In an effort to bring the huge number of BITSians in all parts of the world closer to the initiatives of their alumni association, this first of many posts is about the Alumni Mentorship Program – BITS AMP.

The Comms team had a brief chat with Sandeepa Garlapati for more information on BITS AMP.

BITS AMP is a one-on-one mentorship program that was conceptualized in late 2013 and the first session had its kick off during the BITSAA Global Meet in January 2014 at the Hyderabad campus. The man behind the idea, Venu Palaparthi (batch of 1987), wanted to connect BITSians belonging to the same fields and usher the flow of guidance. He roped in Shivaraaj Kotini (batch of 2006) who had done something similar for BITS Spark and had been leading the Spark Mentors program for 2 years. He had conducted mentor-mentee workshops at few locations in India and had gained excellent insights in the area. However, the task proved big and they needed a volunteer to build the team and fine tune the entire concept from its raw stage. That’s where Sandeepa (batch of 2002) came in. Together they worked for a few months before the first version was presented to the world in January 2014. Kris Inapurapu (batch of 1999) was involved in structuring this program during his studies at MIT and he gave ideas from his experiences in launching a similar program there. Chandra Bhople was instrumental in conceptualizing the program as well. Rohit Koul, ex-CEO of BITSAA, was very interested in this initiative and motivated the team. Sandeepa, very recently, hired people to build the team and currently the size of the AMP team is 4 people.

Venu came up with the idea to crowd source the name and logo for this initiative. A contest was held on Facebook for BITSians and the winner, Ravi Mantri, received an MS Dhoni autographed cricket bat! He, of course, gave BITS-AMP but there were also a lot of interesting names like BITSPlus, BITSBuddy, Marg Darshak that were suggested.

The basic idea behind BITS AMP is that BITSians come together and assist each other in their careers. On the BITS AMP platform, BITSians need to sign up either as mentors or mentees. Then they are paired up  accordingly by the AMP team based on a variety of factors. The most important factor is that both members have the same interests and be in the same fields, career wise. After this, the pairs begin a six month relationship, throughout which the AMP team is in contact with both the mentor and the mentee. This ensures that the relationship is ongoing and stays true to the concept. The AMP team would also help the pair in case they have trouble contacting each other or if they haven’t much to contribute to each other.

After the first session of six months started in Jan 2014, the AMP team took some time to restructure most of the program and make it more streamlined. There were around 18 to 20 pairs made by choosing guests who had attended the BGM. Some of the mentors who participated include Preetish Nijhawan (Managing Partner, Cervin Ventures and Co-founder of Akamai), Anurag Jain (CEO of Access Healthcare), Venu Palaparthi (CEO, Nasdaq OMX), Sudeep Jain IAS (Chairman & MD, Tamil Nadu Solar Energy Development Agency), Arun Jain (Director, Sales and Marketing, TI) Devender Kumar (MD, Ahuja Engineering Services). Sandeepa tells us that this was a great learning experience for the BITS-AMP team.

The second session for which sign-ups have been happening since the last few weeks will be started in October this year. Sign-ups have started coming in. In Order to sign up or the BITS AMP program, click here.

• Mentor sign-up form:  http://goo.gl/forms/1R5Q6EdVth
• Mentee sign-up form: http://goo.gl/forms/nGvNFe3bqI

However, everyone who signs up cannot be a part of the program unless a counterpart with similar interests signs up.

The categories for mentorship currently include:

• Technology Careers (careers in technology – in consulting; at enabling companies; non-technology companies)
• Business, Strategy, Finance, Consulting, Innovation, Education (includes project management; product management)
• Entertainment, Media, Marketing, and Advertising (includes creative pursuits such as Film, Music, etc.)
• Mentoring for Businesses
• Sciences & Scientific Research

“BITS-AMP’s target audience is the entire BITS community. Our mentoring program will also help students and faculty in realizing their aspirations. BITS-AMP will work in a symbiotic way with the other BITSAA programs such as BITS2MS PhD and BITS2BSCHOOL.”

— Sandeepa Garlapati (BITS Class of ‘06, Coordinator, BITS-AMP)

“To me, any mentoring effort needs to have a way for effective one to one interaction between the mentor and the mentee  with limited or no external intervention. BITS-AMP provides exactly this.”

— Rohit Koul (BITS Class of ‘02, ex-CEO, BITSAA)