Computer Society of India, Chennai Chapter IEEE Computer Society, Madras IEEE Professional Communication Society, Madras Student Essay Contest Harnessing the Power of ICT for our New Initiatives Computer Society of India, Chennai Chapter, in association with the IEEE Computer Society, Madras and IEEE Professional Communication Society, is pleased to announce an Essay Contest on the role of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) in India for school and college students. The contest will be in two streams:   Stream 1: Open to School Students (from 8th Standard to Plus 2) Stream 2: Open to College/Polytechnic Students (UG/PG students of all disciplines) Now ICT has ubiquitous presence in India and other parts of the world, and it is being applied in various fields such as Manufacturing, Banking & Finance, Telecom, Healthcare, Hospitality, Transportation, Education, Agriculture, Environment, eGovernance, eCommerce, and Defence for quality and productivity improvements. India is a major force in the global IT landscape. ICT is a key driver of our economic development and accounts for about 6.5% of our GDP and provides employments to over 3 million people. The Government of India has recently launched three major initiatives – Digital India, Make in India, and Clean India, in which ICT can – and should - play significant roles. Through this contest, we seek your thoughts, innovative ideas and solutions on how ICT could support and help these initiatives. An eligible participant is required to submit his/her essay on any one of the following topics by 31st Jan 2015: 1. ICT for Digital India 2. ICT for Make in India 3. ICT for Clean India Submissions will be assessed by a panel of experts on criteria such as originality, novelty, applicability, potential value of the proposed idea(s) and clarity and style of presentation. The contest winners in EACH stream will be awarded the following prizes & certificates:      One 1st Prize: Rs. 10000 nd Two 2 Prizes: Rs. 5000 of each rd Four 3 Prizes: Rs 2500 of each Ten Consolation Prizes: Amazon gift voucher of Rs. 1000 each Certificate of Merit: For 25 shortlisted essays over and the above prize winning essays Terms and Conditions Competition is open to all the eligible students studying in India. A student can submit ONE essay only, on any one stream, on any one of the three topics -- ICT for Digital India, ICT for Make in India, or ICT for Clean India. Submission has to be individual’s work and group work/ submission is not permitted. The essay should be an original writing by the contestant. Essays found to be copied from other source(s) will be disqualified. The essay should be written in English. The length of the essay should be no more than 3000 words (about 4-5 pages). Inclusion of appropriate figure or table is recommended. The submission must be in both electronic (by email, as an attachment) and hard copy (by regular post), st and must be received by 31 Januaray 2015. The printed essay submitted by regular post should accompany a CERTIFICATE in the following format attested by the Principal (in the case of school students) and by HOD / Principal (in the case of college students) =============================================================================== CERIFICATE I, <name of the student>, certify that I have written this easy and it is solely my contribution. Name and Signature of the student, Date …… This is to certify that <name of the student> is a student of <school/college name> in <class / course>. Name and Signature of the Principal / HOD Date Official Seal of the school / college ================================================================================ The essays submitted without the certificate will not be considered. The essays submitted after the last date will not be considered. Organizers are not responsible for any postal delays. The essays will be evaluated by a panel of experts on criteria such as originality, novelty, applicability, potential value of the proposed idea or solution and clarity and style of presentation. While the maximum word limit is 3,000 words, tightly-written essays rich in ideas and packed with content will be viewed more favorably than lengthy prose with low content value. The winners will be communicated as per the timeline indicated elsewhere in this brochure. All the submitted essays will become the property of the organizing societies and they have all rights to use them in any appropriate way for wider circulation. The decision of the organizers is final. Guidelines for Electronic submission The essay should be in “word document” format only The file name should be: <first four characters of the name of the student in lower case><date of birth in YYYYMMDD>.doc th Eg: rama19951215.doc [when the student name is Ramasamy and date of birth is 15 Dec 1995] Please email the essay to [email protected] as an attachment. In subject line, enter “submission of essay <file name> Eg: -- submission of essay rama19951215.doc The body of the mail should contain the following information. Stream Type: Stream 1 / Stream 2 Name of the student: Date of Birth :<in YYYYMMDD format>: Class / Course of Study: School / College Name: City: Mobile No.: Email ID: Topic of the essay: Name of the word document file attached: Did you attach the CERTIFICATE?: Yes / No Date of posting of the physical copy to CSI :<in YYYYMMDD format>: Declaration (I agree to the terms & conditions): Yes / No Remarks (if any in not more than 50 words): After sending the mail, please complete the registration form at: http://goo.gl/oSVzuG Guidelines for Physical submission Take a printout of the essay. Also get the CERTIFICATE (in the above format) printed and get it signed by the applicant himself/herself and the Principal / HOD as the case may be. On the left top corner of the envelope, for tracking purpose, please write the file name (word document file) of the essay enclosed. Please send the essay & certificate by post to the following address: Student Essay Contest Computer Society of India Education Directorate CIT Campus, 4th Cross Road Taramani, Chennai 600113 Important Dates    st Last date for submission of essays in both physical & electronic form: 31 Jan 2015 th Date of prize announcement: 28 Feb 2015 th Prize distribution: 15 Mar 2015 For clarifications / queries if any, please email us at [email protected] About the Organising Societies Computer Society of India: Formed in 1965, the Computer Society of