News

5/2008 - Each year, RealAcad selects 50 ambitious, young professionals to be championed and mentored by an international team of entrepeneurs, investment bankers, venture capitalists and management consultants.  NetIP encourages our members to take advantage of this opportunity and apply for an opening in their upcoming Venture Management Program.   Deadline is May 18, 2008 - View more information and download an application

Chapter Highlights

March 2008 -March Magic NETIP-NY February 2008 - Political Third Thursday NETSAP DC

March 2008 - Thatz Sundaram NETIP - Twin Cities February 2008 - Debashish Das NETIP-NY

Event of the Month

March 2008 - March Magic - A NETIP-NY Community Service Event at the Ronald McDonald House
On March 1st, 2008, NetIP-NY joined several sponsors to create an unforgettable afternoon for the children at the Ronald McDonald House.  The Ronald McDonald House provides temporary housing for pediatric cancer patients and their families.  The event, entitled "March Magic," was well attended by both NetIP-NY volunteers as well as the children and their families, who enjoyed the amazing talents of magician, Arnie Kolodner, named New York Magazine's Best Magician in New York.  This event was so popular with our volunteers that we had to begin a waiting list as we could only accommodate 25 volunteers at the site. 

The event is a stellar example of how sponsors can be recruited for services instead of monetary donations.  Sree Rao, our VP-Community Service, recruited a team of volunteers for his planning committee and began reaching out to potential sponsors in January.  Through the hard work of his planning committee, they were able to recruit Arnie Kolodner to perform a magic show for free, and artists from The Children's Museum of the Arts to come and lead an arts and craft project for the kids.  In addition, Sree worked with Deb Das, VP-Corporate Relations, to secure a delicious catered lunch for the children, parents, and volunteers, that included kid-friendly chicken fingers and spaghetti for the kids, nutritious bagel sandwiches for the adults, and tasty mini-desserts from a well known bakery for all.  NetIP-NY received much positive feedback from the event, most notably from the key sponsors, The Children's Museum of the Arts, with whom NetIP-NY initiated a community partnership for the event.  This event was a great way to kick off our community service events for the year, and garnered a lot of interest in our organization.

February 2008 - Political Third Thursday - NETSAP DC
Every third Thursday of the month, NetSAP-DC hosts their signature Third Thursday happy hour event at popular venues in the District of Columbia.  During the month of March, NetSAP-DC put a political twist in the event, NetSAP-DC's POTUS (President Of The United States) at Lotus Election, exclusively at Lotus Lounge.  Attendees mixed and mingled over Hillartinis, Raising Arizonas, and Obama-Ramas; all POTUS drinks were discounted exclusively for NetSAP-DC members.

NetSAP-DC also hosted a voter registration drive for Virginia, Maryland, DC as well as other states; absentee ballot applications were also available.  Registration applications were collected and mailed to the registration offices by the NetSAP-DC board.  Many people walk into an ordinary happy hour and head straight to the bar; but at this event, some people came in with the sole intention to register to vote.  One NetSAP-DC member said, "I think having voter registration was a real good touch, because that drew in people that wouldn't normally come."

The Political Third Thursday event was a huge success, with approximately 125 people in attendance and eight of those people signing up for membership on-the-spot.

Leader of the Month

March 2008 - Thatz Sundaram - Treasurer, NETSAP DC
Thatz has been an extremely valuable board member to the NetIP-TC team. Thatz not only excels in his defined role but he continues to create and implement ideas outside of his responsibility. As soon as the new board was started, Thatz hit the ground running by rekindling our relationship with the State of MN. These records have been outdated for over 7 years and tracking down paperwork and previous Presidents was no small task. From there, Thatz has created a more in depth tracking of the financial data for each event, from virtually no records before. This allows us to go back and see what events were the most financially successful and more importantly, this gives next year's board an exact idea of what future events would cost. Outside of his job role, Thatz has taken an initiative in getting the word out to local businesses about NetIP by personally visiting and soliciting them. He has also offered to lead the sponsorship campaign for the Boston Conference, setting impressive goals for the first time ever for NetIP-TC. With all these responsibilities, Thatz balances gracefully along with his work and school. That makes it even more impressive that Thatz is the only TC board member that has showed up consistently for every NetIP event so far. He has set an example for commitment and passion to NetIP that not only inspires me, but the entire board as well.

February 2008 - Debashish "Deb" Das - VP Corporate Relations, NETIP-NY
Deb is a second year board member with NetIP-NY and has the responsibility of bringing in sponsorship revenue for our chapter and developing, maintaining and strengthening the relationships with key corporate partners. He quickly got over the learning curve during his freshman tenure in 2007 and all his hard work and perseverance from last year has paid-off well, enabling NetIP-NY to achieve stellar performance at events early this year. An example of a long term sponsor Deb brought in is Ameriprise Financial. Deb has been working with them since last year and they sponsored our large successful events such as the Boat Cruise and the Fondue & Finance networking seminar. Deb strengthened that relationship this year by negotiating a Community Initiative Program with Ameriprise wherein they give us cash incentives which can be passed on to members that attend their initial consulting session. This will help NetIP-NY tremendously expand our membership base and event attendance.

In February, Deb was also instrumental in securing Smart Catering (a gourmet NYC based food catering company) to sponsor the Ronald McDonald House Charity event. In working with the VP of Community Service, Deb negotiated a deal where Smart Catering was able to get us high quality gourmet food donated by premier NYC restaurants. This added to the overall experience of the event, generating extremely positive feedback and kudos from all attendees.

To take this success to the next level, Deb also became a mentor and brought on board another sponsorship chair to work with him (Joel) in February. As a team they already have a success story to share--they secured a hair and make-up artist sponsor for the NetIP Holi event with less than a few days of lead-time that helped reduce the cost of this event and make it tremendously succesful.

Finally, Deb is also our default Master-of-Ceremonies and Event Host even though it doesn't reflect that in his title. His excellent public speaking skills and enthusiastic personality to keep the audience entertained (which is not easy to do with a NYC audience) are the reason our events have moved from "Good" to "Great". A few key examples are--hosting the date auction with 250 attendees (that raised 5K+ dollars), moderating the panel discussion event at the Indian consulate (attended by the Consul General), moderating the women's entrepreneurship panel, and introducing NetIP-NY's mission and purpose at the launch brunch in the last week of January 2008.