 Okay, so that was about the Maker India hackathon which was organized at IIT Bombay by a professor Krithi Ramam Guttam and his team consisting of professor Kumuresh who just spoke and others. Just a reminder at this point that the contents of this particular session are getting video recorded and those will be shared in some time with all of you so that you can just go through them because we don't have specific course content as such but the videos will be available. Okay, now I request professor Fatak to give his remarks about mainly about the do's and don'ts of hackathons because that is what people are eager to know. When I just went out and saw a couple of questions, there were already questions I have started pouring in. So we will be logging those by the time you talk and then you can address them in the final session. We are in fact running early of the time right now so you can keep the questions ready with you and start posting them so that we will log them and then convert professor Fatak's session into a question and answer session immediately after he has done with whatever he wanted to share with all of you. So over to professor Fatak. Okay, good afternoon and welcome to you once again. I am supposed to talk to you on do's and don'ts during hackathons. To my surprise the speakers before me although they were supposed to concentrate on preparation for hackathon and to share with you the experiences of conducting hackathons have given you enough individual hints on what is to be done during the hackathon. I will try to consolidate those thoughts as some of my own and share with you what you will have to prepare for the actual participation in hackathon. Those of you who know me will recall that I am actually a storyteller. So let me tell you two short stories from my own experience of participating in hackathons. Unfortunately the term hackathon was not invented then but essentially it was a team effort to solve a large problem and how we did it, what happened during the equivalent of an hackathon is what I wish to share with you. I hope it will be suggestive of how important it is for an entire team to work and how important it is not to lose your commitment, your passion and your wisdom even during critical moments. As I mentioned initially these are my personal experiences from old times. So let me tell you the times and let me share with you these two stories. The first hackathon happened in my life in late 70s when I was in charge of data processing for our national joint entrance examination. You have to understand that in those days we did not have modern machines. We had actually a Russian mainframe machine which had most of the data processing to be done using magnetic tapes. As a coordinator I had to collect data from all equally similar coordinators in other IITs who brought the JED data to IIT Bombay were supposed to consolidate that data and then prepare the final merit list and prepare of course empty reports etc. We had planned for a 7 day activity at the end of which the result would be declared. As luck would have it there is a massive electrical outage and the huge spark created a problem. It burnt a main cable coming to the EC 1030 the Russian computer and it actually burned many of the circuits in many of the controllers of our mainframe. As a result the whole computer center was down. Me and my team could do nothing but to fume but my colleague SSP Rao who was in charge of the hardware maintenance of the entire system and his team and the electrical engineers of the campus worked almost continuously round the clock but it took them 3 days to restore the machine. After that we were left with 3 more days. I went to the JED chairman and I said our timetable for processing this data is 1 week so I hope it is ok if we delay it by 3 more days because we had 3 days. He simply said Professor Fatak the date for declaring results has been announced and we do not want to be the first IIT in the history of IIT system to be the institute which delayed declaration of results. So do whatever it takes but I want results to be declared. The chairman of IIT Delhi was scheduled to fly out first after 3 days on the 4 day early morning and he says under any circumstances I need those results. You can imagine now we had roughly 72 hours I had a team of software people we had 4 of them led by the 5th person Dr. Subhadra who was the most systematic programmer. Please remember that programs those days were written, punched on punch cards were compiled the compiled versions were stored on the desk but essentially the data came from magnetic tapes and we had a whole lot of intermediate reports which are getting printed online printers and so on. We started work earnestly first day and first night we continued without any problem. Second day and second night mind you none of us had slept and like in the modern hackathon there would be a couple of people who would take a 1 hour nap in 1 chair somewhere there was literally a small Dari which was spread out in the computer center where 1 person would sleep for 2 hours and this is how we continued. On the third day I had practically lost the balance of my mind to the extent that I was moving from the terminal to the printer to the tape drive and I was forgetting things at various places so I would carry a card deck with me go to the tape drive I will leave the card deck on that table pull out a tape mount it start processing it move to the terminal and then I realized that I have no card deck with me. You will be amazed of the sense of teamwork the senior most person in our team was vice chairman of joint entrance exam professor Bhatt senior most person a senior faculty member and he was moving around and he was trying to say how he could help. I suddenly found after about an hour or so of this kind of deliberation where I was leaving print out at one place card decks at another place tape at somewhere else and at one point when I suddenly said where is that deck I looked around and I saw professor Bhatt carrying a deck of cards a magnetic tape some print out in his hand and he started asking me what you want this what you want that and I was amazed I said sir why are you doing this he says I am the most useless person in the crowd all of you are doing some useful work so I realized the only useful thing I could do is carry all the things which you miss out and make them available instantly as and when you need them it was unbelievable but that is the kind of teamwork that you are required to do there will be occasions during your team work in the hackathon where there might be 2 or 3 people who are required to concentrate on a specific aspect of problem which only