Mera Bharat Mahan is a Mission with Passion for Proud to be BITSian Chandra Bhople
Nuva College of Engineering & Technology, Nagpur is the first engineering college in India founded by alumni of BITS Pilani. Nuva is part of a much larger vision of improving quality of engineering education in India by leveraging high quality faculty, high tech campus, industry collaboration, research orientation, innovative programs and alumni network so as to nurture highly practical, knowledgeable and employable engineers.
Tweet-- How it started: Two BITS Pilani alumni in Silicon Valley had an idea of making a direct impact on the engineering education by starting an engineering college in their home town in India. Chandra Bhople (74 batch) and Devendra Raut (88 batch) are founders of Nuva College of Engineering & Technology, Nagpur (http://www.nuvaedu.com).
Mile stones for the college project include Land acquisition in Dec 2007, Construction start Feb 2008 and Finish in June 2008. "The phase-I of the project was completed in less than 7 months, including all the approvals" said Chandra "and we could not have been successful without the family and friends who have local presence."
"We want to bring some level of research orientation among faculty and students at Nuva" says Devendra Raut who himself has six patents in networking and one third of the worldwide internet traffic goes through routers designed by his group at Alcatel.
Opportunity: For some reason, technocrats have kept out of engineering education sector and hence a large number of colleges in India, outside well known brands such as BITS Pilani and IIT, are just not up to the mark. This concern has been voiced by the industry over last 5 years. "I think the time is perfect for technocrats, and particularly BITS alumni to enter the field" Chandra says "not as employees but as founders and management who are the real decision makers. And we can involve our friends and well wishers in these projects." As an example, an accomplished IIT alumnus is on the board of advisors for Nuva. Lately, some of the large employers in India have started paying attention to the background of founders while short listing colleges for campus placement.
Dual-objective: According to the founders of Nuva, there are two objectives involved in this initiative. It is the first step towards BITSians making significant and large scale difference to the quality of engineering education in India. Second, equally important, is to help make the BITS Pilani brand the biggest force in India. "Somebody had to make the first move and start the first private engineering college where founders were BITSians" says Chandra, "just imagine the collective impact of say 6 BITS Pilani campuses and 10 alumni-founded colleges after 5 years. Without doubt, this will help make BITS Pilani as probably the biggest brand for engineering education in India" he continues.
Focus:College Corporate partnershipis given utmost imporatnce. Already Nuva takes pride in having tied up with Sierra Atlantic, KRK Labs and Cypress Semiconductor from USA in addition to Infospectrum, Extensio and InspireBridge at Nagpur India and Neorithm Mumbai.
What Next: At least two other groups of BITS alumni are keen on starting engineering colleges in India. "We are working on a common structure, guidelines and use of a common name which will also help strengthen BITS Pilani brand. Obviously these colleges will not use BITS name and will be at locations where BITS Pilani does not plan to open a campus. These colleges will take complementary role to BITS Pilani in all aspects and potential areas for collaboration and cooperation will be soon explored" Chandra continued "and Nuva is special because it is the first such college. The team is gearing up for conquering next Coimbatore and Dehradun.
Contact: Chandra has coveted dual degree BE (Hons) EEE) and MMS from BITS Pilani and has worked in five different countries including US and Australia. He is also the president of BITS Alumni Association (BITSAA)SVC and a member of the BITSAA International Board. He can be reached at cbhople@gmail.com Devendra has done his BE (EEE) from BITS Pilani and MS from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA and is currently the director of routing group at Alcatel, US. He can be reached at devenraut@gmail.com
For Proud to be BITSian Chandra Bhople, Mera Bharat Mahan is just not a slogan but a mission with passion. The Nuva founders take pride in dedicating their dream institution to the nation on its 62nd Independence Day.
Notes to Editor
Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani Rajasthan which has the reputation of pioneering the online examinations for admissions through the path breaking BITSAT and setting a bench mark in industry university collaborations is one among the top ranking universities towering above the rest in various best college surveys in India today. BITS offers degrees in various disciplines presently at Pilani, Dubai, Goa and Hyderabad campuses apart from an array of work integrated learning programmes for HRD of a vast spectrum of Indian corporates. The alumni of the Institute who are who is who in various professions and Proud to be BITSians peaking with Passion Quotient for Alma mater are spread across the globe from Australia to America.