VNIT is one of the first six Regional Engineering Colleges established in 1960.

VRCE acquired status of a National Institute of Technology under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956 by Department of Secondary & Higher Education on 26 June 2002

The NIT Act passed by the parliament in 2007 declares VNIT as an "Institute of National Importance" for India.

9 UG programmes, 14 PG programmes.

>13,000 graduates so far spread in more than 20 countries.

An autonomous Board of Governors having representatives of the Central Government, State Government, AICTE, UGC, teaching faculty, industrialists and technologists manages the institute.

The Chairman of Board of Governors of VNIT is Shri S. S. Sohoni (former Secretary to the President of India).

Mr. Shashikant Chaudhary (VRCE 83) and Dr. Vijay Bhatkar (VRCE 65) are members of BoG.

Infrastructure

215.26 acres campus with 80235 Sq.Mtr. built-up area.

A new digital library has also started and has access to online journals and technology related websites.

1000 boys capacity hostels are under construction.

Mega-mess having the capacity of 500 students is complete.

Institute area is completely Wi-Fi. Internet provided to hostels using fiber optic cables.

2 connections of 42 MBPS each.

R&D

VLSI Lab

Micro & Nanoelectronics Lab

CAD/CAM lab

Material testing lab

The department of applied physics has developed a 'radiation resistant glass' for atomic reactors( project sponsored by IGCAR).

Students

Total budget ~ Rs. 13 Lakhs

Participation : 3000

3.3 million Hits on the website from 20 different countries.

TEDx Event organized in AXIS 2011.

Exclusive event for students of the NITs.

Attempt to use skills of these students to find out ways for the improvement of the prevailing conditions in our nation.

Budget of Rs. 4.5 Lakhs.

Around 100 delegates from 20 NITs participating.

2 day event comprising two deliberations and a panel discussion.

Confirmed Jury members:1) Mr. S.C Jain, Retired IAS officer, Bhopal2) Dharmendra Jore, Associate Editor, Hindustan Times, Mumbai3) Dr. T. Karunakarn, Director, MGIRI4) Dr. Kulbhushan Kushal, Managing Director, Dayanand Institute of Education Management and Research.5) Mr. Bharat Kumar, Director, Global Indian Foundation

Confirmed Guest Speakers:1) Mr. Sunderam Seturaman, Sr. VP Times Group2) Dr. Achyut Godbole, Managing Director, Softexcel Consultancy Services

Confirmed Sponsors:1) Infocepts2) Minex3) Dainik Bhaskar4) Radiomirchi5) MGIRI6) Vigyan Bharati7) Global Indian Foundation8) SBI9)Thermax

Budget of ~Rs. 13.5 Lakhs

Cult-Nite by Amit Kumar Sumit Kumar (both sons of Kishore Kumar). The revenue generated from the show being donated to Kritadnyata, a hostel run exclusively for financially challenged tribal children.

Performance by Rock Band Fardikot.

Organizers are in talks with Indian Ocean, Euphoria and Pentagram for Aarohi 2012.

Footfall of over 5000.

Main Sponsors:1)Nagpur Times2)Spykar3)Hindustan Petroleum4)Canara bank5)Globus6)Cykology

Renaissance-India is a VNIT Nagpur startup (founded by Ankit Tulsyan, VNIT 2010) .

Only Social festival of the country.

Renaissance attempts to bring student social groups, NGOs and Government agencies on same page for the betterment of Rural India.

Renaissance annual conferences:2010 VNIT Nagpur2011 BITS Pilani

Renaissance is partners with:1)Teach for India2)Goonj3)Rural Marketing Congress4)Indian Student Parliament

Guest Speakers:1)Prof. Madhukar Shukla, XLRI Jamshedpur2)Mr. Anshu Gupta, Ashoka Fellow3)Mr. M.S. Unnikrishnan,MD Thermax (VRCE 1982)

STUDENT CLUBSMore than 15 technical/non-technical clubs present including IEEE Chapter, ACM Chapter, SAE Chapter,E-Cell etc.

Other festivals include Quiz-Fest, Consortium (business fest).STUDENT COUNCIL

Comprises of elected student representatives who play a vital role in various student affairs such as Academics, T&P , Technical Affairs , Alumni Affairs,Sports and Cultural Activities.

VNIT Golden Jubilee Celebration

Alumni Count : >1000

Total Attendance : 1800

Every Batch from 1961-2010 was represented.

Total Budget : >Rs. 37 Lakhs(Half of which came from sponsorships by Alumni)

A core team consisting of 50 members worked 3 months for the meet (also everyone took at least a week off from their work)

Distinguished Alumni Award

Awarded to 7 alumni for the year 2010:

Dr. Ramesh Jain

VRCE 69 (EEE)

Professor at University of California, Irvine

Recipient the prestigious ACM Special Interest Group on Multimedia award for Outstanding Technical Contributions to Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications.

Mr. M.S. Unnikrishnan

VRCE 82 (MECH)

Managing Director & CEO at Thermax, Pune

Dr. Vijay P. Bhatkar

VRCE 65

President ,VIJNANA BHARATI

Architect of the PARAM series of Supercomputers

Awarded Padmashree in the year 2000

Prof. B.S. Murty

VRCE 86 (MME)

Professor in the Dept. of MME, IIT Madras.

Platinum Jubilee Award of Indian Science Congress (2009).

Metallurgist of the Year Award by Ministry of Steel and Mines (2004).

Dr. Dinesh Keskar

VRCE 75 (MECH)

President of Boeing India and VP of Boeing International Trading.

Board member for the U.S.-India Business Council

Member of the board of directors of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading

Mr. Pradeep Kar

VRCE 81

Chairman and managing director of Microland

President of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE), Bangalore chapter

POWER Networking SESSIONS

5 power networking sessions were organized during the meet (Industry specific):1)IT2)Reality & Infrastructure3)Power & Energy4)Manufacturing5)Architecture6)R&D etc.

ALUMNI interaction office

A huge room allotted in the new library building.

Plans to create a post of Alumni Interaction Officer (full time).

A formal Central Alumni Association is also planned.

STUDENT INVOLVEMENT IN ALUMNI AFFAIRS

Student involvement started in 2009. In the same year 1st General Alumni Meet was organized (before this, these meets were restricted to Silver Jubilee Celebration) .

A database(names and branches) of all 12,499 alumni was made and put up on the site. The information was collected from Institute Admission Registers.

50 students were involved in organizing Golden Jubilee (these students stayed in institute throughout winter break for the meet).

Website, Banners, Souvenir, Newsletter for Golden Jubilee were completely designed by students.

Several alumni guest lectures were organized. The speakers include:

1)Mr. Prakash Telang, MD, Tata Motors2)Dr. Ramesh Jain, Prof., Univ. of California,Irvine3)Dr. Dinesh Keskar, President, Boeing India4)Mr. Pankaj Maheshwari,Founder at Net Matrix Solutions, Inc (32nd fastest growing IT services company in America)

Work done so far

Motivating students,alumni.

Institute Support.

Consolidated Database (going on).

Web Portal (Lack of Activity).

A dedicated Office for alumni.

WISH LIST

Appointment of an Alumni Affairs Executive ( preferably an alumni)

Creating an Alumni constitution- Governing Draft.

Formation of an Executive Body(Institute-Alumni combined).

Ensuring presence of official and Active Chapters for alumni Networking across Globe and in major Indian cities(May be we can follow IIM Bangalore system of Anusmaran) .

Implementing sustainability mechanism of Alumni Association by means of Life Membership.

Autor: Himanshu Tambi 6/25/11