President's Message

Dear Members of the IITAC Fraternity

I want to thank the IITAC membership and other directors for electing me as the President of IITAC for the current term i.e 2009.

Even though I have been a member of IITAC or its earlier informal incarnations for a long time, this is a responsibility that I take seriously. I can assure you that I shall try to discharge my duties sincerely, faithfully and to the best of my abilities.

IITAC is at an important but critical juncture in its growth towards a professional body. From its early beginnings literally as a basement (Ujjal's and Joginder's) organization, we have made continuous progress. You carried on for many years as an informal but active IIT Alumni organization. IIT Picnics became the way to meet. Later, some of you spent long hours and wrote a constitution to guide our operations. We became an incorporated organization in 2006. You created IFI - a fine example of IITians for (helping) IITians. You staged a first class regional conference in 2006. Almost every year, you have had family dinners, picnics and professional days to improve the brand image of IIT in the mainstream Canadian circles. You created enough visibility to excite town of Markham to create a special relationship with IITAC that will result in a trade delegation to India in the fall of 2009. For these efforts and achievements, there are many individuals to mention, but I must recognize Joginder Singh and Bill Thomson for their early enthusiasm for IIT fraternity, Ujjal Mondal for his continuous services for the longest period, Surinder for being the President and disseminating a sense of brotherhood, Dean Mitali De (and her life partner Kanai De -another IITian and former VP-finance) for making it into an incorporated professional body, Pradeep Anand for his enthusiasm and starting IFI, Ragu Nayak for his unbiased stewardship devoid of any politics, Rabiz Foda for the most successful PAN-IIT regional conference in Toronto and financial sponsorship achievements, Suraj Rana for leading the incorporated body of IITAC during 2005-2006, Pradeep Srivastava for shepherding the lambs during a difficult period and Utpal Banerjee for his level-headed support inside and outside the board for many years. IITians like Ravi Seethapathy and Mukul Asthana presided over the organization at different times of IITAC's life. Many others like Ravi Gupta, Sampat Voora, Ajit Ghosh, Utpal Ghosh, Supriyo Sen and Amitava Biswas contributed willingly when need arose.

Yet, transition between boards has not been always smooth. Support from grass roots and senior members has been waning. Overall enthusiasm has decreased. There are many reasons for this state - some we know and some we do not. Responsibilities of an incorporated body are greater today. Often, we spend more time arguing about constitution, rules and regulations than we do about why we have IITAC in the first place. We wish we could achieve a perfect organization but we must face reality. Running a voluntary organization made up of intelligent and independent-thinking IITians is not easy. Since, it is neither fruitful nor desirable to find fault with the past, we must move forward with a positive attitude even under difficult economic times. Yes, we can re-energize IITAC but we would need your active and willing support. And it will take time.

Some of you have suggested that we must bring the old spirit of togetherness back. You have told us that we should try for a happy medium between the social and professional events. Those who need advice and career help have requested restart of IFI activities. We must also increase the number of active voting members. We must improve our communication � electronic and face-to-face with membership. Our website must portray a professional image. These are some of our challenges.

Your new board is a good combination of the old and the new, young (like Sonia Nagrare) and old (like me). We have Ajoy Pal - the internal auditor who will keep us straight - from financial, audit and regulatory perspectives. Utpal will utilize his experience and contacts to bring the old spirit back. Dr. S. Venkatesh, like our southerly scholars, will lend us his wisdom. Sujeet and Rakesh will keep our website communication smooth. Brij Sharma- our solar scientist and Dr. Bibhu Mohanty - our Professor Emeritus will re-establish contacts with the academic community and shed some sunlight on the excellence of the IIT system among Canadian universities. Ajoy Sinha, Ashok Ranade and Krish Krishnan will help us in different aspects of IITAC.

We pledge to the membership that we shall keep your aspirations about IITAC in front of us and will work hard with limited resources that we have. We shall try to build bridges. emphasize inclusiveness of all, attempt to achieve consensus among ourselves even if it means giving in on some issues, portray excellence in our dealings with external mainstream community, be professional in our business procedures as far as it is practical, encourage involvement of IITAC families in our social events and in the process feel proud to be members of the IITAC community.

But I must request your willing support even when we fail. While you have expectations from us, we have the same from you - please be actively involved in IITAC. We are a family.

God bless IITAC!

Chander Dhawan
President, IIT Alumni of Canada, Toronto, former Charter member TiE
Principal Consultant, Founder & Publisher of http://www.mobileinfo.com
President DOLNET Computer Communications Inc.
905-881-8537 (Tel), 905-881-3589 (Fax)