BITSAA
Roundup
By Deepak Sharma (‘91A1)
Of Huddles, Cuddles & The Neuron
Network
It
is around
12.30a.m.
On March20, 2004 and the ANC at
BITS Pilani is in full swing with students jostling at the counter –
“Ek maggi, do sam chat, 4 chai”, “ Teen coffee, 2 chips, char samosa”,
“ Hey Ramesh idhar aa re yaar – I can’t lift all this myself”, the
constant chatter of “laccha” – Intellectual talks ranging from
solving electro-magnetic problems to how to date Kareena Kapoor, a few
clouds of smoke in a dark corner and a group that was able to get late
night permission for the girls sitting proudly at the center!.
Amidst
all this there was another group of folks that were sitting around in a
circle and sharing old ‘n’ new jokes. “So how do you define a huddle
vs. a cuddle?” asked Vikram and Vinod replied emphatically, “ Arre
bhai what we saw was not a huddle it was definitely a cuddle – anything
more than 30 seconds is automatically in the cuddle category!” The whole
group roared in laughter.
So what was different about this group. For starters nobody was a current
student. The group consisted of alums ranging from 1960s all the way to
2000! Second, behind the joviality were strong, smart determined men &
women who had come together based on their passion for BITS Pilani and had
made NEURON – Interconnecting Minds –a reality on campus today!
Last
but not the least – most of these folks had not met each other till
today and yet were instantly able to get together, unite and share
passion, jokes, and work with each other easily! All of us were working in
a virtual team over email and phone for the past one-year to set up
NEURON, BITS’ gigabit Ethernet backbone, and today was a day to
celebrate and take a breather before the team launched on more ambitious
projects for the future! This is truly being connected by BITSConnect –
the ability to bring together people from different walks, generations and
locations together to create something that will further the cause of
students and ultimately India in the world!
My
mind raced back to September 2003. I was pulled in by Mukul to attend the
weekly conference call for BITSConnect project of wiring up the campus. In
the very first call, I was amazed by what had been achieved by the group
–and the passion in the folks was unbelievable. Here were folks who were
devoting their precious personal time and working odd hours and up at all
times to get a pro bono job done. It was a great ride for me as I got
involved with the marketing/branding team and we started preparing our
messaging, content and co-ordination work with the PR agency. It meant
phone calls at
midnight
– sometimes
midnight
in US and sometimes
midnight
in
India
! There were folks like Karthik who
arranged all the logistics for the two-day event at BITS Pilani including
transportation logistics and he was not able to make the trip!! It amazed
me to see what technology, passion and single purpose determination can
achieve! The list of people was endless, connecting 100 people around the
world. And even when the time came for media campaign it just took one
phone call and/or email to get a yes from the concerned alum to volunteer
to do something. Many of them
made the memorable trip to Pilani just for this purpose!!
Lastly
it was very heartening to see NEURON (The gigabit network project) in
action at Pilani. As we walked down memory lane with Nagarji’s shikanji
in hand we walked into several rooms, it was a startling sight to see
brand new PCs sitting on old wooden desks! It was very exciting to see
students using the Ethernet network (NEURON) for web connectivity
–downloading music, running radio stations and doing online coursework
today (Although it did take some students 15 minutes to find the course
online, a bit like the 15 minutes it takes to find the class we never
attended except to show up for the exam)!
The
network is already transforming the way education is imparted at BITS
Pilani and also inspiring students to think “outside the box” for
business models revolving around using the network both for research and
commercial purposes. In my mind this is the new face of BITS Pilani –
changed yet unchanged. While the hostel room is the same and the serenity
plus peace at the temple is the same and one can still get Pappu’s
coffee at Sky, there is now a PC in almost every room at BITS Pilani,
students are excited that the world is changing and at their freedom to
connect to the rest of the world.
The two days at Pilani went by in a fleeting second. We hardly slept,
staying up till 4a.m. every night and also managed to recreate our
classroom bunking days by ducking out of a few conference lectures to have
shikanji in sky and get some feedback from the ‘real’ students present
in sky!. We did the early morning visits to the temple and had
dinner in the RB mess (yes now it is RB since Malviya has been handed over
to the better sex!). The evening was filled with trips to C’Not and then
sessions of coffee/chai at the ANC.
As the car drove out of the guesthouse, I looked back one more time and
promised to be back next year for the next project. This was truly a
remarkable project. BITSConnect
had cut across batches, industry, faculty, students, geographies, time
zones and created an unbreakable bond. The end goal for all is to put BITS
Pilani on the world map for its education, diversity and global
leadership. So behind the huddles ‘n’ cuddles jokes lies the absolute
faith, determination and rock solid dedication that will not accept
anything less than total success!
Deepak
is an engineer at Cypress Semiconductor in the Bay Area ■
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