Across country students in IIT campuses are mature enough to understand the bitterness of their faculty over their pay package, and the issue is not stopping them from keeping their academic focus and adding dynamism to campus life. Students of IIT Kharagpur, for instance are gung-ho about their upcoming techno-management fest that they claim is going to be the largest of its kind in Asia with a participation of over 30,000 from across the country and guest speakers from across the world. The prize money alone is well over INR 45 lakh, and the fest, titled Kshitij, is expecting participation from over 350 engineering, management and law schools across the country that includes IITs, IIMs and NITs, among others.
According to students, far more than winning prizes the participants are keen on winning international certifications that mean a lot to aspiring engineers and managers as they launch their careers. Among the certifications that can be picked up during the techno-management fest include those from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). Guest lectures for the event last year included those by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Donal Wales, chemistry Nobel winner Kurt Wurthrich and former ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan, and a matching global bouquet of speakers is planned for the upcoming event. The events for the fest include coding contests, case studies, B-Plan competition, mechanical events, industrial design problems, aeromodelling events and robotics, among others. Manohar said an added attraction for participants was the possibility of participating in the final rounds of some competitions at venues abroad, giving them an opportunity to match their skills against the best in the world.
