Genre Technical Place Kochi, India | Founded 2001 Website www.excelmec.org | |
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Type Techno-Managerial Symposium Institute Govt. Model Engineering College | ||
Excel is the annual techno-managerial festival hosted by Govt. Model Engineering College (MEC), Cochin, Kerala, India in association with IEEE. The symposium, conducted over a period of three days, is intended to bring to the forefront, budding innovative engineers from all over India and to provide a platform to showcase their technical skills and management capabilities. Excel incorporates versatile technical and managerial events which include both online and on site competitions, workshops, talks and seminars, video conferences, exhibitions and pro shows. In 2009, TEDxMEC, an independently organised TED event was held in for the first time. Though not associated with Excel, a TED event has been organised every year during these days. Excel also features talks by entrepreneurs, research scientists and heroes of everyday life. Since its inception in 2001, 15 editions of Excel have been hosted till date. The organisation of all these editions has been purely by the students themselves.
Contents
History
Excel was introduced in 2001 as a platform for the students to present and exhibit their technological innovations. The capital required to run the event was raised through sponsorships, grants from IEEE and the funds provided by the college. Exhibition stalls were put up, and competitions were held, headed by each of the then existing branches (Electronics & Communication Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering and Electronics & Biomedical engineering) which received an incredible response from students in and around the state.Subsequent editions saw the evolution of Excel both in terms of reach, number of participants and events. Purely organized by the students themselves, each edition of EXCEL saw something new and innovative. While the competitions at EXCEL prove to be the ultimate test of grit, knowledge and skill, the lecture series promises an enriching experience for the avid learner.In association with the Yi chapter of the college, the event Technopreneur - a lecture series was organised alongside Excel in the years 2006 and 2007. Sowing the seeds of a greener Kochi in the midst of urbanisation, Excel brought forth an organic farming campaign on the 15th of August 2014 as one the events of Excel 2014.
Events : An overview
A large number of technical and non technical events are distributed throughout the days of the fest. The events can be broadly listed under the following categories -
TECHNICAL EVENTS
Technical events form the backbone of Excel. Excel organises a wide variety of events for its participants, ranging from robotic events such as ROBOWARS to electronic events such as DEFUSE (a circuit debugging event in which participants are required to defuse an electronic “bomb” within the given time), EXTRINSICITY (a classic electronic circuit design and debugging event), TERRAIN MASTER(create a small robot which could surpass and survive the obstacle track created, WAVE CLONING( an event that challenges participants to replicate the pre-specified waveform). Computer events at Excel include /BIN/BASH (an event that tests participants’ Linux and shell scripting skills), 4x120 (a team coding event in which a participant codes for an allotted time and teammates continue from where he/she left off), WEB MANDRAKE(website design event), APP GENIUS(participants have to modify the app that is given in the most creative way) and other coding events like LORD OF THE CODE , WEB BOT and #INCLUDE which instigate coders to think at a whole new level). Electrical events include LUMIERE (an event where participants are required to light a set of bulbs in the given order), EXTUNDO PRODIGO(participants are required to create things from a given set of materials and use them to complete tasks such as obstacle courses). Excel also includes biomedical events - LIFELINE (a circuit debugging event in which participants are required to debug malfunctioning ‘life support devices’ in order to save the life of a ‘patient’).
GENERAL
Technical events in which participants can take part irrespective of their chosen streams. Events include - PAPYRUS OF ANI (a paper presentation event).
ONLINE EVENTS
Excel includes online events both technical and non-technical in nature to challenge participants throughout the country. A few of the non technical online events include - KRYPTOS (an online puzzle solving event) and DALAL BULL (an event inviting participants to make the most money on a virtual stock market). Technical events include - #INCLUDE (an online C coding event)
NON TECHNICAL EVENTS
A cluster of non-technical events are included as part of Excel, to make it accessible and more fun for everyone. A few of the events coming under this category include - The Excel General Quiz, Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), Best Manager, GameZone, FunZone and so on.
INNOVATIONS FOR A BETTER TOMORROW (IBeTo)
An initiative by the organizers of Excel to find ideas for innovations that can benefit society in some way. Viable ideas are given the chance to be implemented with the organizers providing the requisite funding and mentors, to selected participants. A prize money of Rs. 1 lakh is offered to the best implemented project.
The event was held for the first time at Excel 2012.The subsequent edition event was held in February 2013 as part of Excel 2013 alongside IBeTo Junior which aimed at giving school students above 8th grade a proper means to implement their ideas. This edition of IBeTo bore witness to simple, ingenious ideas such as Pulse of a billion,Sign Language Detector, E-Civics Management system, and a Voice Interactive Email Client for the Blind. IBeTo gave birth to various solutions for problems.
Workshops and talks
.ISSUE! is essentially a platform where renowned speakers gather and discuss on a socially relevant issue of the time. The youth of a nation steers the pace of development, and .ISSUE! is a venture to produce young people with substantial social awareness; to prevent the engineers from reducing themselves to sectarians.
Previous speakers at Excel include:
- Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Former CEO and Co-Chairman, Infosys.
- Prof. Yash Pal, Scientist and academician.
- Mr. Suhas Gopinath, CEO and Chairman of Globals Inc.
- Mr. Atul Chitnis, Founder, FOSS.IN.
- Mr. Shreyas Srinivasan, Co-founder RadioVeRVe.
- Mr. Jayaram, Product Engineer, Texas Instruments.
- Mr. David John., Design Engineer, Montalvo Systems.
- Mr. Ajith Basu, Chief program executive, Agastya International Foundation.
- Ms. R. Sreelekha IPS, first lady in the IPS from Kerala.
- Captain Raju, Actor, Captain(Indian Army)
A number of other workshops are also organised as part of Excel on topics ranging from Avionics to MATLAB.
Pro Shows and exhibitions
Right from the time of its commencement, Excel has played host to a variety of dazzling performances and amazing exhibitions, things which one rarely gets to see up close and personal. They include Airshows, Water rocket shows, Laser shows, concerts by Stephen Devassy in 2010 and Naresh Iyer in 2012 and performance by the rock band Avial in 2011 and a live concert of Thaikkudam Bridge in Excel 2013. Excel 2014 witnessed the likes of Baiju Dharmajan Syndicate, Vidhwan, and Harish Sivaramakrishnan performing live in what was the first open air concert of Excel.
In addition to the exhibitions presented by reputed institutions such as NPOL, ISRO, etc., Excel also organises an exhibition in which students of the college showcase their technical skills through a variety of innovative and informative projects(MEC Labs).