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India Board: Pictured from left to right, Ananth Krishna, N. Narendra, Sudha Kumar, JK Srivastava, Dean Yannis C. Yortsos, Srinath Batni (chairman), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Ishwar Parulkar, Rajan Vasa, David Ranson and Professor Raghavendra |
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Ananth Krishnan, VP and CTO, TCS signing the signage recognizing the sponsors Vinyas IT and DCX |
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Board Members listening to Dean Yortsos presentation of the State of the School, Dec. 14, 2012 |
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Sponsors: Alum Narendra Vinyas, VinyasIT, Dr. Arvind Joglekar, DCX Pvt. Ltd. |
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Chairman of the Board Srinath Batni with Board Member Ishwar Parulkar |
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Professor Raghavendra, Athena Kashyap and Sujata Batni (both wives of Board Members) |
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Alumni - Apoorva Bhatt, Alok Kuchlous, Nimesh Seth |
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Gala Dinner after the Board Meeting December 14, 2012 |
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Gala Dinner after the Board Meeting, Dec. 14, 2012, ITC Sheraton Gardenia |
On Friday, December 14, 2012, the inaugural meeting of the India Board of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering was held with great success in Bangalore.
The India Board serves many functions: to advise the dean; advocate for the school in India; strengthen ties with India alumni ;and raise philanthropic support in the area of education. The board is the first ever such advisory body for U.S. engineering schools and reflects the growing ties of USC Viterbi in India.
Dean Yannis C. Yortsos characterized its formation as “an important step to cementing and further building the strong relationship between the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and its Indian constituencies."
The members of the India Board span an elite group in technology and business. They include: Srinath Batni, chairman, Infosys Board of Directors; Narayana Murthy, Infosys co-founder, who serves as an honorary member; Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director of Biocon; Vijay Srivastava, group chairman, Veecon Group of Industries; JK Srivastava, managing director, Veecon Group of Companies; Ananth Krishnan, vice president and CTO, TCS.
The following USC engineering alumni also serve on the board: Ranjit Nair, CEO, Germinait Solutions; Ishwar Parulkar, CTO, Service Provider Access Group, Cisco; David Ranson, managing director, Moog India Technology Center; Rajan Vasa, President, TiE Ahmedabad, chairman & managing director, Contech BPO, and senior advisor, KPMG India; and N. Narendra, managing director, Vinyas Innovative Technologies. The meeting and a gala dinner that followed were sponsored by VinyasIT and DCX. Also representing USC was Professor Raghu Raghavendra, vice dean for globalization.
Dean Yortsos presented the school's vision, mission and various research and education programs, while Professor Raghavendra presented on many of the global academic activities in India. In addition, Sudha Kumar, director of the Viterbi School's India Office in Bangalore, addressed recruitment and outreach efforts in India. There was strong interest in online education and specifically the iPodia program.
The USC Viterbi School of Engineering was ranked number 10 in the 2010 Shanghai Jiao Tong world rankings of schools of engineering and computer science. It is the home of several hundred Indian students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. The school has a number of educational partnerships with Indian universities, including the Indian Institutes of Technology, Bombay, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kharagpur, and BITS Pilani. Its federal expenditures in the area of computer science and technology are the highest in the U.S. among engineering schools.
