Pragyan
 | |
| Type | Student-run non-profit festival |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2005 |
| Place | Tiruchirappalli, India |
| Institute | NIT Trichy |
| Major events | Coding, robotics, management, paper presentation, guest lectures, infotainment, core engineering, exhibitions, workshops |
| Prize money | ₹14,00,000 |
| Slogan | Let's Celebrate Technology |
| Website |
www |
Pragyan is the annual techno-management festival of the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli. Since its inception in 2005, it has been held every year over a period of three and a half days during either the month of January or February. Every year, Pragyan sees participants from hundreds colleges across the country. Pragyan is the largest techno-management fest in India. It is also the first student-run organization in the world and the third overall next only to London Olympics and Manchester United to get an ISO 20121:2012 Certification for Sustainable Event Management. [1] [2]
History and growth
In 2005, the staff and students collaborated to create Pragyan as a technical festival attracting innovation from across the state.[3][4] Pragyan has since expanded to include teams from over 60 countries taking part in the online programming contests. In recent years, up to 700 volunteers have worked in hosting the event.
Events
The events in Pragyan have traditionally been broadly divided into clusters.
| Cluster | Events |
|---|---|
| Amalgam | Inspinature, Greenville, Pragyan Quiz, IoT Challenge. |
| Chill Pill | Snake and Ladder, Leap Action, Fix It, Water Rocket, Fox Hunt, Chess, Aerogami, Puzzlemania, Sanrachana. |
| Code It | GPU Coding, Three's a Crowd, Pragyan-CTF, Adventure, Bytecode, Hunt the Code, Gaming Minifest, Pengufest. |
| Core Engineering | Hover One, Delta T, Pragyan Design Challenge, Concept Car Challenge, Nittro, NFS Aqua, Junkyard Wars, Circuitrix, Hydro . |
| Landscape | Mortar Master, Topography, Aakriti. |
| Manigma | Pragyan Premier League, The Ultimate Manager, Dalal Street, Marketing Hub, Beer Factory. |
| Out of the Box | Crime Busters, Labyrinth, Fundamental, String Theory, Star Gazing Session. |
| Robovigyan | Appollo18, Rush Hour, Robowars, 7 Stones. |
Guest Lectures
Each year the festival features lectures from several guest speakers.
| Year | Guest Lecturers |
|---|---|
| 2016 | Peter C Schultz, Varun Agarwal, Ralph Leighton, Dr. Archana Sharma, Sudhir Kumar Mishra, Gianni Di Caro, Dr.Abhas Mitra, Rene Reinsburg. |
| 2015 | Marshall Strabala, Dr. Jitendra Joshi, Paul Halpern, Suneet Tuli, Robin Chase, T. S. Krishnamurthy, Ananth Krishnan, Jill Tarter, Raju Venkatraman, Guhesh Ramanathan, Scott R Peppet, Rakshit Tandon, Rakesh Godwani.[5] |
| 2014 | L Sivasankaran, Kiruba Shankar, Anirudh & Pragun, Ram Gopal, Valerie Wagoner, Dr. Marcus du Sautoy, Jamie Hyneman, Dhananjayan Govind, Venkatesh Basker, Tevenos, T. V. Narendran. |
| 2013 | Anil Kakodkar, Tessy Thomas, Atul Gurtu, Rohan Dixit, David Christian, Richard Noble |
| 2012 | Gayle Lackmann McDowell, Gert Lanckriet, J. N. Reddy, Michael E. Brown, Jeff Lieberman, Swaminathan Gurumurthy, Dr.Vijay Chandru, Dr. Sivathanu Pillai and Narendra Nayak |
| 2011 | David Hanson (robotics designer), Sugata Mitra, Narayanan Krishnan, T. V. Padma, Stefan Engeseth and Ajeet N. Mathur |
| 2010 | Dr. Ramesh Jain, N S Ramaswamy, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, Dr. Sreenidihi Varadharajan, Raj Bala, Are Holen. |
| 2009 | Peter Norvig, Loren Acton, John C. Mather, Manish Tripathi and Kalyan Banerjee. |
| 2008 | Philippe Lebrun, Ronald Mallett, Noam Chomsky, Trilochan Sastry, K.R. Sridhar and Philip Zimmermann |
| 2007 | Douglas Osheroff, Rudolph Marcus, Guruswami Ravichandran, Gurcharan Das and Jimmy Wales |
| 2006 | Yash Pal, Stephen Wolfram, Christopher Gill, and Christopher Charles Benninger |
The 2015 edition saw the introduction of 'Divergent', an inspirational talk series by youngsters who have made a marked contribution to the society. The speakers at the 2015 edition included Roman Saini, Vishnu Nair, Ajit Narayanan and Kartheeban.
