NUS School of Computing

“Imagine, create and share”

2010-12-09T23:59:00.013+08:00

...was Dr Bimlesh Wadhwa’s introductory message this afternoon as a score or so Junior College students peered across the lab.

Yup...we were Scratch-ing once again! This time, with collegians who were here for a workshop as part of the Science Focus programme. The workshop was meant to introduce concepts of programming and computation using the Scratch programming language by MIT.

In a similar workshop we had in May, we spread the learning concepts over four days. Our students today braved the same concepts in less than four hours. Mere minutes into the workshop we noticed interesting animations materialize using code blocks introduced just a while ago. We have to say we are impressed with their drive for experimentation, considering the little time they had to acquaint themselves with basic programming concepts.

We hope the students had as meaningful and fun a time at the workshop as we had conducting it!

Forever imagine, programme and share.

The collegians.

Working on the Scratch cards.

- Bimlesh & Juliana
Photos courtesy of Mr See Sin Hon.

Scratch Day 5 @ SoC

2010-05-27T21:46:00.000+08:00

Perhaps it would have been fitting today to do a round of survey and ask the same question as we did on Day 1: "What do you think is a computer program?" We reckon that the answers would be different this time, likely infused with more insight to the thought process of programming. Yet, maybe it is not so immediately apparent. How could we work with a bunch of Scratch blocks and equate that to computer programming? Is Scratching really programming?

Well, yes.

Almost all of the NYGH girls responded by the end of the first day that they have learnt to make animations. We see much of that skill at work today in their amazing project presentations. The storytelling, artwork, entertainment; they are the first things most people see and appreciate but beneath them all, the nuts, bolts and gears - if we may put it that way - that define behaviours on the surface are truly the result of the programmer's mind putting blocks together - yellow control blocks, green conditional blocks, red variable blocks, all those wait, broadcast, set and change instructions.

That is why the Projects, done individually or in groups are truly amazing, because whether knowingly or not, the NYGH folks have been programming. So NYGH folks - you deserve a great big pat on your backs! If anyone is pursuing the field of computing you will find that the concepts of these simple blocks do essentially translate to programming, an activity that is in turn wed to one's thought process.

Some of the projects from Scratch Days are up now at the Scratch Days @ SoC gallery.

We should also congratulate Wan Ting and team Anything comprising Kang Ning, Wan Qing and Yining whose Sprite and Poster respectively won the votes of their schoolmates.

Wan Ting's Sprite

Anything's Poster

We are still deciding on the Best Project, so check back sometime for it. Many of the projects incorporate lessons throughout the week, and many too have drawn inspiration from other projects and reused solutions from a combination of projects. This is good, we always learn not to reinvent the wheel, so the spirit of sharing is also a celebrated one in computing circles. Too altruistic? =) Well, there is not just free beer, but free speech, and in the same spirit of the latter, free (and open source) software.

Anyway, NYGH folks: We hope that you have had a fruitful and fascinating sabbatical (OK, pun intended) and keep Sratching! Or at least, keep the spirit of Scratch burning. Adieu for now.

To readers who have followed us through the week (or who happen to stumble by), and would like to stay current with SoC activities, the NUS SoC Outreach Facebook page has the latest happenings.

- Bimlesh & Juliana

Scratch Day 4 @ SoC

2010-05-26T11:50:00.002+08:00

Project presentations are up tomorrow and so we see a lot of serious Scratching today. Inevitably, the more scripting, the more head scratching when things just don't seem to work. Welcome to the world of programming. Mistakes are a natural part of the learning and growing process. There is a term for the erroneous parts of scripts - we call them "bugs" and the act of correcting them is called "debugging". There is, by the way, an interesting story accompanying the etymology of software bugs. Curious? Check it out.

Here are a couple of notes for NYGH folks, the first is a debugging tip:

It helps sometimes to see exactly which block is running at a particular time. Go to Edit > Start Single Stepping and Scratch will highlight each block as the project runs. You may change the options for the highlights by going to Edit > Set Single Stepping.
Done with Projects and Remixes? Upload them! Once you are signed up at scratch.mit.edu, upload and add the Projects and Remixes to the Scratch Days @ SoC 2010 gallery. Group Projects and Remixes should follow naming convention. If you have individual projects, whether it is an animated sprite or something more involved, they are very much welcome too!! The more projects/remixes/sprites the merrier, so share, share, share...

Serious stuff today.

Tomorrow we shall start with voting for Best Sprite and Best Poster, and after some final touches, will proceed with Project and Remix presentations. Til then!

- Bimlesh & Juliana

Scratch Day 3 @ SoC

2010-05-25T09:20:00.008+08:00

It's Sprite and Scratch Day Poster presentation day! Since we are also counting down to Project and Remix presentations on Thursday, here are more Scratch tips to begin the day with:

To see what a block does, right click on it and select "help".
Look out for Scratch video tutorials online. There are a few at the Scratch website.
Want to make a movie? Learn how to change scenes, narrate a story, and more here.
Like a project you see at the Scratch website? Sign up for an account to download the project. Once you are logged in, the download link will be visible at the top right corner. You may also upload your work from the Scratch application. Go to Share > Share this project online.

The session today is just as bustling as yesterday's. We definitely see more use of blocks and scripts, and many create very interesting animations. Some are now very adept at using broadcasts and loops to manage sprite behaviours. One has gone ahead and implemented scoring in today's Scratch Card exercise. Team Orroz has completed their group project two days ahead of time! We take peeks at many other projects at work and really can't wait to see the final versions.

There are no photos on the projects today - let's just save the best for last shall we?

"How can I make my cat jump?"

Team Premium ITCHY Milk Tea and Team ~~Tea Bags~~ T-Rex

Effective Scratching needs a full stomach.

The Nanyang girls have also submitted their Sprites and Posters. Once we get our hands on them they will be up on the blog.

That's all for the day! Tomorrow we will work with pens and continue with sensors and variables. Friday is solely dedicated to group Project and Remix presentations. Juliana uploaded a project to the Scratch site - take a look for a peek at what's to come the next two days.

To NYGH folks: if you have uploaded projects to the site, let us know too!

- Bimlesh & Juliana

Scratch Day 2 @ SoC

2010-05-24T13:52:00.021+08:00

We are a little too excited to put off the blog posting to this evening, so here we are, blogging live from the classroom. It is great to see the students get right on to the Scratch Cards, multitasking that as they listen to Dr Bimlesh's Scratch lessons for the day. We see a lot self-designed sprites today as they prepare to do individual submissions tomorrow. Some even pull images off the web to use as sprites, like her:

May not appear so, but she is really browsing for sprites.

What we really like is when students start to use blocks to add behaviour to the sprites and backgrounds. Now that is real Scratching! Spotted sprite animations are:

Movement of body parts (Rosanne's little chicken).
Fade-in, fade-out effects (a simple example of this can be found in the Scratch Jellyfish example, by the way).
Movement of real world objects like door opening.
Whole body movement (someone made her sprite walk, stop and wave "hi").
Zoom-in, zoom-out effects (Grace and Wan Ting's fruit project).

While we are on the subject - NYGH folks, if you're reading this! - here are some tips and notes that might be useful:

When you build your blocks and start to see a lot of repetitions (for example you might use the "wait x secs" and "change ghost effect by x" blocks repeatedly to achieve fade-in/out), consider putting the repeating blocks in a "repeat" or "forever" block instead. Repeating blocks are normally good indication that a loop should come in play.
If you click on a sprite on the Sprite List and it does not appear on the Stage, it could be that you have used the "hide" block in the script. Scratch does not reset the sprites, so you will have to show it by right clicking the sprite on the Sprite List and pick "Show", or drag the "show" block to the script and run that.
There are several ways to make sprite animations follow one after the other. The "Dear Mom" Scratch Card example today uses the "broadcast" block. Alternatively, we may also use the "wait x secs" block, but think of why the "broadcast" block might be better...
Sprites and scripts can be shared and reused! Just export your sprites and open them in another project. To export a sprite and its attached scripts, go to File > Export Sprite.

