Techfest-2015 On 02 nd January

Event Details

Born in 1998 with the motto of promoting technology, scientific thinking and innovation, Techfest has surpassed 17 golden years of creating an unmatched aura of a science and technology spectacle year after year at the campus of IIT Bombay at Powai, Mumbai. Today it is well established as Asia's Largest Science and Technology festival, with more than 135,000 people in attendance and a reach of over 2,500 colleges across India and over 500 overseas in its most recent edition.
In its endeavour to provide an international platform to the youth to showcase their talents and skill sets in fierce competitions, display cutting edge technology and research from all over the globe, have world renowned personalities motivate the youth and promote solutions to alleviate the common man of his banal yet significant problems, Techfest strives for one and all to get inspired and look up to.

Techfest this edition is scheduled from 2nd to 4th January, 2015.

Recognizing the efforts put by Techfest each year in giving its best for the betterment of society through unique and innovative campaigns, UNESCO granted Techfest its patronage (highest form of recognition from UNESCO to any non-profit organisation) for the fifth consecutive year. UNICEF too granted patronage to Techfest for second consecutive year.
Due to Techfest’s campaigns in previous editions like Techfest Green Campus Challenge, Reform’n’ation and Techfest International Students Conference on Renewable Sources this edition CEE (Centre for Environment Education) and SAYEN (South Asia Youth Environment Network) had too granted patronage to Techfest 2015.

Techfest – The most liked College Festival on Facebook
In the era of Social Networking, Techfest has added another feather to its cap by being the most liked College Festival with more than 200,000 fans on Facebook. The page is administered solely by Creative & Publicity team of Techfest led by Pranjal Chokhani. The creative on page and website are all the innovation of the Creative Team of Techfest. The festival has succeeded in achieving the mark without association with any kind of PR agency.
The main reason for the increase in the likes of the Facebook Page are assumed to be the professional level of creatives and the connectivity of the same with both the General as well as Targeted Audience: Youth. Also, the campaigns by Team Techfest via Facebook Pages have contributed a lot to the huge Fan-Following of the festival.

Events in Mumbai :
Women Safety Campaign - ROAR:
Techfest, in association with NGO Laadli, Clean & Clear and Swipe Telecom, has launched a nation-wide competition for the youth to use their rational and freedom to help in increasing women empowerment. Registered teams have to implement and conduct various activities among the following 4 tasks for incentives like Prize Money worth INR 2 Lakhs:
1. Create a platform: Participants are asked to create a platform for girls to talk to each other and encourage them to showcase their talents and be themselves. This can be within a friends circle or a community of girls across India. The platform may involve a digital or technology solution.
2. Most Innovative Campaign: Teams are expected to conduct a campaign which will encourage them to break free from the shackles of the society, voice their opinion and showcase their hidden talent in any field.
3. Video Making: Teams are required to make a 100 seconds video on "Voices-Men Speak on Gender Violence" Highlight of this task is that there should be no female onscreen presence in the video but they can give inputs in the video making in other forms. Men should come on their own and aware people about this serious issue.
4. Logo Designing: Participants will design a logo on theme "Empowered Women" to be used at nationwide scale. The selected logo will be presented at "The 2nd MenEngage Global Symposium 2014 - Men and Boys for Gender Justice" to be held in New Delhi, India, from 10-13 November.
The deadline for the submission of the reports is 25th October, 2014 at [email protected]. Top 20 teams will be displayed on the website and their final results will be declared during the festival. There will also be presentation of the work in Panel Discussion among eminent personalities during Techfest 2015.
Website for the Campaign: http://techfest.org/roar

