Gunning for Gold – How the Tech Guilds are preparing for Inter-IIT

As the days roll by, the nights grow longer and darker. We’re almost through October and on the brink of winter. The semester is coming to a close, and an idle observer may find nights at CFI and BSB DCF become increasingly bustling with students, even till sunbreak. An uninformed freshie might put this down to a simple “endsem grind bro” explanation, but we know better- who puts grind for endsems of all things these students are actually the crème of our institute’s technological prowess, working steadily towards the 13th edition of Inter-IIT Tech Meet.

Amidst the intense ongoing preparation, we at T5E bring you a glimpse of everything that is Inter-IIT Tech Meet through the lens of the current Contingent Leads, Sreejaa Kumar and Chahel Singh.

Q: For the uninitiated, what exactly is the Inter-IIT Tech Meet? What makes it different from the Inter-IIT Sports and Inter-IIT Culturals?

A: In its essence, the Tech Meet is a tech competition where companies from different tech domains propose real-world problem statements (PS), and contingents constituted by the best students from each IIT come together and propose solutions to these problems. Teams start tackling the PS well before the offline event (2 weeks, 1 month or 2 months before depending on the type of PS), working on developing end-to-end solutions for their respective solutions.

On the day of the offline event, teams present their proposed solutions in front of a panel of judges, who evaluate the efficacy of the solution and rank the teams accordingly. Judges calculate the final standings of each IIT based on their aggregate score.

One factor that sets the grind for Inter-IIT Tech Meet apart is the sheer amount of time team members spend with each other while attempting to crack the problem statements, which, with the exception of team sports, is unmatched. Moreover, by virtue of the fact that these participating companies derive these PSs from conundrums currently faced in their respective industries, the solutions that emerge from participation in this competition could potentially have a noteworthy impact on the tech world. Of course, it goes without saying that the skills inculcated in the process are precisely those that are in demand in the industry, and thus boost the participants’ career prospects and employability.

Q: What sets the Tech Meet apart from the various other external competitive arenas (read Kaggle hackathons, case competitions, etc.)?

A: The Inter-IIT Tech Meet is a platform that pits the best tech talents from across the country, and thus naturally has a prestige associated with it. The participants in this competition are not just from the premier institutes of the country, they also are the best of their own institute. The significance of the entry barrier to participate in it is not lost on students and employers alike.

Moreover, being a part of the contingent also means you get to meet and interact with other talented people in your domain from IITM. Meeting legendary seniors and accomplished peers, interacting with them, learning from them, learning with them, and working with them provides a highway for growth in skills and an abundance of connections—something that is prohibitively difficult to find elsewhere, let alone external competitions.

Chahel further adds, “In my opinion, these are just perks. The true goal is to show every other participant that we are IIT Madras, nationally recognized as NIRF 1. How can we not be the best? The Tech Meet gives us an opportunity to identify as representatives of the tech sphere of our institute, and it’s our job to fight to the top and show them who’s boss.”

Q: What’s the deal with the new guild system? How has the structure of the tech sphere changed? And how do you guys, and CFI, fit into all of this?

A: The CFI clubs are well-established and are doing a great job. Their year-round schedule consists of:

  • Public exposure events
  • Teaching events
  • Guest talks
  • In-house competitions
  • Shaastra competitions
  • Technical projects, etc.

The other segment of CFI is the competition teams. Their main goal is to participate in one or two competitions, and they prepare throughout the year to deliver their best in these competitions. However, people noticed that there are no dedicated teams of people to participate in frequently organized short-prep competitions and no system in place to manage these competitions. This is why Sukheth Kallupalli, the present CoCAS, introduced the guild system into the tech sphere.

Guilds are an interest group of probables for the various competitions happening throughout the country and over the year. They add a new dimension of competition to CFI, something that hasn’t been done before. The guild members will identify and participate in all prestigious competitions happening round the year, and we’ll take care of all the other logistics involved. Participating in competitions adds a definitive end goal, which accelerates the learning process and is also more satisfying because of the inherent ‘spoils of victory’ aspect. These competitions, of course, act as a precursor, and even selection process, to the biggest goal of the guilds – to participate in and win in the Inter-IIT Tech Meet.

