INDIA TELECOM 2008
It was three day event organized by Department of Telecommunications (DOT), Govt. of India jointly with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) from 11-13 December 2008 at Delhi.. A six member team comprising of designers, technician and cameraman had participated from IIT Bombay.
The principal theme for the event is 'Connecting Rural India. It is a premier exhibition in the area of Telecom sector with the intention of bringing together who's who in the Industry and to provide the opportunity to interact with the leading Telecom companies and the potential buyers. The participants were an eminent mix of government, public and private sectors from India and overseas who showcased the latest products, formulation and capabilities
PREPARATION:
A systematic preparation for over a week prior to the event was done by the team. The contents to be showcased, the equipments to be carried and other similar things were prepared during
1. Projects shortlisted:
[a] The flash animation, videos and procedure for the toys developed by Prof Arvind Gupta were modeled together to create contents for mobile applications. Three modules of Fun with Science on Climbing Butterfly, DC motor, Colorwheel were completed successfully.
[b] OSCAR handhelds on Angles and Colors with sound were successfully tested on mobiles.
[c] Information about the OSCAR website.
[d] Mobile application developed for aqua.org
2. Technical Arrangements:
[a] Laptops with all the data and softwares installed, bluetooth application.
[b] Handy cam with ample number of cassettes.
3. Management:
The coordination with the TCOE team about the travel, accommodation and the technical facilities to be provided at the Expo was discussed prior to departure..Every individual was assigned responsibility to manage various aspects of the visit.
[a] Contents: Sandeep and Bhairav
[b] Technical: Sandip and Kailash
[c] Coordination: Seeja and Swati
EXPERIENCE AT EXPO:
The opportunity to be part of such a big event gave us first hand experience in many aspects
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4. Inaugural Function:
The event was inaugurated by Prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh, where he launched the country's first 3G services. After the inaugration, A.Raja (Minster of of Communications and Information Technology) visited our stalls. The photos of his visit has been captured by our cameraman.
5. Special Invitees:
The Director TCOE, personally accompanied many guests to the stalls. One of them was Siddhartha Bebura Secretary Minster of of Communications and Information Technology. He was very pleased with our efforts and congratulated for the same. Some other international invitees also visited the stalls.
6. Statistics
[a] Guests: TCOE Director, Minister and secretary for Communication and Technology.
[b] Students: 6
[c] CDs distributed:26
[d] Booklets: One Box (100)
[e] Bluetooth: 35
7. Photos and Videos:
The whole three day event was captured by our cameraman. The interaction with the guests, presentations of the team and the reaction of the guests to the demo of our contents. .
8. Feedback and Suggestions:
In general, everybody appreciated the effort. Some of them were surprised to see us demonstrating contents where everyone else was showcasing the technologies. There were couple of kids who attended, they were excited about the applications and were easily able to navigate through the applications. There was a request for topics to be covered for lower standards. Few commented on the introductory slides in video to be slow. Since the theme of the expo was 'rural connectivity', some could not relate our contents to the theme.
9. Individual Contribution:
Everybody made an effort of contribute in the presentation for the visitors.
[a] Seeja and Swati presented project OSCAR and TICET.
[b] Bhairav and Sandeep demonstrated the contents on the mobile.
[c] Sandip and Kailash recorded the video and handled all the technical requirements.
10. Problems faced:
[a] Technical: The bluetooth application in the laptop took time to detect the mobile devices for transfers. Later, we solved the problem by transferring the contents from our individual mobiles. We faced problems in connecting to the Wi- Fi connection. Due to this we were not able to demonstrate the OSCAR website and the mobile application from aqua.org.
[b] Contents: We were provided with a Plasma TV. We didn't have any content that would run continuously on it. We prepared a flash presentation with different parts of Fun with Science and OSCAR handhelds.
[c] Most of those who were interested wanted contacts of the Project Managers. They requested for visiting cards, which we didn't have. For them we kept some booklets with email address mentioned on them.
11. Things learnt:
The biggest gain was the experience to interact with the guests. It was a test to respond to their query which we were not prepared for. The importance of teamwork and coordination such a big trip.