My 6th Hackathon Experience & the Great Surgical Strike

This week I took part in another Hackathon, it was my 6^th one!! Last hackathon which I participated in, we were not able to complete the solution as we were working on really niche next generation technologies, and we did not get the required technical support on time. Out of the 6 Hackathons, I have taken part in, I have been able to complete 5,the one we did not complete, we did do the presentation and completed the participation.

 I remember my first Hackathon in 2014, it was a great experience and it encouraged me to keep going forward. I learnt new things with each participation, and also evolved technically, I also kept getting better. Every hackathon was different, with different themes and different technologies, some of them I did not even know the name of the tool\platform, and ended up using it.

This time around the focus was on domain and not so much on the technology. The Hackathon was hosted by the client I work for, which is an MNC in banking domain. We decided on the theme which was closest to our strength, we choose the user experience theme. We built a web site with sleek user interface to display the status of all our batches. ROI is, it saves minimum 3 hours daily and also has a huge user base as well who could use it.

I attended the demo call and got a chance to look over other team’s solutions. Couple of them looked extra ordinary and unfeasible in the allotted hackathon time (this happens in all hackathons).Some were really good and the effort was shown, some were good attempts, there were few no shows as well. Compared to others I had a very simple, yet very effective interface which suited my requirement. There was nothing to refer to for our solution, and we did brainstorming on pen and paper to choose the best design of the layout.  Time was invested to get the right placement of the components, and the color combination, in line with the assigned theme.

End of the day I was happy with what we had made. Even the next day, I was playing around the website, it is very user friendly and the color combinations are really good, we had invested time on it and glad it came out good.

Another thing I wanted to write about since long time is India’s surgical strike in terrorist hideouts in PoK. It was a bold move, it was a correct move and it was definitely a memorable day in the history of modern India. Hats off to the Indian army and also to the Prime Minister for this. The next few days were tense as well as exciting, but definitely the whole of India is proud and thankful to the army and the Prime Minister…Jai Hind!!!

India & The Olympics

 It was a busy Monday, although I had a day off at work, there was some renovation work happening at home all day which kept me engaged. Feeling a bit tired, but still nevertheless have some juice to pump out this post.

 Post after a while, have been busy in office. But yes enjoying as I am still learning new things everyday. Major thing this month was the Olympics in Rio, Brazil. Had great time watching it, Indian athletes did a splendid job. There were a lot of firsts for India this time, and surely the medal counts will increase next time in Tokyo 2020.

 India ended with just a couple medals and no gold, but still I am happy and proud with the performance. There is a lot of politics still present in sports, and lot of funds not utilized as expected. There was a big useless administrative contingent along with the athletes, even the chief of medical staff was not a proper doctor but son of some politician enjoying a free trip abroad.There are very few sports facilities of international standards in India and not much financial assistance to athletes, Indians were counted 70 years behind world's best athletes at Olympics, despite all this the athletes did a splendid job.

Things are improving in India, and I am sure they will continue to improve. We are fortunate to have a wonderful prime minister. There are some good cabinet ministers as well, but still many corrupt greedy worthless politicians present. However, a lot of good things happened to me in last one month, which portrays that things are indeed getting better in India, government servants and government work is getting professional and efficient.

To start with I had to renew my passport, which is considered an international document. I did all pre-formalities myself and online. I even got an appointment to ensure there is not much waiting time. The complete process at passport office was very streamlined, the staff for the most of it was co-operative and helpful. Complete procedure took 90 mins for me at passport office. I believe Pune office processes at least 1000 passport applications everyday, and everything is online. When I was on my return journey home, I got a notification saying passport printing started, and I got it home in 3 days, kudos!

 Another good experience regards to my electricity bill. I got an unexpected high bill, I called up the customer care and registered a compliant. I got a local office contact number and was told will need to go to office and sort it out. I was thinking it will cost me a leave and transport cost additional. However, the person of local office who attended my complaint on the number was helpful and was I was able to resolve my query on phone.

 Finally currently I am watching 'Discover India- Mumbai Railways' on Discovery channel. They are showing a documentary on long distance journeys from CST. The logistics and procedures of long distance trains. They even showed the command center at CST which is simply awesome. We do not realize the number of people and amount of effort goes into preparation of a long distance train. Also we have a wonderful rail minister currently. Glad to be alive during this period of time in this great nation!!!

Post after long time

It has been six months almost since I last posted an entry in this blog. Lot of things happened, and lot of wonderful things actually. I got married and life has been great, really having wonderful time! Also it would be one year complete in Cognizant next week, so much happens so fast in life.

Lot of T20 cricket happening these days, first it was the first T20 edition of Asia Cup which India won, now the T20 World Cup is underway in India. India lost yesterday to New Zealand in the first match, but I am sure Dhoni and team will come back strong and should reach last 4, based on the team and the form we have. After this there would be the IPL.

Lot of good things happening in India currently. The Modi government is doing a lot of good work and making our wonderful country better and better. The union budget was announced couple weeks back, lot of emphasis has been given to farmers, also coupled with a good monsoon forecast, consider this to be a very good year for India. Hopefully farmer suicides will come down. Also noticeable thing is China economy is not good, and India has overtaken China now.

This is another one of the blogs in the middle of the night. I have blogged a lot in night, mostly it was about crazy jugaads and philosophical thoughts, this is a normal blog and I am sure I will be back with those creative writings and doings as well.

Well nothing else for now, I hope India really does well in the world cup as well as in growth and development, Jai Hind!