Back to the day's updates - here is a glimpse of today:

Everyone's busy a-Scratching.

Busy, busy.

Something is brewing here. This pic is deliberately taken at a distance so as not to reveal too much...

That's it for Day 2. The individual Sprites and group Scratch Day Posters are due tomorrow and we can't wait to see those!

- Bimlesh & Juliana

Scratch Day 1 @ SoC

2010-05-23T08:50:00.002+08:00

We had a little surprise in the morning after the inaugural posting on Scratch Days @ SoC. Turns out that Prof Leong Hon Wai was heading for NYGH to conduct a Scratch workshop in conjunction with the upcoming code::XtremeApps::2010. In the Junior category of the competition, participants will develop their programs in Scratch. Prof Leong is at NYGH to train students as mentors to their juniors who are participating in code::XtremeApps. So, in the very same morning there were Scratch-related exchange visits between the same two institutions!

Anyway, as promised, the events of Day 1: We started the session with a little icebreaker and shared some of our thoughts and interests. As all 25 girls are of the millennial generation, we were not surprised that most expressed familiarity with blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Some have shared that they know little about computer programs beyond the knowledge that they make computers work.

Dr Bimlesh giving an overview of Scratch Days 1-5.

Dr Bimlesh soon started on the introduction to Scratch, leading the students to work on exercises in seven Scratch Cards. The NYGH folks very soon began to browse the Scratch site for more projects. Some tested out block controls beyond those in the Scratch Cards, and many created sprites of their own. Here are some discoveries peered over shoulders:

Shi Hui editing and animating a sprite.

Wan Ting gets SpongeBob to chase a swimming jellyfish. Look closely, SpongeBob is mousedrawn!

Yes, come to SoC we have. Feel the force do you?

Thus went Day 1. In the next four days, we look forward to students' personal and group work on Sprite, Project Remix, Scratch Day Poster and of course the group Scratch project! [Psst NYGH girls, if you are reading this: We also hope to learn more about each of you beyond the fact that you like milk tea, chocolates, Conan, ants (but that you really in fact, dislike), money, black colour and so forth =)]

To NYGH girls and their mentor Ms Ang Wee Ling, we look forward to seeing you again on Monday.

- Bimlesh & Juliana

Scratch Days @ SoC

2010-05-21T07:49:00.015+08:00

Good morning!! We are eagerly expecting a group of students from Nanyang Girls' High School (NYGH) today. These bright folks are here to kick off the first day of their 2010 sabbatical module. What's a sabbatical module? Prof Gary Tan is happy to enlighten us all:

Every year in May, NYGH secondary 3/4 students embark on an intensive one-week sabbatical. The objective of the sabbatical is to enhance the students' knowledge in the IT field outside of school curriculum. Examples of sabbaticals include Animation, Gaming, Video Editing, etc.

Since 2009, some of NYGH students have been coming to SoC for their sabbaticals; last year, SoC offered Serious Games where some 25 students participated. This year, we will be offering Programming with Scratch (21-27 May). This sabbatical is timely as it coincides nicely with the Scratch Day organized by MIT.

So, yes! This year we are running one whole week of Scratch Days. Dr Bimlesh Wadhwa will train the NYGH students on programming concepts using Scratch as a tool. We'll update the blog as each day unfolds. MIT and a host of Scratchers worldwide are having theirs this Saturday; here is a teaser for that:

If by now you're scratching your head over what Scratch is, well, some things we should see for ourselves. Hop over to scratch.mit.edu, or better, join us at Programming Lab 2, at SoC any day from 21, 24 - 27 May, 11am - 2pm.

That is it for now. We promise to share Scratch Day 1 @ SoC by the evening.

More information on NYGH sabbaticals here.

- Bimlesh & Juliana

China trip for ACM Multimedia 2009

2009-10-18T12:01:00.004+08:00

Hi,

My first blog on my 1-week guest slot on SoC blog... Pretty cool, am in the middle of finishing up preperations for the trip to ACM MM in Beijing from 20-23 October. Poster done.. check, Visa done.. check, Visa done for the right country ... check :), Renmibi... check, hotel booking... check, was it messy.. yeah !! Found local contacts in Beijing.. check, Bought Lonely planet.. check, Learnt to say "Thank you", "Sorry" and ask for the way to a toilet... check. Am looking forward to meeting some interesting people, hear them talk and get a feel of Beijing and its people. Will keep the blog posted on anything interesting...

SoC graduate Orientation Day

2009-08-17T11:42:00.010+08:00

Hi, how's first week of class? As the new semester has arrived, our campus is filled with energy and noise again. In orientation week, we have welcomed new SoC post-graduates by a series of events, including games, campus tour, talks and of course, nice food. Here are some photographs of the event:

Campus tour @ YIH

Campus tour @ Central Library

One of the highlight in campus tour is the chance to interview Prof Mohan. We have asked number of questions, from calligraphy in Prof Mohan's office to research and course related. Prof Mohan has shared with us his research experience and view on the quality needed (which all of them can be acquired from our program :) ).

Interviewing Prof. Mohan

Current students are joining us for tea and dinner. Nice sharing :P

Summer Europe Trip

2009-08-06T07:52:00.006+08:00

My Summer Itinerary: Amsterdam - Brussels - Paris - Nice - Rome - Firenze - Rimini - PISA.

Trips to these places were planned by Interrailing which meant that no flights were booked and with the purchase of the magical rail ticket, we were able to take all trains around Europe at a minimum fee. As we initially planned our trip, everything seems challenging. We are almost at the tip of Europe(Stockholm) and the plan was to make our way down to the south of Europe (Italy). The amount of trains routes to plan and change was enough to dampen our mood.

However, once the trip began, we never looked back! Rushing from 1 place to another with our 60 litres backpack was extremely taxing yet adventurous. From the messiness of Amsterdam to the chocolates of Brussels, the romantic Paris, blue beaches of NICE, Rome's extravagant Colosseum, subdued Firenze, fine sparkling sand of Rimini and the leaning Tower of PISA. Every city exposed us to its distinctive yet unique cultures. So much so that we made a MTV from our trip in Europe. As the saying goes 'A picture tells a thousand words and a video explains the unexplainable', I will let the pictures do most of the talking and the video describe our europe story!

"He who plants a tree, plants a hope."

2009-07-21T19:37:00.016+08:00

- Lucy Larcom

The International Simulation and Gaming Association, ISAGA, an international organization for scientists and practitioners developing and using simulation, gaming and related methodologies, runs an international conference every year. Its 40th Annual Conference was recently held in NUS, Singapore. To commemorate its 40th Anniversary, ISAGA Conference Organizing Committee held a Tree Planting Ceremony on 2nd July at School of Computing, NUS. Here are some photographs of the event:

Reading the message from Vincent PETERS, General Secretary, ISAGA.

A native Singapore tree, Elaeocarpus Pedunculatus, was carefully laid into the ground by Pieter van der HIJDEN, a member of the Steering Committee of ISAGA, with the help of a staff member from the Office of Environmental Sustainability, NUS.

Prof KHOO Siau Cheng,
Acting Dean, School of Computing, NUS.

