A cultural extravaganza thrills the ‘Oasis’ crowd at Bits Pilani’s annual cultural fest
BITS Pilani, Rajasthan, hosted their annual cultural festival Oasis 2014 from October 31 to November 4. The five-day annual festival was based upon the theme of ‘That 90s Show’. Oasis 2014 was inaugurated in the presence of Guest of Honour, Niranjan Gowswami, Padmashree awardee and renowned mime artist and Chief Guest Sriram Raghavan, a popular Film Director. Prof G Raghuram, Director, BITS Pilani campus, also addressed the students. Events like Rocktaves (a semi-professional rock music competition), Tarang, Razzmatazz, Street Dance, Stage Play, FashP and the Oasis Debate were a huge hit among the student populace. Over 80 events were organised in music, drama, oratory, art, dance and quizzing among others. Some of the other major events were Street Play, Stage Play and Mister and Miss Oasis. Singer Benny Dayal dazzled the crowd on the second-day with his popular hits and Classical musicians The Mysore Brothers Nagaraj also enthralled the students. Raghu Dixit, folk and fusion musician, performed for a packed crowd on the third day and Sunburn, the final musical professional show had a big turnout.
Ericsson Innovation awards launched at IIT
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) recently launched the Ericsson Innovation Awards in association with the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT) to recognise unique innovations among students at Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The aim of these awards is to facilitate innovative projects from engineering students and support deserving ventures all the way through to their incubation phase at IIT-approved technology business incubators. Student innovations in areas such as web design, cloud computing, storage and networking, human-machine interface, embedded and hardware system design, MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output), machine-to-machine/Internet of Things, software-defined networking, open source, signal processing, graphics and visualisation, as well as research will be supported. Ericsson has invited project proposals from IIT students in Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Mumbai, Roorkee and the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi. Chris Houghton, Head of Region India at Ericsson and Anil Wali, Managing Director, FITT were present during the launch. After a preliminary screening phase, two jury sessions will shortlist the best two innovative projects.
Over 500 PG students receive doctorates
B S Abdur Rahman University, Chennai, recently held their Fourth Convocation for postgraduate students. Over 500 students received their degrees and doctorates. John Vivian Wood, Secretary, General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities was the chief guest. He was also conferred with a doctorate in Engineering Sciences (Honoris Causa). With a Doctorate in Metallurgy, Wood began his career as a lecturer in Material Science at the Open University in United Kingdom and rose to the Office of the Dean, following which he held various important academic positions.
Neeraj Arora, WhatsApp’s Business Development VP visits Alma Mater
Neeraj Arora, Vice President of Business Development, WhatsApp, an Indian School of Business (ISB) alumnus of the Class of 2006, interacted with his juniors and peers at the ISB Hyderabad campus recently. “Indians have it in their DNA to build the next WhatsApp for the world,” he was quoted. “ISB is a great place to experience this ecosystem at home,” he added recounting his experience at the School. The biggest thing for him was the world class faculty at ISB. “So much so, when I went on to join Google, I never felt like I had to start from scratch. I fitted in naturally with those from the Ivy League,” he added. Talking about his Merger or Acquisition Negotiation experience at Google and at WhatsApp, Neeraj said, “At Google, I was able to use what I learnt in the Negotiation Analysis course at ISB.”
Over 100 students find placements through FLAG’s third edition
FLAG 2015 (FLAG is a series of graduate hiring events organised in various tier II and III cities to open up access to better job opportunities), offered by the Chennai-based company EmployabilityBridge in association CII held its third event for this year at SSM Institute of Engineering and Technology, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu. FLAG 2015 received response from over 900 students while leading companies made over 120 offers and shortlisted other eligible students for next level interviews. Companies from multiple industries including manufacturing, IT, software development, ITES and telecommunication sectors were present at the job hunt. The companies were hiring for openings in cities across India. Reliance, Saint Gobian, Mindtree, SAFE Software and Integrated Solutions and Soundarya Decorators were some of the companies that participated.
Students get a glimpse of the forthcoming NIT Tiruchy’s Pragyan Square One in Chennai
Pragyan, the international techno-managerial organisation of National Institute of Technology (NIT), Tiruchy, hosted its first outreach programme at Chennai on November 1 and 2. The two-day programme for college students was held in the premises of Sathyabama University, Chennai. Square One was inaugurated by the Chief Guest, P Sivakumar, Outstanding Scientist and Director, CVRDE, DRDO. Circuitrix, the workshop-cum-event, which happened on November 1, tested the students’ basic electronics debugging skills. There were more than 50 students from various colleges from in and around Chennai. The Pragyan Quiz regional prelim was conducted on November 2 with a maximum of three in a team and six teams were short listed for the finals. Siddharth and Vishal Katariya from IIT-Madras bagged the first prize. They will get a direct entry into the finals of the National Inter-collegiate Pragyan Quiz that will be held in NIT Tiruchy from February 26 to March 1. Students also learnt to build hovercrafts through a workshop conducted by Aero-Sapiens, a Delhi-based company that deals in aero-modelling.