In the 2016 edition, the alma mater of NITT were called to participate in Alumni Crossfire in which they debated on whether the NIT of the 70s, 80s, 90s or the 2000s which gave had the best experience.
Crossfire
Crossfire is a panel discussion event held during the festival. Crossfire aims to provide a global platform for the academia, industry and government to interact with the student fraternity.
| Year | Topic | Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Development sustains pollution: must we defile to go the extra mile? | Ajay, Shankar, Bahar Dutt, Anoop Poonia, Abhinandan Sekhri, Nawshir Mirza, Dr. A. Ravindra. |
| 2015 | Putting an Indian on the moon seems easier than keeping an Indian street clean | M. Chandra Dathan, Shyam Chetty, Dr. Damodar Tripathi, T.S. Krishnamurthy, Abdul Ghani; moderated by Dr. Sumanth C Raman. |
| 2015 | Was it all worth it? An alumni crossfire on career choices and following your passion | Sharon Koshy, Shyam HN, Shankar, G. Naveen, Sri Ram Shankar. |
| 2014 | The role of youth in nation building | D.R. Karthikeyan, Santhosh Hegde, Bhagwan Singh, Captain N. Thinakaran, Karthik Janakiram; moderated by Prof. G. Balakrishnan. |
| 2013 | Failing educational institutions? | Chris Philips, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Ismail, Bushra Shariff, Professor Eugene D’Vas, Prashanth Raj; moderated by Prof. Vinod. |
| 2012 | It's not about the degree, it's about the passion | Amoghavarsha, A.N. Chandramouli, J.N. Reddy, Arunabh Kumar, J Balamurugan, Sarath Babu, Prof. Vinod |
| 2011 | From joint families to live-in relationships, from pen pals to Facebook, from outdoor games to video games – this generation has surely changed a lot. But are these changes for the good? What are the priorities of youth at present? Where are we headed? And where do we go from there? | Krish Ashok, Dr. L.S. Ganesh, Subramanian Vincent, Dr. Ramesh Jain, Kishore Kumar, Jagan Jothivel. |
| 2010 | Why aren’t we I.D.I.O.T.S (I do it on my own terms)? | L.S.Ganesh, Subramaniam Vincent, Kishore Kumar, Dr. Ramesh Jain, Sudhish Kamath, Jagan Jothivel |
| 2009 | India as a global knowledge superpower | Prof. Anil Gupta, Dr. P.V. Indiresan, Dr. Sujatha Ramdorai, Dr. Prabhakar Marur; moderated by Rashmi Bansal |
Workshops
Workshops that test and hone the skills of the participants have been an integral part of the festival since 2007.
