Getogether in Bangalore

Here are some enthu reactions to last nights meet in Bangalore.

Hi,
One always has to look to the East for good things in life and apparently they come in small packages.The advantage of this venue was that we hardly bumped into any outsider.
Three Cheers to the Honourable Sebastian Chandy for organising this meet where old stories were indeep swapped. Look forward to more such efforts from you, Saji!!! It would of course be easier for him if people who confirmed didn't drop out without notice. Many must have had a genuine reason. But that is what cell phones and SMS are for.
The numbers are a major headache for any organiser.
Warm regards
Gayatri



Hi All,
Gayatri, I couldn't agree with you more!
The effort from Sebastian was very good, and another 10 more people turning up would have made it a lot more worthwhile. Good interaction, some interesting thoughts thrown up for future meetings, a good venue, no parking issues, and a very short commute for us folks.
George Olapally


Good job Saji.
Good venue, good arrangements, and good food. I may be rationalising but the total turnout is not important for these dos. The important thing is for each person to be able to connect/reconnect with a few people in a meaningful way.
Thanks much for the initiative. Thanks to David for organising the venue.
We would encourage others from different areas in Bangalore, like Indra Nagar, Koramangala, Jayanagar to organise similar local event in their areas. You can contact me or anyone else on the committee for any kind of assistance that you may require, including arranging a venue.
Kuru


Smaller local meets to beat the traffic, so we can meet more often and interact in smaller batches throughout the year seems to be a good idea. Hope more people take the initiative to organise these little do's around town across the metro's where distance seems to be a major deterrent to meeting more often.

Bay Area Winter Alumni Potluck

For some reason, this report slipped though the cracks.

Alumni in the Bay area met for a Potluck on the 27th of December at Tipu (IR 96)'s home.

Here is Tipu's write up on the meet:

Warm & sunny new year greetings to all US XLers from the Bay Area. We had a well-attended potluck last Saturday. 30 XLers & their spouses attended, many with kids in tow (list below). Much beer was drunk (imported only, like the XLers) & anecdotes & emails exchanged. Everyone brought wonderful food which magically worked well together, with the piece-de-resistance for me being the chocolate fountain that Kieran Gonsalves so carefully set up. This was the first alumni get together for some of the folks since leaving XL. That & the look of happy surprise on faces of batchmates meeting after many years (like the final reels of a familiar Manmohan Desai saga), was well-worth the time to organize this. Shailley & Sheela took some photos, which are available here and at http://shailleysingh.posterous.com/. Feel free to leave comments. I have also been asked to put a disclaimer that due to the image cropping & similar technical constraints some people may look wider than they actually are. Unfortunately, camera batteries drained out & so not everyone who attended had their pictures taken. But that is a good reason to have another one of these & count everyone in for a group photo. We had a summer picnic & a winter potluck last year & hope to continue the tradition this year too.

Name	Batch	Name	Batch
Aashish Bhargava	BM89	KP Naidu	IR81
Amita Shekhar	XP05	Mahesh Singh	BM86
Indu Unnamatla (Chachra)	IR96	Pal Luthra	BME72
Kieran Gonsalves	BM87	Pooja Arora	IR01

Name	Batch	Name	Batch
Purnima Srivastava	IR96	Shailley	IR98
Ravi Narayanan	BM86	Sheela Sukumaran	IR95
Reema Vijay	IR97	Tipu Purkayastha	IR96
Sandeep Harpalani	BM92	Vivek	BM86

Best regards,

Tipu Purkayastha, SPHR

IR96

Saratoga, CA

PS: Post-millenials, please show enthu – we would love to have more of you. We know you are out there somewhere…

XL Happy Hours Wed, 28th Jan - Bangalore

Hi all,

It’s that time of the year to meet and share stories of yester years. XL Happy Hours!!! Calling all Xlers for a great evening with good food, music and catching up.

Venue : The ITC Club Hall on Coles Road (Some of you had difficulty locating the venue. Please find attached the map of the location. The red spot indicates the ITC Club, Coles Road)

Date : Wed, 28th Jan 1900 to 2230 hrs

Food/Snacks/Beverages will be available at the club and will be charged at Rs 150/- per head.

Booze will be available across the counter for nominal rates.

Also please confirm your attendance at the earliest. (Do inform your friends who have not yet subscribed to the Yahoogroups as well. )

It would really help us a lot with the logistics. As mentioned in the previous mail, do let me know if any of you require cabs for the journey back.

Looking forward to meet you all tomorrow.

Cheers,

Sebastian Chandy

IR ‘07

Update on XLer NGO's

here we have an XL students ("NGO") team (actually a business venture - a partnership firm) the 8 selected out of 2300 entries in one of the Asia's biggest entrepreneurship competition - Eureka at IIT Mumbai

http://eureka.ecell.in/result.php

Clean tech contestants vie for $50,000 at Eureka! 08

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Services/Education/Clean_tech_contestants_vie_for_50000_at_Eureka_08/articleshow/4020679.cms

(and if they win these, this will meet part of their funding requirements - Eureka is $50,000)

and is among the 16 selected in an international competition ("NGO" Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition - Foster School of Business, Univ of Washington, Seattle)

http://foster.washington.edu/gsec/Teams.shtml

(dont know the prize money)

I am also happy to share that the institute's is providing for their travel expenses to US to participate in the GSEC

and that XLRI Social Entrepreneurship Trust provided them the first incubation funding (we did to two others student ventures too - Swavalamban and http://www.dream4others.com/ and will continue to do so, if we get the funding from Xlers or other sources...

two of these ventures funded by the Trust also sweeped the Kalpavriksha event:

http://xlri.blogspot.com/2008/11/xlris-social-projects-sweep.html

an institute's "brand" (and worth) is built by the investments in building a robust product.

help out if you can by connecting to:

isel.sigma@xlri.ac.in

ciao

madhukar

ps: for those who came in late:

http://www.parichay.co.in

Professor Hayagreeva Rao (IR 80)'s new Book

Thanks Tipu for this info.

Market rebels and radical innovation
(Article and video)

In this adaptation from his book released this week, Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations, Professor Hayagreeva Rao of Stanford Universityʼs Graduate School of Business explains the role of activists in making or breaking new markets, products, and services. Rao also offers, in a brief video interview, several examples of activist communities at work in the consumer and business context.

Read the article at McKinsey Quarterly