Model Engineering College, Kochi has delivered some of the best engineering talents in the field of Electronics and Software Engineering for Kerala. An institution that was one of the first Government Self-Financing colleges, and pretty much the first in the field of Engineering in Kerala. It is also famous for its very lively developer community.

Hence MEC already has had a strong and illustrious history of developers and technology enthusiasts, and the MEC.dev initiative is not as such a new platform, but more of a rebranding and a fresh coat of paint. The inspiration behind the founding of this community has not been in an endeavour to build somthing that did not exist, but in the quest to build a platform to elevate the developers and innovators among students. This initiative has been, from day one, a journey that is focused on the technical enrichment and skill developement of engineering students, towards equipping them for handling various engineering challenges.

The college has been a source of immense support, with Dr. M.V Rajesh (Asst. Professor, Electronics Dept.) being a great backer, helping us get express permission to setup the community and the related conference MEC.conf as well as getting us into contact with the various organisations and corporations that might be interested in sorting out financial and technical issues that we will face in the run-up to D-day.

Similarly, for me personally and for many others, Sahil Sameer has been a person that has symbolized the true meaning of being an engineering student, i.e. a problem solver and an evolving individual. From informing us about various opportunities for making our dream come true, to actually being a person in the field, helping with all the issues and agonising delays. Sahil is perhaps the only person who has done more than his duty called for. Similarly, the inter-personal understanding among the three chairs of the organisations on campus that are involved in the formation of this community is equally admirable. Akhil Seshan[IEEE CS], P Gautham Dileep[IETE SF] and Kurian Benoy[FOSSMEC].

Besides, this was just a pipe dream for me and Joel(@johnoverboard), in a manner of saying, if we were to sleep on this, probably something else would have manifested itself and the technical community of MEC would have still been the same, but without the inspiring words and constant pushing of this one dude, we might not have been able to even believe that our college, one of the best in Kerala would ever be able to host a Developer Conference at the scale that we are itching to grow up to.

At last, all of this would not have happened, if the common MECian was not technically oriented and inspired by the innovators and their inventions. As the cover of this post depicts, we are at peak development, this is just us, seizing on the opportunity to make a change.