Daksh

Daksh
Genre	Techno-Management
Frequency	Annual
Location(s)	Thanjavur, India
Founded	2007 (2007)
Most recent	2020 (2020)
Organised by	SASTRA Deemed to be University
Website	http://www.daksh.tech

Daksh is the techno-management festival of SASTRA Deemed to be University, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. It is the second-largest tech fest in South India.

Started in the year 2007, Daksh happens annually in February for 3 days. It comprises a set of contests, workshops and talks from all trades of engineering and management studies. Daksh also holds several social responsibility campaigns. Numerous students from various colleges participate in Daksh to celebrate technology and to “build things that matter" - the motto of the fest. Daksh has active Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. The Daksh blog spot on the online publishing platform, Medium, features articles and sci-fi movie reviews. Daksh 2020 witnessed a footfall of more than 1000 students from over 35 colleges

History

Having started in 2007 as a small initiative that conducted technical events, Daksh presently hosts more than five thousand participants on an average every year. Each year is based on a theme, with them ranging from "Engineering 360" to the most recent "Smart Living". Until 2019, Daksh followed a format that included technical events, pro shows, workshops and power talks. A revamped version of Daksh was presented in the year 2020, with hackathons making their way into the usual format.

Utsav

Utsav is an intra-college themed techno-management fest conducted annually in August, aimed at giving freshers a glimpse into what happens in Daksh. Utsav offers events every year for participants to test their skills and widen their horizons. In addition to contests offered by various departments, Utsav conducts workshops as well.

UTSAV 2020

Utsav 2020 was conducted online over 3 days from Oct 30th to Nov 1st.

Events

1. Game Of Genes: Participants had to figure out the best combination of genes to make efficient proteins and then justify their choices in an open arena.
2. Predict The Culprit: Participants had to develop a machine learning model that can determine whether a culprit is guilty or not based on a given dataset.
3. Electrathon: Participants battled it out over four rounds- Jumbled words, Crossword, Pictionary, and Bingo based on the theme “Electricity”
4. John The Ripper: Participants had to snoop through their victim’s online presence and hack into their lives to discover a password and answers to the questions which need to be deduced to determine the efficacy of the investigation conducted.
5. Smartsite: Participants had to build a website related to construction management.
6. Clued In: A civil engineering-based treasure hunt.
7. Nuts and Bolts: A mechanical engineering-based game show.
8. Mechetrica: Series of puzzles based on mechanical engineering and electrical engineering had to be solved through five rounds for victory.

Workshops

1. Full Stack Development: Participants were introduced to the concepts of the World Wide Web, CSS, NodeJs, React, and MongoDB. The workshop was created in association with Skill Safari, CAREERLABS in partnership with BYJU’s and Papyrus Fibres.
2. Robotic Process Automation: The workshop gave the attendees an introduction to streamline and process optimisation and UiPath, followed by a discourse on RPA logic building implementation and Testing of automated processes. The workshop was created in association with Skill Safari, CAREERLABS in partnership with BYJU’s and Papyrus Fibres.

A website was developed for Utsav 2020 which displayed information regarding the events and workshops conducted as a part of Utsav 2020 and about Daksh 2020, the 14th edition of Daksh.

Outreach

Several social initiatives have been conducted by Team Daksh, targeting diverse social groups. In 2019, the Outreach program was formed, under which the following initiatives took place:

• Outreach program - Sapling plantation (2019): The first-ever Outreach program, which was conducted on 14 June 2019. Volunteers from Daksh teamed up with VV Charitable Trust and planted 111 saplings in Lady Willingdon School, Triplicane. Volunteers also set out with school children and planted 50 tree saplings, 60 herbs and flowering plants.

Before the Outreach program was officially started, certain other social campaigns were conducted in the previous years, such as the following:

• Let's Stop Killing Ourselves (2017): Team Daksh in collaboration with Team Kuruksastra, the cultural fest team of SASTRA Deemed to be University, took the initiative to clean and transform the beaches of Besant Nagar, Chennai. This event took place over a period of two days, from 19 June 2017 to 21 June 2017.
• Health Awareness Campaign (2018): Daksh collaborated with Youth for Seva to conduct a health awareness campaign in Chennai on 10 June 2018. This campaign, sponsored by Fastrack and Luxor, was a part of Daksh’s ‘Come Out and Play’ initiative, which was aimed at inculcating the habit of playing outdoors among school children.

