“Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology” , said John Tudor. Nevertheless this has proved to be true always over the past and will be in the future. Technology is so much fun, but the probability of drowning in it is high. Amrita was not an exception. The feel of this craze crept into the students of Amrita and led to the launch of the Microsoft campus club in Amrita school of Engineering, Coimbatore on 26th March 2008 as TECH{KNOW}LOGY club. The club was initiated by the Microsoft Student Partners and has 500 members. It is hoped that the students would benefit immensely viz. understand and learn the importance of teamwork, team spirit and have fun doing projects. They would have the access to the MSDNAA – Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance, the Microsoft official portal for downloading and learning more on Microsoft technologies. The MSDNAA was established along with the launch of the club, in 2008.
The major objectives of the club are:
- Create a technical awareness among students; Improve the quality of students through learning.
- Make them capable individuals ready to explore beyond the horizon.
- Instill in them an inquisitive learning nature.
Since its inception, the club has conducted many technical events on emerging technologies, such as sessions on Microsoft Visual studio 2008, Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Robotic studio etc conducted by the club had over 60 student attendees.
Gitlab CE instance
t{know} has setup a Gitlab CE instance on Amrita’s own domain for improving code sharing and collaborative software development among Amrita students. It is live (since 24th April, 2017) and available on git.amritanet.edu. The installation, configuration and setup processes were done by t{know} club members led by Ananya Bahadur of 2013-2017 batch B.Tech CSE and Sachin Kamath of 2014-2018 batch B.Tech CSE.
MIT AppInventor 2, Learnathon & Hackathon
The event was conducted by The AI2 Team. The session started with the speech by Mr. Prashant, an Android App Developer, entrepreneur and an Alumnus of Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru. He discussed the importance of Apps in Today’s world.
The event was then conducted by Sangeeth Raaj, a student of CSE. The platform of App Inventor was introduced and a few basic apps and their codes were discussed in detail. The session discussed the User Interface options provided by AppInventor. A number of Apps were built. A simple HelloWorld app, an improved Hello World App, interface of a calculator, webpage viewer is a few of these. The session went on for 2 hours and finally concluded by 7 pm. The turn up was around 86+.
The session started at 5 pm with a short recap of the previous day’s discussions were briefly touched. Then sensors and their usage were dealt in detail with a few example apps. Mini competition was conducted testing the participants on the topics covered. They were expected to showcase their skills and build an app as a practise for the upcoming hackathon. Magic app using Accelerometer was built for the purpose by a student. It was improvised later. Chocolates were given out as a sign of encouragement and appreciation. Then databases (Firebases) and File Storage were covered. A model of a chat app was discussed. The students were given instructions regarding the Hackathon. The session concluded by 7:30 pm. The turn-up was around 75.
The session started at 8:30 pm. 30 Teams turned up which amounts to 70 students. The participants were briefed regarding the rules and regulations of the event. They were given ample time to solidify their ideas and come up with a game plan. As the event progressed by 10 pm. each team were called on the dais to explain their app ideas. The mood was lightened up by pep talks from the Organisers. Refreshments were distributed to keep them going. The event went on until 5 am in the morning. Final Evaluation began at 5 am. The teams were analysed based on the completeness, usefulness and complexity of their apps. Final winners were announced by 6 am. Certificates of appreciation was given out to participants and Organisers. The events of 3 days were overseen by Mrs. Sini Raj Pullari and Mr. Dayanand V of CSE Department.
Kickstarter Event
An event was held by tech{know}logy club on October 18, 2016, Tuesday, titled “t{know} kickstarter event” where we had participation of over 100 students. As for the event, it started off with Sachin S. Kamath introducing them to the world of Linux and Git. It was an interactive session and was followed up by a round of questioning. Siva Rama Krishna was next, and went on talking about Security and CTF. He defined the term “Hacking” and gave a birds-eye overview of Security.