Organizing committee: Organising Chairs YEO Gee Kin (NUS School of Computing) and CAI Yiyu (NTU), Conference Secretary Bimlesh WADHWA (NUS School of Computing), Publicity Chair TAN Yew Khim (Taknet Systems Pte Ltd), Local Arrangement Chairs TAN Sun Teck (NUS School of Computing) and Abel Paschal TAY (of CEO Match, also the Publication Chair of the committee).

Everyone with the tree.

The Elaeocarpus Pedunculatus.

- Dr Bimlesh Wadhwa

Life in Monsoon

2009-07-20T00:20:00.003+08:00

Going to office in Monsoon season is just like amazing race. I have seen couple of water logging, sudden traffic jam due to accident or flooding in subway. I think pictures tell more than words in this case.

Besides traffic, I also suffer from slight food poisoning. It is time to remind myself "bottle water only". Though heavy rain brings a lot of inconvenience to us, it reliefs water shortage that some area have limited supply of water last month. But now, no one needs to worry about that, no wonder kids and adults are dancing for the 1st rain.

And it all comes to an end...

2009-07-08T20:40:00.006+08:00

The dreaded day has come. The end of the week-long workshop. Before I summarise my thoughts on the trip, Let's look at what happened on this final day.

The first item on this day's itinerary was to visit the very diversified MNC Honeywell. The company is present in many industries related to technology and manufacturing, for example, aerospace products & services, automotive products, homes and industry and many more. Here we were given a presentation on the company and then a visit to one of their technology labs, which was focusing currently on wireless monitoring technology. It really gave us a insight into how it was to work in an environment filled with computers & technology, left, right and center! And it was a huge compound.

Next we rushed back to our lodgings to get ready for our presentations for Prof. Iyer! The topics ranged from the culture of India to ideas that could be implemented in a technology hub like Bangalore. My group's presentation touched on the topic of India's retail industry and how opening up to more FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) can be more beneficial than it is harmful. It was a great experience to have at the end of this trip to see what everyone has learnt and seen in this short one week in Bangalore and I'm sure Prof. Iyer was impressed too.

After we ended, we rushed to pack our bags and bid our final farewells to ECC and the staff. We especially rushed to meet up with Jabaraj and his children (who were actually taking their afternoon nap) Oops!

The next stop was the appreciation dinner which was held in The Gateway Hotel near the shopping districts. At this dinner, we meet up with not only the Prof. Iyer and the May batch of NUS students in Bangalore but also most of the guest speakers we met during our workshop there. It was definitely a nice experience to meet up with all of them again! After some nice words from our organisers especially Prof. Iyer, we went to our tables and enjoyed a night of great Indian food and taking lots of photos!

As the hours passed, Theepan and myself as well as 2 other fellow students had to catch a midnight flight back to Singapore. The rest of the students did not leave with us as they were continuing their own adventures all over different parts of India!

As we waited for our plane, I had mixed feelings. Part of me wanted to go home but the other part really was going to miss the amazing culture and the very hospitable people of India.

I learnt an amazing amount of things in this one week of the Experience India! Workshop. I cannot thank you enough all those who made this trip possible for us like Prof. Iyer & Dr Bimlesh Wadhwa. I definitely recommend this program and the CS3109 Overseas Expedition module. It is one thing to learn theories in class and be tested for it. But nothing will trump experience it first-hand. Finally I must say I'm glad that Theepan and myself were given the opportunity to share our great trip with everyone!

To end it off, here are some shots of street photography on my last day in Bangalore.

Experience India! Day 8

2009-07-08T00:20:00.005+08:00

This was the day I was looking forward to when I first arrived in Bangalore but towards the end of the trip, I just wished that this day would not come. Well in reality, for every beginning, there will be an ending. It’s a fact that we have to accept whether we like it or not.

On Day 8, the last day of Bangalore Exploratory Trip, we had one more site visit to another well- known company, Honeywell. It started off just like any other day but the atmosphere was a little different as it was the ‘finale’ of our Bangalore learning journey. So as usual, I shall commence my post with some background information of the company.

Honeywell is an American MNC that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments. Industries served by Honeywell are Aerospace, Automation and Control solutions, Specialty materials and Transportation systems.

The Honeywell staffs gave us a clear insight of the main businesses of the company. Thereafter, they brought us to the research labs to show their new products which are still under development. These new gadgets are capable of outperforming the current devices in the market. Overall, the site visit to Honeywell was a fruitful one.

Later we went back to ECC to gear ourselves for the Final presentation. We took this opportunity to show the knowledge we’ve gained through this trip. I learnt a lot from my friends’ presentations as each group was covering different topics.

Then, some of us did the packing at the eleventh hour before leaving to Taj hotel for our end of workshop dinner. Over there, we met the May batch group and had some interactions and photo sessions with them. All those who were involved in the workshop were present there to celebrate and take part in the dinner. The presentation of the May batch group was hilarious and it more or less summarized the feelings and experiences of every Singaporean intern in Bangalore. It was a great evening and it was time for us to part from some of our fellow friends who remained in India to explore more. Later, we arrived at Bangalore International Airport to fly back to Singapore. Despite the initial delay in Bangalore which was due to some technical faults in the plane, we still touched down in Singapore.

Experience India! , a week- long workshop, has given me an invaluable opportunity to explore the IT companies and many more in Bangalore. As a SOC student, it was truly an insight into 21th – century Information Technology in India.

I will strongly urge SOC students to go for this workshop as it is really an eye- opener. In addition, SOC students do get 2 MCs for this. The module is evaluated as “Completed Satisfactory/Completed Unsatisfactory (CS/CU)” based on the continual assessment and final report. Finally, I’d like to thank Dr Bimlesh Wadhwa and Juliana Ung Bee Chin for giving me an opportunity to share my learning experience in this blog.

Back to Work!

2009-07-07T01:10:00.006+08:00

After a long day out of town the day before, this time we get back to the serious business! I must say it wasn't easy waking up early for this day as we only returned from Mysore after 1am the night before. However we still managed to be on time!

This day's first company visit was to the medium-sized IT solutions company, MindTree. At first I thought that I had more or less of an idea of the culture of the companies in India. But after visiting MindTree, I must say I was pleasantly surprised! MindTree has a really unique and strong culture, which they run their company by. Their Values are CLASS or;

- Caring
- Learning
- Achieving
- Sharing
- Social Responsibility

And they go by the DNA of Imagination to Action to Joy. It was also the first time we got a pretty in-depth tour of a company's premises. What we saw in the building really followed in facilitating the Values & DNA, not just in work culture but in the infrastructure as well. From gathering areas for informal presentations and discussions, to photographs of inspirational people (decided by the staff in fact), to a comprehensive 14 days to 3 month orientation & training program for new staff and even arrange their office cubicles in groups of 7, just like most Indian family households. MindTree goes out of its way to achieve success with the Values & DNA of the company.

Another point which they value a lot is the 95:95:95 rule, whereby 95% of the time, 95% of the information will be available to 95% of the employees. I find this and its other values really a great corporate culture and they have really impressed me. I may consider working in that company too! There's so much to talk about this company but I'd better move on to the rest of the day before this gets too long-winded.

MindTree Campus

So after lunch we visited Manipal Hospital. It was quite a fruitful trip and I know some of you might be thinking what has this got to do with entrepreneurship but I believe knowing about the healthcare system in India can come in quite useful when doing business in Bangalore. I must say the visit was extremely thorough and we weren't complaining. As Manipal Hospital is more of a tertiary medical care centre where it houses a lot of specialists, we managed to see a lot of types of medical care. One that really caught our imagination was Sports medicine department where they actually train the top athletes of India, like the national cricket team!

