The Thirteenth Institution day celebrations of Amrita School of Engineering, the flagship institution of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University was held on Tuesday, 4 March, 2008 at the Open Air auditorium of the Ettimadai, Coimbatore campus of Amrita University. Mr. Shanker Annasamy, Managing Director, IBM Global Services, India was the Chief Guest. He delivered the Institution Day address for the colorful function, which was attended by over 3000 staff, students and campus residents.

Shanker Annaswamy, Managing Director, IBM India is responsible for all IBM’s sales and marketing, services and Global Delivery operations in India. Prior to this appointment, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer for GE Medical Systems (GEMS), South Asia and Managing Director, Wipro-GEMS. He was the co-chair of the National Innovation Mission Report titled “Innovate India”, which was submitted to the Government of India last year. IBM took lead in preparing this report on innovation and inclusive growth along with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Ministry of Science & Technology.
Brahmachari Abhayamrita Chaitanya, the Chief Operating Officer of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham presided over the function. Dr. P. Venkat Rangan, Vice Chancellor also addressed the gathering. Dr. M.P. Chandrasekharan, Dean-Engineering presented the annual college day report.

He highlighted the various achievements of the students and staff at the school of engineering. The very first batch of B.Tech. students from Amrita School of Engineering under Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham passed out in April 2007 with an overall pass percentage of 99.27% with 155 distinctions. In the last one year, Amrita had entered into collaborative ventures with National Aerospace Laboratories for training and research and with Tata Consultancy Services in the introduction of industry elective courses. This is in addition to the path-breaking Indo-US collaboration in higher education and research, led by Amrita, which saw several distinguished US professors and industry experts deliver lectures and courses. There lectures were transmitted using EDUSAT to many institutions in India. One American Professor, Dr. R.V. Ramamoorthi from Michigan State University, who handled a series of lectures on “Statistics” and “Pattern Recognition” was honored during the function.

Dr. Chandrasekharan also added that Amrita had the best placement record in the region. Foreign companies like Cape East and Prestige Engineering from UAE had directly come to our campus for recruitment. Microsoft recruited 5 students from Amrita, more than almost any institution in Tamil Nadu.

Prizes for academic and cultural proficiency to over 250 students were presented during the function. The college magazine editors and secretaries & joint secretaries of the various teams were also presented with mementos and certificates. Amritamayi Team was presented the overall championship for Amritotsavam. Jyotirmayi team was presented the runners-up trophy. The Institution Day was the culmination of the Annual Intra-mural competitions in Literary and cultural events, “Amritotsavam.. The colorful function ended with a musical and dance programme, which included a Bhangra dance, which had the audience in all raptures.

Reported on 5th March 2008.