Felicity 2021 – Day 3 Coverage

Day Three of Felicity was a fitting conclusion to the fest, with a multitude of events, talks, and capped off by an enthralling online concert.

Botomania

The Botomania event was held by the Programming Club. It revolved around each participant creating a bot to play the game Shatkon (essentially a dots and boxes game with hexagons). The bots had to be coded in C/C++ or Python. These bots were tested against a basic dumb bot, then randomly against those of the other participants in the evaluations, after which the participant could improve them. The first, middle, and final evaluations were held on the 25th, 26th, and 27th of February. 

Vim Golf 

The Programming Club brought the coders’ (those of them not addicted to graphical text editors at least) long wait to an end, kicking off day 3 of Felicity with its fantastic 24-hour  event (27th noon to 28th noon). The organizers gave several links to the participants, including a GitHub repo containing several text files which had to be edited in a specific way, for which macros had to be written — the shorter, the better. The event tested participants’ agility and their ability to use vim effectively, considering the number of shortcuts present and the variety of shortcuts one can create themselves. While the challenges were nontrivial (to say the least), most participants succeeded in putting the documents in the right format.

Battle of Brains 

The Battle of Brains event was held by the TV Room Quiz Club, with renowned quizmaster Major Chandrakant Nair as the host. This event was open to all, and outside participation was seen as well. The quiz consisted of a preliminary round and a finals round. The prelims round was written and consisted of 20 questions, while the finals were streamed online, with eight teams of one to two members each taking part. The questions were enticing yet challenging, and almost none were direct. Although they didn’t follow a specific theme, there were some questions based on the general knowledge of Hyderabad itself.  

It was a grueling test of wits in which both lateral thinking and comprehensive expertise were required to come out on top. Unfortunately, no team from IIIT-H could qualify. But on a positive note, there were many professional quizzers who recognized the magnitude of the event.

Jagruti events 

Being the co-founder and product head at Darwinbox, a startup focused on streamlining recruitment and general HR needs that has raised 15 million dollars till date, Chaitanya gave the audience insight into India’s entrepreneurial sector and its associated intricacies. His team was able to reform the Human Resources sector and digitize it unexpectedly, helping ease many individuals’ lives

2. Anand Rathi

Anand Rathi, a 2008 CSE graduate from IIIT-H, an engineer-turned-hedge fund manager-turned-self-taught shutterbug, energized the day with his talk. In one of the more memorable moments of his talk, he spoke about how he almost got rusticated due to ragging.

Being the founder of  Reels and Frames, one of India’s top documentary photography and film companies, and the winner of 5 Lifetime Fearless Awards for his astounding photographs, his photography knowledge is considered to be commendable.

3. William Bryant:

William Bryant, the commercial VP at Fresha, impounded loads of precious information about startups, funding, equity, and leadership. Bryant acted as Head of Operations at American Express and was later promoted to Director, Global Platform Solutions, American Express. He spoke about the importance of corporate relationships for startups, and emphasized the fact that a good understanding of the market and scalability of the business strategy is necessary for the growth of a startup.

4. Manasi Joshi:

Manasi Joshi is a star para-badminton player and a household name. Being one of our nation’s most inspiring and incredibly talented sportspersons, she has faced many hiccups but rose up against those odds, which she spoke about during the event. She raised the ever-persistent topics of gender inequality, disability inequality, and more. She explained how it is possible for the audience, as leaders of the next generation, to raise awareness and positively influence the views of the masses. 

4. V.C. Sajjanar: 

Vishwanath C. Sajjanar, the commissioner of Police for Hyderabad, is known for his intense focus on women and children’s safety, as well as a community and citizen-friendly policing system to end cybercrime and human trafficking. Being a well-known police commissioner, he has faced around 18 transfers in his career, some of them even influenced under political pressure. The police officer spoke about his past and the difficulties he overcame on the path he has followed. 

Zakir Khan

The much-awaited performance of the day began close to 8 PM and lasted for close to an hour with a staggering attendance of close to 600. The comedian’s hilarious jokes were a good way to begin the fest’s closing ceremony. Viewers often joined him in conversation, on account of the relatable topics discussed.

Yellow Diary (💛)

The concert started at 9 PM and went on two hours, with around 200 participants on the Zoom-based studio live stream.  The amazing audio and video quality gave us the feeling of an offline concert and finally gave UG-1 the college experience they were missing. The event was well produced, in line with the uplifting and energetic songs performed.