#Clubs&Activities

  • inGenius and GirlGeeksHack held

    inGenius, the annual 24-hour hackathon and GirlGeeksHack hackathon supported by IEEE CompSoc Bangalore Chapter saw over 310 hackers competing to create the best solution. The participants received support and guidance from a team of 27 mentors and judges, who brought a deep knowledge and experience with them. Participants included students from PESU, RVCE, KSIT, Ramaiah Institute of Technology, BIT, Amrita University, Dayananda Sagar and CMRIT. The participants were encouraged to submit original and creative ideas from domains to include AI, ML, blockchain, AR, robotics and other areas. The alumni of PESU-ECC currently working in prestigious companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Amadeus Labs, GE and Societe Generale spent time with the participants and were available throughout the event to help and clear any doubts. The winning team of inGenius won Rs. 40,000 and an iPad for developing an application to aid children in learning Mathematics in an easy-to-understand manner while the runners up built a solution for early detection of Parkinson's disease. The winners of GirlGeeksHack who won Rs. 20,000 and an iPad screened the age of people accessing videos to ensure that age-appropriate content is viewed. The runner up team worked on generating user-customisable web pages by simply taking preferences from the user. Prizes worth over Rs. 2 lakhs were distributed to the winners of different categories. inGenius and GirlGeeksHack was sponsored by Sahaj Software, Microsoft, News Technology Services, Zoom Abroad, Dataiken and Skillenza. GirlGeeksHack of IEEE CompSoc Bangalore Chapter is a hackathon aimed at helping foster greater participation by women in the field of computer science and engineering. The hackathons were hosted by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of PESU-ECC on November 16-17, 2019.

  • Blood Donation Camp at PES University

    Collegiate Social Responsibility Club (CSR) of PES University has organized a blood donation camp on November 18, 2019. The camp was organized to make students to be aware of the need to donate blood as well as inculcating a value of contributing to the society. Dr, M.R. Doreswami, Chancellor of PES University inaugurated the blood donation camp and congratulated the thousands of gathering students for their willingness to come forward for donating blood. NIMHANS, Kidvai, Red Cross, Victoria Hospital and PES Medical College, Kuppam blood banks were participated and collected 680 units of blood in this mega event.

  • AIKYA PESU ORIENTATION AND CHILDREN’S DAY

    AIKYA CLUB of PES University hosted an Orientation and Children’s day. AIKYA which means United to Serve aims in building Social Leaders. The AIKYA_PESU Orientation was held on 14th Nov 2019 on the occasion of Children’s day. The event focussed on motivating the volunteers about social service and the benefits of it. Students of Veerabhadra nagar government school were invited for the program and encouraged to perform cultural activities.They were gifted with necessary stationeries as a token of appreciation. To make a small difference in the society AIKYA club of PES University has kick started a new Journey.

  • The National Finals of ConQuizTador 2019 and the Bengaluru round held

    The National finals of ConQuizTador 2019 and the Bengaluru round, one of Karnataka’s most popular and anticipated high school quizzes, was held on 13th November 2019. The exhilarating Quiz contest witnessed a turnout of over 3000 students from Bengaluru and other cities across India. Questions covering a wide array of topics such as history, sports, entertainment, and science were posed to the students. The annual event was conducted by Quotient Quiz Club, the official quizzing forum of PES University. Winners of the regional rounds of ConQuizTador, which were conducted earlier in the year, came down to Bengaluru to face each other in the National Finals. The competition kicked off with the Bengaluru prelims, which comprised of a written round of 20 questions. Following this, were the Bengaluru Finals that witnessed intense and high stakes quizzing. After many close calls and good cracks, Sri Kumaran’s Children Home CBSE (SKCH) emerged the Bengaluru Champions. The team from BGS National Public School took the second place, while a team from The Amaatra Academy came in third place and moved on to the National Semi-Finals. This was followed by two eliminator rounds in which the regional champions battled it out to earn their spot in the Grand Finale. The teams from Mumbai, Mangalore, Delhi, Jaipur, and Kochi in addition to the three teams from Bengaluru made the best of their opportunities and moved on to the final round. The finals which followed was the high octane round that people have come to expect from the past editions. Three teams were in close competition for the Dr. MR Doreswamy Trophy for Quizzing Excellence until the penultimate question. The teams from Mangalore, Delhi and the eventual winners had a tight race. Emotions ran high but the team from SKCH CBSE kept their cool to pull off a memorable win. The felicitation of all the finalists and the Bengaluru winners was presided over by Dr V Krishna, the Dean of Student Affairs, PES University, who gave away trophies and certificates to all the teams.

