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A Confluence of Minds… like no other!

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”
- Albert Einstein

Where savvy meets swanky

Xceed – The coolest job in Kurukshetra

Hi. This is a pretty long post where I have pretty much indulged in telling people why Xceed core is the best place to be, in the Kurukshetra team. It might sound arrogant, boastful, and annoying, especially to certain other teams like logistics and marketing because of the fun the Xceed team has, but hey, life ain’t fair. So here goes…

What gives you the opportunity to do nothing, let a junior do all the work, snigger as he runs around organizing stuff and all the while, you sit in CTF playing rummy, lets you travel to nice locations all over the country, pays for your travel, accommodation and food as well and best of all, gets you a letter of appreciation for um, enjoying your time?

One word. Xceed! (And, for those of you who spell it Exceed, be warned!)

If you don’t know what Xceed is all about, it is the regional prelim for Kurukshetra’s robotics events. This year, we expanded that to fit in the regional round of the K! Biz Quiz as well.

The Bangalore round of Xceed just concluded, where students from SIT Tumkur just showed everyone else how a line follower should run! (CEG students, take note. Theirs actually went fast, in a straight line for quite a bit of distance, before zig zagging for decisions). The quality of participation at Bangalore, ahem, Bengaluru, was fantastic, as always, in both the quiz and robotics events. Thankfully, the guys who won an event here last year as school students (putting many of our own guys to shame) are in college. So defeat wont taste that bitter now, boys.

Hospitality was just great! Not to mention the awesome food in RVCE’s mess (this statement is not sarcastic). The guys there helped us a lot in conducting Xceed and me and Prem had to barely lift a finger. I should say that the best thing about Xceed- Bangalore was the support of the boys from RVCE. Thanks a lot guys!

This is not all. Xceed will happen in other centres as well, and yours truly will be getting back with more updates on what’s happening in the world outside in the forthcoming posts.

Until then, cheerio!
Deepak,
Xceed Team

P.S We were done with our work in the evening and even had a bit of time to admire the sights and sounds of Bangalore 

Headings for posters

K! promo video

Then and Now…

www.kurukshetra.org.in

10:15.a.m.: Networks class had already eaten 5 minutes into the break time. All of us (second year engineers-to-be) were getting restless. A familiar baritone calls out 72 that signals the end of the class. Hell! no. Seniors? Again! Four seniors march in. There is one that I know and she is not the type to ruin my break. Sigh! As we wait for them to let the cat out of the basket, they wait for us to settle.

“Kurukshetra” says an anonymous (then) senior. It triggered a vague memory. Without getting into the actual details of the talk, what they wanted was – IDEAS for new events are welcome. Thus, started my tryst with K! Thinking back, I have had a really good time and many cherished memories of K! There have been major anxious times, surprised times, ayyo times, gleeful times, despo times, frusty times, crush-ed times, happy times. But overall I’ve always had a good time.

Kurukshetra has been one great learning experience for me. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that K! has helped me find more about myself while indulging in some hilarious fun. Jotting all of them down here would make an incredibly long post. So here goes a succinct description.

Adventure

Hatching ideas

Late nights at CEG

heated healthy arguments

bliss that comes with knowledge

INBOX

try your strength & trust

Damn! I wasted my first year

writing like never before

Pushin’ it harder and faster

explore – People – Connect – waiting –  WOW

did that even exist before?

busy as busy can get

blanked out

(Place : Vivek Audi, Event : Cerebra. Oh! boy, you’vegotta be there to see it for yourself)

experience of a life time

The environment that K! creates is irresistible. It literally sucked me in like a black hole. I could easily add a lot more platitudes (like “bigger and better”, “we are doing it because we can”… get the drift?) but K’09 – my initiation year – was such a personal experience that these clichés would render it redundant. As someone who was pretty skeptic (and late) in understanding the gung-ho about K! it took some time to realize what drove the movers and shakers at CTF. As a matter of fact, when this realization dawned, I knew that that was what was and still is driving me too.

S.Swathi Meenakshi

Event Coordinator, Prove or Disprove, K ‘09

Guest Lectures and Workshops Team, K ‘10

Why Kurukshetra?

www.kurukshetra.org.in

Kurukshetra is synonymous with war and wisdom and in a sense, that is what the International Conference and Techno Management Festival of Anna University, Chennai is – The Battle of Brains. What began as a germinal idea to do something big and unique has now taken many aspects of its organisation to a whole new level. While its magnitude and standards have been well established over the past few years, I’ve noticed that many CEGians still have qualms about working for Kurukshetra and I must admit that I have had moments when I wonder whether the things that I am putting my time and efforts into really matter. So, here’s a post on what you stand to gain from being a part of Kurukshetra – it is as much a gist of opportunities available to you, as it is a recollection of a treasured journey for me.

