Press Release
Come January 2008, and IIT Bombay shall be a hub for all the aspiring technocrats of the nation. The eleventh edition of Techfest which is the Annual International Science and Technology Festival of IIT Bombay promises to be bigger and better than ever. Having established itself as the largest science and technology festival in Asia, last year Techfest saw a footfall of nearly 30,000 students from all over the country.
Competitions at Techfest 2008 have been divided into four broad groups namely: Analogic, Xtreme Machines, Life 2.0 and Innovision. Competitions in Analogic cater to the Computer Science and Electronics departments whereas popular robotics comes under Xtreme Machines. Life 2.0 is a unique category of competitions introduced this year, which focuses at delivering a “better life” for the generations to come and live in harmony with the environment by using our knowledge of science. Innovision as the name suggests provides a platform to students to come up with their own ideas. In this section students are free to submit their original and creative entries from any discipline of engineering. Competitions in this section include Open Software, Open Hardware, Open Design and the best of them all Golden Challenges. Golden Challenges include engineering marvels like prosthetic arms and ornithopters.
Techfest has taken up an initiative called “Save our Planet” to create awareness about global warming via a series of events. Climate change is a result of mankind’s greed and is one of the major problems being faced by the present generation. The prominent events of this section are two competitions namely SolEx and Eco House, an exhibition on R&D in the field of climate change and a lecture by Dr R. K. Pachauri (Chairman, IPCC which was jointly awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize). SolEx is concerned with creative and effective ways of harnessing the abundant energy of the Sun whereas in Eco House, participants would have to design an energy efficient building.
Techfest is not just about competitions; it has a lot more to offer in the form of workshops, exhibitions and lecture series. Workshops serve the purpose of acquainting the students with cutting-edge technology and providing them with hands-on experience. This year there will be workshops on Digital Film Making, Aero-modeling, Web Applications Security and Analog Robotics. Lecture series provides an opportunity to interact with eminent personalities from various fields of science and technology. Apart from Dr Pachauri, other prominent personalities include Jimmy Wales (Founder, Wikipedia), Prof. Schaefer (University of Georgia) and Dr Dinesh Keskar (Senior Vice President, Boeing Corporation). Another highlight of Techfest 2008 is a Panel Discussion on “Open Source Software” where many greats of the software industry including John Hall (Executive Director, Linux International) and Brian Behlendorf (Developer, Apache Web Server) will be discussing multiple aspects associated with the Open Source movement.
Apart from all these events Techfest has a lot more to offer in the form of various on the spot competitions, exhibitions and technology based entertainment shows. Deadlines for registrations of various competitions and workshops are approaching soon. For details regarding the competitions and the registration process please visit www.techfest.org
