The tortoise, winner of the race,
Stood proudly in the winner's place.
The moral of the story I'll say,
Slow and steady wins the day.
Almost everyone who knows V.I.S.V.A.S. (visionary initiative to sculpt a virtuous academic system) at IIT Delhi would like to thank the messy IIT reading room and the institute library that closed at at 6; which inspired the two IIT guys Vinayak Garg and Bhushan Shinde to start a social entrepreneurial venture called V.I.S.V.A.S. The idea was simple: Students join the initiative by bringing their problems in the academic system and together work out a solutions for it. Within no time the V.I.S.V.A.S. team changed the reading room outlook and convinced the IIT authorities to extend the library timings. But that was just the beginning for them because since then what started as a soc
Stood proudly in the winner's place.
The moral of the story I'll say,
Slow and steady wins the day.
Almost everyone who knows V.I.S.V.A.S. (visionary initiative to sculpt a virtuous academic system) at IIT Delhi would like to thank the messy IIT reading room and the institute library that closed at at 6; which inspired the two IIT guys Vinayak Garg and Bhushan Shinde to start a social entrepreneurial venture called V.I.S.V.A.S. The idea was simple: Students join the initiative by bringing their problems in the academic system and together work out a solutions for it. Within no time the V.I.S.V.A.S. team changed the reading room outlook and convinced the IIT authorities to extend the library timings. But that was just the beginning for them because since then what started as a soc
ial entrepreneurship venture has now emerged as an NGO and is expanding in other Delhi colleges by starting V.I.S.V.A.S. chapters there.
About an year ago I had first written about this venture as I thought that a social entrepreneurhsip venture from an institute that is know for producing business magnets is worth getting inspired. An year later I called up Vinayak and his team for lunch to get a status check and found that the team had nothing to leave anybody dissappointed.
Everyone in IIT Delhi has seen V.I.S.V.A.S. building up its avenues from scratch and bringing very satisfactory improvements in their projects. All V.I.S.V.A.S. projects however are directed towards creating a better acedemic system which in fact is the niche of the organizations working model. In fact it is perhaps India's only student organization which encourages students to search problems in their own academic system and helps them to reach a solution. Notices Vinayak Garg,"Other NGOs work for the society and try to raise the bars. We at V.I.S.V.A.S. just do that for the academic system"
So why have an organization working for improving academic systems of institutes which have already established their reputation in academic brilliance like IITs? Replies Garg," Every academic institutes will have its own problems. What is different about the working of V.I.S.V.A.S. is that each project we take up has a core ideology behind it. We just try to solve the ideology, the problems get solved on their own." This in fact might be the reason why V.I.S.V.A.S. has gained so much popularity among student community speacially in I.I.T where the organization is helping out students in their every day academic problems. One of the very recent task accomplished by V.I.S.V.A.S. was the establishment of an online exam archive where students can download previous exam papers. Ankit, a third year student who has been working on the project since past one year puts the core philosophy behind the archive. "We established the archive not just because students can download previous years papers and get relevant questions but also because availability of an open online archive would force the faculty to test parameters like pracicality and applicability rather than rote slogging."
As far as the organizations progress is concerned, apart from establishing itself as an NGO, V.I.S.V.A.S. has slowly but steadily achieved great milestones. For example,during minor 1 examinations the online exam archive established by V.I.S.V.A.S. was accessed by some 650-700 students among around 1500 IIT students who gave the exam and thats a debut success rate of 50% . Their reading room and library initiative was recognized and awarded by the IITD alumni association. Another project in working is Droabe, which is a web based portal for educational institutes aimed at providing effective commuication between students. Pankaj, who is looking after the Droabe project puts it this way,"There was a need for an online notice board cum communication and news distribution channel for students. Droabe fulfills all these needs" In fact many other delhi institutes have shown interest in Droabe and no wonder all present energies of V.I.S.V.A.S. are being focussed on this dream project which will also mark the entry of this NGO in other Delhi colleges.
Although V.I.S.V.A.S. is just more than a year old, it has built a very solid student reputation, especailly in IIT. Presently it has some 40 working members from IIT itself along with others from various other college chapters. This year V.I.S.V.A.S. would be featured in 'IITD ke funde', an official institute booklet given to freshers to introduce them to IIT life.
However all this glory and success has been achieved through a lot of struggle specially as it requires a lot of investment of time, which in IIT can sometimes be a costly affair. For example in the beginning, the founders Vinayak and Bhushan had to do a lot of convincing to students as well as faculty to launch an idea like V.I.S.V.A.S.so that it does not gather a rebellious or political image. Ankit who worked on the exam archive used to utilize his lunch hours to find time for sitting in IIT computer center and uploading exam papers. And this all must be true for everyone who is putting his time for V.I.S.V.A.S. But finally all the hard work is showing results. Today many educational institutes like SRCC are showing interest in opening their own V.I.S.V.A.S. chapters seeing its success in IIT.