‘Spardha’, the flagship annual quiz conducted by Team Daksh in the month of January, involves the participation of students from various colleges in teams of two to compete for the winning place.

Events

Technical Events

The following departments are involved in conducting technical events:

1. School of Computing: Conducts events that cover different areas of computer science, from cloud computing and web development to multi-core architecture and high-performance computing.
2. School of Mechanical Engineering: Conducts events that test the skills of participants in building and designing tools and objects using their knowledge of mechanical engineering.
3. School of Chemical & Biotechnology: Conducts events that require participants to use their knowledge in biology and chemistry to design genes and proteins, implement forensic testing, designing neural circuits and biosensors.
4. School of Electrical & Electronics Engineering: Conducts events that require participants to design circuits, PCBs, and breadboards.
5. School of Civil Engineering: Conducts events in which participants are required to crack puzzles and design various machines and structures.
6. School of Management: Conducts events that tests what it takes to establish a business by focusing on a participant’s business, management, communication and marketing skills.

Technotainment

Technotainment,the entertainment and management cluster of Daksh , aims to impart knowledge through interactive events.Some of the events conducted as a part of this cluster:

• Forensics: During this event the participants used their the investigative skills to decipher a simulated crime scene.
• Be the Saviour: The participants fabricated robots to defuse a simulated real-time terrorism encounter.
• Space Trek: The participants experienced space walking through simulations.
• Daksh Cube Open: Conducted by the World Cube Association , this Open consisted of 10 different Rubik’s cube events where the participants exhibited their memorisation skills , spatial reasoning , dexterity and patience.
• Aqua Soccer: The participants designed robots capable of playing football on water surfaces.
• Nitro Ignite:The participants designed IC engine powered RC cars which were then pitted against each other in a racing event.

Power Talks

Daksh Power Talks, a fuel to ignite the spirited mind, delivers manifold streams of reflections and lectures from distinguished pioneers across the nation. Daksh 2020 seized the centre stage that year by hosting eminent dignitaries, including:

• Ms Yamuna David (Director of Permanent Training of Advocates at EFACS and former legal practitioner in Paris Bar Association) on the topic “Legal contours of Happiness”.
• Mr Dushyanth Sridhar (public speaker and writer), who gave a memorial address for Mrs YGP Rajalakshmi Parthasarathy (Smart Shiksha).
• Mr V Chandramouliswaran (Centre head of PayPal, Chennai) on the topic “Smart Living”.
• Mr Kovaichelvan (Director of TVS Institute for Quality & Leadership and executive council member of NBA) on the topic “Consumer to Contributor”.
• Mr Karthik Krishna (CEO of Telekonnectors and former managing director of Deutsche Bank) and
• Mr Prashant Soni (CEO of Sundaram BNP Paribas Fund Services and former chief process officer of CAMS), both on the topic “Just Act - Online Dispute Resolution platform”.

Daksh has also featured power talks from Mr Venu Srinivasan (Chairman of TVS Group and Padma Shri awardee), Ms Chitra Madhavan (author and speaker), Mr N Venkatraman (Head of Research at the Systems Research Center at the Boston University School of Management and visiting professor at the London Business School), Mr N Ganapathy Subramaniam (Chief Operating Officer (COO) of TCS and Director and Chairman of Tata Elxsi Limited), Ms Vishaka Hari (Carnatic music vocalist), Mr Swaminathan Gurumurthy (Journalist and Chartered Accountant), Dr R Vaidyanathan (Professor in the Finance & Control at IIM Bangalore and National Fellow of ICSSR) and many more prominent figures.