| Year | Workshops Conducted |
|---|---|
| 2016 | IBM Cloud Computing Stock Market and Financial Planning Image Processing with Ni-Lab view Crime Scene Investigation Foundation Analysis and Design Astro Photography IC Engines Golang by Mozilla India, a workshop on GO, an open source programming language Process Simulation with Aspen Hysys Cyber Warfare and Security Automobile Prototyping RC Car Texas Instruments TM4C UC |
| 2015 | Accelerobotix, conducted by Technophilia Touch and Augmented Reality, conducted by Infi-Zeal Technologies Bridge design and Fabrication, conducted by Ark Technosolutions Whatshack, conducted by i3indya Technologies Brainwave Robotics, conducted by Ark Technosolutions Analytical Engineering and Decision Science Autotrix, an automobile workshop Infysec Workshop Series IBM Coding Challenge |
| 2014 | Seismic Design conducted by Civil Simplified Rocket Launch conducted by Xovian [7] Lie Detector workshop conducted in collaboration with Truth Labs India Big Data conducted in partnership with Microsoft Quadcopter conducted by Robofission Labs in association with Techkriti, IIT Kanpur PC, Internet and Speech controlled bot building workshop organized by Robogenesis Distributed computing through Java conducted by a special initiative of IBM called “IBM India University Relations” |
| 2013 | Automotive Systems and Advancements by Tata Motors Authorised Training Consultant Sixth Sense Robotics Android App Development Six sigma Tall structure design Underwater robotics The viral media workshop |
| 2012 | IC Engines Assembling in association with AerotriX Bi-pedal Robotics in association with Yogiki Introduction to Stocks Light Painting Cyber Forensics |
| 2011 | Gesture Controlled Robotics: Haptics Workshop Computer Animation Cloud Computing Mobile Applications Management Workshop Aeromodeling |
| 2010 | 3D Photography Ethical Hacking Hexapod Robotics Adobe Flex. |
| 2009 | Light Painting Workshop by Kshitij Anand Animation Workshop conducted by the Nikhil Madan, RoboSapiens |
| 2008 | Ham Radio operation Linux Bio-inspired robotics Amateur Astronomy |
| 2007 | Automobile Design by Amarendra Kr. Das. Digital Signal Processing- Pattern Recognition and Digital Watermarking. |
Exhibitions and Sangam
A number of exhibitions are hosted during the festival each year.
Exhibitions
| Year | Exhibit |
|---|---|
| 2016 | Metalmate Robotics Infivention - Automated Chess Inventrom - Bolt (formerly NetPlug) and its products Lock Collection - Dr.Hiren Shah IBOTS - Smart Vehicles |
| 2015 | NASA Moon Rock sample, presented by NASA Defense exhibitions-Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) and Defence Research and Development Organisation DRDO (Tank and flight simulator) GTRE Gas Turbines NAO Humanoid Robots presented by Vishnu Engineering Brain controlled helicopter presented by Pantech Solutions Masha Nazeem's social exhibits High energy batteries presented by High Energy Batteries (India) Limited |
| 2014 | Quad-Rotor, Robotic arm and X-pod robots by Robosoft Surrogate, FB car, advanced vision systems, hacking Kinect, XNA gaming, computer security and Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (MSRDS) by Robogenesis Collection of antique cameras by Arun Cameras Motion Sensing with Natural User Interface (NUI) by Gesture Research India CSM1 3D Printer by Cycloid Systems |
| 2013 |  Pragyan 2013 Exhibition by CVRDE Indian missiles presented by Defence Research and Development Laboratory, Hyderabad Models and Presentations about the labs, products and facilities of Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE), Chennai Vertical Axis Wind Turbine by HEXDOG Engineering HAM Radio Operation by the Amateur Radio Society of Tiruchirappalli Augmented Reality by GAMOOZ India Multitouch Interactive Sensing by TouchMagix. |
| 2012 | Kinect 3D model installation by Blink Solution Precision Instruments by Aimil Ltd. Augmented Reality by BlinkSolution Ductbot, Biped and Hexapods by Robosoft Systems Adaptive Gripper Arm by Festo Bionic Learning Network |
| 2011 | Digital Effects Processing and Multitouch Technology with DJ-ing, "Reactable" Musical performance using only solar powered instruments by Solar Punch. |
Sangam
Sangam is an exclusive intra-NITT technical contest involving the display of models and solutions developed by students from various departments. This even, which is held on all four days of Pragyan, provides a platform to help bright minds in implementing their innovative ideas and earn recognition for the same from other participants, academicians, technocrats and industrialists.
| Year | Notable projects |
|---|---|
| 2015 | Innovation in Concrete Drone assisted navigation The geodesic dome project Real time 3D object reconstruction project 'Smart' bikes equipped with gyroscopes to sense accidents Sun powered hydraulic solar tracker Fan Wing Aircraft Perovskite Solar Cell |
| 2014 | Portable ECG Machine with Real Time Signal Coanda effect flying saucer Under water robot Bascule Bridges |
| 2013 | Prototype for voice controller electric wheel chair Stepper Motor using shape memory alloys MPPT solar charger for buses Green Charger for mobiles |
| 2012 | Solar powered water pump using PMDC motor CO2 removal from vehicular emissions Cold start emission Control |
Infotainment
Since its inception in 2008, the Infotainment event of the festival has provided entertainment across genres that include acrobatics, dance, beatboxing, illusion, light shows and comedy.
