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~100th post on froZENwell~
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Disclaimer
This post is an account of my experience working for/in Tech Nidarshan’11 held between 3and 5 November, 2011 at NMAMIT, Nitte. All the views expressed here are personal to me and I do not wish to entertain anybody’s opinion(s) that can negatively impact the spirit of my post and hence of Tech Nidarshan’11. I have not named anybody in this post because naming each and every person wouldn’t be possible.
Q- You did not attend #TechNidarshan11, what have you missed in life? A- LIFE!—
Naren (@NirBuddhi) November 05, 2011
Much before “This November”
A very vibrant group of students met up for the first time in the college campus on 28 May 2011 and that was the beginning of “the core committee”, a group that would go on to expand and handle most of the fest activities in a manner that was never witnessed before. We grouped ourselves into many departments based on our interests and capabilities. A bunch of students “with fire in their eyes”, as the core committee head would call us, laughed at each other; ridiculed one another (ask no further), but little did we know that we were just only getting closer to laughing together! There was never a compromise on the thinking; we never gave up thinking much more than what standards we had set. And then we promised to one another to do, whatever it “tech”s! This November, we were getting close to making a History! Did we promise way too much? Was it deliverable? Was it executable? Would it be worth all the effort and the build up? Would we make it? Would we live up to it? Time was patiently waiting to answer to these.
Joining dots looking backwards
TN’11 was lucky to have a time tested model of TN’10, we started analyzing the first edition’s events and based on elimination, we retained the hit ones. That was an important step, I think. Like the other already established fests we could not afford to keep having only new events each time because that would mean a lot of ‘getting to know’ period, effort and of course the risk! We had a very clear idea about how Tech Nidarshan as a brand must look; hence we decided to have a logo so that we could standardize it and trigger the multitude’s memory. We used the fact that a standard tag line, an image impacts stronger on minds (like the f of facebook, the t of twitter), it was just one step; an intelligent one perhaps.
One of the major criticisms for TN’10 was that it wasn’t “tech” enough. Except, it was! But many failed to see it because it got overshadowed by the gleam and glamour of the cultural shows and external artist evening! Technical fests elsewhere are conducted this way, a lot of energy and money is spent on the show-show part of it. Thankfully for Tech Nidarshan’11, we had other plans, we had promised to do different after all!
The only way to make a statement is to make a difference
Tech Nidarshan’11 official activities began with Paathshala- a social initiative event in association with a frontrunner NGO for educating underprivileged children. This had all the chances of going wrong and going wrong horribly. Our gamble at associating with outside social organizations to conduct events? Never happened before. Paathshala not only brought a lot of love and light to our lives but also gave us hope that new things are possible and that “hope is real”! Meanwhile, we were trying to get some sponsors for our events and what do we know, we got a fairly good response. Tech Nidarshan’11 ‘s branding was working underside, from headers of our letters, to our website, to flyers, handouts and even visiting cards, we had our logo and tagline printed!
Most important outcome, in my opinion was that our attitude had begun to change towards outside associations. We went on to have food stalls installed in our campus, we had events fully sponsored by certain companies, and we had professional stage settings- all of it a new precedent at Nitte! We had super bikes and super gadgets kept for display too. We had managed to “tech” it to a large extent.
All decked up!
There were hurdles, as one might guess, but we would get into huddles and jump over them. Also, I must mention that for the first time I saw a clear division in the students of our college. A large interested group that did certain one thing the best, a fairly large group that did everything fairly well, a small group that did everything very well and the small disinterested group that never showed up from the beginning to the end. My personal favorite was working with the The Team Thorana- the official event organizing group of NMAMIT. We procured materials and made our own participant folders, we stayed back till late and prepared to decorate every part of the campus. Also, we thought it is never a wrong time to appreciate art, we opened up the stage for students’ drawings, paintings, stamp-coin collection! These all proved very beneficial because this did not let anybody feel that they were doing nothing- the last category of students also joined in in different places!!! Somebody was good with kids- organized Paathshaala, somebody good at crafts- joined Thorana and so on! Tech Nidarshan began with an intention to demolish the branch divides and Tech Nidarshan’11 went a step ahead to demolish personality divides, the many membranes vanished!
Cultural evenings have been the trend in almost all the fests in our neighborhood and it also has been a Nitte favorite, but this time it was eliminated and that gave us opportunity to include few more events i.e, Tech Bits- the technical gaming zone. The intention of it was to keep the campus lively despite the absence of a cultural evening! I think, it clicked well! There were people in every nook and cranny and they stayed back for nothing but “tech”!
