IIMA Alumni Association Bangalore Chapter Updates

Start Up Series Meetings 14th May 2023

As a part of our three part engagement meetings of the Alums, we have had 2 interactive Startup sessions. These meets, typically with a niche audience, combined knowledge sharing and discussion with networking.

The first of these on ‘Demystifying Angel Investment’ was held on the 14^th of May 2023 with an audience of about 45. Angel investing does need a lot of demystifying, beginning with what exactly constitutes angel investing and who are these “angels” who do the investing. Kalpana Sindhu a PGP 1996 Alum handled the various nuances/ terminologies attached to startup investing with aplomb. The animated discussions which went on for three hours after the presentation ended with requests for follow-up sessions.

We had a session on 7^th October 2023 after a few intervening large Alum programmes on ‘Unravelling Term Sheet”. This session had a participation of nearly 50. Jointly  handled by Kalpana Sindhu and  Ali Shariff, the session provided deep insights on how investors can protect their respective interests during an investment/ fund raising round, followed as usual with lively discussions. The event ended with a surprise birthday party for Kalpana , Oct 7^th happening to be her birthday

We plan to continue these Startup sessions more frequently in 2024.

Alum Diwali get together with special performance by mentalist Nakul Shenoy 18^th November 2023

We organised a family get together over cocktails and dinner in the week of Diwali at the Indiranagar Club, Bengaluru. The event was exquisitely timed on the eve of WC finals as everyone was caught up in the frenzy and intense debate about the odds for the match the next day. We had a turnout of around 120.

The highlight of the event was a special performance by the renowned mentalist, Nakul Shenoy. Nakul is a speaker of choice for Fortune-500 companies and has 10 TEDx talks to his credit. He had initially drawn his inspiration from Mandrake the Magician, but has now progressed into more ethereal realms of pulling dreams, thoughts and memories, past, present and future out of a hypothetical top hat instead of the usual rabbit.

All the participants had a great time as Nakul enthralled them with a mind-boggling adventure of mentalism and magic that challenged their perceptions and left them with a sense of wonder.

We gratefully acknowledge the support we received from our sponsors – late Bala Iyer ( 1968 batch) and the Mumbai Chapter of the IIMA Alumni Association.

Nambi Narayanan Event  20^th January 2024

As with all Indians, IIMA Alum in Bangalore were also over the moon after the successful landing of Chandrayaan 3. One of our alum, Late Bala Iyer (Batch of 1968 ) ideated that we should invite Nambi Narayanan for an interactive meet in Bangalore through Sudarshan (Batch of 1970) who was a colleague of Mr. Nambi Narayanan in ISRO in the 1970’s and 80s. We were hoping to have the meet on November 23 when the moon landing was still hot and trending, but unfortunately Nambi Narayanan was away in the USA and was slated to return only in January 2024.

The event was therefore held on the 20th of January 2024 at Indira Nagar Club, Bangalore. The get- together was arranged in partnership with Indiranagar Club and MS Ramaiah Institute of Management. It was well attended with  a participation of about 330 people, including a fair sprinkling of children, eager to meet and listen to a renowned scientist.

Nambi took us through the start of his career journey and the growth of  ISRO as an organisation from  23 people to 25000 now; about the accidental start of his joining  ISRO (then Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station)  through an expired job opening announcement that he found on a newspaper wrapping; of his first meetings with Dr Abdul Kalam and Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and later on with Dr Satish Dhawan and his subsequent work in ISRO along with these luminaries; of his experiences in USA and France; and of the key role played by Sudarshan in ISRO

It was a mesmerising 45 minutes of a riveting anecdotal talk, laced with humour, that had the audience in thrall. We then moved on to an interactive and enlightening Q&A, enlivened by several innocent questions from young children.