Pragyan is the annual techno-management organisation 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 the months of January, February or March. Every year, participants from a number of colleges across the country take part in the various events in Pragyan, making it one of the largest techno-management organisations in India. It is also the first student-run organisation in the world and the third overall, next only to the London Olympics and Manchester United to get an ISO 20121:2012 certification for Sustainable Event Management. It also holds the ISO 9001:2015 certification for Quality Management Systems.
Video Pragyan
History and growth
In 2005, the staff and students collaborated to create Pragyan as a technical organisation attracting innovation from across the state. Pragyan has since expanded to include teams from over 60 countries taking part in the online events. In recent years, up to 700 volunteers have worked in hosting the event.
Maps Pragyan
Events
The events in Pragyan have traditionally been broadly divided into clusters. Initially starting with eight clusters, in 2016, two more clusters were added. Pragyan 2018 will consist of the following nine clusters.
Guest Lectures Series
Each year the fest 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.
Crossfire
Crossfire is a panel discussion event held during the fest. Crossfire aims to provide a global platform for the academia, industry and government to interact with the student fraternity.
In the 2016 edition, the alumni 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.
Workshops
Since 2007, Pragyan has featured a series of workshops that have helped participants hone their skills and abilities.
Exhibitions
A number of exhibits are hosted during the fest each year. Giving exposure to students about innovations in various fronts of science and technology, these are looked forward to by the attendees.
Sangam and Ingenium
Sangam
Sangam is an exclusive intra-NITT technical contest involving the display of models and solutions developed by students from various departments. This event, which is held on all four days of Pragyan, provides a platform to students to implement their innovative ideas and earn recognition for the same from other participants, academicians, technocrats and industrialists.
Ingenium
Ingenium, previously known as Anwesh, is a technical contest exclusively for students from colleges other than NIT, Trichy. Giving students a chance to showcase their technical prowess through ideas and inventions, Ingenium strives to reignite the love for science in students.
Infotainment
Since its inception in 2008, the Infotainment event of the fest 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 fest 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, National Instruments, Larsen & Toubro and Honeywell. For 2017 edition of Pragyan, the principal sponsors were MRF Tyres, Intel Corp and National Instruments.
Pragyan Social Responsibility
In Pragyan 2012, a new wing of Pragyan, Pragyan Social Responsibility(PSR) was added. A number of initiatives are conducted by the members of this wing targeted at diverse social groups.
Veetukku Oru Vignaani
A science exhibition for projects by school students, conducted by Puthiya Thalaimurai television network was hosted and managed by Pragyan for the first time in 2016. In 2017 the exhibition achieved acclamation after a grand state level final was hosted by Pragyan at NIT Trichy. It received media coverage by Puthiya Thalaimurai with whom Pragyan collaborated to achieve this feat. Students from various schools across the state were invited to attend, participate and exhibit their models and ideas.
Dhisai
The event 'Dhisai' aimed at educating the school students of Tamil Nadu about the Joint Entrance Examinations (JEE) was first introduced in 2015. Since then every year as a part of Dhisai a mock JEE exam has been conducted annually for the students of class 12 to create an awareness about the JEE Examination. In 2016 information booklets were distributed across schools in all districts of Tamil Nadu and online portals were made available in Tamil, Hindi and English to benefit eager students.A mock JEE examination was conducted for 12th grade students throughout Tamil Nadu to provide them with real time experience in a competitive scenario. During 2017 Dhisai, the JEE awareness campaign saw a new turn of events as it was conducted this year with help from Tamil Nadu government. A mock JEE test was conducted in six centers across Tamil Nadu.
2018
A disaster management program Raksha was conducted, in which safety procedures, drills and training was given to school students. Members of the PSR team actively participated in teaching the necessity of safety and awareness. As a part of Uyarum, Pragyan celebrated world environment day on June 5 by distributing seed packets, saplings and flyers. To mark the Literacy day on 8.09.2017 Karaka Kasadara - a program aimed at providing literacy for all was conducted. Pragyan's social responsibility wing visited schools in and around the locality, collecting books for 'Karka Kasadara'. The final stage of Karka Kasadara was conducted at Hope Foundation Worldwide Orphanage and Anbagam Nalivutra Manavar Manaviyar Vidudhi. The collected books were donated to the orphanage along with a kit containing notebooks, pens and pencils.
2017
As NIT Trichy's contribution to Rashtriya Aavishkar Abhiyan, PSR invited school children in the neighbourhood to witness and take part in Pragyan 2017.Under the Catalyst initiative, science experiments were demonstrated to students of two neighbouring schools. Pragyan Pizza Project was a pet project of PSR; customers at Domino's Pizza, Trichy were gifted saplings which could be planted in their surroundings. A fire safety awareness campaign was conducted with help from personnel from Tamil Nadu Fire Rescue Services. A Campus Initiative Week was celebrated in which volunteers of the team took many steps to improve life in the campus. An awareness campaign against the use of high-beam headlights was also conducted.
2016
The Vigilance Awareness Week at NIT Trichy saw Mr. Senthamarai Kanna, Deputy Inspector General Of Police, Trichy range and Mr.M G Devasahayam, retired IAS officer sharing their views on corruption. Under the banner of Catalyst, aimed at enhancing education through technology, workshops were conducted and computer application software were taught to school students. A disaster management awareness program, Raksha was conducted, to prepare school students for facing natural and man-made disasters. A traffic and road safety awareness campaign was held. The significance of wearing helmets and seat belts was explained through the distribution of cards.
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 1 November 2014.
As a year-round project, PSR in association with LEAP (the environment 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. 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 were then used for activities such as making note books and helping Self Help Groups by teaching them to make paper products. Talks on Career Counselling and Cybercrime were conducted by professionals.
2014
PSR in association with The Third Dimension, the Aero-modeling Club of the NIT 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. 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. A total of around Rs. 95000 was collected from various sources namely, Rs.73000 online and Rs.22000 in-person from interested contributors.
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.
2018
Pragyan Square one was conducted in SKCET, Coimbatore on 7 and 8 October 2017 as well as in Thiagarajar College of Engineering on 9 and 10 September 2017. While the Coimbatore edition featured a 3D printing and a smart grid automation workshop, the edition held in Madurai focused on robot building and automobile architecture. Also events and competitions offering a grand combined prize pool of INR 50,000 were held.
2017
For the first time ever, Pragyan Square One was conducted in two cities- chennai and Kochi. A workshop on Ethical Hacking was conducted at CUSAT, Kochi and workshop on robotics and embedded technology was conducted at SRM University, Kattankulathur Chennai simultaneously on 4 and 5 February 2017. Students were invited to take part in the regional rounds of events like Circuitrix, The Ultimate Manager, Hunt the Code and Pragyan Quiz. The top teams of each event were invited to take part in the national finals which were to be conducted during Pragyan 2017 at NIT Trichy.
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 1 and 2 November 2014. 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 20 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 INR90,000.
Previous Editions of Pragyan
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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