Some campus news

SPORTS

TALK WITH YOUR FEET, PLAY WITH YOUR HEART

If you walked on the road between the football field and the old faculty quarters during 17th-20th January, you would have consciously avoided being hit by football(s), as the road had become the practice grounds for about 20 teams who participated in the Inter-College Football Tournament, organised by IIIT-H for the fourth successive year.

The inauguration was presided over by Chief Guest, Dr P J Narayan and Guest of Honour, Dr Dipti Misra. Dr Suresh Purini, Dr Raghu Reddy and Dr Chakrapani too graced the occasion.

Matches when either IIIT-H’s team A or B played, seemed to be great crowd pullers with a lot of cheering. The quarter-final matches between IIIT-H team B against HCU, and IIIT-H team A against IIT Hyderabad were an exciting watch. Both IIIT-H team A and JNTU Hyderabad were declared as the Second Runners-up. In the finals, HCU beat VNRVJIET with a score of 1-0.

The Chief Guest for the valedictory function was Dr. R Govindarajulu, who presented trophies to the deserving teams. Finally, the tournament concluded with a mail from our very own physical education officer, Mr. K. S. Kamalakar informing us all of each and every detail and thanking all who made this event possible.

TECH

Microsoft’s ‘Code.Fun.Do’ could not have a better explanation than the name itself. The 24 hour coding competition attracted a crowd of around 200 students across different batches, the perks being night long tutorials on Microsoft platforms, awesome prizes for the winners, t-shirts, certificates and free food (things that really matter to a college student)! Microsoft employees stayed with us the whole night, helping out and taking tutorial classes late into the night (one even started at 3 AM). These lectures were meant for the students to familiarize themselves with the Microsoft platforms such as Windows OS, Windows Phone, Windows Azure and Kinect.

As soon as the classes and briefing were over, everyone got down to business; downloading Visual Studio, Windows 8, Zune software and then onto coding. The workspace was filled with so many teams that the energy in that room was unbelievable. Each team was lost in their own world, enthusiastic to implement their ideas. The ideas transformed into actual products as the night progressed, every team trying to pack their applications with any and every feature that came to mind. The hourly supply of Frooti and chips got the participants through the night.

Finally, after a night’s work and two hours of sleep, the teams were made to present their applications in front of a panel of judges from Microsoft. They asked questions on the application, the ideas for future implementation and it’s relevance in a user’s life. All the judges had a poker face on at the time of the presentation, and it was hard to tell whether they liked the application or not. When it came to the time of the results, everyone was at the edge of their seats, anxiously waiting for the name of their team to be called out.

The Microsoft team was impressed with the applications developed and praised all for doing well and coming up with innovative ideas. Eight top teams were announced, the top two receiving brand new Nokia Lumia 510s! They have been given the opportunity to develop their apps further under Microsoft’s guidance. All in all, a great experience to learn something new!

CULT

The cultural almanac for the year 2k13 unpacked with the Inter-house Collage Competition. A total of 20 teams, 5 from each house, participated with full zeal. Each team had to come up with an artistic and succinct collage on ‘Cartoons/ Animation’ within 90 minutes. This was followed by the Sketching Competition. 32 teams, 8 from each house, sketched their thoughts on ‘Status of Women in Society’. In just one hour, varied masterpieces portraying different perspectives were created. The results of both the events are still awaited.

The series of cultural events advanced in full swing with the Inter-House Antakshri Competition which was co-organized by Aakash and Vayu. Each house was represented by a maximum of 5 teams. The first round was a filter-cum-qualifier. One word, one minute, sing as many songs as you can, this was enough to set all the teams into motion. Qualified teams had to flash their musical memory in the second round by identifying the song by it’s tune. The final round was to come up with a song on a given Duo. Prithvi house bagged the 1st position followed by a tie between two Vayu teams.

TALKS & SEMINARS

In the spring of 1973, two American computer scientists decided to develop a new version of the protocol which could meet the needs of an open-architecture network environment. This protocol would eventually be called the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).

Today, that describes the fundamental architecture of the Internet and has made possible
Wi-Fi, Ethernet, LANs, the World Wide Web, e-mail, FTP, 3G/4G — as well as all of the inventions built upon those inventions.

Forty years later, one of the two, Vinton Gray “Vint” Cerf, recognized as one of the Fathers of the Internet visited IIIT Hyderabad on the 22nd of January, 2013. Presently Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist and the one who assumes numerous roles in countless organizations and committees, spearheading the campaign of ‘Open Internet’ and ‘Internet for Everyone’, he wowed the mass audience at Saranga Hall with his sharp humor and even sharper lessons for everyone of us.

He began by stating that the Internet, despite its age is still evolving and that everyone of us has an opportunity to make it work in a more different, powerful and interesting way. He pointed out that the penetration of the Internet in Asia, especially in India is dismal and incomplete. He highlighted that we need more infrastructure, more competition and a mechanism to drive down the cost factor so that more people would have access to Internet, as he believed that it is a powerful tool for boosting GDP, increasing jobs along with giving more power and knowledge to people.

He gave us an insight into how thirty years ago, he and his colleague Bob Kahn could not anticipate that Internet today would run out of its address space, which it actually did last year. Today, the IPv4 and IPv6 protocols are in fact running in parallel and this is certainly a big change in the Internet’s evolution and growth. He spoke of countless obstacles the Internet still faces, and the need to study them in order to build a more secure Internet for the future. Additionally, he enlightened us with the emergence of Internet-enabled devices namely remote sensor devices, used at homes, while surfing or even for securing a wine cellar from mischievous teenage neighbours!

Among many other things, he apprised us of some technology challenges we face in today’s times, drew our attention towards Smart Grid as well as Internet Policy challenges. He also went on to address the concerns around privacy and safety issues and intellectual property rights. One of the most interesting issues he addressed was the preservation of data and software and the idea of a Digital Vellum. He opined that Collective Memory Loss in the near future is an evident possibility due to failures and inefficiencies in our present preservation methods which could lead to a gigantic collapse in the historical strata of our society. This was followed by a discussion on the bewildering consequences of using TCP/IP on Mars, which was bewildering indeed!

A trusted voice and a convention-breaking genius, Vint Cerf informed and inspired, surprised and delighted every student and professor in the audience. If you missed it, do witness the recorded talk at DC++ or YouTube, because the Internet is for Everyone!