Next came Sathya Swarupan who talked about the importance of the three main web development languages(HTML, CSS and JAVASCRIPT). He showed an example website that he had made, showcasing how these three languages go hand in hand. Kogul Karna took over, and talked about backend languages mainly, PHP, he went on to talk about the libraries that people use most commonly to achieve a solid backend. Next up was Aakash Krishna, who talked about the importance of Java, he talked about its applications and went on to talk about webscraping. In webscraping showed an example program he had made that downloads from youtube and converts in to mp3. Afterwards, Sourav Johar continued on from webscraping, he talked about how it can be done in python, he went on to show how python is a very effective programming languages and he went on to show a few examples in Python. We also gave away a lot of GitHub stickers and a T-shirt was given to the person who won the “Draw an Octocat” contest.
We also conducted a short CTF event, the participants were very eager to find the flags. We rewarded the first person to find all the hidden flags with a snickers bar. We wrapped up the event by asking the participants to fill out a feedback form. We have received 27 feedbacks so far, and it appears that python, web scraping, CTF and Java were the most interesting, and they would like future events to be based on them. Overall, all the people who participated had a fun time, and are definitely willing to come to another event.
Club Induction 2016
A Club Induction program was held on August 16, 2016. All first year students belonging to CSE, ECE, EEE attended the programme.
- It started with an address by Asst. Prof. Dayanand V., Club Mentor
- A talk on “Trends in open source: collaboration” had been delivered by Shiny Kumaresan
- Ananya Bahadur gave an inspiring talk on how one becomes awesome, and that investing time in club activities is the best thing people can do
- Niranjan R.. described and demoed a few of his cool projects (WhatsApp chatbot and the Amrita InfoDesk App)
- General tech quiz was presented by Arvind Srinivas and Sabhariesh H. Firefox goodies and swag was given as prizes (thanks to Premm K. Shenoy, Mozilla Firefox Ambassador)
- Sachin Kamath revealed what opportunities lie in FOSS, namely GSoC and GNOME Outreach and how participation in such programs helps in one’s career
- An enthralling musical performance was rendered by Ragasudha Club members
Competitive Coding Primer II
Introductory Session for First and Second Years September 22, 2015 Tuesday @ Computer Lab 1, Main Block. The second session, by Aakash, Bernett and Aravind, introduced the concept of Dynamic Programming. Some intriguing problems were discussed and we were very happy that so many juniors enjoyed Competitive Coding. Around 35 first year and 13 second year students attended the event. The team had a long chat with Second year ICPC teams after the event.
SFD Hackathon
Mini Hackathon for First Years (September 19- 20, 2015). On the occasion of Software Freedoom Day, we wanted participants to experience as much free software as possible and realize its power. So we hosted a (first ever) Hackathon. First year students attended the same.
Icebreaker Session
Sarup Banskota Alumnus of B. Tech. CSE gave an inspiring talk to juniors on how to find and realize goals and make the best out of the four years at college, from a CSE guy’s perspective on September 10, 2015, at Seminar Hall, CSE Block.
Competitive Coding Primer I
Introductory Session for First Years September 08, 2015 Tuesday. This event witnessed overwhelming participation with 50+ first year students and around 15 second year students.
Club Induction
First year B.Tech students from various departments majorly CSE, ECE, EEE were attendees of the program on August 11, 2015 Tuesday. Dr. Vidhya B delivered a speech. Senior students of B.Tech CSE delivered talks on various topics like An introduction to FOSS, problem solving, perception of power, everyday hacks, Cyber Security, stuxNet virus, competitions, Competitive Coding, its importance, benefits and performed a live crack using SSH.
Amrita Tech{know}logy Club- Odd Semester (July-December 2013)
The odd semester of the academic year 2013- 14 was an eventful one for the club. We conducted 4 events, including the induction ceremony for the freshers.
Google Summer of Code meetup
- Organisers: Madhusudhan, Sarup Banskota, Aravind Subramanian, Romil Kumar Vasani, Vundemodalu Manjush, Archit Khullar
- Total no. of participants: 50
- Date and Time: November 9, 2013. 9 AM-1 PM
- Agenda: The agenda of the event was to introduce the students to “Google Summer of Code” and give the students a rough idea as to how are they supposed to apply to GSoC and how to contribute to open source projects in general. The participants were taught how to use Github and version control by helping them set it up on their laptops and they were given an idea of the terminologies involved and a hands-on experience. The students were taught general IRC and mailing-list etiquettes and were encouraged to follow the etiquettes strongly.