  • hacktoberfest@PESU

    The Day of Talks at hacktoberfest@PESU featured three expert guest speakers. Prof. K Gopinath from IISc delved into the philosophy behind FOSS and its roots in ancient India also its role in building the industry. Dr. Aravind MA focused on the importance of creating communities like Open Hardware and the challenges and opportunities in open hardware at present. Ms. Zainab Bawa, discussed diversity in tech communities and challenges she faced in enabling people in technology meet each other, collaborate on new opportunities and advance the state of the art.

  • Glimpses of future at Hashcode 2019

    Students showcased stellar projects powered by a wide range of technologies including Blockchain, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and App Development at Hashcode 2019 hackathon. Four teams emerged as top coders from the 46 contenders: Winner - Anushka Hebbar, Shreya Srinivas and Harshita C – PES University; First Runner Up - Ayush Ujjwal and Aman Bhatnagar – MSRIT, Second Runner Up - Darshan D, Mayur Peshve and Manu M Bhat - PES University, and Jury’s prize - Abhiram Natarajan, Dipayan Sinha and Karthik Cottur – RVCE. The winning hack, NavAR used Augmented Reality combined with the foundation of the Unity game engine, and implementing SLAM technology to navigate and provide directions to the end user. It allows the users to reach their destination accurately around confined areas which would prove to be difficult using other apps such as Google Maps. The app was made for the PESU campus and allows for better accuracy, sense of direction and navigation for freshers, guests and visiting dignitaries. According to Anushka, “Our future goal is to expand the scale of our project to business complexes, shopping malls, client sites of an enterprise, and different operational divisions and transforming it to handle client customisation. With a blueprinted alien territory in hand, our aim is to provide for hassle free maneuvering.” The four winners walked away with cash prizes of Rupees 40k, 30k, 20k and 10k. Microsoft Innovation Lab of PES University hosted the eighth edition of its annual 24-hour hackathon Hashcode 2019 on October 26-27, 2019.

  • Samarasa 2019: A rare treat of Indian classical music and dance

    PES University’s annual classical music and dance confluence enthralled the audience with Carnatic and Hindustani vocal and instrumental music and Bharatnatyam performances by accomplished artists. The inaugural function was presided over by Vidhushi Dr. Jayanthi Kumaresh, renowned Veena artist. Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Jayanthi Kumareshthen wished everyone a happy Dussehra and commended PES University for encouraging fine arts, and not restricting themselves to the technical aspects of engineering. She said, “it encourages critical thinking, creates curious minds and therefore professional lives”. Dr. M.R.Doreswamy in his presidential address highlighted the influence of classical music on our lives and importance of Indian heritage and culture and how our country’s art forms bring us all together and reinforce the spirit of “unity is diversity”. Present on the occasion were Dr. KN B Murthy, Vice Chancellor, Dr. V Krishnamurthy, Registrar and Dr. V Krishna, Dean of Student Affairs. The second day featured Trimukhi-instrumental ensemble, violin in solo, Hindustani and Carnatic vocal and bharatnatyam recital which regaled the audience. The curtain raiser concert of Carnatic vocal performance held on the previous day set the tone for the spellbinding events. Samarasa 2019 was held on Oct 5-6, 2019.

  • Inter-departmental Carom tournament

    B R MOHAMMED SAQALIN MUSHTAQ and SIDDESH H emerged as winner and runner-up in the Inter-departmental Carom tournament. Both the players are students of third semester in Mechanical Engineering. The event was organised by the Physical Education department of the university.

