Techkriti

Techkriti
Techkriti :Annual Technical and Entrepreneurship Festival organized by IIT Kanpur
Genre Technical & Entrepreneurial
Dates 19-22 March 2015
Location(s) Kanpur, India
Years active 21
Founded 1995
Attendance 25,000 footfalls, 1000 colleges
Patron(s) Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
Website
http://www.techkriti.org

Techkriti is an annual inter-collegiate technology and entrepreneurship festival organized by the students of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. It was launched in 1995[1] with the aim of developing interest and encouraging innovation in technology among students.

Etymologically, the word ‘Techkriti’ is composed of two words, ‘Tech’ in English which stands for technology and ‘Kriti’ in Sanskrit stands for creation, hence, the word ‘Techkriti’ signifies creation or innovation in technology.

The festival is held over four days every March, attracting footfall of over 25,000 from all over India and abroad.

History

Techkriti was first held in 1995, and has since grown into one of the largest technical festivals in Asia.[2]

Techkriti'07 was held at IIT Kanpur campus from 22 to 25 February 2007. The event was branded as Techkriti Oh-Seven!. The event witnessed an Air Show[3] by the Akash Ganga team of Indian Air Force as part of the closing proceeds.

Techkriti'08 [4] was held from 14 to 17 February 2008, and had a participation of more than 150 colleges. Keynote presentations were given by Peter Grünberg, Kevin Warwick and Harsh Manglik.

Techkriti'09 [5] was held at IIT Kanpur from February 12 to 15, 2009. It featured talks by Stephen Wolfram, David Morrison, G. Madhavan Nair and Ron Eglash, with a fireworks and laser show.

Techkriti'10 [6] was held from February 11 to 14, 2010, with IIT Kanpur celebrating its Golden Jubilee, and featured Dr Nikolaos Mavridis, developer of the world's first Arabic speaking humanoid robot, and also the Facebots robot, which can use Facebook information to hold conversations with friends. This was the first edition of Techkriti after Megabucks, the annual entrepreneurship festival of IIT Kanpur was amalgamated into it, adding entrepreneurship aspects to the festival.

Techkriti'11[7] was organized from February 17 to 20, saw over 1,500 students from various colleges taking part in the 27 events with total prize money of Rs 22 lakh awarded. Competitions include unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise control, a robot talent show, robogames,[8] simulation game on the Great Wall of China, reactable (a musical user interface), interactive floor, interactive robots, the aero modelling events, Innovate - design events (including Junkyard Wars, Rube Goldberg, Tremor etc.) were also held. Speakers and guests included Russian mathematician Vladimir Voevodsky, astronaut Bruce E Melnick, Michael Gratzel, a designer of Millau Viaduct, Voting System designer David Bismark, Ashish Gupta, Managing Director, Hellion Ventures and Chander Baljee, founder of Royal Orchid Hotels. [9]

Techkriti'12[10] was held from 27 to 30 January 2012.[11] The festival was based on a theme of 'Technology for the Future'. The chief guest in the opening ceremony was Richard Stallman, the founder of GNU. Competitions, talks, exhibitions, shows and workshops were held, and prizes worth Rs. 25 Lacs were awarded in the various competitions which included SocCon, IDEAS, Wild Soccer, Scimatex, TakeOff, J.K. White Design Challenge, Robogames, Software Corner, Battlefield, ECDC, Insight, Endeavour, Gearloose, Junkyard Wars, Rube Goldberg, Tremor, Eureka, IORC, Stocksim, IOPC, Crypto, Episteme, Radioactive, and Cosmos. Deborah Berebichez ("The Science Babe"), Victor Hayes, Deepak Mohanty and other guest speakers[12] took part in talks organized throughout the four days of the festival. The final day included the performance of the Indian singer Kailash Kher.[13]

Techkriti'13 [14] was organized from 14 to 17 March 2013 with participation from more than 500 colleges including a footfall of over 25,000. Prize money of more than 10 lacs were awarded. The festival's theme was "Fixing the Planet". Speakers included Michael Foreman (NASA Astronaut), Marshall Strabala (Architect-Burh Khalifa), Jeff Liebermann (Host-Time Warp), John Mather (Noble Laureate), Robert Aumann (Noble Laureate), Mahesh Murthy and Oliver Smithies.[15] There was a show of 3D projection mapping, a laser ahow, and a performance by Sukhwinder Singh. There was a vintage car exhibitions with cars such as the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost (more than 100 years old), Jaguar, Austin Saloon, Ford Anglia, Singer and Morris Cowley. A record in the Guinness Book of World Records was broken for the largest number of people (1,451) solving a 3x3x3 Rubik's cube in a span of an hour at one place: it was broken on 17 March 2013 with the new record being set for 1,884 solvers.

