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Coordinator at LOCUS 2019 Subash Ghimire

Interview with The Locus-2019 Coordinator Subash Ghimire

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Locus, a national technological festival organized by students from Pulchowk Campus has been providing opportunities for students all over Nepal to grow in the technical field with competitive programs.

Interview with the Locus-2019 coordinator Subash Ghimire is presented below.

What is Locus?

Locus is a pot, basically, a platform that brings together technological minds. It brings people devoted to the field of technology together and provides them with the opportunity to present their ideas and improve their skills. It shows what we can create, what has been designed and what can be produced.

What separates Locus from other similar clubs in Nepal?

Locus is the mother among all other clubs. Sixteen years ago, in 2003, thinking and organizing such a huge event wasn’t to be considered of in Nepal. Pulchowk Central Campus has all the infrastructures, devoted faculty members that are necessary to bring together such an event, so other public and private colleges learned from Locus.

How much has Locus, as a committee grown over the years?

It started with three members in 2003, the following electrical department was added to the event. It began as a platform to show the final year project and later began to provide training, conducting workshops, organizing pre-events and now hosting the biggest technological festival in Nepal.

Locus has been able to maintain high standards for over a decade, to whom does the credit go?

The faculty members in Pulchowk campus, infrastructures of Pulchowk, a committee over the years, interactive students within the college and all the visitors, participants get the credit for the success of Locus.

Do you think Locus has been able to provide a perfect platform to the idea seeking minds of the country?

Still not. We are still learning and developing. We still lack stability within us. However, starting from this year, we’ve gone into an organizational structure, so we hope we will start off getting disciplined in the way we act.

How much of an impact does Locus have on the development of technical students/society?

In the context of Nepal, the harsh conditions hamper the use of technology in day to day life. Many of us aren’t even aware of what new ideas have come into the world. Students limit YouTube and the internet for entertainment. The course that we are taught is limited to theories. The laziness from both sides in the educational system has caused limited innovations and ideas. So, we plan to create a society with bold students, that try new things even if it doesn’t produce the outcome they seek.

Is there anything about Locus-2019 that you would like to highlight?

Our mission is to involve a different circle of people. We are organizing RoboLocus, which is a robotics competition for +2 level students. Children in technology is another event that includes school level students. We mainly focused on governmental schools as the private schools have better infrastructures for the students. We hope to achieve parallel development by organizing such events. Likewise, events like Dronacharya, RoboWars, Project Competition, Hack-a-Week, Energy Hackathon, Code camp have provided the students from engineering or IT background to develop their skills.

Anything that you would like to say to the upcoming generations of Nepal to grow technically?

“Nepal lacks the environment to prosper” this thinking has limited everyone to the surface of technological development. Nepal is an open field, any crop you plant will surely provide the result. It will undoubtedly take time since evolution is a lengthy process. But sticking to the surface and blaming the situation of the country won’t help. So, try to do new things, try to learn, we will always try to provide the help needed.

Visit Locus-2019 on Magh 24,25,26 at Pulchowk Campus.

To know more about Locus and its events visit Locus’s website.

Energy Hackathon 3.0 started on Magh 13 at Pulchowk Campus

Energy Hackathon 3.0 Started On 27th January At LOCUS, IOE Pulchowk

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Energy Hackathon 3.0 has commenced on 13th Magh 2075 (27th January 2019) in Pulchowk Campus as one of the most anticipated pre-events for Locus-2019. The event will go on till 17th of Magh when the finale takes place to decide the winner presenting the best idea within the categories released for this year’s edition of Energy Hackathon.

A paragraph from Locus’s Website explains Energy Hackathon is to be made

“A complete platform for solving energy-related challenges with a prime motto of distribution generation, demand-side management, alternative energy, energy efficiency and aims to solve the energy problems of Nepal through collaborative efforts of students and amateur working in Energy sectors. The three things you need to participate in the event are Idea, Knowledge, and curiosity.”

There are 18 teams (consisting of 2-4 members each) that have registered to be a part of the event. Energy Hackathon provides a platform for B.E. students of Electrical and Civil Department all over Nepal to seek out the possible ways of minimizing the use of energy.

The title sponsor for Energy Hackathon 3.0 is Giz. Likewise Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC) and NEA Engineering Company are the category sponsors. General Sponsors for this event include Heritage Nepal, Tanahu Suryodaya Urja, Rasuwa Gadhi Hydropower.

 Different companies and IOE, Pulchowk Campus participate in the opening ceremony of the event. The Chief guest for the event was Prof. Ram Chandra Sapkota, Dean, IOE. Jiwan Kumar Malik, AEPC/RERL, Mohammad Badrudoza, IOE, Pulchowk Campus, Narayan Pd Chaulagain, GIZ, Babu Raja Maharjan, NEC, Prakash Sapkota, AEPC, Srijana Shrestha, AEPC/RERL, Subash Ghimire, Locus, Binay Paudel, Rabi Raj Shrestha and Rupesh Dongol, NEC were present as guests. The idea pitching session started followed by the question-answer session from the guests present.

The chairperson for the opening ceremony, Thakur Paudel added:

“Energy Hackathon encourages students to convert the ideas into the field, as well as to find the economic feasibility of their ideas. It also gives views to different companies on how students can present ideas differently.”

The categories enlisted for Energy Hackathon 3.0 are:

  1. Demand Side Management
  2. Alternative Energy
  3. Energy Efficiency
  4. Distributed generation

The participants will need to present their ideas on the development of energy technologies based on the categories as mentioned above. Winning groups from each division will be awarded Rs.10000 cash prize along with certificates.

