Announcing BITSAA Social Connect

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One of the key ways that BITSAA engages with people is by allowing its members to communicate with each other from within the BITSAA portal. In that spirit, letting people connect with each other and with large communities at once via multiple channels of engagement is a key proposition which we at BITSAA technology team strive to bring to our alumni.

Now, members registered with BITSAA can do exactly that while they network with alumni and peers from within bitsaa.org. BITSAA is now integrated with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and your other favorite social media channels which lets you interact with the world. Registered members now have the option of signing in to BITSAA using their Facebook credentials. (No more remembering yet another username/password!) Once signed in, you have the option to post updates to your personal Facebook wall when you perform any of the following actions within BITSAA:

  • Post or comment on community blogs
  • Post or comment on group blogs
  • Post or comment on personal blogs
  • Upload photos to a group gallery
  • Upload photos to your personal galleries
  • Promote an event you see on BITSAA
  • Promote a donation fund you see on your website
  • Update your personal profiles
  • Post personal files or links
  • Post job openings within career center
  • Update your resumés/CVs within your personal profiles
  • Comment on news you have read on BITSAA
  • Post to a community forum
  • Post to a group forum

Here’s a step-by-step guide about how to connect your BITSAA account with your facebook account and use it to sign-in to BITSAA. Its as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1) With your facebook credentials, sign-in to BITSAA using  button on BITSAA member sign in page:

2) After signing in using your facebook credentials, the screen below will ask you to sign-in into BITSAA with your BITSAA account(Note: These are the credentials with which you normally would sign-in to your BITSAA account)

Connect BITSAA account with facebookBITSAA account login 3) Now, its time to link your facebook and BITSAA accounts. Follow the link on the screen below to complete the process:

Link your BITSAA and facebook accountsCongratulations!! you have successfully completed linking your BITSAA account with your facebook account. Next time you can just sign-in into bitsaa.org using simply your facebook credentials.

Now its time to see it in action. Go to donations page and you will find you can post to your facebook wall from within BITSAA!

Donations pageThanks to Social Connect this tremendously useful feature will help in spreading the word  about bitsaa.org far and wide.

Stay tuned for more updates on connecting your other social media accounts with BITSAA!

 

Scholarship Initiatives by BITS Class of 1966-‘71

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The enthusiastic members of 1966 batch have definitely set a great example for all BITSian batches. The funds collected during their Silver Jubilee reunion have been endowed for instituting various scholarships and awards to benefit students of BITS Pilani. Currently the accumulated sum amounts to 16 lakhs INR.

With the interest gained from the corpus, the following scholarships/awards are given every year:

  1. 4 awards, each of Rs.10,000 awarded for BITS students for their outstanding contribution at APOGEE.
  2. MCN scholarship worth Rs.40,000 (Rs.20,000 per semester) for a female student
  3. Financial assistance for paper publication in reputed journals

Mr. V V Ramanan, one of the masterminds behind the initiative says, “Over the years, the alumni of the class of ’66 to ’71 have set up an endowment to fund infrastructure upgrade, scholarships and other worthwhile causes at BITS. The one initiative that the class felt would leave a lasting imprint on their alma mater is one that fosters the spirit of innovation in the student community. The class has recognized that while BITS is among the top institutions in the country in attributes like academic input and overall personality development, the research efforts need to be stepped up. Consequently, a significant part of the endowment will be devoted to rewarding original research by undergraduate and post-graduate students. Awards have been instituted for outstanding projects presented at Apogee. Financial assistance has also been made available to students for getting papers published in reputed journals and for presenting papers at conferences. These initiatives by the class align very well with BITS administration’s goal of putting it among the top few research institutions in the country by 2020.”

The testimonials from the students show the impact these scholarships/awards have made in the student community.

“I would like to thank the Class of 1966-’71 for encouraging research activities in the form of quality papers through such financial aid initiatives”

 – Shreyas Vatsa, Winner of financial assistance for paper publication

“The paper publication assistance is a great initiative by the Class of 1966-’71 BITS, Pilani. It has inspired me to pursue research and publish paper in a reputed journal. This will motivate students and enthuse them to pursue research in their areas of interest. I am extremely grateful to the Class of 1966-’71 for coming up with this initiative for promoting research among students.”

– Soumendu Sinha, Winner of financial assistance for paper publication

If you would like to setup an award/scholarship please write to scholarships@bitsaa.org.

BITS World 5k Run – A grand success!

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The BITS World 5k Run 2012, saw enthusiastic participation from hundreds of BITSians around the world. This year’s run, held in the memory of Prof Suresh Ramaswamy, had close to 350 BITSians from different batches- starting from the 60’s, to 2012, running in different cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune.

