100 former students attend first alumni meet of PVG’s COET

The printing engineering branch of the institute has a widespread network of 2,000 plus alumni in the printing industry, managing the leading positions in the industry. The need to meet evolved more from the Covid period with the urge to help out the students of the printing branch. The concept of alumni meets evolved for meeting the needs of both ends —academicians and professionals — with the aim of building a bridge between college life and career life to help the fresher graduates become more proactive towards facing the current challenges of the competitive and relatively challenging professional world. The idea took shape and the long-pending alumni meet turned into reality with the help of the faculty members, some of them being alumni of the institute.

The alumni meet was attended by chairman of the institute Sunil Redekar, director Prof RG Kaduskar, principal Dr Manoj Tarambale, former HOD Prof Rishi Uniyal, current HOD of the printing department Madhura Mahajan, along with other faculty members and support staff.

The elaborate arrangements for the event were planned by the final-year students of the printing engineering department. The final-year students have also put up the poster presentation of their projects and arranged the visits to the labs. This gave the final-year students an opportunity to interact with the alumni and learn new perspectives while getting appreciation for the work being done by them. The students thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the alumni and got a good learning experience.

The formal function was held in the conference hall of the college with Prof Swati Dutt welcoming the alumni, followed by the lighting of the lamp at the hands of the chairman, the director, the principal, the former HOD along with the HOD and some of the alumni members.

Madhura Mahajan, also an alumnus of the college, then presented the road map of the printing department, briefly explaining the objectives of the alumni meet, sharing information about the alumni chapter, and road map for progress to Vision 2027 set by the department with goals for 2024 and 2025.

The department has a vision of establishing a state of art packaging lab and a lab for printed electronics, said Mahajan while stressing the need for various testing equipment in this area and getting NABL accreditation for ink and paper testing equipment currently available with the college.

She concluded her presentation by urging the alumni to contribute to this vision by supporting the department and students through an internship, sponsoring students’ activities, lab development, student projects, and so on.

Sunil Redekar, chairman of the PVG’s COET & GKPIOM, during his speech, said that he was happy to share the legacy and progress of Pune Vidyarthi Griha in the print domain while expressing his happiness on the attendance of alumni in overwhelming numbers.

Sanmay Jain, a student of BE Printing, gave a brief introduction about the coffee table book, Melange 2023, which was then inaugurated. Melange 2023 is a collection of golden memories printed with a creative design for the alumni to cherish during their leisure time.

The function was preceded by felicitation of the former HOD Prof Rishi Uniyal and the first batch students along with the sponsors of the event hosted by Prof Padmaja Joshi.

The stage was then opened for the alumni to share their experiences and thoughts.

The first batch alumni, Prashant Atre, Lalit Misri, Nitin Wani and Ramadurai were happy to share their memories with the late principal Dr Pa Bha Kulkarni and other professors while spending their time on the old campus.

Atre expressed his happiness on the projects undertaken by the final year students and as a token of appreciation and giving back to his alma mater, he declared a prize for the best project and group. This was a great encouragement for the current batch of students.

A few video messages shared by the alumni were also played subsequently marking their presence.

The meeting concluded with the lucky draw prizes (ten silver coins) followed by the vote of thanks by Prof Shrikala Kanade.