Pragyan 2018 Ends At NIT Trichy

Pragyan, the ISO 9001 and 20121 certified international techno-managerial fest of NIT Trichy provides a platform for multitudes of students to showcase their technical prowess every year. Organising 40+ events sorted into different clusters, the fest covers a wide variety of technological and managerial aspects.

Pragyan has expanded beyond the four days of the fest, celebrating technology through multiple outreach events and social responsibility events conducted throughout the year. Pragyan '18 commenced on March 1, 2018 with an inauguration ceremony held at the Barn Hall.

The first guest lecture of Pragyan 2018 was by Dr Casey Handmer, a levitation engineer at Hyperloop One. He touched upon various topics in his talk including space technology, Mars habitation and the use of machine learning to predict unrest in war torn regions by tracing fluctuations in market prices. This was followed by a guest lecture by Mrs. Meher Pudumjee, the chairperson of Thermax and an expert on energy and environment.

The last guest lecture for the day was by Ajay Bhatt, the computer architect, widely known as the co-inventor of the USB. Through his presentation titled 'In Pursuit of Innovation', he elaborated on current trends and opportunities relevant to the present scenario. Day 1 concluded with an Infotainment show by the ventriloquist Shawn Chua and his puppet the Sensational Stefano.

Pragyan also organised a human library on Day 2 and Day 3 of the event. The largest human library conducted by a student-run organisation, the human library consisted of 14 books from Human Library, Hyderabad.

Day 2 of Pragyan '18 saw its only Crossfire event taking place. The topic for the Pragyan '18 Crossfire "Should we concede our privacy for greater good?" was well-received by all panellists as well as the audience.

The panellists for the session were: Reetika Khera, Associate Professor of Humanities. IIT Delhi, Anand Krishnan, Policy Maker, Data Security Council of India, Retd. Major General Sudhir Vombatkere, Cyber-law and security activist, Debabrata Nayak, Chief Technical Architect at Digilocker, and Shyam Divan, Senior Supreme Court Advocate. The discussion was moderated by Suhrith Parthasarathy, Advocate at Madras High Court.

The major highlights of Day 3 were the three guest lectures covering a diverse range of topics. The first speaker was Dr. A. S. Ramasastri. The second guest lecture of the day was by Bhargavi Nuvvula, Vice President of American Express Technology, India. The highlight of Day 3 was the guest lecture by Dr. Robert Metcalfe, the renowned electrical engineer credited as the co-founder of the Ethernet.

Pragyan 18 showed a number of astounding exhibits that held visitors in awe, including Hyperloop India, a prototype built by Indian students in accordance with the standards of Hyperloop One, InMoov, a 3-D printed life-size robot, KalamSat, the world's lightest satellite, an array of exhibits by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and Ugears, a collection of intricately crafted self-propelled mechanical models from Ukraine.

This celebration of technology ended on Mar 4, 2018 through a valediction ceremony in the Barn Hall.