Tag: DAA

IIT Kharagpur honours Shri Sundar Pichai with DSc Honoris Causa & Mrs. Anjali Pichai with Distinguished Alumnus Award

Excellence embodies the relentless pursuit of the highest standards, driven by an unwavering commitment to continuous improvement and innovation. It transcends conventional measures of success, focusing instead on achieving exceptional quality and performance through dedication, expertise, and a passionate commitment to one’s craft. Those who embody excellence are not satisfied with merely meeting expectations; they aim to exceed them, setting new benchmarks and inspiring others to reach their fullest potential. This pursuit involves a cycle of persistent learning, thoughtful reflection, and tireless effort, reflecting a deep dedication to personal and professional growth. In essence, excellence is a journey rather than a destination, characterized by the drive to push boundaries and redefine what is possible, both for oneself and for those around them. This attribute has been embodied by our most illustrious Alum Shri Sundarajan Pichai and his wife Mrs. Anjali Pichai.

In a momentous occasion of pride, IIT Kharagpur honoured Shri Sundar Pichai with the Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) Award and Mrs. Anjali Pichai with Distinguished Alumnus Award in San Francisco. Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur in the presence of Sundar Pichai’s parents and their daughter Ms. Kavya Pichai bestowed the award to the Google Scion.

 
(L-R) Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Deputy Director, IIT Kharagpur; Shri Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google; Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur & Prof. Debashish Chakravarty, Dean, Alumni Affairs, IIT Kharagpur

The award ceremony was attended by renowned alumni of IIT Kharagpur including Vinod Gupta & Ranbir Gupta along with Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Deputy Director and Prof. Debashish Chakravarty, Dean Alumni Affairs of the institute.

“Last week I was grateful to receive an honorary doctorate from my alma mater IIT Kharagpur. My parents always hoped I would get my doctorate, I think an honorary one still counts (smiley). The access to education and technology at IIT put me on a path to Google and helping more people access technology. IIT’s role in technology will only grow in importance with the AI revolution, and I will always be thankful for my time there,” cited Mr. Sundar Pichai, Illustrious Alumnus of IIT Kharagpur & CEO of Google [https://www.instagram.com/p/C938BlwxKGB/?img_index=1]

A B.Tech (Hons) in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, Shri Sundararajan Pichai is recognized by the third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India. He stands as a quintessence of inspiration to the millions of Indians who aspire to dream big. Shri Pichai is the CEO of Alphabet Inc. and Google who led a technological revolution as the Senior Vice President and Product Chief at Google launching popular products like iGoogle, Google Toolbar, Desktop Search and Gadgets, Google Pack, and Gears. With more than 15 years of experience developing high-tech consumer and enterprise products, he is the pride of every Indian. Building technologies that improves the lives of people around the world, he has shaped the global economy by strengthening partnerships between governments, businesses and communities over two transformative decades.

(L-R) Kavya Pichai, Daughter of Mr. Pichai; Mr. Regunatha Pichai, Father of Mr. Pichai; Mrs. Lakshmi Pichai, Mother of Mr. Pichai; Prof. Rintu Banerjee, Deputy Director, IIT Kharagpur; Mrs. Anjali Pichai (Haryani), Alumnus & Wife of Mr. Pichai; Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur; Shri Sundar Pichai, Alumnus & CEO of Google; Shri Vinod Gupta, Alumnus & CEO and Chairman of infoGROUP; Shri Ranbir Gupta, Alumnus & President of Gupta Associates Inc., and Chairman of SIGMA7 and Prof. Debashish Chakravarty, Dean, Alumni Affairs, IIT Kharagpur.

In recognition of his remarkable contribution towards digital transformation, affordable technology and path breaking innovations, the Hon’ble President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu, Visitor of the Institute, bestowed the degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) in absentia at the 69th Convocation of IIT Kharagpur held on December 18, 2023.

Shri Sundar Pichai receiving the DSc Honoris Causa from Prof. V K Tewari

On receiving the Doctor of Science Award from his Alma Mater, Shri Sundar Pichai remarked, “This is indeed a great honour that IIT Kharagpur has bestowed on me. I am truly blessed and humbled to receive this award from Prof. Tewari in presence of my family and friends. Standing with this award in my hands reminds me of the young boy that I was who dreamed to be in the world that I am trying to create with my inventions. IIT Kharagpur holds a special place in my heart as this was the place where I first met my beloved wife, Anjali and had beautiful memories of my second home that I grew up in. The ambience, the people, the environment, the culture imparts a diaspora of knowledge learnings that one can implement in shaping up their practical wisdom. I am grateful to my institute for rewarding me with this award and there is nothing in the world that can compare to this emotional euphoria that I feel right now. I look forward to connect with IIT KGP manifesting greater technological solutions in partnership with Google. KGP ka tempo high hai! ,” added Shri Sundar Pichai.

