Alumni Association
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Uday Narayan Sinha
( PhD/ME/1975 )
Rakesh K Jain
( BT/CHE/1972 )
Umang Gupta
( BT/CHE/1971 )
Jagjeet Singh Bindra
( BT/CHE/1969 )
Deepak Bhagat
( BT/EE/1973 )
Arvind Kumar Gupta
( BT/EE/1975 )
Mriganka Sur
( BT/EE/1974 )
Lalit Kumar Jalan
( BT/EE/1979 )
Ajoy Kumar Bose
( BT/EE/1971 )
Sandip Tiwari
( BT/EE/1976 )
Nitin Saxena
( BT/CSE/2002 )
Neeraj Kayal
( BT/CSE/2002 )
Mohan Arvind Tambe
( BT/EE/1980 )
Manindra Agrawal
( BT/CSE/1986 )
Pawan Kumar
( BT/CE/69 )
Ambuj Goyal
(BT/EE/78 )
Abhay K. Bhushan
( BT/EE/65 )
Ravi Akhouri
( BT/EE/68 )
Rajiv Desai
( BT/ME/82 )
Rajeev Chawla
( BT/EE/84 )
Narendra Kumar Harihar Kale
( MT/CSE/76 )
Ashutosh Sharma
( BT/CHE/82 )
Ravi Sethi
( BT/ME/68 )
Jitendra Malik
( BT/EE/80 )
Anil Kumar Chopra
( BT/CHE/76 )
Sudhir Vyas
( BT/EE/75 )
Anupam Khanna
( BT/EE/74 )
Rajiv Motwani
( BT/CSE/83)
Pradeep Jotwani
( BT/ME/75 )
Duvvuri Subbarao
( MSc2/PHY/73 )
Udai Pratap Singh
( BT/CE/72 )
Devendra K. Shukla
( BT/CE/67 )
Neera Tandon
( BT/CHE/81 )
Satya Pal Singh Chauhan
( BT/CHE/68 )
Jayathi Y Murthy
( BT/ME/79 )
Vasudev Chanchlani
( MT/IME/76 )
Rakesh Agarwal
( BT/CHE/75 )
Jainendra Kumar Jain
( M SC2/PHY/81 )
Sunil Singhal
( BT/CHE/71 )
Swaminathan Sivaram
( MSC2/CHM/1967 )
Arun Kumar Gh osh
( MSC2/CHM/81 )
David B K Thomas
( BT /ME/77 )
Abhay Singhal
( BT/E E/0 1 )
Amit Gupta
( BT/M E/00 )
Sudhakar Kesavan
( BT/CHE/76 )
Naveen Tewari
( BT/M E/01 )
Jagdish (Jai) Narayan
( BT/MME/1969 )
Prabhakar Goel
Ashoke Sen
( BT/EE/1970 ) ( MSC2/PHY/1978 )
Late Anil Agrawal
( BT/ME/1970 )
Ashok Kumar Chandra
( BT/EE/1969 )
N R Narayana Murthy
( MT/EE/1969 )
Saurabh Srivastava
( BT/ME/1968 )
Satish Kumar Kaura
( BT/EE/1966 )
Muktesh Pant
( BT/CHE/76 )
Sumant Nigam
( MSC5/PHY/78 )
Keshav Pingali
( BT/E E/7 9 )
Bhadresh K. Shah
( BT/MS E/7 5 )
Mah esh Behari Lal
( BT/CHE/1969 )
Kamal K. Sharma
( BT/CHE/69 )
Arvind
( BT/EE/1969 )
K VijayRaghavan
( BT/CHE/1975 )
Harsh Manglik
( BT/ME/70 )
Viney P Aneja
( BT/CHE/71 )
Vijay Kumar
( BT/M E/83 )
Som Mittal
( BT/MME/1973 )
Suresh Pandey
( BT/MME/1965 )
Ashok Sinha
( BT/EE/73 )
Rathin Datta
( BT/CHE/70 )
Dipankar Das Sarma
( MSC5/PHY/77 )
Rakesh Gangwal
( BT/ME/1975 )
Padmanabhan Balaram
( MSC2/CHM/1969 )
Late Satyendra Kumar Dubey
( BT/CE/1994 )
Ashok Misra
( BT/CHE/68 )
Vishnu Varshney
( BT/EE/69 )
Jayadev Misra
( BT/EE/69 )
Amitabh Srivastava
( BT/EE/1979 )
Ashok Jhunjhunwala
( BT/EE/1975 )
Sartaj Kumar Sahani
( BT/EE/1970 )
Pawan Kumar Goenka
( BT/ME/1975 )
Ajay Kumar
( PHD/AE/1974 )
Arup K. Chakraborty
Shreesh Jadhav
( BT/CHE/83 )
( BT/PhD/CSE/89/95 )
Gaurav Gupta
( BT/EE/87 )
Sandip P Trivedi
( MSC5/PHY/85 )
T Venkatesan
Yadu Pati Singhania
( MSc-2Yr/Phy/71 )
( BT/CE/77 )
Sudhir Prasad
( BT/ME/79 )
2 November, 2015
Arun Shukla
( BT/ME/76 )
Mahesh Gupta
( BT/ME/75 )
Veena Sahajwalla
( BT/MET/86 )
Distinguished Alumnus Awardees
Umesh Mishra
( BT/EE/79 )
Vijay Mahajan
( BT/ChE/70 )
Shantanu Srivastava
( BT/ME/77 )
Yogendra Kumar Joshi
( BT/ME/79 )
Pradeep S Sindhu
( BT/EE/1974 )
Rajendra Singh
( BT/EE/1975 )
Manoj Pratap Singh
( BT/EE/74 )
B V R Mohan Reddy
( MT/ME/1974 )
Shiraz Minwalla
( MSc-Intg/Phy/95 )
Dheeraj Pandey
( BT/CSE/97 )
Distinguished Alumnus Award
1988-1989
Satish Kumar Kaura
(BT/EE/66)
Shri Satish Kumar Kaura, Managing Director, Samtel (India) Limited is an eminent
industrialist. Born on 18 December 1944, he obtained his Bachelor of Technology
degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in
1966. Combining Technical expertise with entrepreneurial spirit, he founded
Teletubes Electronics Limited in 1974 for the manufacture of picture tubes with a
modest investment Following the success of this venture, Shri Kaura founded two
more companies, namely, Samtel (India) Limited and Samtel Color Limited. This
group of companies now controls over fifty percent of the domestic market in
picture tubes and has a turn over well in excess of one hundred crore rupees.
Hailing from a middle class family with no business background, Shri Satish
Kumar Kaura today represents the dominant force in the Indian picture tube
manufacturing industry. His contributions have formed a vital input to the growth
of the consumer electronics industry in the country. His products are also finding
wide acceptance in the export market against stiff international competition.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is proud of the achievements of Shri Kaura. In
recognitions of his outstanding achievements the institute here by confers upon Shri
Satish Kaura its Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
1990-1991
Anil Agarwal
(BT/ME/70)
Shri Anil Agarwal, Director, Centre for Environment, New Delhi is an eminent environmentalist. Born on November 23,
1947 in a business family of Kanpur, he graduated from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1970. After
graduation, for a few years, he worked towards organizing a small group FORUM FOR THOUGHTS where
intellectuals gathered to discuss various burning problems of Indian Society such as hunger, pollution, water
management, ecology, etc.
Charged with the zeal to turn his ideas into reality, he decided to move to Delhi. He used his analytical training
developed at IITK to tackle several problems, of environment with complete success. In order to reach a wide
audience, he served as a Science correspondent to the Hindustan Times and The Indian Express and during the
period authored and edited several publications.
Shri Anil Agarwal has spent most of his time and energy towards developing the awareness of environmental issues
among the people and has set up the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi. This is a voluntary
organization engaged in creating public opinion about the problems of environment. Mr Agarwal is currently serving as
its Director. One of the most significant achievements of this Centre has been the publication of The State of
Environment: A Citizens Report in 1982 and 1985, which was a landmark in environmental studies in India.
Our country has recognized his unique contributions by giving him Padma Shri at a young age of thirty eight years.
Shri Anil Agarwal has made an impact on International scene and has worked with several environmental group
abroad. He has interacted with them on issues like afforetation, environmental impact of dams, pollution, renewable
energy and natural resource management. For his journalistic work aimed at focusing world attention on problems of
hunger and poverty, he received the first A H Boerma award by Food and Agricultural Organization. He continues to
work in these areas with paramount concern to the country and the world as evidenced by several of his recent
publications.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is proud of the achievements of Shri Agarwal. In
recognition of his outstanding achievements, the institute confers upon Shri Anil Agarwal its
Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
1993-1994
Uday Narayan Sinha
(PHD/ME/75)
Dr Uday Narayan Sinha (PhD/ME/75) for the Pioneering work and
Outstanding Contributions to the Development of Computing Technology
in the Country, 1994.
Rakesh K Jain
(BT/CHE/72)
Rakesh K Jain, PhD, Andrew Werk Cook Professor of Tumor Biology, Harvard Medical
School, Director, Steele Laboratory of Tumor Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital; and
Professor, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Boston, MA, USA.
After completing his Btech from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in Chemical
Engineering In the year 1972, he did his Masters in Chemical engineering and PhD from the
University of Delaware in the year 1974 and 1975 respectively.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
1996-1997
Umang Gupta
(BT/CHE/71)
Shri Umang Gupta is the Founder President and Chief Executive Officer of Gupta Corporation, (now
Keynote Systems Inc.) California, USA, a high technology publicly traded NASDAQ Company. In a very
short span of time the turnover of his corporation has crossed US$55 million and is poised to touch
US$250 million within three years. The impact of his work stretches far beyond the size of his
organization.
Shri Gupta obtained Bachelor of Technology degree in Chemical Engineering in 1971 from the Indian
Institute of Technology Kanpur and MBA from the Kent State University, in Ohio, USA. He began his
career in 1973 as Systems Engineer in the data processing division of IBM Corporation, soon rising to a
senior marketing management positions before leaving IBM. During his chequered career Shri Gupta
was the Director of Marketing for Magnuson Computers, a manufacturer of IBM plug-compatible
mainframes. He then spent three years as a Senior Executive with Oracle Corporation. His last positions
held there was Vice President and General Manager of the Micro-Computer products division.
Subsequently, he started Gupta Corporation, co-funded by Bruce-Scott, a developer of the original
Oracle DBMS.
Prior to co-funding Gupta Corporation (now known as Keynote Systems Inc) with Bruce Scott, a
developer of the original oracle DBMS, Mr Gupta spent three years as a senior executive with Oracle
Corporation. His last position at Oracle was Vice President and General Manager of the Micro-Computer
products division. Prior to joining Oracle Mr Gupta was Director of marketing for Magnusom Computers, a
manufacturer of IBM plug-compatible main frames.
Mr Umang Gupta is nominated for the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions to Information Technology and achievements in
entrepreneurship.
Ashok Kumar Chandra
(BT/EE/69)
Dr Ashok Chandra is one of the most respected persons in the world of computer science research. Personally he is known
for several path breaking concepts and results, some of which are now text book material (e.g. the nation of alteration).
What possibly is unique about is achievements, in the context of computer science research, is that he has done
fundamental work basing himself in an industry. He has demonstrated that it is possible to do research which is excellent
both in academic standard, as well as in the standard of industry. His organization has found him to be very valuable, he
has made several contributions which have been of immense benefit to IBM; and at the same time, his work has put him
amongst the very top people in the theoretical computer science, usually considered an abstract area far from practice.
Dr Chandra graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1969 earning Bachelors degree in Electrical
Engineering. He was the winner of the prestigious President's Gold Medal. Subsequently, he obtained the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy in Computer Sciences from the Stanford University in 1973. Since than, he has been with IBM, currently he is
a Director of that organization.
Dr Chandra has rendered very valuable service to the profession through his professional activities. He has been the editor
of an important journal (SIAM J of Computing), was responsible for starting what is now a very prestigious annual
conferences (IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science), has chaired on several occasions the programme,
committees/conference committees of top conferences. Further, he is a member of Board of Directors of Computer
Research Association, a body which acts as a liaison between the US Government and PhD granting computer science
departments in USA. For granting computer scientists, in India his contributions as a member of the Advisory Committee of
the Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science Conference has
immensely helped in attaining the international repute that is enjoyed today.
Dr Chandra has always been very supportive to the Computer Science and Engineering Department of IITK and has visited
the department on several occasions. The CSE faculty and students have always found him to be a source of inspiration
and help.
Dr Ashok Chandra is nominated for the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology for the outstanding
contributions made in the Computer Science Research and realization of the fact that in these days of painful transition, when doubts
are often raised whether IITK can keep up its motto of excellence in the face of the compulsions imposed by the new economy, by
reminding ourselves through highlighting the achievements of Dr Chandra which prove beyond doubt that excellence can indeed be
coupled with relevance.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
1997-1998
N R Narayan Murthy
(MT/EE/69)
Mr N R Narayanmurthy is the Chairman and Managing Director of Infosys
Technologies Limited, Bangalore. He was born on August 20, 1946 and obtained
his Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Mysore in 1967.
He completed his M Tech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur in 1969. In his career spanning over a period of 27 years, he
has been associated with various organizations. He joined IIM Ahmedabad as a
Chief Systems Programmer in 1969. Thereafter he worked with SESA (Paris),
Systems Research Institute (Pune) and Patni Computer Systems. Then in 1981,
he along with six other professionals formed the India's first software company
that was for, by and of professionals -INFOSYS. They had an equity base of Rs
10,000 in the beginning and today Infosys is a Rs 93 Crore company with market
capitalization of Rs 600 Crore.
Mr Murthy is a proven professional who commands tremendous respect in the
industry. As a result of his efforts, today Infosys has top quality of Technology,
clients and services.
Mr Murthy is nominated for Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for creating and
building an outstanding entrepreneurial venture putting India on the international software
map.
Swaminathan Sivaram
(MSc2/CHM/67)
Dr Swaminathan Sivaram is a Polymer chemist of great distinction and is currently Head of the Polymer
Chemistry Division of the National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. Over the last 23 years, working as a research
scientist and R&D Manager at IPCL and NCL, he has demonstrated how good science and technology work can
be done in India. He has received several awards/honours including the prestigious Om Prakash Bhasin Award
for Science & Technology (1995).
Born on November 6, 1946, Dr Sivaram obtained his Master of Science degree in Chemistry from the Indian
Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1967. Subsequently, he earned Doctor of Philosophy in Organic Chemistry
from Purdue University, Indiana, USA.
The outstanding scientific achievements of Dr Sivaram have spanned a variety of areas in polymer science,
namely synthesis, new and improved catalysts for polymerization, novel processes for monomers, and
formulated products for scientific end applications. His work in the area of poly (aryl) carbonates has attracted the
attention of one of a leading US company, who is a world leader in poly carbonate technology. A strategic alliance
between his group at NCL and this company has been recently concluded. Two of his US patents have also been
licensed to this company. His work in the area of poly (aryl) carbonates are the subject matter of seven patent
applications of which six have been filed in USA and Europe and two have been granted.
Dr Sivaram has established an active school of research in Ziegler Natta polymerization of olefins at NCL. His
contribution to the area of polymer science and technology have had significant impacts on national
development. Apart from his scientific research contributions he has shown Exemplary leadership in the
organization and management of research and development in the area of polymers, brought international
visibility to the polymer research in India and contributed to the setting up of world scale polymer plants using the
most contemporary technologies by playing a vital role in selection of these technologies.
Jagdish Narayan
(BT/MME/69)
Professor Jagdish (Jay) Narayan is a distinguished university Professor in the Department of
Materials Science and Engineering in North Carolina State University. He has been the group
leader, Solid State Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1971 to 1984. From 1984 to 1986
he was the Director of Microelectronics Center of North Caroline. He was also the Director of
Division of Material Research, NSF during 19901992.
Dr Narayan obtained his Bachelors degree in Metallurgy with distinction and First Rank in 1969 in
1969 from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He has a legendary honour of receiving MS
(1970) and PhD (1971) degrees in two years from University of Carolina Berkeley, USA.
Dr Narayan's present position is the highest honor that that the North Carolina State University
bestows on extremely selected senior members of the faculty. He was featured as Triangles Nobel
class Scientist in the Research Triangle Leader Magazine. He has won numerous awards including
Outstanding Sustained Research Award of the division of Material Science, US Department of
Energy and the Distinguished Service Award of National Science Foundation (NSF).
Dr Narayan is internationally known for his seminal contributions in laser processing of materials,
atomic scale characterization and atomistic modeling of dislocations and interfaces. He has
published over 300 original technical papers in archival journals and over 200 papers in refereed
conference proceedings, edited 7 books and received 15 patents. He is invited to present five to six
plenary lectures every year. Thus he is one of the most prolific and creative materials scientists of
modern era.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
1998-1999
Prabhakar Goel
(BT/EE/70)
Dr Prabhakar (Prabhu) Goel is the Chairman of Duet Technologies Inc, a company
which is engaged in designing chips as well as developing software in electronic
design automation and telecommunications networking.
Dr Goel earned his Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian
Institute of Technology Kanpur and received Presidents Gold Medal Award. He
received a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, US in
1974. After this, he held positions in Engineering and Management with IBM and
Wang Laboratories.
Dr Goel has been a leading entrepreneur and was Founder and CEO of Gateway
Automation Software, which was acquired by Cadence. In 1990
Dr Goel was recognized as Entrepreneur of the year for New England by Inc.
Magazine and Ernst Young. In addition to being successful entrepreneur, Dr Goel
has been very active n supporting community organizations both in US and in India.
In 1994, Dr Goel initiated the Foundation for Excellence Project which support very
bright but needy students who otherwise would not be able to complete their
education.
Dr Goel was recognized for his outstanding community service and their support for
education in India by Indians for Collective Action in November 1996.
Ashoke Sen
(MSC2/PHY/78)
Dr Ashoke Sen is presently Professor in Mehta Research Institute, Allahabad. He is
rated one of the most outstanding theoretical physicists in the world today.
Dr Sen was born on July 15, 1956 and obtained his Bachelors degree in Physics from
Calcutta University in 1975. He completed his MSc from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur in 1978. He was awarded PhD by SUNY at Stony Brook in 1982.
He obtained his Post-doctoral Fellowship from Fermilab and SLA in USA.
Dr Sen was also associated with Tata Institute of Fundamental Research from 198895. In recognition of his achievements, Dr Sen has been awarded the ICTP prize in
1989, S S Bhatnagar Award in 1994 and G D Birla Award in 1996. He has been elected
as a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1991 and of the Indian National
Science Academy in 1995.
Professor Sen has made valuable contributions to the Superstring Theory, a theory
that attempts to unify all the fundamental interactions of nature in a single framework.
He has made important contributions to the field of classical solutions in string
theories, string dualities, black hole solution in string theories and several other
aspects of unified theories.
Saurabh Srivastava
(BT/ME/68)
Mr Saurabh Srivastava was born on March 4, 1946 in Allahabad. He did his early schooling at St Joseph's high school
in Allahabad. In 1961 he passed the senior Cambridge examination in the first division and was ranked 6th in the state
of Uttar Pradesh and given a state scholarship.
In 1963, he appeared for the All India Joint Entrance Examination for the IIT's. He stood 2nd in the All India exam and
chose to join IIT Kanpur in the Mechanical Engineering Department. HE graduated from IIT Kanpur in 1968 with a CPI
of 9.1.
On graduating from IITK, Mr Srivastava chose to go to the US for further studies. From amongst the various
acceptances, which included the school like Columbia and Cornell, Mr Srivastava chose to accept a full fellowship
offered by Harvard University and completed his Masters degree there.
After a distinguished academic career at IIT Kanpur and Harvard University, he worked for several years in USA and
joined IBM, thus entering in the field of Information Technology. He is among the few IITians who returned to India
leaving a comfortable life and career in USA. He visualized the potential of software exports at a time when there was
hardly any software export from India. In 80's he successfully built the software exports for Indian Companies like A V
Thomas Software Research Limited and Tata Unisys Ltd. (IIS Infotech) which has become one of the top 20 software
companies in India and the first software company to get ISO 9001 Quality Certificate. With liberalization he saw great
opportunity to expand business worldwide through acquisitions and collaboration and now have presence in several
countries.
He became the Chairman of the Electronics and Computer Software Promotion Council (ESC) and served in that
capacity for 4 years. He is also a founding member of National Association of Software and Services Companies
(NASSCOM) and is currently its Vice President. The contributions made by Mr Srivastava for the cause of Indian
software export are outstanding. He is an enterprising entrepreneur with a vision, an excellent professional and an out
standing alumni.
Arvind
(BT/EE/69)
Dr Arvind is a Professor in Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is
one of the most respected persons in the world of computer science research. He was also on
the Faculty of University of California, Irvine, CA, USA and IIT Kanpur. Since 1979 he has been
teaching in Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Professor Arvind was born on May 15, 1947 and graduated from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur in 1969 earning bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering.
Subsequently, he obtained his MS (1972) and PhD (1973) from University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, USA.
His principal fields of work of Professor Arvind have been Computer Architecture,
Programming Languages and Compilers, and Operating Systems. He has an impressive
consulting record for many world renowned organizations like IBM, United Nations (UNDP),
Hewlett Packard, Fujitsu, Kawasaki etc. He is the editor of international journals and has many
research papers and books to his credit. The “Charles W and Jennifer C Johnson Chair” was
conferred upon him in 1992. He also received the Charles Bobbage Outstanding Scientist
Award (IEEE) in 1974. At present, he is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery
and is also a fellow of IEEE. He has provided commendable service to the professional
societies like ACM, IEEE, and IFIPS. Dr Arvind has been very supportive to the Computer
Science and Engineering Department of IIT Kanpur and was a visiting faculty here for a year.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
1999-2000
Rakesh Gangwal
(BT/ME/75)
Mr Rakesh Gangwal is the President and the Chief Executive Officer of the US Airways, Inc.,
The main operating arm of the of the US Airways Group, Inc.
