The digital debate at Engage 2014. plus, an education fair and poetry by freshers

One of the panel discussions at Engage 2014, held at ITC Sonar on August 23. Picture: Sayantan Ghosh

At a time when the popularity of a product is increasingly being gauged from tweets, likes and downloads, eastern India’s largest digital media conference, Engage 2014, presented by the Public Relations Society of India (PRSI) & Mayabious Academy, in association with The Telegraph, at ITC Sonar, talked about digital growth and its reflection in different fields.

Attended by entrepreneurs, academicians and communication professionals, the conference presented eminent speakers who talked about everything from the digital transformation of business to big data analyses. The theme of the conference was “Growth Through Digital”, with veteran adman Ram Ray as chief guest. Other guests included scientist-filmmaker Bedabrata Pain, while speakers included Mohit Hira, former digital head, JWT India, Mahesh Murthy, founder of Pinstorm and co-founder of Seedfund, Tollywood director Subrata Sen and Ravi Sharma of Shree Venkatesh Films.

A recurring topic at the conference was how the digital revolution has drastically changed communication patterns and the ways in which companies deal with customers and sell their products in the market. The discussion regarding the possible aspects of growth through digital means interested many marketing personnel as well as the students among 300 delegates present.

Akhil B. Paul, the CEO of Mayabious Academy, expressed his love for graphics, and how they run parallel to information. The scope of digital studies has increased in the present scenario, he said, adding that we need to quickly adapt to this advancement and make proper use of it.

The other theme thrown up was that a digital revolution does not remain constrained to a few fields. It is ever-expanding and impacts almost everyone. Marketers need to analyse and quantify the worth of tweets on Twitter, likes on Facebook and downloads of apps on mobile phones to effectively reach out and make an impact on consumers.

Writer-poet Jeet Thayil recently said at an event that poets were really “twisted” characters within. Well, going by that it was a delightfully “twisted Thursday” at Presidency University recently, when 23 freshers read out their own compositions at a Poetry Slam hosted by the Presidency University Literary Society.

Held in the union room, the informal setting was matched by the audience doubling as the judges’ panel. But there was nothing casual about the works put up by the young poets. The freshers had to recite their original poems in three minutes each, in English or Bengali. However, they were allowed to recite as many of their original pieces within the given time.

The participants were judged under four categories — voice, articulation, content and expression. Recitation aside, students from other colleges like Jadavpur University, Calcutta Medical College and National Medical College took part in an open mic session.

Jahnabi Mukherjee of the English department placed first in the English category for her untitled piece, which she said was “not a love poem”, while Archishman Mandal, also from the English department, came second for his poem titled The rose and the bluebell. In the Bengali category, Sudip Raha from the Bengali department won the first place for his untitled poem while his classmate Souvik Pal came second with Swapner Daakey.

“The winning poems will be published in Tinpahar, a bilingual magazine. The rest of the entries will be put up on the Literary Society blog,” said Sreya Mallika Dutta, the president of the Literary Society and a third-year student of English.

“The idea behind our Society is to encourage literary growth and we were very happy to see so many young and talented poets. I wish we could have given out more prizes,” laughed Santanu Ghosh, a member of the Society and a third-year student of bio-chemistry.