Notes from Goa
Centre For Software Development
By Roshan Sumbaly (’04 CS), Aalap Tripathy (’04 EEE), Akriti Tibrewala (’05 C6)
,
Mr. Mangesh Bedekar, Faculty Incharge CSD
The Centre for Software Development (CSD) was formed by a group of students of the first batch who joined the new campus of BITS at Goa. Since the college was in its inception, it required a group of enthusiasts who could group together to help in its growth. The idea to form a team of such "like minded" people struck two students from the 2004 batch, Roshan Sumbaly and Aalap Tripathy, while returning from a movie trip from Panjim. Under the guidance of Dr. D.M. Kulkarni, the first task of setting up of the BITS Goa Website was delegated to students resulting in the formation of CSD.
With the admission of the second batch at BITS Goa, the CSD sprung into action to invite some of the best brains to join in. This resulted in the formation of the "CSD Nucleus Members" – a team of dedicated students striving for software solution requirements of the new campus. Over the next year, the team worked on various projects like the BITS Goa website, BITS Studentnet (Intranet Site), Course Management Tools, etc. Some of the work was even appreciated in media, especially when the elections of the Student’s Body, called the CSA, was done using an online software – making our campus one of the first campuses to hold an online election in India.
Dr D.M. Kulkarni – Coordinator, CSD
CSD Initiatives
The CSD team has worked hard to deliver many successful projects. The CSD abides by the motto - "we develop and stay ahead." Hence, since its inception, it has continuously added features to the BITS Goa website, thereby giving the website a different look over time. Currently in its third version, the most attractive feature of the website is the BITS-Zone Network Services – a number of network services provided by the CSD like CANVAS@BITS-GOA, BITS StudentNet, BITS e-mail, and BITS-Buzz.
BITS-Buzz, the online campus SHOUTBOX is an online forum for students and faculty which hosts interesting talks and discussions.
CSD is also working on reducing paper usage by the Institute automating several paper-based procedures into software as per the business requirements of the Institute. These include Insurance forms, Railway concession forms, Faculty attendance form and scholarship & vacation details.
The "ID Card Generation Software" which generates identification cards for each student with a bar code is another one of CSD’s brainchild. This base of this software has also been deployed as a security card-reader to allow automatic check-in and check-out at the campus entrance.
The CSD has been helping the academic division of the campus by working on the Campus Management Tool which assists Professors in day-to-day running of course work at the institute. This tool also calculates the CGPA of each student.
The CSD has started research projects with Roshan Sumbaly’s work on "Parallel and Distributed Systems."
In the three years of operation, the CSD has received unflinching support of Dr. D. M. Kulkarni (Chief, CSD) along with Mr. Mangesh Bedekar (Faculty Incharge, CSD). It is amazing to see a small idea from two undergraduate students transform itself into a team of dedicated students striving for the development of their campus while honing their skills. Like they say, all big things have small beginnings.