Mr Gangwal was born in 1953. He received the Bachelor of Technology degree in
Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and Master of
Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of Business of the University of
Pennsylvania.
Prior to joining US Airways, he served as executive vice president for Air France, beginning
in the November, 1994. His Association with the airline industry began in September, 1980,
when as an associate of Booz Allen & Hamilton, Inc, he worked closely with United Airlines.
In 1984, he joined United as Manager-strategic-planning. He held a series of positions at
United. Previously, Mr Gangwal had been a financial analyst in the product development
group of Ford Motor Co. and a production and planning engineer with Philips India Ltd.
Mr Gangwal has served on the Board of Advisers of the University of Colarado (Denver), the
Board of Trustees of Providence-St. Mel School (Chicago), the Board of Directors of the
Airline Tariff Publishing Co. and Board of Trustees of the Alexian Brothers Medical Center
(Elk Grove, III, USA).
Padmanabhan Balaram
(MSC2/CHM/69)
Professor Padmanabhan Balram is a leading, internationally renowed bioorganic chemist of India. Born in
1949, he received his Master's degree in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1969.
He went on to obtain PhD from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, and did a year's post-doctoral
work with Nobel Laureate Professor R B Woodward at Harvard University. He returned to India in 1973, and
joined as lecturer in Indian Institute of Sciences Bangalore, where he has remained since. He became a
Professor in 1986 and is presently Chairman of the Molecular Biophysics Unit in IISc.
Professor Balram is a prolific researcher, having published about 270 research papers in the area of bioorganic chemistry. His main interest has been the synthesis of polypeptides, their characterization using
NMR and other techniques, and study of their interactions with ions and various molecules. He has been able
to combine theory with experiment very remarkably and has reached great heights in research.
Professor Balram's work has been widely hailed, and he has received many laurels from peer bodies. To
mention a few, the Young Scientist Medal of Indian National Science Academy in 1977, the S S Bhatnagar
prize in 1986 and the G D Birla Award in 1994. He is fellow of several societies including the Indian Academy
of Sciences, Bangalore, the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, and the Third World Academy of
Sciences, Trieste.
In addition to carrying out his own research, Professor Balram has guided several PhD and post-doctoral
students, some of whom have already established themselves as outstanding scientists in India and abroad.
He is member of several Editorial Boards, and has been Editor of the Current Science Journal. He has
rendered singular service to the scientific community in this capacity. Besides, he is an acclaimed speaker in
research for a, much sought after for his lucid and scholarly lectures. He is also an ardent spokesman for
science in this country.
IIT Kanpur takes pride in the achievements of its alumnus, Dr Balram. In recognition of his exemplary zeal and
dedication to science, in general, and to his field of research, in particular, the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur,
hereby confers on Professor P Balram its Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Ashok Jhunjhunwala
(BT/EE/75)
Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala is presently a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras. He received his Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur in 1975 and his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Maine, USA in 1977and 1979
respectively.
From 1979 to 1981, he was with Washington State University as Assistant Professor. Since 1981 he has been
teaching at IIT Madras. He leads the Telematics and Computer Network Group (TeNet)at IIT Madras. This group
works closely working with the industry in the development of number of Telecommunications and Computer
network systems. It has encouraged IIT alumni to set up R&D companies and work in partnership with the Tenet
group to develop world class technologies. The product includes cor DECT wireless in local loop technology
system, Fibre Access Network. Remote Access Switches, Ethernet switches, IP Switches, V5.2 Stack and
Network Management Stack.
Dr Jhunjhnwala is an academician who has established almost a personal research and development centre at
IIT Madras with dozens of engineers working with him on many sponsored projects from industries
simultaneously. He has developed Wireless Local Loop Technology in Indian, which is now approved by the DoT
and chip set is brought by Analog Devices USA. He has also nurtured two Hi-Tech industries based on these
technologies.
Dr Jhunjhunwala is a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian National Science Academy,
and National academy of Science and a Governor of International Council for Computer Communications
(ICCC). He has received the Hari Om Ashram Prerit Dr Vikram Sarabhai Research Award (1997) and the
Millenium Medal at Indian Science Congress (2000). He has been awarded Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for
his outstanding contributions in the field of Engineering Sciences in 1999.
Dr Jhunjhunwala nominated for the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur for his
outstanding contributions in the area of Communications Engineering.
Som Mittal
(BT/MME/73)
Mr Som Mittal has had a distinguished managerial career in different companies and is credited
with the achievement of turning around Digital Equipment (India) Ltd (DEIL), of which he is the
Managing Director. Under his tenure, DEIL's financial performance improved from a loss of Rs
6.23 crores in 1993-1994 to a profit of Rs 15.2 crores in 1995-1996.
Mr Mittal was born on February 7, 1952 and graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur in 1973 earning Bachelors degree in Metallurgical Engineering. Subsequently, he did his
post graduation in 1975 from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Through a metallurgical engineer from IITK (by training), Mr Mittal has demonstrated his
competence in managing a large company in the high technology sector of information technology
drawing on the analytical skills he developed at IITK. Earlier in Wipro Infotech, he established
peripherals business which in 5 years time has grown to over Rs 100 crores. The conceiving and
setting up the peripheral manufacturing and marketing with technical collaboration of Seiko-Epson
in a very short duration was a significant milestone. The peripheral factory was the first to achieve
ISO 9000 certification in the Wipro group and was also the first unit to be nominated for Rajiv
Gandhi Quality Award.
As the CEO of Business Solution Division from 1993-1994, Mr Mittal consolidated the position of
Wipro PC product in the market place. Prior to this in SRF Ltd he setup the Joint Venture in record
time of 7 months with detailed planning and managing the project without cost over was a major
achievement.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2000-2001
Arvind Kumar Gupta
(BT/EE/75)
Shri Arvind Kumar Gupta, after graduating from IIT Kanpur in 1975, joined TELCO, Pune and worked there for a few years.
In 1978, he took one year's study leave from TELCO to work with the grassroot village level science teaching programme
for children in the tribal district of Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh. While working in Hoshangabad, he developed many
useful low-cost teaching/science teaching aids using locally available materials. The possibilities of using ordinary things
for doing science and recycling modern junk into joyous products appealed immensely to children. Shri Gupta's first book
“Matchstick Models and other Science Experiments” was translated into thirteen Indian languages by various popular
Science groups and sold more than half a million copies. His science models and toys were widely featured in daily
newspapers and magazines across the country. Since then he has written ten books and translated over 45 books on
science, environment and education. He has conducted science workshops for children and teachers in over twelve
hundred schools across the country. Shri Arvind Gupta has presented over seventy TV programmes on science based fun
activities, innovative toys and teaching aids on the national television. These films have been made by the NCERT and the
UGC countrywide classroom. He was also featured as the Green Guru on the popular TV programme titled “Living on the
Edge”.
Shri Arvind Gupta's outstanding contribution in designing science teaching aids for young children has been recognized by
several international organisations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, International Toy Research Association, Halmstad
University, Boston Science Center, MIT (Media Lab), Walt Disney Imagineering and Research, Auhof Rehabilitation
Centre, Hilpolstien, Germany, and the International Play Association, Finland. As a UNESCO consultant on science
education he has been invited to share his experiences on science teaching with teachers of several developing countries.
He has been actively associated with the Bombay Natural History Society, Conservation Society of Delhi, Spastic Society
of North India, and the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti. He is an Advisor to National Book Trust on popular science books. He
has received several awards for his outstanding contributions. These include Eklavya Award (1982), the inaugural National
Award for Science Popularisation amongst Children by DST (1988), Hari Bhau Mote Award of Marathi Vigyan Parishad
(1988), a special award given by National Association for the Blind for designing teaching aids for pre-school blind children
(1991), Granthali award for his book Khel (1992), Ruchi Ram Sahni Award for science popularization (1993) and the Hari
Om Ashram Award by the UGC (1995).
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is proud of the achievements of Shri Arvind Gupta. In recognition of his outstanding
and seminal contributions in developing low-cost science-base teaching aids for young children and thus doing a great
service to humanity at large, the Institute hereby confers upon Shri Arvind Gupta its Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Rajendra Singh
(BT/EE/75)
Dr Rajendra Singh is the Chairman of the Board of Directors at both LCC International and Telcom Ventures, USA. After
obtaining the BTech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1975, Dr Rajendra Singh proceeded to US for his
higher studies. He obtained the MS degree from the University of Maine at Orono, Maine, USA in 1977 and PhD from Southern
Methodist University at Dallas, Texas, USA in 1979. From 1979 1982 he worked as Assistant Professor in the Department of
Electrical Engineering at Kansas State University and City College of New York, USA. Beginning with his doctoral dissertation
on Spectrum Efficient Schemes for Mobile Radio Communications, which was published in 1980, Dr Singh has actively
contributed to the academic and professional development of the wireless telecommunications industry. As a former faculty
member of both Kansas State University and City College of New York, and a member of numerous electrical engineering
societies, Dr Rajendra Singh has a distinguished record of academic achievements including the organization of and
participation in the CTIA scientific panel which investigated time dispersion for TDMA and FDMA.
Dr Rajendra Singh, with his wife Neera, co-founded LCC International in 1983. Since then LCCI has emerged as one of the
world's leading wireless telecommunications consultant companies. It has been actively involved in the design, optimization
and build out of hundreds of cellular, PCS, paging, trunked radio and other two-way mobile systems throughout the world. It has
performed technical services for the largest wireless operators in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa
and Asia. Ranked as 66 in top 100 American companies, today it is a NASDAQ listed company with more than 800 employees
and does business in over 40 countries. In addition to being the founder of LCCI, Dr Singh is one of the cofounders and a
Director on the Board of Directors of Teligent Inc., a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) and has also established,
developed and directed APPEX Incorporated, a billing services firm that was sold to Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in October
1990. In 1986 Dr Rajendra Singh co-founded APEX System Corporation, an IT Service company that merged with EDS in
1989. In 1990 he cofounded PORTATEL del Sureste, a cellular wireless services company in Mexico. In 1991 he invested in
Portugal GSM System and Service. In 1992 Dr Singh invested in BPL Cellular for a GSM Cellular System in Bombay India. In
1993, he co-founded TRICOM, a digital SMR System in Mexico. In 1994 he created a holding company for personal
investments, Telcom Ventures, LLC. In 1994 he founded SMR Services Companies in Brazil, Argentina and co-founded
Teligent in USA, a wireless competitive local exchange carrier. Teligent is a NASDAQ listed company with over 3000
employees. In 1995 he invested in Aether Systems, a wireless ASP Company. In 1999 he founded Chamber Biz, a B-2-B
internet company.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is proud of the achievements of Dr Rajendra Singh. In recognition of his outstanding and
seminal contributions in developing path-breaking wireless mobile radio communication technologies and using them to set up and
manage top telecommunication companies of truly international standards, the Institute hereby confers upon Dr Rajendra Singh its
Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Deepak Bhagat
(BT/EE/73)
Shri Deepak Bhagat is currently a Senior Director of Engineering at Sun Microsystems, USA. After
completing BTech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1973, Shri
Deepak Bhagat obtained his MS in Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University,
Cleveland, Ohio, USA. His areas of interests are Computer Systems Product Strategy, Operating
Systems, Distributed Computing, Computer Architectures and Internet Systems Solutions. Prior to
joining Sun Microsystems, Shri Bhagat worked at Hewlett-Packard for 14 years where he was the key
contributor to HP's transition to new 32 bit Precision Architecture based Commercial Computer Systems
(HP 900 Series) in many capacities such as a lead SW architect, a lead designer, an Engineering
Manager, and a Technical Marketing Manager. Additionally, he led HP's engineering development
programs with Microsoft and Novell, and contributed to HP's Personal Computer Products Strategy. At
Sun Microsystems he leads the Systems Software Strategy and Software Development of Sun's
industry leading Workstation & low-end server product line. This product line generates many billions of
dollars of revenue per year for Sun Microsystems. He is also the founding member of Sun's Engineering
Center in Bangalore, India, and the champion for its research cooperation with IIT Kanpur.
Shri Bhagat takes keen interest in building Institute-alumni relations in both India as well as the USA. He
founded the West-Coast Chapter of IIT/K Alumni Association in Silicon Valley, USA. He takes an active
interest in mentoring and helping young alumni as well as students of IIT/K. His latest passion is to uplift
the city of Kanpur, his hometown, and he helped found a 'Resurgent Kanpur Group' of IIT/K alumni
settled in Kanpur so as to help the city to become a leading IT center. This group has taken several
initiatives in the recent past. Shri Deepak Bhagat is also active in funding programs for handicapped
children.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is proud of the achievements of Shri Deepak Bhagat. In recognition of his
outstanding managerial skills and his role in building Institute-alumni relationship of a very high order, the Institute
hereby confers upon Shri Deepak Bhagat its Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Pradeep Sindhu
(BT/EE/74)
Dr Pradeep Sindhu, the Vice-Chairman and CTO of Juniper Networks, the company that he founded
in 1997, is responsible for its technical road map and plays an active role in the day-to-day design and
development of future products. Juniper Networks, provider of purpose-built systems routers that
meet the scalability, performance, density and compatibility requirements of rapidly evolving, optically
enabled internet protocol networks, is today a leading internet infrastructure company with market
capitalization of about sixty billion US dollars. Gone public in 1999, the company is only second to
Cisco in the market share of Internet backbone routers and provides new IP infrastructure solutions
for the world's leading service providers.
After completing BTech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in
1974, Dr Sindhu obtained his MS and PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Prior to founding Juniper, Dr Sindhu was a key member of the technical team at the Computer
Science Lab at Xerox PARC. His research specialized in VLSI design tools and high-speed
interconnects for shared-memory multiprocessor systems. This work led to the commercial
development of Sun Microsystem's first high-performance multiprocessor system family, which
included the SS1000 and SS2000. Dr Sindhu played key roles in the architecture, design, and
development of these machines. Dr Sindhu also played a central role in the architecture, design, and
development of the M160/M40/M20 routers Juniper's flagship Internet router family. The Juniper
device fuses Dr Sindhu's VLSI expertise onto fiber optic breakthrough to deliver any-to-any IP
connectivity at multi-gigabyte speeds, complete with quality-of-service (QoS) management. Dr
Sindhu's contribution to router technology for the Internet will remain a legacy for the next several
decades.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is proud of the achievements of Dr Pradeep Sindhu. In recognition of his outstanding and
seminal contributions in developing path-breaking technologies for the VLSI design tools and high-speed interconnects for sharedmemory multiprocessor systems and using them to set up and manage top telecommunication companies of truly international
standards, the Institute hereby confers upon Dr Pradeep Sindhu its Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Sartaj Sahni
(BT/EE/70)
Professor Sartaj Sahni, a Distinguished Professor of CISE at University of Florida, is a leading internationally
renowned computer scientist and engineer today. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in
1970 with an outstanding academic record receiving the President Gold Medal. Subsequently, he completed his MS
and PhD in Computer Science at Cornell University with flying colours.
Professor Sahni started receiving professional recognition at a very young age and established his credentials as an
academician of high repute by writing some well-known texts in the areas of data structure as well as algorithms. He
has contributed significantly in the areas of (a) sequential and parallel data structures and algorithms,
(b) scheduling, (c) optimization, (d) VLSI CAD, (e) computational geometry, (f) image processing, and (h) medical
applications. His pioneering contributions in different areas of computer science have been widely acclaimed and
recognized by societies like IEEE, ACM, and similar other professional bodies. Professor Sahni has published over
140 technical papers in reputed journals, more than 100 papers in refereed conference proceedings and supervised
over 30 doctoral candidates. As a single and/or co-author he has written 14 very popular text-books and has edited 3
books of conference proceedings. He has contributed invited chapters to several books.
Area Editor, Co-Editor, Managing Editor, Associate Editor of several journals in the field of computer science and
engineering, Professor Sahni has conducted extensive sponsored research for agencies like NSF, MEIS, etc. He is
recipient of many honours and awards from the beginning of his career. Professor Sahni is a recipient of the
Outstanding Professor Award at University of Minnesota (1986), Distinguished Service Award (1987), Certificate for
Outstanding Service and Dedication in Teaching at the Rochester Center for Continuing Education and Extension
(1989), Research Achievement Award at University of Florida (1992), Teaching Intensive Program Award (1995),
IEEE Meritorious Certificate (1995) and IEEE Taylor L Booth Education Award for Contributions to Computer Science
and Engineering Education in the areas of Data Structures, Algorithms and Parallel Algorithms (1997). Professor
Sahni is a Fellow of AAAs, ACM, IEEE and other professional bodies.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is proud of the achievements of Professor Sartaj Sahni. In recognition of
his outstanding and seminal contributions in the field of computer science and engineering, the Institute hereby
confers upon Professor Sartaj Sahni its Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Jagjeet Singh Bindra
(BT/CHE/69)
Shri Jeet S Bindra is the President of Chevron Pipe Line Company, in which he is responsible for both domestic pipeline
operations and for international pipeline projects. He is the first and the only US citizen of Indian origin to hold the chief
executive's position in the US Oil Industry.
Shri Bindra received his BTech degree in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1969 with
distinction. Subsequently, he went to US as a Research Assistant and obtained his Master of Science in Chemical
Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1970. He received his MBA (with honours) from Saint Mary's
College of California in 1979.
Shri Bindra joined Chevron Research Company as a Research Engineer in 1977. In 1980, he was transferred to the
Corporation Engineering Department. For the next six years he managed several US and non-US refining, chemical and
upstream projects for Chevron. In 1986 he was sent to Los Angeles as the Chief Engineer for Chevrons' EI Segundo
Refinery where he managed various operations. In December 1991, he was appointed Group Manager (Projects) with
responsibilities for business worth $2.5 billion. He played a key role in the development and implementation of Chevron's
Project Development and Execution Process (CPDEP), which resulted in major improvements in Chevron's project
management system performance and savings of several hundred million dollars. In September 1994, he was appointed as
the Manager, Strategic Planning, for Chevron Corporation where he worked with the Corporate Officers in developing
strategic direction for the company, including opportunities for mergers and acquisitions. In August 1995, he was assigned
to lead an effort on Chevron's behalf, and on behalf of several other major international oil companies, to negotiate with
Russia, Kazakhstan, and Oman on the structure satisfactory to all parties to finance, design and construct a 1500 kilometer
pipeline from western Kazakhstan to the Black Sea. On January 1, 1997 he was appointed as the President, Chevron
Pipeline Company.
Shri Bindra is a member of the Board of Governors of the National Conference, Northern California Region, USA. He is also
a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Management Association, the University of
Washington-college of Engineering Visiting Committee and the Board of Directors of Center for Prevention of Abuse. He
was awarded the "Distinguished Alumnus 1997 Award” by the University of Washington, Department of Chemical
Engineering.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is proud of the achievements of Shri Jeet S Bindra. In recognition of his
outstanding technological and exceptional managerial contributions to the petroleum industry, the Institute hereby
confers upon Shri Jeet S Bindra its Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2001-2002
Lalit Jalan
(BT/EE/79)
Mr Lalit Jalan (BT/EE/79) has had a distinguished academic background finishing in the top 2% of his class throughout. After
completing his B.Tech in Electrical Engineering in 1979 he did his Masters in Computer Science and MBA in Finance from the
Wharton School, University of Pennsylavania.
He is currently heading eBusiness for the Reliance Group (13 billion $) which is the largest Indian private sector company. He is
responsible for the end-to-end e-transformation of all Reliance businesses and functions. On completion of his education he
joined General Electric Company as a Strategic Planner. After working with them for 2 years and getting his green card he
returned back to his homeland India to startup a business.
He started a distribution / real estate development company and over the next 11 years grew it to a 250 crores business. This
was achieved with only a small seed capital and funded through internal accruals.
At that stage Mr Anil D Ambani, Promoter of the Reliance Group who had studied with him at Wharton, coaxed him into heading
the Polypropylene business which was the biggest Reliance initiative at that time.
In just 42 months, Lalit grew the Polypropylene startup business to a US $1 billion (Rs 6,000 crores) turnover from scratch. This
has been the fastest ramp up of capacity in the world and made Reliance the 5th largest world producer. He is the Youngest
Business Head ever at Reliance, contributing to 25% of Reliance's turnover. He was appointed to this position despite the lack of
petrochemical experience. This has to be a record of some sort not just by Indian standards but global standards. It is really
difficult to think of any profitable business growing at this rate. If this story was allowed to be aired by Reliance, this is the type of
story that makes the cover of Forbes.
His major responsibilities included setting up of entire domestic and international distribution network; customer acquistion /
customer acceptance of the products; staffing of the entire team; financial systems and controls; successful introduction and
acceptance of more than 25 different grades, many of them for the first time in India. Despite such a demanding job, he has
continued to run a consumer distribution business (personal family business) in parallel. The Polypropylene business alone
created jobs for thousands of engineers in India across a wide variety of relevant disciplines -Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical,
Industrial and for business majors such as Finance and accounting, to Sales and Marketing. The distribution business in
Calcutta also continues to impact employment in Sales, Logistics and finance. While many distinguished alumni have certainly
done well in the US and have created billion $ market cap companies, the concentration of wealth from a billion $ market cap
tends to remain in the hands of a few people. What Lalit has created in a billion $ Revenue business spreads wealth across a
wider set of people and impact is felt over a longer range of time.
Mr Lalit Jalan is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for his outstanding
managerial skills.
