Building a Tech Community: Experiences, Lessons, and Memories
The experiences and lessons in the blog will be true for any tech club, I’ll specifically talk about my experience as a founding member and chairperson of the IEEE IIITD Student branch. It’s now in this 4th year of inception and has an active membership of 50+ members.
It all started in class 10th during my Computer Science class when the teacher referred to Bluetooth as by a funny protocol called IEEE 802.15, that’s when I first heard about IEEE.
So, what is IEEE?
IEEE, pronounced “Eye-triple-E,” stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is an association dedicated to advancing innovation and technological excellence for the benefit of humanity, is the world’s largest technical professional society. It is designed to serve professionals involved in all aspects of the electrical, electronic, and computing fields and related areas of science and technology that underlie modern civilization. IEEE and its members inspire a global community through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.
Fun fact: There are more than 419,000 IEEE members in over 160 countries.
IEEE Student Branch
Student Branches provide IEEE Student members a networking opportunity to meet and learn from fellow students, as well as faculty members and professionals in the field to share their interests, future professions, and ideas. An active IEEE Student Branch can be one of the most positive elements in a department, offering programs in IEEE designated fields of Engineering, Computer Science, and Information Technology, as well as similarly related fields of interest.
Fun fact: There are over 3,000 Student Branches in over 100 countries, globally.
My Journey
I’ve had a really interesting journey with IEEE so far. I joined the IEEE NSUT Student branch in 2017 and was part of the organizing committee at the IEEE Delhi Section’s Flagship Event: Delhi Section Congress 2017 held at NSUT. Then I changed my college from NSUT to IIIT-Delhi (read more about it here: Why I left NSUT?).
After joining IIITD, I enquired about the IEEE student branch in IIIT-Delhi and found out there was none. To my surprise, shortly I received an email asking for self-nominations for the formation of the IEEE IIITD Student branch. I filled in the application and after a few screening rounds became the founding member and vice-chairperson of the IEEE IIIT-Delhi Student branch. Our founding team consisted of 5 members with all of them being in their pre-final year and me being a fresher. The idea of applying for a position of running a club in my first year of college did seem daunting but then I went ahead and applied for it anyway. What’s the worst that could happen? A rejection, not applying is defacto rejection, and applying may make a difference.
Lesson #1: Growth happens by doing things you are unqualified to do.
My experience and network at IEEE NSUT, helped a lot later on while setting up a student branch at IIITD. Shoutout to my buddy Siddhant Banyal who helped us at every stage of building our student branch.
Lesson #2: Good relations go a long way, treat others as you would like others to treat you.
Shortly after, establishing IEEE-IIITD as a club in college, we started organized events such as hackathons, talks, seminars, programming competitions. To grow our branch even further, we started recruiting members from the incoming batches. In between, we got an opportunity to visit the IEEE AISWYC in Hyderabad.
By the end of 1 year, we had a team of 25+ members, we had conducted 10+ events, and I was promoted to the post of Chairperson.
After this, we applied to host the IEEE Delhi Section Congress 2019 at our college. It was a massive task and we were given just 2 weeks to organize a 3-day event on our campus for 450+ students from all across India. We had to arrange for speakers, events, sponsorship, logistics(meals, IDs, folders, etc.), digital marketing, accommodation. We were inexperienced, we were short of hands, and we definitely didn’t have time. That is when our club mentors Neelabhro, Vaibhav, and Munish got involved and helped us pull off an amazing event in just 2 weeks. Honestly, if it weren’t for them and our volunteers, the event would not have been possible.
Lesson #3: Who you work with is far more important than how hard you work.
Each and every member shaped my learnings and experiences at IEEE IIITD.
After a good event, we continued on our streak to conduct smaller events and expand our team to 40+ members.
IEEE USA President visit
Then we were notified by our new branch counselor Dr. SS Jamuar about the visit of IEEE USA President: Mr. James Conrad. It was a big opportunity for us and we felt proud to host him on our campus:
Soon the pandemic started which made our whole teamwork from home and we had to shift to an online medium. We transitioned to team for next year. Neelabhro and I couldn’t have been more proud to promote Sarthak Chandra, Saksham Gupta, and Aryan Taneja to take over the reins. Neelabhro joined KTH Sweden to pursue his master’s degree and continued as our alumni mentor while I took up the position of club mentor.
Despite the lockdown, the team was determined to be active and they conducted the first-ever online tech symposium in IIIT-Delhi: Elysium.
It was an instant hit and received participation from over 1000+ students all across India.
Other Learnings
Obviously, no journey is as rosy and beautiful as it sounds and there were times when we had to do some real conversations. Being in the leadership position, sometimes I had to remove members and other times demand more accountability and leadership from them. It was probably one of the toughest things I had to do, and no book, youtube video, or online resource can teach you that. It was also one of the most important things as well. After a lot of research and a few instances, the best method to lay-off people is:
Lesson #4: Get your head right -> Don’t delay -> Be honest and candid -> Address the whole organiztation -> Take ownership
There were times when I had failed to communicate my ideas and plans with the team which leads to inconsistent results and a lot of misunderstandings. This made me realize the importance of the old adage: lear communication channels.
Lesson #5: Communication is the key for any collaboration to be successful
Finally, as with any young person with a lot of power, their times where I believe I could’ve consulted my team members to make better decisions regarding the club:
Lesson #6: Consulting your team members does not diminish your position, it makes you a better leader.
These experiences have taught me a lot and have made me a better leader, a collaborative teammate, and most importantly, a more empathetic human. I hope all of you can get something out of this blog and use it in your lives as I will use them.
