LOCUS: The Story About How It All Started
The only thing more incredible than LOCUS Exhibition is the story behind the institution of “LOCUS” itself. As the tech fest is getting bigger and bigger every year, the founding story behind Locus is getting more and more dubious. The fascinating yet exotic origin of possibly the biggest tech event in the whole country is so little-known that only a handful of people can give an accurate description about it. As Dr. Shashidhar Ram Joshi of Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Pulchowk Campus says:
“I have witnessed how an idea of three scholars helped shape the minds of thousands of students who walk on their footsteps. That small step pushed locus to the heights it gained through these years. It was actually organized to provide exposure to the Nepalese engineering students and to exhibit their innovative ideas.”
Indeed there are things that fade with time and one of them is undoubtedly the undocumented history. Owing to the great Nepali culture of imprudent documentation and absence of official records, the process of tracking down the history of Locus itself turned out to be a strenuous act. Yet this article tries to present that story as accurately as possible. Unfortunately, this is, after all, a secondary writing. The official records and documents related with Locus can be found dated only 2007 or later. Everything before that is only as clear as the people involved can remember.
Researched and Written by:
Abinash Manandhar, Ashutosh Timilsina and Barsha Pandey
It was the year 2003 when three young enthusiastic minds felt the need to organize a technological fest in Nepal. They had recently visited a similar event in Regional Engineering Campus, Jaipur, India (now referred to as the National Institute of Technology) which instilled in them an idea to do something similar here in Nepal.
The quartet consisting of Girish Bilash Joshi, Amit Krishna Joshi and Biswa Dahal consulted with the faculty and professors about their idea. They formed an informal group to make the event possible with Girish Bilash Joshi as the Coordinator. Even though it started with Computer Engineering students, in the same year, Electronics Engineering students came in and Electrical Engineering students also joined later to form LOCUS as we know today.
The name “LOCUS” symbolizes a trajectory, the legacy we received and the cornerstone laid by our seniors which has seen more than a dozen annual tech fest ever since.
The main aim of the event was to provide exposure to the final year projects of the undergraduate students of Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering. The seven day event organized in 2003 turned out to be more successful than imagined. Despite hosting a small number of attendee, the turn out for the pioneer tech event was more than expected. An article published in January 2004 issue of Nepali Times titled Silicon Valley To Kathmandu Valley by Suresh Ojha mentioned the achievements of organizing the Locus 2003 as:
“Obviously, Nepal is in turmoil. Soldiers with guns are always eyeing my laptop bag. While student protestors burn tyres outside the university, undergraduates inside organised the Locus 2003 international technical conference with papers on robotics and distributed computing. To see Nepalis routinely performing professionally at the highest levels under such difficult circumstances is a humbling experience for pampered engineers with the resources and back-up in Silicon Valley.”
This excerpt highlights the accomplishment of the first LOCUS and also, in the meantime, sheds light upon the circumstances under which this event was held. The major activities carried out during the LOCUS 2003 were Project Display and Paper Presentation. It was a one week program that also had some interesting competitions like ‘On the spot software design’, hardware designs, hardware and software debugging, quiz and games such as brain teasers, crosswords to name a few. Apart from these, there was technical cartooning and tech 20 programs which adds to its special list.
Dr. Arun Kumar Timalsina, the project supervisor of the quartet, had assessed the event with the utmost scrutiny, and goes on to state that all three of them were remarkable students and they did everything necessary: from marketing to financial management to resource management, to make LOCUS a successful event.
In 2004, Nischal Dahal became the Coordinator with Smriti Shrestha as the Chief Correspondent. The second Locus was expanded and the projects from students of Electrical Engineering were also included. The current LOCUS office was granted a year later as the then committee asked for working space to the Campus Administration. Side events like Quiz competition and Multiple Choice Questions competition were also organized. The attendance in the second edition of LOCUS was huge but the third LOCUS in 2005 saw a sharp fall in the number of attendee and had almost no uniqueness in the program.