Mrs Anjali Pichai (Haryani) receives the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Prof. Rintu Banerjee

Ms Anjali Pichai is a highly accomplished professional with a background in Chemical Engineering, earning her B.Tech honours degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 1993. Commencing her career in the early 1990s, Anjali initially served as a Business Analyst at Accenture, contributing her expertise for a span of three years. Venturing into the United States, Anjali transitioned her career as a Business Analyst at Sun Microsystems. She held the position of Business Operation Manager at Intuit, a prominent software company. Anjali’s career trajectory reflects her dedication and proficiency in the technology and business sectors.

The Awardees with their family and friends

 

Prof. V K Tewari, Director of IIT Kharagpur, expressed his delight in honoring both Sundar and Anjali Pichai, stating, “Their achievements exemplify the spirit of innovation and excellence that IIT Kharagpur seeks to instill in its students. We are privileged to recognize their outstanding contributions to the global technology industry and wish more laurels and attributes are added to their stature.”

                       

Shri Sundar Pichai meeting the Alumni of IIT Kharagpur including Rabir Gupta & Vinod Gupta

The awards ceremony underscores IIT Kharagpur’s commitment to celebrating the achievements of its alumni who have made significant contributions to society and industry worldwide.

By : Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

Follow us on: Facebook – IIT Kharagpur; Twitter – @IITKgp;  Instagram – @iit.kgp; LinkedIn – Indian Institute of Technology
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“Visiting IIT KGP is the greatest joy and a timeless experience,” said Prof. Sudipta Seal on receiving the Distinguished Alumnus Award 2018

Prof. Sudipta Seal is an eminent scientist, entrepreneur and a distinguished professor who was honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award 2018 by IIT Kharagpur in the 64th Convocation of the Institute. Recently, he revisited his Alma Mater after a gap of many years to take a walk down the memory lane, reminiscing his college days and reuniting with his mentors and professors. While visiting his department and his hall, he sank into the depths of memorabilia and the evergreen nostalgic pages of his life. He was bestowed with Distinguished Alumnus Award which he was unable to collect previously, by Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur in the august presence of Prof. Amit Patra, Deputy Director; Prof. Krishna Kumar, Dean FoS; Prof. P K Dutta, Dean FoID & BTBS; Prof. Saibal Gupta, Associate Dean, Faculty of Sciences (FoS); Prof. Sujit Kumar Dash, Associate Dean, FoE&A; Prof. Debashish Chakravarty, Associate Dean International Ranking & Alumni Affairs and Captain Amit Jain (Retd.), Registrar, IIT Kharagpur.

He is currently the chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, as well as a Pegasus Professor and University Distinguished Professor at the University of Central Florida (UFC). Prof. Seal joined the Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center at UCF  in 1997. He has been consistently productive in research, instruction and service to UCF since 1998. He has served as the Nano Initiative Coordinator for the Vice President of Research and Commercialization. He served as the Director of Advanced Materials Processing Analysis Centre (AMPAC), NanoScience Technology Center (NSTC), UCF College of Medicine, University of Central Florida, USA.

Prof. Seal completed his B.Tech in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in 1990 and won the Institute Blue for outstanding performance in sports and games at IIT Kharagpur. He did his M.Met from the University of Sheffield, UK and PhD in Material Science and Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Milwauke, USA in 1996.

Prof. Seals’ outstanding research has developed surface engineered nanoscale transition metal and rare-earth oxide ceramics for catalysis, energetics and nano-biomedicine. He has developed the patented scalable methods for template nano-oxide particles. He engineered nanoceria (3-5 nm) with switchable valence states with regeneration capability. Using a similar concept, his team developed spherical nano-ZrO2 ceramics without doping with metastable tetragonal crystal structure and explained for the first time the reduced activation energy for grain growth in nano binary oxides.

He discovered the antioxidant properties of nanoceria by controlling defect chemistry and has created a unique field in inorganice nano-antioxidants for medicine. He believes that the unique structure of nano-particles with respect to valence and oxygen defects, promotes cell longevity scavenging super-oxide radicals produced in excess in cellular matrix and regenerate stem cell. This research is immensely significant for both cancer therapy and glaucoma.

