History and Growth
The very first edition of Techfest was in 1998. The underlying spirit of the competitions was "Technology is fun" a motto that has been followed by every Techfest since. Techfest 98 also set the broad outlines of Techfest in the form of competitions, lectures, workshops and exhibitions which went on to become a standard feature at every Techfest. Entrepreneurship also made an appearance in the 1999 and 2000 editions. Technoholix—Techfest in the Dark showcasing technological entertainment at the end of each day as well as HUB—the centre of on the spot activities, made their debut during these years.
Techfest 2002 saw the incorporation of IIT Bombay's department based events like Yantriki, Chemsplash and Last Straw. Students from G H Raisoni College of Engineering get the Engineering Excellence Award (Bodhisattwa Ganguli, Amit Shankar Choudhary & Fahad Azad).
Techfest 2003 launched the Techfest trophy to make the competitions more interesting.
Techfest 2004 marked a big milestone in the growth of Techfest as this was the year Techfest became an International event with the introduction of Cliffhanger—The International Competition won by Indian students (Fahad Azad,Mudassir Parakh, Afaque Azad) . It also saw the introduction of the renowned robotics competition, Micromouse for the first time in India.
Techfest 2005 added challenging problem statements in the form of competitions like Survivor as well as Drishti, which was conceived with the National Association for the Blind (NAB) in order to provide aids for the visually challenged. The emphasis at Techfest 2006 was on technology and its applications rather than just engineering know—how. With this view, a section of competitions held under the name E-Rustique had problem statements that encouraged the participants to come up with solutions to existing rural problems and hence contribute to the development of modern India.
Techfest 2007 introduced an event Nexus to take robotics to the masses via workshops and subsequent competitions with easy problem statements in cities other than Mumbai.
In Techfest 2008, Nexus was conducted at 7 centers across India namely Indore, Calicut, Jaipur, New Delhi, Pune, Surat & Mumbai respectively. Techfest 2008 also returned to the trend of taking up of initiatives by the Techfest team for social and public causes through their campaign on Global Warming.
Techfest 2009 featured the iNexus taking Nexus international to Sri Lanka, UAE and Denmark, whos finalists were flown to India to compete with their counterparts from India, making Techfest the first ever student organization to go truly international.It also saw the creation of open innovation platform called Prayaas to try come up with implementable solutions to problems existing in rural India.
Techfest 2010 added a new segment to their festival called Scintillations. The segment consisted of night exhibitions and thrilling interactive shows. The exhibitions had quite a nationalistic flavor with hanger space devoted to IRSO, Indian Navy and National Disaster Management Authority.
Techfest 2011 was held from 7 January 2011 to 9 January 2011. It more entertainment events to the festival with a new section called Crossroads which featured Street Magic Shows, Stunt Shows etc. Some of the featured events at 2011 were the VirtuSphere and Laser Tag, lecture by the likes of Harold Kroto and Richard Stallman, exhibition of Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci and PR2. Techfest team also coducted an energy-saving competition among all Indian Institutes of Technology. Technoholix saw world's best Double Dutch (jump rope) crew and the Dunking Devils- an acrobatic basketball show among others.
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