​Statement Of Purpose

I am Siddhant Kurmi, a final year BTech student at IIT Bombay. I served as a Marketing
Manager for the 12th edition of Aakaar. I am contesting for the post of Overall Coordinator for
Aakaar 2021. Please find my Motivation, Vision, Initiatives, and Tieline for the same.

MOTIVATION

Let me start with the honest motivation for applying for the manager in the first place. So the
major points were that I first thought the marketing work is very cool, and it would be fun to do it,
and I also realized the POR is necessary for placements. But today, after spending one year as
a manager, when I look back and think about it, those things don't matter to me. There are many
more things that I have got in the last year while working for Aakaar. Whether you say in terms
of management, decision making, communication, leadership, or working in a team . Aakaar
has helped me develop all my qualities and boost up self-confidence. It gave me the moments
where I can feel proud and happy and gave me beautiful, unforgettable memories. Now, after
one year, I am felling to use my qualities and learning to pay back and groom the place from
where i have earned all these. The Overall coordinator position allows me to serve and add the
values in the organization.

In my third year, I have given a lot of time to Aakaar. I gave inputs in all the departments and
tried to contribute as much as I could. This made me realize that there were many gaps that
needed to be filled in different departments. When I talked with the professors from different
colleges, companies, CRs from different colleges and analyzed the data of the participants, I
realized that Aakaar has a lot of untapped potential. It can be a platform where people show up
not just to learn or win but to change their lives. I want Aakaar to be portrayed not just as an
event but as a plethora of opportunity for students, researchers, and corporates.

From the time I realized these things, I started to think about bringing the reforms in the fest. I
started thinking about the things needed to be implemented in the next edition of Aakaar. When
you give that amount of thought to anything, that becomes your aim, and you want to
accomplish it at any cost. So you can say that is the primary motive for me to become the
overall coordinator of Aakaar. One can say that now, to conduct Aakaar, expand it, and take it to
the level where I envisage it to be has become the personal motive to me. I feel like I have got
all the training as the sniper and am just waiting for the target.

Aakaar is a team of 13 brilliant students with ambition in their eyes, working with full enthusiasm
to achieve a single motive. It is a matter of great pride to lead that team, & work together to
achieve the milestones that we collectively desire. Traveling in a ship in search of the
treasure-island with the sea having a storm is a journey that is every pirate's dream. I have been
on the same journey and we were very close to the treasure. I want to be on that journey again,
but this time as a captain, and I assure everyone that we will back with the treasure this time.

VISION

Increase the reach of Aakaar:

We are privileged that we have the name of IIT Bombay with us, which adds enormous value to
our organization. Aakaar has been staged for the last 12 years now & it has achieved some
great milestones, which have turned it into the largest Civil Engineering Fest. The name of the
IIT Bombay is itself enough to show the level of the fest and we too have 12 years of legacy with
us.
But Aakaar’s craze has been reduced in the last few years. This can be seen from the
decreasing numbers of participation in events & the number of registrations in accommodation.
During my tenure as the Marketing Manager, I have realized that the root of the problem lies
within publicity. We are living under the false pretense of attractive media accomplishments on
our social media pages. But the truth is even the students from the prominent colleges across
Mumbai aren’t aware about Aakaar. My vision for this year’s Aakaar is to give a new shape to
the Media and publicity, explore all the new techniques, reform the ways in which information is
displayed, Increase the domain of targeted students, etc. My aim would be to penetrate inside
each and every engineering college of India so that none interested students would leave
behind.

For the Institute:

Aakaar was first introduced in 2009 and with the motive to promote civil engineering in the
country and give the opportunity to learn, explore and implement. But the very first intention for
every fest is to contribute to adding value to its institute. By organizing Aakaar, we portray an
excellent image of our institution, but we were unable to contribute to the institute's learning in a
significant way. My vision for Aakaar 2021 is to increase our students' participation and
frequently organize events designed for the priority of the our students.
Taking Positives from the COVID-19 Situation-
A great man once said, "If the seas have storms, the fisherman come and repair its net." That is
the philosophy that I will adapt to my whole tenure. There are various shortcomings in our
Aakaar that are not taken care of. With time, these problems start making significant differences.
Some of the untapped areas worth exploring are possibilities of media and publicity in the
country, in-depth data analysis, provide a motive to the students (through design and content),
work on the incentive to attract more audience, increase the domain of events (cover all aspects
of engineering), Research and Innovation, etc.

