Where Are We With ATMoS – An Interview With The Technical Secretary

An interview with Divyansh Gangwar, the Technical Secretary of BPHC, ahead of our tech-fest ATMoS this November.

Q: What should we look forward to in this ATMoS, and what improvements will we see in your time?

A: What I am looking forward to this time is collaborations between our clubs and industry professionals. That’s the reason I have ensured that all the clubs have their own collaboration teams. We use ATMoS as an opportunity to bring in industries, companies, knowledge, and resources from outside so that we, as the TechSenate and the tech enthusiasts on campus, can have the industrialists’ perspective on what is happening in the industry and ATMoS is an excellent opportunity to do so. For GB, we have a lot of workshops and competitions. We’ll also have many tech experts who will guide the enthusiasts throughout ATMoS. We have also planned something fun and different with RoboWars. We have expanded RoboWars a lot. It is now a standalone event. The RoboWars finale is being held on 10th November, and we have taken steps to ensure that it doesn’t clash with any other workshop or proshow. If I remember correctly, last time, we had about 6 bots for the entire RoboWars. This time, we have 6 bots from a single team and plan to have around 10 teams. Also, our director, Professor Soumyo Mukherjee, has a keen interest in RoboWars, and we will be inviting him to be the chief guest for the RoboWars finale. Secondly, we have a new event, the ATV Experience. We are setting up an ATV track to conduct races among ATVs from and around Hyderabad. We are still figuring out the details as the track is too small. We are also thinking of maybe having just one stunt show, a simple one where people can watch how ATV works. Our club, SAE, has its own ATV and participates in competitions every year. They are hosting it and participating in it. Apart from that, we are also planning to get a Super Car display. We are reaching out to vendors for that. Otherwise, we will just have a showcase of tech cars that are being used in our country. Apart from that, we also have the DRL. This time, we have collaborated with IDRL (Indian Drone Racing League) to conduct DRL. We have about 20-plus pilots. These are the main events for ATMoS. Then we also have a tech expo by I-CELL, which will be held in Audi Foyer. All the clubs are very excited for this because it’s an opportunity for them to showcase what they have created. Apart from that, there are many fun and small events. For example, we are having some events specifically for school children this time, along with some workshops and competitions. There are some DORA events, too, which are being held specifically for school children So that we can have them as our potential target audience for ATMoS. That is the basic outline for ATMoS 24.

Q: A small follow-up regarding RoboWars – the arena for RoboWars is really small. So there are a lot of visibility problems if there is a large crowd. Can something be done to improve that? Maybe changing the location or making the stage bigger?

A: We decided to have RoboWars in OAT this time. We will be barricading the whole stage, and the OAT stairs can be used for the audience to sit. We will have seats for the panel and the chief guests on the grass of the OAT, and we will be setting up screens facing the LTC lobby, where the event will take place.

Q: ATMoS is the biggest tech fest in South India. To maintain its legacy, it should be better than the previous year. What steps are being taken to ensure a better fest?

A: We have put in a lot of effort and ensured that there is no clash of domains between the events that we are conducting. We will release the schedule in a day or two. You will find that there are no events where two workshops target the same set of audiences. We have also reduced the number of workshops to ensure that no events clash with each other. Last year, we had more than 85 workshops, so we reduced the number of events by 10-15. We will be having 70-75 workshops this year. Last year, people who wanted to participate in two or three workshops could not do so. That was a significant problem in the ATMoS last time. Secondly, one of the major concerns last year was the price of workshops like the aircraft workshop; this year, we do not have any workshops exceeding the cost of ₹3000. The only drawback is that most of the workshops held during ATMoS this year will not have hands-on experience because the prices go up as we include physical components in a workshop. This year, most workshops are centered around simulations based on computers rather than physical components. That’s the reason prices have been reduced.

Q: Last year, a few of the workshops were held after ATMoS due to various reasons. Are there any measures being taken to avoid these kinds of situations?