Only in the third edition, Energy Hackathon has proved to be an event that can bring out the ideas from the students and help them give out to the needs of the society. So, it promises to be an event resulting in life-chag ideas.

LOCUS 2019 16th National Technological Fest

LOCUS-2019, +2 Quiz Successfully Conducted

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January 25, 2019, Kathmandu

The organizing team for LOCUS-2019 has successfully conducted a pre-event, +2 quiz, on Magh 11 within the premises of Pulchowk Central Campus. With the theme “Be ready, Be smart, Be noticed!” Locus has set a platform to include the growing youth of +2 level to be a part of the National festival’s events. Locus that is a student’s organization within Pulchowk Campus has been organizing such inclusive activities for the past 16 years and is a regular body to include the +2 level students with programs that best suit their field of interest. In an ever-developing society, Locus-2019 are willing to take a stand and vote for a change. They have been successful with their efforts to conduct a well-organized +2 Level competition.

Pulchwok Engineering Campus To Organize LOCUS 2019

Ujjwal Bhandari, the head appointed to organize the program added

“The event is a means to enhance the relationship between the high school students and undergraduate level students, a means of getting the students involved in the environment of engineering campus and in some way help them to see the bright future in engineering. With the motto ‘Competition Builds Quality,’ Locus focuses on building team spirit and competitive skills among the students, thus helping them to enhance their academic quality along with their abilities. Since technology worldwide is advancing rapidly, being familiar with them is a must. In this context, this event encourages the students to get acquainted with various fields of knowledge and technological advancements. It provides opportunities to realize and enhance their potentialities.”

The event saw the participation of high school students from the following colleges:

KMC, KMC National College, Omega College, Bernhart College, DAV College, Times Int’l College, NIST(Lainchaur), Patan NIST, Glacier College, and CCRC.

After a series of questionnaires from various aspects such as current affairs, science, and technology, history, sports, geography, culture, and religion, including rapid fire and audio-visual rounds, the best among all the tough competitors were selected.

The team of Raj Babu Chaudhary and Deepesh Aryal, representing Patan NIST were adjudged the winners with Eighty Five (85) Points at the end of the competition. Likewise, team CCRC was able to bag the second position.

The teams were provided with trophy and medals along with certificates to mark their valuable participation in the event. A cash prize of Rs.10000 to the winning team and Rs.5000 to the runner up will be awarded during the closing ceremony of LOCUS that will be held after the main festival.

16th National Technological Festival 2019

LOCUS Pulchowk Campus: The Story About How It All Started

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LOCUS: A Brief History

In an ever-developing world, LOCUS (a committee of students from Bachelors in Electronics, Electrical, and Computer Engineering, Pulchowk Campus) has been continuously providing the students related to such a vast field to develop practical knowledge and skills through competitive participation in its annual tech-festival.

In the year 2003, three enthusiastic and soon to be computer engineers from Pulchowk visited a tech event in Regional Engineering Campus, Jaipur, India (currently known as the National Institute of Technology) that inculcated their fostering minds with the idea that a similar event must be organized by arguably the best engineering college in Nepal. So, they embarked on a mission to bring the reach of a competitive environment for the young minds of Nepal to develop. Girish Bilash Joshi, Amit Krishna Joshi, and Biswa Dahal formed an informal group comprising of the then faculty, professors and made the event possible. Although the committee started off including the students of Computer Engineering, the students from Electronics and Electrical Engineering soon joined the group and made LOCUS possible as we know today.

The first LOCUS, which was a seven-day event provided the much-needed exposure to the projects of the undergraduate students of the technical faculties. The event turned out to be much more successful that it was anticipated and hence laid down a platform for future tech enthusiast to grow. LOCUS-2003 comprised of events like Project Display, on spot software designing, quiz, software, and hardware debugging, tech cartooning and many more. The project supervisor of the quartet, Dr. Arun Kumar Timalsina, who overlooked the event closely stated that all three of them did everything necessary; from marketing to financial management to resource management.

The following year, Nischal Dahal was appointed as the Co-Ordinator along with Smriti Shrestha as the Chief Correspondent. In 2004, the event was aided by the maximum support of the Electrical Engineering students and the event was expanded. The then committee requested a working space and hence the current office was granted by the college administration. The second LOCUS saw a huge number of attendees however the following year wasn’t the same. LOCUS 2005 saw a tremendous fall in the number of attendees and was stated to have no uniqueness.

In the year 2006, LOCUS was finally diversified by the inclusion of the Electrical Engineering students in the committee. The event was then conducted for 3 days and the introduction of new events like software and hardware competitions has been a trendsetter ever since.

The following year saw the addition of an electrical event that included project demonstrations, idea bidding and topics like Alternate energy, Transmission lines, hydropower and many more. The trend was then set and students from all three technical departments were included in the committee for organizing the events annually.

Ever since the first installment of LOCUS, it has been fulfilling the literal meaning of its name, a trajectory that binds us together and provides a path for those who seek opportunities to grow.

LOCUS-2019 (soon to be organized on February 7,8,9) has added a few more events like ROBOLOCUS (robotics competition targeted for +2 students), hardware/software fellowship (workshop/training for +2 and undergraduate students), AI fellowship (training for AI enthusiasts) and promises to be a wonderful platform for those who seek to develop.

References: https://locus.pcampus.edu.np/