they can solve. The other couple of members might be relatively free it is at that time they need to ensure that they are available and they are at the beck and call of the entire team needless to add it was such work by the chairman himself which actually helped us tied over the temporary lapses in memory and so on but the story did not end there on the third day when we are very sure that we have got everything under control we needed to finally sort the entire data I must tell you something about the configuration we had a hard desk of a phenomenal capacity of 7.25 megabytes can you imagine a hard disk with 7.25 megabyte capacity even the children will laugh at it today but as I told you most of the data processing was done on tapes and the disk had a small capacity although they were very large in size. Now we needed some sort space on the disk in order to complete the sort of all the data in order to create that sort space I found out that first time when we try to run the sort it said inadequate sort space so I had to create some sort space and in a hurry I deleted some files from that desk the sort was completed and after the sort was ready I was supposed to run the final program which would read the sorted data and print the final results in the form that is required and guess what when I tried to run the final program I found it did not exist I was sure that Dr. Subhadra had compiled tested and kept the compiled version ready to run in some space on the desk and then I realized that in a hurry the portion of the desk which I had created for additional sort of space I had deleted the files which she had created guess what the final compiled versions of the program which will produce the final GE results for the country did not exist there. What we do it was 2 o clock in the night and the deadline that we were given was 5 a.m. in the morning we knew that Dr. Subhadra was a very systematic lady so when she would edit a program online on the desk she would also make sure that the corresponding changes are made on the punch cards and the punch card deck is also updated the deck was in her cabin which was fortunately not a full height cabin but there was some 2 feet space at the top from which one could jump in since we could not contact her I actually jumped into her cabin found out that final day jumped back and then came back into the computer center saying this seems to be the program we compiled it it compiled very well it ran properly and guess what we had the final results ready with number of copies required by 3.30 a.m. in the morning on the 4th day morning why I am telling you the story is because it contains a very important lesson that not only teamwork is essential but you have to use your presence of mind to ensure that whatever component of the solution that you require even if you have pre built it if it is missing some place you have to find it that is why it is of utmost importance that all 5 or 6 members of your team actually participate in a very coordinated fashion paying attention to every small detail of problem solving that the team is involved in during the hackathon I hope the story illustrates that result or that need very very succinctly I told you I will share with you 2 stories so let me come to the second stories meanwhile 10 more years had passed and we had graduated to interactive computing using what we call a CPM machine you may not have heard of CPM 8 bit microprocessors with 64 kilobyte memory but with interactive terminal had come up they had 2 floppy drives for storage no tape no desk such a machine was procured in the computer center for us to teach our students some interactive computing a similar machine was purchased in our accounts office in order to implement our accounting system such as payroll and other things in the month of December of a year I was told that the machine the older machine which was producing the payroll for the institute payroll means every month you have to prepare a list of people and the amount of money that is to be paid to them as their salary you know salary computations involve adding of allowances deleting some advances that have been taken away etc whatever and that system was to be was being used in an older machine the deputy registrar finance told me that sir this machine is out of maintenance and they have said that beyond March they do not guarantee its working can we use this small 8 bit machine to actually calculate all our payroll functioning for the institute staff I said it can be done but they did not have time to hire outside agency to do a contract with them and then develop that software I took the challenge and I said I am going to teach a data processing course if I recall it was the batch of 86 that means the BTEC batch which passed in 1986 so I am probably talking about 85 or something when they were doing this course on business data processing I said I will treat this as a course project for all students they were 27 students they did the system analysis they did the design of modules the programming language used was cobalt the file system that was used was floppy drive file system so guess what we had one floppy drive which contained the operating system the cobalt programs cobalt compiler etc and the other floppy drive contained data we could not fit the data of all employees on single floppy drive so we divided the staff into two categories and one category data would be on one floppy another category of data on another flop it was a touch and go we did not have enough time to test all the programs but to the credit of this large team of 27 people I will tell you they did an amazing job we were required to produce the salary of month of March which is paid in the month of April on the 1st of April we were required to produce that salary without any mistakes the complete salary system had to be ready by that our boys did that on the 1st of April when the final checklist was prepared it was found that all accounts were telling the bank details were supplied the statement was sent to bank and all salaries were deposited in people's bank accounts the interesting part of the story is kind of errors that may happen immediately on the day on which pay slips were sent to all the staff and faculty two of the faculty members went to deputy registrar's office and shouted at them one of them was supposed to get something like 23,400 whatever he had got only 3400 rupees in his printed in his pay slip another gentleman was supposed to get 18000 something something and he had got only 8000 something by the way the salaries were much lower but in those days the annual earning of consultancy of any faculty member was paid at the end