Bhubaneswar, Sept. 19: Technology, innovation, creativity and strategy will be the buzzwords at the Bhubaneswar zonals of TechOlympics, a technical extravaganza of IIT-Bombay, on October 7.

The event, which has been introduced as a special feature in the institute’s annual science and technology festival, is set to turn the spotlight on the capital — the only venue in the entire eastern zone of the country.

“We have shortlisted Bhubaneswar for the zonal final because of its growing technical culture,” said Sibaprasad Mohanty, event manager of IIT Bombay’s Techfest, adding that Bhubaneswar zone includes Odisha, Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. The Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) here will host the fest.

“When we came in 2008, there was hardly any participation from the state but the number has shot up in the last couple of years. Last year, there were around 2,200 participants for Techfest and one team from Bhubaneswar made it to the final round. Students of this city have won many major tech events at the national as well as international levels,” Mohanty said.

This time, over 250 teams from the eastern zone have already registered for TechOlympics. “But the share of Odisha students is more than 50 per cent. Besides some prominent engineering colleges in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Rourkela, we have received enthusiastic response from colleges in smaller towns such as Balangir,” said Animesh, publicity manager for the event, which involves prize money worth Rs 4 lakh.

TechOlympics would have four events — Grid Master, Pirate War, Hover On and Program’m-able — covering four major genres of technology like line following, aqua robotics, aero modeling and coding, respectively. Other cities that would host the zonal qualifiers are Mumbai, Vishakapatnam, Coimbatore, Indore and Jaipur. Registrations can be done on http://www.techfest.org/home/event/techolympics.