ISMAANA Scholarship Programs

July 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

Currently ISMAANA has two types of ongoing scholarship and academic excellence programs.

Academic Excellence Awards – Eight final year students were chosen for ISMAANA academic excellence awards in December 2020. ISMAANA started these awards in 2015 to recognize top two students from four earth science branches based on the first three years of academic performance. Starting new academic year in August 2021, these eight academic excellence awards shall be awarded to top 8 students in four earth science branches and four major departments of electrical, mechanical, electronic engineering and Computer science.

Merit cum means scholarships – These scholarships started in 2017 and currently ISMAANA has alumni commitment for 52 such scholarships that are based on family income and academic performance. Amount of these scholarships range from $1000/year to $1370/year. These scholarships are intended to mainly cover student expenses related to room, board, and transportation. During 2020-21 academic year 38 scholarships were continued for undergraduate students who carried over their scholarships from 2019-20, while 14 new awardees are selected. The list of our generous alumni without their sponsorship commitment this program cannot run:

# Alumni Sponsored # Alumni Sponsored
1 Naresh Vashisht 20 9 Shishir Agrawal 1
2 Avinash Ahuja 10 10 Yugal Gupta 4
3 Suresh Chugh 4 11 Mahendra Verma 2
4 Mohinder Gulati 1 12 Atul Arya 1
5 Pramod Thakur 1 13 Sriram Muralidharan 1
6 Jitender Tuli 1 14 Raj Prasad 1
7 Dipak Sarkar 1 15 Bijay Banthia 2
8 Zoeb Mogri 1 16 Rana Roy 1

List of newly qualified students for ISMAANA scholarship 2020-21

Sl. No. Name of students CGPA/AIR Rank Scholarship Sponsor
1 Akash Kumar 9.36 Peggy and Avinash Ahuja
2 Tanushree Sinha 7.39 Rana S Roy
3 Aman Sharma 9.39 Peggy and Avinash Ahuja
4 Sumit Kumar Mudi 8.84 Naresh Vashisht Foundation
5 Avinesh Pratap Singh 2888 Naresh Vashisht Foundation
6 Brijesh Kumar 3537 Peggy and Avinash Ahuja
7 Prakhar Shukla 13320 Peggy and Avinash Ahuja
8 Aman Kumar 3556 Peggy and Avinash Ahuja
9 Palash Bagora 4332 Naresh Vashisht Foundation
10 Omkar Vinod Bante 9996 Naresh Vashisht Foundation
11 Aniket Kumar Roy 10692 Naresh Vashisht Foundation
12 Shivam Kumar Rai 11890 Naresh Vashisht Foundation
13 Harsh Chhaparia 12046 Mahendra Verma Scholarship
14 Harsh Raj 13553 Chugh Family Foundation

Ishwar Singh (PE’70) is starting a $3000/year scholarship in the Petroleum Engineering Department of Texas A & M University (TAMU) for an IIT (ISM) graduate pursuing Master’s or PhD degree program at TAMU. The scholarship is scheduled to be in effect starting Fall semester 2021.
If you need more information about these scholarships or would like to sponsor additional scholarships, please call Dipak Sarkar at 714 826-2810 or write to dksarkar@aol.com.

Naresh Vashisht Center for Tinkering and Innovation (NVCTI)

July 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

Project Development

Mr. Naresh Vashisht (PE’67) President Omimex Resources, Fort Worth TX and ISMAANA member has generously funded the lab. The cost of the project is slightly above US $1.2 million. The lab is completed and is located in one of the floors in the newly constructed GRIHA Compliant building inside the institute. The building along with all the facilities and equipment are shared by all the students of the Institute. Due to Corona virus related lockdown and students being away from the campus, the activity of the center was severely curtailed in the current academic year. However as described below, several events were organized at the center.

 

 

 

Samsung Innovation Awards (SIA 2020) jointly organized by NVCTI, IIT(ISM) Dhanbad and Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore (SRI-B)

During the month of November NVCTI and Samsung R&D institute jointly organized an event on the theme of intelligence routing on devices. A total of 46 teams of students submitted their ideas in the fields of wireless communications, multimodal sensing, Internet of things, smart environment and wearable devices. Following summarizes the results of this innovation event and prizes awarded.