| Year | Notable shows |
|---|---|
| 2016 | Illusionist JC Sum, Projection Dance Troupe Girasomnis, UV and Tron dance troupe Illuminati, Comedy Show by Sorabh Pant and S Aravind. |
| 2015 | Light and Fire Shows by Pyroterra, Semi-finalists, Britain's Got Talent Atul Khatri and Angad Singh Rayal, East India Comedy Radium Painting by Vivek Patil. |
| 2014 | Pragyan's Got Talent Comedy Show by East India Comedy UV balloons Speed Painting by Vilas Nayak Dance performance by Shobana Chandrakumar |
| 2013 | Informals Fire Show by Thrill Veera 3D Mapping Projection on the LHC Comedy Night Out by The Viral Fever Robo Dance by Robo Ganesh Music Performance using recycled instruments by Thalavattam Band |
| 2012 | Laser Mirror Costume Act, LED light juggling show, LED costume and wings act by STIGMA Laser Show by InfySec Sky Lanterns Show |
| 2011 | Musical performance using only solar powered instruments by Solar Punch Digital Effects Processing and Multitouch Technology with DJ-ing, by Carles Lopez of Reactable fame |
| 2010 | Sand Art by Mr. Amar Sen Showcase of 3D visual effects, animation and other special effects by Zee Institute of Creative Arts(ZICA) Air show and Aircraft Exhibition by the Rotor Sports and Hobby Club of Chennai |
| 2009 | Techno-Magic show by the renowned Mr Christopher James Laser Show with the theme 'Evolution' Hand Shadowgraphy |
Sponsors and partners
Pragyan is a non-profit event run entirely by students of the institute. The festival has been associated with a number of corporate sponsors in the past, including Tata Steel, Texas Instruments, State Bank of India, Google, Pepsi, Marrybrown, Indian Oil Corporation, McAfee and National Instruments. The 2016 edition of Pragyan was principly sponsered with Larsen and Toubro and presented by National Instruments in association with Honeywell. [8]
Pragyan Social Responsibility
2016
Under Pragyan 2016, Pragyan Social Responsibity took initiative to conduct an array of socially empowering events. PSR conducted DHISAI, a JEE awareness programme that distributed booklets across schools in all districts of Tamil Nadi and made online portals available in Tamil,Hindi and English. A mock JEE examination was conducted for 12th grade students throughout Tamil Nadu to provide them with real time experience in a competitive scenario. Aiding in efforts to build up a corruption free India, PSR celebrated the Vigilance Awareness Week at NIT Trichy. Mr.Senthamarai Kanna, Deputy Inspector General Of Police, Trichy range and Mr.M G Devasahayam, retired IAS officer were the chief guests for the inauguration and valediction respectively. Under the banner of CATALYST, aimed at enhancing and promoting education through technology workshops were conducted and computer application software were taught to school students. A science exhibition for projects by school students,VEETUKU ORU VIGNYANI, conducted by pudhiya thalaimurai was hosted and managed by Pragyan.A disaster management awareness program RAKSHA was conducted, aimed at preparing school students for facing and overcoming situations form natural and man-made disasters. A traffic and road safety awareness campaign was held aimed at instilling road safety consciousness among the people. Necessity to wear helmets and seat belts were made felt through the distribution of cards.
2015
For Pragyan 2015, PSR conducted Catalyst, a one-day workshop on MS Office for the students of Boiler Plant Girls Higher Secondary School in BHEL township. The workshop was held on November 1, 2014.
As a year round project, Pragyan in association with LEAP (the Eco club of the college) and the Entrepreneurship cell launched PET Project, an initiative to reduce the wastage of paper in campus. This was launched after considering the enormous wastage of paper that occurs in the campus. As a novel initiative, a collection box was placed in the Octagon (the computer centre) to collect the roll number sheets that are generated for each student with a print command. The sheets will be used for activities such as making note books and helping out Self Help Groups by teaching them to make paper products.
The event ‘Dhisai’ aimed at educating the school students of Tamil Nadu about the Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE). A mock JEE exam was conducted in Trichy in association with ROTARACT CLUB for all students of class 12.[9]
Talks on Career Counselling and Cybercrime were conducted by professionals.