Techfest International Student Conference:
Techfest in its 18th edition will hold an International Student Conference inviting Research Papers on the topic of Renewable Energy Systems. The Chief Advisors for the committee include Prof. Rangan Banerjee, Ex-Dean of Research and Development at IIT Bombay. Other professors from IIT Bombay and professors from top research institutes like Princeton University, Brown University, etc. are also a part of the advisory board to guide the students.
Unlike other conferences where professors’ work is preferred over theirs, students will be asked to first share an abstract no later than 5th September, 2014 and the shortlisted candidates will be asked to submit their drafts of research paper, few of which will be invited to Techfest from 2nd to 4th January, 2015 to present their papers in front of the Review Board.
MoneyBall:
Techfest launches a Sports Analytics competition this year where participants will analyse the given data for Cricket (The 23rd Yard) and Football (Striker) and predict the ranking of players, result of a proposed match and other on the basis of a few factors picked up from the data in quantities estimated. The data will include factors like total runs scored, average run rate, home ground, pitch performance, etc. The competition is supposed to challenge the judgement of participants in the field of their favourite sports and provides an excellent opportunity to establish themselves as the real Sports Guru.
Smart City Challenge

On the lines of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to build new 100 Smart Cities in India, Techfest, IIT Bombay provides all an excellent opportunity to contribute to making their city a Smart City. Smart City Challenge is a unique initiative to engage the youth of the country in the development of their city and prosperity of its citizens.

It aims at providing a strong sharing platform and offers a unique opportunity to get involved in the development of smart cities to exchange ideas and foster the new integrated approaches in India. It has been designed with a vision to involve Indian community in developing smart cities which are ecologically friendly, technologically integrated and meticulously planned with a particular reliance on the use of information technology to improve efficiency.

Techfest has associated with many Government Organisations like Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO) and Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC). The ideas presented by the participants shall be considered for implementation in the development of new smart cities along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMICDC), a Govt. of India undertaking.

It is basically aiming for participants to come with new ideas on following areas, with existing circumstances to optimize resource utilization.
Infrastructure: Creating innovative and smart solutions for the development of infrastructure responsive to our daily needs
Healthcare & Hygiene: Finding innovative and serious solutions to curb the problem of inefficient healthcare and unplanned waste disposal
Trade and Commerce: Creating opportunities for improving quality of life without increasing resource use and environmental problems
Law and Policy Making: Examining regulatory landscape for disruptive advances in urban governance arising from innovative technology
Urban Aesthetics: Making your cities aesthetically pleasing and interesting place to live in

The students would be mentored by a highly qualified panel of over 50 members, including
N. K. Sudhansu, I.A.S
Alex Paul Menon, I.A.S.
N. Nawin Sona, I.A.S.
Surpreet Singh Gulati, I.A.S.
Jayesh Ranjan, I.A.S.
Anand Singh Bhal : Economic Adviser, Ministry of Urban Development, Govt. of India
S.K.Jain: Dy. Director General, Ministry of Communications and IT, Govt. of India
Prem Narayan: Director (JnNURM), Ministry of Urban Development, Govt. of India
U. K. Sadhav: Additional Director, Urban Administration & Development, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh

Apart from the above mentioned personalities, there are more Government officers, professors from IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IISC Bangalore and other institutions and many corporates as well to guide the students throughout the competition.


One problem statement for each genre as mentioned above is present on the website. Registrations are open at techfest.org/smartcity/register and the deadline for registrations has been extended till 24th September, 2014. Participants are supposed to form a team of 2, choose a genre and solve the respective Problem Statement. All participants are allowed to choose any number of genres. The competition is open not only for Under graduate and post graduate students but also for all professionals. The Prize Money for the Competition is INR 5 Lakhs.

