Tag Archives: BITSAA International

A Look at 2012 and a Thought for 2013

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As 2012 comes to a close and we welcome 2013, the Alumni Membership team at BITSAA International thought it would make sense to have a look at how membership numbers have changed over the year.  The team decided to publish some of the stats, and come with some insights on these numbers. If you have ideas on how we can improve these numbers and bring in more registrations, we are all ears – Shoot out an email to membership-team@bitsaa.org and we will be happy to learn from you.

We have grown a lot this year. In 2011, we got 1354 registrations; this year we got 2551. That is just more than an 88% increase in growth! As the awareness of BITSAA International keeps on increasing registrations steadily keep moving upwards as well.

Today I would like to share an interesting observation with you.  So, numbers are increasing and that is a very positive sign and it got us thinking.  What is it that actually makes the greatest difference to our numbers? Its word of mouth! The simplest yet most effective form of communication used over centuries.  We often underestimate this force in today’s world, with the power of technology at our hands, with our mobile phones in our pockets and our tablets in our hands (not to forget our laptop in our bags).  We feel that it does not have a place in our life anymore, we disregard its power and toss it away like spoilt milk or old clothes in our wardrobe.

With the New Year around the corner, it is time we change this. Each BITSian should take a small step, a resolution to help our Alma Mater in a simple effective way.

Tell every BITSian you meet this year to join BITSAA International!

I doubt that will take a lot of work :-), but I’m pretty sure it will make a huge difference. Let us make sure we make some noise, and have all our friends registered. Now, you know, what to ask, when you talk to them after a long time.

I would also like to formally hand over to the batch of 1984, next years Silver Jubilee batch the pressure of trying to reel in more registrations than 1983 this year. I wish them the very best for the new year now that the torch has been passed on!

PS: Yes, we are here – the world hasn’t come to an end just yet!

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.

Using Trello for all BITSAA International Teams

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Exciting times lay ahead for all BITSAA Volunteers – we are getting hooked to a really good app called Trello!

So we have been losing a lot of information over e-mails and a lot of To-Do’s have been getting lost in this process. Hence from now on – each one of us who is part of BITSAA International is going to be communicating internally via Trello. Though a volunteer organization we are always the 1st to get hooked on using some really neat apps out there, and we have been supported by many of these orgs with their products.

Some of them – Gust, Recruiterbox, Dropbox, YMC have already been hits internally!

Trello is a simple online app which allows a team to track like a Sticky Note Board, all the tasks and align that with the Goals taken up by the respective team for the year. It’s really neat and has simple UX/UI which makes it very intuitive and easy to use.

To understand how to use Trello – follow the below 2 links and check this screenshot by the CXO team who is using it as well for our own tracking purposes.

1. http://blog.trello.com/launch/

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaDf1RqeLfo&feature=youtu.be

If you have any doubts – please feel free to reach out to me at vijaysharma@bitsaa.org. This is a great app and I am sure we will have fun using it.

Look forward to all of your support and enthusiasm in implementing this.

Giving back to your alma mater makes you Awesome

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Reproduced from here : http://myownfriends.blogspot.in/2012/05/giving-back-to-alma-mater-makes-you.html

Lessons Learned

My Learnings

Last one year has been the most exciting phase of my life (or a quarter life. It’s only 25 years since I am born). I did many things and got some very good recognition. I met few awesome people and made some good friends. My personal clout increased and I learnt some important lessons in life and career during this period. There were some nice opportunities that came along. And, before you ask, yes all these happened in the last one year or so.

The central point of this phase lies around my role as VP at BITS Spark Mentors. For the uninitiated, BITS Spark is an initiative by BITSian alumni that is setup with a very ambitious vision of making my alma mater BITS Pilani a top 3 Institute for entrepreneurship in Asia. Shivaraaj and I serve as VPs to one of the three pillars of the program – BITS Spark Mentors. More about BITS Spark in an another post.

When I came on board, BITS Spark was in a very nascent stage. Abhinav Khushraj and Vijay Sharma (The God Fathers behind the initiative) gave me a brief about the program and trusted me for Spark Mentors. This was the first time I had taken up a leadership role (if you exclude the entrepreneurial experience). I had no expectations on the role. I just love BITS Pilani and Startups 😀 When I get such an awesome opportunity to work for something that is a great mix of both, I just couldn’t resist. I thought I am going to help a few awesome BITSian startups during their growth phases. But moving forward, I could see that not only that I was able to involve in the growth of young BITSian startups, but I was also able to benefit myself in the process.

During this short period, I was able to meet and work with amazing people like Raju Reddy, Chandra Bhople, Satish Gupta etc. My network has grown to a great level. One of the most important lessons I learned was that everyone wants to help. We only need to ask for it. We hear the maxim “Ask and it will be given to you;” very often. I thought that is just a cliche until I experienced it first hand at BITS Spark. When we were looking for building the initial pool of mentors for the Spark Mentors, all we needed to do was ask. We got hold of email Ids of few of the vast BITSian alumni base and sent them a mail asking for help. Most of them immediately came forward for help. Few even helped us in connecting to few more alumni.

I was able to connect with many BITSians through my position. Surprisingly, I observed that senior BITSians are much more easily approachable than young guns. I never expected them to be such a sport. My communication skills were/are very bad. This was a perfect platform for me to hone my skills.

The most important benefit I got out of working with my alumni was my selection into the prestigious IIM (Indian Institute of Management), Calcutta. I used the experience I gained at my leadership position at BITSAA to get through the GD&PI process. More than half of my interview process involved me speaking and relating my experience at BITSAA. I am sure that I wouldn’t have got through the process if not for my position at BITSAA and previous entrepreneurial experience.

Why Volunteer

What you Get 🙂

Since everyone loves lists, here is a list of 10 reasons to contribute to your alma mater :

  • Lots of fun
  • Meet awesome people
  • Make some very good friends
  • Grow your network
  • Enhance your CV
  • Work on stuff that you love. Do things that you love to do but not allowed at work
  • Give back to your alma mater
  • Learn some great lessons in life and career
  • Hone your leadership qualities
  • Be involved

By the way, BITSAA is recruiting new batch of BITSAA Leaders.
Apply to be a BITSAA Leader over here – BITSAA Leadership Program 2012

 

—
Santosh Lakshman ( Lucky Murari )
You can catch me on Facebook and Twitter. Here is my LinkedIn