“Material Science and Engineering has become an important interdisciplinary field and I feel this because I am associated with it like in computation materials and lunar surfaces. We at UFC hire mainly in strategic directions, now there are 6 of them, one is cybersonic, another is energy, then space mining for space centre etc. We are surrounded by large companies including Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi Power Corporations and Siemens. Currently, we are looking at start-ups and space sciences. Being in IIT KGP has been one of the greatest joys and a timeless experience. I still remember my time, when I was in the RK hall. While visiting the hall again, I felt a plethora of emotions that this place shares with me. KGP ka tempo high rahe”

Prof. Seal has also developed multi-functional nanomaterial additives for aerospace nanoenergetics and his research in power plant fly ash waste has created unique chemistry of ash particles with nano structures that can be used to clean up oil spills.

The academic units that Dr. Seal overseas are continuously creating new inventions and technology at UFC. Dr. Seal has published more than 400 journal papers, book chapters, and three books on nanotechnology. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Materials, American Association of Advancement of Science, American Vacumm Society, Institute of Nanotechnology-UK, National Academy of Inventors, Electrochemical Society and the American Institute of Medical & Biological Engineering.

Prof. Seal has won the prestigious Schwartz Tech Award and was recently elected to the World Academy of Ceramics. He hold 48 US patents and his technology is licensed to multiple companies, many of them start-ups such as nSolGellnc, nTiOX, NanoCelLC and Helicon.

Inputs by: Anamika Das, Executive, Office of the Alumni Affairs
Email: deanfoea@iitkgp.ac.in; vcjee1@adm.iitkgp.ac.in; Ph. No: +91-3222-281860

Edited By: Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

Follow us: Facebook – IIT Kharagpur; Twitter – @IITKgp;  Instagram – @iit.kgp; LinkedIn – Indian Institute of Technology
For news visit: https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/ 

An evening to remember

You would have mistaken him for a student. Dark cropped hair, back-pack in place, an incredibly young-looking Debendra Das Sharma approached me for his interview at the Technology Guest House on the evening before the 65th Convocation. He was returning to the campus after more than two decades and was incredibly happy to be back.

As Principal Engineer in Intel Corporation, Sharma has been leading the development of PCI Express since its inception two decades back through six generations of evolution of the technology. He has played a key role in evolving PCI Express as a ubiquitous I/O interconnect in the industry, spanning the entire compute continuum. More recently, he has led the development of Compute Express Link, an interconnect technology to harness the power of the heterogeneous processing elements. He drives the evolution of this technology with a consortium of 75 companies.

Yet he feels “humbled” to be a recipient of the DAA. “Looking at the calibre of the people receiving the award, you always feel, am I good enough?…It is such an illustrious group of people,” he told me that evening, shaking his head, as if still unable to believe his good fortune.

Sharma appeared to be slightly uneasy at not having been an “active alumnus”. “I just got busy”, he said apologetically. His eyes sparkled as we got talking about his time at IIT KGP. He recalled a professor whose homework the entire class had decided to give a miss. “If you don’t do the work, my salary remains the same, but you don’t gain anything,” the professor had said. And those words had profoundly affected Sharma, making him conscious of the value of time and real learning.

“My foundation got laid here,” Sharma explained. “Most of us came away from home and lived our life in hostels. And that was an invaluable experience for you learnt not only the hard skills but also the soft skills here – how do you interact with people, how do you collaborate, how do you relate to people…all of those at an impressionable age when you are absorbing a lot That sets you up for life.”

Across the rooms on the same floor of TGH, G.C. Mitra, among the seniormost awardees, told me something similar. Prof. Sean Mackay, his teacher and a major influence in his life, had told him that IIT stood for something. “The first ‘I’ is for interest in all that you see, the second ‘I’ for integrity in all that you do and the ‘T’ is for truthfulness in all your transactions,” said Mitra, who had interrupted his puja to talk to me. All through his life, Mitra has tried his best to live up to that ideal. He has also tried to live by the advice the IIT Kharagpur Director had given him on the day of graduation in 1958. Try not to follow, instead become a pioneer, he had said.

Pampering me with a steady supply of tea and biscuits during the conversation, Mitra talked to me about his life and work, with which IIT Kharagpur has remained seamlessly entwined. His idea to become a member of the Institution of Structural Engineers, UK, had been prompted by Prof. Mackay. “I passed the third paper after several attempts, ” Mitra told me candidly. “You know, Indians are good with theory, not practice,” he said, tongue in cheek.

But what I got to hear from him was entirely a theory of life in practice, a theory he had learnt at IIT Kharagpur. As Engineer-in-Chief in the service of the Government of Odisha, Mitra became a pioneering figure in relief and rehabilitation work as part of the Odisha government, winning the Padma Shri in 2003 in recognition of his services. The cyclone shelters constructed in the state along its coastal belt under his watch from the Prime Minister’s support fund have saved the lives of millions of people in the state, even during the time of recent Cyclone Fani.