If coronavirus were not there, we would have been planning to conduct Aakaar similar to
previous. But, there is nothing wrong with a whole new approach because new events demand
more effort and high risk. In the COVID-19 situation, we are not bound to anything & we will be
forced to think of new events & competitions. My vision is to explore as many possibilities in all
the portfolios to give a new shape to the Aakaar to set up a foundation for the upcoming
editions.

The COVID-19 has brought reforms in online learning. Today almost all the work is shifted to
the online mode & everyone has adopted the online working as part of their life & the stigma of
inefficient operation in online mode has been broken. We can use this as an opportunity to
increase the participation and engagement for our fest by frequently organizing online lecture
series and workshops. I see this as a huge opportunity to mark the presence of Aakaar at the
national and global stage.

From Two-Day Fest to Department Body​:

When we think about Aakaar, we only think about the two-day fest in mid-March. This is
because we work as an independent body and direct all our focus to organize the events in all
two days. My vision for the next year Aakaar is to work more closely with our department,
organizing frequent events like civil talks with our professors and alumni, taking interviews with
our professors, organize small web competitions like sarcasm. Through this, professors would
become more approachable that could help us in creating new opportunities.

The team
In the very initial stage of the tenure, the manager does not realize the motive behind organizing
the fest, how it is contributing to the society, how much potential we have to create an impact on
the changes in the society. Ignorance of all of these facts reduces the interest of a particular
person and makes him feel like he is doing a job where he has to do whatever is being said to
him. As a team leader, I will give the reason for work to each team member and make him
realize the responsibility they have and how much their efforts impact society. I will make sure
that every team member would be very clear about the motive for organizing each event and
won't feel like we have to organize the event just because it was organized in the last edition.
 INITIATIVES

Inter-IIT Civil Engineering Summit​- The motive of this competition is to bring all the talented
researchers in various IITs under a single umbrella and give them recognition.
Contact the civil engineering fest committees or department councils of other IITs and
collaborate with them to conduct a virtual Inter-IIT Civil Engineering symposium.

Aakaar Sponsor Magazine-

Launching an online and offline read magazine after every edition of Aakaar and distributing it to
all the prominent companies in the civil field. The magazine covers ongoing projects and
researches in the Civil Department IIT Bombay, summary about Aakaar & advertisement of our
sponsors.

Collaboration with Companies:

Career Sessions for Students​- Because of the COVID-19 situation, students have
several questions from the companies regarding how the situation will turn up in the
future and how is that particular company planning for this year's recruitments & how the
cries have hit the industry. To answer all these questions, we will collaborate with
prominent companies like Tata Projects, L & T, Vedantu, etc and conduct the virtual live
sessions for the same.

Competitions
With the R&D departments of notable construction firms of India designing
problem-statements based on the real-time problems they are facing and launching a
competition. Will ask the participants to come up with possible solution(s). Shortlisted
participants will get the perks from Aakaar as well as from the companies.

Software Competition
Organize software-based online competitions in association with the Development
companies. The competition will be based on the softwares released in the last two
years. These developers always look for such collaborations & usually organize the
 competitions. They already have a unique problem statement & an authentic way of
checking the solution.

Collaboration with Schools

All the education system has been shifted to online mode. We will conduct small online
sessions for 11th and 12th standard students to promote civil engineering among school
students.

Internship Programs at Aakaar-

Along with the CR program, launch an unpaid internship program for the students belonging to
private colleges & provide them two-months’ internship in fields like content writing, website
design, UI/UX design, Marketing (publicity of Aakaar), research etc. Having ten interns at a time,
including all portfolios, would assist the managers in the monotonous work, which kills a lot of
time. Internship Program gives more time to the managers to focus on ideation, innovation, and
expansion.