of the year in lump sum merged with the March salary and these two colleagues of mine were obviously the higher earning bracket and they had earned that much and I was shocked how could this happen because our people had tested everything and still there was a problem the deputy registrar checked the bank account and found out that the actual money deposited in the account of the respective faculty member was correct there was only a mistake in the pay slip account a pay slip printed and they called me and I asked me why is this happened so I called the group of two students who had written the final printing program for pay slip and I said how can you do that because the actual amounts in the data in the floppy drive is correct and you know what came out they said sir we assume that no Indian will ever earn a salary which is more than the president of India salary president of India salary at that time was 10000 rupees per month so they said the maximum salary anybody can get is 9999 rupees and 99 paisa and therefore the print field that we had designed in our program can contain at the most 4 digits followed by 2 decimal digits we of course corrected that error but this should tell you another important point the preparation time for this hackathon was almost 3 months the actual hackathon was conducted in the last 3 days of the month of March when all the data which was already prepared by the accounts office was collected collated and all the processing and churning happened and the results were ready by the last day of March because the salaries were deposited on the 1st of April as expected and yet we had this small problem because of the wrong assumption made by part of my team at the beginning of the analysis and design this story should therefore tell us that when we prepare for a hackathon in the preparation phase any assumptions that are made by any individual or a small subgroup of the team must be examined collectively by the entire team and you should ascertain that you are not making any wrong assumption by mistake these mistakes are extremely difficult to catch online of course we were lucky that in this so called hackathon of the no major mistake happened the money that was paid to the faculty members and staff members was correct there was a printing mistake but who knows there could have been a mistake somewhere else let me now conclude my observations on what to do during hackathons first the lessons for these 2 stories which I shared with you number 1 utmost attention is required to minute details number 2 if a calamity strikes during the hackathon you must not give up but apply your mind and energy to solve the problems to the best of your ability so that you meet the deadline and you meet the functionality requirement of the problem that you have taken number 3 detailed planning before you join the hackathon is absolutely essential do not look only at the main aspects or main points but drill them down to the smallest detail and get every small detail and your solution step examine and reexamine by your colleagues other friends mentors etcetera so that when you enter the hackathon you are ready to face any eventually during the hackathon it is absolutely essential that you maintain the highest energy levels and the highest level of consciousness of your mind to apply it in the freshest possible manner my previous speakers have already told you that for a 36 hour hackathon you may not have time to sleep and relax but yet human body does require some relaxation find out your own means of relaxation during the preparation phase itself and prepare yourself to participate in the hackathon with those preparation so if someone likes to have a cup of tea have a small thermos with enough tea kept there or during the daytime in the hackathon get the thermos refilled so that those people who are used to drinking tea for freshening up have the tea available have a blanket or a small pillow as Dr. Shastrapudde mentioned because believe me you will need to take some rest but you would not have time and facilities to go out somewhere relax for 6 hours and then come back so this is also a hackathon is also an endurance test you have to endure during that time you have to persevere and you have to survive not just survive you have to survive with all your mental faculties working absolutely perfectly during the entire hackathon final point I will make is that the 5 or 6 members that you have in your team they must work as a team please remember if you have 6 members then the total competence that you bring to the table should not be 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 equal to 6 but it should be a multiplier effect where every member contributes to the work being done or to be done by other members of the team please note very clearly that if I am a member of the 6 member team I might have a expertise in a limited area and of course whenever work related to that area comes my entire team will depend upon me to solve that particular part of the problem very very correctly without losing my concentration and without making mistakes however when I am doing that if I require any assistance even if I require a glass of water I should not have to get up and run to a glass of water my other team members who are watching me should actually perceive that I need a glass of water or a cup of tea to drink and produce it miraculously just as professor Bhatt used to miraculously produce a magnetic tape or a bunch of cars whenever I needed them. Second when I have done my part of the work and I am now relatively free I must ensure that I do exactly the same kind of service to other members of the team you will wonder why I am emphasizing these non-technical aspects of participation in an hackathon the reason is very simple friends you are all techies charged with both the capability to solve the technical problem because that is what you would have done. So, I do not want to give you sermons on how to write programs how to use stacks you would be able to do that I will just mention in passing that when you write software during a hackathon you are not writing the entire software yourself your ability to use available stacks and use the API is properly is an important ability which you must cultivate and develop during the days of your preparation, but I digress what I was saying is you will of course do these technical thing you will of course perfect your knowledge on writing software or doing other thing that are required to solve the larger problem technically, but what I am saying is the non-technical aspects which I define or describe in terms of the need for a cohesive teamwork in terms of the ability