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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (5787)	8/23/1999 4:27:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12475

Calling all IITians,time to pay up bud-[Friends of IITs to raise $500 mil] Friend of IIT sets out to raise $500 million from alumni Harshad Oke MUMBAI 23 August Kanwal Rekhi is a man on a mission. One of the founding members of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE)(http://www.tie.org/), he intends to form a trust which will help the five IIT (Indian Institute of Technology)s garner $ 500 million from their alumni spread all over the United States. The idea is to establish a fund-raising trust, tentatively named Friends of IIT, styled around similar fund-raising bodies in the US for the betterment of the premier engineering institutes. That too without looking towards the government for help. Though the amount sought may seem high by Indian standards, Mr Rekhi is quick to point out: "It's not such a big amount. There are nearly 30,000 IIT alumni in the US alone. In fact, the few IIT-Powai alumni I know have a combined net worth of $5bn!" Through this, Mr Rekhi is following the American tradition of paying back to one?s alma mater. Said he:"Indians are quite ashamed to ask for money. But this is a shameless business, and I firmly believe in taking care of one's own. For instance, universities such as Harvard and Stanford access anywhere between $5-6bn ever year through their alumni." Recently, Mr Rekhi donated $2m to IIT-Mumbai. By the end of the current year, IIT-Mumbai is expected to receive a total of $5-6m, including Mr Rekhi's endowment. Since the idea is to collectively seek funds, the board of trustees for the Trust will not only constitute directors of the five IITs,but will also include some alumni based in India and the US. Among other things, the board of trustees will also control the deployment of funds raised. The IITs of India have carved a unique niche in the world, having produced many a global CEO. They include: Rono J Dutta (president of United Airlines, the world?s largest airline), Victor Menezes (co-CEO of corporate & investment banking at Citigroup), Vinod Khosla (co-founder Sun Microsystems), Rajat Gupta (managing partner at international consulting firm McKinsey & Co), Rakesh Gangwal (CEO and president US Airways), Suhas Patil (founder of Cirrus Logic), Shailesh Mehta (chairman of Providian Financial) and Mr Rekhi himself who was the first Indian on the board of Novell. Through his efforts, Mr Rekhi wants to further the IIT legacy. However, he is not stopping at this. He is also in the process of establishing chapters of TiE in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. TiE is an organisation founded by Indians in the US which funds and helps start-ups by Indians in the US. And, as a final part of his strategy, Mr Rekhi is also planning to form an economic think-tank for policy research. Said Mr Rekhi: "We want a professional body which will produce white papers for the government, industry and media." The think-tank will also attempt to study the changing dynamics of the corporate world by addressing issues such as why companies such as Wipro and Infosys command stratospheric market capitalisation. economictimes.com