FOSS@NITC 2006 - It's over

Directly taken from an old blog:

Tonight was a strange night. I haven't felt this sad or empty in a long while. One and a half months of intensive work has finally come to an end, FOSS@NITC's second edition has come and gone by and all that remains are the memories and hopefully a few inspired souls. The event on a whole can be counted as a reasonable success, the speakers were very good, no serious organisational problems popped up and the delegates that turned up were a fairly interested group. So why was I feeling this depressed... this is probably what it feels like to be sentimental, and being sentimental is not something I'm very familiar with.

The speakers, as I stated above, were all very good... they had a great vibe going on among themselves and with us as well. They were a young bunch determined to make the most of their weekend off and hopefully they had a good time down here at NITC, we did our best to ensure they had the most convenient of stays. We'll find out soon, their blogs will be updated in a few days, and we'll see how we figure in them.

The organizing team was awesome, especially the IEEE team which has probably the most dedicated bunch of executives in our college at the moment(Amar, Malani, Sreekanth, Thomas... you guys rock). Given one more year, they can make massive leaps within the college, they only need to think big. Others, the CSI and CSEA teams had a few exceptional individuals, folks who simply did not know when to stop working( PR, KK, Girish, Sreedal and others). And finally, my final year friends, the ones I'd got into this logistical and organizational quagmire - Faiz, Varghese, Haynes, Ranjit, MP, Ajay, Salih, Siby... thank you. You folks were my pillars of strength through these last few days. There were times when everything seemed to be going too fast... but you guys were always there to provide help, my Band of Brothers. No words can compensate for your all that you've done, so will some Shree Krishna Sweets Mysore Pa do?

The delegates were my biggest disappointment. Not quality, the students that came from a number of colleges spread across Kerala were a revelation to me, I did not know FOSS had such a widespread appeal across Kerala. But such students are few and far between as demonstrated by the turnout from our very own National Institute of Technology Calicut. One statement from my bewildered friend Ranjit (Registration Team Head) will do - " Our lads hurt the event the most. Out of the first 30 odd students from our college to register online, only one actually turned up... ". The online registration procedure had deceived us into optimism, the organizers for next year are likely to be more circumspect. For a premier technical institute in Kerala, the engineers seem to be a little too laidback and self-satisfied for my comfort, any more laidback and they're likely to be horizontal. The forum, or platform if you wish, was put up for the sake of these students, but how is an event supposed to succeed when its main target audience decides their priorities lean towards more mundane occurrences. This college needs a shake up, a wake up call from the students side, or else the effects of declining standards will further hurt its already diminishing reputation. Placements are not everything... in fact placements are the easy part. A Placement Centric policy can only destroy any motivation on a students side to try something new, something unconventional. It will only kill the desire to think outside the box. It will kill the culture of innovation, of discovery... and finally, of self belief.

I wanted to leave a lasting legacy with FOSS. This institute was one I entered with a whole lot of dreams. The culture in this place has doused my fires of revolution, but the embers still burn dimly inside me. I still have a few days in this place and I'm not going to leave silently into the horizon.... and I won't be leaving alone.

Bits, Bytes and Nibbles_