Tech Nidarshan’11 kept everybody very busy, there was a lot to miss if you wished to catch up with one thing and that was the beauty of TN’11. You had Fiery Birds, live adaptation of Angry birds on one side, you had gadget expo on another, would you miss eating the kebabs? Would you not watch the air show then? Wouldn’t you take part in Zeztifiedv2.0? What about Xpressions, would you have the time to have a look at it? What about…
The many Murphies!
“Whatever could possibly go wrong, will!” Just a week before the D-day we had begun to get all the weather forecasts against us; ‘torrential rains’, it said. “Sunta hain Guru gyani, gagan mein aawaz ho rahi jheeni”, said Kabir (sorry to bring him here 
)
For #Nitte people worried about rains during #TechNidarshan11 – Arey mann dheeraj kahe na dharai? #Kabir—
Naren (@NirBuddhi) November 01, 2011
Our hearts managed to reach our mouths! Everything now depended on rain? Months of preparation would get washed away? The many outdoor events, the air shows, the bike expos, the registrations, the decorations, the external artist, would all get drenched now? Seeing a few days’ before the fest, it seemed there was every possibility of everything going wrong. But we never lost hope, we never gave up.
Just took a random online tarot, it said "Time to reap the harvest of previously sown effort" #TechNidarshan11 #Nitte ALL EXCITED!!!—
Naren (@NirBuddhi) November 03, 2011
Sometimes, it is not all about technology, it is also about faith! But it did rain on all the days, after all the forecasts proved to be accurate. It did not affect Tech Nidarshan’11 organizers much though. Solutions came up right from skies. It would rain and stop just before the air show, it would rain and almost ruin the external artist evening but then would stop to allow the music to take over!
So what was Tech Nidarshan’11 made up of? Personally, it was my life’s most gratifying experience and now that isn’t anymore, I miss it. Looking back, I think, we did do, whatever it “techs” (screw grammar)
My two pence
There is lot of things, I am not able to describe in detail here. But there are some things I must mention and it must be told. What can be done/undone for a better Tech Nidarshan’12? My two pence on this-
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Reduce the number of events, limit it to 4-5 per branch- that we have now established ourselves as a happening event, it would be easier to have less events and more publicity.
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More technical talks please- would be awesome if we somehow had TEDx or such events at Nitte. Remember that it is a technical fest and less or no technical talks is off-putting.
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Contact contact contact- we need to contact more people, we need to keep on mailing people to have a look at our website. Collect the many many mail ids from me.
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Launch the website at least by April-May 2012 – perhaps an empty website with “stay tuned” and last year’s updates playing will do. Change the colours, fonts and taglines but may be retain the logo. Have a “look back” section in the website.
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Start planning for the events and there is nothing wrong in retaining the hit ones. Upload the details early.
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Then perhaps go for sponsorship. The sponsorship brochure will work this time. Highlight TN’11 and the sponsors of it in the brochure.
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Have social initiative events and make sure it is used for publicity.
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Do not take internal publicity for granted.
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Keep the tone of our official internet interactions very professional. Make use of fb, twitter etc. the way some elite brand would. Hint: Cum 2 R fest pls. Tnx. Etc.
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Learn from every fest you attend or choose not to.
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And lastly, never fail to try out new things = don’t cling on too much to the old ones!
Image Credits : AKS Photography
Video credits : Bandi Deepak Reddy, Kishore Kumar Shetty, Gahana Shetty
Official TN logo designed by Karthik Kamath
A great read. The effort that you guys put in was evident during TN. Most of the events were executed well. If TN’10 was a success then TN’11 was even bigger. Hopefully we can replicate and go better at TN’12.
Getting students from other colleges is not an easy task. More importantly we need to get more students from our college to participate. And events such as robotics workshop should not be a part of TN. And if we plan on conducting new technical events, a pre-techfest workshop ought to be conducted. Maybe it will limit the number of external participants, but it will boost the numbers from within the college. Robotics workshop can be held before the techfest and can be followed by a robotics event during TN.
Hopefully we can pool in and make the next TN an amazing experience!
Thanks a lot Jeevan.
I still fail to understand the slight dip in the internal participants’ number. I do not have the exact numbers though. It is a 50-100 less I am sure. I can guess that may be this time there were way more organizers of events/workshops/tech bytes and other things? I don’t know! May be it is also the first year crowd. Believe you me, whichever class we went to publicize TN’11, there was almost no response. So I am all for your suggestion of a pre-fest workshop, at least for the first year students to get them acquainted with the very concept of the fest!
We definitely must not have another Robotics workshop, I agree. Participation (the lack of it) is our single most alive problem I think!
But with the way the present third year students have organized tech bytes, or paatshaala or any other task they had taken up, I do not doubt that TN’12 will be better.
Nicely Documented Naren.
