In this Penultimate edition, we will be looking at the Technical and Business associated clubs of our college. This edition will feature ACM Student Chapter, Big Data, Analytics and Consulting Cell, Business Club, CybSec NITW, Electronic Amateurs & HAM club, Finwiz, IEEE student branch, Innovation Garage, Robotics and TEDxNITW.
ACM Student Chapter
Wanting to increase the exposure and spread the love of Competitive Programing (CP) in our college, ACM does so by holding regular contests and teaching sessions in CP. They also aim to improve participation in global contests like ICPC. A period of 2 weeks goes into preparing questions, test cases and making sure they’re working efficiently before the decided date for the Codefests that they conduct. They usually are open for newcomers in January as this is the time that the 2nd years have a grasp on Data Structures and have an exposure to CP. The first round of selection is generally one of the Codefests where they test the problem and puzzle solving skills of the contestant.
When it comes to setting the questions, members of all years work together. As for teaching sessions, they have 2 batches; one teaching the basic concepts and the other covering advanced topics. The 4th and 3rd years handle the latter while the 2nd and 3rd years take care of the former. While it isn’t possible to hold teaching sessions in this online sem, they are carrying on with their usual contests, and collaborating with other clubs as well.
Big Data, Analytics and Consulting Cell
With the aim of democratizing Data Science as a toolbox, Big Data, Analytics and Consulting Cell was formed just last year. They’ve recently added a Consulting division through which they aim to empower individuals to become consultants as well as train them for the industry. They conduct several workshops & webinars, focusing on the impact the topic will have on the participants. They have conducted a bootcamp in association with IIT Guwahati during the lockdown and based on the tremendous response, are planning to make this an annual event. They have a lot of internal training bootcamps preparing the members for Interns & Placements and for them to one day be Team leaders. The team leaders directly report to the Gensec.
As far as selection into the club goes, they look for students having basic knowledge of Data Science, ML, Statistics, Probability, Visualization and Programming. While this online sem is challenging for them, given this is their first year, they are still having internal meetings and are planning to conduct great events in the future.
Business Club
With the main motto of making our fellow college peers financially literate, Business Club; a group of like minded individuals with interests in different fields of business, conduct various events along with regular in-house sessions. It all began when a group of students sat together and started discussing things ranging from marketing and supply chain to economics back in 2014. Though it hasn’t been long since it became official, it has actively organised many events and sessions; both before and after its integration. ‘Stock Market Trading’ is one of their flagship events of the year. Invest-o-Tank, Taxation and Case Study Competition are some of the other major events they conduct, each focusing on a specific topic of business and finance. They also hold open guidance sessions where seniors who have done well in MBA entrance exams share their experiences.
BClub believes in a collective approach, wherein every member plays a part in the decision making of the club. Members take the lead of events that align with their skills and interests. A zeal to learn and reasoning skills are some of the qualities that they look for in students applying to the club.Their selections are like those of other clubs, a general interview wherein they gauge people’s interest. As for this online sem, internal sessions play a big part. Moreover, they are planning many such interesting events for the upcoming semester for everyone to look forward to.
CybSec NITW
Formed in 2019 to raise awareness and work on cyber security and ethical hacking, CybSec now ranks in the top 5 all over the world and first in India when it comes to CTFs. While focusing mainly on improving Cybersecurity, they conduct few events throughout the year such as the very famous Capture the Flag (CTF); wherein people need to hack their platform, Conference and open sessions from some eminent hackers on their YouTube channel. They’ve successfully made their own Operating System- Cynux Security OS which has been downloaded over 150 times in a matter of 10 days. They aim to spread this OS throughout our campus. They divide themselves into 4 teams: Red (Attacking); generally participates in CTFs and focuses on improving college ranking. Blue (Defence); makes exploit, tools and scripts for the team. Yellow is the Web&App Dev team and Silver is the Media and PR team. Core team manages and takes care of all the teams.
Newly joined members are given the title Hacker, while people having medium experience and most skilled are called Pro Hacker and Elite Hackers respectively. Lastly, they rightly refer to their alumni as Guru. While CybSec is open to all, it helps if applicants have done well in the recent CTF. As their work deals mainly with laptops and PCs, this online sem doesn’t pose them much difficulties.
Electronic Amateurs & HAM Club
EA&HAM club is one of the oldest in our college. The aim of the club when it was formed was to maintain a HAM radio and letting students know how to use it. But now, with changing times and technology, they have updated themselves. They are a group of techies who love to explore new domains and do projects to learn new things. They wish to help students build their technical background along with the development of interpersonal skills. They concentrate on new tech projects and finally turn it into a workshop. They don’t have any hierarchies in the club and work whole-heartedly towards their goal. They like to call themselves a family rather than a club. They have a lot of fun working and interacting with each other. They have conducted many workshops such as IC, IoT, BOT, Game Automation, Face Recognition, MATLAB, ML etc. Given the barrage of events they conduct, they don’t as such look for people who are skilled in a particular domain; all they look for is how good can people maintain their enthusiasm and dedication till the end of the academic year. As they don’t have access to hardware so many projects are on hold. Nonetheless, they are covering all interesting topics for workshops using simulating softwares and some online simulators.