"We still have a lot to do", says Vinayak. "We will soon be launching 'Dayitva', an Entrepreneurship contest in IIT with a difference that this would be more focussed on implementation rather than just B-plans and ideas. This would include IIT administration supported projects which can be carried out in IIT itself." The team is currenlty also working on Video introduction of elective courses and 'Samvaad' a seminar series for increasing awareness amongst students and enabling them to excersice an informed choice.
A dedicated workforce, a brilliant concept and some established credentials; V.I.S.V.A.S. has every ingredient for a success story. Finally it is good to see a group of students that is working on creating gloably competitive education systems. Now it would be all the more interesting to see what route this NGO takes up now. After all, that's how revolutions are created.
About an year ago I had first written about this venture as I thought that a social entrepreneurhsip venture from an institute that is know for producing business magnets is worth getting inspired. An year later I called up Vinayak and his team for lunch to get a status check and found that the team had nothing to leave anybody dissappointed.
Everyone in IIT Delhi has seen V.I.S.V.A.S. building up its avenues from scratch and bringing very satisfactory improvements in their projects. All V.I.S.V.A.S. projects however are directed towards creating a better acedemic system which in fact is the niche of the organizations working model. In fact it is perhaps India's only student organization which encourages students to search problems in their own academic system and helps them to reach a solution. Notices Vinayak Garg,"Other NGOs work for the society and try to raise the bars. We at V.I.S.V.A.S. just do that for the academic system"
So why have an organization working for improving academic systems of institutes which have already established their reputation in academic brilliance like IITs? Replies Garg," Every academic institutes will have its own problems. What is different about the working of V.I.S.V.A.S. is that each project we take up has a core ideology behind it. We just try to solve the ideology, the problems get solved on their own." This in fact might be the reason why V.I.S.V.A.S. has gained so much popularity among student community speacially in I.I.T where the organization is helping out students in their every day academic problems. One of the very recent task accomplished by V.I.S.V.A.S. was the establishment of an online exam archive where students can download previous exam papers. Ankit, a third year student who has been working on the project since past one year puts the core philosophy behind the archive. "We established the archive not just because students can download previous years papers and get relevant questions but also because availability of an open online archive would force the faculty to test parameters like pracicality and applicability rather than rote slogging."
As far as the organizations progress is concerned, apart from establishing itself as an NGO, V.I.S.V.A.S. has slowly but steadily achieved great milestones. For example,during minor 1 examinations the online exam archive established by V.I.S.V.A.S. was accessed by some 650-700 students among around 1500 IIT students who gave the exam and thats a debut success rate of 50% . Their reading room and library initiative was recognized and awarded by the IITD alumni association. Another project in working is Droabe, which is a web based portal for educational institutes aimed at providing effective commuication between students. Pankaj, who is looking after the Droabe project puts it this way,"There was a need for an online notice board cum communication and news distribution channel for students. Droabe fulfills all these needs" In fact many other delhi institutes have shown interest in Droabe and no wonder all present energies of V.I.S.V.A.S. are being focussed on this dream project which will also mark the entry of this NGO in other Delhi colleges.Although V.I.S.V.A.S. is just more than a year old, it has built a very solid student reputation, especailly in IIT. Presently it has some 40 working members from IIT itself along with others from various other college chapters. This year V.I.S.V.A.S. would be featured in 'IITD ke funde', an official institute booklet given to freshers to introduce them to IIT life.
However all this glory and success has been achieved through a lot of struggle specially as it requires a lot of investment of time, which in IIT can sometimes be a costly affair. For example in the beginning, the founders Vinayak and Bhushan had to do a lot of convincing to students as well as faculty to launch an idea like V.I.S.V.A.S.so that it does not gather a rebellious or political image. Ankit who worked on the exam archive used to utilize his lunch hours to find time for sitting in IIT computer center and uploading exam papers. And this all must be true for everyone who is putting his time for V.I.S.V.A.S. But finally all the hard work is showing results. Today many educational institutes like SRCC are showing interest in opening their own V.I.S.V.A.S. chapters seeing its success in IIT.
"We still have a lot to do", says Vinayak. "We will soon be launching 'Dayitva', an Entrepreneurship contest in IIT with a difference that this would be more focussed on implementation rather than just B-plans and ideas. This would include IIT administration supported projects which can be carried out in IIT itself." The team is currenlty also working on Video introduction of elective courses and 'Samvaad' a seminar series for increasing awareness amongst students and enabling them to excersice an informed choice.
A dedicated workforce, a brilliant concept and some established credentials; V.I.S.V.A.S. has every ingredient for a success story. Finally it is good to see a group of students that is working on creating gloably competitive education systems. Now it would be all the more interesting to see what route this NGO takes up now. After all, that's how revolutions are created.
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