Techkriti'14 [16] was held from 6 to 9 March 2014, with the theme "Virtually Progressive World". It was planned to be a carbon positive festival, with initiatives including water conservation and women's safety. Events included Robogames, Indian Open Rubik's Cube, Ideas, Techkriti Grand Prix, Tremor, Sky Sparks and Radioactive, with new avenues including Robo Pirates (Aqua-Robotics), Multirovor (Quadrocopter), Richie Rich (Portfolio Optimization), Marketing Villa and Bridge Design Challenge.

Organisation

Techkriti is an entirely student organized festival. The structure of the organising team is four-tiered. Leading the team are the Festival Coordinators along with a team of Heads, each with an allotted portfolio. Administrative portfolios include marketing, media and publicity, finance, security, hospitality and show management. Event-related portfolios include public relations, web and design. Each Head has his own team of coordinators and executives.

Workshops and talks

Workshops organised in Techkriti are designed to demonstrate advancements in science and technology to the student community. The four-day festival hosts workshops in electronics, aero-modelling and application development. The workshops are conducted by professionals from industry, guests and faculty members of IIT-Kanpur. Some of the workshops organised during the last few years include Cloud Computing by IBM, Sixth Sense Robotics by i3indya Technologies, ethical hacking, telescope making, and Cyber Forensics.

David Griffiths chatting with the students.

Students and academia at the festival can attend talks by professionals in various fields from India and abroad. Speakers at Techkriti have included APJ Abdul Kalam (Ex-President and Founder of India’s missile program), Richard Stallman (Founder, FSF and GNU Project), Vladimir Voevodsky (Fields Medalist from Russia), Douglas Osheroff (Nobel Laureate-Physics), Michael Foreman (NASA Astronaut), Marshall Strabala (Architect-Burj Khalifa), Jeff Liebermann (Host-Time Warp), Victor Hayes (Father of Wi-Fi), Mahesh Murthy and Oliver Smithies. The "Indian Innovators" panel has included Uddhab Bharali (Innovator from Assam with 39 Universal Patents), Bindeshwar Pathak (Founder of Sulabh International), Rohit Bansal (Co-Founder and CEO, Snapdeal), L Kannan (Founder, Vortex Rural ATMs) and Irfan Alam (Founder and Chairman, Samman Foundation).

Guests at the 2014 festival included Walter Lewin, David J Griffiths, Jordan Soles, Alvin E. Roth, Palagummi Sainath and George Kourounis.

Competitions

Techkriti is known for hosting a variety of competitions with a total prize money of more than 35 Lacs. Competitions serve the backbone for fulfilling the basic motto of Techkriti- developing interest and encouraging innovation in technology among students. Competitions are classified in a few broad categories such as Robogames, ECDC, Take off, Design, Online Events, Presentation, Software Corner, Mixed Bowl.

'ECDC' is a cluster of many events giving students an opportunity to showcase their technical skills in the field of electronics and circuit designing. In 2014, ECDC had 4 events under it: Electromania, Embedded, FPGA and Annontrix. All these events focus on giving a deep insight of the world of electronics to the participants and giving them an exposure through challenging problems.

Robotics has been bringing a lot of brainiacs together from across the world to showcase their talents through their cool and budding bots. In the past, there have been robot armies striving to prove their mettle. There have been bots to overcome hurdles in their path to glory, surviving their journey through water and achieving their goals through image processing. Now we are back again with a bang! There are plentiful opportunities to win humungous prize money and achieve glory.

Business: Techkriti also brings a varied line of Business Events that are sure to test your business acumen, intellectual prowess and much more. From exploring your avenues in marketing to tackling your brain with the good ol’ case study, Business Events in Techkriti have never been more challenging.

Design: Ever felt in need of an opportunity to be able to apply basic Physics principles in a practical situation. Design Events provide you with such a platform. The challenge is to bring up splendid, creative and innovative designs. So, unleash your hidden mechanical skills and show us your imagination. Every year Techkriti provides with a great platform to design a racing vehicle, an earthquake proof structure and an amazingly complex sequence of chain reaction of events.

Take Off: Have a desire to fly high? Yes!! Well, we all have, for conquering the sky has been the eternal and the most ambitious dream mankind has ever seen with open eyes. Take-Off gives you the chance to fly high and beyond your imagination. Just free your mind, spread your wings and fly high, for sky is no limit.

Presentation: Problem solving and product design experiences can empower students by presenting unique learning opportunities. Although the problem solving method may have been important to technology education, as well as industrial arts, as far back as the 1920s (Foster, 1994), the movement to incorporate more problem solving and product design in technology education kept surfacing in the 1990s.The students are encouraged to find solutions from a broad range of technological and non-technological realms. Effective and responsible national leaders and corporate executives are those with enough backbone to do what they believe is best for the nation or corporation, in spite of mass opinion.

