IIT Madras

The PanIIT-2008 event is slated to be held at IIT Madras, Chennai during December 19-21, 2008. The venue and timing are very appropriate, given that IIT Madras is celebrating its Golden Jubilee this year.

What Will Happen

Participants will enjoy the tremendous opportunities for professional networking, a chance to indulge in nostalgia, to listen to the views of a galaxy of pre-eminent luminaries, and to hear of the efforts being made by their fellow alumni to contribute to the transformation of the nation. With entertainment and light hearted events in between for delegates and their families.  

Plenary Sessions AT Students Activity Center (SAC)

The PanIIT 2008 Meet, to be held on the IIT Madras campus from December 19-21, 2008, boasts a strong line-up of plenary sessions and speakers.

The Prime Minister, Hon'ble Dr. Manmohan Singh, will be delivering the Inaugral Address (by live video-feed) on the 19th at 9:30 am. This will be followed by a session (10:00 - 10:30 am) in which the PanIIT Board will highlight past accomplishments of PanIIT, and another (10:30 - 11:30 am) in which IIT Directors, in a panel to be presided over by Dr. Anil Kakodkar (Chairman, BOG, IITB; Chairman, AEC), and moderated by Prof. MS Ananth (Director, IIT Madras), will deliberate on the theme of "Internationalization and Funding/ Governance of IITs".

At 5:30 pm on the 19th, Dr.Raghuram Rajan, the noted Economist, will speak on the topic of how India can become one of the Top-3 economies in the world.

The second day, 20th December, will be led off at 9:30 am by a topical talk by Dr. Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute on "Will Mumbai trigger the Fifth India-Pakistan Crisis and What can be done to prevent it?". This will be followed by another dynamic talk delivered at 10:30 am by Bob McDonald, COO of Proctor & Gamble, on corporate innovation strategies at P & G.

At 4:30 pm on the 20th, a powerful panel of academicians, led by Dr. Pramod Rastogi (Professor, EPFL, Swizerland), Dr. Rajiv Grover (Dean, Fogelman College of Business & Economics, U Memphis), Dr. Subra Suresh (Dean of Engineering, MIT) and Prof. Surendra Prasad (Director, IIT Delhi) will engage in a debate, moderated by Dr. Vijay Kumar (Senior Associate Dean, MIT), on the roadmap for IITs to become global leaders in education and research.

The 5:30 pm plenary session that follows brings together three Tata CEOs-B. Muthuraman (Tata Steel), S. Ramadorai (TCS) and Ravi Kant (Tata Motors)- in a dialog with Prof. C.K. Prahlad (U. Michigan) on India @ 75, and how Indian industry can shape the future.

The last day of the Meet, Dec 21st, shines brightest of all. At 9 am, Arjun Malhotra (PanIIT Board) will moderate a knowledge-capture session designed to assimilate the learnings of PanIIT 2008 and pave the way forward. Next up is Orkut Buyukkokten (Product Manager, Google) at 10:15 am, interacting via video with students and campus youth on social networking in virtual mode.

At 11:00 am, two noted strategic thinkers-Stephen Cohen and Prof. Kishore Mahbubani from NUS, Singapore-will discuss the strategic challenges and opportunities ahead of India in the next 15 years.

And, we have saved the best for last: At noon, Nobel Laureate and leading Economist, Prof. Amartya Sen, will bring the proceedings to a fitting end with a valedictory keynote addressing how IITs, IITians and PanIIT can inspire, innovate, and transform India into a global superpower.

Who Will Attend

Across 3 action-packed days, you can expect to interact with:

For more details, check out:
• The 6 Thematic Tracks
• Daily Program Outline