The third meeting of Gujarat Technological University Alumni Association (GTUAA) was convened on 30th January, 2013 at GTU’s Gandhinagar campus, E-4, K-6 Circle, G.I.D.C. Electronics Estate, Sector -26, Near Gandhinagar Polytechnic, (Old GNLU Campus), Gandhinagar- 382 010.

In the meeting almost 50 members were present including Principals/Directors, and more than 20 senior teaching faculty members

In the beginning, Prof. Dr. K. N. Sheth, Dean - Advancement, Alumni Affairs and Interdisciplinary Research welcomed all the members and requested them to share their views for GTUAA. Many Principals and faculty members among the members have already established Alumni Association in their respective institutes. Very important and informative views had been shared by the members present over there.

Dr. Sheth said that the views shared by the members were valuable and it was found that all the members had a flowing stream of bubbling energy and current break through ideas for constituting the GTU Alumni Association.

Dr. Sheth then gave a brief account of the progress made on the matters of GTUAA as few of the members were not present in earlier meetings. Dr K N Sheth briefly apprised them as under:

• Theme paper was uploaded on 31.12.2012 at GTU Website.
• The first meeting of GTUAA was convened on 2nd January 2013.
• Keynote address was given by Esteemed Vice Chancellor Dr. Akshai Aggrawal Sir and presentation on all important issues were made by Dr.K N Sheth on 2nd January, 2013.
• The minutes of the Meeting was uploaded on 7th January 2013.
• The following members in the first GTUAA meeting formed the core group.
• Dr. Akshai Aggarwal, Esteemed Vice Chancellor, GTU
• Dr. M. N. Patel – Director of GTU
• Dr. K. N. Sheth, Dean(Advancement, Alumni affairs and Interdisciplinary Research)- GTU
• Dr. S.O. Junare, Director of NICM and Dean of Faculty of Management, Gandhinagar Zone- GTU
• Dr. Rupesh Vasani, Principal of Sal Institute and Dean of Ahmedabad Zone -GTU
• Dr. M. M. Patel, Principal of Shankersinh Vaghela Bapu Institute of Technology
• Dr. Maiti, Principal of L. J. College of Engineering, Ahmedabad
• Dr. V. M. Patel, Principal of Shankersinh Vaghela Bapu Institute of Technology
• Dr. Gaurang Ban, Associate Professor, GEC, Bhuj
• Dr. Mukesh Patel, Director, Physical Education, Sankalchand Patel College, Visnagar
• Prof. Vasani, Principal, LEC, Morbi
• The 2nd meeting of the GTUAA was organized on 16th January at 3.00 pm at GTU Chandkhada Campus,
• The meeting could not be conducted due to event management of University convocation.
• But all the Agenda items were discussed with Dr Akshai Aggarwal Hon’ble Vice Chancellor when core members Dr. V M Patel, Prof. Vasani of LEC Morbi and Dr. Junare, Director, NICM were present.
• The content of the Brochure, Registration form, Invitation Card and the Cover was approved by VC on 15th/16th January, 2013.
• Approval for design and printing for the said documents from VC was received on 17th January, 2013 .
• The printed documents were made available to the students on 19th January, 2013 at 10.30 am during the Convocation event.
• Letters then were addressed all the colleges as regards constitution of GTUAA, subscription fees and about the first meet of Association on 8th February, 2013.
• Response to these letters was received from almost more than 70 institutes.
• The questions raised by them were satisfactorily answered over the phone by the Dean.
• In almost all colleges, we have teachers who are pass outs from GTU, all the Principals have been requested to make them Alumni to start with.
• Letters were addressed all the colleges as regards constitution of GTUAA, subscription fees and about the first meet of Association on 8th February, 2013.
• The members may pay subscription fee of Rs. 500/- or Rs. 200/-one time as the case may be in form of DD in favor of GTU Alumni Association payable at Ahmedabad and the scanned copy of the DD along with the registration form may be submitted by email – official email Id is gtuaa@gtu.edu.in .This will help in estimating the arrangement to be made for the dinner.
• All the respected Principals/ faculty members were also advised accordingly.

Dr. V. M. Patel raised a question as to how the details filled up by the students in Registration form can be checked. He was of the opinion that the registration form should be checked at the college level and should have college seal. In lieu of individual D.D, combined DD should be accepted. Dr K N Sheth accepted the suggestion.