Manipal Hospital

After a quick stopover at the shopping district for some last minute shopping, we headed back to the lodging to complete our presentation due for the next day!

More street photography from this day...

Experience India! Day 7

2009-07-06T21:20:00.003+08:00

Day 5 and 6 were full of joy. And now we are back to some serious business, on Day 7 and 8 (the last day), we had ONLY site visits. It’s still not so bad as we got to relax on the way to the companies and then we transformed into nerds again taking down notes in the companies. And one more thing which I’d like to share, the company visits are usually fun as we get to learn new things.

On day 7, we had site visits lined up for us. In the first part of the day, we traveled to Mindtree Consulting, Bangalore but it was pretty far. We also traveled on the new national highway which stretches from Bangalore to Mumbai, unlike other Indian roads, this highway was very smooth and even, so we didn’t have a bumpy ride. Mindtree Consulting is one of the fastest growing IT and R&D Services company.
MindTree is a unique organization and, their mission is:

- Successful Customers
- Happy People
- Innovative Solutions

The moment I entered Mindtree’s premise, I felt the presence of a strong and unique culture there. Then I learnt that every MindTree Mind is driven by CLASS, the acronym for our core values of Caring, Learning, Achieving, Sharing, and Social Responsibility. Even Mindtree’s logo was designed by a student of a school run by the Spastics Society of Karnataka. Mindtree trains fresh graduates within the same premise where the conditions are conducive to learning. I like the environment, wherever we went, we saw many colourful and cheerful paintings on the walls by the students of schools run by Spastic Society of Karnataka. Mindtree has adopted an entirely new concept and approach which encourages Innovation. In addition, Mindtree also sends out magazines to the parents of the employees (most of them are young and active) to give them an insight of the happenings in the company. The company ensures that every individual is well taken care of and promotes team work. These are the key factors for the company to excel and stand out in this competitive market.

In the second part of the day, instead of visiting a company, we visited a Manipal Hospital. Prior to the Manipal Hospital visit, we were told that they’ll be covering more on the entrepreneurial aspect of the hospital. But what we learnt were their services and facilities. Most of Manipal’s doctors are well- qualified ones who have served in overseas hospitals (US, UK, Canada and etc). Manipal hospital provides free and concessional services to the needy also. The Department of Social Service is responsible for granting this concessional care after evaluating the patients who require or ask for such free and concessional care. In spite of the frequent blackouts, there are attractive features that the hospital provides to their patients and patients’ family members. For instance, in their Ultra Deluxe Rooms, there is wireless internet connection, a telephone, a television and a controllable air- conditioner. Manipal Hospital’s physiotherapy treatments are so much affordable, unlike the cost of physiotherapy in other developed countries. The hospital’s physiotherapy department owns state of the art physiotherapy equipment to treat their patients also. And believe me or not, there’s an equipment to treat patients’ with severe back problems and the doctors guarantee a 100% cure depending on the individuals. I was really convinced by that statement. What makes the hospital to stand out is the abundance of hospitality. Unlike Singaporean hospitals, this hospital has an idol of Lord Ganesh, the god of wisdom and the remover of obstacles, which shows that religion, plays a big role in every Indian’s life. Manipal Hospital is contributing significantly to the growth of Indian Medical Tourism.

You may visit Manipal’s website also to find out more about them: http://www.manipalhospital.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=66

And don’t forget to check out the Symptom Checker in Manipal’s website, it’s cool.

Mysore!

2009-07-06T14:10:00.014+08:00

Note: This is post is going to be photo-intensive!

It's Sunday and we finally get to travel out of Bangalore for some great R&R. We got to be like silly tourists! We woke up really early in the morning, around 5am so that we could leave early for our 4 hour journey to Mysore. We took 3 different cabs and some of the drivers even gave us an impromptu explanation on the monuments we've see.

Breakfast @ Cafe Coffee Day
The sights on the way to Mysore

Tipu Sultan ruled the Mysore Kingdom for a period of time and the next few photos are of the places related to him and his family.

Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace
Tomb of Tipu Sultan & his family

Next stop is Jamia Masjid where Tipu Sultan used to go regularly for prayers. He was known to have never missed any of his daily 5 prayers in his entire life.

Next we visited some other sights in the Mysore Kingdom

A Hindu temple in the Mysore Kingdom

St. Philomena Church

Our final stop is the Mysore Palace and I must say it was one of the most intricate and beautiful things I have ever seen. It was a shame that we could not take any photos of inside the palace but the exterior was just as beautiful.

And just when I thought the palace could not impress me any further, we were lucky enough to be there on a Sunday, the one and only day in the week where the entire Mysore palace and it's walls 360 degrees around will magnificently light up! It was truly a breathtaking view. On top of that, a military band was playing patriotic music right in the palace itself to the pleasure of every visitor!

I will definitely never forget this trip to Mysore and was definitely one of the highlights of this entire workshop. Really gave us an insight more into Indian's past and culture.

Experience India! Day 6

2009-07-04T23:50:00.002+08:00

A picture speaks a thousand words, thus I’m going to decorate this particular post with beautiful pictures from Mysore and Srirangapatna. Firstly, I’d like to give a brief history of Mysore.

Mysore was ruled by the Wodeyar dynasty, except for a brief period in the late 18th century when Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan took power. Today it’s a peaceful and beautiful tourist centre attracting thousands of tourists from all corners of the world. Both the Wodeyars and Tipu Sultan were powerful kings. The Wodeyars were patrons of art and culture and have significantly contributed to the cultural growth of the city.

The Mysore trip started quite early in the morning because Mysore is about 3 hrs away from Bangalore and we wanted to make full use of the day. Most of us didn’t have breakfast, so our first stop was at a café where we grabbed some quick breakfast and continued our journey.

Then we arrived at Srirangapatna where we visited Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace. The gateway to the palace is one of the things which I really admired. From outside the palace didn’t appear to be very impressive and it was pretty much covered as well. Then we discovered intricate paintings and architecture inside the palace. Despite the bad lighting inside, we still managed to enjoy the paintings and everything.

Next stop was at the Tomb of Tipu Sultan. I was mesmerized by the architecture of the building and the surrounding greenery. Some of the Indian Muslims paid their respect by circling the tomb while singing some verses from the Holy Quran. I’m very proud that I’ve visited the Tomb of a very powerful and brave King.

Then, we headed to Jamia masjid and Hindu temple which was just a few minutes from the Tomb of Tipu Sultan. I understand that under Tipu Sultan’s rule, other religions were embraced by him and there was a freedom of worship.

Next, we visited St. Philomena’s Church which is nearby Mysore Palace. This church is really a majestic one and I even took a picture of Mother Mary. Here the locals have given her a different outlook by tying a silk saree around her. Very Interesting.

Our last stop was at Mysore Palace and this was the official residence of the Wodeyars and now it’s one of the top tourist attractions in South India. The palace was surrounded by beautiful landscape. Within the palace complex, there are two grand Hindu temples to serve the former royal family of Mysore. Again, the architecture was so unique and it instigated me to do further research on it. I found out that the architecture style is described as Indo- Saracenic which is the product of mixing Hindu, Muslim, Rajput and Gothic styles of architecture.

In the night, the illuminated Mysore palace was so magnificent and I was really attached to it. The music played by the Indian Band was, undeniably, a feast to the ears. We concluded our trip with this beautiful worth- to- see scenery.