Civil Business Mela

Many established companies provide services to big construction companies. We will organize
events where the service providers and the takers come under a single roof to exchange
business.

International Reach
Contact the civil departments of foreign universities that are at good positions in their countries
but have low QS ranking. Invite their students to participate in our online competitions,
workshops, attend lecture series & webinars.

Web Initiatives
I would like to add the following things in our website to increase traffic and engagement.

1-Aakaar Blogs-
Include current scenarios and upcoming technologies in the civil industry.
IITB research news
Great Published paper summary and their outcomes

2-CEA Webinars- Many webinars are conducted in our departments, which features very
prominent, but these webinars are not recorded. We can record these webinars and upload
them to our youtube channels and websites.

3-PhD Defense- Record the Ph.D. defense that is being conducted online and upload it on our
website.
4- Winner's Experience- Add the people’s space where students who have won the
competitions & can share their experience.

5- Associate with our official department website-

People find it very hard to extract the information from the department website because of the
design issue.
Implement the strategy to divert the traffic to the Aakaar website, deliver the user about the
general information, and give the exposure to the highlighted and current ongoing news about
the departments.

Smart Pitch
Organize an online smart pitch where opportunity will be given to the students who have the
idea for the startups and the existing startups to present their model in front of investors and get
a step ahead in the path to funding.

Timeline

Website
Website completion (outsourcing)-Mid-august

College representative program

Portal launch(includes websites, various websites)- 1st August
Database and mailing to the hod - should be over by mid-August.
Contact all last year CR and ask then for their successor - End of the first week of August.

The registration portal will be open forever, with always have 15 days registration deadline, but
parallel, we will start onboarding the CRs.

The publicity and expansion will go on throughout the year but not at the same pace. Initially, we
will be focusing more on increasing the reach, ensuring that we have penetrated almost all tier 2
and tier 3 colleges of India through Facebook Instagram and LinkedIn.

Aakaar Internship portal

First Launch- Mid September
boost- interval of 2 months

Inter IIT Symposium​-

This event will only be done in an online mode only. the following timeline will be followed-
contact different IIT for collaboration- Mid September
Ideation and theme finalization- By the end of the October
Launch dates- 1st week of November
last date for registration-1stJan wit abstract
Event Date - Mid January

Smart Pitch -
Date of event- Mid December
Contact investor- Till Mid September
launch with Criteria- 1 st November
close date for registration- 1st December

Pre-event lecture series​ -

online lecture series-

Career Session- ​Mid-September

Technical Session​-
Organize once in a month every from October

Competition

Online competition- can be broken in two parts

The competition organized by the companies on our platform will be a two-day event with a
workshop on the other first day and followed by the competition on the second day.
Event date- 7th and 8th November
Lunch Date- first week of October

Design an online competition from scratch-

Ideation And problem design- should be over by End sept
event and launch date would be the same

General timeline
A​akaar Theme- ​End of August

Competition​-

Bridge-it
Problem statement - December end
Testing- starting of Jan
Launch- mid January
Boost- Feb first week
Ask for the progress- Feb end
Registration close- Feb end
Date of the event- 13th 14th March

Conquer it
Problem statement - Will be taken from previous year’s conqur-it
Launch- Mid Jan
Boost- Feb first week
Ask for the progress- Mid Feb
Date of the event- 13th 14th March

On spot competition-
Problem statement and testing- end of Feb
Launch- 2 weeks before the event

Symposium/ case study​-

Ideation and theme- September end
Review with professors- mid October
Launch- end October
Boost- mid December
Abstract- mid January
Short listing - Mid February
Date of the final event- 13th and 14th March
Events​-

Workshop​-
Survey- December first week
Companies on board- mid Jan
Launch the workshops- mid Jan
Boost the publicity- Jan end, Mid Feb, March starting

Lecture Series and pannen discussion ​-

Contact Lecturer and panellists - Mid Jan
Launch- Mid February

Cenex​-
Launch- Mid jan
Boost- End of jan
Shortlist - mid Feb

Hospitality​-
Accommodation Portal Launch- Feb first week
Registration close- 1st week before the event
FNB deals- Stat from mid-Feb