Vibrance 2020 to start from February 6 at VIT Chennai

CHENNAI: Over Rs 6 lakh worth prize money is up for grabs at Vibrance 2020 — the annual sports and cultural festival that will begin at VIT Chennai from Thursday, said conveners of the event meeting reporters on Monday.Sekar Viswanathan, Vice President, VIT, said over 160 programmes including 21 sports events, are planned. Over 10,000 participants from prestigious institutions expected from all over India, will be competing during the course of the three-day event.

He said the inaugural day will feature a performance by noted music composer Devi Sri Prasad, that Indian cricketer Piyush Chawla will attend. Actor Vivek Oberoi will be the chief guest at the Valedictory Day on Saturday. Vibrance 2020 will also feature performances by international dance troupe Shraey Khanna and artists DJ Joshi and DJ Rink, he said.

Students of different committees said an important highlight of Vibrance 2020 was ‘Silent Disco by Silent Owl’ - among the first such events to be held at a cultural festival of this magnitude. They added that the budget of the festival was around `57 lakh. The sports events began last week and included hockey, volleyball, throwball, tennis, cricket, football, tennis and cyclathon. A marathon will be held on the morning of the inaugural day.

Anand A Samuel, Vice Chancellor, VIT, said the institution will also be introducing new courses for the next academic year. The courses include two B Tech programmes in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, and Automation and Computerisation. The institute will also introduce M Sc programmes for the first time. “M Sc Physics and M Sc Data Science will be started. Students can directly apply for Ph.D programmes after the M Sc courses,” he said.