IIT alumni form platform to encourage entrepreneurs

MUMBAI: Eminent alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology have formed a platform to encourage budding entrepreneurs in India and develop programmes that could benefit the Indian economy.

To be formed on the lines of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), panIIT currently has McKinsey senior partner Rajat Gupta, Tata Motors MD, Ravi Kant, Tata Group telecom advisor, SK Gupta, and Mastek chairman Ashank Desai, also the chairman of panIIT, as its founding members.

While TiE is primarily an organisation with its focus on technology, “panIIT’s canvas would be broader”, claimed Mr Gupta. “The objective is to go beyond building another IIT and to see how we can contribute to building the nation. If we think we’re so good, what are we doing as a collective force,” he told reporters at a function to announce the details of the IIT Alumni Global Conference.

The function is scheduled in Mumbai on December 23-25. PanIIT will, however, not involve itself in any transactional relationship such as funding of entrepreneurial businesses, said Mr Gupta. There are more than 175,000 graduates out of the six IITs, of which 35,000 graduates are in the US, Mr Gupta added.

Mr Kant said that panIIT aims at just not “giving back to the nation what we have learned, it is also another way of taking up corporate social responsibility.”