To Build a New Consciousness on Social and Environmental Sustainability and to Promote zero-emission Lifestyles, TERI University Celebrates Aahvaan 2010
Aahvaan 2010 a three day ‘Green’ cultural festival took place from 17th to 19th September 2010 with participation from 2000+ students from different colleges from Delhi NCR. ‘Towards Zilch Lifestyle’ – was the motto of this year’s fest. It aimed to promote a change towards adopting zero waste, zero emission lifestyles. This is the idea that ran through all activities & events at the fest.
Highlights of the fest were various participatory events that gave 2000+ students from participating colleges a chance to showcase their talents and creative abilities.
Kabaad se Jugaad: A ‘best-out-of-waste’ competition designed to challenge creative minds to manage waste. This contest showcased Reverse Engineering – innovation challenge – at its best. The event was not an engineering event but it was based on the format where anybody using intuitive skills can breakthrough and reformulate a new set of convention for a system.
Grey Matterz: A unique event testing a team’s creativity, managerial, analytical and communication skills. The event brought students from top Indian management institutes to give them a platform to prove their strategic decisions at the highest level.
Sketchboard: A special initiative to create awareness among the future architects and designers of the country about the concept of sustainability and the relevance of green architecture. Sketchboard is a competition for architecture students to showcase their creative and designing skills. 10 selected teams were given the opportunity to design the stage for Rhythm Street – the Rock Music festival and the finale performance by Them Clones. Models of the conceptualised stage design were judged for their creativity, use of recyclable materials, relevance of the theme employed etc.
Rhythm Street: The grand finale of Aahvaan 2010, an evening that saw a crowd of over 2000 young music enthusiasts come together to enjoy one of the best rock performances in the country. The event is a platform for upcoming bands selected from across the country to prove their mettle & compete with their peers. Judges to the event are renowned band Them Clones, who concluded the evening with a blasting performance.
Addressing students from diverse colleges and distinguished people from various facets of life who had come for the celebrations and competitions, Dr RK Pachauri, Chancellor TERI University and Director-General TERI, while congratulating and lauding the students and staff of the university said, “The twenty-first century will undoubtedly represent a high point for human civilization in the development and utilization of knowledge on an unprecedented scale. We are living in a period of rapid change when skills and expertise in several fields are expanding across the globe and depth and rigor of education needed to create new frontiers at a brisk rate is required. Here is where TERI University finds its self uniquely positioned to produce leaders in various disciplines, who not only advance in specific professions but who are also sensitive to the importance of environmental protection and the need to maintain equity, ecological security, and the wealth of global natural resources.”
There were a range of other events for a plethora of students coming from various other colleges and Universities. The events ranged from debating, block & tackle and inquisitive (a quiz) to face-painting, rangoli, ad-mad, movie-making, photography and script-writing.
Also, keeping the University’s mission of creating leaders, the fest held an interactive session between the Youth (tomorrow’s global leaders) and the global Movers and Shakers. Titled “Capacity building for sustainability by developing indigenous knowledge systems and innovation—the forum debated on the significant influence of non-Indian communities in our technology solutions, communication, food, construction, policies, lifestyle and outfits etc. Irrespective of their suitability to our way of life, a lot of western manipulations have found their way and have become an inevitable part of our living. While it does demonstrate the impacts of globalization and growth, it sadly often seals the fate of a lot of indigenous ideas, region specific solutions to problems and local good practices. The need of the hour is to look within and to break away from the existing notions of the path for development, by tailoring sustainable approaches to local situations by incorporating the indigenous knowledge systems that have historically evolved to suit the local environment.
The panel was a group of dynamic leaders including Timothy D. Neely – Chief, Environment, Science and Technology, US Embassy, New Delhi and Ms Veena Padmanabhan – General Manager, Wipro Limited.