Satya Nadella puts Manipal institute on world map

 

Manipal, 06 Feb 2014 (TOI): Not so long ago, a section of netizens took umbrage at a view that MIT refers only to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and that Manipal Institute of Technology has no right to use it as an acronym. The elevation of Satya Nadella to the top job in Microsoft should bury those insinuations.

 

 

Not that MIT ever lacked in recruiters. Barring Facebook and Google, many top recruiters have been regular visitors here during placement season. But the Nadella factor will weigh in more heavily now.

 

"The media blitz should get us more visibility and elicit a peep from companies which have not had a look at us till now," says Giridhar Kini, associate director, industrial liaison and placements at MIT."

 

MIT director Vinod V Thomas couldn’t agree more. "We have had a good number of ambassadors who have given us leverage. MIT attracts quality students and Nadella lends credence to this."

 

Last year, MIT had visits from about 80 top-notch recruiters like IBM, ABB, Citrix, Cybage India, Oracle, Cisco, Mphasis, Microsoft, Philips and HCL. And there were 85% plus placements. Microsoft has been actively associated with MIT. Their recruitment of 18, 17 and 15 students each over the past three years is probably the highest from a single college, says Thomas.

 

A former alumnus believes the Nadella story should help in branding MIT, missing until now. "It all depends on how it can build itself around this Nadella aura,’’ he adds.

 

Manipal University campus rides the Nadella wave

 

A man who is defined by family, inquisitiveness, hunger for knowledge, empowerment. These qualities that sum up the newly crowned Microsoft CEO are now buzzwords on the Manipal University campus which is elated at Satya Nadella’s achievement. For those who closely followed the Nadella story in recent months, there’s a positive takeaway for teachers and students: there are no barriers for an inquisitive mind.

 

Harischandra Hebbar, director, School of Information Science, Manipal University, knows it well. As Nadella’s teacher and project guide on robotics, Hebbar recalls him as a "person not to be convinced easily". "He was always inquisitive and more often than not asked: can it work this way? His problem-solving nature saw his core technical competency coming to the fore which has stood him in good stead,’’ he says. His name was registerd as Nadella Satyanarayana in the institution’s record. MIT director Vinod Thomas said that Nadella was invited to the silver jubilee alumni reunion of the 1988 batch last year on December 21.

 

"He emailed us his inability to attend. We’ll invite him again next year," says Thomas. K Prabhakar Nayak, head of Electronics and Communications department who recalls Nadella as an academically brilliant and friendly student.

 

Virag Jasani,student council president, MIT says: "We have been following his story and are proud of his success.An important trait of his personality is loyalty which is often misconstrued as weakness or inability. He is an inspiration to all of us."

 

Vishal Krishna and Saksham Nijhawan, who have been placed at Microsoft, are motivated by Nadella’s message of empowering others and they too want to share his passion. "It’s a movement and we want to be part of it,’’ they add.

 

Pallavi Reddy, who got a job with an IT company after interning there, says: "As a student ready to embark on the journey to the corporate world, having an alumnus of MIT as the CEO of one of the IT giants, definitely motivates us to target higher levels of success."

 

Inspiring icon:

Nadella spent a lot of time in the lab and always asked ’Why can’t we do it this way?’ He always thought out of the box and went beyond syllabus | Harischandra Hebbar, director, School of Information Science, Manipal University.

 

Nadella was a sincere and hardworking student and an inspiration for the present generation students. | Vinod Thomas, director, MIT.

 

Nadella has shown that there is life beyond curriculum and students should be innovative in their academic activities. | Simanthika Mohapatra, E&C student, MIT.

 

Delighted to hear about the appointment of Nadella, a fellow Manipal alumnus. | Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP.