IIT Alumni Come Together For Social Change

Alumni from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have come together to form a body — along the lines of NASSCOM — which will act as a platform to bring together social impact organisations in the country. Called IIT-IIT short for ‘IITians for Influencing India’s Transformation’, the platform by IIT alumni has been formed to harness intellectual capital, enable engagement across the eco-system, and create a vibrant community of social impactors. The platform will focus on areas of education, livelihood skills, and healthcare, and will be funded by the IITians.

The CSR Journal spoke to some members as they gathered in Mumbai to showcase their work at an event titled, Designing For National Scale. Every member of the alumni at the event is already independently engaged in social impact activities across diverse areas.

IIT-IIT’s advisory board includes Arjun Malhotra, Co-founder, Headstrong and HCL; Ashank Desai, Co-founder Mastek and Nasscom; Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, Pune City Connect and ex-CEO Aptech and Zensar; Harish Hande, Founder SELCO Solar and SELCO Foundation; Hitesh Oberoi, Promoter & MD InfoEdge and Co-founder Naukri; PK Agarwal, CEO, Northeastern University – Silicon Valley, and ex-CEO TiE Global and Som Mittal, ex-President, Nasscom; Joe Fernandes, Promoter of Bioman Technologies; Nandan Maluste, Advisor at Blume Venture Advisors and Kartik Kilachand serve as the leadership team at IIT-IIT.

IIT-IIT has five tiers of memberships planned – founding, social impact, partner, government, and ordinary membership. Three hundred IITians who are committed to the success of IIT-IIT have joined the organisation as founding members.