Grab onto one (or more) of these

Some awesome opportunities to look forward to:

You want to start up. So what excuses are you going to through? Can't get a B Plan in shape? Can't get venture funding? How will I manage it with acads?

Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at BITS Pilani has come up with a solution. All you need is a good idea. And if you have a team in place, that's just kick ass, but if you do't that's alright as well, just jump aboard the train.

Sounding too vague? Check THIS & THIS ASAP!

Last year I remember that Vivek was telling me how he doesn't really want to startup, but what he actually wants to do is just gives ideas to people to start up. 

If you have got ideas for the next big start-up, come share them in an innovation brainjam. The event is called Idea Cafe. More Info about it HERE. 

All this fine, but what about the Summer? Have you still not found something to get yourself involved with for the long suration of the holidays. Does working in a fast paced environment excite you? The I suppose you would be interested in Summer in a Start-up.

Brain of BITS 2009

In my post about APOGEE I mentioned the Brain of BITS, the lone wolf quiz. It's the ultimate test of mettle for any BITSian who is quizzically inclined. Getting on stage is an honour, winning the prize is beyond words. It's significance is not really a matter of opinion and any one who questions its superiority is clearly out of his mind.

Many have ghotted (that's BITSian for mugging) for months and some even cheated (albeit unsuccessfully) to get on stage, but in the end, none of it counts. This years BOB is now uploaded on the Keep Guessing : The BITS Quizlog It's probably the only BOB quiz with an online presence, but then everything must have a first. Try it and then pass it along.

As for BOB itself, for the next year or so, it rests in the room of King Diamond, a brilliant quizzer who deserved the title and his real name is known to be Siddharth Ravichandran. His online home can be found here.

APOGEE Digest 1

APOGEE, BITS Pilani's tech festival ended today.

Being a blogger I always get jacked on campus. Everytime I have an interesting conversation with another person the first thing they ask me is "So you are probably going to blog about this aren't you?"

And my answer often pisses them off too. "Yes".

The build up to the fest and then finally the fest itself was an exciting experience. Anyone who knows me to a decent extent also knows that I am not one to brag about BITSian events, but this APOGEE was different.

I have so many posts lined up for this APOGEE, but for now I thought instead of sitting down and writing all of them one by one, a digest should suffice. The only order the following list shall follow is the order in which my brain spits it out.

The list of speakers for this years APOGEE was phenomenal, it was awesomely awesome. There was Jimbo Wales, John C Mather, Stephen Wolfram , Dilip Chabbria and a long list of others (For the complete list head over here).

Dilip Chabbria's lecture was like a management class. The fundas he presented were quite similar to those I've read in Seth Godin's Purple Cow however Chabbria is quite monotonous, to the extent that he at times even bores himself by his speech. I don't know if that's just how he is or if he was too tired. His catalogue though was the highlight of his talk. It was the sort of stuff that would make backpackers want to get a permanent high paying job.

Jimmy Wales delivered a talk on Wikipedia/Wikia. The man knows how to keep an audience engrossed. He also now knows that a village in Rajasthan has the highest number of Gults in the state.

From what I hear and see on the merit certificates, APOGEE is now the only 2nd technical festival in this country to be ISO certified.

Tanks rested in our gymkhana.

It was a green fest.

Something I wouldn't exactly endorse, but even then, find me a tech fest in India sporting a laser show!

John C Mather's talk was really well received, Cremo on the other hand provided fodder for gossip.

As far as the Quizzes go, almost all the quizzes went down to the final question if not a tie breaker. After a good year in the quizzing circuit outside home turf, it was nice to finally win one of the big 4 quizzes at BITS Pilani, Overhead Transmission on a tie breaker. I had a killer team. Also it was quite a relief to finally get done with the hazaar academic quizzes and instead have one consolidated Science Quiz.

Samanth Subramanian is an excellent quizmaster.

But my favourite moment this APOGEE was one in which I wasn't on stage. King Diamond being crowned the new Brain of BITS, beating an equally deserving Piyush from BITS Dubai.

APOGEE has become BIG. It's heartening to see the fest really living up to its true potential. With sponsorship sky rocketing and good publicity and so many things to look forward to, these 5 days kept me (or anyone else for that matter) quite occupied. However, its important to fully exploit this thrust in the coming festivals. To try and diffreentiate from other festivals, to offer something more to the people who travel on the awful Haryana roads to come to this Oasis.

APOGEE ended today.

[All pics courtesy Jeffrey Jose]

Update: Do check out his flickr stream for more pics

Reading the fine print

Stories of an over stressed techie resorting to murder of his 4 day old daughter have surfaced the internet.

The horrific act was committed by S.Niranjan Kumar( or J.Niranjan Kumar as the Hindu claims), who says that wasn’t ready to have child yet and felt that no one, his wife nor either of their parents understood how he felt. He wanted to spend more time with his wife and fearing that the baby would take up too much of their time, dumped her in a well. This was after he told his wife to get an abortion done and she refused to do so.

However, this post is about something else that I noticed.

On 13th March Indian Express first publishes this. A day later they publish this. The second story (which doesn't make a reference to the earlier story at all) claims of him getting a gold medal while at BITS Pilani. Indian Express even went on to pinpoint that he received a gold medal in Mechanical Engineering while at BITS.

Being a BITSian still on campus, I rushed to the faculty division where on the walls is a huge board with the names of all toppers engraved on it. It has information of toppers from 60s onwards. I saw three columns there: Gold, Silver and Bronze medals.

Clearly, it makes no mention of branches. BITS Pilani doesn’t award degree wise gold medals. The medals are for the topper of a particular batch, irrespective of their degree. And neither can I spot Niranjan’s name anywhere.

Expected better journalistic effort from the Indian Express.

Furthermore there is ambiguity as far as the age of Niranjan and his wife is concerned. HT claims he’s 28, Indian Express says he is 30 (and she is 25) in one article and says he is 28 in the other. And Telegraph suffices with the mean of the two and sticks to 29 (and claims the wife’s age to be 22).

Apart from all this, even when it comes to the actual story, one doesn't know what to believe. Indian Express writes this

Not being able to come to terms with the reality of a child, Niranjan refused to meet Sangeetha in the months before the delivery, even feigning an official trip to China to avoid visiting Chennai to see her, said her relatives. He never called, never mailed — communication was restricted to infrequent chats.

And the Telegraph reports this in their coverage:

Fed up, Sangeetha moved to her parents’ home in Chennai seven months ago. But Niranjankumar kept up the pressure, urging her through emails to abort the baby. He is also alleged to have demanded Rs 5 lakh in extra dowry.

Times of India screws up their Headline: says Mani Ratnam is coming to BITS Pilani Goa Campus

Waves is BITS Pilani Goa Campus' (BPGC) annual cultural festival and after a fairly decent Quark (Tech Fest), which saw Abdul Kalam inaugurating the event, we have BITSian alumnus and famous movie director Mani Ratnam coming to BPGC for Waves.

Wait a second. Mani Ratnam? 

Well, there you have it. Times Of India messed up their headline. The Goa edition of the daily says "Mani Ratnam to open cultural fest at BITS Pilani". You can check out their news item here (which strangely hasn't been edited yet).   

The alumnus in question is actually Mani Shankar who... well isn't in the same league as Mani Ratnam as far as cinema is concerned but has had big success in the ad world/music videos. 

I don't understand what the copywriters and journos at ToI are upto, but this is just too unprofessional. Worst still, I don't see any amends nor apologies etc.

Earlier, Mani Shankar had come to BITS Pilani for Oasis back in 2006.