TedXTrichy and my day at NITT

It is a great feeling to be back to where you belonged! NIT Trichy, the place where I learnt a lot more than Electrical and Electronics Engineering, never feels less than home, and one day would never be enough to meet all the friends I have there! Yet I went on this Sunday for TedXTrichy, completely knowing that.

TedXTrichy had to be attended for two major reasons. First being that Duck, Kushal and GK would be coming and it would be nice to catch up with them in the background of NIT Trichy, and secondly there is a great sense of parental-like-pride in seeing the generation next take over our places in the college lineage. And this is one reason why Festember, Pragyan, Ventura, Currents etc in the next two three years at least will be looked forward to. And I must say it was a thrilling experience to witness TedXTrichy, and the juniors who organized it have made us very proud with the spectacular time keeping and stage setting organizing abilities!

The first seed for TedXTrichy was sown when Kiruba Shankar visited Currents’10 (Thanks to Tinu Cherian for suggesting him as speaker to me on Twitter) as guest speaker. His lecture was a true inspiration for the students of the college (their twitter n linked in presence has increased exponentially since then) and every suggestion he gave was an opportunity for the receptive brains there. Entrepreneurship Cell of NITT expressed interest in conducting TedX as a part of their annual calendar events in 2010, and thus began the journey that saw its first check point last weekend.

The best thing I like about TedXTrichy is the amazing lineup of speakers and the diversity in the list! We got to hear from experts about Psychology and motor racing on one end to entrepreneurship and technology at the other, and a spectacular stand up comedy performance to top it all!

The set of morning lectures included Subramaniam Vincent, R.M.P Jawahar, John Louis and Anshu Gupta. I could not make it Subbu’s lecture. Jauhar, a very popular person among the NITTians heads Tiruchirappali Regional Engineering College Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Park (TREC-STEP) that has been the backbone of support of E-Cell of NITT’s activities for the last few years. He spoke on the opportunities and challenges facing an entrepreneurial journey, a topic that he has dealt with for over the last so many years. John Louis, the grandmaster of memory mesmerized the packed audience of EEE Audi with his ability to remember numbers so well. He stressed on the importance of listener’s reception in retention and recalling of information told to him/her. He also enthralled the audience like me who could hardly solve the daily sudoku puzzle in the newspaper, with a video showing his son Bernett Orlando solving a 5x5x5 Rubik’s cube blindfolded in record time! Anshu Gupta who spoke the last brought the crowd from this super excited state to ground, by baring the unspoken realities in the life of an average Indian and opening our eyes to the need to address these issues before staking claim as a global superpower! I must say that his was the lecture that moved me the most and some of the subjects he covered, although taboo in the society, must be discussed in public and awareness must be generated for these causes. How I wish someone from the health and hygiene department was present among the audience listening to him!

The next session was after lunch. Sunil and Karthik of Evam Entertainment simply never let the crowd their regular post-lunch nap on the Sunday with fun and activities. I was trying to escape the Trichy heat by staying outside the audi for a while but the noise and laughter wouldn’t go without cheering me up too! ‘Spectacular performance’ they said, as I met people after the session. And as the twitter page of TedXTrichy puts it, it was indeed an ‘Explosive Performance’. Vivek Karwa who followed next was full for ‘tips and notes’ for those interested in deeper knowledge of money multiplying, something truly in the spirit of E-Cell of NITT. I couldn’t attend the lectures by Balaji Sampath and Srihari Balakrishnan, but I knew for sure that the stage was set for a spectacular talk stage at NIT Trichy by TedXTrichy.

The third session had some of our alumni whom I have met with during various stages of Pragyan, speaking about their interests in particular Saravanan (Sara) who spoke about neural science and psychology, and J. Balamurugan (JB a.k.a. founder of Octa) who spoke on motor sports. Sara’s lecture that kick started the final session definitely had the audience in the most receptive mode as they heard about their brains and the factors that shape their personalities. Naturally, everyone was all ears trying to find out why they did what they did, and how they could do what they want to do! Following this was JB, who spoke of motor sports. Although not a motor buff personally, I could definitely appreciate the various aspects of the sport that he mentioned. Anyway the crowd was all up for knowing about racing and there was a natural connect with the man who created the best thing that NITT has ever had- Octa! A lot of activity revolves around the computer centre and in fact one of my first blog post was on what we did there (I am not able to find the webpage now! ).

The icing on the cake was presented by stand up comedian (and surprisingly an IITian!) Nitin Gupta. The IITian part felt less surprising once he started talking about engineers and engineering colleges like ours! The crowd that includes me was carried away to a totally different world full of laughter and fun especially sarcastic and satirical! Thanks to the fact that there were not many members of the faculty in the audi, Nitin’s comedy knew absolutely no limits and boy the crowd was definitely enjoying it! Some of his most notable one liners were

‘I heard there is a professor here who SMASHES cell phones!’
‘Why spend 5000 bucks to walk on that road (the Opal girls hostel road, for those who did not get it) when you get better for that amount outside!’
‘While Inception and Matrix are science fiction movies for the arts students, romantic movies like Titanic are fictions and hard to believe for the engineers!’
‘After looking at a resident at its entrance I think the hostel must be renamed OVAL instead of OPAL! ’
‘Much of my school life was spent in trying to find x and y. When I found them, they said FIND Z!!’

Needless to say, the audience at the aesthetically organized event went out not bored to death as they would have normally done after any lecture series, instead enlightened and entertained! That, is itself a major measure of the success of TedXTrichy and its organizers.

And personally, what a day! Caught up with many friends and enjoyed a fantastic lecture series, not to forget the parental-like-pride! At the end of it I am definitely convinced that TedXTrichy is here to stay for the future, and kudos to Bajaj, Neil and the entire team for giving it such a spectacular launch! Great work guys!

photo courtesy : Neil