News report: 31 August, 2018 – 16 September, 2018
Startup Weekend Trichy
Startup Weekend Trichy was organized by the Entrepreneurship Cell of NIT Trichy. The event spanned over three days from 31st of August to 2nd September, 2018. Startup weekends are 54-hour weekend events that happen all over the globe at different cities, during which groups of enthusiasts pitch ideas for new startup companies, form teams, and work to develop a working prototype, demo by that Sunday evening.
The event began with the teams pitching their ideas, and then they worked towards optimizing, improving their products. An elite panel of mentors were present including Atul Manohar (Director of User Experience of Informatica), Saurabh Pareek (Senior Product Manager of Paypal), Shubham Badal (Co-founder of CybrHome) and Purnank Prakash (Co-founder at Tacnik and EsportsVilla). A video chat with the startup weekend event happening parallely at New Zealand was also arranged. At the end of the day, the aim was to figure out a precise business model and to develop a prototype.
On the final day, the judges and Dr. Samson Mathew, the Dean of Student Welfare graced the occasion. Some of the well received ideas included a clothing line to help college students who missed out on receiving t-shirts from college festivals, and a travel guide with an automated and integrated augmented reality.
Shubham Khetan, founder of Simplicity delivered a short inspiring talk by sharing his wonderful entrepreneurial journey. Dr. Samson Mathew then discussed expanding the pitched business model with the help of the Alumni Interaction Cell of NITT. The judges stated that they were impressed by the young minds of NIT Trichy, especially the pitches by the first years. The event ended with the felicitation and distribution of certificates.
Menstrual Hygiene Awareness Program
A menstrual hygiene awareness program was conducted on 4th September, 2018 at EEE Audi. The talk was delivered by Dr. Amanidevi, a practicing gynecologist since 1990.
The guest spoke about general health care and how balanced diet focussing on bone development is vital for teenage girls. She also stressed on the importance of physical exercise in to keeping obesity at bay. She also insisted on having natural iron supplement like dates and fig everyday to prevent anemia.
Moving on to reproductive health, she spoke about the vaccines to be taken by the age of thirteen to prevent certain cancer causing viruses like HPV, hepatitis, shedding light on something most students were unaware of.
The doctor focussed a lot on menstrual hygiene. She explained how conventional sanitary napkins are made of newspaper, corn, cotton and vegetables mixed into a pulp and dechlorinated. A byproduct of dechlorination is dioxin, a cancer causing toxin. She further explained that dioxin can be slowly absorbed by our skin easily. This is in contrast to before when women used pure cotton cloth which could be reused, which are much healthier. However, with advent of the commercial ones and urban lifestyle, cloth pads aren’t as feasible.
She then introduced the audience to a menstrual cup, an eco-friendly alternative to pads, is made of medically graded silicone can hold up to 12 mL of blood. The cup is very flexible and can be reused after 3-4 hours after sterilizing. A cup can last upto five years. Hence, a woman will be using only four menstrual cups in her lifetime which is a very small number as opposed to the amount of tampons or pads generated. Currently, Intimus produces these cups in stores in India. They are also available on Amazon. The session was very informative on the whole and awareness about menstrual hygiene was effectively communicated.
Sportsfete’ 18-19
Sportsfete the annual inter-department of NIT Trichy happened during the first week of September 2018. It began with the tradition of a marathon for men and women of 5th September. Dr. Mini Shaji, the Director also took part in the marathon.
The team and individual sports started on Friday, 7th September 2018. Most preliminary group stage and knockout matches happened over the first two days. Post marathon and swimming, the points table kicked off. The next day witnessed semi-finals of various sports. It all amalgamated to the final day – Monday – when all crucial deciding – finals and third place matches happened.
The fest ended with an intense basketball finals between CSE and ECE, which was spectated by Dr. Samson Matthew, Dean of Student Welfare, Dr. Jerome, Associate Dean of Student Welfare, M. Rajendra Kumar, the Physical Director and Dr. Mini Shaji. The valediction ceremony followed immediately where individual trophies were given out category wise. The shields for the second runners up, first runners up were given to the Architecture and Production Engineering departments respectively. Finally, the well deserved winners of Sportsfete’ 18-19 – the Mechanical Engineering – “Machos”, were awarded followed by a victory lap. The Chairman of Sportsfete, Lalit Kumar concluded the evening with a vote of thanks.
Festember’ 18
Festember the cultural festival of NIT trichy occurred from 13th to 16th September. It attracted a participation of around 5000, from around 150 colleges around South India. Tamil actress Nithya Menon, classical singer Aruna Sairam, bestselling Indian novelist Ashwin Sanghi, playback singer Karthik, Tamil director P Vasu, were among the guest lecturers to grace this Festember. While the rain played havoc initially, the organisers managed to get the Fest running smoothly in very little time. More than sixty events were held in the fields of music, arts, fashion and theatre. The overall trophy was won by Sastra. The fest ended on a high note with singer Shakti Sri Gopalan gracing the valediction ceremony, and an energetic performance by Bollywood playback singer – Sunidhi Chauhan.
Photo courtesy of Pixelbug, NIT Trichy.
Report by Kumaraguruparan Ramadoss, Swedha Sankaranarayanan.
