News from NICO | Beacons, the two-day Media Fest

Nitte Institute of Communication organized Beacons, the two-day intercollege media fest on 17th &18th November 2023. As always, the Fest saw keen competition between participating colleges. For the first time this year, Beacons was opened to students of Pre-University Colleges also.

The theme for this year’s fest was Social Media, with the tagline, Scroll. Share. Succeed. The Social Media Spectacle.

In keeping with the theme, Day 1 began with the inauguration of the event by popular Mumbai-based Education Influencer, Pooja Gupta whose channel on YouTube, Media Mentor has a strong subscriber base among students of Media. A student of Media & Communication herself, in her inaugural address, she spoke of the unlimited career opportunities that are available to a student of Communication and lauded the Institute on the excellent infrastructure and resources being provided to students.

The inauguration was presided over by Prof Shweta, Principal, Nitte Institute of Speech & Hearing (NISH). Addressing the gathering, she said, as Speech Therapists and Audiologists, NISH is also in the area of communication, although on a physiological level. She also spoke of how social media is now an integral part of every person’s life and how addicted, people are to information received over popular social media handles. Alumni Megha Malar (Class of 2020 BA), a trained Bharatnatyam dancer presented a beautiful piece on Durga/Shakti and received a huge round of applause from the audience. Megha along with her Guru & team has just returned from a 10-day tour of Korea, where they presented their dance ballet in different cities. This performance marked the opening of the two-day event.

Prof Raviraj, Head, Nitte Institute of Communication welcomed the guests - Megha & the participating colleges. Beacons also saw popular local social media influencers Officially Sane, Neglected Romeo, Wencita Dias, among others coming over to the Institute to judge the competitions.

Day 2 saw the Valedictory Function presided over by popular influencers and co-founders of Mangalore Meri Jaan, Waseem Katipalla & Raghav Nayak and Artist Kamil Reza.

The evening began with alumni Sathwik Shetty (BA, Class of 2017), screening the teaser of his latest short film “Dhakke” which was well received by the audience. Team Dhakke was present at the venue to promote their film and answer queries from students. Sathwik also doubled up as judge for the short filmmaking contest that was organized as part of Beacons.

The evening ended with the much-awaited prize distribution, with the first place being bagged by Vivekananda College, Puttur. School of Social Work, Roshni Nilaya, Mangalore stood second. In the Pre-University Category, Maps PU College, Mangalore emerged winners and Expert PU College, Mangalore stood second.

Beacons 2023 was organized and coordinated by Prakash K, Asst. Professor with student coordinators Anupama and Aarya.