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As evident from the pictures, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We also reached out to a few runners and heard what they had to say about the run:

“The 5k run was a wonderful experience. I did not participate in the last years run. However after running this year, I believe that I was missing out on an interesting  aspect and look forward for the 5K  run next year. 🙂 “

– Nikunj Jha, ’05 batch

“I think you guys are doing a fantastic job not only in getting people out and getting to be active but also in bringing the community out in various parts of the world. Good job.”

– Manoj Sahai,  ’81 batch

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BITSAA chapters in major cities had also organized merchandise for the occasion. About 150 runners purchased BITS2Marathon t-shirts to commemorate the run. Our alumni also had some nice things to say about the merchandise:

“Merchandise was well designed – Can I have some more ?”

– R.K. Kaul, ’71 batch

“The t-shirt is comfortable. 😀 “

– Nikunj Jha, ’05 batch

We would like to thank everyone involved with the run, who helped in making it a grand success. Hope to see you at the next run 🙂

Thank you Recruiterbox

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Sometimes, there are some awesome folks who deserve a special post. The guys behind Recruiterbox definitely deserve this one coming up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We at BITSAA International had our 2nd ever longest-cum-largest drive for recruitment to bring on-board the next set of BITSAA Leaders and Volunteers who would drive the next phase of execution for the BITS Pilani Alumni Association. We had over 500+ applications in a Leadership drive run by Raghuraman and the HR team, and we coordinated all of it using Recruiterbox. This is how it helped us:

1. All conversations from 1 place with candidate.

2. All logs, notes, which position applied to, tags, labels for internal consumption.

3. Reports to download and put people in the right stages – selected, not selected, on-hold etc.

It just made our job very very easy, rather than coordinating over multiple products like Google Excel, Spreadsheets, Dropbox etc. We did not (mostly) miss any candidate and were able to keep a great track of ourselves.

The best part about the team is that since we are a registered Non-Profit organization, they gave us a free usage for the entire time! Unbelievable support, never did they ask for anything, they gave us support as though we were a normal customer and absolutely fabulous UX/UI led to everyone being able to use the product efficiently without much training.

Kudos to the Recruiterbox team and Thank you from all of BITSAA International. I am sure of the 50,000 odd BITSians around the globe, this word should hopefully spread.

Oasis 2012 – The Reinvention

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What was transcendental is now UnioMystica. What was euphoria is now Insomnia. What
was innovation then is reinvention now. Irrespective of period partitions, through the ages
she has only dazzled. Oasis 2012, starting November 2 shall bear testimony to an ancestry of unparalleled exhilaration, celebration, insolence and animation. Riding high on expectations, this year there already are prophesies of inevitable grandeur.

One might say that such delusions and exaggeration are but natural when a single stage
will unite the musical genius of Thermal and a Quarter (ardent fans call them TAAQ), the
impeccable comic timing of Vir Das and the nostalgia of the 90s with Neeraj Shridhar of
Bombay Vikings fame. Continuing with the conscious BITSian inability to enunciate words
exceeding 2 and half syllables, the English ‘prof’ show, sponsored by Vh1 also has upcoming Rock N Roll band ‘The Shakey Rays’ performing.

Conventional crowd pullers continue to captivate, Rocktaves being a prime example. Started in 1983, it has become an arena where prodigal musicians see the light of the day. Things have come to a full circle now, with Rocktaves being sponsored by rocktaves.com an entrepreneurial venture of an alumnus of the batch that conceived Rocktaves. The music scene will be further bolstered by events- Axetacy, Tarang, Aandholika and the likes.

Quizzing is also a string contender in the conventional crowd pulling category. A pre-fest event, the formidable Oasis Lonewolf Quiz was held in sixteen venues simultaneously including an offshore location serving as a fitting preview to the frenzy of quizzing that the 42nd edition of Oasis will be. Oasis Quiz Finals, Audio Visual quiz, Music, Literature and Movie quizzes, Wordstock, Ad effect and Entertainment quiz will be the major trivial attractions this year.

BITSian jabberwocky is infamous of its own accord. Oasis has a continual stream of events to fuel such hallowed souls. BLAB (BITS Language and Attitude Battle), Kshanika and even Mister and Miss Oasis (affectionately called MAMO) are events to that end. For people who take their babble seriously, there is a Mock Parliament and the Oasis Debate.

From humble beginnings and being the oldest college festival in the country, to one of the most sought after college festivals in the country, Oasis has come a long way. Since its inception, Oasis has been a source of respite for all the weary travelers stuck in the hollowed desert. It is undeniably due to the imprints left by batches of students who were intoxicated by its charm. The phoenix is reinventing itself this year to soar once more to unforeseen heights and all are invited to witness this transformation.