Mriganka Sur
(BT/EE/74)
Dr Mriganka Sur (BT/EE/74) is the Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. After
graduating from IIT/K in Electrical Engineering in 1974, Dr. Sur completed his graduate studies from the Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, TN. After serving in the Department of Psychology at Vanderbilt University, Department of Neurobiology and Behaviour at
SUNY Stony Brook, Section of Neuroanatomy at School of Medicine of Yale University, Dr.Mriganaka Sur joined the Department of
Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT in 1986 where he is serving as the Head of the Department since 1987. Professor Sur is one of
the leading neuroscientists in the world today with his ars of specialization in fields such as (a) organization of somatosensory cortex in
primates, (b) organization of the sensory-perceptual systems of the brain, (c) activity-dependent mechanisms of pattern formation in
retinal projections to the visual thalamus (c) rewiring cortex and the role of visual activity in cortical development and plasticity, (d)
cortical circuits and dynamic processing networks in visual cortex and (e) cellular, systems and computational approaches to critical
networks and processing. He has done, and continues to do, groundbreaking innovative experiments that focus on the functional
organization of the visual thalamus and cortex and mechanisms underlying the development and plasticity of connections in the visual
pathways. With several papers in Nature and Science on themes like 'visual projections into auditory thalamus and cortex', 'multiple
representations of the body within “SI” primates', 'retinogeniculate terminations and morphological differences between X-and Y-cell
axons', 'neural activity and the development of brain circuits' etc. Dr Sur has more than 140 publications in the top neuroscience
journals. Dr Sur has supervised more than 30 doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows.
As an excellent teacher and the winner of the GSCT Award (1989) for his teaching at MIT 1989 and School of Science Prize for
Excellence in Graduate Teaching (2000) at MIT, Dr Sur is winner of several prestigious awards in his field. He has received Meghnad
Saha Award, IEEE (1976), Charles Judson Herrick Award of the Americal Association of Anatomists (1983), Whitaker Health
Sciences Fund Faculty Award (1986), Distinguished Neuroscientist Award ASIOA (1987), McKnight Neuroscience Development
Award (1988), the TOKEN Award United Nations Development Program (1991) and the Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer Award
(2001). He has also received AP Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1985), McDonnell-Pew Visiting Professorship at Oxford University
(1997), Hans-Lukas Tumor Scholar in the Brain Science MIT (1997), Sherman Fairchild Chair of Neuroscience (1998) and the
Distinguished Overseas Lecturer, Australian Neuroscience Society (2000).
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Department of Biotechnology, India and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Encylopedia of
Neuroscience, Dr Mriganka Sur is a member of boards of the most bodies/ panels in the field. He is also a member of several advisory
committees and administrative services at MIT. He has given many invited talks and participated in expositions in the field of
neuroscience almost everywhere in the world.
Dr Sur is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for his outstanding and seminal
contributions in the field of Neuroscience.
Ajoy Kumar Bose
(BT/EE/71)
Dr Ajoy K Bose (BT/EE/71) is presently the Chairman of the Interra Group as well as the President and the Chief Executive Officer of Atrenta Inc
USA. Dr. Bose founded Interra Inc in 1995, which he built from the ground up into a very successful group of companies developing software and
providing services in the high-tech markets. He has in excess of 25 years of experience in software development and management.
After receiving his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, Dr Bose started his professional career at AT&T Bell Labs,
Murray Hill, New Jersey, where he was a Department Head. He left Bell Labs after 12 years and joined Cadence Design System. As the VicePresident of Engineering at Cadence, he was responsible for product development of all CAE tools. Prior to founding Interra, he was also the
founder and president of Software and Technologies. His current ventures include several companies in the Interra Group that are based in San
Jose, CA with R&D centers in India.
Dr Bose created the Interra Group as a diversified software company that developed businesses in several areas, all of them involved in either
cutting-edge products or services to the high-technology industry. These businesses, as they matured, were spun out into independent companies.
Today, there are four companies in the Group, each a successful venture in its space.
The Interra Group consists of Interra Technologies, Inc which has primarily focused on delivering products and services tailored to the needs of
leading electronic design automation and semiconductor vendors. Interra Tech's business focus includes software components for Hardware
Description Language (HDL) based design tools, RAM compiler development systems, and the development of a diversified set of functions in
Electronic Design Automation.
Interra Digital Video Technologies (DVT), concentrates on developing analysis, verification and compliance software for the digital video and optical
disc markets. Its products include MPROBE, an industry standard software used by over three hundred companies worldwide for MPEG-1, MPEG2 and MPEG-4 analysis, SURVEYOR, also used very widely for the verification of DVD discs, and SyncCheck, a tool that measures the
synchronization of video and audio data in MPEG bitstreams.
Interra Information Technologies (IT) specializes in a wide range of IT services and enterprise-wide Internet solutions. Specializing in mainframes,
UNIX, and Microsoft environments, Interra IT has a number of blue chip customers for whom the company provides advanced product
development, and IT operations support.
Atrenta Inc, the most recent spin off company in the Group, was launched in January 2001. Atrenta produces an enabler of Collaborative Electronic
Design solutions that significantly accelerate development of electronic products. The Company's premier product, SpyGlass, is the industry's first
and only analytical look-ahead engine that enables design engineers to foresee and collaborate on critical downstream engineering and
manufacturing issues early in the semiconductor product development cycle. This approach, combining deep design expertise with predictive
analysis, is a vital component for correct and efficient design and manufacture of today's complex electronic products.
Dr Ajoy Bose is conferred with the Disitnguished Alumnus Award of the IIT Kanpur for his exemplary
enterpreneurship qualities and outstanding technological contributions.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2002-2003
Nitin Saxena
(BT/CSE/2002)
Nitin Saxena obtained his B Tech in Computer Science and Engineering in 2001 from the
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur where he is currently a Doctoral student. As a B Tech
student, Nitin Saxena was part of the team that recently announced a polynomial time
algorithm for primality testing. This solves one of the most outstanding open problems of
mathematics and Computer Science -as prime numbers play a pivotal role in all the areas of
Mathematics and Computer Science. The result is now considered as the biggest
advancement in a decade in computational number theory. What has astounded the
scientific community is the elegance of the solution -the algorithm is only thirteen lines long,
and its proof of correctness takes less than three pages.
Nitin is a very gifted individual. Besides doing excellently in his field of study, computer
science, he has also demonstrated his talent in mathematics. Nitin had ranked 10th in the
Indian National Mathematics Olympiad, and was awarded the prize for the Best Solution to a
challenging problem. What, however, distinguishes him from the majority, is the motivation
and dedication to work at hard problems. By carrying out the outstanding work on primality
testing, Nitin has undoubtedly done IIT Kanpur and its alumni immensely proud. He, along
with his team members, has demonstrated in the most decisive fashion that the very best
possible research work can be done at IIT Kanpur.
Nitin Saxena has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions in Complexity Theory by developing a
Polynomial Time Algorithm for Primality Testing.
Neeraj Kayal
(BT/CSE/2002)
Neeraj Kayal obtained his B Tech in Computer Science and Engineering in 2001 from the
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and is currently a Doctoral student in the same
department. As a B Tech student, Neeraj Kayal was part of the team that recently
announced a polynomial time algorithm for primality testing. This solves one of the most
outstanding open problems of Mathematics and Computer Science -as prime numbers play
a pivotal role in all the areas of mathematics and computer science. The result is now
considered as the biggest advancement in a decade in computational number theory. What
has astounded the scientific community is the elegance of the solution -the algorithm is only
thirteen lines long, and its proof of correctness takes less than three pages.
Neeraj is a very gifted individual. Besides doing excellently in his field of study, computer
science, he has also demonstrated his talent in mathematics. Neeraj was also selected for
Indian National Mathematics Olympiad, 1997. He was awarded the National Talent Search
Scholarship, as well as the Jagadis Bose National Science Talent Search Scholarship, both
in 1996. What, however, distinguishes him from the majority, is the motivation and
dedication to work at hard problems. By carrying out the outstanding work on primality
testing, Neeraj has undoubtedly done IIT Kanpur and its alumni immensely proud. He, along
with his team members, has demonstrated in the most decisive fashion that the very best
possible research work can be done at IIT Kanpur.
Neeraj Kayal has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions in Complexity Theory by developing a
Polynomial Time Algorithm for Primality Testing.
Sandip Tiwari
(BT/EE/76)
After graduating from IITK Dr Sandip Tiwari joined the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for his Meng in Electrical &
Systems Engineering and then Cornell University where he received PhD degree in Electrical Engineering in 1980. At
present, he is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University, Lester B. Knight Director of Cornell
Nanofabrication Facility, and Director of National Nanofabrication Users Network Knight Laboratory.
Prof Tiwari is an active researcher with experimental and theoretical contributions spanning electronic and optical devices
and circuits in silicon and III -V semiconductors. Some of his inventions and contributions which have significantly
influenced research and industrial directions include: nano-crystal and quantum-dot memories -dense memory structures
that are currently being viewed as an option for low power non-volatile memories; back-plane transistors and memories
devices for sub-50 nm dimensions and for software-configurable circuits; vertical structures for memories that are finding
use in multi-Gbit DRAM generations; refractory contacts for III -V heterostructure bipolar transistors; and explanations of
surface recombination in bipolar transistors, alloy-potential-related high current effect in III -V heterostructure bipolar
transistors, and frequency limitations and gain compression in quantum -wire lasers.
His current research interests are in small devices and their circuits, experimental and theoretical investigations of ultrasmall transistor structures, use of nano-structures through device applications of single electron and reduced density of
state effects, development of circuits that connect the small structures with the CMOS world, low power circuits, and threedimensional integration for logic, memory, analog and mixed-signal applications. Prof Sandip Tiwari has a number of
research papers to his credit in refereed journals. He is author of the books Compound Semiconductor Device Physics
published by Academic Press and Compound Semiconductor Transistors -Physics and Technoloy published by IEEE
Press. During 2001, he became the founding Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, a paper and
electronic archival journal that started appearing in 2002.
Prior to joining Cornell, Dr Sandip Tiwari was a Research Staff Member and Manager for Exploratory Devices and Device
Modeling at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He has held visiting and adjunct faculty appointments at the
University of Michigan (1988-89) and Columbia University (1993). He is a Fellow of IEEE. He is a past Associate Editor and
Co-Guest-Editor of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices. He has received a number of IBM Outstanding Research
Awards, and Young Scientist of the Year Award of Institute of Physics (1991) which are a few to count on. He has been also
a consultant to the United Nations (1994 1995).
Prof Sandip Tiwari has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for his
phenomenal contributions in the field of Microelectronics and Nanofabrication technologies.
Manindra Agarwal
(BT/CSE/86)
Dr Manindra Agrawal, the 36-year-old professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, was born and schooled in Allahabad, after which he joined IIT Kanpur for
the B Tech in Computer Science and Engineering. Manindra subsequently obtained his doctoral thesis in
Complexity Theory in 1991 also from IIT Kanpur. He then did a three-year stint at the Chennai Mathematical
Institute in Madras before bagging the prestigious Humboldt fellowship at the University of Ulm in Germany. He
returned to IIT Kanpur as a member of the faculty in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in
1996. Manindra Agrawal is thus a home-grown Computer Scientist who began his work on complexity theory at
IIT Kanpur itself.
While also interested in Computational Number Theory and Cryptography, Manindra Agarwal is known as one of
the foremost researchers in Complexity Theory. His work on the p-isomorphism conjecture has rejuvenated this
field, and the strongest current result in this field is due to him. A major work on a polynomial time algorithm for
primality testing has recently been announced by Manindra and his two students. This solves one of the most
outstanding open problems of Mathematics and Computer Science -as prime numbers play a pivotal role in all the
areas of Mathematics and Computer Science. The result is now considered as the biggest advancement in a
decade in computational number theory. What has astounded the scientific community is the elegance of their
solution -their algorithm is only thirteen lines long, and its proof of correctness takes less than three pages. This
discovery has bought in immense prestige to India, not just to IIT Kanpur and it will certainly provide the
necessary courage and impetus to the young Indian researchers to set really challenging goals, rather than work
incrementally at paradigms set by the research programmes of abroad. For this work Manindra was also awarded
the Clay Research Award in October, 2002.
Dr Manindra Agarwal has also received several other awards and honours. He is also a system builder. He has
designed and implemented a symmetric-key algorithm Trinetra and built and productionized a crypto system for
the Indian Navy. He along with a few other colleagues has also defined the Indian Smart Card operating system
standards.
Dr Manindra Agrawal is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for his
outstanding contributions in Complexity Theory and by developing a Polynomial Time Algorithm for
Primality Testing.
Mohan Tambe
(BT/EE/80)
Mr Mohan Tambe is presently the Managing Director of Innomedia Technologies Pvt Limited,
which he founded in 1996.
Mr Mohan Tambe obtained his B Tech degree in Electrical Engineering in 1980 and M Tech in
Computer Science and Engineering in 1982 from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He
joined the Electrical Engineering department of IIT Kanpur as a Research Engineer. In 1988 he
joined the Centre for Development of Advance Computing, Pune.
Mr Tambe is the inventor of the successful GIST (Graphics and Indian Scripts Terminal)
technology which has become a standard package for Indian languages. He subsequently
designed and brought out the first commercial ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) in
India, GIST 9000. His works played a vital role in making of ISCII (Indian Standard Code for
Information Interchange) standards. Mr Tambe also invented LIPS (Language Independent
Programme Subtitles/Dubbing) which is used by the Doordarshan. He has eight patents relating to
GIST. His citizen ID card technology was used to make ID cards for voters. After developing the
technology of CHOIS (The Cable TV-based Home and Office Interactive Service) Mr Mohan
Tambe started his own enterprise as Innomedia Technologies. Running in several places on the
pilot scale basis CHOIS technology aims first to provide the basic services to everyone and then to
consolidate and enrich them. It models the Interactive Media in such a way that it can be spread in
a cost-effective manner through the cable operators themselves.
Mr Mohan Tambe has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for his
outstanding contributions in the field of Information and Communication Engineering.
K VijayRaghavan
(BT/ChE/75)
Dr K VijayRaghavan, after doing B Tech in 1975 and M Tech in 1977 in Chemical
Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur obtained his PhD degree in
Molecular Biology from TIFR Bombay. From 1984 to 1988 he worked at California Institute
of Technology, USA in the area of Molecular Biology and Genetics. After returning from USA
he joined NCBS as a Reader where he is currently a Professor and the Director.
Dr K VijayRaghavan has earlier worked on the function and analysis of a blood oxygeneator
and heart-lung-machine at IIT Kanpur, genetic analysis of flight muscle in Drosophila,
genetics of steroid hormone regulated genes in Drosophila and the molecular analysis of
brain mRNAs in flies. His current interests lie in understanding mechanisms underlying
animal development, in particular the formation of muscles in the fruit fly Drosophila
Melanogaster. A Fellow of Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science
Academy, Dr K VijayRaghavan is recipient of several awards as British Council Fellowship,
Proctor and Gamble Fellowship (Caltech), Lucile P Markey Fellowship (Caltech) and
Biotechnology Career Development Award of Rockfeller Foundation. In 1998, Dr K
VijayRaghavan was conferred with the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Biology. Author
of several technical papers in refereed journals, Dr K VijayRaghavan is a member of the
editorial board of Journal of Genetics.
Dr K VijayRaghavan has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for his
outstanding contributions in the field of Biological Sciences.
Mahesh Bihari Lal
(BT/ChE/69)
Mr Mahesh Bihari Lal recently has taken over as the Chairman and the Managing Director of the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. Prior to this
appointment, he was the Director (Refineries), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) since May 1996.
After completing his BTech from IIT Kanpur Mahesh Bihari Lal obtained his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. With a brilliant academic career Mr Lal has a
vast and extensive experience in the petroleum industry. After three years of working experience with other organizations, Mr Lal joined BurmahShell Refineries in 1974, which in 1976 was nationalized and became Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. During 1974 to 1990 he was
associated with departments of Operations, Projects and Technical Services at various levels. He took over as the GM (Refineries) in 1990. He was
on deputation to MOP & NG as Officer on Special Duty (OSD)/Advisor (Refineries) during June 1991 to March 1994. During this period he officiated
as Executive Director of the Center for High Technology and also served on the Boards of Madras Refineries Limited, Cochin Refinery Limited, IBP
Company limited and Numaligarh Refineries Limited as the Government Director. Prior to taking up his assignment with BPCL, Mr Lal was working
as Director (Operations) for Madras Refineries Limited and also officiating as CMD of MRL for a short stint.
At present, Mr. Lal is on the Boards of M/s. Guru Gobind Singh Refineries Ltd. (GGSRL), being set up at Bathinda, Punjab, and M/s. Hindustan
Colas Limited (HINCOL), a Joint Venture between Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and Colas of France.
On account of several initiatives taken by Mr Lal and special emphasis placed by him on safety, the BPCL refinery achieved the lowest ever number
of minor injuries in a year since its inception in 1955. The refinery also achieved highest safety rating on international benchmarks, being among first
8% of the refineries worldwide which adopted the International Safety Rating System. During this period, BPCL refinery also became one of the
most profitable PSU refineries in the country. Some of the major achievements under Mr. Lal's tenure as Director (Refineries) in BPCL include:
significant modernization and upgradation of BPCL refinery, launching of several schemes to enhance overall performance in the areas of
production, safety, environment, HR Management and Development, exceeding all targets and setting new records in capacity utilization, product
yields, energy consumption, becoming the first refinery to implement a comprehensive IT based network for information sharing, on line
optimization and integrated production management including process modeling and simulation and initiating, conceiving and developing a world
class R&D facility for BPCL in India.
During Mr. Lal's tenure, the BPCL refinery also bagged several awards for its performance including Best Safety Performance Award from OISD
(Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas) [1997-98], Jawaharlal Nehru Centenary Award instituted by MOP&NG for best Improvement in Energy
Conservation and Best Performance [1998-99], Golden Peacock National Quality Award [2000], Golden Peacock Environment Management
Award [2002], Golden Peacock National Training Award [2002], Indian Merchant Chamber Ramakrishna Bajaj National Quality Certificate of Merit
Award in the Manufacturing category [2001], National Petroleum Management Programme Awards on Excellence in Creativity and Innovation for
its employees. FICCI Award for Environmental Conservation and Pollution Control, Delphi Award of the Delphi Research Group in USA for best
practices for the effort in developing a global Refinery portal to enhance safety, efficiency, productivity and customer service with the two other
winners being General Motors of US and US Research Naval Laboratory.
Mr Mahesh Bihari Lal has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the IIT Kanpur for
his outstanding and all round contributions to the Petroleum Refining Industry in India.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2003-2004
Late Satyendra K.Dubey
(BT/CE/94)
Born in a small village in Sewan (Bihar), Mr Satyendra Kumar Dubey obtained High School from a
village school. He graduated from IIT Kanpur with a B Tech degree in Civil Engineering in 1994
with second position in the class. Fuelled by his desire of contributing to public welfare, Mr Dubey
chose to join the Indian Engineering Services as opposed to pursuing a glittering corporate career
or greener pastures abroad. In July 2002, he was posted as an Assistant Project Manager at the
National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). Honest and dedicated, Mr Dubey made his mark in the
Rs 450 crore worth highway stretch. He used to ride his bicycle to the quarry to inspect the quality
of stone and other equipment to ensure the commitment of the contractor. He never compromised
on the quality and once forced a contractor to reconstruct a 6 km stretch of highway after
discovering inferior quality of work. Mr Dubey invariably visited work sites several times a week,
instead of the usual practice of once in months. While posted at Gaya on a project, he once got
three engineers suspended for mishandling of funds.
Mr Dubey was recently selected as the Deputy General Manager/Project Director of the Koderma
Project Implementation Unit to handle 5,200 km stretch in the Golden Quadrilateral Corridor
Project. Fate, however, had another destiny for this courageous and upright young man. Mr
Dubey, while travelling by rickshaw to his house from railway station on the morning of November
27, 2003, was found lying dead near A P colony in Gaya. The young engineer, who stood up
against corruption, was shot dead by a highly sophisticated weapon. It appears that some people
who found it inconvenient to have Mr Dubey as the Project Director eliminated him.
Mr Dubey did what he must inspite of personal consequences, obstacles, dangers and pressures. In recognition of
his honesty, integrity, dedicated service and upright behaviour in public life, the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur confers upon him the Distinguished Alumnus Award for the year 2003-04.
Suresh Pandey
(BT/MME/65)
Mr Suresh Pandey, an outstanding professional and technocrat with excellent commercial
acumen, rose to the position of Managing Director of Bokaro Steel Plant, a company which
has a turnover of approximately rupees seven thousand crore. Mr Pandey, a 1965
Metallurgical Engineering graduate, joined Rourkela Steel Plant and organized its
Production Planning & Control, and Marketing activities from scratch. His performance
earned him the National Metallurgists' Day Award. Subsequently he was moved to Bhilai
Steel Plant as Deputy General Manager (Services) and was later promoted as General
Manager (Iron & Steel). Under the leadership of Mr Pandey, the plant for the first time
achieved 100% rated capacity for both Hot Metal and Steel production, and crossed 180%
rated capacity for Bloom Caster production.
In 1995 he was elevated as the Executive Director of the Plant. During his tenure the plant
achieved tremendous techno-economic benefits through steps such as the introduction of
LD slag in Sinter and Iron making, and charging of nut-coke in blast furnaces. In 1998 Mr
Pandey became a member of the SAIL Board as Director (Operations). His initiatives gave
far reaching benefits to the Steel Authority of India Ltd.
Mr Pandey became the Managing Director of Bokaro Steel Plant in 2001 and brought about
revolutionary cultural and technological changes. He made significant changes in the
concept of flux usage in LD Steel making which more than doubled the life of 300 tonne
converter at Bokaro.
Mr. Suresh Pandey is held in high esteem for his enormous contribution towards the development of steel
sector in India. He is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur for his outstanding technological and managerial contributions to the steel industry.
Amitabh Srivastava
(BT/EE/79)
Mr Amitabh Srivastava, a 1979 B Tech in Electrical Engineering, is a Corporate Vice President of
the Windows Core Operating System Development and a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer. Mr
Srivastava joined Microsoft in 1997 as a Senior Researcher and led the Advanced Development
Tools group in Microsoft Research that investigated new techniques to build innovative tools and
technologies to improve performance and quality of Microsoft software. His vision and energy led
to the creation of the Programmer Productivity Research Center in March 1999, which he has led
since its inception. Srivastava's group has produced several tools and technologies that are
critical to Microsoft product groups. In January 2001, he became one of a select few to be named a
Distinguished Engineer. As part of the continued focus on engineering excellence, he joined a
strong Windows team in December 2003 as Vice President of the Core OS development to
redesign how Windows architects and engineers products.
