The new motto of engineering students in the city is innovation
Pune Mirror: Some of the most common complaints one gets to hear these days is how far removed academics is from the industry. Many students say there is no scope for innovation and one has to simply mug up the syllabus.
However, a change is taking place quietly. Engineering students in the city are now showing enthusiasm — going beyond their syllabus in order to develop innovative projects, because the number of technical events are providing a platform to showcase practical solutions.
For instance, Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT) is having a techno fest-cum-cultural event on its campus from January 25. Keeping this background in mind, Pune Mirror tries to find out what is else technical is happening in colleges.
Earlier, tech fests were the domain of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) colleges. Now almost all prime city engineering colleges are organising such fests.
College of Engineering Pune (COEP) has been organising a mega technological event since 2007 called Mind Spark. Last year Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) organised an international level Robocon and this year, VIT and Bharati Vidyapeeth are joining the league with national level tech fests in their itinerary.
And the number of such beyond-the-syllabus platforms for innovations are increasing. VIT’s Me’lange will start from Monday.
The festival will see technical, cultural, and sporting events. Me’lange is a national level event and the organisers are expecting a footfall of around 25,000, specially for the technical events.
Around 90 engineering colleges from all over India are expected to participate. Indraneel Chitale, a student of third year engineering in VIT, who is a core group member of the organising committee, said, “These events are useful because innovations get noticed.
We will provide industry interaction and technical support. We will also help innovators file patents.
Events like presenting business plans in the innovation category will interest the industry. Potential business projects may get picked up by the industry.”
Me’lange will also have events like Wheels on Fire, which is an IC engine car race. Students are supposed to make their own car and race them. Similary, for events such as robot wars, students will have to make their own robots, which will be given tasks to see how good they are.
The fest will go on till January 31.
In October 2008, COEP organised Mind Spark, a mega tech event. MindSpark was associated with major names in the IT industry, corporate giants like Bosch, Microsoft, Tata Motors and other such leading names.
Some innovations were picked up by the industry. “Our management skills also get challenged during such events,” said Gantavya Sharma, a student. This year the event will be even bigger.
MIT’s robocon was also an international level event. It gave the city’s students an effective platform to display their technical skills.
After Me’lange, Bharti Vidyapeeth’s Bharatiyam is coming up in March. It will be a national level fest. It will have 24 technical events.
Pune Vidyarthi Griha’s College of Engineering (PVG) has also got an event lined up soon called Versatalia. The event will take place during January 30 and February 3.
It is again a national event which expects 9,000 participants from all across the country.
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