Avishkar: Jharkhand School Innovation Challenge (JH-SIC) 2021

This event to promote innovation among high school students in Jharkhand is currently ongoing. Student teams from class VIII to XII among all high school students in Jharkhand are invited to identify problems and submit innovative solutions in following areas.

  1. Energy harnessing
  2. Water and Sanitation
  3. Environment
  4. Education
  5. Health & Well-being

The event is organized in 4 stages leading to district and state champions. Top 10 finalist will get an opportunity to work at NVCTI to try out their ideas.

In addition, innovation leader talk series was initiated with several experts in their fields giving talks on innovation, best practices in industry and entrepreneurship.

Innovation awards

July 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

ISMAANA members have sponsored several innovation awards to foster innovative thinking and ideas at IIT (ISM)

Dr. Piyush Dutta (Mining’60) Innovation and Invention Prize of Rs. 1 lakh was established in January 2019. Naresh Vashisht Center for Innovation and Tinkering organized a competition among final year students for developing innovative technologies in the field of Mining Engineering. Total of 6 teams participated in the finals organized on November 11, 2020.

Following students and their entries were declared joint winners:

  1. Sanchit Kumar (17JE002925) Mining Engineering – Deployment of Drones enabled with Satellite Imagery sensors along with custom algorithm in the Mining Industry
  2. Darshil Asawa (17JE002727) Mining Engineering and Kapil Verma (17JE003547) Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering – DAAP Guidance System

The winning idea by Mr. Sanchit Kumar was related to the development of AI based drone enabled satellite imagery technology which uses the knowledge of the mining industry in association with applied AI and analytics to create a custom algorithm that enables a safer and more sustainable mining process.

Team DAAP proposed a new machine that would revolutionize the marble and stone mining industry by making the process of hole finding more efficient, quicker and economical.

The prize of Rs 1 Lakh was shared 65% by Team 1 and 35% by Team 2.

Following innovation awards are proposed by ISMAANA members and are currently in their review and approval process.

  1. Dr, Anil Kumar (PE’65), ISMAANA Vice President has sponsored 2 innovation awards of Rs 50,000 each for any undergraduate student of IIT (ISM). The name of the awards are Dr. Anil & Mamta Kumar Prize for Product Innovation and Invention to Reduce Imports to India. Awards shall be given for original engineering products design/concepts, and prototype demonstrations that will reduce import of that product/component to India.
  2. Ishwar Singh (PE’70) ISMAANA board member has proposed 2 innovation awards of Rs 50,000 each for any undergraduate student at IIT (ISM). The name of the awards shall be Ishwar Singh Innovation awards. Awards to be given for the best original conceptual idea presentation, report, and/or prototype demonstration that shows advancement in technology.
  3. Madhuchhanda Das (PE’93) has proposed an innovation award of $700 for any undergraduate student at IIT(ISM). The award shall be given to winners of annual competition for most innovative idea, conceptualization, presentation and prototype demonstration.

Innovation Ideas at IIT (ISM)

July 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

At a request from IIT (ISM) to provide innovation ideas and to foster innovative thinking ISMAANA took couple of initiatives.

  1. Probed selected group of alumni regarding innovation ideas.
  2. Had an open discussion with IIT (ISM) alumni faculty group in North America how to foster innovation at IIT (ISM).

Below is a summary of input we received separated in two categories:

  1. Individual innovation ideas and
  2. Organizational changes to foster innovation.

We plan to undertake following initiatives from ISMAANA to help in implementing innovation. These are

  • Encourage alumni faculty group in North America to help place IIT (ISM) students in internships and other opportunities for advanced studies.
  • Start five innovation awards of Rs 50000 each/year for undergraduate students at IIT (ISM). These awards are currently sponsored by ISMAANA members and being implemented.
  • Continue monthly online seminars by researchers and faculty in North America to IIT (ISM) students.