Before working for Microsoft, Mr Srivastava was the Chief Technical Officer and Vice President of
Engineering at TracePoint Technology Inc. and later joined Digital's Western Research
Laboratories. His research on binary code modification resulted in the creation of TracePoint.
Mr Srivastava holds several patents and has published a variety of papers. He is the author of OM,
ATOM and SCOOPS software systems, which have resulted in products for Digital Equipment and
Texas Instruments on the Alpha and PC platforms. He led the design and development of the
Vulcan system at Microsoft.
He was selected the 2004 Outstanding Engineering Alumnus of the Pennsylvania State
University.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to software technology, Mr Amitabh Srivastava is
conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2004-2005
Ajay Kumar
(PHD/AE/74)
Dr Ajay Kumar is currently serving as the Director, Aerodynamics, Aerothermodynamics and Acoustics competency at the NASA
Langley Research Centre, Hampton Virginia. In this capacity, he directs some 320 people in conducting theoretical, computational
and experimental research and technology development in Aerodynamics, Aerothermodynamics, Acoustics, and Hypersonic Air
breathing Propulsion for transport and military aircraft, space transportation and paunch vehicles and earth and planetary exploration.
Kumar began his carrier in NASA in January 1981 as an aerospace engineering the Hypersonic Propulsion Branch in the High Speed
Aerodynamics Division at the Langley Research Centre. He advanced to the position of Head, Theoretical Flow Physics Branch in
1987 and Chief, Aero and Gas Dynamics Division in 1995 before moving into his current position in late 1998.
Before joining NASA, Kumar taught at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and Kharagpur, India from 1973 to 1975. In 1975, he
was awarded a National Research Council Associateship at NASA Langley to develop computational tools for predicting aero-thermal
environment over earth and planetary entry bodies. This effort resulted in a computer code that was used as the benchmark code in
the design of the Galileo probe heat shield that successfully entered the atmosphere of planet Jupiter in 1995. From 1977 to 1981, he
worked as a research Faculty member at the Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia under a research grant from NASA Langley
and developed a series of codes to analyze scramjet engine flow path and propulsion airframe integration for application to hypersonic
vehicles and missile systems. Ajay has obtained his Bachelor of Science from Agra University in 1964, a Bachelor of Engineering in
Mechanical Engineering from the University of Roorkee in 1968, Master of Engineering in Aerodynamics from the Indian Institute of
Science in 1970 and PhD in Aerodynamics from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1974. While at NASA Langley he earned
a Master of Engineering Administration from the George Washington University in 1984.
Kumar is the author or coauthor of approximately 125 technical publications and has co-edited 4 books on topics related to transition,
turbulence, combustion and advanced numerical algorithms. He has won many NASA and external awards. He is a Fellow of the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). In 1992 he was awarded a NASA Exceptional Scientific achievement
award. The Indian Institute of Science has recognized him as the Distinguished Alumnus of its Aeronautical Engineering department.
He currently serves on the Editorial Board of International Journal of Computers and Fluids.
He has been awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award for his outstanding and phenomenal contributions to the world of aviation
industry and especially for his significant contribution in the development of X-43A, a hypersonic scramjet-powered research aircraft
designed to fly at a speeds up to Mach 10.
He has been awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award for his outstanding and phenomenal contributions
to the world of aviation industry and especially for his significant contribution in the development of X-43A, a
hypersonic scramjet-powered research aircraft designed to fly at a speeds up to Mach 10.
Pawan Kumar Goenka
(BT/ME/75)
Dr Pawan Kumar Goenka (BT/ME/75) is currently the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Automotive Sector.
After completing his BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1975, he went to Cornell University from where he obtained
his MS as well as PhD in Mechanical Engineering. His MS work on tribology and lubrication of artificial hip joints at Cornell University
gave him a wide spread recognition and subsequently worked on engine lubrication and tribology as part of his PhD thesis gave him a
wide spread recognition.
After obtaining his PhD, Dr Pawan Kumar Goenka joined General Motors at Detroit and continued his research into engine tribology
lubrication where he developed a software package called FLARE (Friction and Lubrication Analysis of Lubricating Reciprocating
Engines). In the later part of his career with GM he led the GM Research activity in Engine Mechanical components and engine NVH.
After serving for a 14-year stint at GM, Dr Pawan Goenka returned to India and joined Mahindra and Mahindra (M & M) R & D in 1993.
Dr Goenka's first task in M&M's R&D was to introduce CAD-CAM and deal with problems relating to engine and vehicle NVH (noise,
vibration, harshness). This led to a project for reworking the guts of the Armada vehicle. Subsequently Dr Goenka started the work on
Chrysler-Cherokee project in M&M's R&D. He subsequently moved to other products including the Armada 98, the Bolero and the
Load King. The latest in this series is Scorpio which has been conceptualized and designed by the in-house IDAM (integrated design
and manufacturing) team led by Dr Pawan Goenka. "Scorpio was the most exciting project any automotive engineer could think of
being involved with," says Dr Goenka. "My Our team was involved in everything, from market research to design to setting up the
plant. I could never have got such an opportunity at GM." Launch of Scorpio has helped M&M move into the urban market segment
and has helped establish SUV segment in India.
Dr Goenka is internationally recognized for his pioneering work in Tribology. His methods for the analysis of engine bearing and
engine friction, developed over 20 years ago, remain in use as a common reference in automotive engineering. He is widely
recognized as an expert in vehicle emissions and alternate energy driven vehicle technology.
Dr Pawan Goenka was elected to the prestigious status of "SAE Fellow" by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE International) in
2003, the highest grade of membership bestowed by Society of Automotive Engineers for outstanding engineering and scientific
accomplishments. Resulting in meaningful advances in automotive, aerospace, and commercial vehicle technology. The program,
established in 1975, recognizes an average of only 20 worldwide recipients for this honor each year. He is only the 2nd Indian
Resident to have received this honor. Dr Goenka is also an INAE Fellow. He is also highly respected in the Indian industry for his
phenomenal commitment to engineering design and quality assurance. He is a member the National Committee on Quality,
Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). Dr Goenka moved into his current role of COO of the Automotive Sector in April 1, 2003.
He has been awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award for his outstanding and all round
contributions in the field of the Vehicle Design & Development and Engine Tribology.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2005-2006
Abhay K. Bhushan
(BT/EE/65)
Mr. Abhay K. Bhushan (BT/EE/65) is presently the Chairman of ASquare and serves on the
boards of Point Cross and Mobile Web Surf. He obtained his B. Tech degree in Electrical
Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, in 1965. He obtained both his
Masters in EE and Masters in Management degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
He has been the mentor of a host of start-up ventures in USA. He was a major contributor to
the development of the Internet TCP/IP architecture, and was the author of FTP and the
early versions of email protocols. He is co-holder of 12 US patents on semiconductor drying
and cleaning technologies. Mr. Bhushan initiated and managed the Environmental
Leadership Program at Xerox and authored the widely acclaimed 'Business Guide to Waste
Reduction and Recycling'. He was cofounder of YieldUP International, which went public on
NASDAQ in 1995, and of Portola Communications, which was acquired by Netscape in
1997. In 1978-79 he worked on Rural Development in Allahabad, India, and was President
of Indians for Collective Action, supporting grassroots development projects in India.
He received the Community Service Award from the Indo-American Chamber of
Commerce. He is presently the Chief Financial Officer of the IITK Foundation, USA,
founding past president of PanIIT USA, and Coordinator for the PanIIT Global Committee.
Mr. Abhay K. Bhushan has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur, for
excellence in entrepreneurship and his outstanding contributions to social activities.
Pawan Kumar
(BT/CE/69;MT/CHE/72)
Mr. Pawan Kumar (BT/CE/69;MT/CHE/72) is presently the President of Scandent
Solutions, Bangalore. After serving IIT Kanpur as Operations Manager in its
Computer Center, he joined Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). During his 19
years at TCS, he contributed to its growth to make it one of the largest software
and management consultancy organizations. In 1992, Mr. Kumar moved to RPGEnterprises as Chief Executive of International Software Division of its joint
venture with Fujitsu of Japan and ICL of UK. He was instrumental in making
Fujitsu-ICIM the seventh largest software services export company of India.
In 1996, Mr. Kumar joined IBM Global Services India as its President. Thereafter,
Mr. Kumar was the President of DSQ Software Ltd for a year . From 2001 Mr.
Kumar was Founder, Chairman and CEO of vMoksha Ltd. He is currently a
Director on the Boards of Gujarat Venture Fund and Lord Krishna Bank .
Mr. Pawan Kumar has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award, of IIT
Kanpur, for his excellence in entrepreneurship.
Vijay Mahajan
(BT/CHE/70)
Prof. Vijay Mahajan (BT/CHE/70), former Dean of the Indian School of Business,
holds the John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business at Mc Combs School of
Business, University of Texas at Austin. He received his MS in Chemical
Engineering and Ph. D in Management from the University of Texas at Austin.
Prof. Mahajan has received numerous lifetime achievement awards, including
the American Marketing Association (AMA) Charles Coolidge Parlin Award for
visionary leadership in scientific marketing. The AMA also instituted the Vijay
Mahajan Award in 2000 for career contributions in marketing strategy.
Prof. Mahajan is author or editor of ten books. He is one of the world's most
widely cited researchers in business and economics. He edited the Journal of
Marketing Research, and has consulted with Fortune 500 companies and
delivered executive development programs worldwide.
Prof. Vijay Mahajan has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT
Kanpur for his outstanding contributions to Management studies.
Pradeep Jotwani
(BT/ME/75)
Mr. Pradeep Jotwani (BT/ME/75) is presently the Senior Vice-President and General
Manager of Hewlett-Packard (HP)'s Imaging and Printing Supplies business. He
obtained B. Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Master's degree in
Industrial Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MBA from
Stanford University.
From 1977 to 1980, Mr. Jotwani worked for Cummins Engine Company making diesel
engines. He joined Hewlett Packard (HP) in 1982. He has held a number of senior
management positions in HP both in Europe and the U.S. In 1995, he was Marketing
Manager for HP's Inkjet Products Group. He led HP's entrance into the consumer
business starting 1996, when he was named General Manager of the Consumer
Products Business Organization. This business grew rapidly, and in 2000, he was
named President of HP's Consumer Business Organization, a global business with
annual revenues of $15 billion. After the HP/Compaq merger in 2002, he has led HP's
Printing Supplies business, a vertically integrated business which provides printer
cartridges to an installed base of 100 million customers who own 375 million printers.
Mr. Jotwani is on the Strategy Committee of the Advisory Board of the Markulla Center
of Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
Mr. Pradeep Jotwani has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT
Kanpur for his outstanding managerial contributions.
Ambuj Goyal
(BT/EE/78)
Dr. Ambuj Goyal (BT/EE/78) is presently the General Manager, IBM's Information
Management Software Unit, IBM Software Group, USA. He obtained his B. Tech degree from
the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and Ph. D degree in Electrical Engineering from the
University of Texas at Austin.
Mr. Goyal joined IBM Corporation in 1982 as research staff member at the TJ Watson
Research Center. He was named Vice President, Services & Software, and Director, Computer
Sciences, in 1996. In that capacity, he was responsible for setting IBM's long-term research
direction in computer sciences, as well as ensuring that the best emerging technologies
contribute to IBM's services offerings and software products. His early work in scalable
databases led to IBM's Universal Database (DB2) family. He was also responsible for setting
the early direction in web application servers which lead to the development of WebSphere
product family. He led the research efforts to create the RS/6000 SP supercomputer and the
Deep Blue World Chess Champion computer. His main research interests are high
performance systems, databases and distributed systems. He has authored several journal
publications in various fields and has received five outstanding innovation awards from IBM.
He was elected an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to the theory and practice of highly
dependable systems, and elected an ACM Fellow in recognition of outstanding technical and
professional achievements in the field of information technology.
Dr. Ambuj Goyal has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT
Kanpur for his outstanding managerial contributions.
Umesh K. Mishra
(BT/EE/79)
Prof. Umesh K. Mishra (BT/EE/79) is presently Professor, Department of Electrical &
Computer Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Associate Dean of
the College of Engineering. He received Master's in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh
University, Pennsylvania and Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, New
York. Prof. Mishra has excelled in research in the domain of semiconductor and solid state
devices. He has received several awards, notable being National Science Foundation
Award, Presidential Young Investigator Award (1989),Young Scientist of the Year Award
(1992), Fellow, IEEE (1995), and, Compound Semi Conductor Pioneer Award (2003). Prof.
Mishra won the "Outstanding Faculty Member" honor 4 times during his 16-year tenure at
UCSB. His research has fetched US $ 42 million in research funding, ensuring that UCSB
remains a top research and teaching establishment in Electronics Engineering. Over his
career, he has published 249 Journal Papers and 188 Conference Papers and graduated 31
Ph. D students. He has created an enterprise that uses relevant research for developing
next generation products in Solid State Lighting, Micro Wave Power Amplifiers and Power
Switching.
Prof. Mishra was the co-founder of Nitres, Inc. established in 1995 which was purchased by
CREE and is currently the CREE Santa Barbara Technology Center, the research arm of
CREE a company with current revenue of over US $ 300 million.
Prof. Umesh Mishra has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award for his outstanding
contributions to the field of semiconductor and solid state devices.
Rajeev Motwani
(BT/CSE/83)
Prof. Rajeev Motwani (BT/CSE/83) is presently Professor of Computer Science,
Stanford University. His research spans a diverse set of areas in Computer Science,
including databases, data mining & data privacy, web search & information retrieval,
robotics, computational drug design, and theoretical computer science. He has
authored two books and a large number of papers. He serves on the editorial boards of
SIAM Journal on Computing, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, ACM
Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data and IEEE Transactions on
Knowledge and Data Engineering. Prof. Motwani serves on numerous industry boards
and advisory boards, Adchemy, DotEdu Ventures, Flarion, Google, Kaboodle, and
Neopath Networks to name a few. He is a charter member of TIE (The IndUS
Entrepreneurs) and is on the board of BASES (Business Association of Stanford
Engineering Students).
Some of his students helped create the GOOGLE search engine at Stanford and he
was involved in its creation from the early days. He has received the Godel Prize, the
Okawa Foundation Research Award, the Arthur Sloan Research Fellowship and the
National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, the
Bergmann Memorial Award from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and an
IBM Faculty Award.
Prof. Rajeev Motwani has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT
Kanpur for his outstanding contributions to research in Computer Science and
Engineering.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2006-2007
Ravinder Nath Akhoury
(BT/EE/68)
Mr. Ravinder Nath Akhoury (BT/EE/68) is Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of MacKay Shields, a multi-product investment management firm with
approximately $32 billion of assets under management. He joined MacKay
Shields as a Director in 1984. He was elected President in September of
1989 and Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer in 1992. Prior to
joining MacKay Shields, Mr. Akhoury spent four years with Fischer, Francis,
Trees and Watts as a Vice President and member of their Investment Policy
Committee. For the prior seven years, he was with Equitable Life as a Vice
President. He has been in the investment management business since 1973.
Additionally, Mr. Akhoury is a member of the Executive Management
Committee of New York Life Insurance Company.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur confers upon Mr. Ravinder Nath Akhoury the
Distinguished Alumnus Award for his outstanding managerial career and ongoing contribution to the
world of Information Technology.
Narendra Kumar Harihar Kale
(MT/CSE/76)
Mr. Narendra Kumar Harihar Kale (MT/CSE/76) is presently the Chairman of Kale Consultants.
Starting his career as a programmer analyst with Tata Consultancy Services, he moved to
University of Pune as Head of the Systems Group. In 1982, he started Kale Consultants, a
partnership firm, as a consulting practice with a small work force of two persons, a capital of Rs. 1
million and no product expertise. At present the company has grown to become India's leading
developer of application software solutions and services. Kale himself became an expert
recognized world wide, in the sphere of IT, particularly in bank automation. He has been a member
of various committees at the industry level, Consultant to the Computerization Committee of the
Indian Banks Association, a member of the Rangarajan Committee for computerization of Banks
and has participated in several other Committees/Working Groups at the Reserve Bank and the
Indian Banks Association. In 1992, he established Silverline along with 4 other IT professionals. He
led the company to be among the top 10 software service export organizations in the country. In
1999, he left Silverline to solely concentrate on Kale Consultants. As the founder of Kale
Consultants, he has provided the company a clear strategic focus and a unique business model.
He has recognized and practiced the importance of the "value chain" and "Employee Ownership"
long before they became widely used concepts.
Mr. Kale has always believed that world class products can and would be built in India by
encouraging bright young Indian minds to lead the international standards. His company is a
striking example of such product based success, where one of the products has been standardized
for world wide use.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur confers upon Mr. Narendra Kumar Harihar Kale the
Distinguished Alumnus Award for excellence in entrepreneurship.
Ashutosh Sharma
(BT/CHE/82)
Professor Ashutosh Sharma (BT/CHE/82) of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Indian
Institute of Technology Kanpur and the Coordinator of its Nano Sciences Centre, is renowned for his
work on mechanics and instabilities of interfaces and ultra thin films, self-organized mesopatterning & interfacial and colloidal interactions. These studies have direct applications in a variety
of nanotechnology applications including micro and nano fabrication, smart and functional
materials, coatings, adhesives, detergency, wetting, adsorption and nucleation. He has authored
over 130 peer-reviewed publications, of which the ten most cited have received over 1000 citations.
Professor Sharma has received numerous honors and awards for his research including the
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2006);
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Engineering Sciences (2002); RPG Life Science award,
Professor M. M. Sharma Medal and Chemcon Distinguished Speaker Award (2006), the Herdillia
Award (2003) and the Amar Dye Chemical Award (1995)- all of the Indian Institute of Chemical
Engineers; the Maharashtra National Award (1996) and the ISTE-SGSITS National Award (1993)both of the Indian Society for Technical Education. He has been a member of the Editorial Boards of
Journal of Colloid and Interface Science (2000-2002), Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering
(2006-till date) and Indian Chemical Engineer (2006-till date). He is a J. C. Bose Fellow of the
Department of Science & Technology (2006-till date) and an elected Fellow of the Indian National
Science Academy, Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian Academy of Sciences and the
National Academy of Sciences, India.
Professor Ashutosh Sharma is being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian
Institute of Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions and academic achievements in
the field of Chemical Engineering.
Rajiv Desai
(BT/ME/82)
Dr. Rajiv Desai (BT/ME/82) is the founder and CEO of 3Di - a software services company with
operations in US, Japan and India. He also founded and serves as CTO of Embedio, a leader in the
development of next generation embedded operating system and technologies for converged
media devices. He has over 13 years of experience in developing business and joint ventures in
Japan and India. Dr. Rajiv has also managed R&D projects, product development contracts,
software services contracts and developed licensing contracts and strategic business partnerships
with some of the world's leading technology companies.
Prior to becoming a full time entrepreneur, he managed a group of scientists and engineers at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where his team pioneered the concept of micro robots for
planetary exploration that led to successful landing of Mars Pathfinder Rover on Mars in 1997. For
his contributions to the space programme, Dr. Rajiv has received several awards including the
NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal for leadership in developing new space mission for NASA
and JPL's Lew Allen Award for excellence in research. He has also served in academic positions at
educational and research institutions in US, Japan and Europe and has over 30 technical
publications and patents.
Dr. Rajiv holds a Bachelors of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur, Master's in Mechanical Engineering, Master's in Computer Engineering and
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He also holds a MBA
from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management.
Dr. Rajiv Desai is being conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contribution to Research and Development .
Rajeev Chawla
(BT/EE/84)
Mr. Rajeev Chawla (BT/EE/84) is the Secretary (e-Governance), Government of Karnataka. He is the first ever eGovernance Secretary of any State. He designed and implemented India's largest and internally acclaimed eGovernance project ‘BHOOMI’. The project has brought laurels to this country, having won the highest award given
for the public services by United Nations, viz., United Nations Public Services Award for the year 2006. The project
also won the Silver Icon at the Commonwealth Innovation Award in 2002 and was a finalist in Stockholm Challenge
Award and Tech Museum Award in the year 2002.
The Bhoomi project benefits 70 lakh farmers in Karnataka and covers more than 200 lakh parcels of land with a
database that contains 100 crore data fields in respect of these land records. The Bhoomi model is financially and
legally so self-sustaining that at a small user charge of Rs. 15, the total fees recovered till date is of the order of Rs. 90
crores as against the total investment on the project of about Rs. 20 crores. The project today serves as an excellent
example of good governance by bringing in transparency and accountability by dismantling the corruption and
inefficiency in the system of land records which used to be widely prevalent in Karnataka and even now in most of the
other parts of India.
Bhoomi has been declared as the national model for replication in all states by the Ministry of IT & Communication,
Government of India who is also funding this replication. Mr. Chawla was the Convener of the National Committee on
the Computerisation of land records which was responsible for further innovations in the land administration system.
The World Bank is exploring the possibilities of replicating this project in other parts of the world. He has now
implemented a very ambitious ‘NEMMADI’ programme under which, in the first phase, 800 rural telecentres out of
planned 5000 telecentres have been set up in Karnataka. These centres will deliver various e-Governance services
in addition to the Bhoomi services to the citizens. He is also implementing very ambitious G2B project, viz., eProcurement system and the State Wide Human Resource Management System wherein all the details of the 5 lakh
employees of Government of Karnataka will be maintained and updated electronically.
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur confers upon Mr. Rajeev Chawla the Distinguished
Alumnus Award for his significant contributions towards implementing e-governance in India.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2007-2008
Ravi Sethi
(BT/ME/68)
Dr. Ravi Sethi (BT/ME/68) was introduced to computing as a first-year student at IIT Kanpur in 1963. He and five other
students were chosen as teaching assistants for some of the first computing courses taught in India, not only to students
from IIT Kanpur, but to attendees from across the country.
Dr. Sethi earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University in Electrical Engineering, specializing in Computer Science. He began
his career at Bell Labs as a summer intern in 1969, and joined Bell Labs full time in 1976, after serving as Assistant
Professor of Computer Science at Penn State University. Dr. Sethi was at Bell Labs for 24 years, serving in various
positions, including Senior Vice President for Computing and Mathematical Sciences Research and for Communications
Sciences Research. He also took on the additional role of Chief Technical Officer for Lucent's Communications Software
Group.
For his technical contributions to programming languages and compilers, Dr. Sethi was named a Fellow by the Association
for Computing Machinery. Earlier, he received the Distinguished Technical Staff Award from Bell Labs. He has authored 4
books and numerous journal publications. He is best known as one of authors of the classic computer science textbook,
“Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools” also known as the Dragon Book. His books have been translated into 10
languages, including several major European and Asian languages.
Since 2000, Dr. Sethi has been President of Avaya Labs. At Avaya, he launched the Research organization from the
ground up, from identifying the areas of specialization to building up a thriving research program focused on the future of
intelligent communication. Avaya Labs Research has distinguished itself through two forms of innovation: technological
innovation or leading edge research and process innovation to accelerate research results into products and services.
Dr. Sethi has served on the Board of Directors of Avaya Global Connect, a public company in India. He has also served on
the US National Science Foundation's Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Advisory Committee,
which promotes basic research and education. He looks forward to contributing through the Pan-IIT ICORE, India Centers
of Research Excellence.
Dr. Ravi Sethi is being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology, Kanpur for his outstanding technological and managerial contributions.
Jitendra Malik
(BT/EE/80)
Born in Mathura, Professor Jitendra Malik (BT/EE/80) received his Ph.D. in Computer Science
from Stanford University in 1985. In January 1986, he joined the University of California at
Berkeley, where currently he is the Arthur J. Chick Professor in Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science. He is also on the faculty of the Cognitive Science and Vision Science groups.
During 2002-2004, he was the Chair of the Computer Science Division, and during 2004-2006, the
Department Chair of EECS at UC Berkeley.
Professor Malik is one of the most distinguished scientists in the field of computer vision and
computational modeling of human vision. He has supervised 25 Ph.D's and authored over 150
research papers. He has made fundamental and widely cited contributions on a number of
problems in vision including image segmentation and grouping, texture analysis, object
recognition, image based modeling and rendering, content based image querying, intelligent
vehicle highway systems and bio-image analysis.
He received the gold medal for the best graduating student in Electrical Engineering from IIT
Kanpur in 1980, a Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1989, the Diane S. McEntyre Award
for Excellence in Teaching in 2000, a Miller Research Professorship in 2001, Arthur J Chick
Endowed Chair in 2002, and in 2007, the Longuet Higgins Prize for a contribution that has stood
the test of time. He is a fellow of the IEEE and serves on the Technical Advisory Board of Microsoft
Research, India and on the Governing Body of IIIT Bangalore.
Professor Jitendra Malik is being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology, Kanpur for his outstanding contributions and academic achievements in the field of
Ashok Sinha
(BT/EE/73)
Mr. Ashok Sinha (BT/EE/73) is the Chairman & Managing Director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation
Limited, a group with a turnover of USD 26.60 billion and is one of the luminaries of the Oil Sector. Mr.
Sinha is also a Director on the Boards of Petronet LNG Limited and Bharat Shell Limited, which are joint
venture companies promoted by BPCL. As the CEO of BPCL, Mr. Sinha was instrumental in the
successful completion of the merger of BPCL's erstwhile subsidiary Kochi Refineries Limited, thereby
increasing BPCL's refining capacity by more than 50%.
Mr. Sinha's illustrious career includes a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1973
followed by an MBA Degree from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, with
specialization in Finance in 1977. Joining BPCL in 1977, he has 30 years of experience in all aspects of
the oil business, ranging from Management Accounting, Treasury, Refinery Finance and Payroll to
Information Technology, Planning, Corporate Affairs and Retail Marketing. He has also played a
significant role on the Boards of Joint Ventures and Subsidiary Companies of BPCL.
He is the Chairman of the Board of Numaligarh Refinery Limited, a subsidiary of BPCL, and of Bharat
Oman Refineries Limited, a joint venture company promoted by BPCL and Oman Oil Company for
setting up a new grass root refinery at Bina in Madhya Pradesh. Under his leadership the project for a
state of art 6 MMTPA (1,20,000 barrels per day) capacity at Bina in Madhya Pradesh is making rapid
progress. The project, which is estimated to cost USD 2.5 billion, is scheduled for commissioning in
December 2009.
Mr. Sinha was one of the first leaders in the Indian Oil Industry to foresee the growth of Natural Gas as a
fuel of the future. He was one of the key members of the group who conceptualized the business of
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in India. As the CEO, Mr. Sinha has given a special impetus to Research &
Development initiatives. This has led to BPCL introducing new value-added products for the benefit of
customers.
Mr. Ashok Sinha is being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology at Kanpur for his outstanding managerial contributions in the Oil Refining Industry.
Harsh Manglik
(BT/ME/70)
Mr. Harsh Manglik (BT/ME/70) is Chairman & Managing Director, Accenture India and is responsible for its strategic
direction, growth and development of businesses activities in India.
Mr. Manglik brings with him over 30-years of rich experience, gained in several world class firms, spanning across
business transformation & consulting in several technology based industries including aerospace, automotive and
electronics. He has led various initiatives in creating and driving hyper-growth services businesses with a focus on strategic
transformation and technology.
Before Accenture, Mr. Manglik was worldwide Vice President, Symantec Corporation. Earlier in his career, Mr. Manglik
worked with IBM for nearly 10 years and held US, Asia Pacific and global leadership responsibilities. He has also served as
an executive at Pratt & Whitney/United Technologies Corporation. Earlier, Mr. Manglik was a consultant with Booz Allen
Hamilton.
During his career, Mr. Manglik focused on aerospace and other industries that are based on highly engineered products.
Strategy, competitiveness, innovation and product development have been important themes for Mr. Manglik's
contributions and consulting activities. At IBM he was the Global Vice President responsible for PLM services and earlier
he led the Innovation consulting practice for IBM Consulting in North America.
Mr. Manglik has been an active participant in collaboration between industry and academia. He is a member of Carnegie
Mellon University's Presidential Committee on India. He previously served on the Founding Operating Committee at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the “Leaders for Manufacturing” graduate program, aimed at the intersection of
business and technology. Mr. Manglik is member of number of Industry Forums in India, including NASSCOM's Executive
Council and CII. He was recently featured on the cover of Forbes magazine for a cover story about his return to India.
Mr. Manglik holds an MBA (Strategy, Technology Management, Systems) from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master's
degree in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. Mr. Manglik is the editor and publisher of
Yugantar Triambakam, a trilogy in Hindi.
Mr. Harsh Manglik is being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology, Kanpur for his outstanding managerial contributions.
Arup K. Chakraborty
(BT/CHE/83)
Professor Arup K. Chakraborty (BT/CHE/83) after his Bachelor of Technology, from IIT, Kanpur, did his Ph.D., in
Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware, 1988followed by a Postdoctoral stint at the University of
Minnesota, 1987-1988. His research interest includes Recognition and Signaling in Molecular and Cellular
Immunology, Polymers and Membranes, Statistical Mechanics. He started his academic career at the University of
California, Berkeley, where he rose to become the Warren and Katherine Schlinger Distinguished Professor and
Chair of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Chemistry, and Professor of Biophysics. Presently he is the Robert T.
Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering, Professor of Chemistry, and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT.
Prof. Chakraborty has approximately 120 publications and over 200 invited lectures on research to his credit. He has
also delivered numerous named lectures.
He has edited one book “Molecular Modeling and Theory in Chemical Engineering”, Academic Press, San Diego
(2001). He serves on the editorial boards of Annual Reviews of Physical Chemistry, Biophysical Journal, and
Chemical Physics. He has also served as the Editor-in-Chief of Advances in Chemical Engineering, 2001-2003.
Professor Chakraborty was elected a member of the US National Academy of Engineering in 2004 and a Fellow of
the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2007. He is the recipient of various other awards including E.O.
Lawrence Award for Life Sciences (2007),NIH Director's Pioneer Award (2006), Presidential Citation for Outstanding
Achievement, University of Delaware (2005), Department of Chemical Engineering Teaching Award, UC Berkeley
(2005), Professional Progress Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers (2004), Chemcon Distinguished
Lecturer Award, Bhubaneswar, India (2003), Research Professor, Miller Institute for Basic Science, Berkeley (199900), Featured Speaker, NAE Frontiers of Engineering Meeting (1999), Allan P. Colburn Award, American Institute of
Chemical Engineers (1996), Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (1994), AIChE, Berkeley Student Chapter,
Appreciation for Distinguished Teaching (1996), National Young Investigator Award (1992-1997), Royal Academy of
Engineering (U.K.), ICI Fellowship (1993-1998), Shell Young Faculty Fellow (1989-1992), Best Review Paper, Intnl.
Conference on Polymer/Solid Interfaces, Belgium (1991)
Professor Arup K. Chakraborthy is being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian
Institute of Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions and academic achievements in
Ashok Misra
(BT/CHE/69)
Professor Ashok Misra, (BT/CHE/69) presently Director, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, is a distinguished engineer and
scientist, who has served the field of education as a teacher and a researcher for more than three decades. During his tenure as
Director from 2000 to the present, IIT Bombay has been transformed into a leading R&D institute while at the same time maintaining its
reputation as a leader in quality engineering education.
Among other pioneering efforts, Prof. Misra has led the development of entrepreneurship activities at IIT Bombay, including the
formation of SINE, the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which is the technology business incubator at IIT Bombay. In
addition, International collaborations and interactions have significantly increased during his tenure. He is a Member of the
International Academic Advisory Panel, Government of Singapore; International Advisory Board, College of Engineering, University of
California, Santa Barbara, USA and Member, Independent Scientific Advisory Board of the World Bank for the African Institutes of
Science & Technology.
Prof. Misra obtained his B.Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1968, M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts
University in 1969 and M.S. and Ph.D. in Polymer Science & Engineering from University of Massachusetts in1971 and 1974
respectively. After working in Monsanto for three years he joined IIT Delhi in 1977 where he served as the Head of the Centre for
Polymer Science & Engineering during 1991-94 and as Dean, Alumni Affairs & International Programmes during 1997-2000, as the
Reliance Professor in 1999.
Prof. Misra's research and development contributions have earned him several awards and honours which include Doctor of Science
(Honoris Causa) from Thapar University, Patiala; elected as a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, University of Cambridge;
the S.S.
Bhatnagar Memorial Award of the Indian Science Congress; Asian Polymer Association (APA) Distinguished Award 2008; Chemtech
CEW Award; National Systems Gold Medal of the Systems Society of India; Tufts Engineering Award; Qimpro Platinum Standard
Award (Education); Materials Research Society of India Medal and Prof. Santappa Award of the Society of Polymer Science, India.
Prof. Misra is the President of the National Academy of Sciences India (NASI), Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, Indian
Institute of Chemical Engineers, Indian Plastics Institute and the Maharashtra Academy of Sciences.
Prof. Misra's professional expertise in the area of Polymers is highly valued by industry and agencies. He has carried out several
important sponsored research projects and he has been an active consultant for polymer related industries. He has served and is
currently serving as a Director on the boards of several major companies; these include National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC),
Reliance Industries Limited and Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited (RCF). Prof. Misra is on the Board/Council of several
national institutions and serves as Member on a number of national committees for research and development programmes. He has
co-authored a book, has 6 patents and has over 150 international publications.
Professor Ashok Misra is being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding managerial contributions and academic achievements in the
field of Chemical Engineering.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2008-2009
Devendra K. Shukla
(BT/CE/67)
Dr. Devendra Kumar Shukla, after completing his B. Tech. degree in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur in 1967, left for USA and completed his post-graduate degree in Structural Engineering from
the University of Delaware, USA.
In 1973, he embarked into the corporate world through D'Appolonia Consulting Engineers as a Senior Project
Manager and led many successful projects related to earth dams, waste repositories and nuclear waste facilities.
He continued his expedition as General Manager of IT Corporation and built a multi-disciplinary and integrated
work force while working on many challenging civil, geotechnical and environmental engineering projects. From
1987 to 1994, as Vice President of Environmental Solutions Inc., he was responsible for all aspects of
geoenvironmental projects in the northwestern United States and earned the glory of success in many major
landfill projects.
In 1994, Dr. Shukla took a major leap in his career by founding Innovative Technical Solutions Inc. (ITSI). His
fierce competitiveness, passion for excellence, and tenacity are the energy behind the global firm of 350 persons,
26 offices, that has a reputation for boldly challenging its much larger industry peers on every opportunity. In
1999, the Department of Navy, USA, honored ITSI with the Nationwide DoD Nunn-Perry Mentor Protégé Award
recognizing the company's excellence in the areas of quality and technical assistance. Subsequently, his
company received the 2001 Small Business Administration: National Minority Small Business Firm of the Year
award for its superior achievements and quality performance. In addtion, Dr. Shukla has made substantial
international contributions, as he assists the US Government in rebuilding infrastructure in war-torn Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Dr. Shukla's concern for his employees and the community has led him to sponsor programs in journalism and
drama, as well as youth sports activities. He is also giving back to the community by volunteering his personal
time and funds by supporting local schools by lecture series, scholarships etc. For his services to community at
large, he has received many letters of appreciation from government and public organizations.
In recognition of his outstanding entrepreneurial and managerial contributions Dr. Devendra Kumar
Shukla is being conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur.
Udai P. Singh
(BT/CE/72)
Dr. Udai Pratap Singh, did his B. Tech. in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in the year 1972
and is presently the Vice President at CH2M HILL, USA, one of the largest engineering companies in civil and
infrastructure engineering. After his undergraduate degree, he left for USA and completed his post-graduate degrees in
Water Resources and Environmental Engineering from Clemson University and University of Florida, USA. His work on the
feasibility of deep well disposal of treated wastewater effluent was the basis for implementing the largest deep well injection
facility in the world during the late 1970's. Currently, the same technology is being pilot tested by USA and European
countries to capture and store carbon dioxide in deep geological formations, as an option for mitigating global climate
change.
Dr. Singh joined CH2M HILL in 1974 as a Water Resources Engineer and has progressed through various positions to his
current rank as Vice President of its Environmental Business Group. Dr. Singh, currently is also the President-Elect of the
Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He is the first
Indian American elected by EWRI of ASCE to lead the profession in USA.
Dr. Singh has also been advising Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India to suggest remedial actions on
environmental challenges in the country. He has authored more than 50 technical papers in national and international
publications, and written or edited eight books in water resources and environmental engineering. He was selected and
invited by the University of Southern California, USA, to serve on their Industry Advisory Board (2001-2007) for the
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Dr. Singh has received prestigious awards from many professional societies in his field. Water Environment Federation
(WEF) presented him the Hazardous Waste Management Award, as a lifetime recognition in this area. The ASCE
presented him with the Outstanding Engineering Manager Award. He received the Grand Award for Engineering
Excellence from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), and the Outstanding Achievement Award from
EWRI. The American Academy of Environmental Engineers (AAEE) awarded him the Board Certification of Eminence. He
is the only Indian American to receive this 'eminence' award from AAEE. His engineering contributions were further
recognized through IIT Kanpur West Coast Alumni Leadership Award for a successful track record of engineering and
project management, and by the Pan-IIT Committee for his contribution to environmental field.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to environmental and civil engineering, Dr. Udai Pratap
Singh is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur.
Duvvuri Subbarao
(MSc2/PHY/73)
Dr. Duvvuri Subbarao is currently the twenty-second Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He earned
his B. Sc. (Hons.) degree in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and completed
his M. Sc. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Dr. Subbarao has also done his M.
S. in Economics from the Ohio State University, USA, and was a Humphrey Fellow at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, USA. He completed his Ph. D. assignment in Economics from Andhra
University.
Dr. Subbarao has been working in the Indian Administrative Services since 1972. He has distinguished
himself as an administrator, especially with a wide experience in public finance, both at the national and
international level. He was the Joint Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of
Finance (1988-1993) and the Finance Secretary to the Government of Andhra Pradesh (1993-98),
where he was actively involved in initiating fiscal reforms at the state level. Dr. Subbarao took over as
the lead economist in the World Bank (1999-2004) where he worked on issues of public finance in
countries of Africa and East Asia. While in the World Bank, he also task managed a flagship study on
decentralization across major East Asian countries. He has been Secretary to the Prime Minister's
Economic Advisory Council (2005-2007), and served as the Finance Secretary, Government of India
(2007-2008).
Dr. Subbarao was a topper in the All India Civil Service examination (1972) for entry into Indian
Administrative Services and Indian Foreign Services. He was one of the first IITians to join the civil
service. He was also the recipient of Director's Gold Medal at the Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur.
In recognition of his outstanding managerial contributions, Dr. Duvvuri Subarao is conferred with the
Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Manoj Pratap Singh
( BT/EE/74 )
Mr. Manoj Pratap Singh received his B. Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur in 1974. He also holds an M. B. A. from Carnegie Mellon University, USA. He is an outstanding
Management Consultant and has practiced the art of management for the last 25 years in several countries and
many sectors. He is currently the Global Managing Partner, Operations, of a world reputed consulting company
Deloitte Touché Tohamatsu (DTT) in New York, USA.
Mr. Singh has been involved in the broad area of Strategy & Operations with special focus on technology,
manufacturing and energy industries. He has been a partner in Deloitte Consulting since 1986 and has vast
experience in the energy industry.
In his current role, Mr. Singh is one of the five global managing partners reporting to the global CEO. Under his
leadership, Deloitte's revenue growth outpaced the competitors and established DTT as the leader in this field.
With overall responsibility for global operations, including strategy, finance, knowledge management, information
technology, human resources, and legal, Mr. Singh is focused on developing Deloitte investments around the
world, and is especially involved in highgrowth countries and emerging markets.
With a strong track record of growing the Americas' consulting practice, Mr. Singh was appointed Asia Pacific
CEO of Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu in 2003, a role he held until 2007. His most significant accomplishment was
taking Deloitte China and Deloitte India to new levels of prominence in the market. During those four years,
Deloitte China tripled in size and Deloitte India grew to even a larger size. Recognized for his knowledge and
insights on doing business in China and India, the Asia Pacific business and economic environment, operations
excellence, and leadership, Mr. Singh has appeared on CNBC and the BBC, in other media, and presented at
regional World Economic Forum events. He serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon
University, USA. For his achievements in 2003, Mr. Singh was recognized as one of the Top 25 Consultants in the
US by the Consulting Magazine.
In recognition of his outstanding managerial contributions, Mr. Manoj Pratap Singh is conferred with
the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Arun Shukla
( BT/ME/76 )
Dr. Arun Shukla is Chairman and Simon Ostrach Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the
University of Rhode Island, USA where he has been a member of the faculty since 1981. He received his B. Tech.
degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1976. After working briefly at
Voltas Ltd. he joined the University of Maryland in 1977, and received his M. S. degree in 1978 and Ph. D. degree in
1981, both in the area of experimental fracture mechanics. He has also been a visiting faculty at IIT Kanpur,
California Institute of Technology and Texas A&M University, USA, during his sabbatical years.
Dr. Shukla's research focuses on the dynamic behavior of materials. With the support of various U. S. government
and non-governmental sponsoring agencies, he has developed an internationally recognized research laboratory
and research program in experimental solid mechanics. Along with his many Ph. D. and M. S. students, he has
published over 300 papers in refereed journals and proceedings, authored and edited five books, and delivered
numerous plenary and keynote lectures around the world.
Dr. Shukla is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Fellow of the American Academy of
Mechanics, and Fellow of the Society for Experimental Mechanics. He received the M. M. Frocht Award from the
Society for Experimental Mechanics for 'outstanding achievements as an educator in the field of experimental
mechanics' and also the B. J. Lazan award for 'outstanding technical contributions to the understanding of dynamic
phenomena in engineering materials and structures'. In 2003 he served as the President of the Society for
Experimental Mechanics. He has served as the Technical Editor of the International Journal of Experimental
Mechanics and currently serves on the Editorial Boards of several key engineering journals.
The University of Rhode Island, USA, has also recognized Dr. Shukla with various awards for his excellent research
and teaching activities. He is the recipient of Simon Ostrach First Endowed Professorship Award (2000), Vincent and
Estelle Murphy Faculty Excellence Award (1998), Distinguished Engineering Professor Award (1997), Scholarly
Excellence Award (1995), Albert E. Carlotti Faculty Excellence Award (1990) and Outstanding Research
Achievement Award (1984).
In recognition of his outstanding contributions and academic achievements in the field of
Experimental Mechanics, Dr. Arun Shukla is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of
the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Shantanu Srivastava
(BT/ME/77)
Mr. Shantanu Srivastava is presently the Managing Director & CEO, Ishan International Pvt. Ltd. and the
Chairman of Ishan Foundation. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, with a B. Tech.
degree in Mechanical Engineering in the year 1977. In 1982 he was attached to the Indian Embassy, Hanoi,
Vietnam, as Second Secretary. Guided by his entrepreneurial instinct he started his own business in 1990, and
subsequently set up Ishan International Pvt. Ltd. in India. Mr. Srivastava, with his strong patriotic leanings, and
love for his second home, Vietnam, has contributed immensely to promote India-Vietnam economic relations by
providing technical consultation, process technology and infrastructure development to various critical industries.
He has been instrumental in the expansion of Indian presence and exports in various sectors.
Mr. Srivastava helped the Embassy of India in setting up of the office of the Consulate General of India in Ho Chi
Minh City. He also mobilized the Indian business community and set up the Indian Business Chamber in Vietnam
in 1998 and was its founder chairman. He played a significant role in raising the bilateral trade between India and
Vietnam. He is currently working on starting a 'Vietnam Business Center' in New Delhi for promotion of bilateral
trade, investment and tourism.
Mr. Srivastava expanded the activities of Ishan International Pvt. Ltd. into other asian countries like Philippines,
Indonesia, Singapore and Bangladesh. He has also been actively associated with social welfare and cultural
activities. He has now established an NGO, Ishan Foundation, to carry forward these social activities.
Mr. Srivastava is one of the most decorated foreigners in Vietnam. For his extraordinary contribution for
promotion of India Vietnam friendship and business cooperation, he received the 'Friendship Order of Vietnam'
from the President of Vietnam. He received the Honorary Citizenship of Ho Chi Minh City in 1992. His name
figures as one of the best friends of Vietnam in a book published in 2006, by the Vietnam Union of Friendship
Organizations (VUFO), Government of Vietnam.
In recognition of his outstanding entrepreneurial contributions and for promoting Indo-Vietnam
relations, Mr. Shantanu Srivastava is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian
Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Shreesh Jadhav
(BT/PhD/CSE/89/95)
Dr. Shreesh Jadhav, now Swami Sarvottamananda, obtained his B. Tech. and Ph. D.
degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur in the year 1989 and 1995 respectively. Presently, he is the Dean of Research and
Coordinator of the Computer Science Department of the Ramakrishna Mission
Vivekananda University in Belur Math. Dr. Jadhav was deeply attracted by teachings of
Swami Vivekananda during his stay at IIT Kanpur and followed Swamiji's call for service to
the society along with spiritual development with great enthusiasm and sincerity. He was
deeply involved with the Vivekananda Samiti activities on the campus and taught children of
several poor families on campus besides taking up their causes with the institute
administration, sometimes to the consternation of the authorities! After finishing his Ph. D.
assignment, to continue his social and spiritual quest, he took sanyas and joined the
Ramakrishna Mission in Belur Math, Howrah.
At the math, he has helped in setting up the Computer Science Department in the
Vivekananda University run by the Ramakrishna Mission and has taught computer science
to several thousand students. He has also continued to help the needy by raising money for
them from well-wishers and friends.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the society at large, Dr. Shreesh Jadhav is conferred
with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2009-2010
Vishnu Varshney
( BT/EE/69 )
Mr. Vishnu Varshney obtained his B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur in 1969. Later he did his MS in Electrical Engineering and MBA from St. Louisiana State University, Baton
Rouge.
Vishnu is regarded as a pioneer of the venture capital industry in India. In 1990, he was jointly selected by the
World Bank and GIIC, where he worked as General Manager (Projects), to start a new venture capital company.
A new company in the name of Gujarat Venture Finance Limited (now GVFL Limited) was started as an
autonomous independent company when there was no previous history of venture capital investing. During the
past two decades, he set up 5 funds with a total corpus of Rs. 136 crores and based on innovative technologies,
has invested in 61 start up companies all over India. Out of these, more than 21 companies have become
outstandingly successful and have generated employment for more than 5000 persons. He is probably the only
Indian venture capitalist who has seen the complete cycle of fund raising, deal sourcing, investing, nurturing,
divesting and distributing.
As a tribute to his immense contribution to the establishment and growth of the venture capital industry in India, he
has received the prestigious Inaugural Award from Asia Pacific Venture Capital Association. Vishnu formed the
Indian Venture Capital Association and served as its Secretary and later as its Chairman.
He helped IIT Kanpur start the popular Megabucks competition and continued to serve on its board. During his
student days at IIT Kanpur he was the co-editor of Gymkhana Annual Magazine VISTA. He has authored a book
on "Venture Finance in India" and has also co-authored two books and a hand book on Global Venture Finance.
IIM Ahmedabad and Cornell University have prepared case studies on some of GVFL's investments, for teaching
in the MBA courses.
Vishnu Varshney is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur for his outstanding contributions to set off the field of Venture Finance in India.
Rathin Datta
( BT/CHE/70 )
Rathin Datta received his B. Tech. in Chemical Enginnering from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur in 1970. Subsequently, he obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering
from Princeton University.
He has done pioneering work in the area of providing biologically derived renewable
resource alternatives to petroleum-based solvents. He has developed chemical processes
that can transform municipal waste, car tyres, agricultural waste etc., into low cost bio-fuels.
He has over 40 publications and more than 20 US patents in the areas of bio-products,
bioprocess technologies, fermentation, separation, enzyme catalysis, energy conversion
and process economics.
He has been deeply involved in development of innovative technologies, creating
organizations and companies in this field and leading them to commercialization. He has
served in several leading organizations as researcher, developer and mentor, and has
founded several enterprises. He has received several awards for his outstanding
contribution to develop technology for green technologies. He is presently the Chief
Scientific Officer at Coskata.
For his outstanding contributions in development and implementation of various facets of biotechnology, Dr. Rathin Datta is conferred with Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Viney P Aneja
( BT/CHE/71 )
Dr. Viney Aneja obtained his B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1971 and his MS and Ph.D.
degrees from the North Carolina State University. He is a professor at the Department of Marine, Earth and
Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University.
He has carried extensive research on environmental engineering research, investigating the transport and fate
of pollutants in the environment and biogeochemical cycling of pollutants. He is well known for his contributions
to the scientific understanding of sources of atmospheric pollution and methods of pollution control. Dr. Aneja's
seminal research on natural emissions of sulfur from marine environments laid the groundwork for some of
today's most important research on biogeochemical cycling of trace gases. He has applied his understanding of
pollutants to the full range of current regional environmental problems, from acid deposition and eutrophication
to the radio active forcing of climate and photochemical oxidants.
Dr. Aneja has received several awards from professional bodies and has held many important positions with the
governments and corporates. He is Member of the Editorial Boards for Environmental Pollution, Chemosphere,
Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association, and Environmental Manager; Member Technical
Advisory Committee, Environmental Defense Fund; North Carolina State Scholar of the North Carolina
Progress Board; and Member, Publications Committee for the Air and Waste Management Association.
Dr. Aneja contributes regularly to the technical and patent literature, and frequently organizes and chairs
symposia at national and international meetings.
He has been invited to discuss issues of environmental importance by universities and government institutes
across the globe, including the University of Munich, Germany, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry,
Japan, the University of Sydney, Australia, the Hebrew University, Jemsalem, Israeli and the Ministry of
Agriculture, Rome, Italy.
Dr. Viney P. Aneja has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for his
outstanding contributions and academic achievements in the field of Environmental Science and
Technology.
Anupam Khanna
( BT/EE/74 )
Anupam Khanna graduated from IIT Kanpur in Electrical Engineering at the top of his class
in 1974. Later his studies at Stanford University spanned Electronics and Systems
Engineering, Exploration Geophysics, Management Science and Economics, earning him
three graduate degrees including a Ph.D. Subsequently, he was at Oxford as a visiting
fellow associated with the Department of Economics and University College where he
undertook research on global economic governance and international regulation.
Anupam has worked for World Bank for the last 28 years where he started as an economist
and rose to become the chief economist and senior manager of policy support at the WB
head quarters. He advised senior management and the boards of directors on strategy and
policy as well as on fiduciary and compliance issues for many organizations in several
countries. Infrastructure for industrial development, electric power and state enterprise
reforms as well as environment have been his chief concerns throughout his long career.
Anupam is presently a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Global Development Network, an
independent international organization headquartered in New Delhi, to promote excellence
in research and policy analysis in developing countries, where he is responsible for
launching new flagship global research projects on climate change and urbanization in
developing countries.
Dr. Anupam Khanna is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding professional achievements in the fields of public policy and
infrastructure management.
Sudhir Vyas
( BT/EE/75 )
Mr. Sudhir Vyas obtained his B. Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1975. He was amongst
the first few IITians to change the conventional course and opt for administrative profession. The President Gold Medalist of the class-of75, who ranked first in all the engineering branches of the Bachelors programmes at IIT Kanpur, was again placed at the first position to top
the list of IAS in 1977 in the All India Civil Services examinations conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. He joined the Indian
Foreign Service the same year.
In the course of his diplomatic career spanning 32 years now, Sudhir has spent almost a one-third dealing with India's neighbours where
India's foreign policy faces some of its severest challenges, both from those capitals as well as from the Foreign Ministry in Delhi. He has
served in Kathmandu, Nepal, in those tumultuous days leading to the introduction of democracy in that country; in Pakistan, at a
particularly difficult period in our bilateral relations that witnessed some of the most tricky diplomatic situations in that country, such as the
IC 814 airplane hijacking and its violent aftermath and the Kargil War, the Agra Summit and the risky situation during operation Parakram
following the terrorist attack on our Parliament in 2001.
Sudhir has also been Ambassador in Thimphu, Bhutan during the historic period in that country that witnessed its transition to
constitutional democracy and the coronation of its present King.
Another area of Sudhir's specialisation has been the Arab world, where he served as India's Ambassador to the UAE and earlier in Egypt
and Algeria. He has also considerable experience of multilateral diplomacy at the UN in New York, when he served as a member of India's
delegation to the UN Security Council when India was its member in 1991-92, just when the former Soviet Union had collapsed and the
balance of power in the world began to change with the first Gulf war.
Sudhir is presently India's Ambassador to Germany, Europe's economic powerhouse and a leading innovator of technologies for the
future. Today, in areas such as climate change and green energy issues, this diplomatic engagement takes on a special relevance.
As a student at IIT Kanpur, Sudhir had wide ranging interests from history to art, but he was especially known for his interest in and
knowledge of wildlife, in particular, ornithology. A keen bird watcher, he had taken several initiatives to spread such interests amongst his
friends at IIT Kanpur. All through his diplomatic career, Sudhir has kept up with his keen interest in ornithology, wildlife, and conservation
issues.
Sudhir Vyas is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions to Indian Diplomacy during difficult periods.
Anil Kumar Chopra
( BT/CHE/76 )
Dr. Anil Kumar Chopra obtained his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He received his
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston in the area of fluid mechanics and multi-phase flows.
Dr. Anil Chopra entrepreneurial skills eventually led him to start PetroTel Inc. in 1999. His company's vision is to help find major
sources of hydrocarbons in India and across the globe using the latest technology available to only a few multinationals. One of the
first consulting projects of Dr. Chopra and PetroTel was the seismic interpretation of Reliance's onshore and offshore blocks. This
work led to the biggest discovery of gas in India. PetroTel also helped Reliance put together the very first field development plan of the
Dhirubhai field. Today, Dhirubhai field produces more than 1 BSCF/day of gas and is supplying India's energy needs. Dr. Chopra and
his company PetroTel's work led to another giant discovery in the KG basin in India with GSPC. As a result of this discovery, PetroTel
has executed the field development plan for GSPC for commercialization of the Deen Dayal Field.
Dr. Anil Chopra is presently the Chairman and Founder of Petro Tel Inc. as well as Plano Research Corporation. Dr. Chopra is a
visionary entrepreneur who has pioneered a number of technological innovations in the field of energy resources across various
countries in the world, including India. He is one of the few IIT-ians that have had long-term success in the oil and gas industry. Today,
Dr. Chopra's PetroTel is recognized worldwide as an industry leader in oil and gas field consulting in the areas of enhanced oil
recovery, reservoir characterization and simulation, coal bed methane, production, and exploration technologies. It provides
professional consulting and advisory services along with integrated project management support to domestic and international
petroleum companies.
Dr. Anil Chopra has been continuing his dream of providing the world with its energy needs for over three decades. He started a new
company, PetroJava International Inc. in 2004.
Dr. Anil Chopra has always been very thoughtful in supporting cutting edge research and giving back to the society. In the year 2004
he funded the Distinguished PetroTel Lecture series in Chemical Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He has been a prominent supporter of
the Ispatbharti Foundation, which works towards energy efficiency technologies for the small and medium manufacturing enterprises
in India.
To help deserving students to achieve their dream of high quality education Dr. Chopra started the Legacy Park Foundation in 2003 to
provide scholarships for under-privileged students.
Dr. Anil Kumar Chopra has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for
his outstanding entrepreneurial contributions in the field of petroleum, software and energy, as well as
service to society in promoting education.
Muktesh Pant
( BT/CHE/76 )
Muktesh Pant received his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur in 1977. Subsequently, he joined Hindustan Lever Ltd and rose to the
top and contributed immensely by developing several new businesses for increasing
exports of several Indian goods. During this period, he also worked with Unilever PLC,
London.
In 1992, he joined PepsiCo India and developed food-processing operations in Punjab and
served as Chairman of Dukes Beverages and Panagarh Bottling. Later he was appointed as
the Managing Director of Reebok India, where he rose to become the Regional Director of
Reebok International and the Chairman of Reebok India and also of Reebok South Africa.
He was chiefly responsible for advertising and promotion, licensing and sports marketing,
the internet and web-marketing, global retail presence and the management of Olympic
federations.
Presently, Muktesh is the President, Global Branding for Yum! and Chief Marketing Officer
for Yum! Restaurants International. He is considered an icon in consumer marketing and
brand management and has risen to the top echelon of international business management.
For his outstanding professional achievements in several facets of company management, Muktesh
Pant is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
David B K Thomas
( BT/ME/77 )
Mr. David Thomas did his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1977. He then pursued post-graduation in
Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was elected the President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University
Students Union in 1978. He was the first elected President of JNUSU, who was not affiliated to any of the major national political
parties.
After working in various IT companies in their various departments for nearly seven years, in 1987, he founded Datasophy, an elearning company that designed and wrote educational software in the subjects of sciences and the social sciences for use in
schools in India. In 1992 he joined IBM India. In 1998, he was assigned to the IBM Europe Learning Services Headquarters at La
Hulpe near Brussels. He returned to India in 2002 and worked as a Vice President for a year as the head of IBM's Learning
Services group for ASEAN and South Asia.
Mr. Thomas left IBM in January 2003 and started traveling extensively within the country in an attempt to understand the complex
social dynamics of rural India. He also studied the work done by many developmental organizations. In 2004, along with few
friends he started a small not-for-profit company called India Nirman Sangh. This organization is involved in developmental
projects and works in the Palani Hills region of South India. The focus is empowerment of women, using micro finance as a tool
and enabler. In partnership with the Gandhigram Trust, they currently work with more than 3000 women. They organize women
and carry out awareness and training campaigns. They have evolved a savings-loan-credit mechanism which helps women in
breaking the circle of poverty. The organization has helped women in dealing with government functionaries, in obtaining bank
finance and also in making business and marketing plans. Today, the women in their groups have a total saving of more than two
crore rupees. They also have access to more than three crore rupees in the form of micro loans from banks. With this access to
credit on relatively easy terms, women have been able to repay loans from money lenders and get back pawned jewels. They
have also been able to send their children to high school and in a few cases to college. Some women have started small, micro
enterprises including grocery shops, tea stalls, a computer centre, a Eucalyptus oil filtering and bottling business, a Kodaikanal
coffee powder processing unit and a carpentry workshop.
Through various groups, the organization also works on sanitation and health related issues. In one of the panchayats, their
women's groups are currently engaged in a program for elimination of open defecation. All work at India Nirman Sangh is funded
through the savings of the members and the generous support of friends, including several IITians.
Mr. Thomas is a Trustee of the Sathya Surabhi Trust in Kodaikanal, which runs a primary free school for underprivileged children
at Attuvampatti near Kodaikanal. Since 2003, Mr. Thomas is also an Advisor to the Gandhigram Trust and the Gandhigram Khadi
and Village Industries Public Charitable Trust. He has created and implemented a highly successful rural marketing plan involving
barefoot saleswomen on Gandhi's exhortation to 'produce locally and sell locally', which has helped in providing employment to
more than a hundred poor women in villages.
Mr. David B K Thomas has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for
his outstanding contributions and selfless service towards empowerment of women.
Sudhakar Kesavan
( BT/CHE/76 )
Mr. Sudhakar Kesavan received his B. Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1976, his post graduate diploma in
management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1978 and his Master of Science from the Technology and Policy
Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984.
Mr. Kesavan serves as Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of ICF International, a global management, technology and
policy consulting firm headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia.
Mr. Kesavan joined ICF in 1983. He specializes in assessing the economic impacts of regulation on the chemical industry. He has
advised policy makers worldwide on strategies for phasing out ozone depleting substances from their industrial and residential
sectors. Mr. Kesavan was a member of the United Nations Environment Program Montreal Protocol Technology and Economic
Assessment Panel.
Under Mr. Kesavan's leadership, ICF International was the first professional services firms in the world to go 'carbon neutral'. It was
the only consulting/professional services firm named by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as Climate Neutral
Network Centurion - recognized as one of the first 100 participants of the Climate Neutral Network. This initiative promotes global
action and involvement for low carbon economies and societies.
Under Mr. Kesavan's leadership, ICF International has grown to be one of the world's largest consulting firms specializing in climate
change, energy, environment, transportation and health issues. With more than 60 offices worldwide it works with clients in industry,
government, foundations and non-profit organizations. The firm has had a cumulative average growth rate over the last four years of
42 percent and has generated an average annual return on equity of over 40 percent in the same period. Mr. Kesavan was named a
“Tech Titan' and an 'industry leader' by Washingtonian Magazine in 2009.
Mr. Kesavan serves on the Board of Directors of Northern Virginia Technology Council, Rainforest Alliance, New York - a non-profit
environmental organization committed to protecting ecosystems by transforming land-use practices, business practices, and
consumer behavior. He also serves on the Board of Directors of American Red Cross of the National Capital Area. He is also a
supporter of IIMPACT, a non-profit organization focused on primary education for girls from economically and socially backward rural
areas of India.
Mr. Kesavan has received several awards and medals for his outstanding contributions in the fields of his profession.
Mr. Sudhakar Kesavan has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kanpur for
his outstanding professional achievements in the field of environment and climate change
consultancy.
Arun Kumar Ghosh
( MSC2/CHM/81 )
Prof. Arun K. Ghosh obtained his M. Sc. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1981.
Subsequently, he earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh followed by a postdoctoral
fellowship at Harvard University with the Nobel Laureate E. J. Corey. He began his academic career at the University
of Illinois at Chicago, where he rose to the rank of Professor. In 2005, he moved to his current position of Ian P.
Rothwell Distinguished Professor of Organic Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry at Purdue University.
Prof. Ghosh is the inventor of an AIDS drug, Darunavir, which is named after him. Darunavir, approved by the US FDA
on June 23, 2006, is a second-generation protease inhibitor (PIs), designed specifically to overcome problems with
the older agents in this class, such as Indinavir. Darunavir has received much attention, as it represents an important
treatment option for patients with drug-resistant HIV.
Prof. Ghosh's scientific achievements have been well acknowledged by the scientific community. He is the recipient of
two coveted awards administered by the American Chemical Society: the Inaugural “Robert M. Scarborough Award
for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry” (2008), and the “A. C. Cope Scholar Award” (2010).
More recently, Prof. Ghosh has made seminal contributions to the structure-based design of CTS-21166, a compound
in clinical development for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. CTS-21166, is currently in phase-II trials. This drug is
being developed by the pharmaceutical company, Comentis, which was co-founded by Prof. Ghosh and is funded by
a Japanese company, Astellas Pharmaceuticals, Inc:
Besides the discovery of these two drugs, Prof. Ghosh has also pioneered synthesizing various complex natural
products, which incorporate multiple chiral centers and hence are quite challenging synthetically. His team has also
been the first to synthesize a few of these formidable natural products and has also been involved in the discovery of
asymmetric synthetic methodology which is the Holy Grail for synthetic chemists.
For his outstanding contributions and academic achievements in the field of discovery of drugs
for AIDS and other seminal inventions, Professor Arun K. Ghosh is conferred with the
Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Jainendra Kumar Jain
( MSC2/PHY/81 )
Prof. Jainendra Kumar Jain, currently Erwin K. Mueller Professor of Physics at Pennsylvania University
completed his M.Sc.(2 year) in Physics from IIT Kanpur in 1981. Prof. J. K. Jain received his Bachelor's degrees
from Maharaja College, Jaipur. He joined Stony Brook University in 1981 for his Ph.D. in Physics, which he
completed in 1985. After postdoctoral work at the University of Maryland and the Yale University, he returned to
the Stony Brook University as an Assistant Professor in 1989, was promoted to Associate Professor (1993) and
Full Professor (1997), and moved in 1998 to the Pennsylvania State University
As a many body condensed matter theorist, his primary focus has been the study of unexpected conceptual
structures that emerge when electrons behave cooperatively.
His work on composite fermions and seminal contributions to fractional and quantum Hall effect has earned him
an unenviable reputation among the community of physicists.
Prof. Jain not only pioneered the field of composite fermions, he has been one of the leaders in the further
developments, coauthoring more than 100 articles with his students and colleagues confirming, refining and
extending his theory into many directions. One of his most important accomplishments has been to bring the
theory at a level where detailed, quantitative tests of the theory have become possible, which has required Jain
and collaborators to perform extensive quantum Monte Carlo calculations. He has authored a book to give on
this topic "Composite Fermions" (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
For his insights, and a large body opf work he has been awarded with numerous recognitions including
Distinguished Postdoctoral Alumnus Award, U. Maryland in 2004, Sloan Fellowship in 1991 and, the
Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996 & 2002, Fellow of American Physical Society, the SPS Excellence in Teaching
Award (2003). In 2002, Jain was awarded the Oliver E. Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society, which is
the highest U.S. prize in condensed matter physics.
Professor Jainendra Kumar Jain has been conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT
Kanpur for his outstanding contributions and academic achievements in the field of composite
fermions.
Neera Tandon
( BT/CHE/81 )
Neera Tandon obtained her B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute
of Technology Kanpur in 1981.
Neera is an entrepreneur and pioneer in wireless network design and the principal coowner and member of Telecom Ventures Board. She is co-founder (with her husband
Dr. Rajendra Singh, also an alumnus of IIT Kanpur) of LCCI, Teligent, and WCS
Wireless in US and other wireless companies in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, India,
Mexico and Venezuela.