In concrete terms, Kurukshetra provides avenues to work for one of the following teams: Events, Guest Lectures, Workshops, Industry Relations, Media, Content, Projects, Design, Marketing, Human Resources, Hospitality and Quality Management. From interacting with the Who’s Who of the technical and industrial worlds to travelling to various other top colleges in the country and getting to know some of the brightest minds in various fields, the benefits are countless. To conceptualise an idea, analyse its impact, listen to others’ viewpoints about it, work hard to make it happen and see it materialise before you is a truly unique experience.

Kurukshetra is the perfect platform to exhibit your skills, learn new things, realise your potential and find out what you are good at. Planning, setting priorities, managing time and working in a team are essential in anything you do and being a part of this offers you a chance to gauge how good you are. There is no greater joy than the sense of satisfaction you gain from knowing you contributed in your own way to make an event a success. And if things don’t turn out the way you expected them too, you learn how to face the world and take responsibility for your actions. Sometimes when you become accountable for something that wasn’t your fault at all, you learn that life is unfair and you’ve got to deal with it.

Above all this, the biggest thing that I have gained is getting to know so many people, working together and learning from them.

Someone whom I have so much fun talking to,
Someone who has been an amazing and dependable friend,
Someone who seems to take everything lightly but does them so well,
Someone who believes in me much more than I do myself,
Someone who made me feel really good about the sincere work I did,
Someone who is a warm listener and a wonderful person to work with,
Someone who is so full of ideas and avenues to make things grander,
Someone who is really brilliant and yet modest about it,
Someone who shares my enthusiasm about so many interests…

These people taught or reminded me that:

Working smart is as important as working hard,
Someday when you join all the dots life will be the perfect picture,
Solving cryptic crosswords can be so much fun,
Living life to the fullest and thinking big can take you places,
Punctuations and punctuality are very important,
The little things in life matter most,
When you want to get something, you can definitely find a way,
Doing things thoroughly and perfectly earns you a lot of respect,
Being zealous about everything you do is very admirable.

It has been a pleasure knowing you. Thank you all… and thank you, Kurukshetra!

Cheers,

Abhirami

Guest Lectures Team

Opportunities Around You…

www.kurukshetra.org.in

“Hi Anna! I am interested in working for Kurukshetra. But what can I do? How am I going to get benefited?” The typical question asked by a junior to the core team members of Kurukshetra. Most people usually get a convincing reply though.

Lesson 1: Web experience

I was lucky enough to do the design and functionality of Kurukshetra’s website. It seems to be simple and yes it is. With more than 2,00,000 views the site has, my prime focus was on user friendliness. Thinking for a while the fact that made me WOW was, this is the only way by which my work could reach more than 2 lakh people in this world. Being a non-techie the amount of information of I learnt in web-designing is decent. You need to know the index of a book rather than what is inside the book.

Lesson 2: Online tools

Google provides a Google docs feature. A popular one, yet I was able to realize only after using it. Maintaining online docs and sharing, editing is much simpler than before. Mail client is another popular thing that is not used among the student community. With more than 300 mails a month, and most of the time being offline, mail client has become my diary, book, biography. Getting professional!

Lesson 3: Networking

It’s rare to see people having more than 25 friends online in gtalk whenever they login. With more than 600 contacts in mobile, not just friends, business men too, following up everyone is a big deal though. NetworKing!

Lesson 4: My recent STD & ISD calls

“Hello! Am I speaking to Mr. Anil Kumble? This is Senthil calling from Anna University India….”  He replied, “Ya, speaking.” Conversation goes…

Goosebumps! Adrenalin just rushes up and my phone bill too.

Yeah we have the substance to call up anyone in the world. Feel Free to contact!

Lesson 5: Google Analytics

Main poster is up. The nation-wide campaign has started. But how many noticed it? Shall we ask the people who viewed to paste their thumb print there and send us back? Bad Idea! Google Analytics comes to the rescue. It provides pin point analysis of the web traffic this is my first hand experience in analyzing real-time data of the marketing strategies we did. Getting started! J

Finally everyone has the independence to choose things as your hobby, work, opportunity, responsibility… It is: “Kurukshetra. Of the students. By the students. For the students.”

Cheers,

Senthil

QMS Team