2 min readMumbaiJan 2, 2014 05:15 AM IST
First published on: Jan 2, 2014 at 05:15 AM IST
THE Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay’s annual technology festival — Techfest 2014 got bigger this year with the sponsorship for the festival amounting to Rs 1.6 crore,making it one of India’s biggest college festivals.
The sponsorship for Techfest,which will be held from January 3-5,has increased by almost 60 per cent since 2011.
While last year start-up Wegilant was the title sponsor,it was Big Cola which had its banners,posters and stalls all over IIT-B campus in Powai.
“Just 10 years ago,student organisers called the festival grand if they managed to collect around Rs 50 lakh and more. However,the scenario has changed now. Being the largest technology festival in Asia,we get the latest technologies and innovation developed across the globe for the exhibition. Sponsors,national and international,think it would be worthy enough to invest in an event of this magnitude,” said Divyam Bansal,Media coordinator for Techfest 2014.
Of the 1.6 crore collected around 1.3 crore will be used to pay for the lecturers’ and artists’ travel fare and fees of some artists. The rest of the amount has been an advertisement contracts on television,newspapers,magazines and popular student hangouts. This year for the first time,Techfest has signed a deal with Facebook to run advertisements worth Rs 5 lakh.
Among the major sponsors,Microsoft,GE and,Intel have chipped in between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh.
“We start negotiating with sponsors from around April. However we managed to get telecom company Reliance Jio as our main sponsor only by the end of November,” said another student co-ordinator and organiser of Techfest 2014.
dipti.sonawala@expressindia.com
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