For five years now, ECE and Beyond has been able to engage DLSU students in the latest technological advancements. As it gears up for its sixth year, ECE and Beyond 2013: NeoVergence, hopes to introduce neo-technologies as they move and diverge across the globe.
Its aims and goals
NeoVergence is a national convention for Electronics and Communications Engineering (ECE) majors to be held in the University on July 17, 19 and 20. Over the course of its three-day run, it hopes to keep in line with its theme of nurturing knowledge, establishing neo-technologies from this pool of information and optimizing these future technologies for the succeeding generations of engineers.
The event is to be spearheaded by the Electronics and Communications Engineering Society (ECES), the professional organization for ECE majors. Its president, Prince Estebal, hopes to use the event as an avenue to promote the organization’s goal: to holistically develop students not only from DLSU but also from other schools. “ECE and Beyond 2013 aims to help DLSU ECE students interact with other students through camaraderie and competition,” he says.
The event proper
Hence, the program will be featuring several events such as thesis symposiums, career talks, company talks, seminars, lab tours and technology exhibits wherein students are free to interact with people from outside the campus. Besides these, however, ECE and Beyond 2013 also aims to foster competition among its participants through the NEOlympics, a “sumo-bot” competition and the NEO Challenge, an academic contest.
Of particular interest is the NEO Challenge, spanning three days. Romel Ramos, the overall project head for NeoVergence, shares that the academic challenge will be divided into three parts: an elimination round on the first day, a semi-finals round on the second and a final stage on the third. The first round, he says, will simply be a conventional quiz bee. As teams move into the semi-finals, however, they will participate in an Amazing Race of sorts, moving through the entire campus as though it were one giant circuit. Teams that succeed can then advance to the final stage, to be held in the Natividad Fajardo Auditorium. Ramos, however, shares that more than academic competition, the program aims to “expand the knowledge and connections of students inside and outside DLSU.”
DLSU ECE majors likewise expect that the program will help them establish linkages not only with other students but with major companies as well. Daniel Abinoja (II, ECE) shares that while ECE in DLSU may be globally competitive, students should still be on the lookout for activities that will help them expand their options. In light of this, he hopes that the program will help him and his fellow ECE students further their knowledge on their future line of work.
