Tech Festival LOCUS 2013 addresses Engineering the Rural Development in Nepal

The Decennial edition of the National Technological Festival, LOCUS 2013 is all set for Asar 14-16, 2070 in Pulchowk Campus. The LOCUS, since 2003, has been a technology-oriented festival in Nepal organized by the student body of the same name in the Pulchowk Campus for promoting technology and the spirit of competition among students in calibrating the technological skills. LOCUS 2013 edition named “10th National Technological Festival” is addressing the theme “Engineering the Rural Development” in Nepal to encourage ideas and designs that foster best select technologies for deployment in rural sectors of the country.

What is LOCUS all about?

The need of addressing ICT and its role in Rural Development of Nepal is likely to be demonstrated in this festival. With the theme of “Engineering the Rural Development” LOCUS 2013 is targeted at various rural development technologies, namely

1. Energy: Save, Sustain, Survive
2. Bridging the digital divide
3. ICT’s empowering rural Nepal
4. Technovation for development
5. ICT for corporate competency

The various events in the festival would be held to address the real world problem in ICT for Rural development, specially of Nepal, in areas of concern like language, agriculture, education, health, transportation, and IT skills. Like previous years, seems like LOCUS has no space for FLOSS in Nepal. (Suggested reading: Free & Open Source Technology for Rural Nepal, does it work?)

Events & Projects in LOCUS

LOCUS 2013 sees both competitive and non-competitive events to accommodate the feeling of tech presence in the event. The competitive events encourage students and small projects to show case their tech know-how in any areas of hardware, software, electricals and web designing such that they should be related to rural development applicable to minimize the digital divide between rural and urban tech levels.

Besides the competitive and open events, LOCUS as usual would feature many programs that are directly and indirectly related with the theme to address ICT in Rural development. Also included in the LOCUS 2013 events are paper presentation, code camp, gaming competition, junior tech level technical quiz competition, projects show case, and many more. Let’s categorize the events of LOCUS 2013 based on the information from the official website.

Hardware-based Events

• Workshop in Networking (Cisco/CCNA)
• Hardware competition
• Robo Akhada

Software-based Events

• Web design competition
• Yomari Code Camp 2013
• Software competition

Non-themed Events

• Bachelor /+2 Inter college quiz competition
• Workshop on solar PV system design
• Graphic design competition
• Electrical event (?)
• Gaming competition
• Paper presentation in ICT & Rural Development (in Nepal)
• Mathematics and ICT Olympaid

Contributions from LOCUS 2013 Tech Festival

Unlike other commercial and sponsored tech events held in Nepal, LOCUS focuses directly onto the theme of the technological festival hence the solution to cater ICT and engineering the rural Nepal. LOCUS will be concentrating on the solution approaches of the same:

• Exploring alternative and renewable energy solutions for Nepal
• ICT for agriculture to bring in innovated and productive agriculture & farming (Suggested reading: Expectations from agriculture knowledge bank in Nepal.)
• Focusing on the usability of the technologies deviced for rural areas via simplicity, language needs, and accessibility
• E-learning, online education, e-health and better communication practices to implement and bring in habitual ICT usage for the productivity in respective fields.

These as a whole shall bring all the concerned authorities, governmental as well as nongovernmental, to work together, reducing the cost of research on one hand and putting forth clear head start in the relevant field. We believe these students who stand out of the normal crowd, shall lead the society tomorrow in the field of ICT revolution and to globalize the technology. ~ LOCUS Media Proposal

Who should attend LOCUS 2013?

Everyone. The technology is for everyone, and specially when you are concerned about ICT in your work, you must be aware of it. Students (specially engineering college and high school students) are highly encouraged to participate in all the events, best if they have their own projects no matter how big or small.

SOHO (Small Office Home Office) businesses who might be looking how they can enhance reach of both the producing force and the consuming force in their respective field can generate requirements and learn a lot from this rural development focused tech event (Suggested reading: Starting business just got easier in Nepal, a better ICT4D eGovernance approach). Corporate personnel and IT professional who are directly or indirectly concerned with rural well-being of the country – can find the event useful by focusing their work scope to which ICT aspect to prioritize in the rural development. Visit LOCUS 2013 in Asar 14-16 and get most out of it.

Expectations from LOCUS 2013

As said in the contribution section above, LOCUS 2013 is not aimed at commercial users, so we can frankly expect some wise, scholarly views about fostering and deploying ICT means in the rural parts of the country. While saying so – we might be boxed as most of Nepal is rural, and is isolated of the ICT reach. Expect good papers about the possibilities of addressing rural development; some telcos and broadband outreaching (?) remote areas; aspects on e-commerce and formulation of the same nationwide while addressing some solutions exhibiting rural need enhancement; theoretical (seriously?) solutions for alternative energies as ICT solutions; and much more on ICT aspects & talked about IT policies in Nepal.

The competitive and non-competitive students and IT companies involved events are expected to bring seriously good information to students. Learning, sharing and show casing the projects can be expected to bring really something NEW.

See you there!