As a summary of organizational ideas following are some suggested action items for IIT(ISM) consideration that would serve as building blocks and can be implemented in a short order:

  1. Create an industry advisory board. Usually, such a board meets twice a year, and helps the school establish academic programs that are relevant to the current and long-term needs of the industry
  2. Create an External Advisory Board (EAB) for each department consisting of about 8 to 10 members from specific Industry, Academia and a government agency. Try to achieve a broad representation.
  3. Create a program to invite Executives-in-Residence for different departments for 6 to 12 months on Campus.
  4. Formalize collaboration with international agencies through Govt. of India programs such as GIAN, and VAJRA, and also directly with international agencies.
  5. Popularize and build awareness of Undergraduate participation in research and innovation activities on campus, in each department via awards program

Following ISMAANA members received Distinguished Alumnus award during Basant Festival on February 7, 2021 at IIT (ISM) Dhanbad for their outstanding professional achievements and for their generous help to their Alma Mater.

Distinguished Alumnus Award

July 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

Shivaji Dasgupta (AGeop’70)

After completing his degree in Applied Geophysics from ISM in 1970, Shivaji Dasgupta obtained a MS degree in Mathematics and continued with MS in Geophysical Engineering in 1973 and an MBA in 1974 from So. Illinois University USA. He started his career with ConocoPhillips, a major petroleum company at Ponca City in Oklahoma. Followed by a tenure at Amoco Production Company (now BP) where he worked on exploration projects to acquire, process, and interpret multicomponent seismic data. After 6 years in Amoco, he joined Aramco the Saudi oil company in Croydon, UK. Later was transferred to Saudi Arabia. At Aramco he worked on various aspects of seismic exploration and built subsurface models that culminated in the discovery of a major new exploration and development system in the Persian Gulf. In the Ghawar Field of Saudi Arabia, the largest in the world, his innovative workflows produced subsurface models that generated phenomenal drilling success. Subsequently, he developed computerized integrated workflows that combined seismic interpretation with geo-steering application for drilling horizontal wells. He was granted four (4) US and international patents for innovative techniques.

The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) selected him as a HL distinguished lecturer. He visited 28 locations around the world to present his highly acclaimed lecture on application of geophysical tools in instrumented fields for reservoir fluid monitoring. Received SEG life membership award for lifetime achievement. Presently serves in various SEG committees Distinguished Lecture committee, Research committee, Global Affairs committee. He is also a member of SPE Society Petroleum Engineers and the EAGE European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers.

He has authored a book “Geophysics for Petroleum Engineers” published by Elsevier, the book has become a best seller and has since been translated into Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese and is adopted as a text book in various universities.

Shivaji recently funded conversion of two existing classrooms at IIT (ISM) into recording studios.

He is a partner in Texas Oil Production LLC., an independent oil & gas company that he invested in. The company operates in South Texas. Shivaji serves as a board member of ISMAANA.

Dr. Mohinder S. Gulati (PE’62)

Dr. Mohinder Gulati retired from Unocal Geothermal as the Chief Engineer in 1999 after a distinguished career of 27 years. He was responsible for the development of all geothermal projects owned by Unocal located in the U.S., the Philippines and Indonesia.

Mohinder Gulati graduated with a BS degree in Petroleum Engineering from Indian School of Mines in 1962, topping his class of twenty. He worked for the Oil and Natural Gas Commission as a scientist in Dehradun till 1969. He taught petroleum engineering students at Indian School of Mines as a visiting professor in 1965.

He joined Stanford University as a graduate student in Petroleum Engineering and earned his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in 1973, and co-authored a book on petroleum reservoir engineering with his professor, Dr. Henry J. Ramey and a fellow graduate student, Dr. Anil Kumar. He was honored with the 1991 Geothermal Reservoir Engineer Award by the Stanford Geothermal Program.

Mohinder sponsors one merit cum means scholarship at IIT (ISM) and recently funded conversion of two classrooms into smart classrooms at IIT (ISM).
Mohinder Gulati lives in Santa Rosa, California, where he manages his business interests and enjoys the virtual company of his four grandchildren. Mohinder served as a board member of ISMAANA.

Smart Classroom Projects at IIT(ISM)

July 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

IIT(ISM) has chosen 10 existing premier lecture halls to be converted to world class smart classrooms. The objectives of smart classrooms are to provide enhanced learning experience to students via real-time e-learning with help of audios and videos, multimedia, images, online web conferences, PPT presentations, and 2D & 3D animations. The work includes sound proofing, adding latest audiovisual equipment and installing computer equipment to teach online classes.