of every member to support all other members in whatever fashion the help is required and such help has to be anticipated and has to be provided automatically for all the remaining team members this is what would make participation in hackathon a grand experience it just does not enhance the camaraderie, but it actually enhances the ability of the team to solve a problem in my concluding remarks I would like to state that the hackathon is a unique experience not merely because it permits a team to solve a large problem together, but it because it gives you a completely different experience our educational system teaches us to learn some technology learn some basics and apply them for problem solving as an individual. So, when I give an examination I am solving problems alone I am getting marks alone I am getting my degree there are a few occasions in our educational curriculum where we have to work as teams, but those experiences are very limited and are very focused. So, occasionally there will be a lab experiment that a team of three people might have to conduct or there might be a small course project which three or four people might have to do together, but such instances are few and even in those instances this pressure of completing something in 24 hours in 36 hours and the pressure of not only doing it in 24 hours or 36 hours or 72 hours, but preparing for it methodically by the entire team does not happen ordinarily. Hackathon my dear friends is therefore is a great learning experience how to solve large problems by a team. Chairman AICT has already mentioned and all of you would be aware of the fact that the government in of India expects some of the team players who are participating in the smart India hackathon would actually become entrepreneurs and startup company. Believe me that there are schemes which the organizers of the hackathon have in mind where the winning teams will be allocated mentors and they will be actually encouraged to startup companies, build companies, build solutions and the government departments have agreed that such solutions will be very acceptable to them provided they are taken to the next stage of a complete solution. I will not waste your time in describing what would happen post hackathon but let me conclude my remarks by saying that in this session today you have had how to prepare for the hackathon what work your teams have to do. I have tried to share with you what you will have to do during the hackathon it will be a it will be a charged up atmosphere where the teams have to work as a extraordinary group of people who are not just committed to each other but are well versed with everybody's requirement everybody's competence everybody's lack of competence such that each one of the team is ready to fill in the gap and provide whatever help is required. We have also shared some of the experiences of conducting such hackathon there was a student participant so please remember it was exactly like any one of you except that he and his team here in IIT had an occasion to organize an hackathon. There is something that we very belovedly pride ourselves on that the IIT environment not only permits a free exchange of ideas between teachers and students but it actually provides an opportunity for students to run large events entirely on their own. Many of you would have heard of our TechFest for example or our Mood Indigo not many may know that these large events having a budget of more than crore rupees and having a footfall of 30 to 50 thousand students coming to the campus every day during those periods all these events are entirely organized by our students teams. There are faculty members to advise them and to support them and mentor them but essentially everything is done by students. What we wish to have in our entire country is that this culture of students doing something solving large problems we spread. I am sure many of you would be organizing such events in your colleges as well of the kind of TechFest and Mood Indigo that's what I mean. However hackathon is a different thing it requires similar preparation it requires similar coordination but this preparation and coordination has to be done by a small team of 5 to 6 people. I am very sure that you will all be charged up I want as many number of you as can participate in this hackathon. There are many who would have already submitted proposals many who would have already formed teams to such people I would advise that ensure the whatever team you have formed already each member now becomes ready to participate in that hackathon with all this kind of preparation. To these students who are yet thinking about whether to participate or not I would encourage form teams of 6 members he choose a problem even now the time has not gone the last date I believe is 20th of January to submit your proposals I have already made a request to organizers whether they can think of extending that day at least by a week or so if they could because that would permit many more students to participate. Please note that while you must participate with an intention to win in some category winning or losing is not the point participation is what will teach you what will train you to a level which you cannot hope to obtain during our conventional educational system and that is why my concluding request to you is if you already registered an enrolled for participation make sure that your team gets ready with all the preparation that is required and participates with its full force and commitment to those friends of mine who have not yet registered I will seriously and sincerely request them even at this stage think of a problem there are 600 problems that have been put up on the list think of a problem think of a group of 5 or 6 people who can apply their mind to solve the problem it does not matter whether you win or lose but what matters is you have the Viji Gisha to say look I will go ahead and participate make a team make an application if your college has not already forwarded up to 3 teams get yourself enrolled through your college submit a proposal as I said I am already requesting the chairman AICT and others to try and see if it is possible to extend that day if that date gets extended it will give you more time to prepare if that date does not get extended you at least have four more days consider the next four days as a mini hackathon prepare your team get the paperwork done get your principal signature and submit the proposal in time but do participate in this very very important hackathon which is trying to become a corner stone of future changes in our attitude and aptitude for learning to do new things in new way thank you so much.