Prof. Piyush Vanzara, VVPE Rajkot stated that the students are not ready to pay the fees for GTU Alumni Association. The question raised by him was whether they should be forced to pay the subscription fees. Dr K N Sheth very clearly stated that there should not be any force in any circumstances. The person with short-sightedness may not immediately join. However the teachers who have passed from GTU must be enrolled as members of GTUAA.

Dr. Akshai Aggarwal, Vice Chancellor of GTU stated that all the teaching faculty members of GTU can become member of GTUAA. Thus, 17,000 teaching faculty members are already the GTU Alumni. However, they have to get registered themselves before 5th February, 2013 so that can attend the first meet.

Dr. Akshai Aggarwal was happy to state that every institute affiliated with GTU must have their own Alumni Association. He referred to the opinion of Dr. Rajesh for empowering the Alumni. He explained the importance of creating brand value by giving examples of successful alumni association of IIT- Roorki and IIT Kharagpur. With these examples, he expressed that students associated with GTUAA should get empowered through GTU and networking colleges.

Dr Akshai Aggarwal, Vice Chancellor further said that GTUAA should support their members to study abroad and provide internships. He threw more light on this by giving example of Cairo university of Egypt sending their students to Berlin taking the location advantage. Dr Aggarwal sir also gave the example of another successful Alumni Association of University of China that was established in 2010 the period same as establishment of GTU innovation Council, has now 29 independent buildings of the association at major industrial zones where their students go and work. According to him, Gujarat has strong social network and our students through alumni association can take advantage of such opportunities.

Dr Akshai Aggarwal expressed his wish to establish GTU campus in all over the world, with the efforts of GTU Alumni Association. He said that GTU does not want to own their various campuses at different locations, but he wished that GTUAA to do this on ‘build own and operate ‘basis. What he meant was that the alumni association should be strong enough to get donors even in foreign countries. There should be a provision in the structure for creating Board of Trustees and the donors could be the members of such trustees. The routine management of the chapter can be done by the elected office bearers but selling, buying acquiring the properties should rest with them after consulting Vice Chancellor of GTU i.e. President of GTUAA. Further he made it clear that the election for general body should be made at the local chapter level only. The list of the elected members then should be submitted to President of GTUAA who will nominate the office bearers. Provision should be made accordingly in the constitution. He explained how large is GTU with about 500 affiliated colleges and jointly a great amount of work can be enforced synergistically.

Dr Akshai Aggarwal further stated that focus of the GTU is to concentrate on empowerment, networking and service approach towards GTUAA. He emphasized that it would be a misconception if revenue generation is seen as the objective of formation of GTUAA. He symbolized GTUAA as the extended arm, that cannot be achieved by each individual institute but a joint efforts of the institutes through the University can bring the desired results quickly. He stated that all technical students of any of our colleges are essentially members of GTUAA, if one has not paid the subscription fees; he or she will be categorized as ‘unpaid member’. Once the student gets benefits, he will automatically be inspired to pay the fees. Dr Akshai Aggarwal suggested to all the attendees to work in this area with great enthusiasm. He said that any task should be done with whole-heartedly. Efforts must be made in such a way that the output is a ‘grand success’, or else it should not be attempted at all.

Dr Akshai Aggarwal expected initially to establish the GTUAA with 350 students to start with. Hon. V.C. Sir explained that even simple things will not succeed unless one does not start working on it. Hard work is the key to success and we may fail sometimes or we may succeed but efforts should always be invested continuously.

With this Dr. Akshai Aggarwal Sir suggested to focus on the FIRST MEET of GTUAA proposed to be held on 8th February, 2013. He said to work hard for success of the event irrespective of availability of GTUAA website. He agreed with the suggestion of online registration process, but also guided to work with available hard copies of forms.

Answering the issue of criteria of becoming GTU alumni, he said that GTU is going to work as Superset and not as Subset or Partial Set. Dr Akshai Aggarwal V C of GTU suggested employing the ‘inclusion thought processes instead of ‘exclusion thought processes.

At the end of the session, Dr Aggarwal mentioned that of 17000 faculty members of GTU is good figure that can participate in the first meet of GTUAA and also suggested to provide group email Ids to all the alumni for ease in communication.

All the attendees then were given 50 registration forms, dinner passes and brochures of GTUAA. Indirectly the target given to each institute was 50-100 memberships. If required the registration forms can be Xeroxed.

The meet was considered very fruitful and ended in electrifying and charged environment to achieve grand success of upcoming event proposed to be held on 8th Feb-2013.

The meeting ended with vote of thanks to Dr Akshai Aggarwal, Vice chancellor.

Dr K N Sheth