eWIT’s First Students’ Convention 2013 went off fabulously well! To view the photos, please click on this link - eWIT Students Convention 2013 Photos
The day started with all the
eager beaver students lining up for registrations from all over Tamil Nadu.
The event
themed as “Tomorrow is (Y)ours” drew over 300 women students from various
colleges in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu. The full day event enthused
the participants with various activities such as Poster Competition, Paper
presentation, panel discussions, etc.
Kalyani Narayanan, President – eWIT and CEO, www.easyinsuranceindia.com said “eWIT, by far is the only forum in India that actively works towards helping women working in the IT/ITES industry. Recently, our focus on enlisting women students by visiting academic institutions across Tamil Nadu has given a wider scope for us to reach the women students who aspire to enter the IT/ITES sector after graduation. The overwhelming response from various colleges has been very encouraging. Having seen the huge response from the student community, we plan to organize such events regularly aimed towards helping women students to equip themselves for a successful career in IT/ITES.”
Ms. Indira Jagan, Exec Committee Member, eWIT & Academic
Initiatives, Head, said, “Academic Initiative was
started a year ago to better address eWIT’s goal ‘To increase Share &
Sustainability of Women in IT’. eWIT would like to contribute positively to the development of women students : starting from their entry in IT companies and right through their growth to leadership roles. Hence we felt we should start working with the
students to increase the Share of women in IT.
The
membership response has been good and 15 colleges as members in just a year. As you can see most of our sponsors are our member colleges. It makes us feel good to see they are
seeing value in the eWIT initiative.
For our academic members we offer
2 programs at their premises and Faculty can attend any of the programs conducted
for eWIT corporate members and colleges get networking opportunities with eWIT
Corporate Members
We thank our eWIT Corporate Members for
taking time to go to the colleges and address them.”
Mr.Ramaraj described interesting anecdotes as to how computing has
transformed since he first saw a computer and so many other people along with
him were made to do just a Namaste to one single computer – barefoot! Now, it’s just mobile apps on the go!
He added that it’s not enough to
just complete your academic curriculum, but all the more important to widen
one’s vision especially with the advent of free online courses from prestigious
institutions such as Standford, Harvard and many of the Ivy League Institutions.
The next session was the Power Panel discussing the topic : ‘ Tomorrow is Yours’.
The panel comprised of : Ms.Parvati
Karthik, HR, TCS, Mr. Shivram – Director, Deloitte Human Capital services and Ms.
Srimathi Shivashankar – Associate VP - Diversity & Sustainability, HCL with
Ms. Latha Ramesh moderating the session. Ms. Latha Ramesh is Exec Committee
Member – eWIT and also Vice President, Classle
Knowledge Pvt. Ltd.
This panel discussed
how it is important to differentiate oneself to reach the top.
Ms.Parvathi
Karthick stressed that - To be the leader for tomorrow one needs
to have the following planning, prioritization, continuous learning, be
expressive in writing and speaking as well being physically fit.
Mr. Shivram shared the success secrets of the World’s Most powerful
women which are : Have a dream, Be persistent, Have a curiosity to learn, Lead
by example, Delegate at Work and at Home, Remain disciplined and to Be ethical
Ms. Srimathi
shared that one must ask for rights and not be cowed down by what others’ say
and be ready to explore any opportunity coming your way and retain the same
confidence that one has in college right through one’s life!
Panel discussion on the topic :
Tomorrow is Yours was followed by the session where the Paper presentation on the topic : ICT Trends
2020 was discussed by the jury . The jury comprised of the
leading lights across the board in the Corporate world such as Mr. Ramakrishnan, Senior Director,
Testing Solutions,CSS Corp Pvt. Ltd.,Mr.K Anantharaman,Vice President,Classle
Knowledge Pvt. Ltd. And Ms. Aparna Ramalingam, Senior Correspondent, Times of
India
Over 50 papers were screened with
10 shortlisted for oral presentations and 3 were chosen as winners.
The papers explored various areas
within the topic of ICT Trends 2020 and some were as varied as Green
Computing to using technology for a mobile ambulance to using technology and
enabling specially abled people use their prosthetic limb better.
The jury was happy see such
innovative explorations by the students especially in an age where Technology
is disruptive and Innovation is the name of the game. The jury stressed
on the importance of taking the last semester project seriously as many large
organisations such as Amazon provide offers to teams which work on live
projects.
The
winning team also showcased their ideas to the audience with a presentation.
An elaborate lunch spread was
underway with all the students tucking in to their fill.
Lunch was followed by the panel discussion : Your Questions Answered.
This session was planned to give an opportunity to the students to voice their
thoughts and have their questions regarding working in an IT/ITES organization
answered.
The panel
comprised of representative from various organisations as well as the student
community. The panel was chaired by Ms.Namagiri Ramesh - Delivery
Manager - Tech Mahindra & Joint Secretary - eWIT . The session was moderated by
Ms.Smita Venkataraman - Associate Director,
Branding and Communications – AGS Health. The panel members from the Industry
were : Ms. Vanipriya Jayaraman - MD – Director, Proyojana, Ms. Anusha
Domnic - Manager, IT Security – Sundaram Clayton Limited, Ms.Suma Mathai
- Sanpra Infotech Pvt Ltd., Sr. Manager – HR & Admin and Ms. M.
Swetha Durga - Sales and Training Executive – Phaeros IT India Pvt. Ltd.
Some of the questions that were asked were : What is expected from an Intern and as to how
one manages to procure an internship from a Tier II college in Tamil Nadu. What
it takes to be an entrepreneur especially in times of recession.
The panel answered the questions with a good dose of
humor and also advising the students to have a fire in the belly to succeed and
not wait for opportunities to land on their, rather to look for opportunities
and strive to reach them. The key takeaway for the students was that : It is
important to work for experiences and not for a salary!
Get Inspired was a session where
as a part of eWIT’s initiative to help the students aspire and achieve beyond
their limitations,a young woman achiever was selected to talk to them.
Ms. Sridevi Raghavan, CEO, Amelio Child Care Pvt. Ltd. shared her
journey where she spoke about balancing her passion and talents along with details
of setting up an organization. Her talk was very inspiring where she spoke as
to what it takes to be a young achiever like her.
Some of the key points that were shared by her were:
Don’t shy away from dreaming big! , Opportunity comes disguised as Hard Work
and one will never have the right answers all the time
The
highlight of the day was the Poster Competition on the topic : Gadgets for
communication in 2020
More than 30 teams from colleges
all over Tamil Nadu presented their posters on the topic.
The posters were evaluated by noted professionals in the Mobile
communications space such as Mr.Cletus Pinto, Head of Product Engineering,
Nokia India Pvt. Ltd.and Mr. Nandakumar - an experienced International Telecommunications
expert and Dr.R.Gokulakrishnan – Deputy Director,STPI
The
students presented their imaginative ideas for the Gadget that they plan to
build. They presented to us a world of gadgets where communication to a
person’s brain is possible by just transmitting our thoughts through a network!
Other noteworthy gadgets were a Magic Chip which could achieve many things, a
Finger phone where one could communicate using just their fingers as well as a
gadget for tracking soldiers!
The day has turned to be the most
memorable & fun filled moment for the participants and many of them felt wanting
many such events in future that are informative & interesting from eWIT.
We thank all the Sponsors for
making this event a success
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