PAN NIT Alumni-Qatar,  an organisation representing more than 400 graduate engineers from India’s  30 premier National Institutes of Technology, celebrated their first anniversary at a programme attended by guests from the embassy, industry, business and professional institutions.  
India’s Ambassador and the chief guest Sanjiv Arora lauded the engineers for their contribution to the development of Qatar and the region. He said he was extremely impressed with the pace of growth in  Qatar and expressed pride that Indian engineers are playing a vital role in this development.
Alumni president Rakesh Soni shared his thoughts on how members worldwide could help the NITs enhance their reputation from being institutes of national importance to those of international importance.
In order to achieve this ambitious goal, he promulgated a set of “3C Strategies - Communication, Collaboration and Contribution”, driven by a set of “3C Values - Character, Competence and Commitment”. Alumni vice-president Harish Pujary  said several prominent politicians, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and bankers are products of NITs.
Guests of honour Nilangshu Dey, Alichen Thomas and veteran NITian K S Prasad congratulated PAN NIT Alumni-Qatar for its efforts to integrate all NITians in this country, giving them a forum for social and professional networking and for contributing to its noble vision and social causes.
Elaborating on ‘The Leader in You’, guest speaker Sonny Varghese said anybody can become a leader and it is not necessary to have a senior position to practise leadership.
PAN NIT Alumni ‘Engineer of the Year’ and ‘NITian of the Year’ awards were bestowed on Dey and Thomas, respectively. The award for the best logo design for PAN NIT Alumni-Qatar went to Laxmi Narayan Sharma.
Four ‘Child Achiever’ awards as well as awards for special contributions to PAN NIT Alumni were also given.