PHILANTROPY: IIT Bombay gets a $7 million gift
As a kid, I remember the day when the results of the IIT joint entrance exam, the IIT-JEE, were announced. At least back in the 80s, it was a major event, and the newspaper would have pages of listings: thousands of names and faces of kids, with their corresponding test score. For someone like me, an underachiever who had relocated from Texas with my family, it was a mysterious affair. I just couldn't understand how one test could generate so much press. And those kids - so dour!
In retrospect, I understand those expressions. A lot of middle-class Indians in those days were trained to look expressionless for the camera. That's how it was with our huge extended-family photo sessions: everyone would look like they had just returned from a mass cremation. All but me and my two sisters, who would be performing for the camera in a way that marked as the only NRIs of the lot, ie. immodest and proud of it.
Now, when I think back on those images of kids I figure that even the most optimistic, forward-thinking among them could not have known what an IIT degree would have signified. No doubt, it was extremely prestigious within India, and narrow circles abroad. But now, of course, the IIT brand has gone global, and is synonymous with the international management elite.
Last week, I spent a few hours in the midst of these cosmopolites, at the 50th anniversary celebration of IIT Bombay's founding. It was held at the Marriott Marquis, in Times Square, and all sorts of heavyweights showed up - IIT grads like Nandan Nilekani and Victor Menezes, who were co-chairs, and Rajat Gupta, as well as Ambassador Ronen Sen and former US Ambassador Frank Wisner. Unfortunately, I missed each and every one of those speakers - but I had a nice time anyway. A family friend from Houston and IITian, Pradeep Anand, had invited me, and at one point he took me upstairs to a hotel suite to give me a copy of his book, An Indian in Cowboy Country. That's when I spotted about a dozen IIT alumni, mostly men in their 50s, sitting around with a guitar and belting out what appeared to be their college anthem, Neil Young's "Old Man": "Old man look at my life, Twenty four and there's so much more. Live alone in a paradise, That makes me think of two..."
But of course, the official action
was twenty floors below. The alumni raised $7 million to set up a
bioscience center. Most of that was from one person. From TOI:
At an alumni gathering in the Big Apple, Romesh Wadhwani, founder of the Symphony Group, gifted his alma mater a purse of $5 million (about Rs 22 crore) to set up a research centre in the area of bio-sciences.
"The lab will work in the area of research in bio-sciences and bio-engineering," IIT-B director Ashok Misra t old TOI from New York. Details of the centre's focus areas will be worked out after discussions between Wadhwani and the bio-sciences faculty.
IIT-B deputy director Juzer Vasi said the centre would work closely with the six-year-old bio-sciences school on the campus.
An electrical engineer from the class of 1969, Wadhwani went on to get a Ph.D from Carnegie Mellon University. The trust he set up, the Wadhwani Trust, has been pro-active in the area of bio sciences, especially via the National Entrepreneurship Network that it started.
Sources in the Union human resource development ministry said Wadhwani was serious about setting up an institute of bio-science and bio-engineering. He is in the process of discussing the proposal with the government and is scouting for land for the school.
Wadhwani has given to others as well this year, namely Hillary Clinton and the DNC. I'm not sure what his current net worth is but in 2000 Forbes listed him. More from 2001 at Rediff:
Romesh Wadhwani, now i2 vice-chairman, with a net worth of $1.3 billion or Rs 60.67 billion, came to riches after the largest merger in software history. Wadhwani, who founded B2B software firm Aspect Development in 1991, sold the company, which makes software that helps clients track internal spending, inventory and buying habits, to Sidhu's i2 Technologies for $9.3 billion. He was ranked 218 in the Forbes list.
More on the IIT Bombay reunion at the Economic Times.
Earlier on SAJAforum:
This is real philanthropy, not the $50 million given by Tata to cornell
Posted by: Sairam | October 22, 2008 at 12:36 PM