A: I remember two workshops that could not happen during ATMoS last year. One was the RC plane, the other was Mobile Astrophotography. Due to cloud cover, we could not have the mobile astrophotography workshop, and we couldn’t do anything about that. We didn’t have pleasant weather during ATMoS, so we had to postpone the workshop. That’s the reason we had to defer Stargazing as well. Secondly, the RC plane workshop, we were unable to conduct this workshop due to many logistical issues. The inventory order was delayed. There were many issues regarding that last year, and we didn’t receive all the parts of the RC plane workshop. We don’t have such component-intensive workshops this time, so that would not be a problem. And regarding the cloud cover, I hope that doesn’t happen this time. We have reviewed the weather info and observed an 80% clear sky for all three days. But it could obviously change. No one can predict the future.

Q: Do you think having proshows during ATMoS is a distraction?

A: It’s not a distraction. It can be a distraction if it clashes with one of the big highlights of ATMoS, and we are ensuring that it does not happen this time.

Q: What do you think about the cancellation of proshows? And how did you manage to bring them back?

A: There were a lot of rumours regarding the cancellation of proshows. Security concerns were raised after what happened last time during ATMoS, and there are financial constraints too. Pro shows always burn a lot of money. Our new director, Professor Soumyo Mukherji, is very enthusiastic about tech. He was formerly working at IIT Bombay and wants us to get inspiration from their tech culture, which is understandable. That was his main idea behind removing proshows. We had a conversation with the director for around one and a half to two hours, and we realized that we were on the same page. Ideally there should not be any pro shows in a tech fest. It should be all about tech. To handle that situation, a lot of changes would be required in the whole system of how the SU/departments/clubs work. We cannot bring all these changes in one tenure, but we are gradually moving towards that. We have reduced the number of pro shows and restricted it to one. We have also ensured that the budget of the proshows is less than the budget spent on workshops.

Q: What are your thoughts on the hosting of proshows?

A: We cannot have ATMoS without proshows as we would lose most potential sponsors. Until we figure out a way to fund ATMoS and bring a lot of revenue through other means we cannot remove proshows. Also proshows bring in a lot of footfall. Removal of proshows reduces the footfall.

To give you perspective, we have already set up workshop and event registration portals, but 90% of the queries asked on the ATMoS Instagram page are regarding the proshows. There are a lot of people reaching out to us for passes.

Q: Are the passes being distributed through Unstop this year too?

A: We have a payment partner this year, a startup by third-year students. We have three people handling this, they approached us and showed us their interface. It was completely customisable and impressive, so we decided to proceed with it. Also, by using Unifest, we are able to incorporate UPI payments during the fest. This was not allowed earlier because there was a chance of losing track. CRC prohibited us from using UPI. But Unifest is giving us a single-point UPI payment where CRC can track all of the transactions, and that’s the reason we are using Unifest this year. On top of that, they are giving us highly customized UI’s for putting up our workshops and events, so we went ahead with Unifest. We are using Unstop for publicity this year as there isn’t much reach through Unstop.

Q: What are the headliner events for ATMoS this year?

A: As I mentioned earlier, RoboWars would be a sight to see. We have put in a lot of effort to ensure that RoboWars becomes the headliner for ATMoS. Apart from that, we also have a DRL which will be conducted by IDRL, a national-level community. We will also have ATV for the first time during ATMoS, we are kind of gambling on it, and are not sure of how it will go. Our current focus is to ensure everyone’s safety. We are focusing on barricading people so that no one gets injured during the event. Thirdly, we may also have a Super Car display; we haven’t received any confirmation and are still looking out for the vendors. We are also excited about the tech expo that will be held in the auditorium foyer. We have put in a lot of effort into its execution. As of now, I-CELL is overseeing that. We have two major hackathons this time, one hosted by CRUX, which is a competitive coding competition, and it gets around 20,000 plus participants from across the world. It’s hosted online in Spain. The other hackathon is a CSA star event called “Hack to the Future.”

Q: Considering there’s less than a month for ATMoS, how confident are you in the preparations?

A: There are a few hiccups here and there, but overall, I am pretty confident. Things are going pretty smoothly.

Q: Last year, a few of the workshops were very theoretical. Can we expect them to be more practical and application-based this time? 

A: Our primary focus is on the 24 batch, who will be paying for the workshops. We have curated the syllabus in a way that is friendly for them, it won’t be too hard for them, and even if the second or third years attend, it won’t be too simple for them.

Q: The ML workshop last year was found to cover only the very basics and, therefore, wasn’t very interesting. Can we expect an improvement?