More details available at techfest.org/smartcity


Ideate
While all agree that an idea can change one’s life, it is time we realize that any idea that can't be implemented isn’t worth a penny. While there’s an urge for development everywhere, there’s a thirst for ideas that should spark the revolution. One of the flagships events of Techfest is Ideate with prize money of 2.25 lakhs. It has become one of the most important and popular competitions of Techfest.
Following are the 3 genres of Ideate:
1. Parishram: It is born out of the vision of bringing about a change in the lives of farmers by identifying the prevalent problems and finding concrete solutions. Participants are invited to come up with innovative and cost-efficient solutions to reduce the dependency of farmers on rain for agriculture and alternate models for energy consumption that are cost effective and suitable for low income farmers.
2. Ujjwal: It is the platform through which Techfest aims to generate environment-friendly solutions to take care of fragility of the Earth and foster sustainable living. Techfest invites people to ideate and come up with modifications in the existing devices to make them more eco-friendly and energy efficient or create new technologies altogether that reduce the environmental impact.
3. Game Changer: In this unique competition, Techfest provides a platform as an opportunity to combine passion in sport with ideas and perhaps revolutionize the vast world of sport. Techfest here invites ideas from people on how the application of technology to sports, clothing and equipment can create an impact on the performances in sports.
For registration and more details, please visit http://www.techfest.org/ideate
Technocalypse:
Competitions have invariably been the major attraction of Techfest with over 30,000 students participating last year and have constantly been a source of learning and experience for the students of not only the Indian sub-continent but also for the students from various parts all across the world with incentives of cash prizes worth Rs. 30 lakhs.
Techfest extends its platform for the holistic development of the students in all the fields of technology through a complete concoction of mechanical, grid and coding challenges in the form of the most exciting competition of bots – Technocalypse. It will test the 3 basics in technology of any bot in each element of the competition:
Line Following: VORTEX
Mechanical: MECHATRON
Programming: CODEBLITZ
Each element requires the team to excel the genre of manufacturing of bot exhibiting unique method of application of seem-to-be-simple physics laws.
The event consists of 2 levels: Qualifiers and Finals.
Technocalypse Qualifiers are held as a preliminary level competition in five zonal centres spanning throughout the country’s length and breadth: Hyderabad, Jaipur, Indore, Bhubaneswar and Mumbai.
All participating teams have to win in the qualifiers to proceed for the finals. The top three winners in each of the three genres from every centre are selected to compete against the best in the country in the Technocalypse Finale to be held at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay during Techfest 2015.
The winning teams from the zonal centres shall receive cash-prizes summing up to INR 1.68 lakhs at the event finale at IIT Bombay and certificates of excellence from Techfest, IIT Bombay.
For registration and more details, please visit http://www.techfest.org/technocalypse
ASK - the RTI Awareness Campaign:
The Campaign is a national outreach program where Techfest will reach out to more than 50 colleges in 14 cities throughout the nation. The 2 day campaign at Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Pune will constitute a workshop on online and offline filling of an RTI by Vijay Kumbhar Sir from Surajya Sangharsh Samiti. The workshop will be held on 4th September, 2015 from 12 PM to 2 PM. The workshop then will be followed by an event where through following easy steps, a student will learn how easy it is to fill an RTI application. Techfest has also collaborated with NCPRI (National Campaign for People’s Right to Information) and All India Marwari Yuva Manch who also support the campaign.
All the people are cordially invited to attend the workshops.
Launch of the Campaign:
On the line of its Anti-Smoking Campaign ISMOKE last year, Techfest this edition launched an RTI Awareness Campaign by the name of ASK (Anxious? Seek Know) aiming to make government more accountable to the citizens. The Campaign was launched at FC Kohli Auditorium in IIT Bombay on 15th August, 2014. Logo and name was revealed by Mr. Shailesh Gandhi (Former Information Commissioner with Central Information Commission) and Mr. Bhaskar Prabhu (Convenor of NCPRI), while the website was launched by actress Prachi Desai. The campaign has also the support of Nikhil Dey, Anjali Bhardwaj, Venkatesh Nayak and Subhash Agarwal.
Shailesh Gandhi described how simple and regular it is to file an RTI. He cleared the misconceptions and shared some success stories of RTI filing. Bhaskar Prabhu, convenor of NCPRI sir too hoped that through this initiative by Techfest, youth may indulge more actively in social issues. Prachi Desai shared the experience of her last year’s support of ISMOKE and was pleased to be the part of Techfest’s Initiatives once again.