About Us

So far as our records show, B E College/ BESU/BECDU and now IIEST graduates started immigrating to Canada in the late 1960’s. The concentration was in Ontario, which still is today, with a few others scattered in other provinces. They had some informal contacts with each other through common friends and professional associations. Ontario alumni being in large number held picnics and met in community parties.

During such a picnic held in 2002 in Hamilton, there was desire to have an formal association which would connect all alumni across the country. Jyoti R. Sengupta, who had recently retired volunteered to make enquiries whether there was a consensus among the scattered groups to support such a move. He had the advantage of having worked in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Alberta, B.C. and recently in Alberta and came to know some alumni in these provinces.

He gathered the e-mail and postal address of those present at the picnic and sent out a questionnaire to the identified alumni all across Canada asking the following basic questions:

• Whether they supported formation of such a Canada wide federally registered formal association.

• What would be its mandate, its aims and objective

• Agreement to hold an inaugural meeting in Toronto to decide how to proceed

• Form a steering committee to chart out the course and act on it.

The proposed agenda for the inaugural meeting was sent out to all known alumni across Canada and the majority agreed on forming a federally registered association covering all of Canada. Those who could not attend sent in their written responses on the Agenda Items. 23 alumni attended the inaugural meeting on 12th July,2003 at Scarborough Civic Center meeting hall. It is notable that there were two alumni who graduated in 1950, and one who graduated in 1951 among the 23 who were present. Details of the agenda and results of the voting both at the meeting and through mail are available at our website.

A Steering Committee was formed comprised of the following alumni:

• Jyoti R. Sengupta: Co-ordinator

• Ajoy Mukherjee: Treasurer

• Pranesh Biswas: Secretary

• Prabir Neogi: Member

• Dipak Bhattacharyya: Member

Regular progress reports were sent to all known alumni for their comments and response if any. The aims and objectives of the Association were:

• Register B E College Alumni Association of Canada (BECAAC) with Industries Canada as a non-profit Company

• Establish a list of all alumni/alumnae living in Canada with their e-mail and mailing address so that they can connect with each other.

• New immigrants and visitors can locate and connect with alumni/alumnae living close to where they have landed.

• New immigrants can connect with established fellow alumni/alumnae and get one on one advice and help on how to get meaningful employment and settle down in a new country

 

All these tasks were achieved by the Steering Committee and from 2014 onwards BECAAC started functioning as a Federally Registered Corporation, with elected Regional Directors from each Province with Alumni population. The Directors elected from amongst them a President, a Vice-President, a Treasurer and a Secretary to act as Executives to run the day to day business of the BECAAC.