Mixed Bowl: Miscellaneous events like Astronomy (Cosmos), Rubiks Cube (IORC), Scimatex and Radioactive await you!

Campaigns

Every year, Techkriti, as a part of its social campaigns addresses one major issue in our world. Last year, we had decided to take on all of them together. "Virtually Progressing World" addressed the wide array of problems that we ourselves create while expanding our never-ending thirst for technology and innovation. We have our social campaigns like Prakriti which is basically saving our planet and increasing greenery of the Earth. We arrange plantation drives in various parts of India. Along with it, Techkriti’13 was the first Carbon positive festival of India. Second we have a Women Empowerment Campaign. Next what we have an Educational Campaign for the uneducated children. We along with Prayas and other NGO’s are working to educate the children. We also have a health campaign where we are organizing health camps in nearby areas in association with the hospitals of Kanpur and Lucknow. We along with Goonj had also organized a collection drive to help the affected people of Uttarakhand. This year we have started off with our Teen Suicide Prevention Campaign "#IamStrong" to minimize the number of teen suicides in our country. Prakriti Prakriti (The environmental Campaign) consisted of the following events which lead to a greener and cleaner Techkriti’14: -

1. The Tree Campaign : We have 350 Campus ambassadors in India where we conducted a competition in which a Participant has to plant a tree and then he has to send that photo. In this competition, we got 500 entries and awarded them by prizes.

2. Plantation Drive: Techkriti is India’s First Carbon Positive Festival. Techkriti plants a number of plants by conducting various plantation drives throughout the year. We have planned to plant 500 Trees inside the IIT-Kanpur campus.

3. Green Media: Competition to be launched where participants would be required to come up with sustainable methods that we can adopt for the betterment of our environment.

Social Awareness (IFFCO) • Project Agaaz Techkriti in association Enactus-IITK had organized the Project Agaaz. Project Agaaz focuses on utilizing waste paper to empower people residing in the rural areas in and around the IITK campus. We have developed a business model employing women of economically backward communities who have been provided a set up to prepare decorative items using reused paper. • Campaign on Women Empowerment Last year, a new initiative had been taken by Techkriti which is a campaign on women empowerment-"When Women Were- Awakening the nation to the plight of the Indian woman" and celebrated International Women’s Day. Eminent personalities like Meenakshi Lekhi, Pramela Vadrevu, Alka Lamba, Pallavi Sharda, Gayatri Lobo and also former Miss World Linor Abargil, were invited for a panel discussion.In this campaign, Techkriti team approached women in the villages near IIT Kanpur and spread awareness about their fundamental rights and ways of upliftment in the society.

Initiatives:

1. PRAKRITI: Plantation drive as a part of our efforts towards sustainable development, and preservation of our ecology. It is also aimed at creating awareness about general environment problems among the public.

2. Make A Wish: A campaign in which we will ask each inmate of an orphanage to ‘Make A Wish’ and would give our best to fulfil those wishes via donations from benevolent public. We believe the dreams and wishes are what drives a child to endeavor to aim high and bloom into a responsible and contributing citizen.

3. Uttarakhand Collection Drive: A flood relief collection drive for the survivors of the tragic natural disaster that struck Uttarakhand. We collaborated with Goonj, an NGO working in this field and sent basic essential commodities to the disaster affected region.

4. Women Empowerment: Our aim is to change the mindset of the people by making women self-dependent as well as by making men realize the rights of women and their importance. Some efforts in this direction are:

5. Swagatagmi: A workshop to train under-privileged women to earn their living by making daily use products from bamboo leaves. This will give them a partial level of independence.

6. Men Let’s Talk: A videography competition encouraging men to be responsible, remove any gender bias, stop violence against women and come hand in hand with women giving them freedom.

7. SOCCON: Event which requires participants to come up with environment friendly and sustainable solution to real world problems.

8. Health Care: There has been several efforts to improve the living status of people. Some of them are : a. Raktarpan: Organizing a blood donation camp to ensure that blood is available for any patient in need. Two blood donation camps are to be organized in period of January. b. Swagatgami: Techkriti in collaboration with some design students is trying to design some innovative equipment and accessories which will help physically disabled people to live a normal life, such as an app to help deaf people.

9. Eduvate: A social-cum-technical competition where you have to design an app to help disabled children in process of learning. There are several categories in which one can submit this app, for example: an app to smoothen the learning process of a child whose brain is comparatively less developed when compared to normal students.

10. Green Media: This is an online photography event aimed at publicizing environment related problem, where participants will come up with innovative ideas to publicize environment problems and suggest possible solutions.

11. 28 states: An event designed specifically to bring up the social needs of whole country on one platform and it also focused on enhancing the awareness level of individual about current scenarios and problems of the country

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to IIT Kanpur.