Q: Despite our best efforts, IIT Madras has been consistently underperforming in the Tech Meet for the past few years. How has this been the case? And how are you planning to tackle these issues in this edition of the Tech Meet?

A: One thing is certain—there is no paucity of skill or talent in IITM. Despite having loads of bright minds in our arsenal, we have not been able to showcase this in the competition due to one major reason: a lack of culture. For the last few years, people have not been taking pride in representing the best of IITM. They simply do not empathize with the spirit of holding our institution’s flag high and instead view it as another PoR from the perspective of personal gains.

Moreover, the GSB is generally less informed about the Tech Meet in comparison to Inter-IIT Culturals or Sports. Thus, students aren’t aware of the prestige associated with the Tech Meet and the value it adds to their profile and skillset if they take part in it. The Tech Meet is also perceived to be ‘mindless grind’, as opposed to the pleasure of culturals and the excitement of sports.

In addition to this, our primary modus operandi for selections has been the framework of CFI clubs, which is associated with knowledge dissemination rather than competitions. Thus, the tech-enthu and talented seniors, who aren’t interested in club activities and aren’t associated with the clubs, are left out of the loop. As a result, the best talents are not there at the vanguard in the war against other IITs.

With the advent of the guild system, we now have a dedicated entity purely for competitions, and thus can attract people who only want to participate in competitions and nothing else. Coupled with intense PR brought about by a team solely dedicated to the organizational aspects of the guild, we are now able to pull many more people. We take care of all the extra planning, logistics, and insignificant stuff so that the contingent can solely concentrate on just doing their best in the competition, giving more incentive for the more senior batches to join us.

Through this, we hope to get the scattered talents strewn across IITM under one umbrella and foster their collective skill into something larger than the sum of its parts. This system is “more learning in less time”: the contingent members are tasked with no extra work apart from the competition at hand. The guild framework also provides for a system of organic knowledge transfer from seniors to juniors, which was absent earlier without a competition-managing organization streamlining it.

Sreejaa further adds a message for the readers:

“With a combination of aggressive PR and personal contacts, we’re already well on our way in our mission to make a powerhouse tech community for IITM. Even so, I’m sure there are people who haven’t heard of this or didn’t get an opportunity to join us. But rest assured, there will be more rounds of selections in the near future, and I hope everyone even remotely interested gives it a chance. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, after all.”

Q: In retrospect, what do you think is the biggest reward a student gets out of participating in the Inter-IIT Tech Meet?

Chahel and Sreejaa suggested that this question was better answered by some of the leads of the previous Tech Meet, so we asked a few of them to give us their two cents on the topic.

Shankar Balajee, co-lead of the Adobe PS contingent, recalls how his team struggled with an NLP-intensive problem statement, making zero progress in the first two weeks. In the last 48 hours, they pulled an all-nighter, pushing through illness and lashing rains, ultimately clinching a bronze medal with their presentation. “It was only possible because of the tight-knit, talented team,” he reflects.

Shankar’s experience is just one of many that captures the intensity and camaraderie of the Inter-IIT Tech Meet. As one of the previous leads myself, I can relate to these people. I still remember working intensely on Colab as the rain lashed on the door of my room in Godavari. I still fondly remember the times we sat around and had our contingent-funded pizza. One of the craziest nights of my life was the day right before the presentation, when we were sitting around in BSB, frenetically making slides, before we realized we were actually terrible at making good slides and got someone with better slide-sense to help us renovate our presentation!

With IIT Madras rallying behind them, the new contingent is ready to face the challenges ahead. As the 13th Inter-IIT Tech Meet kicks off, they are prepared to give it their all and make the institute proud. Let the competition begin!

Edited by Anvith R

Write a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *