Distinguished Alumnus Awardees
06 July 2017
BITS Pilani has a strong pool of Alumni spread across the globe and are excelling in academics, entrepreneurship, corporate leadership, and public life. Alumni of the institute are a great strength in contributing to development of the institute. More than 300 of BITS Alumni are occupying premier positions in leading universities in India and abroad and around 10 per cent of its Alumni plunge into a journey of entrepreneurship immediately after passing out or after spending few years in corporate. BITSAA International Inc. as a not-for-profit organization registered in New Jersey, USA has a vision to "Maximize the potential of BITSians and BITS Pilani" with a view to make the best and most well networked alumni community in the world. BITSAA International has taken a plunge to become one amongst the top three universities in Asia for promotion of entrepreneurship.
Every year BITSians excel by occupying top slots in the UPSC examination that results in some of its Alumni occupying premier positions in various Government of India services. This year in UPSC - 2016 results Anmol Sher Singh Bedi occupied 2nd All India rank with other six BITsians occupying within top 315 ranks. BITS recognizes its Alumni through Distinguished Alumni Awards every year. This year’s award in the category Academic Teaching & Research has been conferred to Prof Govindan Rangarajan and Prof Narayana R Aluru. Prof Govindan Rangarajan heads the Division of Interdisciplinary Research at IISc Bangalore and is a J. C. Bose National Fellow and a Homi Bhabha Fellow. Prof Narayana R. Aluru is a Kritzer Professor in the Dept. of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois and is recipient of Xerox Award, 2002; ASME Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award, 2006; Fellow, US Association for Computational Mechanics (USACM), 2011 and Fellow, ASME, 2011.
Mr. Hari Menon has been conferred award for his contributions in the area of Entrepreneurship. He is the CEO of BigBasket.com, a company that he co-founded in December 2011 with a vision of setting up India’s finest online food and Grocery Company. BigBasket.com is India’s largest online supermarket. Harish Bhat has been awarded for his contributions in the area of Corporate Professional Management. He is Chairman, Tata Coffee Ltd. and Brand Custodian of Tata Sons.
Mr. Rajagopal is the Co-founder and CEO of DATRI (Sanskrit word that means donor), a not-for profit organization that was established in 2009, working for the patients suffering from several blood disorders including blood cancer and Thalassemia has been awarded for his contributions to Public Life .Social Entrepreneurship.