  • DSC PESU Cloud Study Jam 2019

    The tech intensive interaction featured expert speakers sharing their insights about the emerging technologies and how it shaped their lives. Nikhil Raichur, Community Manager for DSC (Developer Student Clubs) talked about the various programs of the GDG (Google Developers Group). Bharat Chetty, software engineer at NASDAQ, alumnus of PES University, and invitee to the recently held Google I/O highlighted the importance of learning the basics before diving into the world of tech. Nikita Gandhi, Project Coordinator for EngEDU's ML Program at Google talked about AI being a boon or bane and how students should work towards becoming better engineers with the help of developer communities. Pavankumar Manjalagiri software engineer at NASDAQ talked about Google Cloud. Shiv Prakash, data science engineer at AsknBid and Mathang, expert in Machine Learning helped the students with their doubts on Qwiklabs. The Cloud Study Jam conducted by DSC PESU held on July 20, 2019 was attended over 180 participants. Qwiklabs session saw participation of around 150 students with 30+ Quest completions.

  • Celebrating Pi Day

    Celebrating the spirit of innovation unleashed by RaspberryPi, the one day event, Pi-DEA featured interesting activities under Events like Pi-Quiz, Pi-Puzzle, Pi-Paint, Pi-Code, Pi-Game and Show-Pi. The online Pi-Quiz attracted worldwide participation. The “init” club of MCA department collaborated with the official Raspberry Pi clubs-Code-Club; CoderDojo for this event held on Mar 14, 2019.

  • Team Aranea meets Vice President (Tech & Innovation) of Lockheed Martin

    Team Aranea from PES University works on novel de-orbiting mechanism for Micro and Nano satellites in low and medium altitude Earth orbits (LEOs & MEOs) in the project called Ultra-thin Wires Drag Enhancement System (UWDES). Ten members of the team attended the International Astronautical Congress (IAC)-2017 held at Adelaide, Australia from Sept 25th to 29th. IAC is the largest annual space tech conference attended by scientists, industry and academia worldwide. The team presented a paper on the UWDES concept, titled “Drag Enhancement for Spacecraft using Numerous Ultra-Thin Wires Arranged into Drag-Wire Webs of Various Configurations”. Earlier, the project reached the Top 10 Innovations of the IIGP 2.0 (India Innovation Growth Programme) 2017, University Challenge competition jointly organized by Dept. of Science and Technology (DST), Lockheed Martin (LM) and Tata Trusts. A grant of Rs. 10 lakhs was awarded for the project as part of Phase A of the competition. During IAC-2017, the team met and Dr. Robie Roy, Vice President, Technology Strategy & Innovation, Corporate Engineering, Technology and Operations, Lockheed Martin Corporation, USA to discuss the prospects of the UWDES project. Dr Robie Roy conveyed to Dr Sharan Asundi, mentor for the project and adjunct faculty at CORI, PES University, that he was deeply impressed by the team’s work. Prakash M. Sesha, Lockheed Martin Fellow considered the presentation by team Aranea as one of the best student led presentations during the down-select at IIT Bombay and looked forward to collaborating as the concepts develop into a demonstrable prototype.

  • Team Aranea meets Vice President (Tech & Innovation) of Lockheed Martin

    Team Aranea from PES University works on novel de-orbiting mechanism for Micro and Nano satellites in low and medium altitude Earth orbits (LEOs & MEOs) in the project called Ultra-thin Wires Drag Enhancement System (UWDES). Ten members of the team attended the International Astronautical Congress (IAC)-2017 held at Adelaide, Australia from Sept 25th to 29th. IAC is the largest annual space tech conference attended by scientists, industry and academia worldwide. The team presented a paper on the UWDES concept, titled “Drag Enhancement for Spacecraft using Numerous Ultra-Thin Wires Arranged into Drag-Wire Webs of Various Configurations”. Earlier, the project reached the Top 10 Innovations of the IIGP 2.0 (India Innovation Growth Programme) 2017, University Challenge competition jointly organized by Dept. of Science and Technology (DST), Lockheed Martin (LM) and Tata Trusts. A grant of Rs. 10 lakhs was awarded for the project as part of Phase A of the competition. During IAC-2017, the team met and Dr. Robie Roy, Vice President, Technology Strategy & Innovation, Corporate Engineering, Technology and Operations, Lockheed Martin Corporation, USA to discuss the prospects of the UWDES project. Dr Robie Roy conveyed to Dr Sharan Asundi, mentor for the project and adjunct faculty at CORI, PES University, that he was deeply impressed by the team’s work. Prakash M. Sesha, Lockheed Martin Fellow considered the presentation by team Aranea as one of the best student led presentations during the down-select at IIT Bombay and looked forward to collaborating as the concepts develop into a demonstrable prototype.

