through ACSTH (Approved Coach Specific Training Hours) and has over 10 years of experience in the field of leadership and executive coaching.nnHis memories associated with IIT Bombay include late night walks for omelette-paav at Rainbow, tearing TOI crossword puzzles at 6:30 a.m., beating H8 in the inter-hostel footer match, fleecing seniors for beers at RK after their US scholarships, dry dinners on Fridays followed by Kiran Shesh B.Tech., 1988 Chemical Engineering 9 a movie at the Convocation Hall and dancing back to the hostel after getting D grades and sitting next to a sulking Maggu who got As and Bs. “My BTP presentation was probably the only time when my guide beat me down and an external examiner tried to save me. Usually, it is the other way round,” added Mr. Shesh.nnMotivation towards contribution to IIT Bombay nn“Support from IIT Bombay’s ecosystem has made me the person that I am today. It was during the Class of 1987 Silver Jubilee Reunion (SJRU) when I met my senior hostel mates at H4. Some of them were very successful entrepreneurs or distinguished academicians. We all had reached different  milestones in our lives but we all behaved the exact same way as we did 25 years ago. Our bonds of friendship as fellow IITians was very strong. I saw the richness of the relationships I had with my fellow alums and felt motivated to volunteer and give back in some way”.