The students of Bachelors of planning 2nd year, IAPNU attended XIX Annual NOSPlan Convention at Amity University, Gurgaon from 26th-29th December 2017. NOSPlan, an organization of students of planning is an organization with an intent to develop the community of planning students to become better planning professionals for tomorrow. It is a platform engaging academics, professionals, individuals and group/bodies associated with the field of planning for the exchange and inception of ideas, intellect, technologies and techniques, news and events.
23 colleges along with NIRMA University as its new member attended this year’s convention. The aim of becoming the member of this organization was to create network of intellectuals, academics, experts and professionals by facilitating interaction between the people of this field from all over the country through discussions, meetings, sharing of ideas, publications and annual convention.
Today’s cities are subject to future shocks and stresses that will be associated with climate change, energy scarcity and global population growth. It is therefore become vital for our cities to be resilient against such forces, as an issue of rising popularity and increased significance to planners. This year’s theme for the XIX NOSPlan Convention was ‘Resilient Cities’. This convention also witnessed Shri Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, national vice president of BJP as its chief guest, who also enlightened all the delegates about works done by the government to make our cities resilient and how planners would help shaping up the future of the country.
Many competitions, formal and informal events, intelligent debates and discussions, lectures by professionals took place revolving around this theme in this four-day convention. Formal events like policy formulation, Current Practices, Visualization Challenge engaged students in discussions and developed understanding about the world behind actual on ground situations and how the lives of individuals can be enriched. Apart from lectures, debates and other academic events heightened the knowledge of how planners play a very important role in shaping the world for tomorrow. To keep the atmosphere not too heavy with only academics many informal events and activities were also organized like cricket, dance, drama, DJ night; which made convention very entertaining and light hearted.
30 delegates from 2nd year Planning along with one faculty member, IAPNU attended this convention and participated in exchanging ideas and engaged themselves in healthy competitions with delegates from other colleges. Our students participated in many events and also bought laurels to the institute by winning two trophies; one of which was in Trashion, which was fashion show using trash. Our students captivated the audience with their creative ideas using just waste and scrape materials. The other one was photography, in which two of our students, through their photographs depicted the essence of life in the simplest way which won the hearts of many.
“NOSPlan was a competition that offered a chance for participants to gain substantial experiences, showcase skills, analyze and evaluate outcomes and uncover personal aptitude. It also offered participants a chance to meet new people and make friends from other geographic locations. It provided participants such exposure and realistic outlook towards the competitive nature of real life in such a short span of time. Nirma gave us this opportunity to attend NOSPlan where we were able hear from the field experts and some great leaders in the country. In addition to that, we had a chance to interact with students from other participating institutions. NOSPlan turned out to be a splendid platform to showcase students’ work and provide many learning outcomes for budding planner.”
It was a refreshing and educating trip which focused not only on academic but also nonacademic aspect of planning and the convergence of both is what we call the best time. Attending a national level event for the first time, surely became memorable for the students of IAPNU. Through this experience they also got to know that how planning as a discipline is being taught in other planning schools throughout India and what more they need to learn to stand out in the crowd and make a niche for themselves. They are now ready to take part in next year’s convention with a focus of winning more awards and accolades for the institute and the university, thus making an impact at the national level.
