Techfest is the annual science and technology festival of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, consisting of social initiatives and outreach programs throughout the year.
Started in with the aim of providing a platform for the Indian student community to develop and showcase their technical prowess, with a footfall of 1.75 lakhs in its latest edition. The activities culminate in a large three-day event on the campus of IIT Bombay which attracts people from all over the world, including students, academia, corporates and the general public.
History and growth
The very first edition of Techfest was in 1998. It set the broad outlines of Techfest in the form of competitions, lectures, workshops, and exhibitions which went on to become a standard feature at every Techfest. Entrepreneurship also made an appearance in the 1999 and 2000 editions. Technoholix—Techfest in the Dark, showcasing technological entertainment at the end of each day as well as the hub of on the spot activities, made its debut during these years.
Techfest 2001-2002 saw the incorporation of IIT Bombay's department oriented events like Yantriki, Chemsplash and Last Straw. Students from G H Raisoni College of Engineering got the Engineering Excellence Award for best design. Mr. Amit Shankar Choudhary, Mr. Fahad Azad, Mr. Bodhisatta Ganguly were in the team of designers from GHRCE, Nagpur.
Techfest 2002-2003 launched the Techfest trophy to make the competitions more interesting. Colleges from all over India participated in multiple segments to win the trophy.
Techfest 2003-2004 marked a big milestone in the growth of Techfest as this was the year Techfest became an International event with the introduction of the International Machine design contest - Cliffhanger. It also saw the introduction of the renowned robotics competition, Micromouse for the first time in India. Teams from Nepal, Sri Lanka and Singapore also participated in Cliffhanger.
Techfest 2004-2005 added challenging problem statements in the form of competitions like Survivor as well as Drishti, which was conceived with the National Association for the Blind (NAB) in order to provide aids for the visually challenged.
The emphasis at Techfest 2006 was on technology and its applications rather than just engineering know-how. With this view, a section of competitions held under the name E-Rustique had problem statements that encouraged the participants to come up with solutions to existing rural problems and hence contribute to the development of modern India.
Techfest 2006-2007 introduced an event Nexus to take robotics to the masses via robotics workshops and subsequent competitions with easy problem statements in many cities other than Mumbai.
In Techfest 2007-2008, Nexus was conducted at 7 centres across India namely Indore, Calicut, Jaipur, New Delhi, Pune, Surat and Mumbai respectively. Techfest 2008 also returned to the trend of taking up of initiatives by the Techfest team for social and public causes through their campaign on Global Warming.
Techfest 2008-2009 featured the iNexus taking Nexus international to Sri Lanka, UAE and Denmark, whose finalists were flown to India to compete with their counterparts from India, making Techfest the first ever student organization to go truly international. It also saw the creation of open innovation platform called Prayaas to try come up with implementable solutions to problems existing in rural India.
Techfest 2009-2010 added a new segment to their festival called Scintillations. The segment consisted of night exhibitions and thrilling interactive shows. The exhibitions had quite a nationalistic flavour with hangar space devoted to ISRO, Indian Navy and National Disaster Management Authority .
Techfest 2010-2011 added more entertainment events to the festival with a new section called Crossroads which featured Street Magic Shows, Stunt Shows etc. Some of the featured events at 2011 were the VirtuSphere and Laser Tag, lectures by the likes of Harold Kroto and Richard Stallman, an exhibition of Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci and PR2, energy-saving competition among all Indian Institutes of Technology. Technoholix saw the world's best Double Dutch (jump rope) crew.