I definitely agree that the number of events should be reduced and more emphasis should be given on attracting external participants and we have been discussing about this throughout. Probably earlier website launch like you mention would have helped.
And also its a nice point that more technical talks/workshops should be arranged. But then, with the participation rate we have, either events or the talks themselves are going to be effected by this. With more participants in the campus we can surely have good participants for both events and talks , else increasing number of technical talks is going to make no sense. We noticed that this time with less participation for Robotics Workshop and even cancellation of another Mech workshop. Even the technical talks failed to get the expected numbers.
And about TEDx, the rules says that it can’t be associated with any techfest. So, keeping in mind the magnitude of the event, it is always better not to associate someother branded event with our techfest.
But then, one thing for sure. Technidarshan 2011 has set new standards and has brought in a welcoming change in the fest culture of Nitte.
Great Work!!
Thanks a lot Shreyas.
Yes, I agree completely with you. It is a tight rope walk. Less events might mean less participants and less participants immediately means no success! More technical talks and less events will do no good too. The right balance has to be struck! Perhaps, the lecturers will be very much interested in technical talks and will attend them. That will save us the awkwardness of an empty auditorium? Perhaps, as I said in the comments we can somehow get our teaching staff to participate a lot. It will increase the value of the fest and it will add a tinge of seriousness to the effort. We definitely must deliberate a lot and find ways to get more participants for our events; it all boils down to this one thing and I do not doubt there will come solutions from you people!
And about the workshops too, I agree with Jeevan that pre-fest workshops can be held. I also feel that we can not afford to have anything being cancelled. Perhaps our publicity for the workshops was inadequate? It also depends on the concerned parties’ confirmation.
Yes, I read the rules in the very beginning and therefore did not try for it myself. But aren’t many colleges having it during the time of their fests? TEDxNITK came almost during Engineer, did it not? Please check into it. Still, TEDxNMAMIT, with or without TN is a huge boost to the college’s image and must be held at any cost. If held before TN’12, it will open a lot of avenues for us! And I am sure, there is a superb plan already
All the best!
Naren ,
Great write up . Well i was among the people who thoroughly enjoyed TechNidarshan ’11 . I share the same views when it comes to keeping the website live well ahead of the fest . And hoping to deliver a richer experience at TN ’12 .
Thanks a lot Anish.
I thought tech bytes and other such auxiliary events were a huge success and brought so many of us together. I am certain you people have a plan for the following Tech Nidarshan too. And without an iota of doubt, I personally feel that your batch will be responsible for a bigger and better Tech Nidarshan next year!
All the very best.
We all know the talent which you have in articulating
As usual its perfect and precise. Well done:)
Coming to Tech Nidarshan-11, i must admit that this year it was more professional compared to 2010.
I always feel that fests are for the students, by the students and to the students.
I have been the event management head when i did my engineering ( a decade back 
). We had faculty who kept a tab on us but never played a active role. They expected us to do all the stuff in a professional manner. It made us learn many things and we enjoyed the responsibilities to the core. When i joined Nitte, i was bit surprised to see roles reversed. Faculty were all active and students were executing what the faculty told. I conveyed this to Karthik Kastury when he was in final year where they had initially proposed the plan to conduct the fest in a big way with all branches combined.
Hence this year i was delighted to see students taking up the responsibility in a big way and executing it to perfection. Hats off to core team
You have suggested good number of changes required and i agree with them. Having less number of events, tagging a social cause to the fest, exploring TEDx to be part of it are perfectly valid.
One thing which i want the next batch to work on is to ensure more number of colleges participate. It shouldn’t end up as a fest for colleges in DK / Mangalore region. We need to take it to greater heights. I know its a tough task but somehow we need to work out some strategy to ensure maximum participation. The suggestions which you have putforth will help in this regard.
I have one suggestion. Give some incentives for students of premier colleges like RVCE, MSRIT, BMS, SJCE to participate in the fest so that it gets more popular. Incentive in terms of waiving registration fee /& accommodation charges /& travel charges. Nitte being located in a remote place is a drawback, which we can overcome with these incentives. Its my personal opinion and not the opinion of college
Once again am glad that you came up with this post.
Firstly, thanks a lot for the appreciation sir.
I am glad you raised the point of students managing the event. Quite frankly TN’11′s student core committee enjoyed a lot of authority (perhaps even more than ever). This was very much appreciated by the higher-ups too. This must be able to create a sense of security and faith in us in the faculty’s minds. What Karthik Kastury and his team suggested, on the face of it sounded utterly impossible and even ridiculous; I must admit that even I was very disappointed in the idea because one fest would mean less fun? But soon I realized its importance. An engineering college has to have a technical fest and has to be known for it rather than a cultural fest. I am sure it increases a college’s value among the long list. We need to battle it out between the few big ones in our neighborhood, so we must do whatever they do and may be even more than what they do! And with the quality of events we have seen in this edition, I do not doubt that we have earned some brownie points!