Experience India! Day 5

2009-07-04T14:41:00.010+08:00

Basically, Day 5 and 6 were the days which gave some break and energy to continue for the next few days. On day 5, the first programme on the list was cultural workshop, so I thought it will be another monotonous day with some lectures in the morning but I was proven wrong, it was an exciting Bollywood dance class. As an Indian, I do watch Bollywood movies but I’ve never thought of dancing like them. I’ve seen Tollywood(Telugu), Kollywood (Tamil) and Bollywood(Hindi) films, each film industry caters to different Indian fans, and there are slight variations between the South and North. Each Indian film industry has its own distinct flavor and style. Now, let’s move on to the Bollywood dance class. I have to admit that this is my first Bollywood dance class that I‘ve ever attended in my life. Initially, when the Instructor, Ms. Minoti Ramachandra, started the class, I was quite uncertain whether I’ll be able to finish off the dance movements as I didn’t have any prior experience in dancing. I learnt that Bollywood dance is all about the body shakes and sizzling body movements. In conclusion, we enjoyed dancing and were able to grasp the Bollywood dance movements quite well.

Next, we went to Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, a well- known and prestigious institution for post-graduate studies, where Prof. Iyer gave a short introduction of the institution and we went for a stroll around the magnificent campus, accompanied by Prof. Iyer’s students. The campus is such an eco- friendly place and it was a feast for the eyes to see so much of flora and fauna flourishing in that place. It’s entirely a different experience and world inside the campus, a great place to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city. Also, tthe students proudly shared with me that IISc will be celebrating its 100^th anniversary soon. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Prof Iyer for this beautiful and informative visit to IISc.

Thereafter, we headed straight to Commercial Street. In my previous post, I’ve mentioned about Commercial Street also. Now, I shall elaborate a little bit more on this place, Commercial Street is a shopaholic’s paradise and let me warn you that it’s also a big colourful maze. At this point of time the skyscraping mosques and some prominent buildings play a big role in letting us know our whereabouts but unfortunately we got lost in the maze and ended up taking an auto vehicle back to the meeting point.

For those who want to explore Commercial Street, they should avoid weekends because the streets are usually congested with people and vehicles. A good place to bargain, especially at the roadsides and smaller streets. To a normal person, the entire place might look unorganized and dirty but I found out that there’s beauty in it. The real beauty is in the way the Indians function in such a messy place and situation. That’s all for now, I’ll be back later with more posts on the Mysore trip.

Recognizing the Poor as Customers in India: Business Success Stories and Examples [Part 1]

2009-07-04T12:59:00.008+08:00

Back in my Technopreneurship class a year ago, my lecturer recommended some books to read. One of them is "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" by C.K. Prahalad. I hadn't got the chance to read the book though, until one of my flatmates put the book in our flat's 'private library'.

Well, the book is an interesting read. It outlines many examples of success stories of companies who recognize the poorest of the poor (i.e. those at the bottom of the economic pyramid) as their (potential) customers, instead of thinking that they aren't because they probably can't afford to buy the companies' products. Most of these examples actually happen in India.

Before I move on, here are some statistics that may help put things into better perspective.

India's Characteristics in Brief

huge population (about 1.1 billion people)
about 72% of them living in rural areas and doing agriculture-related stuff
22% lives below the poverty line
61% literacy rate
large linguistics diversity (at least 10 major languages out of a total of more than a thousand languages) - most of the people I meet can speak 5-6 languages
more than 100 million mobile phone subscribers

With 22% of the population living below the poverty line, if a company recognizes the poor as its customers, that means a lot of customers. But of course, it's not as easy as it sounds. Designing products for the poor doesn't simply mean sacrificing quality in order to reduce price. It means tweaking your product so that it meets the needs of the poor - affordable prices, durability, user friendliness, among others.

During my time in India, through "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" book, the Indian Innovative Summit sessions I attended, and others, I've come across some interesting case studies and examples of what companies and other organizations do here that either empowers the poor or turning them into customers or both.

Here they are, in categories:

Healthcare

Aravind Eye Care
While a cataract operation costs about US$2,500 to US$3,000 in United States, it costs only US$50 to US$300 in Aravind Eye Care. However, over 60% of Aravind Eye Care's patients get their surgeries for free. Despite all this, Aravind Eye Care is very profitable.

Why?
The reason in short: process innovation.

Aravind Eye Care reduces the need for (pricey) specialized doctors in the various phases of diagnosis and treatment before and after the surgery. Dr. Venkataswamy, the founder, developed and standardized the Aravind process: patient care, testing for vision problems, and postoperative work are done by youth from local villages that are trained for one specific task. The doctors perform only the surgeries. With this system, the doctors can perform more than 50 surgeries per day. Every doctor performs more than 2,000 operations per year, while the national average in India is 300.
Jaipur Foot
The cost of a prosthetic foot in the United States: about US$8,000.
The cost of a prosthetic foot made by Jaipur Foot: US$30.

Yet, Jaipur Foot is designed carefully to meet the needs of Indian customers:
- it's made from local materials, because the government limits import of foreign materials
- it's made considering the working lifestyle and culture of the vastly agricultural India: walking on uneven ground, squatting, sitting cross-legged

Similar to Aravind Eye Care, they train the local people to be involved in the various stages of patient care, thereby reducing cost.

More information: Jaipur Foot : Our Special Technology

[to be continued with more stories in IT, Energy, etc]

Sources:

"The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" by C.K. Prahalad
Wikipedia:India, Wikipedia:Indian Demographics
India's mobile subscriber base crosses 400 million

The Day of the "Hat-Trick"!

2009-07-03T17:17:00.006+08:00

So now we have reached the halfway mark and about 4 days straight of company visits and lectures. Finally we get to have some cardio exercise and fun at the same time! This is the day I dubbed as the "Hat-Trick"!

The first "goal" of the day was when half of today's itinerary is assigned for cultural exposure and guess what? We got to do Bollywood dancing! I have actually been attending dance classes back home in Singapore, which really got me even more excited about today's dance lesson! An actual dance instructor, Ms. Minoti Ramachandra, arrived (albeit a little late) and started us off with warmups with some very signature Bollywood dance movements. After which, we got down (literally) for some really interesting dance choreography! At the end of this lesson, we finally got to understand what some of those intricate hand signs made in the traditional Indian dances actually mean!

After a hearty lunch, it was time for our 2nd "goal" of the day! We took a ride down to the famous Indian Institute of Science and who better to welcome us than Prof. Iyer himself of IISc! After a short presentation on the institute, the professor introduced us to a couple of his current students.
These students of his gave us a really great tour of the beautiful and green campus. The campus is nothing like the ones you find in Singapore as you will see from the photos below. Finally by the end of the tour, we made friends with some of the students and even have connected up on Facebook!

Finally, to complete the "Hat-Trick", we headed down to Commercial Street where for probably the first time, I felt really immersed into the Indian culture and street life! On the surface, Commercial Street looks a lot like another Bugis Village, but as you travel deeper into the back lanes of the area, you really start to see colourful and bright lights of small shops selling, well... almost everything! Just have a look at the photos!

And that marked the end of a tiring but yet most fulfilling day of the whole workshop yet. The whole bunch of us headed back and looked forward to the next day which would be the most exciting yet! Mysore!

Uniqueness of Bangalore

2009-07-02T11:00:00.006+08:00

Bangalore city is the capital of Karnataka state and the official language is Kannada.Bangalore city is really a cosmopolitan city. And there is a good mixture of all kinds of South Asians, of course, majority of them are Kannadigas, the native people of that region.

While traveling on the roads, I noticed that there are so many Andhra restaurants and Hyderabadi briyani restaurants, so immediately I questioned my driver and he said that there’s a sizeable Telugu- speaking community, some migrated to this state from the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh in the past and the recent surge of Telugus is due to job opportunities in the “Silicon Valley “of India.

