Kurukshetra is an international techno-management fest conducted annually by the

College of Engineering, Guindy The College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG) is a public engineering college in Chennai, India and is Asia's oldest technical institution, founded in 1794. It is also the oldest technical institution to be established outside Europe. History Due ...

(CEG) in

Chennai, Tamil Nadu Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Tamil Nadu, the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and territories of India, Indian state. The largest city ...

, India. It is a four-day event organized by the college's largest technical body, the CEG Tech Forum (CTF). The name of the fest derives from the location of the apocalyptic battle between the

Kaurava ''Kaurava'' is a Sanskrit term which refers to descendants of Kuru, a legendary king of India who is the ancestor of many of the characters of the epic ''Mahabharata''. Usually, the term is used for the 100 sons of King Dhritarashtra and his wif ...

s and the

Pandavas The Pandavas (Sanskrit: पाण्डव, IAST: Pāṇḍava) refers to the five legendary brothers— Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva—who are the central characters of the Hindu epic ''Mahabharata''. They are acknowledg ...

in the ancient Indian epic, the ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...

.'' The tag-line of the fest, "The Battle of Brains", refers to the battle. The fest was first held in 2007 and was the first techno-management festival in India to be awarded

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

patronage. Its logo, the

cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Janu ...

, symbolizes the celebration of the indomitable spirit of engineering and innovation.

Working committee

The festival is organized by CEG Tech Forum. Founded in 2006, the Forum is a student-run organization, currently consisting of 19 teams: Brand Relations, Content, Design, Events, Finance, Guest Lectures, Hospitality, Human Resources, Industry Relations and Media, Initiatives, Internal Auditing, Logistics, Marketing, Projects, Promo, Quality Assurance and Control, Technical Operations, Workshops, Xceed (outreach) and Karnival (entertainment). Overall, there are around 600 members at various levels of the hierarchy.

History

Hosted for the first time in January 2007, the fest included workshops entitled "Autonomous Robotics", "Ethical Hacking" and "Need for Speed" as part of the event. The project exhibition event received an overwhelming response with more than 250 entries and 25 teams short-listed for the final display. Kurukshetra was the first student-organized tech fest in India to receive

patronage, in 2011. Kurukshetra was also titled Green Fest by the UN Conference for

Sustainable Development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...

in the previous edition in 2012. The student-managed committee is certified to the

ISO 9001 The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO 90 ...

:2015 quality standard.

Karnival

Karnival is an event that presents displays on science, technology, arts, history and culture. Some of the past exhibits are a magic show and 3D-floor painting held in 2014, an Arjun tank demonstration and

laser tag Laser tag is a recreational shooting sport where participants use infrared-emitting light guns to tag designated targets. Infrared-sensitive signaling devices are commonly worn by each player to register hits and are sometimes integrated wit ...

game in 2015, and caricature workshop, photography workshop, Rubik's cube workshop and virtual reality exhibition in 2016.

Guest lectures

Workshops

The workshops range all over the radar of technology from aero-modelling, and robotics to motorcycles. Some of the notable workshops in previous editions are:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurukshetra CEG College festivals in India Technical festivals in India