IIT Conf:  Raises Million $ Sponsorship
By Suresh Singh and Dj Varma

In a country which strives for academic excellence, they are the best and brightest.  When Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru floated the ideas of IITs being leading centres of learning, little could anyone have imagined that their graduates would play a pivotal role in establishing the booming technology industry in India and earn laurels all over the world.  And that many IIT graduates like Vodafone CEO  Arun Sarin,  McKinsey Partner Rajat Gupta,  Sun Founder and eminent VC Vinod Khosla would be giants of international business.

Earlier this month,  IIT alumni held their annual conference at California. It was a huge success with Senator Hillary Clinton,  General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt,  Google super manager Marissa Mayer among others who spoke and networked.

So,  how much did the IIT organizing team raise to fund the IIT alumni conference in California on July 6 – 8.  A whopping million dollars.  Google spent $200 thousand to be the lead sponsors.  Other sponsors were Yahoo, Microsoft, Pay Pal, CISCO, State Bank of India. UBS and HSBC.   And in case these IIT graduates sometimes had hazy memories of their ‘break times’ at IIT – beer maker Kingfisher was there to remind them as a sponsor

Ashu Garg is one of the most respected and successful Indian executives in America.  An IIT and IIM alumni,  he is currently a General Manager with Microsoft’s On-Line Services business where he is responsible for Strategy and Business Management for the Digital Advertising P&L. Prior to this, Ashu was a General Manager within the WW Sales and Marketing Group at Microsoft (for the core software business) where he led the WW Field Readiness function (across all products, customer segments and regions). Ashu was given the charter to build out the WW Field Readiness (MS speak for Field Marketing) function at MS in 2003 in response to the business need to accelerate growth, and he grew it to a 500 person strong marketing function with over $ 125 M in spend that played an integral role in the recent Office and Vista launches.

Ashu Garg was one of the key organizers of the IIT conference and so had an insider’s view at how all the teams worked together to ensure a successful event.

Q. Can you tell us what this conference was all about  ?

AG (Ashu Garg): The PanIIT 2007 Conference brought together IIT alumni from all 7 campuses and from around the world. It was a unique opportunity for leaders in technology, business, academia and non profits to come together and explore new frontiers of thought and technology, identifying and examining the next trends that will have a broad global impact, such as Web2.0 and Clean Tech.

Q. When did the overall organizing team first meet to plan the logistics, revenue and finances ?

AG: The initial discussions started a year ago, with detailed planning being kicked off 8-9 months ago.

Q.  Marketing/financing is one of the key elements for the success of any such conference.  When did the marketing team first meet.  What financial targets did you set at this first meet ?

AG: The most important thing in such a conference is the roster of speakers. We were fortunate enough to have Senator Hillary Clinton, General Electric (NYSE: GE) CEO Jeff Immelt and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) CEO Arun Sarin as keynote speakers. In addition, the panelists included Nobel Laureate prize winner Arno Penzias, Carnegie Mellon University President Jared L. Cohon, Granite Hill Capital Venture President and CEO Shailesh Mehta, Keynote CEO Umang Gupta, Juniper CTO Pradeep Sindhu, Microsoft GM Ashok Chandra, iGate CEO Sunil Waghwani, leading VC Vinod Kholsa, and McKinsey's Senior Partner Rajat Gupta.  With such a line- up, marketing focused on creating awareness of the conference amongst alumni, and attracting main-stream press to the event.  Also through such conferences, PanIIT seeks to build a distinct brand identity for IITians in the US, so that when decision makers think of the IITs, they associate it with leadership, with people who drive transformational change, and with a global community that is closely knit.

Q.  How much finances did you finally raise ?  Did you'll meet all your marketing targets ?  Did you have a surplus of finances ?  What do you plan to do with any such surplus ?

AG: From a financial perspective, the conference has been a success. We raised a substantial amount of sponsorships and were able to provide our alumni with an out-standing experience at a relatively low cost- the sponsorships subsidized the participants extensively.

From a marketing perspective, we also had a home run. We had 3300 + participants, including many from around the world. Also, we had 50 + reporters cover the conference, including press from Time, Fortune, San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes and most other highly regarded publications. The coverage that we received has been instrumental in positioning IITians as a well-connected global community of exceptionally talented individuals who have demonstrated impact throughout society.

Q.   Can you give our readers a sense of how IIT graduates from different (often competing companies) put aside their day jobs to come together to organize this conference.  i.e Google and Yahoo employees working together for the IIT cause etc

AG: The IIT bonds are very strong and they bring us all together - we have more that brings us together than that which pulls us apart. For example, I worked very closely with Dilip Venkatachari (President PanIIT USA) though we work for MSFT's On-line business and Google respectively. Another senior member of the marketing team, Rahul Bhargava, works at E-Bay.  We all compete in the marketplace, but come together for PanIIT.

Q.  Are all of you in a voluntary  capacity or do some people get paid as well ?  Who often did you'll meet in the lead up to the conference ?

AG: Everyone was a volunteer. We all even paid to attend the conference. We met
every other week.

Q.  How do you get such stars like Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin and Mckinsey Senior Partner Rajat Gupta to give speeches.  Is it as simple as saying:” I,  we are from IIT like you.  please come.".

AG: The IIT network is exceptional and most IITians are willing to make a call on our (PanIIT's) behalf. We leveraged the network to attract speakers. Also, for many speakers, the opportunity to address so many IITians was an incredible opportunity to attract talent.

Q.   The average person is under the impression that everything would have worked like clock work because the IIT community is very well connected and rolling in millions.  And are good in organizing events.  Were there any glitches.  Did things go wrong which needed lateral solutions?

AG: Overall, the event was a huge success and the logistics all worked out. That said, there are always minor challenges at the last minute, but the teams took them in their stride.