Five ISMAANA alumni have graciously come forward to sponsor six lecture hall upgrades. They are Dr Pramod Thakur (61ME) who is sponsoring upgrade of MIN1, Mining Engineering lecture hall in the Heritage building, Dr. Mohinder Gulati (62PE), who is sponsoring upgrading of 2 lecture halls, one in the Petroleum Engineering building and one in the new lecture hall complex. Avinash Ahuja (67PE) is sponsoring one upgrade at the new lecture hall complex, Yugal Gupta (68PE) is sponsoring the upgrade of IT classroom in the new lecture hall complex. Hemanta Mukherji (68PE) is sponsoring upgrade of one Lecture Hall Complex classroom.

Funding requirement of each lecture hall upgrade is Rs. 18 Lakhs. Final contractor for the smart classroom is selected and all the hardware and equipment for the smart classrooms are acquired. Work got delayed due to campus lockdown due to Covid-19. Work has currently resumed and the completion is expected end of July 2021.

Smart Studios Project at IIT(ISM)

July 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

Mr. Shivaji N Dasgupta (AGeop’70) is generously supporting conversion of two existing lecture rooms to Smart Studios at New Lecture Hall Complex, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad. These Studios will have latest equipment for carrying out teaching-learning-recording process, both in physical and virtual mode including recording of lecture sessions in line to allow online courses for a wider reach. These two smart studios will be named after Shivaji Dasgupta’s parents Meera and N. N. Dasgupta. Total funds required for the project is estimated at Rs. 49.79 Lakhs.

Scope

  • Design, Supply, Installation and commissioning a total integrated system solution for the audio-visual with Interactive Virtual Lecture room. Collaboration with in-campus & out campus’s 3rd party live-e-Learning architecture of Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad.
  • Virtual lecture room is a digital replica of a traditional lecture room/classroom/training room.
  • The professor/instructors teach, and the participants learn in real-time, face-to-face but via Intranet or Internet-enabled technology devices. Brainstorming, ideation and discussions happen in real-time.
  • The system is intended to create a virtual multiple session based multi lecture room which is available for Intranet and Internet network

One of the smart studios will have the facilities for improvised teaching-learning process as per the requirements of the Applied Geophysics department.

Hardware and equipment for this project is acquired, conversion work is in process with estimated completion end of July 2021.

Online Seminar Program at IIT(ISM)

July 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

Based on a successful seminar by Dr. Ganesh Thakur (PE’70) on the topic of waterflooding and well management on August 15, 2020 ISMAANA embarked on an ongoing program of online seminars on topics of high interest. A small team consisting of experts from ISMAANA and IIT (ISM) department heads was formed with Dr. Thakur heading this team.

  • Dr. Ganesh Thakur – Chairman emeritus ISMAANA – Lead
  • Dr. Jitendra Kikani – Ex Board member ISMAANA
  • Prof Dheeraj Kumar – Dean International Relations IIT (ISM)
  • Prof. R.M. Bhattacharjee – HOD Mining Engineering IIT (ISM)
  • Prof Ajay Mandal – HOD Petroleum Engineering IIT (ISM)
  • Prof Shalivahan – HOD Applied Geophysics IIT (ISM)

IIT (ISM) team has sent a list of topics to cover in the Online Seminar program, Dr. Thakur has lined up 2 speakers; Dr. Siddharth Mishra – Texas A & M University – for data analytics and Dr Rob Stewart – University of Houston – Applied Geophysics, for next 2 online seminars. Plan is to have these online seminars to IIT (ISM) students monthly on topics of current interest by industry experts.

President’s Note

February 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

Dear ISMAANA members:

The ongoing surge of Corona virus pandemic has created great sense of personal and social insecurity around the world. We in USA have gone through over 8 months of off and on stay at home orders. The pandemic has inflicted high level of infection and death in USA. We express our profound sorrow for any alumni who have lost their loved ones or who are hurting due to pandemic caused economic distress. With the invention of multiple vaccines, we see the light at the end of this dark tunnel. We are hoping that by the end of summer 2021 large number of us will get vaccinated so that we can foresee life returning to a sense of normalcy.