  • Brilliant performance by Team Aeolus at international challenge

    Team Aeolus from PES University participated in the AIAA- Design Build and Fly Challenge and secured the 3rd position in Asia and the 27th position worldwide. The team was placed above teams from prestigious universities such as Stanford, Cal Tech and the University of Michigan. In the competition was held in Tucson, Arizona USA, teams were required to develop an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle capable of being loaded into a cylindrical tube. Team Aeolus designed custom mechanisms for the same which led to them having one of the smallest and most efficient planes in the competition.

  • PESIT student wins second place in national Boeing Aeromodelling Festival

    Rohit of PESIT Bangalore South Campus finished second in the prestigious Boeing National Aeromodelling Festival organised by IIT Kanpur on March 20, 21. Rohit was representing Team Avions. According to Team Avions mentor Dr SV Satish Rohit was at 5th position in virtual round which constitutes of design and fabrication of the Un-Manned Aircraft (UAV) out of 300 participating colleges including IITs. Later, during aerobatics round, Rohit gave a tough competition to all other teams and finished at 2nd position Overall. The PESIT management, staff and students are extremely happy with Rohit’s achievement. Rohit is in his first year of mechanical engineering. The team Avions constituting 45 members had qualified in virtual round in SAE Bangalore and SAE Chennai events. The team will now participate in the aerobatic round scheduled for April 2017.

  • LEARNINGS FROM PISAT EXPERIENCE RESULTS IN PAPER AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE BY PES UNIVERSITY STUDENT

    Shrikanth Yadav presented a paper on active magnetic control system of a nano-satellite at the 67th International Astronautical Congress, Guadalajara, Mexico, 2016. The participation gave him an opportunity to meet designers and developers in the nanosatellite programs from countries like Denmark and France. He also interacted with several private firms offering services related to performing experiments on board the ISS through NASA and even launching Cubesats from the ISS. He attended live sessions that covered the final landing of the Rosetta on the comet 67P. The paper was titled “Design and development of an onboard in loop simulation system for in orbit testing and validation of active magnetic control system of a nano-satellite”. The team comprising of research assistant Shivanand Diggavi and Shrikant was headed by Divya Rao and guided by Dr VK Agarwal. Shrikanth received the ISRO/ASI grant to attend the conference and the travel expenses were paid for. He is a second year student of undergraduate program in the department of Electrical and Electronics.

  • TEAM AEOLUS OF PES UNIVERSITY FLIES HIGH AT INTERNATIONAL AERIAL ROBOTICS COMPETITION

    Team Aeolus, the aero-modelling club of PES University bagged sixth place in the International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) 2016 held at held at Georgia Tech, USA. The project involved construction of an autonomous multi-rotor capable of solving the dynamic maze herding the ground bots towards the finish line without the use of GPS. IARC is the longest running collegiate aerial robotics challenge in the world, in its third decade of advancing the state of the art in autonomous aerial robotic behavior. The competition sees participation of leading universities from around the world. Team Aeolus was placed first among the Asian institutions, and was ahead of teams from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, BITS Pilani among others. The winning team form PES University comprised of: Sushanth M.P., Sovan Das, Siddharth R N, Akshay Kalkunte, Pranav Singhania, Anush S. Kumar, Hashmath and Venkat.

