TransITion 08, Chennai

The Master of Ceremony announced that Kannappan and Arvind M of Sri Sairam Engineering College had won the Technical Paper presentation contest. The two students turned emotional and were too choked for words.

The next announcement was about the winners of the ‘Robotics’ contest. And ….three women from Meenakshi Sunderarajan Engineering College, Chennai literally jumped out of their seats, pumping their fist in the air. Nalini Priya, M. Dharsini and R. Venkatalakshmi, did a little jig on their way to the dais to pick up the prize.

Two different reactions, but for similar reasons: The top prize was a ‘Job offer’ in Cognizant. Now…that’s something really worth winning.

TransITion 08, Chennai, a massive tech forum for pre-final year engineering students, which attracted over 35 colleges and an unprecedented 1,300 students, was a fresh and different experience for students, placements officers and heads of engineering colleges in and around Chennai.

The power packed day had a lot of powerful presentations, speeches and interactions. Leading the presenters was Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice Chairman, Cognizant and Chairman, NASSCOM, who moderated an animated discussion on how entrepreneurship and innovation could be brought into the engineering curriculum.

The panel included Anna University Vice Chancellor Dr. D. Viswanathan, leading industrialist Gopal Srinivasan (of TVS Electronics), besides two young entrepeneurs, Murugavel Janakiraman (CEO, Bharat Matrimony.com)  and Sarathbabu (CEO, Food King Caterers).

The biggest event in terms of participation was the “Ultimate Techie” which tested students on their basics across multiple engineering disciplines. Based on the performance in the objective-type first round, 18 students were shortlisted for the second round which was more of a descriptive type, again testing them on advanced concepts across disciplines.

More than 700 young men and women took the test and after the final round, D. Karthikeyan of SRM University stood at the top, of course, with a Cognizant job offer on hand. V.C. Sengamalam of Prince Shri Venkateswara Padmavathy College of Engineering was the runner-up of the event.

For its sheer amazing ups and downs and the breadth of knowledge tested, the Quiz conducted by Giri Balasubramanian, was a rocker. Audience sat with rapt attention as the questions tested the nerves, knowledge and quick thinking of the six teams on stage, selected from over 70 teams that participated. Finally the professional skills of Sri Venkateswara’s College of Engineering team (Ranjani & Ramkumar) prevailed, leading others by miles.

In sum, TransITion 08-Chennai, proved a major success for the organizers as also for the students. Many of the students walked up to Cognizant’s HR campus team to thank…and of course, to demand more of the same exciting stuff.

When the maiden Transition in Chennai has been such a success, students can all expect encore after encore…right? Next destination for Transition: Coimbatore

Here’s the list of winners:

Paper Presentation
I – Sri Sai Ram Engg. College, Chennai (Kannapan S. & Arvind M)
II – SASTRA University (Savani Anbalagan)

Quiz
I – SVCE (Ranjani & Ramkumar)
II- CEG, Anna University (Srivatsan S K. Kalaiselvan)

Robotics
I - Meenakshi Sundaram Engg. College (Nalini Priya R, Dharsini M, Venkatalakshmi R)
II - SRM University (Anirban Chaudhry, Prasanta Bhattachary, Saurav Singh)
Special Prize- Robotics Aesthetics – Prince Shri Venkateshwara Padmavathy College (C. Rajitha, Jayashree, Bhuvaneshwari)

Ultimate Techie
I – D. Karthikeyan (SRM University)
II – V.C. Sengamalam (Prince Shri Venkateswara Padmavathy College of Engg.)