ATMOS, 27th Oct,2012 BITS,Pilani(Hyderabad Campus)'s first ever Tech Fest, this is where my BITS life takes a new turn. I had planned on having a small event organized on this day called "TECHNO-CRAVINGS" as a part of the IEEE,student branch. This was our first time presenting to people both from our campus and outside. Swati, Gomathi, Prateek and me, this was our team. The session started with processors, how do we decide which is best, then moved on to what makes a laptop unique and how you search for one, why bios and what is it for and ended with all the fantastic things Google offers.What this session earned our team that day was beyond description: confidence to pull off a feat, how to engage a crowd you have no idea about and of all the things how to work as a team.
January 2013, my sophomore year, after the interviews and selections it was the most awaited minute and yayyyy!!! our event organization payed off well. Gomathi the neucleus member,Swati our editor,Prateek our general secretary and me the Chairperson of IEEE Student Branch BITS,Pilani (Hyderabad Campus). That day, Saturday(19th Jan) evening when we were introduced to the other office bearers(of which contained many seniors), there was pride, respect and determination to make the impossible, possible.This ice breaking session was followed by a small meeting.
This(read the meeting after the ice breaking session) was one of the strongest reasons how the 12th Feb 2013, Ball Lightning- New-Physics,New-Energy or Just Good Entertainment lecture by Dr. J Pace VanDevender,Vice President Emeritus Sandia National Laboratories ever happened. Like in any of the company board room situations with Young Boss Syndrome, I faced rejection. My sole motive was then to prove that this team is going to raise that bar high, going to make this college proud. But for all of this I needed acceptance. That small team of 4 we were then now the team was larger and more diverse, but that didn't stop me.
The desire to prove that we can make it big over powered me, I returned yearning for an opportunity. As I returned to the dorm room turned my computer on, in my mail box was a letter from IEEE NPSS (Nuclear & Plasma Science Society) Distinguished Lecturers Program. It didn't take a second before I posted the list of available topics for a poll. All of this boiled down to 3 topics of interest. From this point started the real effort. Writing mails to J.Pace VanDevender(for a lecture on Ball Lightning- New-Physics,New Energy or Just Good Entertainment),Alessandro Rizzo (for a lecture topic on Soft Sensors and Artificial intelligence), Stallings(for a lecture on Pulsed Power-What is it and Why should you care?). Getting the team onboard with what lies ahead. Wishful thinking may be, I had already started believing that we already have a speaker. But by then what had not crossed my mind was that all the speakers were not in India and they had to cross countries and get visas to be here just to give us these lectures. Aah how naive...
"Luck is what happens when preparations meet opportunities" I said this a billion times till now and will say it another billion times. We got positive response from 2 people, Dr. Pace and Dr. Alessandro. The day was actually planned to be 15th Feb. Heres the catch we were lucky in one case, unlucky in another. To our luck Dr. Pace was gonna be in India in some other city on 12th and was free on 12th Feb and we manage to change the planned day to 12th instead of 15th. The not so lucky part was that we couldn't get Dr. Alessandro to come here.
This shift in date was really difficult for us to react to but we managed to pull it off with grace. On Feb 8th we got enough information to decide on when, where and how to organize it.We finished a rough draft played it once as a rehearsal. All set and ready to run but our campus is remotely placed, getting the memento this posed great issues. Thanks to our good planning we had a back up. Travelling from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad to BITS,Pilani (Hyderabad Campus) we had a wonderful time getting acquainted with the speaker. We talked about the history of Hyderabad and how we ended up as engineers in this college.Despite all our efforts we had the session delayed by an hour. As we reached the Campus our Branch Councellor Dr. Geethakumari Ma'am welcomed the speaker. A hall filled with audience from all the departments: faculty, students and research scholars were waiting for the speaker. A wonderful lecture perfectly tailored for the audience followed. This was the first event that I organized as the Chairperson. That day will remain in my memory for life, I learnt, I enjoyed, I gained acceptance.....
PS: All thanks to my guide and mentor Dr. Geethakumari. She gave an opportunity to learn and a platform to perform.
January 2013, my sophomore year, after the interviews and selections it was the most awaited minute and yayyyy!!! our event organization payed off well. Gomathi the neucleus member,Swati our editor,Prateek our general secretary and me the Chairperson of IEEE Student Branch BITS,Pilani (Hyderabad Campus). That day, Saturday(19th Jan) evening when we were introduced to the other office bearers(of which contained many seniors), there was pride, respect and determination to make the impossible, possible.This ice breaking session was followed by a small meeting.
This(read the meeting after the ice breaking session) was one of the strongest reasons how the 12th Feb 2013, Ball Lightning- New-Physics,New-Energy or Just Good Entertainment lecture by Dr. J Pace VanDevender,Vice President Emeritus Sandia National Laboratories ever happened. Like in any of the company board room situations with Young Boss Syndrome, I faced rejection. My sole motive was then to prove that this team is going to raise that bar high, going to make this college proud. But for all of this I needed acceptance. That small team of 4 we were then now the team was larger and more diverse, but that didn't stop me.
The desire to prove that we can make it big over powered me, I returned yearning for an opportunity. As I returned to the dorm room turned my computer on, in my mail box was a letter from IEEE NPSS (Nuclear & Plasma Science Society) Distinguished Lecturers Program. It didn't take a second before I posted the list of available topics for a poll. All of this boiled down to 3 topics of interest. From this point started the real effort. Writing mails to J.Pace VanDevender(for a lecture on Ball Lightning- New-Physics,New Energy or Just Good Entertainment),Alessandro Rizzo (for a lecture topic on Soft Sensors and Artificial intelligence), Stallings(for a lecture on Pulsed Power-What is it and Why should you care?). Getting the team onboard with what lies ahead. Wishful thinking may be, I had already started believing that we already have a speaker. But by then what had not crossed my mind was that all the speakers were not in India and they had to cross countries and get visas to be here just to give us these lectures. Aah how naive...
"Luck is what happens when preparations meet opportunities" I said this a billion times till now and will say it another billion times. We got positive response from 2 people, Dr. Pace and Dr. Alessandro. The day was actually planned to be 15th Feb. Heres the catch we were lucky in one case, unlucky in another. To our luck Dr. Pace was gonna be in India in some other city on 12th and was free on 12th Feb and we manage to change the planned day to 12th instead of 15th. The not so lucky part was that we couldn't get Dr. Alessandro to come here.
This shift in date was really difficult for us to react to but we managed to pull it off with grace. On Feb 8th we got enough information to decide on when, where and how to organize it.We finished a rough draft played it once as a rehearsal. All set and ready to run but our campus is remotely placed, getting the memento this posed great issues. Thanks to our good planning we had a back up. Travelling from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad to BITS,Pilani (Hyderabad Campus) we had a wonderful time getting acquainted with the speaker. We talked about the history of Hyderabad and how we ended up as engineers in this college.Despite all our efforts we had the session delayed by an hour. As we reached the Campus our Branch Councellor Dr. Geethakumari Ma'am welcomed the speaker. A hall filled with audience from all the departments: faculty, students and research scholars were waiting for the speaker. A wonderful lecture perfectly tailored for the audience followed. This was the first event that I organized as the Chairperson. That day will remain in my memory for life, I learnt, I enjoyed, I gained acceptance.....
PS: All thanks to my guide and mentor Dr. Geethakumari. She gave an opportunity to learn and a platform to perform.
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