Two years. Two milestones. It's amazing how Techfest, which was but a seed just Two years back has blosommed and carved a niche for itself as being one of its kind in the subcontinent. Techfest, finally, HAS arrived. Techfest has never been without a vision. Techfest 1999 was all about how the world is changing with the millenium and how technology can help it change for the better, opening up hitherto unknown and newer vistas and thus giving the technocrat of tomorrow a plethora of opportunities. Techfest 2000 was not limited to technology but also encompassed areas like entrepreneurship. It also attempted to bring to focus the social aspects of technology.
Crowds at the Assistance desk Techfest'99 served to provide an environment conducive to fruitful interaction between the technocrats of tomorrow and the industry of today. The industry was well represented by a large number of infotech and software firms along with the electronic companies participating in the Industrial Exhibition. We had IBM as our main sponsor.
Competitions began with the Oracle Hello World Wide Web - an online synchronous programming contest, the first of its kind.
The pre-defined design competitions - Cadbury's Cool Dispenser Contest, the i2 Technologies predefined Software Contest, a mechanical design contest Bowled Over, the Infosys Open Software Contest and the Open Hardware Contest invoked a good response from students all over the world in the form of new ideas and innovative models. On the Spot Competitions such as the PCS Online Hacking Contest, Discovery Channel Science and Technology Olympiad, the PCS Teaching Contest, PCS Online Treasure Hunt along with the Discovery Channel Hourly Releases held the interest of a diverse cross-section of participants.
The Lecture Series was envisaged as a platform for students to come face-to- face with their role models, eminent personalities from various fileds of science and technology as well as the industry. We had with us:
Mr. N R Narayana Murthy,Chairman, Infosys
Sir Roger Penrose, Author of the best selling 'Emperor's New Mind' from Oxford. A videoconference with this eminent mathematical physicist.
Dr. Upinder Bhalla from TIFR, Bangalore, a leading figure in the field of neurocomputing.
Also there were Mr. Vinod Dham, the "Father of the Pentium" and CEO, Silicon Spice & Mr. Mike Walshe, one of the pioneers of immersive virtual reality.
The following workshops were held as a part of Techfest'99:
TCS Money Talks
Eminent personalities from the world of finance such as Dr. Susan Thomas, Mr. Ramesh Damani, Mr. Chandrakant Sampat, Mr. Vallabh Bhanshali, Dr. R H Patil and Mr. Bharat Shah were at Techfest'99 to give the students insights into the world of stocks and capital markets along with active participation of the sponsoring company, TCS.
AeSI Priciples of Flight
An aeromodelling workshop with a differnce. The emphasis here was on understanding the physical principles of flight. In addition, basic demonstrations of wind-tunnel experiments, flight simulation software and actual aircraft engines were given.
SAS Current Affairs
An electronics workshop aimed to introduce people, with no prior experience, to practical electronic design. Participants were shown how to build a FM receiver and transmitter.
The industrial electronics exhibition endeavoured to present before a technologically literate crowd, the latest technology and developments in the fields of communications and electronics. As a part of the exhibition, the companies also gave an audio-visual presentation of the latest technology.
The participating organizations were:
International Business Machines (IBM)
AT&T Corp.
Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL)
Race Virtual Technologies Ltd.
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL)
Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC)
Silicon Automated Systems (SAS)
Integrators Plus
Express Computers
Department of Aerospace Engineering (IIT Bombay)
Industrial Design Centre (IIT Bombay)
Spread over the three days, the workshop spanned the entire process of floating a startup venture and went a long way to popularize the spirit of entrepreneurship. This was achieved through the participation of the following dignitaries:
Dr. V G Patel (Director, EDI)
Mr. Ashwin Parekh (Executive Director, EDI), an entrepreneur, gave a talk on business planning.
Mr. Kabir Mulchandani (CEO, Baron International) with a talk on "The First Three Years".
Mr. Mani Bhardwaj (Pricewaterhouse Coopers)
Mr. Abhay Havaldar (MD, Draper International) who gave some amazing insights into the working of the mind of the Venture Capitalist!
Mr. F C Kohli (Dy. Chairman, TCS) talked of his experiences at TCS.
Mr. Sunil Handa (CEO, Core Emballage) with extremely inspiring tales of the Handa brothers.
Dr. Anand Deshpande (CEO, PSPL), Mr. Sohel Shikari and Mr. Hans Taparia (Omni Financial) then joined Mr. Sunil Handa for an interactive session.
The 'dark side of Techfest', Technoholix was conceived to give the participants a feel of the latest in technology as applied to entertainment. "Race VR the world" displayed, for the first time in India, the potential of immersive virtual reality in the fields of medicine and entertainment. VSNL cyber cafe was a great crowd puller, providing the audience with free net surfing at a speed of 256 Kbps. The Chip Software Arcade demonstrated the latest in software with speech recognition, morphing etc.
For all those who just wanted to relax, the Science Fiction movies served to provide thorough entertainment, with excellent sound and projection. Essess Entertainment provided the crowd with a chance to have a close look at the technology of simulation games. MEL Net-Wars was another event where competitiors slugged it out in the game Doom, projected on a giant screen to amplify the thrills and chills of the war.
AviEx was conceived as a mode of informing and interesting people in the inner dynamics of aviation, and to anhance the understanding of these. Scaled down, accurate models of both military and commercial aircraft were on display.
There was a live flying demo of a ParaMotor invoking a lot of participation from the audience. The Air Force flew in their helicpoter Chetak and had a radar vehicle along with live missiles on display.
The Navy displayed various exhibits on 'Surface and Under Water Avionics'. ISRO dsiplayed models and pictures of indigenously developed satellites including INSAT-2E.
The winners of the Online AviEx Quiz were taken to the ATC towers, courtesy of Indian Airlines and Air India.