Techverse 2K21 by GNIT: Students showcase ideas and innovations

A bunch of new ideas and innovations in technology summed up Techverse 2K21, the annual intra-college fest of Guru Nanak Institute of Technology, held in association with TT-Edugraph on November 26 and 27.

The virtual fest organised by the department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) saw four competitions --- poster presentation, technical debate, technical project presentation with prototype demo models and innovative idea presentation in engineering. The two-day fest also includes Alumni Talks where past students spoke on entrepreneurship, start-up ideas, and industry experience.

Poster Presentation had two themes --- Upcoming Technologies or Innovative Ideas in your published paper or journal --- to choose from. Two teams from second-year CSE bagged the first position. The first team consisted of Anargha Bose, Shruti Majhi, Arghya Ghosh, Swagatam Burai and Madhumati Dey. They created an e-poster on Hyperloop, the future transport using Adobe Spark. “We tried to present the working, advantages and cost-effectiveness of Hyperloop which works on the principle of electromagnetic induction. Initially one needs to invest to build this but in the long term it is very cost-effective,” said Shruti.

The other team consisted of Rohit Shaw, Arkoprabho Dey, Yash Raj Vardhan, Adrija Saha and Ankita Das who chose the topic Quantum Technology. “This is the first online fest I participated in. My biggest learning apart from technical knowledge was teamwork and how to coordinate with mates virtually. We tried to present the basics of quantum computing and used Adobe Photoshop to prepare the poster,” Rohit said.

The Technical Debate saw six teams divided into three groups. The motions for the debates were --- Can AI replace human intelligence?, Is India prepared enough to handle cyber attacks?, and E-Learning: a blessing of the modern education system.

Souvik Roy, Shreyashree Sarkar and Subhabrata Chakraborty, third-year CSE students who spoke against the motion --- E-Learning: a blessing of the modern education system --- and took home the winner’s trophy.

“We have been using an online mode of education for the past one-and-a-half years. We are well aware of the challenges we face daily. Using real-life examples helped us ace the debate," said Souvik.

Technical Project Presentations with prototype demo models required students to implement and demonstrate a five-minute presentation that is both cost-effective and innovative. Prithviraj Biswas and Rohan Chakraborty, both fourth-year CSE students, won the competition by creating an app, V-Guide on tourism.

“V-Guide is a one-stop destination for Gen Z to experience a new era of tourism. This is such an app where search, knowledge, planning and connections are in one place. This app is very easy to use. One needs to scan a monument using the camera and the app will show all the details of that monument with 99% accuracy and also the nearby restaurants and ATMs,” said Prithviraj. The duo is planning to add augmented reality and virtual reality experiences and launch the app for the public soon.

Innovative Idea Presentation in engineering problems saw students come up with a variety of topics related to present issues and suggest solutions using technical knowledge. The time limit was eight minutes --- five minutes for presentation and three minutes for a question-answer round.

Rajarshi Chanda, Souvick Roy, Mrinmoy Satpati, Sachin Kumar and Piyali Saha, all third-year CSE students, clinched the first position. They proposed a plan to create a website or app named Bookwala that will work in a library format. “There are many meritorious students who aren’t economically sound enough to buy all the books required for a particular entrance or course. The lockdown has been a hindrance to them anyway. Bookwala is an initiative to provide books to them at a very affordable price and once they are done they can return it and get half of the amount refunded. Books would be free for the first month,” said Mrinmoy.