Déjà vu

Last week the World Finals of the Imagine Cup 2006 which concluded on August 15th 2006 was aired on CNBC TV. Prizes for the different categories were given off to the winners. Almost every prize winner looked like a geek :)

Kapil Sibal addressing the gathering at Imagine Cup 2006

Back in September 2004(when I was in my Second year) our team FUTURE INSIDE started a project on Police Crime Record Management System for the Microsoft Student Project Program (Now under the name Microsoft Academic Project Program). MSAPP as we all call was the first of its kind for students by Microsoft. The project spanned 8 months and we got a placed in the Top 300 projects on an all India basis in the second phase of our Project. We also got an opportunity to exhibit our project at the Student Project Expo’05 at Meenakshi College, Chennai. There our projects were reviewed by professionals from ISoft, Verizon and of course Microsoft. As we had taken Ramji’s CPU in order to exhibit our project we ate our lunch half-heartedly. Then it was the moment of truth as the result were about to be announced. Finally 8 months of Hard work paid off and we won the BEST PROJECT AWARD in SOUTH ZONE.

Ramji and Me(other three of my teammates not in this picture) receiving Wireless Desktops from Shiela Gulati, Microsoft India Director at MSP Expo 2005,Chennai

Through this project I could get in touch with people like Kevin D’Souza who is an Academic Developer Evangelist from Microsoft, Abhisek Kant and many other from there as well.

It was at the same venue that Kaushik Srenevasan, Sriram Krishnan and Aarthi bagged the best project award in South Zone for Imagine Cup 2005. All the three are now in Microsoft India Development Center, Hyderabad. It feels great to have shared the same stage with people like them :)