  • TREE CLIMBING ROBOT THAT SOLVES A REAL WORLD PROBLEM

    Spraying pesticides, surveillance or monitoring the arboreal environment can put life of tree climbers at great risk. We take great pride in the efforts of our students in devising an innovative solution in the form of a robot that can climb coconut trees in less than five minutes carrying a payload. The robot can perform a wide range of functions by connecting suitable attachments. The portability of the robot adds to the convenience in usage. The robot weighing about 6 kgs can carry payloads of up to 1 kg. The attainable speeds during ascent and descent are 1 meter per 50 seconds and 1 meter per 39 seconds respectively. The robot is pneumatically actuated and is developed on Aurdino platform. The open source platform consists of a microcontroller and integrated development environment. The robot was designed and fabricated by final year students of PESIT Bangalore South Campus, Ravi Teja and Ashik Gowda. The team also comprised of Aviral Kumar and Mohan B K. The students were guided by Dr S V Satish, A Benjamin Rohit and Dr Subrahmanya.

  • A TRIBUTE TO SACRIFICES BY FAMILIES OF VALIANT SOLDIERS

    Indian Army protects the nation on the borders and comes to the rescue of people when faced with calamities. Strengthening this commitment is the sacrifices by their families. As a tribute to the support by the families, Samarpana event is organized every year by PES University. Samarpana 2016, had various programmes for benefit of the families of soldiers from April 12 to 14. The felicitation function was presided over by Shri Raghvendra H Auradkar, IPS and Dr M R Doreswamy, Chancellor, PES University. On the occasion, Captain Naveen, a Kargil war veteran shared his combat experiences with a packed auditorium of eager students. Families of fifteen soldiers and martyrs were felicitated. The University values the privilege of hosting the families of soldiers for three days and extending all possible help. The families of soldiers and martyrs from far flung areas of Karnataka were invited to Bangalore. They were provided legal advice for handling paperwork related to pensions and other formalities, medical consultancy and advice on empowerment. On the first day, felicitation function was followed by a workshop on women’s empowerment to create awareness about various opportunities that can help women to be economically independent. Meditation workshop by the Art of Living demonstrated the methods which can help the families cope up with the stress and anxiety as a family of a soldier. On the second day, a medical camp for the families had fourteen specialists which included ophthalmologists, orthopaedicians, and gynecologists attend to their health problems. The musical evening featuring popular Kannada Sugama Sangeetha Artist Smt M D Pallavi was attended by the families of soldiers and students. On the third day the families were taken around the city of Bangalore and were seen of by the organizing team. The organizing team comprised of Ishdeep, Honey, Rishab, Aditya, Ayush, Ankit, Jatin, Kaushik, Lokesh, Yash, Akshay, Nishesh, Neerav, Rajat, Tanya, Satya, Sayan. Sakshat, Shubam, Sumanth, Darshan, Vikram. Anoosh, Monica, Nagashree, Ashwin, Smitha, Nabha, Saqib, Prashant, Ajay, Anurag, Jerry, Divya and Akash.

  • LEARNING TO SOLVE REAL WORLD CHALLENGES

    Project Mela 2016 showcased more than 160 projects successfully completed by students of PESIT, Bangalore South campus on April 22, 2016. The projects were undertaken during the year by students of Computer Science, Electronics and Mechanical Engineering branches. For students of the institution, learning is also about applying engineering knowledge to solve real world challenges. The outcome was a wide range of technology solutions that included: heart attack detector, automatic automobile seat recliner, cost effective farming equipment, hybrid power generation, automatic railway track cleaner and pneumatic tree climbing robot. Dr. Surya Prasad, Principal and Director of the institution, inaugurated the event. More than 2500 students, parents and industry officials were witness to the live demonstration of the projects.