A: This year, we’re having a similar workshop conducted by ACM, but I am thinking of collaborating with CSA’s gen AI workshop so that their schedule does not clash and people who opt for gen AI can also attend the ML workshop.

Q: You said that to reduce the costs, you’ve removed many practical-based workshops…

A: No, I have said that workshops with too many practical components have been removed. Last year, 6-7 workshops taught only the basics of Arduino. So, this year, there is only one workshop on Arduino. We are scaling out on others. For example, we have a RAGBot workshop. RAG is an advanced topic, and they will create a chatbot using it. Another workshop we’re having is a tinyML workshop that implements ML models using the basics of Arduino.

Q: How do you plan to increase participation from our campus and other colleges?

A: So the publicity strategy is like this. We’re reaching out to our fixed campus ambassadors, who come every year. We have a list of interested people. Apart from that, we’re reaching out to new colleges. We are selling the workshops in bulk. We’re also selling them bulk passes; for example, if a single person brings 10 people, we will give them some incentive, such as a free ticket. These campus ambassadors are putting in a lot of effort so that people from their colleges bring people with them.

Q: Is there anything else apart from this?

A: Apart from that, we are reaching out to many schools this time. We are releasing a special student pass only for school students. This would consist of a choice of workshops in which they can opt for the one that is school-friendly. A competition, a talk, and a DORA event combined, we are selling for around 800 rupees. We are contacting schools, and they are very interested.

Q: So, in your manifesto, you mentioned that you would like to pitch for expo projects such as weapons analysis. How do you plan on executing this?

A: This is only possible if they reach out to us. We cannot reach out to the military or the army, asking them to bring artillery or guns into our campus. If they want to publicize it among the people, they will reach out to colleges, and they mostly go to IITs. So that was a waste of time.

Q: To end, can you give a brief overview of the workshops and events in ATMoS? And how is it all gonna be different from last year?

A: I put effort into planning the domains of the workshops. If you know about target audience analysis, from the data, I got a basic idea of what people opt for and the domains in which people get jobs. 40-50% of people opt for jobs in the IT and ML sectors, and around 30% opt for jobs in fin-tech and non-tech centres, followed by electronics core, mech core, and bio core. Some are very enthusiastic about physics, math, or chemical engineering. So if you want me to, I’ll show you my budget. The number of workshops follows the same distribution as the target audience. 

Q: You ensured less redundancy and more variety across workshops?

A: Of course. We have removed some old workshops and brought new ones in their place. For example, we brought in a quant workshop. Most colleges and tech fests have quant workshops. We did not have that, so we wanted to bring it. 

Q: Do you have any concluding statements regarding ATMoS and your agenda for the GB?

A: There were a lot of concerns regarding the increased reduction. Nevertheless, the quorum was not met. I hoped to have a serious discussion with the GBM, but that did not happen. This time around, the major concern was that fests have become all about proshows. I wanted to change that. For this year’s ATMoS, we have put in efforts to improve the headliners, the workshops, and the competitions, other than improving the pro shows. Pro shows are necessary, but not at the cost of our tech culture. This time around, we have increased the prize money. We have decreased the expenditure on the workshops because we have very few physical components. We have increased the spending on  DRL and we’ve put effort into the speaker lineup this time. I’m in daily communication with Divyansh Bissa, the Embryo President. We have gotten some confirmations. I cannot reveal it yet. 

I’ll tell you a little story if you have the time. Around two to three weeks ago, there was an alumnus visiting our campus. He was a 2014 batch student. Kannan Sir asked me to show him around. He talked about changes on campus. He was in his third year when the first ATMoS took place. We had Pearl from the start but not ATMoS. ATMoS emerged from the vision of the tech clubs and majorly from a grind mentality. There was no SU and there was no technical senate. There were just a couple of clubs who figured that they had to do something. They started reaching out to people, went to professors, and got permission. That’s how the first ATMoS was conducted. I got inspired by that story. We’ve forgotten about the grind mindset because there is now a lot of structure. There’s the technical secretary, clubs, the Senate, the SU, and everything is written down in the Constitution. But that structure has blocked our initiative-taking mindset. This time around, from my first week in the Senate, I made it very clear that I want people to take initiative, and I’ll bring initiatives from my end. That would be my conclusion for this ATMoS.