On a warm March evening recently in Bangalore, India more than fifty Viterbi School alumni and parents gathered with Dean Yannis Yortsos at a dinner to hear a presentation about the school. Dean Yortsos was just beginning a two-week swing through four Asian countries including India. 

Prashanth Bhat, center, with the Viterbi School's Viktor Prasanna,  and Cauligi "Raghu" Raghavendra

At the enthusiastic banquet, Dean Yortsos made a State of the School presentation in which he highlighted last year's research accomplishments, faculty distinctions, new degree programs, and the Viterbi School students, both undergraduate and graduate, including several hundred from India.

Among the proud alumni present was Prashanth Bhat, who earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Viterbi School. He is the CTO and Executive Director for Software of Manipal Dot Net, a highly innovative and entrepreneurial software company located in Manipal, India on the Southwest coast

Dean Yortsos discussed the state of the school

Dr. Bhat traveled the greatest distance to attend the event, and gave some very gracious concluding remarks acknowledging the importance of his Viterbi School engineering education to his current professional success, and expressing his gratitude for having been able to earn his Ph.D. at USC.

The dinner was arranged by Ms. Sudha Kumar who represent the Viterbi School in Bangalore. She is the wife of former electrical engineering faculty member Professor Vijay Kumar, who has recently joined the Indian Institute of Sciences.

Dean Yortsos noted that "the office is needed to facilitate the increasing interaction between the Viterbi school and its India constituencies, students, parents and alumni. "We are fortunate to have Sudha working on our behalf to make connections not only with future students, but also with our ever growing body of Indian alumni," Yortsos added.

Viterbi School faculty members Cauligi "Raghu" Raghavendra and Viktor Prasanna were also present. Earlier in the day they accompanied Yortsos to Infosys Technologies, Ltd's headquarters campus to discuss progress on research projects being done by Viterbi School faculty members, and to discuss follow on=possibilities.