There had been lots of talks gone through about Yarl IT Hub and Yarl Geek Challenge, therefore, I'm not gonna talk about it more, as this event is well known to all the IT related guys from Colombo to Jaffna.
This season 3 was so special for me since this was the first time I was seriously into the project. I got an opportunity to mentor the Junior Geek Challenge, thanks to the organizers for gave me this wonderful opportunity.
First of all, met a wonderful team from different companies in and around Colombo, to mentor. We all from different backgrounds, different technology specialists, but the vision of us for this mission was clear and it was in a single direction.
The Hackathon was held in TCT hall in Jaffna for the first 2 days, followed by the final presentation and awards giving in Jaffna library auditorium. The event was well organised, with the help of the co sponsors and the talented event organizers.
The task given to us was to encourage and take out the best throughput from the junior competitors, and for our astonishment, some guys were extraordinary in their ideas and in techno handling.
There were schools who came from long distances to participate, they were much enthusiastic in giving their best, and one of the school's college day was on the second day of the hackathon, still they came to confirm their participation.
All of their ideas were very unique and useful, both in terms of technology and business. Comparing to the standards of the Senior geek challenge, the juniors did better job, given the platform.
It was a learning curve for me as well, mentoring was like learning together with the kids to achieve their goals, sounds good, isn't it? :)
While mentoring the junior guys, got an opportunity to look at the Senior Geek Challenge as well, Their ideas were exceptionally well; They had good technical skills; the solutions they have created were the needs of the real day to day activities, which is a win-win situation for hackathon and the presenters.
But...
This was not a big win for the investors, as the proposed projects and solutions were not that handy when it comes to business model. Thinking about their solution in business point of view was where the senior geeks lacked in.
The next season should cover the business conceptual mentoring as well for the competitors.
And one more area to get improve is to think out of the box. this is particularly for the junior guys. Most of their presentations were related to Education. they have to come out of that barrier and should think about the social responsibility and economical products, as they are the young bloods who are gonna rule the silicon valley coming years!
Altogether, it was not second to any hackathon happening around the globe, yet, need to be better and set trends as Yarl! (Can somebody think of changing it to Yaazh, as the grammatically correct spell. :D)
A group pic of junior teams and mentors :
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