Pragyan

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.org

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.

Guest Lectures

Each year the festival features lectures from several guest speakers.

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.

^[6]

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.

Panellists of Pragyan 2012 Crossfire

Panellists of Pragyan 2013 Crossfire

Workshops

Pragyan 2014 Quadcopter workshop

Workshops that test and hone the skills of the participants have been an integral part of the festival since 2007.

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 Vintage Cars by GJ Automobiles, Trichy 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

Pragyan 2013 Sangam Project

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.

Infotainment

Pragyan 2012 Infotainment Lasers show

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.

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

Catalyst, A Pragyan Social Responsibility Initiative.

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