  • Siastra 2016: A Unique Management Fest

    The national management fest was conducted by the department of MBA on the University campus from March 17 to 20, 2016. One of the leading actors of the Kannada film industry, Vijaya Raaghavendra inaugurated the event. He felt that the large number of participants as compared to his experience in a popular television show made the event a challenging task. He commended the efforts of the organizing team and wished them success in their endeavor. The contestants were restricted to a common area. They competed with each other by saving themselves from eliminations based on votes. The long hours of the contest tests the patience, ability to get along with colleagues, and diligence in completing the tasks diligently in coordination with the competitors. The format gives a glimpse of the challenges which may faced by the managers at personal and professional levels, in their times to come. The winning team from Acharya Institute of Management Science, Bangalore survived the many rounds of elimination. The three day event saw participation of over 100 students and gave the organizing team hands on experience of getting sponsors for the event and marketing and organizing the event. The core team comprised of Siddanagouda Biradar, Shreyas Marudeswar, Suraj Rathi and Tejas A V.

  • PES students to lend helping hand to martyrs’ families – Deccan Herald

    Students from PES University will extend medical and legal assistance to the families of around 15 army martyrs across Karnataka this year. Samarpana, a student group dedicated to honour these martyrs has come up with the initiative. As part of Samarpana’16, this year a charity marathon themed ‘Run with the Jawans’ was organised in the City on Sunday. Kunal Pamami, a student involved with the group, said: “We want to create awareness about the sacrifices of these jawans. Since 2009, we have organised the event for around 60 families where we will be conducting medical and legal camps on matters related to pensions and other grievances.” The objective of the marathon, according to the students, was to bridge the gap between civilians and jawans by helping the former realise the hardship and sacrifices a jawan experiences in his life. As many as 400 jawans and 200 civilians participated in the marathon. There were two categories in the marathon – 5 km and another of 10 km. “A 60-year-old former ISRO scientist and a woman who completed the 10-km mar-athon with her baby in a pram were some of the main highlights of the marathon,” said Kunal. Samarpana has been previously attended by dignitaries like Kargil veteran and gallantry award winner, Major Ashok Sharma and father of the late Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan. Samarpana will also felicitate the martyrs’ families as part of a two-day festival to be held in April.

  • PRAKALPA 2016

    PRAKALPA 2016, the annual technology fair of PES University that showcases the best projects undertaken by the students of the university was inaugurated by M N Vidyashankar, President, India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA). The day-long event attracted over ten thousand curious visitors who had a great experience walking through the exhibition ground on the campus. Students of various branches of the university and those from other institutions got a glimpse of the diverse range of practical experiments undertaken by the students. Among the visitors were also the senior citizens associated with technology and parents curious to find out more about the institution their wards are studying in. The sprawling campus dotted by stalls carried a festive air. More than one hundred projects which were live working models of new ideas and based on the latest in technology were on display. The university’s emphasis on multi-disciplinary learning was evident in the wide range of projects conceived and implemented by the students under the expert guidance of the faculty. The exhibitors got an opportunity to interact with the chief guest M N Vidyashankar as he visited the stalls and showed keen interest in the projects. He opined that such practical and hands-on approach can add immense value to curricular teaching. The prize winning projects and winners in seven categories were: MPV-Electric Vehicle (Mechanical) by Chaman, Ankit, Ankush; Development of a prototype of extreme upper limb prosthetics (Electrical) by Sramana Dan, Piyush Kumar, Neha; A methodology for detection and localization of dynamite fishing (Electronics) by Chandan, Skanda, Sumukha; Interaction of Salmonella with plants under abiotic stress (Biotechnology) by Jyotsna; Smart Jacket (Computer Science) by Nikita Nagaraj, Prerna K, Samyukta Rao, and Novel approach of graph DB for storing and analyzing gene sequence (Computer Science); Financial feasibility study of Jana Kisan loan product at Janalakshmi Financial Services (Management) by Dharnesh K L.

  • PESU Students donate 853 lifesaving units of blood

    PESU Students donate 853 lifesaving units of blood through Blood Donation Camp organised by CSR Club on Monday, January 18. Students across a number of programs turned out more than double the number of expected units of blood during the camp at MRD Auditorium, PESU Campus. There were a lot of first-time donors, who got over their fear and made a meaningful difference by giving back to the community. About CSR Club: The Collegiate Social Responsibility Club of PES University, which has been striving towards its aim of service to the less fortunate.

