A class holiday at Wonder La

An awesome day .. planned by our classmates. To celebrate our 4 years in the prison called VTU! And believe it or not, it compensated for the punishment!

Thursday March 16, 2006

BR Hills Trek

Thursday March 16, 2006

Goa Trip

Thursday March 16, 2006

North India Tour

While all this Imagine Cup was going on, i had a trip planned to North India. Covering Delhi, Agra, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Jaipur and neighbouring areas.

The trip was with my moms colleagues under her LTC.. so our travel fares was being paid by the Government! Check out some more pics on http://flickr.com/photos/ubshreenath/tags/northindiatour/

Thursday March 16, 2006

Imagine Cup 2006

It was that time of the year when every talented young student in the world waits to clash horns against his peers. It was Imagine Cup time.

Being a Student Ambassador, it was not part of my duty to participate. But if someone told you that I could win $25,000 for my software project which i will submit for my final semester, i would be a fool to let that opportunity slip.

The preparations had begun even before the 7th sem exams since the deadline to submit our abstract fell some where during exam time. But later it got extended and we had ample time to work our our project idea and to present a great picture right from the beginning.

And the results of the Round 1 were awaited with open mouths. There were around 1500 teams participating. Only the top 100 would go through. That is competition!

And we sure did as expected, cleared round 1 in flying colurs. In fact they were so impressed with our idea that they put our name first in the list for Interview for the next round. (Im obviously bluffing here).

We had cleared round 1. But we had 15 days to prepare our entry for Round 2 which required us to submit a presentation with screen shots of our project. And we would be interviewed by a conference call from Microsoft where we would have to explain the project based on the PPT we sent them. It was a tough time!

But the deadline got extended thankfully by a whole week. And i relaxed .. and relaxed big time! In goa!!

We were finally at that stage when we could no longer sleep! It was 7th March and no ground had been covered and our presentation had to be mailed to them before midnight. We knew it was impossible. And on top of that, we had no extra time as our conference call was scheduled the next day itself. We sat through the night and prepared our presentaiton and finally mailed it at 5-30AM. And we wrote a cover letter apoligizing for the delay.

The conference call was scheduled at 5 PM. I had been to GTRE in the morning to discuss our project work there. On my way back, i picked up the unused cordless phone from my grandpa’s place which had a speaker phone. I had asked all my teammates to be at my place half hour early so that we can prepare our presentation. And the phone rang at exactly 5!! Probably people at Microsoft do not follow IST!

WE made a blunder of a presentation. It was our inexperience and un-preparedness that weakened our presentation. But as a whole we covered everything and ended the call on a good note. Hopefully we may reach the top 10!

But this wasnt the only way to participate in the Imagine Cup – It had a total of 6 invitationals in which Software Design was this one. Registration for all invitationals was free and i registered for all of them, but had no intention of participating. But as time went, i got to know about a few of them and thought that i should give it a try. Most alluring was the Algorithm invitational in which we had to learn NanoBot programming and program a NanoBot to follow a specific path in a limited number of bytes. I spent nights trying to solve it and notched up 9000 points. The results for qualifying for the next round are awaited. Another invitational was the IT Invitational whose first round consisted of an Online quiz which i took and fared badly. I scored a 40 and found that the minimum qualifying mark was 70! The short film too is a good invitational and i want to participate in that too since ive cooked up a good story. Lets see how that goes.

www.imaginecup.com

Thursday March 16, 2006

Code4Bill

Maybe it was worth the hype. Launched by Gates himself on his visit to Bangalore. The promos showed off attitude.

The Round 1 of the competition was simple: complex problems with single answers and a strict timer. The results were out the next day and I was pleased to see that I was promoted to the next round. But soon i found out that almost everyone who took the test was promoted.

Then came Round 2. Lesser questions, less time, increased complexity and added competition due to the fact that most had gone thru the first round.

I thought i did well, but you always win some and you lose some. I wasnt promoted to the next level. Thus ended my travel plans to Redmond!!

Thursday March 16, 2006

7th Sem Exams

Its exam time again, but somehow im in no mood to study. Usually this time of the year, im engrossed in books deep in tension.. but not this year, dunno why!!

Im starting studying for the exam on the morning of the exam, walking out happy after I answer just 60 marks – something is definetly wrong. If i had put in a little more effort, i could have come out with flying colours.

Lets hope i clear all subjects this semester…

January 12, 2006

Billy in Bangalore

It was the man!

It was the moment!

It was the Ready Launch tour!

Bill Gates in Bangalore – To launch the new products from the Microsoft kitty.

And the champs and ambassadors get front row seats! Plus cool rockstar T-Shirts

It was a great show. Bill is a great speaker. His being in front of  us was by itself a great source of encouragement by one of the best, one who has excelled the most in my field of interest.

The food was terrible, as usual, what we expect when a 5-star hotel takes care of the food.

They gave us free trial editions of the new software which I spent all of the next day installing and tweaking, and I had a horrible time with one of the software.

December 9, 2005

My brother’s engagement

My Bro was back from the US for a month on Holiday with Marriage/Engagement plans.

twas a hectic time, with sickness and lots of work to do and lots of gurls to check out for my bro, phew! I had one hell of a time.

At the same time I was caught up with this Student Ambassador Interview and The Inter College Fest Parichay and The Microsoft Student Projects Program Launch.

Totally worn out when the week ended 16th Movember! And my applications to US universities were taking their own time!

Finally we fixed up a girl for my bro (rather he fixed it for himself) and had his engagement on the 30th in a Local Mutt, attended only by the closest of kin

November 16, 2005

The Microsoft Student Ambassador

All of a sudden, the Microsoft Student Ambassador nominations were called in and 14 champs sent in their nominations. It was a couple of tense days till the list of shortlisted champs were announced.

5 champs were shortlisted for the interview round. I was one among them!

Tensions were high, no one knew wht the interview round had for us. Questions were being asked abt the interview, but no answeres were being given anywhere!

Finally,  the fateful day came, or rather the fateful evening. I had made no special preparations. I just landed at the Takt office in time for the interview. The interview was rather only a test of temparment to be an Ambassador than a test of knowledge.

WE were all advised to improve our tech skills since we are ambassadors – this gave us the clue that we were all thru!

And true it was, the next day,  we were all happy to see Kevin carry 4 Ambassador kits into the meeting room. Only the outstation guy was ousted due to his attitude. The rest four bangaloreans made it thru.

And good times prevailed… The princi was happy, my family was exalted, my name featured on the college notice boards.. was one week of a great time!

Check out my profile on the Microsoft Website:

http://www.microsoft.com/india/msdn/academia/Ambassadors.aspx

Sunday December 11, 2005