College reunion makes biz sense

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What happens when students from the same alma mater reunite? Old stories from college years come alive, and of course, new ones are born too. Welcome to Mixer, a social event organised by a group of young entrepreneurs, who love to revive their college days, bond over drinks and food from time to time.

The mixer events are conducted in fancy night joints of the capital, where ex-students of prestigious varsities like Columbia University, HBS, Yale, Cornell, McGill, Dartmouth ICAN Princeton, Wharton, LSE and more are invited to meet and interact with like-minded people. Nikhil Wason, founder of getcardback.com and Columbia alumni Delhi chapter representative, says, “We host the mixer events every six months and invite students from various colleges to participate in this. The idea is to reconnect with the college alumni and socialise with like-minded people to churn out interesting business ideas. At these events we see people from all walks of life coming together in an informal set-up so that they can chill.”
Anupriya Succena, an IT professional, feels that such events are very helpful to get in touch with senior professionals from the same institution. She says, “At the mixer events I have met people who have helped me professionally. I remember meeting a senior from my college at one of these events, and surprisingly she was in my office in some other department. It’s a small world and events like this make it even smaller.”
While everyone is busy “connecting” on social networking site, how do events like these help? Devleena Bhattacharya, alumni of Columbia University, says, “Connecting on social-networking sites and meeting face-to-face are very different experiences. The main idea is to promote the college unity and give something back to the institution.”