I have one thing that disturbs me sir and I want to express it. While the entire college celebrates, many faculty members stay indoors (deliberately or otherwise) or conduct classes. Firstly, it is really unfair to the organizers and second, it is unfair to the faculty themselves! I mean, here we are having a TECH fest and most of the teaching staff is missing! I mean, I can understand this behavior for a cultural fest, but surprisingly there is a lot of faculty turn out for Anandotsava! The library, office, lab, stores staff is completely cut off from our fests. I wonder why! I hope you see my point.
I sincerely hope there will be many many ways to get many many more participants from colleges outside our cozy radius! TEDx and its right advertising would indeed be a good step in this direction. I trust there is a more active and proactive organizing team waiting to take over and they will take these suggestions.
Once again, thank you for the invaluable suggestions and thoughts.
Am not sure about the reason why faculty stay indoors during tech fest.
I can only guess the reason: Its the way they have been during their college days and it continues now also:)
Well, then let us leave it at that for now and hope that the coming fests force everybody to just leave everything and come out
Two Pence:
Be sure who your target audience is.
Logo was too complex to relate to, contrasting with f and t.
Get more crowd from outside
Target audience, could you please elaborate on it. We would benefit a lot.
Logo, as explained to us by the designer, is a hub with many spokes. You can imagine it as a splash of something, freshness may be. You can think of it as a center from which the tiny grains derive energy or something. But I agree we must have explained it better.
YES! Get huge crowd from outside.
Target Audience: NMAMitians or Others.
TN11 was all about NMAMITians and that is good to.
As our college students got an opportunity to come out of cocoon (esp the ones who don’t attend other fests)
If it is others be sure who it is.
For example Anandotsava is laser focussed on South Canara Eng and Sisters concerns and few colleges with which Nitte has good bond(SIT,Tumkur).
TN11 was launched as a national level fest and dint see much participation from colleges around nor from students far away.
One point mistake of TN11 according to me was not including Debian Conference under its umbrella.
One can not just use a twitter account, website and posters and expect some one in north east/delhi/ mumbai to make a trip to Nitte.
If target audience is not students all over India, it is still worth it . Only thing is organizers should have clarity of ambitions.
Logo : Looked to me as a heart with seven/eight nerves connected to it. Makes sense but is not viral.
Well, I will have you know that although we did not see a remarkable increase in external participation from what it was in TN10, we did not see a remarkable dip too! I will blame the bad weather and bad roads to a large extent! Guess, these things are not in our hands after all!
I agree with you that just a twitter or fb account will not help us get participants. Matter of fact, we did invite many colleges from all over the country through post. Perhaps, there isn’t much we can do unless we have personal interactions with other colleges. Forget Mumbai, even the ones in Bangalore are hard to get to come down to Nitte.
I don’t know of solutions for these seemingly eternal problems, but I think these problems will subside over the years of Tech Nidarshan’s existence and success. Our target audience every time must be the all of India. Someday we will achieve it. Right?
Hey great post!
You managed to give a very spirited summary of the three awesome days. It was a huge blast, wasn’t it? So many new ideas….. I’m nothing but amazed at what came out of those efforts of the core committee.
Excellent work!
Yes, it was a huge blast! The way it turned out, is just simply amazing!
Thank you, TN’11′s success goes to the previous batches for giving us the vision and energy!
First things first. Congrats on reaching the 100th post!!
Nicely documented, Mr.Documenter
From the landmarks to the tree that glowed in the night, U guys did a great job in Team Thorana!!Food court and Fun zone made ppl who normally bunk come. The hot air balloon inaugural was great too! it’ll be a mini blogpost if i go on
on the two pence: Reduce the number of events or have fest for an extra day!
And if your planning to organize Tedx remember you have to apply for license minimum 6 months in advance.Put atleast one person from each branch for registration to reduce confusions.
Am sure TN’12 will be bigger and better and we are gonna miss it!
Thanks for the appreciation
Every person associated with TN’11 worked very hard and believed in it.
On your two pence on my two pence:
I still feel less number of events will make the organizing easier and the participants won’t have to miss too much to take part in something. An extra day will mean an extra day for the bunkers! I agree and accept your point about the registration desk. I seriously wanted some more voluntary participation though. You know.
Anyway, I really trust the next “core committee” will take these suggestions better than we have been!
Great post! I loved the video very very much.
Thanks, the video sums it up all
Cheer’s………….: ) Nice one ……
Thanks a lot.