- Venue: Seminar Hall, Academic Block- 3
Induction Ceremony
- Organisers: Madhusudhan, Sarup Banskota, Aravind Subramanian, Romil Kumar Vasani, Vundemodalu Manjush, Raghav Seshadri, Neeraj Rajesh
- Total no. of participants: 300
- Date and Time: October 24, 2013. 4.30 PM-6 PM
- Agenda: The audience comprised of first and second years. This was a ceremony to induct the freshers and second years into the club (the second years didn’t have the induction in their first year). The guest speaker for the event was Prof. V.Adinarayanan. He delivered a talk on how the club can help people network and get people to collaborate and work on projects. He also stressed the importance of coding and how it can help people’s careers. He also talked a bit about FOSS. The students were given an insight into how the club works and what goes on at the club. The students got acquainted with their seniors who run the club (us third years). Sarup and Aravind talked about contribution to open source projects. In the end, we had a panel discussion on the topic “Open Source Software in Education”. The panel consisted of the organisers. The event came to a close with some networking and new made contacts for the freshers.
- Venue: Amriteshwari Hall
Software Freedom Day
Software Freedom Day is celebrated every year on the third Saturday of September all over the world.
- Organisers: Madhusudhan, Sarup Banskota, Aravind Subramanian, Romil Kumar Vasani, Abhishek Ahuja, Manjush V.
- Total no. of participants: 50
- Date and Time: September 21, 2013. 9 AM-3 PM
- Agenda:The audience comprised of first, second and third years. The agenda of the event was to spread awareness about free software and users’ freedom as peoples’ privacy and human rights are highly relevant subjects in the world today. The aim was to speak about the philosophy of free software and give the participants a tour of GNU/Linux based operating systems. Interested participants were also assisted in installing GNIU/Linux based operating systems of their choice on their computers.
- Venue: IT Lab 3
Programming in Python
- Organisers: Madhusudhan, Sarup Banskota, Aravind Subramanian, Raghav Seshadri
- Total no. of participants: 90-100
- Agenda:The audience comprised of second years and they were taught Python programming from scratch. They were taught about the language’s syntax, keywords, data structures, functions, files, OOP,etc.
- Venue: IT Lab 2 and IT Lab 5
Events conducted by Microsoft Club
- Aadharsh Kannan of (2007-11) batch attended a Seminar on “Windows Azure” organized by Microsoft Corporation, Hyderabad held on 1st May 2010.
- Chitra Paavai, Nivetha.c, Shanmuga Priya.s got certification in Android Development Network Simulation from Vellore Institute Of Technology on December 8-9, 2011
- Subash Reddy got certification in Microsoft Exam (.net) on January 22, 2012
- Microsoft Technical Associate Training and Certification programme was conducted in the year 2012 and the corresponding exam was conducted on 21st and 22nd January 2012.
- Microsoft Technical Associate Level Certification exam was conducted in the campus by Microsoft on January 22, 2012. 320 students had registered for the exam in various streams like .Net Fundamentals, Database Administration Fundamentals and Networking Fundamentals. The Microsoft Student Partners and the Faculty members of the Computer Science Department trained the students along with the trainers from EduKinect, Hyderabad. The training period was from January 19-21, 2012. 280 students passed out of 320 registered, which was the highest pass percentage among the universities who conducted the exams in the last two years.
- Events like Ethical Hacking, Technical Quiz and Photoshop were conducted 19-04-12 during Induction Programme.
- Events were organized as part of Teacher’s day celebrations on 5th October 2012.
- The executive club conducted a technical quiz and a hacking contest on November 9-10, 2012 with over 200 students participating in it.
- Mrinal Purohit Y won best app prize by Microsoft and also won best project demonstration award at Aicwic. He is the Kurukshetra Student Ambassador and Yappon Student Leader.
- National wide “Appfest 2013” on 26th February 2013 on behalf of Tech{know}logy club as per request from Microsoft corporation, India.
- Microsoft TechEd 2013 was coordinated by the Microsoft Student partners with the Coimbatore user group which was held in LeMeridien, Coimbatore on Febrauary 2013.
- Mukesh Shankar G D, Ieee Linux Workshop and Microsoft Techvista -2013, Certificate.