She developed one of the very first fully automated design software for wireless
networks. She helped to start and has financed 27 startup companies in the fields of
wireless, internet and media. She particularly was instrumental in starting XM Satellite
Radio, Aether Systems and Mobile Satellite Ventures.
She is member of Singh Family Charitable Foundation and has served on the boards
of LCCI, and Teligent. Ms. Neera Singh (nee Tandon) and her husband Dr. Rajendra
Singh have established a faculty chair at IIT Kanpur.
In recognition of her outstanding entrepreneurial contributions in the field of wireless network
technologies, Neera Tandon is conferred with Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2010-2011
Satya Pal Singh Chauhan
( BT/CHE/68 )
Dr. Satya Pal Singh Chauhan graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur in 1968. Subsequently, he obtained his Ph. D. the Case Western Reserve University in 1972 and
an MBA from Ohio State University, Columbus in 1978.
During his 35-years illustrious management career at Battelle, a leading developer of innovative
technologies, Dr. Chauhan has led the development and commercialization of over 30 technologies
including alternative fuels research, separation technologies, pollution control and later advanced
materials and chemical processes related to green products, green manufacturing, and green energy. Dr.
Chauhan has been simultaneously responsible for multi-sector and interdisciplinary R&D programs that
cut across energy, environment, water, health, materials, and defense sectors.
Dr. Chauhan has won several awards including R&D 100 Awards - The Oscars of Innovation, the 2008
Industrial Innovation Award from the American Chemical Society; the 1989 Product-of-The-Year Award
for Electroacoustic Dewatering from the Water Environmental Federation; Battelle's over 50 IP Creation
and Development Awards, the Distinguished Inventor Award in 2007, and a Special Technical
Leadership Award in 2009. He is member of several leading professional bodies in his broad and diverse
field of specialization. Since 2005, he has served as a panelist for aviation and environmental research
for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is credited with 18 U.S. patents issued, over 30 U.S.
patent applications, including 5 currently pending; numerous foreign patents and applications; and over
100 reports of inventions at Battelle. He has published over 100 journal articles, presented over 200
technical papers, contributed chapters in 3 engineering handbooks, and has been the subject of
numerous magazine and newspaper articles.
Dr. Satya Pal Singh Chauhan is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions to the field of research and development in the
areas of environmental sciences and engineering.
B V R Mohan Reddy
( MT/ME/1974 )
Mr. BVR Mohan Reddy obtained his M. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1974. Later
he obtained his second Masters from the University of Michigan, USA.
Mr. Reddy started his career in the DCM Group where his 17 years of professional contribution to
assembly line operations in diesel engine production significantly improved the line productivity. In MICO
Bosch, he put in place the state-of-the art computer systems. Subsequently, he worked for HCL, and later
with OMC Computers as its President and Managing Director where he pioneered the introduction of
CAD/CAM systems in India and the adoption of these technologies by the Indian manufacturing industry.
He ventured into entrepreneurship and founded Infotech Enterprises in 1992 with a vision of providing
technology solutions to global customers at an affordable cost with world-class quality. In 15 years,
Infotech grew to be a global technology services company with Rs 540 crores revenues, over 5,000
employees from eight different nationalities in 25 offices spread around the globe and with a substantial
share holding from FIIs, and today it is regarded as a global powerhouse of talent in providing high
technology Engineering Design and Geospatial Data and Technology Services to some very prestigious
customers.
Mr. Reddy was and is involved actively in various industry associations including ELIAP, HYSEA, CII,
NASSCOM etc. Besides, he actively contributes to the society and industry.
Mr. Reddy has received numerous awards for his accomplishments including Entrepreneur of the Year
by Hyderabad Management Association, Outstanding Entrepreneur by Ernst & Young, and Outstanding
Achievement by All India Manufacturers Organization.
In recognition of his outstanding entrepreneurial and managerial skills in the field of engineering
design and geospatial data and technology services, Mr. BVR Mohan Reddy is conferred with the
Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Mahesh Gupta
( BT/ME/75 )
Mr. Mahesh Gupta received his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1975. Later, he earned his
post graduate in Petroleum Technology from IIPM, Dehradun.
His passion for invention and creativity drove him to quit a high profile job with Indian Oil Corporation at great
personal risk and set him on his mission of exploring new frontiers, that would usher an era of revolution in
conservation, environment and health care for the mankind. His first invention was in the field of petroleum
conservation instruments, where he earned fame and half a dozen patents to his credit.
Mr. Mahesh Gupta was the first to bring RO based domestic purification technology to India. From 1999 to 2005,
the company S.S. Engineering involved itself in the innovation of this unique product KENT, its marketing, growth
and consolidation against very strong opposition and stiff competition.
In February 2006, the company struck awe in the water industry, by inventing and introducing the revolutionary
“Mineral RO Technology™“. This patented, first of its kind in the world technology, is a generation ahead of the
existing RO technology, making KENT a leader in the field of water purification. In 2009, the company stamped its
supremacy on all its competitors by inventing and introducing the ultimate technological marvel The KENT+
(Plus) Computer Controlled range of water purification systems in the world.
During his journey of discovery and innovation, Mahesh Gupta, the CMD, KENT RO Systems Limited, has also
adopted the mission of providing wholesome healthcare and wellbeing for the mankind, by adding an array of
Ozone based, food and air purifiers to his product range, thus bringing pure water to drink, pure food to eat and
pure air to breathe.
Products of Mr. Mahesh Gupta are the winners of the Best Domestic Purifier Award by UNESCO and Water
Digest International in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008, and The Golden Peacock Award for the best Eco-Innovation in
2007. Besides, he is an ardent believer of the Art of Living, of which, he is a trustee.
Mr. Mahesh Gupta is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding entrepreneurial and managerial skills in introducing mineral
reverse osmosis technology for water purification.
Yogendra Kumar Joshi
( BT/ME/79 )
Professor Yogendra Joshi received his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1979. He
obtained Master of Science from the State University of New York, Buffalo in 1981 and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied
Mechanics, from the University of Pennsylvania, USA, in 1984.
Professor Yogendra Joshi is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, with a joint appointment in the School of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. He holds the John M. McKenney and Warren D. Shiver Distinguished Chair
in the George W. Woodruff School. Prof. Joshi's current research deals with heat transfer and fluid flow processes associated with
emerging technologies, focusing on Energy Efficient Thermal Management of Technology Infrastructure Facilities, Microthermal
Systems, Conjugate Transport Mechanisms in Multi-Scale Systems and Thermal Management of Electronics for Harsh
Environments. Prior to joining the Georgia Institute of Technology, he held academic positions at the University of Maryland at College
Park (1993-2001) and the Naval Postgraduate School (1986-1993). He was also a Visiting Professor at Katholieke Universiteit,
Leuven, Belgium, and Xi'an Jiatong University, Xi'an, China.
He is the founding Co-Director of the Consortium for Energy Efficient Thermal Management. He serves as the Theme Leader for
Thermal Management and Power Delivery for the multi-university DARPA/MARCO Interconnect Focus Center. He also directs the
Microelectronics and Emerging Technologies Thermal Laboratory. In 2009, he co-founded CoolClouds, Inc., to focus on energy
efficient thermal management products for microsystems.
He is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Association for the Advancement
of Science. He is currently serving as Associate Technical Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging
Technologies and Guest Editor of the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer. In the past he has served as Associate Technical Editor of the
ASME Journal of Heat Transfer and ASME Journal of Electronic Packaging.
He has received several awards including, Yahoo Faculty Research and Engagement Award (2010), Intel Data Center Efficiency
Challenge Competition Enterprise Category Award (2009), IEEE Semi-Therm Significant Contributor Award (2009), IBM Faculty
Award (2008), ASME K-16 Clock Award (2008), Focus Center Research Program Inventor Recognition Award (2007), ASME
Electronic and Photonic Packaging Outstanding Contribution Award (2006) and ASME Allan Kraus Medal, Semiconductor Research
Corporation Inventor Recognition Award (2001), and the ASME Curriculum Innovation Award (1999). He is the author or co-author of
nearly two hundred fifty archival publications. He has advised or coadvised sixty graduate students.
Professor Yogendra Joshi is conferred with Distinguished Alumnus Award for his outstanding
contributions and academic achievements in the field of thermal sciences and engineering.
Sandip P Trivedi
( MSC5/PHY/85 )
Professor Sandip Trivedi obtained his Integrated M.Sc. Degree in Physics from IIT Kanpur in 1985. Subsequently
he received his Ph.D. in Physics from California Institute of Technology, in 1990.
Professor Trivedi has held research positions at Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, California Institute of
Technology, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory before joining Tata Institute of Fundamental Research as
a faculty member in 1999 where he is ever since. Prof. Trivedi is one of the topmost theoretical physicists in the
country with wide ranging interests that span String Theory, Particle Physics and Cosmology. In a path-breaking
work, together with his collaborators, he showed that an accelerating universe can arise in string theory, and the
work is well known as KKLT construction. This work is widely believed to have shed light on a fundamental
problem in Physics called the Cosmological Constant problem and brought string theory closer to observational
cosmology. This work has been further extended to a careful study of inflationary models in string theory, which
has opened up the possibility of production of cosmic strings at the end of inflation.
An outstanding problem in string theory is the so called moduli stabilization problem which arises when the extra
spatial dimensions in string theory have to be curled up into very tiny internal spaces. Professor Trivedi has
solved this problem for a class of string theory compactifications using ingenious ideas drawn from magnetic
fluxes in electromagnetism.
Professor Trivedi has also co-pioneered some of the early papers on the information puzzle in Black Hole
Physics. He studied the so called extremal black holes and has contributed to establish interesting connections
between black hole physics and compactifications.
To sum up, Professor Trivedi has been a prominent, and at times a pioneering participant in recent developments
in string theory which has as its grand aim a unified understanding of all the fundamental forces of Nature.
Professor Sandip Trivedi is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Indian Institute of
Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions and academic achievements in modeling of
Gaurav Gupta
( BT/EE/87 )
Mr. Gaurav Gupta obtained B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1987 and M.Tech. in Power Systems from
IIT Delhi. He then became a civil servant in 1990. He also holds a certificate in public finance management from Harvard.
Mr. Gaurav Gupta is in the driver's seat of the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC). With 33,800 workers
and 7,000 buses carrying 2.5 million passengers daily, KSRTC is one of the most profitable state transport undertakings in
India.
The KSRTC has been the first to implement electronic ticketing system which got its Managing Director, Mr. Gupta a
National Award for e-Governance for 2009-2010. The KSRTC has also revamped its terminals. The state-of-the art
satellite bus station at Mysore road in Bangalore, unveiled in 2003, was once compared to a new international airport.
Mr. Gupta's vision is green; more than a thousand of his buses run on ethanolblended diesel. The KSRTC units feature
rainwater harvesting and water recycling.
He has also pioneered a cellphone-friendly, web-based reservation system The use of new technology like Global
Positioning System (GPS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) will provide the commuter with real-time
information about the destination, the arrival and departure time of buses (the exact location to the commuter at any given
time).
He has inducted high-end Mercedes and Volvo buses. The first STU to induct Volvos, KSRTC is now the country's largest
single fleet operator of such vehicles as well as the first to completely implement the economic stimulus package under the
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The low-floor buses fabricated by KSRTC are being
circulated among JNNURM cities as a model.
KSRTC operations in Mysore city and to make the regular commuter an 'informed traveller' and also induce more people to
use buses as a mode of conveyance. Rs. 520 lakh is the average traffic revenue for KSRTC per day.
Mr. Gupta serves as the Vice-President, of the Association of State Road Transport Undertakings (ASRTU), a nationwide
association of 53 STUs. He is also on a number of Central panels.
In recognition of his outstanding managerial skills in application of e-technologies for modernization of
urban and rural transport systems, Mr. Gaurav Gupta is conferred with the Distinguished Alumnus
Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2011-2012
Sunil Singhal
( BT/CHE/71 )
Shri Sunil Singhal, the top rank holder of IIT JEE-1966, graduated in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1971. Shri
Singhal is presently the President of Chemical Systems Technologies (I) Pvt. Ltd., and also the Founder of Ecoware. He is
a member of the International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists and the Sugar Technologists Association of India.
After graduation, Shri Singhal worked for India Carbon Ltd and ALA Chemicals before the leading American specialty
chemical manufacturer, Mazer Chemicals, USA, where he was appointed to a senior position to market their chemicals in
India, in 1979. He worked with them till 1986 in several South-East Asian countries including Thailand, Indonesia and
Singapore. In 1986 he was appointed as the toll formulator in India for Mazer Chemicals, USA.
Shri Singhal established Chemical Systems Technologies (I) Pvt Ltd. in 1990 with the vision to modernize Indian sugar
industry through state-of-the-art input in terms of process chemicals and new technologies. These chemicals and
processes brought about a revolution in the sugar industry by the dramatic improvement in productivity, and reduction in
energy consumption. Shri Singhal was the pioneer to introduce FDA food additives standards, as applicable in the USA, in
India for these process chemicals, which have found world-wide acceptance and are now also exported to several
countries. He has three patents to his credit.
In 1996, Shri Singhal diversified into project execution, and upgraded several sugar factories into refineries, incorporating
latest technologies leading to improved productivity and better returns. Chemical Systems Technologies (I) Pvt Ltd has
executed projects for practically every sugar factory/refinery in India, and also several industries outside India including
China, Columbia, Indonesia, Fiji, Vietnam, and Sudan, sometime on behalf of the Government of India. It is largely in
account of his work that India is able to manufacture sugar to International ICUMSA standards. As a recognition of his
contributions, Shri Singhal received the lifetime achievement award of the Sugar Technologists Association of India in
August 2011.
In founding ECOWARE, Shri Sunil has sought to convert the bagasse, a waste in the sugar industry, into a range of
disposable tableware, which has only one ingredient biomass of plant origin, without any binders, additives, fillings,
coatings, etc. The products meet the ASTM 5988 standards, and are free of pesticides or chemical residues.
Shri Singhal is also an active philanthropist and has set-up a primary school in Jogiwala village near Dehradun where 120
children receive free education.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on Shri
Sunil Singhal for his outstanding contributions to developing specialized chemicals and cutting edge
Rakesh Agarwal
( BT/CHE/75 )
Prof. Rakesh Agarwal, after graduating from IIT Kanpur in Chemical Engineering in 1975, did his M.S. from the University
of Delaware (1977) and Sc.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (1980). Prof. Agarwal is Winthrop E. Stone
Distinguished Professor, School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University since 2004.
In 2011, Prof. Agarwal was named by President Obama to receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the
highest honor bestowed by the US government on scientists, engineers and inventors. He was awarded the medal with
citation of an extraordinary record of innovations in improving the energy efficiency and reducing the cost of gas
liquefaction and separation.
Prof. Rakesh Agarwal has worked at Air Products and Chemicals Inc. where he rose to its highest technical position of Air
Products Fellow. He is inventor on one hundred eighteen U.S. patents and his ideas have been applied in over one
hundred plants with total expenditures in multibillion dollars. He invented several novel gas separation and liquefaction
processes that have been used to produce the world's largest natural gas liquefaction plant, ultra high purity gases such as
nitrogen, oxygen, argon, ammonia, nitrogen trifluoride (NF etc. for the electronic industry and several highly energy
efficient gas liquefaction plants.
At Purdue University, Prof. Agrawal is creating solutions for a future based on solar energy as well as for transition from the
current fossil resource based economy. His group is developing new energy system models, novel biomass to liquid fuel
processes with high yields of liquid fuel, nanocrystal ink based printable thin film solar cells, and highly energy efficient
separation processes.
He has published over one hundred technical papers and has given over 125 invited lectures explaining the concepts
underlying his inventions/research and some of these fundamental concepts in separations are included in Chemical
Engineering textbooks and taught in classrooms. Prof. Agarwal has received several awards including, J & E Hall Gold
Medal from theInstitute of Refrigeration (UK), Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement from the University of
Delaware, Industrial Research Institute (IRI) Achievement Award, C. K. Murthy Memorial Lecture (IIChE), and from the
American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE): Gerhold, Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology, Institute Lecture,
Chemical Engineering Practice, Fuels and Petrochemicals Division and Founders awards. He was a Regents Lecturer at
University of California, Los Angeles. He has served as a Director on the AIChE's Board and is currently on the Technical
Advisory boards of the Dow Chemical Co. Genomatica, Weyerhaeuser, and ATMI. He is also a member of the US National
Academy of Engineering and a Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on Prof.
Rakesh Agarwal for his outstanding contributions to research and development in Chemical
Engineering
Vasdev Chanchlani
( MT/IME/76 )
Shri Vasdev Chanchlani completed his M. Tech. in Industrial & Management Engineering in 1976 from IIT Kanpur and obtained M.B.A. from
Rotman Business School, University of Toronto. He is a serial entrepreneur and a philanthropist.
Shri Chanchlani began his career with Tata Consultancy Services followed by senior roles at the Nortel Networks. But it is his high-tech
entrepreneurial journey that created business and social capital which he later leveraged for the larger good. His technology ventures attracted
world class strategic investor's like Cisco Systems and venture capitalists like Kleiner Perkins.
Known in the Canadian business circle as the 'entrepreneur of entrepreneurs', Shri Chanchlani has exited from six technology ventures and is
presently involved in about twenty businesses. One of his current companies, Sigma Systems can be characterized as the intelligence and
processing engine behind the Operational Support Systems of the world's leading Cable, Telecommunications and Entertainment companies. He
has also made investments in India in areas where India offers strategic advantage to global corporations.
Shri Chanchlani is engaged in many projects and activities that give India and Indians global recognition for their achievements. His philanthropic
leadership has created an ecosystem that nurtures and promotes philanthropy for trans-national initiatives. The 'Canada India Foundation (CIF)
Chanchlani Global Indian Award' recognizes global success and leadership of Indians and past award recipients include Shri Ratan Tata, Shri
Deepak Chopra, Shri Tulsi Tanti, and ShriSamPitroda.
He co-founded the CIF and helped endow the 'Chanchlani India Public Policy Center' at University of Waterloo to further deepen engagement in the
Canada-India corridor and for Indian contemporary studies. He also funded 'Chanchlani Global Health Research Centre' and annual 'Chanchlani
Global Health Research Award' at the McMaster University and 'Chanchlani Centre for the South Asian Engagement' at the University of Toronto.
Shri Chanchlani is also engaged and supports endowments such as the annual CNIB Chanchlani
Global Vision Research Award with the Canadian National Institute for Blind, the Canadian Fallen
Soldier Foundation, to provide financial and other support to the wards of the families of the Fallen
Soldiers, and the Smt. Jamnabai Chanchlani, AIM for Seva Student Home, Hoshangabad in India.
Accolades celebrate his professional, entrepreneurial and philanthropic success. In the last few years Shri
Chanchlani was awarded the 'Technology Achievement Award' by the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, the 'Ernst&Young Entrepreneur of the
Year' Finalist Award, South Asian Person of the Year Award, Entrepreneur of Year Award, Top 25 Canadian Immigrant award, Top 30 Power List of
Indo-Canadians and Grant's Community Achievement award, Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce President's Award, CIBC-IIFA Global Business
LeadershipAwardandmanymore.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on Shri
Vasdev Chanchlani for providing strategic direction in business development and outstanding
entrepreneurial skills, and philanthropic activities.
Jayathi Y Murthy
( BT/ME/79 )
Prof. Jayathi Y. Murthy received her Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1979
and Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in 1984. She is
currently the Department Chair of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and holds the
Ernest Cockrell Jr. Memorial Chair in Engineering. Prof. Murthy is a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (ASME).
Prof. Murthy has worked in both academia and industry, having spent over ten years at Fluent Inc., a leading
computational fluid dynamics software company, before moving to Carnegie Mellon University in 1998 as
Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. From 2001- 2011, she was a Professor in the
School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, and held the Robert V. Adams Chair from 2008 to 2011.
She also serves as Director of PRISM, a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) funded centre for
Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems.
Prof. Murthy's research interests lie in the field of computational heat transfer and fluid mechanics, with an
emphasis on the development of unstructured, solution-adaptive finite volume methods for industrial
applications. More recently, her work has focused on analysis of micro scale heat transfer, particularly in
emerging microelectronics applications. Prof. Murthy serves on the K-16 and K-20 committees ofASME.
Author of over 275 technical papers and reports Prof. Murthy has also authored, several book chapters on
numerical methods, and has edited two volumes on heat transfer and CFD. She is an editor of the second edition
of the Handbook of Numerical Heat Transfer, serves on the editorial boards of Numerical Heat Transfer and
International Journal of Thermal Sciences, and has served as an Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Heat
Transfer.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on
Professor Jayathi Y. Murthy for her outstanding contribution towards developing powerful analysis
tools and techniques for the industry and having played a transformative role in redefining the design
process of fluid and thermal systems.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2012-2013
Kamal K. Sharma
( BT/CHE/69 )
Dr. Kamal Kishore Sharma is a graduate in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, with a
post-graduate diploma in Industrial Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of management Studies, Mumbai, and a
Ph.D in Economics from IIT Bombay. He has also completed an advanced management program from Harvard Business
School, Boston.
In a career spanning more than four decades, Dr. Sharma has held a range of senior management positions managing
projects, corporate development and general management in the pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries
Currently he is the Vice Chairman of Lupin Limited, Mumbai and is responsible for the second wave of
transformation of the company. He is responsible for conceptualizing & implementing the growth strategy of the
company through a highly motivated team of business and functional leaders, building an Indian transnational
corporation with onshore presence in many countries of strategic importance and for building a high performance
culture and a pipeline of future leaders through well-planned HRM interventions.
