From July 18 to 20, Times Square in New York will see some of the most illustrious alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) congregating at ‘Looking ahead — the next 50 years’, a conference marking the golden jubilee year of their alma mater.

Entrepreneurs, business leaders, scholars, politicians, innovators from all over the globe will converge to discuss stories of challenge and achievement, and to share their visions for the next five decades of the prestigious institute. Six hundred alumni have registered.

Scheduled to speak are Ronen Sen, India’s ambassador to the USA; Jamie Dimon, chairman of the board of J P Morgan Chase; Frank Wisner, vice-chairman at AIG, Inc and Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys, among others.

Nilekani, an alumnus from the batch of ‘78, says: “It seems just like yesterday, but when I left the gates of IIT-Bombay, the institute was still a few years away from the Silver Jubilee celebrations! Almost three decades later, so many of us, still bonded by the common thread of how the institute shaped our future, feel that we still have so much to give back.”

Giving back will remain a major theme at the conference, where panel discussions will be held on topics like Transformation of Manufacturing Through Information Technology, Future of Globalisation, Trends in Technology, Energy Futures, The New Philanthropy — New Models for Social Impact, Infrastructure Challenges for an Urbanising India, etc. Meanwhile, the 1982 batch has launched the IIT-B Legacy Project to provide joining bonuses to new faculty members. The 1980 batch is assisting the Powai Lake rejuvenation.

Dr Ajit Ranade, chief economist for the Aditya Birla Group and an IIT-B 1982 alumnus, said it will be more than an occasion to celebrate the past. “It is important to know where you come from but it is even more significant to know where you will head next,” he says.

An opportunity to meet and “network with batchmates” is what Bakul Desai, a member of the Legacy Advisory Committee of the batch of 1982, is looking forward to. Ranade and Desai, both ‘82 batch alumni, are unsure about making it to NY due to work commitments.

“Being on campus, staying in the hostel and interacting with students who you realise are better than you in at least a hundred different ways is a humbling experience,” said Revathi Kasturi, MD of Novell (West Asia) and an IIT-B 1980 batch alumnus, about her memories of the institute. Founder of Mastek and 1974 alumnus Ashank Desai says the NY meet will be “a strong network of distinguished alumni who are in some way or the other helping build the nation”.

Another 1982 batch alumnus keenly looking forward to the conference is San Francisco Bay Area resident Satish Soman, chief solutions architect at Atrenta, California. “I look at this as a family get-together. I’m proud to belong to a batch which has been actively involved in the betterment of the institute,” he says.

While the alumni meet will mainly focus on exchanging ideas and networking, there are also band performances, stand-up comedy acts, cocktails and dinners on the agenda.