2014
As part of Pragyan 2014, Pragyan Social Responsibility in association with The Third Dimension, Aero-modeling Club of the National Institute of Technology, Trichy organised an event to spread interest and awareness in science among school students. It was conducted at a Tamil Nadu State Government Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Thiruverumbur on 6 December 2013. The event consisted of simple experiments conducted with things available around us to help the school students understand the basic concepts they study in school. Contact details were provided to the students for further assistance and also to receive study materials and college books for entrance exams free of cost as a part of Pragyan Social Responsibility. In a first of its kind initiative in NIT, Trichy; PSR took to pasting stickers in all hostels of NIT, Trichy to spread awareness about conservation of energy.
2013
Pragyan 2013 saw two events under the wing of PSR, namely, Disha and Wishberry. Disha was a career counselling event that was launched with the sole objective of promoting the importance of technical skills and the need for innovation among the school and college going crowd. Wishberry was brought out to help improve the infrastructure in a rural government school in Trichy district with the motto that "education is one of the best investments". As an ode to the world class education the students of NIT-T are provided with, and as a statement of Pragyan’s commitment to education, the team proceeded in the quest of trying to fulfill the minimum required infrastructural needs possible at the Government ADW Boys Higher Secondary School located in Pappakurichi Village, Trichy District. As part of the novel initiative, a total of around Rs. 95000 was collected from various sources namely, Rs.73000 online and Rs.22000 in-person from interested contributors.
In Pragyan 2012, a new wing of Pragyan, Pragyan Social Responsibility(PSR) was added.
Square One
Pragyan Square One, formerly known as Outreach, was introduced with the aim to expand and extent technological advances and create awareness in scientific utilities in regions across the nation.
2016
The 2016 edition of Pragyan saw 'Grab to Smash' a robot building contest, a Quadcopter workshop and a quiz event held in Kochi on 16 th and 17 January 2016. The Chennai version held on 30 January saw the robot contest, a 'Hunt the Code' competition for coding enthusiasts and an 'Ultimate Manager' contest . A design workshop was also held with CAD and Creo.
2015
The First edition of the Pragyan Square One (2015) was conducted in Chennai took place at the Sathyabama University, Chennai on November 1 and 2, 2014.[10] Four different events were conducted during the course of the programme. This included a guest lecture, the Circuitrix event, the regional prelims of the Pragyan Open Quiz and a hovercraft workshop, conducted by the AeroSapiens, in association with the Third Dimension Aeromodeling club of NIT Trichy. The guest lecture had a turnout of about 250 students. The winners of the regional prelims in the quiz competition got a direct entry to the National Intercollegiate Pragyan Quiz held during Pragyan.
The 2015 edition of Pragyan saw yet another highlight event, the Hackathon conducted in association with Amazon India at Amazon, Hyderabad. The contest was held on the 20th and 21 December 2014 and had more than a hundred participants working on various projects. The contest was a theme based one, with “Collaboration Tools” set as the theme of the contest and contestants had to develop mobile and web based apps that would help people with “team work”. The prizes were worth a total of ₹90,000.[11]
Previous Editions of Pragyan
References
- ↑ http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/iso-certification-for-sustainability-in-event-management/article5752307.ece
- ↑ http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/pragyan-2012-starts-off-with-pride-of-iso-9001-certification/article2926977.ece
- ↑ Staff Reporter (Jan 28, 2005). "NIT to host `Pragyan' from tomorrow". The Hindu. pp. Tiruchi. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
- ↑ R. Krishnamoorthy (Feb 7, 2005). "Pragyan: intelligence unlimited". The Hindu. Retrieved June 8, 2012.
- ↑ Pragyan. Pragyan https://www.pragyan.org/15/home/guest_lectures/. Retrieved 24 May 2015. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ https://www.pragyan.org/16/home/lectures/
- ↑ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/trichy/At-Pragyan-NIT-Trichy-students-get-the-hang-of-launching-satellites/articleshow/31695371.cms
- ↑ https://www.pragyan.org/16/home/sponsors/
- ↑ http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchirappalli/nit-brings-out-booklet-on-admissions/article6664334.ece
- ↑ http://www.pragyan.org/15/home/outreach/
- ↑ http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/hackathon-a-crowdpuller/article6719764.ece