IBM Technical Contests rocked at 18 different Technical Festivals held at colleges all over India in 2009. Like "The Great Mind Challenge" - TGMC (it entered Limca book of records) which engages students on various IBM products and technologies, IBM Technical Contest was yet another way to engage the student community in the Gen Next Technology skills like SOA, Web 2.0, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Computing, Green IT and many more.. and all this as part of the Technical Festival that happens at most of the colleges in India. It was also an innovative way to get the best bang for the buck / ROI for IBM investments / sponsorships.. With this the students got aware of the Gen Next skills required in the industry and some of the IBM prducts and websites (like IBM DeveloperWorks)
The format of the contest is fairly simple - once the sponsorship money is agreed, the students/collegs select te focus technology area which becomes the theme for the event. For example at the VNIT Nagpur - AXIS 2009 event, they chose Web 2.0. Being the evangelist for this this subject matter, I got to witness this contest as the judge.
The Phase I, which could start upto week ahead of the actual event is held online and the goal is to drive heavy participation from neighbourhood.. all the colleges in the vicinity, including the host college... this is a simple multiple choice objective test to eliminate all but 50 top participants who enter the phase II. The phase II happens typically on the last or the second last day of the fest at the college in the morning where the 50 participants are imparted yet another objective multiple choice test - this time around the skills/ knowledge are relevent to IBM products / technology. This round is to select the 5 finalists.. who get 3-4 design problems which they are expected to solve and present. During the Final Round that happens on the stage, the finalists presnt their solutions to the audience and the judges (IBM and Faculty). They are judged on three factors - Innovation, Technical Depth and Breadth and Presentation skills. The winner gets a laptop and 2 runners up get some goodies like laptop bags/t-shirts and most importantly recognition/certificates..
It was real fun driving this contest with the virtal team within IBM and the students who srove a large part of it...