In places like Commercial Street where the predominant landmarks are the skyscraping mosques, there is a sizeable Indian Muslim community and Urdu is prevalent in these places. Even the merchants and auto drivers prefer to converse in Urdu or Hindi, both Hindi and Urdu are almost similar except for the script and certain words. (Urdu has a significant number of loan words from Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages) I was mesmerised by the rich Arab culture in Commercial Street. Commercial Street closely resembles the streets in Old Hyderabad except for the architecture of the buildings. I heard Tamil as well in the same place and learnt that there is a big Tamil- speaking population also.

In the pictures: Commercial Street

Even one of our drivers speaks a different version kannada which sounded like Telugu occasionally. Not bad, I was able to figure out the sentences by myself. It seems his mother’s village is situated in a place where Karnataka shares border with Andhra Pradesh and that is the key reason behind his unique dialect. It’s nice to know that Indians, both from rural and urban areas, have accepted other Indian languages for everyday usage and it has given birth to many other dialects as well. These dialects are usually used in homes (domestic usage). Meanwhile, they still preserve and support the official language without injecting foreign Indian language words into it.

I spotted many Indians from the North- eastern part of India residing and working in Bangalore. Initially, I thought they were Chinese but I was wrong, they are Indians and they spoke perfect Hindi also. It’s nice to see them working in big IT industries, branded shops and restaurants and thanks to Globalisation which has really shrunken our world. Oh yes, I forgot we are living in a global village. It’s not only in India, I see them in Singapore restaurants also.

India itself is very colourful and it is a very multi- racial country also. In fact, India is more diverse than China in terms of language, culture and race. There are many things which Singapore can learn and adopt from India. The co-existence of many languages, dialects, religions, and communities can pose various threats to India but the Indian government has implemented laws which do not favour any particular group or individual and it’s successful in maintaining the law and order. In most parts of India, we can see Hindus and Muslims living side by side peacefully and the government and the citizens deserve the applause from us and everyone. Regardless of the differences, India is starting to shine and the country is developing so fast that we might lose out to them in certain aspects.

I will be sharing more cultural stuff with you in the coming days. And just look out for my Day 5 and Day 6 posts which might be combined.

Working in an outsourcing team

2009-07-02T05:27:00.006+08:00

In the past, I had couple of chances working with outsourcing teams in China and Taiwan. But now, I am working on projects from clients in US and other part of India. So I start to taste the life of working in an outsourcing team. Before revealing my life, let’s have a quick look on Game Outsourcing industry.

Why outsourcing

Similar to other business, outsourcing aims at giving higher flexibility and better cost saving. One aspect of outsourcing in game industry is on artwork as huge amount of content and artwork are needed in next gen games. Artwork outsourcing gives flexibility in volume by handling spark of short term demands. One presentation in GDC shows that Vituos Games, an outsourcing studio, helped “Test Drive Unlimited” to produce 100 cars in 6 months. In addition, outsourcing helps bringing different skills, like cinematic, localization into projects adding flexibility and dynamics to small core team.

Who outsource

It is seen that outsourcing can be found across the industry, from large studio to individual who want to build a game on his/her own idea. Due to different level of experience, there are a wide variety of requirement and deliverable. Well established game studios can provide a set of structured documents and tools, while individual may start everything from scratch.

What can be outsource

From the directory of outsourcing.org, game outsourcing industry seems cover most of the areas, including, game design, illustration, graphic design, level design, music and sound effects, game development, testing and localization.

Where can we find outsourcing team

Extracted from http://gamedevmap.com/, you can see game studios are all over the globe and outsourcing teams can be found from US to China and different regions have their whole strengths and weaknesses. Lewis Peterson, President & CEO, 7 Studios, listed 4 regions including, Eastern Europe, India, China and Taiwan and commented that China and Taiwan are relatively more all-rounded, while Eastern Europe and India have strength in art.

Risk

Though outsourcing is a common practice, not all the cases are successful. Companies/individuals consider outsourcing part of their work may need to consider, i) hidden cost, ii) communication, iii) resource integration, iv) asset management, v) deadline and scope management and vi) resource control, like team composition. It is necessary to have a check, like visiting, due diligence, small trial run and continuous communication before committing fully.

Best Practice?

Rajesh Rao, from Dhruva, a Bangalore based game outsourcing studio listed Top 5 what went right

#1 Long Term vision and co-operation

#2 Adaptive to change

#3 Good Client involvement, including provision of dev kits and game builds

#4 Clear Guidelines

#5 Client visit for project preparation

These only cover a bit of the game outsourcing industry. I want to end this blog by sharing life and learning working in an outsourcing team

i) Fighting time zone - Eastern Time (US and Canada) is GMT -5:00, while IST is GMT +5:30, i.e. 10.5 hours in between. In a simple put, their 9:00 is our 19:30, so we have quite late meeting starting from 19:30 till 22:00+ or early morning meeting.

ii) Adapt to different culture – Honestly, I am quite happy with that as the team is very multinational and we can learn from different cultures. Back to business, it tends to be less rubber and rely more on documents and written confirmation.

iii) Working with multiple projects and clients at the same time – As mentioned, outsourcing give flexibility but on the other hand, for outsourcing company to be profitable, they need to have multiple projects and keep everyone busy. So most of the staff are multitasked and it imposes challenges to project management.

I hope you enjoy that. I will be in Pune this weekend. See you~

An "All-In" Affair!

2009-07-01T18:39:00.008+08:00

Just as the day before was spent entirely outside of the lodging, this day would be on the contrary! This sunny Friday was spent indoors, having quite a number of guests speakers coming down to give us more insights into India, Bangalore and business in this country.

The lecturers today were as followed;

- Prof. Iyer on “Doing business in India: Opportunities and Challenges”
- Mr. Bringi Dev on “Spotting the "Landmines In India"
- Prof. K. Kumar on “Building Entrepreneurs”
- Mr. Jayesh Chakravarthi on "Global Recession and India’s response"
- Prof. Thomas Binford on “Starting up in Bangalore”

As you can tell it was a pretty long day and at times the points had overlapped each other between presentations. However, saturated as we were, we definitely took back quite a bit of relevant information from this day. To briefly summarise as what Theepan has explained in detail, some key points we learnt were;

- Understanding in detail how the Global Recession occured and how it has affected India and the world.
- Pros & Cons of doing business in India
- Do's & Don'ts of doing business in India
- Requirements of doing business in India
- Some readings to take away, "Only the Paranoid Survive" by Andy Grove

Mr Bringi Dev

Dr. K. Kumar

Prof. Thomas O. Binford

In the evening, we went out for some R&R to a nearby area known as Marathahalli, which was more or less the area for getting your branded goods at wholesale prices. It was not as developed as M.G. Road or Brigade Road, but it was much more affordable. We didn't spend too much time out this evening as we had to start preparing for our presentations on Monday and the drivers were late for almost 2 hours whilst coming to bring us out.

Marathahalli

On a side note, some of us managed to meet the sweet family of one of the employees of the lodging we stayed at. They lived in a simple home right at ECC's compound. Here I would like you to met the humble Jabaraj and his 2 sons, Ezekiel & Ezra.

Jabaraj

Ezra

Ezekiel

The weekend was now in our sights and we were as excited as little schoolboys & girls! We definitely have a totally different side of India to present to you in the upcoming posts.