“You know,” he told me, “the backward in our country go back ten steps every time there is a natural disaster. SCs and STs constitute 36 per cent in Odisha. They are regarded as deprived category, but even 50 per cent of those who are not regarded as deprived are extremely poor.”

A man who has been closely associated with the lives of the downtrodden is also acutely aware of their pride, their self-esteem. For years, despite their suffering, he said, the people of the Ganjam district, one of the most prosperous rice-producing regions of Odisha, had not asked the government for help. But 1990 had been different, he recalled. Even the fool proof traditional method of storing paddy had failed to secure the grain from the ravages of the water.

The impetus led to a series of cyclone, flood or storm surge shelters being built in existing high school and primary schools. “We built around 1255,” Mitra said. But that is not all he built. During his time in the Odisha administration, Mitra facilitated the construction of bridges across Mahanadi that have gone a long way in bringing the north and south Odisha together. Mitra has also been associated with the conservation of the Lord Jagannath Temple at Puri and the Sun Temple at Konark and executed national and international projects.

Despite his busy career, Mitra has taught at IIT Kharagpur on short stints. He also helped the Institute get land for the building of the IIT Kharagpur extension centre at Bhubaneswar, where he was Professor-in-charge and contributed immensely to the development of the centre.

Elated at receiving the DAA, Mitra told me, “I have no regrets at all in my 82 years of life.” His advice to IIT Kharagpur’s students? I asked. “Follow what Prof. Mackay and the Director had to say. I followed them,” he signed off.

 

Adding to the glory

Business Standard , The Week , Financial Express, NDTV, India Today, Manorama, Devdiscourse

The Distinguished Alumnus Awards for 2019 has been announced by the Institute, and as many as 20 alumni will receive their DAA during the Convocation ceremony held every year in the month of August. The Distinguished Alumnus Award recognizes the professional achievements and contributions of IIT Kharagpur alumni.

Among the awardees are eminent scientists, industry experts, technocrats, and social activists, some of them pioneers in their respective fields and some even Padma Shri holders. Prof. Soumen Chakrabarti and Prof. Sunita Sarawagi of IIT Bombay, Prof. Ajoy Kumar Ray (Padma Shri) of IIEST, Shibpur, Prof. Ajit R. Shenoi, University of Southampton, Prof. Bulbul Chakraborty, Brandeis University, MA, USA, Prof. Anil K. Bhowmick, former Professor of Eminence, IIT Kharagpur, and now with the University of Houston are all senior academicians in some of the premier institutes in the world whose work is internationally recognized.

From the corporate sector, the awardee is Ronojoy Dutta, noted aviation expert who is currently the CEO of InterGlobe Aviation, which operates IndiGo Airlines. Dutta was President of United Airlines from 1999 to 2002.

There are also senior bureaucrats such as Prabhakar Singh, Director General, Central Public Works Department (CPWD), New Delhi, and G.C. Mitra, retired engineer-in-chief, government of Odisha, who is also a Padma Shri awardee. Mitra was associated with the construction of the cyclone shelters along the Odisha coast that have saved the lives of a large number of people of the state during several cyclones, including the recent Fani.

Commenting on the Distinguished Alumnus Award for 2019, Prof. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur, said, “This adds to the list of so many personalities who have made us proud in many, ways. These cover academics, industry and corporate world, entrepreneurship, government service, social service, art and culture, etc. from India and abroad. Based on the recommendation of the Standing Committee the Chairman and Board of Governors have approved the names of the following for Distinguished Alumnus Award 2019.”

Two alumni whose contribution has shaped the education system at IIT Kharagpur have been selected for DAA this year. Shri Gopal Rajgarhia has contributed immensely to the internationalization of IIT Kharagpur by helping set up the Shri Gopal Rajgarhia International Program or SGRIP in 2014. Satinder Singh Rekhi has seed-funded the Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness.

Prof. Subrata Chattopadhyay, Dean, Alumni Affairs, said, “IIT Kharagpur alumni have been the Institute’s brand ambassadors. They have also been the first in the IIT system to contribute back to IIT. Today we have more 10 centres of excellence funded by the alumni and each of them has been the harbinger of change.”

The list of awardees this year also include Rahul Banerjee, social activist and development researcher of the Mahila Jagat Lihaaz Samiti, Indore, and Om Prakash Khanna, Chairman and Managing Director, and President of companies like Schlafhorst Engg. India, who is also associated with the Needy Heart Foundation. Besides them, are Rear Admiral N.P. Gupta, Prof. Ganti Prasada Rao, who is listed in several biographical volumes such as Marquis Who’s Who in the World, and Bipul Sinha, Co-Founder & CEO of Rubrik, the world’s first cloud data management platform.