Dr. Sharma's key achievements at Lupin Limited are that the company now has on-shore operations in 10 countries
including USA and Japan, the international operations contribute 70% of company's revenue, the market
capitalization has grown over 35 times since 2004 till date and currently stands at USD 6.5 Bn, the Company is
accredited as 'Best Place to Work' in Pharma Industry as per the findings of an independent survey carried out by
Great Places to Work Institute, USA, & Economic Times As President - Corporate Development and Managing
Director, Lupin Laboratories Ltd., Mumbai, he facilitated the process of change from a family run organization to a
professionally managed organization, and from aiding the growth process of the company from Rs. 50 million in the
year 1979 to Rs. 7500 million in the year 1995
Earlier, he was President & Chief Executive of RPG Enterprise Ltd., Mumbai where he was responsible for delivering
profit targets of the sector companies, leading the design and implementation of comprehensive business strategies for
organic and inorganic growth of respective businesses, on HRD side he led and motivated a large work force across
diverse businesses through structured communications, vision, mission, objectives and values; also built a culture of
performance.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on Dr.
Kamal K. Sharma his outstanding leadership in management and contributions to the pharmaceutical
industry.
Bhadresh K. Shah
( BT/MSE/75 )
Shri Bhadresh K Shah obtained his B.Tech. degree in Metallurgy from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Shri
Shah has been the only IIT Kanpur degree holder in the Indian Forbes list of 100 richest Indians. Youngest of five
children, Shri Shah hails from a family of doctors. He founded the Ahmedabad Induction Alloys (AIA) Pvt. Ltd in 1978,
a company engaged in manufacture and supply of steel, alloy steel and alloy iron castings used in cement, utility and
mining industries.
AIA turned into a niche manufacturer of high-chromium wear resistant parts for mining, cement, utility and quarry
industries. Clients include cement giants Lafarge of France, Holcim of Switzerland, Cemex of Mexico etc. and mining
giants Anglo Platinum and Barrick Gold etc. The company has its customers in 95 nations including in USA, Canada,
Brazil, Africa and Australia.
In March 1991, Magotteaux International acquired equity into Ahmedabad Induction Alloys Pvt. Ltd and AIA's name
was changed to AIA Magotteaux Pvt Ltd. With the exit of Magotteaux in March 2000, the name was again changed
to AIA Engineering Ltd and Shri Shah serves as its Managing Director. The company went public in 2006 and today
marquee FIIs and Indian mutual funds own shares in the Company. In 2008-2009, the company crossed the
milestone of Rs.1000 crores of sales with net sales at Rs.1035 crores with current sales at Rs.1751 crores in 20122013. He has been the guiding light as company carved a niche for itself in the domestic as well as international
arena.
Shri Shah has a career spanning over 27 years in the manufacture and design of various kinds of value added,
abrasion and corrosion resistant high chrome castings. He has been instrumental in negotiating and developing
several foreign collaborations over the years. His emphasis on manufacturing process improvements, new product
development, quality and adhering to international manufacturing standards has ensured that their products are
recognized domestically as well as internationally. Shri Shah enjoys gourmet food as well as playing golf and bridge.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on Shri
Bhadresh K. Shah for excellence in entrepreneurship.
Sumant Nigam
( MSC5/PHY/78 )
Professor Sumant Nigam got his M.Sc. degree in Physics from IIT Kanpur in 1979, supported by the National Science
Talent scholarship. He obtained his Ph.D. in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from Princeton University in 1984 and from 1984
to 1987, he did postdoctoral work with Richard Lindzen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge,
MA, USA.
Prof. Nigam came to the University of Maryland in 1987, where he is currently a Professor of Atmospheric & Oceanic
Science, and Earth System Science. From 2000-2002, he was the Director of the Large-scale Dynamic Meteorology
program of the US National Science Foundation.
His interests lie in extra tropical climate dynamics and ocean-atmosphere interaction. Prof. Nigam proposed (with Lindzen)
a new mechanism for tropical air-sea interaction that explains the evolution of surface winds over the tropical oceans,
challenging a venerable model of the circulation over eastern basins. More recently, he has been involved in the analysis of
decadal climate variability and its role in generating multi-decadal trends in Arctic sea ice, Asian monsoon rainfall, North
American droughts, and Atlantic hurricanes. Prof. Nigam is seeks to unravel the natural variability and secular change
components of the climate record, facilitating attribution of the recent warming of the northern continents and the drying of
the Gangetic Plain. He also investigates the extent of human influence on the South Asian summer monsoon from
increasing anthropogenic aerosols and land-surface degradation and desertification.
Prof. Nigam has helped shape the US Climate Science program by serving on the Climate Research Committee and the
Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, both of the US National Academies from 2008-2012. He previously served as
co-chair of the Climate Variability working group of NCAR's Community Climate System Model; co-chair of the US Climate
Variability and Predictability panel on Phenomena, Observations and Synthesis; and as Editor of the Journal of Climate,
the premier science journal of the American Meteorological Society. He is currently a member of the International
Commission on Dynamic Meteorology.
Prof. Nigam served on the IITK Director's panel on Innovation in Research Cooperation during IITK's Golden Jubilee
celebrations in Washington DC in July 2010. He has supervised a dozen doctoral theses, with former students conducting
research at leading universities, including Princeton, UC-Berkeley, and JPL/Cal Tech. Prof Nigam is a Fellow of the
American Meteorological Society and the Royal Meteorological Society. He was featured on the cover of Science in May
2004 in connection with a report on foreign-born US scientists, titled “Brains & Borders: Many Origins, One Destination.”
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on
Professor Sumant Nigam for outstanding contributions in the area of atmospheric and ocean
sciences.
Keshav K. Pingali
( BT/EE/79 )
Prof. Keshav K. Pingali obtained his B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur in 1978, and the S.M. and Sc.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA in
1986.
Prof. Pingali is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas in Austin and holds the W.A."Tex" Moncrief
Chair of Grid and Distributed Computing, and is the director of the University of Texas ICES Center for Distributed and Grid
Computing.
Before moving to The University of Texas at Austin, Prof. Pingali was a professor in the Department of Computer Science
at Cornell University, where he held the India Chair of Computing. His research has focused on programming languages
and compiler technology for program understanding, restructuring, and optimization. His group is known for its
contributions to memory-hierarchy optimization; some of these have been patented and are in use in industrial compilers.
Prof. Pingali's current research is focused on compilers, runtime systems, and tools for programming multicore processors.
He is a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE and AAAS and has served on the National Science Foundation CISE Advisory Committee
from 2009 to 2012. He was the co-editor-in-chief of the “ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems”
(TOPLAS) between 2009 and 2011. He also serves on the editorial boards of several journals including “International
Journal of Parallel Processing” and “Distributed Computing.”
Prof. Pingali has long list of honors to his credit, such as the Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (2012),
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2010), the Fellow of the IEEE (2010), the
W.A."Tex" Moncrief Chair of Grid and Distributed Computing, University of Texas at Austin, (2006), the India Chair of
Computer Science, Cornell University, (2003-2006), N. Rama Rao Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur,
(2000), the Russell Teaching Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell University, (1998) the Ip-Lee Teaching Award,
Collge of Engineering, Cornell University, (1997) NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, (1989-1994) IBM Faculty
Development Award, (1986-1988), President's Gold Medal, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, (1978), Lalit Narain
Das Gold Medal, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, (1978) to name only a few.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on
Professor Keshav K. Pingali for outstanding contributions in the field of computer science and
engineering.
Amit Gupta
( BT/ME/00 )
Shri Amit Gupta completed his undergraduate studies from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in
Mechanical Engineering in the year 2000. Growing usage of mobile phones in the developing markets
inspired Shri Gupta to co-found InMobi in 2007. He aspires for InMobi to be one of the most successful
internet product companies across the global emerging out of India. Shri Gupta heads InMobi's Revenue and
Operations and responsible for taking company to a sustainable profitability mark. He has played an
instrumental role in expanding InMobi's footprint to multiple markets across 5 continents.
Shri Gupta has been a serial entrepreneur, prior to InMobi, he founded Analytics works, a company that
offered a platform for business intelligence. His professional experience include hot start ups like Andale
where worked directly with the CEO to help initiate new areas of revenues for the company, Aditi that gave
him hands on experience on building software and a large multinational bank Citigroup where he helped to
start business intelligence unit for their consumer finance business. Shri Gupta is passionate about
entrepreneurship. He has been helping several young entrepreneurs by providing angel investment and
advising them on every aspect of running business.
InMobi is the largest independent mobile advertising network in the world. The company was founded in
India in 2007 and has business set up in 25 countries across US, Europe, China, Japan, Australia and Asia
Pacific region. It is backed by some of the industry's highly regarded investors such as Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers, Sherpalo Ventures and SoftBank. InMobi has raised over $215 Million and is today India's
largest product company with a massive global footprint. InMobi network reaches over 70% of mobile
internet consumers across the globe with thousands publishers and advertisers.
Earlier in the year, InMobi was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the top 50 disruptive
companies in the world for 2013.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on Shri
Amit Gupta for excellence in entrepreneurship.
Abhay Singhal
( BT/EE/01 )
Shri Abhay Singhal completed his undergraduate studies from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2001.
He was the winner of the first ever Megabucks, the business plan competition held during Techkriti in year 2000
for a business idea that he carried on upon graduation to make a business career.
The entrepreneurial bug in him led him all the way to Trivandrum where Indian Institute of Information Technology
and Management Kerala incubated his business (called Transversal e networks
[TeN]) and supported it until he obtained his first venture capital money in 2002. TeN was built on a simple idea to
augment the existing undergraduate university system to make world class learning content available along with
other delivery and community tools. He exited the business in 2006 after a challenging yet intellectually rewarding
five years of seeing the entire lifecycle of entrepreneurship.
TeN felt like an unfinished business and the urge to build a company of a global scale is what prompted Shri
Singhal to found InMobi in 2006. InMobi is the largest independent mobile advertising network in the world. The
company was founded in India in 2007 and has business set up in 25 countries across US, Europe, China, Japan,
Australia and Asia Pacific region. It is backed by some of the industry's highly regarded investors such as Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sherpalo Ventures and SoftBank. InMobi has raised over $215 Million and is today
India's largest product company with a massive global footprint. The InMobi network reaches over 1bn
consumers across the globe with over 25000 publishers and 5000 advertisers.
Earlier in the year, InMobi was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the top 50 disruptive companies
in the world for 2013. After spending first five years heading the global sales, he is currently spending his time
between Bangalore and London where he is actively involved in running the EMEA business operations for
InMobi.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on Shri
Abhay Singhal for his excellence in entrepreneurship.
Naveen Tewari
( BT/ME/01 )
Shri Naveen Tewari obtained his Bachelor's degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and earned his Masters in
Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School (HBS). At HBS, he was a recipient of the "Dean's Award,"
the highest student honor, for his exceptional leadership and contribution.
Shri Tewari started his career at McKinsey & Company, where he worked on developing the go-to-market strategy for a
large Indian conglomerate's entry into the telecom sector. At McKinsey, he also had the opportunity to work with the top
management of various technology companies on key business issues. Thereafter, he joined Charles River Ventures
(CRV), a top tier VC firm focusing on early stage investing in the software and communications space. Shri Tewari worked
with CRV on developing their India investment strategy. He also worked briefly with a mobile VoIP startup in the Silicon
Valley.
Most recently, Shri Tewari founded InMobi and is the CEO of the firm. He has been responsible for the overall vision,
strategy and execution at InMobi. His view of the growth of the smartphone and app economy led to the development of
InMobi as a key tenet in this mobile ecosystem. InMobi is the largest independent mobile advertising network in the world.
The company founded in India in 2007, has businesses set up across US, Europe, China, Japan, Australia and Asia Pacific
region. It is backed by some of the industry's highly regarded investors such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sherpalo
Ventures and SoftBank.
InMobi has raised over $215 Million and is today India's largest product company with a massive global footprint. The
InMobi network today reaches over 700 million consumers across 165 countries. Earlier in the year, InMobi was
recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the top 50 disruptive companies in the world for 2013 and Shri Tewari has
been recognized by Business Insider as the second most important person across the globe in mobile advertising.
Shri Tewari is also the Founder and Chairman of a US based non-profit organization, India School Fund (ISF), which has
been formed to set up schools in rural India. ISF started in 2006 with only a few Harvard Business School friends but has
now grown to have over 50 people across India and US.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur is conferred on Shri
Naveen Tiwari for excellence in entrepreneurship.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2013-2014
Jayadev Misra
(BT/EE/69)
Prof. Jayadev Misra obtained his B. Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1969. He joined the Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore shortly after graduation and received a PhD in Computer Science in 1972. He worked for IBM for a year and half and then joined the
Computer Science department at the University of Texas at Austin in 1974. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford University. Currently, he is
a Professor and holder of the Schlumberger Centennial chair in Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin.
Prof. Misra's research interests are in the area of concurrent programming, with emphasis on rigorous methods to improve the programming
process. He has had a long research collaboration with Prof. K. Mani Chandy, currently Professor Emeritus at Cal Tech, that has resulted in a
number of contributions to the theory and practice of distributed and concurrent computing. They designed an elegant concurrent programming
language, called UNITY, and showed how properties of UNITY programs could be proved systematically in the same way that one proves a
mathematical theorem. The prominent computer scientist Leslie Lamport has said: "The first major step in getting beyond traditional programming
languages to describe concurrent algorithms was Misra and Chandy's Unity … Misra and Chandy developed proof rules to formalize the style of
reasoning that had been developed for proving invariance and leads-to properties. Unity provided the most elegant formulation yet for these
proofs."
Prof. Misra and Chandy pioneered the area of distributed simulation. The "Chandy-Misra algorithm for conservative discrete-event simulation
(DES) provided an elegant solution to a very difficult problem that had thwarted previous researchers. Professor Misra's paper on discrete-event
simulation has been cited more than 1000 times, according to Google scholar. His current work on combining web services to create complex
applications looks promising. He is also spear-heading an effort, jointly with Sir Tony Hoare of Microsoft Research, Cambridge, to automate largescale program verification. The goal is to push forward the state of the art of automatic software verification tools by focusing on significant and large
problems that arise in practice. Formal verification is now being applied in many major corporations and government agencies. Prof. Misra has been
the past editor of several journals including: Computing Surveys, Journal of the ACM, Information Processing Letters and the Formal Aspects of
Computing. He is the author of two books, Parallel Program Design: A Foundation, published by Addison-Wesley, 1988, co-authored with Mani
Chandy, and A Discipline of Multiprogramming, published by Springer-Verlag, 2001.
Prof. Misra is a fellow of ACM and IEEE. He held the Guggenheim fellowship during 1988-89. He was the Strachey lecturer at Oxford University in
1996, and the holder of the Belgian FNRS International Chair of Computer Science in 1990. He was identified as a highly cited researcher by ISI,
Thompson, in 2004. He received an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan, France, in 2010.
Some of the teaching recognitions he has received include election to the Academy of Distinguished Teachers at the University of Texas at Austin in
2009 and the Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award of the University of Texas System in 2010.
Prof. Misra has been active in promoting research-oriented activities in computer science in India. He was one of the founders of a winter School in
computer science at Pune, funded by Tata Research and Development, where young researchers from India and the neighboring countries were
educated by a number of internationally prominent researchers. With the help of Mr. Narayana Murthy of Infosys, he established the Mysore Park
series of workshops that brings together professional researchers from India and abroad in week-long workshops on dedicated topics in computer
science.
Prof. Jayadev Misra is receiving the Distinguished Alumnus Award for his outstanding contributions in
the field of Computer Science and Engineering in the area of concurrent programming.
Dipankar Das Sarma
(MSc5/PHY/77)
Prof. Dipankar Das Sarma obtained his Integrated MSc degree in Physics from IIT Kanpur in the year 1977 and PhD from IISc Bangalore in 1982.
Prof. Sarma started off his career as a Research Associate in IISc. He has worked as Guest Scientist at Kernforschungsanlage, Germany, as a
Visiting Professor at University of Tokyo, the Istituto di Struttura della Materia, CNR, Rome and Trieste. He was the MLS Chair Professor as well as
the Founder-Chairman of the Centre for Advanced Materials at Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata during 2006-2008.
He has been a member of the faculty at Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, since 1986 and is
currently a Professor and the Chairman of the department. He also holds time-bound (2011-2016) joint appointments as a Guest Professor at the
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Sweden and Distinguished Scientist of the Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research, India. He is or has been a distinguished Honorary/Adjunct Professor of a number of institutions, such as JNCASR, Bangalore (2003-);
TIFR, Mumbai (2003-2009 and 2011-2014); IISER, Kolkata (2007-2009); IACS, Kolkata, (2004-2006 and 2009-2014); and SNBNCBS, Kolkata
(2014-202017).
Prof. Sarma is a world leader in two distinct research areas, strongly correlated electron systems and semiconductor nanoparticles, with profound
contributions in several specific sub-areas under these two broad categories of scientific research. Prof. Sarma has been instrumental in
contributing to the growth of science in India. He is a pioneer among Indians in the field of investigation of properties of matter employing
synchrotron radiation. He has played a significant role in providing access to international synchrotron facilities for the Indian scientists. Besides
publishing a large number of papers in the topmost journals, he has been invited by many international conferences all around the world to deliver
keynote, plenary or invited talks. There are many leading scientists who work with him in close collaboration in numerous projects. He has been
serving in a large number of national and international committees to facilitate research and research organisations, for example as a Member,
Scientific Advisory Board, CRANN, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (2012-2013, 2014-2016), the Chairman of the Research Council of National
Chemical Laboratories (2010-2013, 2013-2016), Member of the Council of Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (2005-2008 and 20112016), of Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research (2009-2012), of Indian National Science Academy (2009-2011), of Asia
Pacific Centre for Theoretical Physics, Pohang, Korea (2008-2010), and Chairman of the Proposal Review Committee, Elettra Synchrotron Centre,
Trieste (2003-2010). He has served in the editorial board of a large number of science journals.
Innovation is the hallmark of Professor Sarma’s work. Besides this, he is able to uniquely combine with perfect ease sophisticated experimental
techniques with various theoretical approaches on one hand, and Physics and Chemical Physics/Physical Chemistry on the other, providing a very
distinctive approach. Prof. Sarma has been recognized for his work, not only nationally, but also internationally. Even as a young scientist, he
received the UNESCO biennial Javed Husain Prize in 1989 for his contributions in Physics. Since then, Prof. Sarma has received many national
and international awards and honours, among which the notable ones are Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (1994), G.D. Birla Award for Scientific
Research (2005), Alumni Award for Excellence in Research for Science conferred by IISc (2005), FICCI Award for Innovative R&D (2006-07),
TWAS Physics Prize (2006), Sir C.V. Raman Award for Physical Sciences (2006), J.C. Bose National Fellow (2006-16), National Research Award
in Nano Science and Technology (2009), and H.K. Firodia Award for Excellence in Science & Technology (2013). He is an elected Fellow of Indian
Academy of Sciences (1993), National Academy of Sciences (2000), Indian National Science Academy (2001), The World Academy of Sciences
(TWAS) (2007), and American Physical Society (2007). He has now been selected to receive the Honorary Doctorate degree of Uppsala University
together with the Prof. Arieh Warshel, Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry in 2013 and Prof. Linda Petzold, Dept. of Computer Science, and Dept. of
Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Distinguished Alumnus Award is being conferred upon Prof. Dipankar Das Sarma for his
outstanding contributions in understanding the structure and properties of condensed matter
employing synchrotron radiations.
Vijay Kumar
(BT/ME/83)
Prof. Vijay Kumar obtained his B. Tech. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in
1983. He was awarded his M.Sc. in 1985 and PhD in 1987 both in Mechanical Engineering from the Ohio State University,
Columbus. Currently, Prof. Kumar, is the UPS Foundation Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Mechanical
Engineering and Applied Mechanics with secondary appointments in Computer and Information Science and Electrical
and Systems Engineering. He has just finished an 18 month term as the Assistant Director, Robotics and Cyber Physical
Systems, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of President, Washington.
Professor Vijay Kumar is one of the top roboticists of the world. His fundamental contributions, which straddle both theory
and practice, address the control and planning of multiple cooperating robot systems and autonomous robots capable of
cooperating to explore, map and manipulate in 3-D environments. He was the first to formulate and solve the problem of
cooperative mobile manipulation with multiple robots, simultaneously controlling the gross motion and rolling/sliding
interactions in the early 90s. He was also the first to work on the multi-robot formation control problem leading to highly
cited papers on the subject in the late 90s. His recent ground-breaking research in micro unmanned vehicles has led to
flying robots with extraordinary agility and unprecedented autonomy. This work, which is exemplary in the synthesis of
rigorous mathematics and careful experimentation, has been featured in remarkable demonstrations (over 10M views on
Youtube), numerous public lectures (over 2M views of TED talk) and featured by numerous media outlets. He has
established three start ups, graduated over 30 doctoral students, trained over 20 post-doctoral scholars, and established
new K-12 STEM programs for students in inner-city high schools. Kumar's creative theoretical, algorithmic, and
experimental work on cooperating robots have transformed the science of robotics systems and impacted a wide range of
applications in the area of networked and cyber physical systems. His work in the last five years has transformed the field of
micro autonomous systems, specifically, aerial robots.
Prof. Kumar is a Fellow of ASME and IEEE. He has about 120 Refereed Journal Publications, and more than 300 Refereed
Papers in Conference Proceedings and Books. He is on or has been on the editorial board of 8 International Journals. Prof.
Kumar was the recipient of the 1991 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator award, the Lindback
Award, University of Pennsylvania in 1996, Freudenstein Award in 1997. He received ASME Mechanisms and Robotics
Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award and a World Technology Network Award in
2012. He is a recipient of The Ohio State University Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2012. He obtained the George H.
Heilmeier Faculty Award for Excellence in Research for "pioneering contributions to the science and technology of
cooperative robotics", he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, he also won Popular Mechanics
Breakthrough Award in 2013. The Joseph Engelberger Award was awarded to Prof. Kumar by the Robotic Industries
Association in 2014.
Prof. Vijay Kumar is honoured with Distinguished Alumnus Award for his outstanding contributions to
the area of control and coordination of multi-robot formations.
Distinguished Alumnus Award
2014-2015