Thinkpad

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The lack of awareness amongst the young student community about BITS-Pilani was a growing concern & was something which had to be dealt at its earliest. It was alarming when we realized that students were unaware of all the flexibilities & features that BITS offer during the time of their admission. All these lead to the start of the initiative - Let’s Promote BITS-Pilani.  LPBP aims to create awareness amongst the student community about BITS-Pilani. It focuses on building the brand "BITS-Pilani” and promoting all its campuses - Pilani, Goa, Dubai & Hyderabad. The medium suggested for this brand building exercise was to conduct information sessions in schools, colleges and coaching centers wherein the speaker would enlighten the young aspirants, clear their doubts and in a way act as the Ambassador of BITS-Pilani.

The first experimental information session held at Hyderabad received a huge response with more than 200 students participating in the session. It was after the success of this attempt that motivated the team to kick-start the work simultaneously in two campuses – Pilani & Goa. In its early phase, the initiative received a lot of appreciation & cooperation from both students & the administration. Documents were prepared which would assist in conducting “Info Sessions”. Volunteers were identified & trained for delivering these information sessions at respective campuses.

Phase I: The Journey Begins

The team members of the initiative were into action all across the country during the winter break of 2008 (15th Dec – 5th Jan’09). During this phase students from both the campuses participated actively and delivered info sessions in their schools & colleges.  Due to this untiring effort, within 20 days the initiative was successful in reaching as many as 7500 students with the help of nearly 50 volunteers from Pilani & Goa campus.

Harish & Cherukuri Aditya (both from Goa Campus) conducted 3 sessions each & played a major role in this phase. “The Hindu” approached Harish and appreciated the initiative. They also showed their desire to write about this unique initiative in their daily.

Phase II: The power of BITSAA

Phase II was an entirely new chapter for LPBP because this time around, it was the seniors who conducted the info sessions. Alumni across the globe liked the idea & expressed interest to be part of this initiative. The willingness from the alumni boosted the morale of the initiative and helped it to gain more momentum.

The first session of Phase II was conducted by Sagar Dughrekar (’95). Based in London, Sagar currently works as a Business Analyst with Barclays Capital. He has been an active member of BITSAA & was instrumental in setting up the BITSAA Mumbai Chapter. It was conducted in association with Institute of Engineers in Aurangabad, Sagar’s session was attended by over 450 students and parents from different schools of Aurangabad.

Phase III: And it goes on…

The planning of Phase III started almost parallel to Phase II’s. Like Phase I, this phase will consist of students as volunteers but not only from Goa & Pilani but also from our new campus at Hyderabad! After the success of Phase I & alum’s support to Phase II, Phase III required even more enthusiastic ambassadors who could play the dual role of giving out info and also guide their juniors in making correct discipline and career decisions

Phase III witnessed an enthusiastic first year student from Hyderabad campus who conducted 10 information sessions across his city all alone!

Neil C. Jog apart from clearing the doubts of the aspirants also brought some useful feedback to the LPBP team about the misconceptions & doubts that still exist in the minds of the aspirants.

What next ???

• Do you feel that there is a scent of ignorance about BITS-Pilani & its unique features?
• Do you believe that you can take the role of building the brand of BITS-Pilani?

Join hands in this unique initiative !!!

If you have any queries, please write to the Let’s Promote BITS-Pilani team at mailto:lpbp-team@bitsaa.org. You can also visit http://www.bitsaa.org/?page=lpbp for more details on how you can contribute.