National Engineering Competition (NEC) was launched on a pilot scale in 2003 year under the umbrella of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Careers Programme.
The main Idea behind the NEC was to encourage undergraduate engineering students from public as well as private sector engineering institutions to come up with innovative solutions to problems of national interest. For this purpose, a theme regarding such a problem has been circulated each year on which an interdisciplinary team of students could work under the supervision of their teachers. In addition to fourth year students, who could work on such problems in lieu of their senior year project, any undergraduate engineering student could participate in this Competition. Two such competitions were organized each year.
The students who participated in these events are NEC Alumni. These alumni support the host institutes to conduct these competitions, design the theme for the future competitions.
