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Indian Students: Innovation and Quality of Life Are Still a Draw
Rafiq Dossani of the South Asian Initiative at Stanford admits frustration that while some of
India’s wealthiest business and thought leaders are Stanford graduates, that has not translated—
as might be expected—into major endowments or opportunities for newly graduating students.
Ananya Roy, of the Berkeley India Initiative, similarly acknowledges that “some of our strongest
supporters are not necessarily alumni.”
Endowments are often philanthropic, favoring fellowships or scholarships that commemorate an
individual and/or address particular research needs in India (preservation of language and culture,
sustainable development, women’s health, water quality). Relatively few are intended to advance
business-related study through new laboratories or research chairs that help meet future
R&D and workforce requirements in the donor’s field.
Alumni chapters in India are fewer in number and tend to be less active than those in China;
they participate in conferences organized by the schools, for example, but do not typically host
high-visibility programs or formally maintain business and government contacts in support of
the university and its pool of graduates.
Bay Area thought leaders in the Indian community interviewed for this report offer
several explanations:
• An older generation of Indian immigrants, who made their wealth and either relocated
or raised families in Silicon Valley, direct their philanthropic efforts toward solving
India’s huge social problems, as a way of giving back.
• Next-generation arrivals, who come to the U.S. for graduate study or are recruited by
Silicon Valley companies, hope to gain skills and experience, earn more money than
would be possible in India, and eventually return home to start families and pursue
business opportunities there.
• Most successful Indian immigrants came to the U.S. for graduate or doctoral studies after a
four-year program at one of India’s elite schools, to which they feel a closer identification.
• The needs of Indian universities to provide students with modern facilities, equipment
and course materials are seen as much greater and more immediate, with nowhere near
the same access to endowments and other funding as U.S. universities.
“I think, more than anything, there is a sentiment among alumni that the schools in India need
money and resources so much more than the schools where they got their graduate degrees,”
says Roy DaSilva, executive committee president of the IIT Foundation, which raises money
worldwide, including in the U.S., for IIT-Kharagpur. “When you look at the foundations and the
size of endowments that U.S. schools have, they’re huge compared to what you find in India.”
Not surprisingly, several IIT campuses have Bay Area alumni chapters, as do the IIMs, IIS,
National Institutes of Technology and other schools. Creation of the IITs’ extensive global
alumni network was spearheaded by graduates in the Bay Area, starting with IIT Mumbai, whose
initiative to create a Bay Area chapter was subsequently replicated throughout the world.
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