| www.letzknow.com, the brainchild of a group of students, offers a host of services related to the academic and non-academic events in colleges. |
A workshop on latest advancements in geology, a tech-fest that an aspiring electrical engineer just cannot afford to miss, an end-semester project that one is sure someone has done before… where does an info-hungry college student go for all this?
While these thoughts might have crossed the minds of hundreds of students in the country, some of them decided to try and find their own solution for what they saw as an information gap between students and student-related events happening in educational institutions across the country.
The result was www.letzknow.com, an education web service that offers users quick takes on the latest academic and non-academic events in colleges, including tech fests, symposia, social initiatives, international contests, scholarships and so on. What is more, all services offered by ‘letzknow’ are totally free (so far.)
“The idea of such a website evolved from our own experiences in our college life. We were mavericks and were always looking out for information about new opportunities and events in which we could participate. And we have seen many of our friends learning about a wonderful opportunity only when it’s too late. In this modern era, timely information is wealth. And we decided to help students acquire that wealth in abundance,” says H.K. Manikandan, a B.Tech. student at Amritha Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, and co-founder of the web service.
In an interaction with The Hindu EducationPlus, Manikantan pointed out that the time spent in a college is the right time to “explore one’s interests and develop talents.” For this, each student must be aware of the avenues and opportunities available to him or her. And that is what the ‘letzknow’ team has attempted to do in their ‘whatz up’ section.
A growing online database of students and members of faculty in various categories of colleges is another feature of this student initiative. The ‘campus desk’ section of the site allows students and teachers to announce themselves to the world and thereby generate the opportunity for what the site calls ‘social networking’.
But perhaps the feature that many students would find interesting straight away on ‘letzknow’ is the digital database of projects and assignments done by students in colleges across the country. Suppose, reasons Manikantan, a student of Cochin University of Science and Technology, wishes to write a project for his engineering course. Now, he or she can rely only on seniors, peers or on whatever web resources that can be identified within the given time. But what if he or she can tap into a database of papers, reports and assignments that have already been done by hundreds of other students? It is very likely that a similar paper on a similar project has already been done and has already been posted on ‘letzknow’.
Students can also get their doubts cleared in a particular subject by getting in touch with their teachers. The drive to digitise such works of students is an ongoing project of ‘letzknow’.
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