Workshops

Team Daksh has conducted a variety of workshops that have offered tutorials and hands-on sessions on various tools and technologies. Some noteworthy workshops conducted are:

• CREO
• Web Development
• Hand gesture robotics
• 6th sense robotics
• Building chatbots with AWS
• Home automation using IOT
• AR and VR
• Drones
• IoT
• Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks
• 3-D printing
• Amazon Alexa

Pro Shows

Pro shows are shows in which experts display their talents and expertise for the purpose of entertaining people. Here are some Pro Shows conducted by Team Daksh over the years:

• Anta Agni (2018)
• Suhani Shah’s magic show (2018)
• The Mentalist Show by Kruti Parekh (2019)
• Flute Beatbox by Ankush Jain (2019)
• Bike show by KTM stuntmen (2019)
• Harley Freestyle (2019)
• Algo Rave (2020)
• Unjaan Music (2020)

Hackathons

Hackathons were first introduced in Daksh in the year 2020. The event had scenarios for which the participants had to present solutions. They were:

• Smart two-wheeler safety systems that are supposed to detect ridges and grooves in roads.
• Smart manufacturing system using AR/VR.
• Smart finance paving the way for offline digital payments.
• Smart city design using sensors to manage assets, resources and services to improve efficiency of operations across a city.
• Smart healthcare system to manage healthcare data of children.
• Smart farming using drones and IoT to change conventional agriculture.
• Smart rain gauges to collect weather information, process and decipher moisture content and finally predict the possibility of rain.
• Genesys Hackathon, which involved usage of open APIs around contact centre technology to enhance customer experience.

Participants were shortlisted based on the solution abstracts submitted and mentorship was provided by the event sponsors - TVS, TCS and PayPal. Greater support was given by Genesys, a company specialising in customer experience and contact centre technology. Genesys provided two APIs, Knowledge Service and Named Entity Resolver Service, for the participants to utilize. The hackathons happened for about 30 hours straight during Daksh 2020. Prizes worth ₹5 lakhs were awarded to the winners.

Daksh ’19

The 13th edition of Daksh, Daksh '19, was held on 22nd, 23rd and 24 February 2019 with the theme “Sixth Sense”. It had nearly 1200 external participants with an internal crowd of about 4000 people.

Workshops on the following fields were conducted:

• 3-D printing: This workshop gave the attendees an introduction to 3-D printing and let them create small, solid structures with the help of computer designing software like CAD.
• Blockchain: The main topics covered in this workshop were cryptocurrency, its workflow and its types, hyperledger and future of blockchain technology.
• Drones: This workshop focused on the aspects of motor designing with electronic speed controllers and stable, controlled drone designing.

Power talks were given by N. Venkatraman, Chitra Madhavan, Venu Srinivasan and Dushyanth Sridhar. Pro-shows like The Mentalist Show, football freestyle, flute beatboxing and bike stunts were also a part of the event. Idea Presentation, Mad over Marketing, Nitro Ignite, Daksh Open Cube and DE Expo were some of the events conducted.

Daksh ’20

Daksh 2020, the 14th edition of Daksh, was conducted from 21 February 2020 to 23 February 2020 with the theme “Smart Living“, and with the tagline ‘Build things that matter’.The fest was focused on motivating people to build innovative products and find solutions to existing open ended problems

Daksh 2020 also saw the introduction of hackathons which saw the participation of nearly 200 teams across colleges (369 participants), out of which 101 teams were shortlisted for the final round. 24 teams (77 winners) won the events.

Apart from the hackathon challenges, the following events were conducted.

Technical events

• Online programming contest: This contest was conducted in two different editions - Junior and Senior, on the Hackerrank platform .
• Reverse engineering: Consisted of four sub-events, which were:
  • Stitch the Strut: To determine the tenacity of trusses.
  • Map the Memory: This challenge involved mapping circuit design.
  • Solve, Interpret, Challenge: Encouraged participants to reinvent concepts in biology.
  • Lego-o-Machine - Participants had to build a device with limited resources.
• Idea and Paper presentation: Opportunity for participants to present novel and fascinating ideas. On the whole, this competition had 92 participants. 24 participants won the prize.