The merger with electrical engineering in 2006 presented an inclusive and more diversified team. Until then, the students of Electrical Engineering presented papers and projects only, but were not involved officially in the organizing committee. It was around this time that the one-day LOCUS event transformed to a three-day fest with the introduction of Software and Hardware Competitions which has been continued ever since. By then, LOCUS had started to receive coverage from national dailies like The Himalayan Times and The Kathmandu Post. The following year, another category of event termed “Electrical Event” was introduced solely for electrical engineering students which involved model demonstrations and paper presentation focusing on issues like Alternative Energy, Hydropower, Transmission and Distribution System. Similarly, Sensor-Maze competition and Multimedia Competition were also organized which were the primary attractions of the 2007 LOCUS attended by around 10000 unique visitors.
Over its 13 years long journey, a few conflicts have occurred with and within LOCUS owing to unnecessary politicization of issues and group-ism within the committee, that has endangered the reputation of this prestigious National Technical Event a few times.
Dr Timalsina shined light on the issue:
“There were times when politics hampered the organizing of LOCUS event. It is an event of students to showcase their own innovative ideas. And if students themselves create such obstructions, then what message will it send to general audience? We should be making this event more effective and politics-free.”
Locus is growing bigger every year and has evolved throughout by diversifying its domain. From a few hundred attendees during first LOCUS to around 15000 during last year’s 12th installment, the locus we see today had to go through many hardships to come to this stage.
Participation of high school and college students has turned LOCUS into a national event. But again, LOCUS does not have its own Regulation to facilitate effective functioning. It has no specifications and criteria to select the committee members and thereby lacks proper accountability. These issues need immediate addressing and as the tech fest is expanding, LOCUS should be brought under a Regulation so as to ensure easier handling of issues in upcoming days.
“It is much more difficult to sustain the recognition LOCUS has received than when it was first initiated. So, it’s our job to make it worthy. First and the foremost thing to do right now is to manage a regular account which can be handed over to the next year’s committee. When this is done, you can have record of all transactions that was carried out and for what purpose,” said Dr. Arbind Kumar Mishra of Department of Electrical Engineering and former Campus Chief, Pulchowk Campus.
He further added, “The exhibition should maintain the reputation it has gained over the years. There are high expectations for this event and the students should work on keeping up with those expectations. Also the committee selection should be more transparent. Every year I see the students working from root level and then another committee is formed and the cycle repeats. If some mechanism is introduced to incorporate students from all four years in the organizing committee, then the new committee can follow up on where previous committee had left.”
Dr. Timalsina also had more to share. He remarked, “We have come a long way through all the hardships. Now the time has arrived that we formulate a precise regulatory body. It could be the former members who can help to form a new committee or better will be if the members are given a tenure during which they’ll have to prove themselves and in case, somebody feels it’s not their thing then they’ll resign and a new person will get the chance. We are at this point : now or never! Rather than limiting the LOCUS to a three-days-event in an year, we could organize several programs throughout the year under the name of LOCUS but still holding the charm of the main event.”
Efforts are being carried out to function LOCUS with international organizations like IEEE. This will provide versatility and greater exposure to the international community. We can conduct conference regularly to improve the participation and set some standards to the projects we receive every year.
Locus changed the scenario of engineering in Nepal. It motivated students to go for a more practical approach rather than being limited to theory. It has inspired students to seek out opportunities to showcase their technical skills, to bolster their innovative ideas and to enhance their entrepreneurial qualities. It is definitely one of the biggest event organized solely by students in Nepal and has been providing the platform for undergraduate students of Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering to rise to the bars of technological expertise set in the international arena.
The 13th edition of LOCUS Exhibition, LOCUS 2016, was held a month ago (in July). Hopefully, the tradition will continue for many years to come and evolve and grow in the process.
(Note: In a previous version, it was erroneously written that Sajan Sangraula and Smriti Shrestha became Co-coordinators in the second LOCUS. It has been corrected.)
