GSTA End-Term Review

OVERVIEW

Being the first GS Tech of the institute, Sravan Patchala’s focus has been, primarily, on setting a good precedent for the upcoming Tech councils. The tenure saw participation of the council in most events that were offered to them, majorly inter-IIT Tech and others such as TI innovation awards, Ubisoft Hackathon, Smart India Hackathon, again, in the spirit that it continues to be taken forward by the future councils.

The tenure saw quite a lot of transitions and structural changes, including the introduction of two new hobby clubs (Har Radio Club and Energy Club), the merger of Electronics Club and Robotics Clubs into Electronics and Robotics Club (ERC), the post of Institute Tech Team Nominee, and the post of BioTech Secretary.

One of the major events, ITSP 2017, was completed successfully with one of the highest number of participants that it has seen in previous years and ITSP 2018 has been launched, publicised and abstract submission done, with major structural revamps. ITSP 2018 will comprise of two phases, one in the semester itself and on ein summers. If the teams produce a satisfactory level of work (research and planning included) till March/April, they’ll be allowed to stay back and work in the summers. This will effectively be a screening process for those teams who are actually enthusiastic and inspired to do ITSP and ready to put in efforts. A total of 11 GCs were carried out successfully with three new GCs.

Overall, 19 out of 31 points have been completed which amounts to 61% completion.

BROKEN POINTS

• Informal Courses – Most of the talks and initiatives taken in this aspect overlapped with Academic Sync point. And the talks could not be conducted regularly, let lone weekly. The only club that seems to have responded to this point is WnCC with their Git Sessions.
• TOTEM – Tinkerer of The Month Award – This point will be taken up by the next GSTA. The system for the award has been developed and there are minor hitches to be sorted out. The timeline for its establishment would be these summers.
• Usage Statistics – Being carried forward by next GSTA. Funding is being procured for a biometric attendance system for TL. A minor hitch is the availability of the IITB Wireless connection.
• STAB Room – Being carried forward by next GSTA. Room is clean and ready for occupation, with proposals from various tech teams already having been received.
• IEEE IITB Branch – The project ended in ideation phase due to less number of MTech freshmen for the team.
• PG Tech Weekend – One session called the Lab View Session happened, but no other advances towards this issue.
• Winter Hackathons – Could not be completed because of Inter IIT preparations throughout winters.
• Online Database – An inter IIT portal targeting inter IIT technical meets was curated by IIT Madras but no further developments on this front.
• Online Hangouts, E-Certificates, Online Payment, and Insight collaboration were low priority points that could not be targeted over the tenure.

BEYOND THE MANIFESTO

• Inter IIT Technical meet was a big event, whose preparation took all winters, which was completed successfully if not with big wins.
• Two new clubs were launched – Energy Club and Ham Radio Club. The merger of Electronics and Robotics club as well was a long awaited change that was brought this tenure.
• ITSP 2017, meanwhile, also catered to students from colleges other than IITB. Teams from IIT Dharwad and IIT Goa participated in ITSP 2017.
• A new GC, called the Documentation GC was initiated which led to accountability from Hostel Councils and ensured participation and proper documentation of events.
• A new Special Interest Group was launched in the area of Humanitarian Technology with proposals of 5-6 projects that are still in ideation process.
• Data Science Day was celebrated in the institute.
• Introduction of Hostel Notice Boards was ideated and launched. These would be digital notice boards which will effectively be an R-Pi controller with remote access on a TV in the hostel. This initiative is towards paperless publicity of events. Three hostels have procured the TVs and the installation process is due.