India went through similar phases of lockdown and immense amount of hardship. We at ISMAANA raised funds to help PM cares fund to the tune of Rs. 50 Lakhs. This along with estimated collection of over Rs.59 lakhs from the college staff and India based alumni associations, made the total contribution from IIT (ISM) and alumni associations to over Rs.1.00 crores. This respectable amount helped many needy and suffering persons in India.

Due to Coronavirus, classes at IIT (ISM) are being held online with plans to hold physical classes after Holi. Post graduate students in the campus were sent back home and now are having classes online. This year Basant festival (Feb 2021) will also be held online.

We at ISMAANA continue to work on many projects to assist our alma mater as well as our north America based alumni. During the current academic year (2020-21) 39 students continued receiving merit cum means scholarships. Another 13 scholarships are being advertised for applications from new students.

In addition, 8 academic excellence awards are given to eight fourth year students in four earth science branches based on their academic performance during the first 3 years are given since 2015. More details are provided under ISMAANA scholarship programs.

Work on an innovation lab at IIT (ISM) is in the completion phase. Most of the ordered equipment has arrived. Activity is currently paused due to lockdown but expected to pick up as students return to the campus. Two projects were selected for Dr. Piyush Dutta innovation prize this year. This was the first award of innovation prize of Rs 1 Lakh sponsored by Dr Piyush Dutta (’60Mining).

After a successful seminar on waterflooding by Dr. Ganesh Thakur, ISMAANA has embarked on a series of online seminars on high value topics. Dr. Thakur is spearheading this effort with the help of Jitendra Kikani (ISMAANA), Dheeraj Kumar and 3 heads of departments of Mining, Applied Geology and Applied Geophysics. Further details are in the newsletter.

ISMAANA newsletter is being published on a regular basis to exchange communication with our North America based alumni. Our thanks to Vishal Gupta, Secretary, (vishal27@gmail.com) for this sincere effort.

An alumni database development program is ongoing for last two years with dedicated efforts of Gaurav Seth. If you know of any alumnus who is not receiving our newsletter, please let Gaurav know at smile.gaurav@gmail.com.

We started a fund-raising program in 2018 to enhance our endowment funds to continue and expand the academic excellence award program and to fund outstanding research projects at our alma mater. Additional funds are also needed to help IIT (ISM) students attend international seminars and conferences. Scarcity of funds limits us from considering many such requests during the year. Many of you have already contributed to the alumni fund. You may write your tax-deductible donation check to “Indian School of Mines Alumni” and send it to our treasurer Atul Kumar at 46 Huntsman Horn Circle, The Woodlands, TX 77380.

If you have any feedback to improve ISMAANA’s role or would like to contribute articles or news events or have any other comments, please send us a note.

Thank you.
Sincerely
Dipak Sarkar
President ISMAANA (’67 PE)
dksarkar@aol.com

ISMAANA Scholarship Progrm

February 7, 2021 0 comments ISMAANA Admin

Currently ISMAANA has two types of ongoing scholarship and academic excellence programs.

Academic Excellence Awards: Eight final year students were chosen for ISMAANA academic excellence awards in December 2020. ISMAANA started these awards in 2015 to recognize top two students from four earth science branches based on the first three years of academic performance. As our funds permit, we plan to extend these awards to other branches of study.

Merit cum means scholarships: These scholarships started in 2017 and currently ISMAANA has alumni commitment for 52 such scholarships that are based on family income and academic performance. Amount of these scholarships range from $1000/year to $1370/year. These scholarships are intended to mainly cover student expenses related to room, board, and transportation. During 2020-21 academic year 39 scholarships were continued for undergraduate students who carried over their scholarships from 2019, while 13 new awardees are currently being selected.

Scholarship donors with number of committed scholarships in parenthesis are: Naresh Vashisht (20), Avinash Ahuja (10), Suresh Chugh (4), Mohinder Gulati (1), Pramod Thakur (1), Jatinder Tuli (1) Dipak Sarkar (1), Zoeb Mogri (1), Shishir Agrawal (1), Yugal Gupta (4), Mahendra Verma (2), Atul Arya (1), Sriram Muralidharan (1), Raj Prasad (1), Bijay Banthia (2) and Rana Roy (1).

If you need more information about these scholarships, please call Dipak Sarkar at 714 826-2810 or write to dksarkar@aol.com.