FinWiz
Started in 2018 as an interest group of stock traders in college, FinWiz aims to bring financial literacy to the NITW Fraternity. They recently released a series of videos on IGTV and YouTube that is designed to serve as a crash course for people interested to start investing in the securities markets. This was done through daily uploads for a week during FinBites – NITW’s financial literacy week organized by FinWiz and sponsored by Trademanza. Students could learn from fellow students through short videos everyday and participate in quizzes with free entries to win cash prizes. Previously, FinWiz has conducted a free workshop on “Understanding Enterprises and Stock Valuation” delivered by a UCL alumnus. Within a selective and tightly-knit team, every member in FinWiz chips into multiple areas. They look for a willingness to learn, a knack for finance, ability to draw analytical conclusions from economic policies and an interest in the market ecosystem and business in general. First and second years spend their time learning and working for events, while third years handle the club and the final years supervise all operations.
This online semester hasn’t hampered their learning process and they are using it to their benefit while sessions and competitions internal to the club. FinWiz also handles a Trading and Investing Forum, exclusive to actual market participants on the campus where discussions related to market events take place on a regular basis. The club has further plans to expand its métier into numerous financial verticals in the coming time and looks forward to launch more projects and conduct more events and webinars in the future.
IEEE Student Branch
IEEE, the World’s largest technical society, has its branches in almost all over the world, and our student branch was formed in 1972 by the late Dr. N. Rama Rao. The primary purpose of this branch is to promote research and innovative thinking among the students. This helps them formulate plans for their future and base their career around it. They have about 50 members and are divided into various divisions. Clear communication and healthy bouncing of ideas between each of these factions help create a hassle-free and successful event. They conduct Ignite, which is a major event aimed at the freshers consisting of technical and non-technical events. They also hold Webinars wherein different industrial experts come in and give helpful tips and an insight to the students.
For newcomers, enthusiasm to learn and a dedication to work for the club are required. For notable leadership positions within the Executive body, they hold student body elections every year. They don’t believe in having divisions between the seniors and juniors. In fact they believe in coexistence and that this is a platform for students to grow and learn. This online sem has led them to conduct their webinars online. Apart from that, they have also conducted a coding competition and are currently working on an online series: RecruitedTalks.
Innovation Garage
Wanting to promote the culture of ‘Ideate, Innovate and Incubate’ among the students, Innovation Garage was formed in 2015 and today paves the way for budding startups and Tech Entrepreneurs. Anyone from anywhere can come and work with IG and fulfil their requirements of technical/core interests. Innovation Garage is always interested in helping the idea or a project, turn into a potential product for the market. All the events which Innovation Garage conducts builds up to a Competitive pan India fest where students throughout the country take part in. They recently conducted the Open Innovation Challenge (OIC) where the problem statements were given by MHRD. The main objective of these Hackathons is to identify a group of students whose idea could possibly turn into a potential product when scaled.
They have around 5-6 sub teams including Strategic relations, public relations, Event conduction, Design etc. Students are divided into teams as per their interests and applications. Final years play more of a guru role and offer their help to the others. The managerial part of the club plays a crucial role in ideation and coordination. Even in these tough times of the online sem, their entire team is working hard to keep people ideating and incubating. They had several mentors from different organizations/companies who helped students in refining their ideas and how it could be viewed as a product.
Robotics Club
Formed by Dr. M. Satish (Faculty at ECE) in the academic year 2019-2020, Robotics club aims to inspire the students to take up robotics as a passion and a chance for them to work on exciting projects in a warm and collaborative environment. The club mainly focuses on projects and is divided into smaller working groups of mechanical, electronics, software or AI. Upon receiving a problem, they sit together and think of multiple strategies to solve it. After that, they move on to concepts and choose the one most feasible. After which, they validate the solution and fine tune it and then finally assemble it. They don’t conduct events as such as their main focus is on projects and competing at events. They look for people who are curious, passionate and ambitious who can be good team players. Moreover they look to see what ideas people have and what their thought process is on solving the issue.
Positions in the club are based on knowledge, experience and merit. AdSecs have the responsibility of facilitating training within the working groups and of leading their project from the cradle to the grave. JointSecs and ExecMembers are then given tasks from the project group which falls in the domain of the working group. This online sem hasn’t been easy for them as robotics is a physical team sport. As a result, they are forced to work mainly on design and software projects with the hope that they can build in person sometime soon.
TEDxNITW
TEDx is a grassroots initiative, created in the spirit of TED’s overall mission to research and discover “ideas worth spreading.” TEDxNITW was formed in 2017 and has inspired and motivated its audience by bringing in a vast array of speakers talking on various disciplines based on themes that change every year. They believe there is an opportunity to learn in every stage, whether it be in looking for sponsors, selling tickets or pulling off the event. The club has 8 departments: Event Production, Curation (looks for speakers), Public Relations, Sponsorship, QCM (ensures the event is going smoothly), Design, Decoration and Web Development. In addition to these departments there’s, Organizer , Co-Organizer and General Secretary which ensures coordination between all departments. Along with the main TEDx event, they also conduct pre TEDx events; last year these were TEDxperience and TEDxAnonymous.
The selection process into the club happens at the end of every year. They look for enthusiastic and proactive people who work as if the event were their own. Having an idea about what TEDx is and what its guidelines help in the process. The clubs three lead positions; Organizer, Co-Organizer and GenSec are given to the final years. Every department has a lead who coordinates the work of that department. But, there isn’t any clear hierarchy as such and every team member is welcome to share their ideas. This online sem has given birth to two new events: TEDx untold stories; a live interview with an eminent personality. And TED circles; an event where discussion and conversation take place in a closed group moderated by an experienced and influential personality.
