I completed my High School from St. Joseph's Academy (SJA), Dehra Dun, India in March 2002 after which I moved to Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, New Delhi, India for my Senior Secondary. In 2004, when SJA celebrated its 70th Anniversary, I had to request my favorite teacher, Mrs. Mary David for an invite to the celebration. Despite having paid for the Alumni Association (AA) Membership in 2002 when leaving the School, I did not even receive an invite. At that time, our security deposit used to be transferred and used for AA registration. Something was drastically wrong. The School was not making an effort to connect to its Alumni. Not even to notify them of an event marking 70 glorious years in its history. The very idea of an AA was a failure. While at School, I had participated in national-level website designing competitions. At that time, to get some data about the Alumni, I came across the system in place to maintain the Alumni database. It looked outdated and inefficient with no application in future. And, only two years later, I was the victim.
Utterly disappointed at the state of affairs and our scattered Alumni, I decided to fix this. And, the SJA Alumni Google Group was born on November 13, 2004. Soon after, I came across an equally magnanimous individual, a Josephite, as curious and interested as I was, who joined the Group, enthused and excited by the whole idea, connecting with me over the then "by invite-only" GMail. It was no other than Nitin Sharma, ISC '94.
From feet to miles, our movement traveled around the world connecting hearts and souls, high-school sweethearts, best-friends, classmates, and everyone in unprecedented ways. Even though we had no official affiliation with the School, we were still the strongest force uniting Josephites on the planet. From a Discussion Group to a News Blog, we were tweeting on Twitter, social-networking on Facebook, and had even launched our own website, http://www.stjosephacademy.net/ under the auspices of the SJA Alumni Reunion Program Team. Even today, it is the largest initiative connecting Josephites across the planet with over 400 Discussion Group Members, 80 Blog Followers, 45 Twitter Followers, and 900 Facebook Fans. It is now a voluntary initiative of Rohan Mittal & Nitin Sharma.
Visit the SJA Alumni at http://www.stjosephacademy.net/.