The Digital-Online IIA NATCON "TRANSCEND - GO BEYOND" 11-12th July 2020.- My Thoughts.
It was in third or
fourth week of June that I saw some posters of Indian Institute of Architects
and also received a mail on 25th June from IIA regarding the conduct
of this NATCON and the registration details. My first thought was, how a NATCON
can be conducted online? Is it possible at all? I have attended two NATCONs
before in Chennai & Bangalore and cherish every moment of that, but was
skeptical about this NATCON. Then I thought, being an architect, I should not
question it now and I should support it by at least registering for the event.
If at all something goes wrong let’s see later.
Then there were posters
circulated for various competitions like sketching, Photography and call for
papers for Paper Presentation. I was just wondering how all this will be
coordinated and executed. Following all this there were posters released on
different speakers and panelists lined up for the event. Seeing some big names
I thought it was good that I registered, this is something not to be missed. It
is a rare event to listen to people like Architect Moshe Safdie or Mr. Sonam
Wangchuk and I did not want to miss it, that too sitting at the comfort of our
homes.
On 10th July
2020 the link of access to the digital platform in which NATCON will be
conducted was sent. On the morning of 11th July when I clicked the
link, it took me to the digital interface of the national convention. The first
time I saw the screen I was surprised to see something like that. To make the
registered people feel like the convention is taking place in a convention
centre, a walk through video of a lobby of a convention centre was shown, which
somehow made me feel the experience we have when entering any convention
centre. That set the tone. The inaugural session with our Vice president Shri
M. Venkaiah Naidu Ji was good and thanks to the interface it felt like he was
personally interacting with me sitting very closely (which is something that we
don’t experience in the real time).
The interface itself
was again a pleasant surprise. It had things which I did not expect to be
there. Myself, at first instance thought that this will be like any other video
conferencing application, but it was not so. It had so many features which tried
to bring in experience of physical conference embedded in it in a digital way.
Features like Floor, Lounge, Lobby, booth etc used for different purposes like
interaction, advertisement, trouble shoot etc, made the experience livelier.
The best option was that of Discuss, were one could easily post the questions
to the panelists or speakers.
Due to some important
official work at home I could not attend two sessions (the afternoon one) on
the first day. All the sessions which I attended were well conceived
ideologically. Speakers from different parts of the planet spoke on different
issues. I am not going into detail in this as these things are being done as
part of the newsletter which one can get from the organizers and at the end of
first day I say this being released with the tag NATCON day 1 Newsletter. The
lineup of speakers and panelists was such, that I was sure that the sessions
are going to be great and interesting. To my satisfaction almost all the
session I attended was of high quality. The panel discussion I personally
enjoyed the most was the one moderated by Ar. Biju Kuriakose. I need not
mention here about how good the sessions of Mr. Sonam Wangchuk and Ar. Moshe
Safdie were. One thing that somehow does not happen in conventions is keeping
up with time but in this conference most of the times all the sessions were on
time. Again hats off to the organizers.
One important
announcement made by IIA on the first day needs a mention. It was about the IIA
CAD. Hope to see it at the earliest in the market and at the same time hoping
that it is competitive both with respect to its final pricing and usefulness in
comparison to already existing software.
The last session
Ensemble needs a special mention. I did not expect that to be so good. It was
really good and I was really happy to see architects of all age groups and
genders participating in great way. This became a platform for so many talents
to be showcased. For this particular session to be good I can feel the amount
of work put in the back ground by the organizing committee.
One session that did
disappoint me was the Question Hour (the Quiz). The questions the teams etc
were fine, but due to connectivity issues and some problems with voice at some
contestants place it was not that great to witness the event online as there
were a number of disturbances. The other thing which could have been avoided
was to have a sponsor present along with Mr. Sonam, Wangchuk. It could have
been avoided. One can understand the importance of sponsors for such events but
in this case I think we went overboard.
The other thing of
concern to me was the attendance of architects in the events. I always feel for
a profession to be recognized and for its growth there needs to be unity and support
amongst its members. As we can see in CoA website, it has more than 85000
registered architects, but still the number of participants could hardly exceed
700 or so for each session. Not to forget a number of students of architecture. I am not sure, may be it occasionally touched 1000,
and that would be the maximum. I don’t have any idea how many registered for
the program, but the count of people attending the program according to me is
too less. Whenever the usual NATCON are conducted there are constraints like
travelling to a different place, putting on hold our professional work for
three days etc as constraints. Here in this digital platform these could be
easily overcome as you are sitting in your home, continue your work while
listening to programs simultaneously etc but still I don’t understand why the
attendance was so less. At a time when there are lobbies trying to undermine
the profession, we need to stand up together or we don’t know where will end up.
All said and done these
two days were something to be cherished. At a time when I was not able to take
my mind out of this CORONA issue all around the globe, these two days made me
shift my mind form that. I have worked with Ar. C R Raju Sir and Ar. Antony
Morais Sir for some programs at IIA TN and have always admired the dedication
with which they work. Though I was skeptical at the idea of an online NATCON at
the start I was always confident that the presence of people like them will
make it great. In addition to these two people I congratulate the whole team which
worked tirelessly to make this event such a good one even during these testing
times like corona.
I am not sure, but I think this could be the first convention
of this scale conducted online, I am not aware of any others. This could well
define the future course in conducting events of this type. With all the great
effort and success I still feel there was something that was missing. It was
the warmth you get when you meet people personally and physically during
conventions and conferences. That part I think the virtual world could not
substitute, but for it all other things were great and praise worthy.
Thank you.
Hope you enjoyed
reading.
Muzakkir G. M. Bijli
Architect
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