  • Prakalpa 2014

    In keeping with the motto of “education for the real world” the students demonstrated their ability to go beyond raw concepts and abstract ideas. The annual event featured practical implementation of path breaking ideas in the form of projects successfully completed by students of all branches. The best projects were selected based on the creative component and practical utility. A walk through the venue showed once again that the students like every year have put in their best efforts to push the envelope. The enthusiasm of the participants showed that the creative spirit can make a difference like nothing else. Thanks for joining the celebration of creativity.

  • Team Samarpana: Present and Future

    Samarpana is an initiative by the students of PES University for the welfare of war widows and their families. We have worked over the last two years to engage with such families from across Karnataka, to discover their problems and issues, to try and bring these issues to the notice of relevant people and organizations and to inculcate a feeling of patriotism, by way of respect for the institution of the state and a sense of duty towards fellow citizens, among the younger generation. In 2009, and then continuously since 2012, we have invited around 15 families every year to be with us at the PESU campus to engage with students and management, who have contributed monetarily as well as pledged for help in kind. Since 2013, we have focused on rural NCO and JCO families, arranging for them a free medical camp, information on the ECHS scheme, a seminar on their rights and entitlements, empowerment and entrepreneurship workshops, and have felicitated them as an expression of gratitude and enabled interaction between them and students. In 2014, we have invited 15 families from the Belgaum region of Karnataka. PES University will host them on campus for the event on the 11th and 12th of March, and a tour of Bangalore City has been arranged for them on the 13th March following which they will return to their homes. They will be felicitated in a grand ceremony at 11am on the 11th following which our team and outside experts will be working with them to empower them through self-help workshops, address specific issues related to non-availability of ECHS, Canteen Cards and pensions. We are also organizing a display of arms for the benefit of students on campus. As a part of our awareness campaign on the armed forces, we have organized recruitment talks from the army, an exhibition of armed forces technology, a student visit to the HQ of the Para-commando training centre, seminars by Kargil veterans Maj. (Retd) Ashok Sharma and Capt. (Retd) Akhilesh Saxena. The Samarpana Run held on 23rd March 2014 saw over 400 soldiers from across Bangalore join in with over 1500 participants for a 10K Run, as an opportunity to interact and foster a sense of fraternity between them and civilians. We also organized the Shukriya campaign in September 2013, getting students and citizens from across Bangalore to write letters and record videos personally thanking the Armed Forces for their efforts and sacrifices, which we delivered in person to the GoC at the HQ at Baramulla in J&K. We have had ties with and support from various institutions and individuals in our efforts. We have received extensive cooperation from the Sainik Welfare Office (SWO), and the Bangalore sub-command as well as local regiment centres, especially the ASC, MEG and Para’s. Apart from PESU itself, Prestige Group, JSW Steel, IndiaBulls Real Estate, Fortis Hospitals and Gopalan Malls have all been sponsors and partners with us in our various campaigns. At this juncture, Samarpana has tremendous potential to make a significant and measurable difference to the families of those who have lost their loved ones in service to the nation. We are working towards the creation of a formal framework, to be able to carry forward our work on several fronts, such as: • Providing accurate and relevant information to war widows regarding their entitlements and compensations, getting them in touch with relevant authorities, and, where necessary, following up with necessary paperwork. • Collaborating with SWOs on being able to register as many families as possible, making an effort to reduce the number of families that are not officially recognized either due to oversight or lack of adequate documentation. • Raising funds to help families, who have lost their loved ones in combat, but due to policy loopholes or technicalities, are not entitled to adequate compensations, or to financial help in specific instances, such as medical treatment at non-ECHS hospitals in case of emergencies. • Advising widows on the utilization their funds and grants in the most appropriate manner. • Empowering them to be able to cope with their loss and deal with the society around them. • Providing them microfinance opportunities to help them achieve financial independence. • Mentorship programmes for children of rural and/or impoverished families, being able to advise them on issue on which they have few or no other sources of advice, such as education. These families have sacrificed much for the well-being of the society of which both we and they are a part of, and as a part of that society, we endeavor to be able to convey our gratitude for their sacrifice and give something back to those that have given so much for us.