Experience India! Day 4

2009-07-01T14:04:00.006+08:00

Just like the previous day (day 3), the fourth day was packed with non- stop lectures. Something which we are familiar with in NUS, so it’s not a big deal. Our favourite speaker, Prof. Iyer, commenced the day smoothly as he was the first speaker and the topic was “Doing business in India: Opportunities and Challenges”. Prior to this trip, I knew that opportunities in India are abundant and there are plenty of obstacles which we need to overcome in order to be a successful entrepreneur. According to Prof. Iyer, business process in Singapore is easier compared to business process in India. And his lecture was primarily on start- up location and start- up parameters for businesses. I’m going to present the pros and cons of doing business in India in point form as some of the points overlap with the previous day’s points.

Pros:
- Large domestic market
- Stable economy and political milieu
- Large, young manpower pool
- English- speaking base
- Low cost, low risk

Cons:
- Heavy on regulatory processes
- Movement of goods and funds not completely free
- Markets are not as diverse/ mature

What an entrepreneur should do? An entrepreneur should make full use of these resources in good form. But before that, he should put in effort to do some research on the start- up location to decide whether it is an ideal spot to carry out business activities. In addition, every market has its own pluses and minuses. Therefore, he should not assume that everything will work out for him the same as it does at home and must be prepared to fight and survive during turbulent situations. For start-up, parameters, they are:

- Regulatory & Compliance
- Finance, Banking & Working capital especially for foreign investors
- Markets
- Technology
- Infrastructure
- People

The subsequent lecture topic was “Spotting the landmines” by Mr. Bringi Dev, his lecture was a short one. He discussed about 1) Information issues, 2) Predictability & Reliability, 3) Productivity issues and 4) Cost issues. I will only elaborate more on the important ones here, in order to be highly productive, there is a need for supervision and monitoring and constant evaluation of people. Now for cost issues, factors like price flexibility and multiple quotes are some of the things to take note of. Then he started focusing on investing in India.

For the introduction part, I learnt that India’s GDP is growing steadily and strongly and there are four sectors which played a big role in the Indian growth story: IT, Auto- components, Pharmaceuticals and Textiles.

He also explicitly stated the Do’s for Foreign Investors in India, this part is really beneficial for entrepreneurs.

- Develop an ‘India’ strategy
- Have long term view
- Choose right joint venture partner
- Choose right regional model
- Use global best practices
- Conceptualize India- specific products
- Optimally blend expatriate management with local talent

Next Prof. K. Kumar gave another relatively short lecture on “Building Entrepreneurs”, again I shall provide the main points from his presentation.

- Entrepreneurship – means of maximum utilization of one’s potential and a process of continuous experimentation and learning

- Entrepreneurship – means of wealth creation and building a sustainable high growth ventures

After lunch, a very knowledgeable and eloquent individual, Mr. Jayesh Chakravarthi from Fidelity, arrived and his lecture really captivated us. His lecture was on Global Recession and India’s response and he described the entire global recession in layman’s terms within the given time slot and we were able digest the information very easily. He mentioned subprime segment and prime segment. Under subprime lending, the banks lend money to borrowers knowing that only some will pay back with interest (for example, 5 out 10 will pay back with the interest). In US, the banks offered loans to purchase properties (houses) and eventually, the costs of houses started to soar when more people started buying more properties. As the number of borrowers continued to swell, the banks with insufficient money borrowed money from other financial institutions and the mortgages were handed over to the other financial institutions from which the banks borrowed. Banks started to borrow from each other and the whole process resorted in a chain reaction. As the demand for houses increased, the property developers built more houses assuming that the people will purchase. Those borrowers who defaulted the loan, declared bankruptcy to escape from prosecution and as a result the economy is affected adversely and there’s a global recession. Finally, he concluded that global economy is interrelated to human behavior. I hope that I got the whole notion right.

The next speaker was Prof. Thomas Binford and his lecture was on “Starting up in Bangalore”, basically he discussed about the decisions which we need to take in setting up a company. I shall skip this part as the points overlap with the earlier ones. Need to thank him for sharing his experiences with us.

Even though we were in a state of squeezing too many information, at the end of the day there was a sense of satisfaction which all of us felt. These guest speakers, without any doubt, instigated me to read up more on current affairs. I would like to express my gratitude to all of them.

After the non-stop lectures, we went out to an area, known as Marathahalli, it was a small area with some branded shops there and here, I didn’t do much shopping due to time constraint. But it’s definitely a nice area to hang around in the night where you get to see the hustle and bustle of the city. Since some of us were craving for burgers and fries, we headed to a nearby Shopping mall in our vehicles to have supper in Macdonald’s restaurant. Not bad after all, it just tasted a little bit different and they even cater to vegetarians also.

In the next post, I’ll be sharing whatever we did during the weekends and the uniqueness of Bangalore city and Mysore.

Managing Large Projects

2009-07-01T05:05:00.010+08:00

One of the first things that took me by surprise was the large code base I was working with. Besides just the size of the project, there were also a number of programmers working on it, and if one part didnt behave as it should, it could affect other parts of the system. In this post, I ll briefly look at how one manages such projects and some useful tools that could be useful to do the same. Before I go any further, I d like to inform the more experienced readers that this post has very basic information. However, I promise to give more interesting things in the posts coming up later.

Right, so back to tools that can help you manage such large code bases. The most basic problem that most of us face of course is maintaining different versions of our code. For example, if me and my friend Melvin were to write a simple programme. Lets say, I write the part that talks to the user(the UI) and Melvin writes the core(stuff that does work behind the scenes). When we start its very confusing, we dont really know where to start, and even once we start we get confused as to when to put these parts together.

Another problem of course is when we make changes. Last week everything was working fine and dandy.But today Melvin might make a change and everything might stop working. Also, he has edited his file and he cant figure out how the programme looked earlier.

So basically if you do the same with a very large application and with many programmers working on it, there is a lot of code:

Each programmer writes new code each day
Not all code fits perfectly with the rest
It is important to know who wrote which part of the code(so you can blame them)
It is important to be able to go back to an older version(so you can save your ass)

For the very same purposes, all software companies will use some sort of a version control system. The most common type of version control is svn, many other popular systems exist like GIT.Each system has its own advantages. The purpose however is for many people to code on the same project and share their code. Also there is a complete revision history showing your previous changes. Next time you work on a coding project with your friend, try not to share the code via gmail, try using a version control system.

It is also useful to maintain your notes, we usually use a wiki. Notes including documentation for various parts of the system, meeting minutes, use-cases, etc. The wiki is useful because of its flexibility and again, its ability to show revision history. For example if the wiki page was capturing how the software can be used, it might go through some changes as development progresses. As users update the wiki pages, one can look back at these changes. Besides wikis now also allow chats and discussions. But there are many other collaborative tools for these purposes too. The advantage with a wiki of course is that it is on the web and doesnt involve passing files from one person to another(via gtalk or paper).Its almost like google docs, just a little simpler and little more flexible.

Final point I d stress on in this post, is the use of unit tests. At school, I always found them useless When are they useful? Primarily unit tests are useful to make sure you wrote the code to behave in the way you want it to, but also, when you make changes to your code, these unit tests will show if anything has changed. Quite simply put, instead of compiling, running and typing out a lot of input each time you debug your programme, you can have these awesome unit tests that will tell you exactly when a programme fails and also in which cases it fails.You could actually test any number of test cases by just running one programme..

When you write unit tests, check out junit and jmock (in java, similar things exist for python, C etc.). junit is a unit testing framework that makes the automation of your tests easier. jmock is a utility used along with junit that can mock specific parts of the programme. For example, in the case of the programme Melvin and I write, I could write unit tests to test the part of the programme i write, and mock the performance of Melvin's code. Since,I know how Melvin's code should behave(by design), I can use this to simulate the entire system, but yet test only my part of the programme. This also useful when Melvin is late with his work, like he usually is... ;)

Hope version controls, documentation in wikis and unit tests will make your projects easier to do. Try them out sometime. Search on google a bit for more info, join a few forums, you ll soon find large projects very easy to manage.