India (CSI) is the oldest and largest IT professionals association in India. Currently, CSI has over 100,000 members representing industry, academia and student community. The mission of the CSI is to facilitate knowledge sharing, research, learning and career enhancement for all categories of IT professionals, while simultaneously inspiring and nurturing new entrants into the industry and helping them to integrate into the IT community. The CSI also works closely with other industry associations, government bodies and academia to ensure that the benefits of IT advancements ultimately percolate down to every single citizen of India. CSI, geographically divided into 7 regions serves its members spread across the country and abroad in over 70 chapters and 550 student branches through five technical divisions namely Hardware, Software, Applications, Communication, and Education & Research. Special Interest Groups such as Artificial Intelligence, eGovernance, Free and Open Source Software, Software Engineering, Distributed Systems, Humane Computing, Information Security, Bioinformatics, Web 2.0 & SNS, High Performance Computing, Wireless Networks, Green IT, Technology Enhanced Learning, Formal Methods, Big Data and Analytics, Indic Computing etc., bring the focused professionals together. More at http://www.csi-india.org/ IEEE Computer Society: IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) is a professional society of IEEE. Its purpose and scope is “to advance the theory, practice, and application of computer and information processing science and technology” and the “professional standing of its members. The CS is the largest of 38 technical societies organized under the IEEE Technical Activities Board. The Computer Society sponsors workshops and conferences, publishes a variety of peer-reviewed literature, operates technical committees, and develops IEEE computing standards. It supports more than 200 chapters worldwide and participates in educational activities at all levels of the profession, including distance learning, accreditation of higher education programs in computer science, and professional certification in software engineering. More at http://www.computer.org/ More of IEEE CS Madras at http://ieeecs-madras.managedbiz.com IEEE Professional Communication Society: The IEEE Professional Communication Society (IEEE PCS) is a professional society of the IEEE. The Society’s interests include the study, preparation, production, delivery, use, improvement, and promotion of human communication in all media in engineering and other technical and professional environments. To this end, the IEEE PCS endeavors to: Advance technical and scientific communication as an essential element of engineering; Help engineers, scientists, and other technically oriented professionals to communicate better in the workplace–both in speaking and in writing, both verbally and nonverbally; Promote and disseminate best practices and research results on the development, maintenance, delivery, and management of technical content; and, Promote and facilitate leading-edge education and training of engineers, scientists, and other technically oriented professionals in communication theory and practice. More at http://pcs.ieee.org/ About the Supporting Organisations Dynamic Group founded in 1982 is serving customers for more than three decades. Dynamic is one of the well-established and largest software resellers in India specializing in marketing & supporting the leading software products in the world. Dynamic is the preferred choice of vendors for many a leading Corporate entities and Multinationals in India in diverse businesses like Banking, Financial, Manufacturing, Information Technology and Education, etc. Dynamic is considered to be one of the most trusted organisation in the IT industry with a strong reputation of being very dependable dealers to deal with and high standards of Business Ethics. More at http://www.dynamicgroup.in/ Anjana Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (Estd:2001) provides strategic IT services for Insurance clients in North America, is driven by its motto “making IT possible”. More at http://www.anjanasoft.com/ HP Networking: More at http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/networking/ Cognitive Platform Solutions (CPS) Pvt Ltd is a software technology company, incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of SRA Systems Ltd, a software product and services company in existence since 1986. SRA Systems is an ISO 9001:2008 certified and CMM Level 4 assessed company. The Business Model of CPS revolves around the iPROOF Platform - a Lean Business Process Management suite, developed in-house used to build “Smart Process Apps” solving specific problem areas in Financial Services, Education and Manufacturing verticals. More at http://cognitiveplatformsolutions.com/ . Orbit Innovations is a Salesforce.com boutique partner with a wide portfolio of clients across all verticals and sizes. We have in-depth experience in implementation and custom development on the Salesforce.com platform. Winner of numerous awards and citations from Salesforce.com, Orbit Innovations’ skills in developing SaaS solutions ranges from standard Salesforce.com implementations to complex systems custom built on the Force.com hosted platform. Orbit Innovations focuses on people, process and technology to drive a successful Salesforce.com implementation. We work with the clients from the initial phase of CRM implementation, and ensure that clients reap the benefits of Salesforce.com year after year. The RELATIONSHIP is paramount to our business philosophy. More at http://orbitinnovations.com/ CloudReign Technologies is a Google Apps for Education partner. Google Apps help educational institutions to collaborate with a set of free productivity tools like GMail, Drive, Calendar, Sites, Forms and many more. CloudReign Technologies implemented and trained several thousand students & staff from close to 100 educational institutions in the last two years. With Google Certified trainers, help organizations to migrate their existing messaging solution to Google Apps, brings lot of expertise to the table when it comes to flawless migration of existing messaging solutions on to Google Apps. CloudReign Technologies do consult, train, recommend & implement cloud based applications and technologies that organizations can start using from day one. More at http://www.cloudreign.in