Non-technical events

• Big tech debate: Participants had to employ quick thinking and good debating skills to win this competition.
• Sherlock: Participant had to piece together all the clues and solve the mystery
• Marketkshetra: Team with the perfect business pitch won the event.

There were a total of 168 participating teams in the events, with 28 final winners. Daksh 20 was also filled with pro shows like Algo Rave, where music was generated by live programming, headed by Abhinav Khoparzi.

Following workshops were conducted as a part of Daksh 2020:

• Sixth sense robotics : Participants developed a live bot, using Sixth Sense technology, Python and NodeMCU (sensors). This workshop was conducted in association with the Innovation and Research division of SASTRA TBI.
• Conversations for Customer Experience: Conducted in association with SASTRA TBI and GENESYS Technologies, participants developed a chatbot as a part of experience in contact centre technologies.
• Home Automation using IoT: Participants developed a web dashboard for home device monitoring and controlling by using Blink, Arduino/Node MCU, cloud streaming technologies and IoT hardware.
• AR-VR Workshop: Participants developed Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality applications using Unity 3D, APK for Oculus, Vuforia Oculus, Vuforia SDK, Android AR, Spark AR. This was conducted in association with SASTRA TBI.
• PayPal Integration Workshop: Conducted in association with PayPal and SASTRA TBI, the importance of online payments was discussed and hands-on experience with PayPal API for online payments was provided.
• Chatbot using AWS Lex : Introduction to Amazon Web Services and artificial intelligence for the development of a chatbot was provided in this workshop. This was conducted in association with SASTRA TBI.

Power talks were given by several dignitaries - Ms Yamuna David, Mr Dushyanth Sridhar, Mr V Chandramouliswaran, Mr Kovaichelvan, Mr Karthik Krishna and Mr Prashant Soni.

Many new initiatives were also introduced in the period following up to and during Daksh 2020.

• Outreach program: Tree plantation program of 111 saplings along with VV charitable trust at Lady Willingdon High School, Triplicane, Chennai.
• Summer volunteer program: Internship opportunities inculcating a sense of social responsibility.
• Daksh Prime Time: News channel providing a relay into the events of Daksh 2020.

Sponsors

Daksh is associated with a number of sponsors including TATA Communications, Cognizant, Red Bull, Foundation of Innovation and Research at SASTRA-TBI, Zebronics and so on. The sponsors for Daksh 2020 were TATA Communications and the co-sponsors were Foundation of innovation and research at SASTRA-TBI, TCS, Cognizant, MSL InfoTech India Pvt. Ltd. and FORTINET.

The sponsors for Daksh 2019 were TATA Communications and our co-sponsors were Foundation of Innovation and Research at SASTRA-TBI, TCS, TVS Automobile solutions, Cognizant, Aruba, ISL and FORTINET.

The sponsors for Utsav 2020 were Skill Safari, CAREERLABS in partnership with BYJU’S , Papyrus Fibres, Tann Trim, Blended learning, Zaap, Digi Diya, Learn2Code.Live, Foxmula, The Souled Store, Vibrant Outfits and Prep Bytes.

Table of themes

Down below are the themes of Daksh so far , starting from 2007 to 2020 (recent).

Year	Dates	Theme
2007	Feb 29 to Mar 1	-
2008	Feb 25 to Feb 27	Energy conservation
2009	Feb 13 to Feb 15	Green Technology
2010	Feb 19 to Feb 21	Experience Engineering
2011	Feb 25 to Feb 27	-
2012	Feb 24 to Feb 26	Engineering 360
2013	Feb 22 to Feb 24	Mahabharath
2014	Feb 21 to Feb 23	Terrorism and Peace
2015	Feb 20 to Feb 22	Ancient wisdom and Modern technology
2016	Feb 19 to Feb 21	Sanskrit
2017	Feb 24 to Feb 26	Make in India
2018	Feb 23 to Feb 25	Industry 4.0
2019	Feb 22 to Feb 24	Sixth sense
2020	Feb 21 to Feb 23	Smart Living

References

This article "Daksh" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Daksh. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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