What is coming up in the next post? I am thinking of looking into tricks on how one manages large systems. This includes testing, various environments and more importantly about how you avoid downtimes while upgrading the software you just wrote. To put that in perspective. Each time your small hello world programme starts up it takes atleast a fraction of a second. When a million users use a programme, it usually takes a lot more time to start up,however we need to be able to constantly make upgrades to these programmes. What do we do to avoid downtimes? How do you upgrade your service and yet not let the user suffer with no service for even a fraction of a second?

An "All-Out" Affair!

2009-06-30T19:38:00.008+08:00

3rd day of the workshop and this day, we have a full itinerary out! We visit 2 companies, first being Astra Zeneca in the morning, and the other Cognizant in the afternoon.

Astra Zeneca is a large pharmaceutical company, which is currently focusing their resources worldwide on tuberculosis drug discovery. The lecture in Astra Zeneca gave us an insight into the theories behind their work as well as tuberculosis. However, there was little or no information given to us about the company and its work ethics until we had time for our Q&A. In addition, we were not permitted to enter the labs due to safety and security reasons. Thus, we were unable to take away much from this visit.

After a stopover for lunch back at our lodging, ECC, we headed back out for the huge IT services company, Cognizant. Their focus is on providing business with IT capabilities to strengthen themselves in their respective industries. The company gave us a slight insight into various kinds of outsourcing like BPOs, KPOs, Cosourcing and Insourcing, which Theepan has touched on in his post.

On a side note, the speaker was one of the Directors in the company and in his presentation to us, through his behaviour, it gave me a picture into the working culture there. As we posed questions about the company to him, very often he would not answer the question directly and eventually digress. Also he tended to have a superiority complex when he spoke to either his colleagues or us, the guests. We came to a presumption that employees there are probably used to such a culture of "You do not question your boss".

Later in the evening, it was time for some R&R and our first trip to the main shopping district, M.G. Road & Brigade Road. It felt a lot like the Orchard Road of Singapore with a ton of designer labels and other familiar brands. There we met up with the rest of the May batch of NUS students in Bangalore, where the brought us to a great (and very spicy) Indian restaurant for dinner.

More on the streets on India.

Our driver & one of the nicest persons I've ever met, anywhere in the world.

Our 1st Jam-Packed Day

2009-06-29T19:03:00.005+08:00

So after a very exciting first day, we started to enjoy more of the cool weather. Even in the day with the sun shining brightly, the nice weather was a pleasant throwback to Singapore's hot and humid weather.

Starting off this day were lectures by some guests specially invited by Prof. Ayer. Again, Theepan has mentioned in detailed the guest lecturers and their topics so I will not go in depth but I will mention a few key points I learnt from the talks on this day.

One of the key drivers of India's booming economy in recent time was the introduction of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and one of the more popular examples are call centers.

A good question was asked of whether China will pose as a tough competitor to India because of its similar low-cost labour. However, the fact that India is the largest English-speaking population in the world is a strong advantage over China. China has begun to introduce English as compulsory to their education, but until one can THINK in a particular language, they will never be fluent in it. Thus, until China can get the same level of proficiency of English as India, they will still be at the losing end of this competition.

Something else I will always remember from this day's lesson was from Ms Nandini Vaidyanathan. A great quote she mentioned was, "You can't step in the same river twice. You also can't even step in the same river ONCE!" What she meant was directed at entrepreneurship and opportunities. Take some time to think about it!

After lunch, we travelled to Mercedes Benz Research & Development Centre about an hour and a half away from our lodging. Just in that complex alone, there were many other big names located there. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit them. At the centre, we learnt more about what their current projects are and what other KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) services they provide to Mercedes Benz. For example, creating mathematical models to test the technologies of the company.

This night we met up with some of the May batch NUS students who were interning in Bangalore. They brought us to some interesting places as well as their home to find out how they were coping in a foreign country and their companies.
When I said that travelling on the streets of India are never one and the same, I meant it. And each post I will show you how unique the streets of India are.

Experience India! Day 3

2009-06-29T17:48:00.007+08:00

On this day, our schedule was packed with site visits to Astra Zeneca Research Centre and Cognizant. Although each site visit lasted only for about 2 hours, the amount of content which I absorbed is definitely a lot.

Astra Zeneca is a world leading pharmaceutical company and it’s operating in over 100 countries. It’s one of the first major pharmaceutical companies to devote an entire research unit to developing world diseases. Astra Zeneca Research Centre in Bangalore is equipped with state of the art instrumentation to tackle diseases and mainly focuses on tuberculosis (TB) drug discovery. The presentation of this company was very much irrelevant to Computing students (due to medical jargon I guess) but it really benefited my fellow friends from other faculties and Lionel and I still learnt a lot of new things. Anyway, I will still share some important facts from Astra Zeneca presentation in point form.

- India and China have 50% of global disease burden

- TB is a leading killer among young adults and adults

- BCG is not effective for adults

- TB causes enormous social and economic disruption

- In Asian countries like India, burden of TB is enormous and is hidden by stigma and poor diagnostic quality

- Current therapy available comprises of 1st 2 months (Induction phase) followed by 4 months of treatment (Continuation phase) – proven to be effective

- Some argue that present- day therapy is too long and the drugs given are incompatible with anti-HIV drugs

Astra Zeneca didn’t permit us to enter their labs due to security reasons but they compensated us with their company videos which showed their labs and the activities which take place there and the site visit more or less ended up like a lecture. I think the whole presentation was a little out of point as this whole trip is about developing the entrepreneurial talent within us and perhaps, they must have given us a brief history and specialization/focus of the company and then discussed more about the challenges and process of setting up their companies in Bangalore, India. However, we still enjoyed the site visit.

On our way to Astra Zeneca Research Centre

The next interesting site visit was at Cognizant, an IT services company, which has one goal, that is to make their customers’ businesses stronger by empowering them to be more responsive to their customers and to the competitive environment. Even though, the company is geographically located in India, there is no Indian company in its client list. Initially, it was shocking for me and the rest. This particular visit made more sense to us as the speaker discussed about outsourcing, insourcing, and cosourcing. There are two terms which you might not be familiar with, so I’ll give a simple definition. Everyone knows what’s Outsourcing and if you don’t, please refer to my previous post (Experience India! Day 2).

a) Insourcing - transfer of outsourced function to an internal department of a company, managed by employees.

b) Cosourcing – business function is performed by both internal and external centres in different parts of the world.

In addition, the speaker pointed out that customer expectations are increasing.The overall customer behavior of today’s world has changed. Firstly, the customers expect companies to listen to them. Secondly, instead of building professional trust, the customers prefer the companies to build a professional and personal trust. Thirdly, companies are expected to collaborate instead of controlling. Fourthly, the supply of expertise is insufficient and supply of insight is more valued. Lastly, they expect the companies to manage complexity and ambiguity.

There is another essential point which he mentioned during his presentation and he stressed a lot on the importance of conveying our ideas to our customer or client or boss effectively and efficiently. He gave some tips on how to be successful in selling our points to others during a presentation. They are:

a) Presentation must not be more than 7 minutes

b) A maximum of only 6 slides is allowed

c) There must be continuity (same frame, same colour and most importantly same

thought)

After the presentation, questions were welcomed and they were delighted to answer them. At some point of the Q & A session, some had a hot debate and somehow both parties reached an understanding.Concluded my day happily as it was a fruitful site visit to Cognizant.