Four months after inception, the Java Contest 2007 came to an end on the 24th of February. An exhibition of selected projects from the Student and the Professional Category was held at Birendra International Convention Center, Kathmandu and was followed by the Closing Ceremony.
Winners were declared for both professional and student categories. The professional category was an all-D2 affair, with both participating team from the company taking the first and second position out of a number of other institutional contestants. Shankar Raj Uprety and Anil Raj Khadka booked the first place with their web-based device control application 'ControCam', and Sajan Sangraula and Rupendra Chulyadyo followed with their reporting package 'OmniReports'.
Ujjwal Prakash Dhamala, now with D2, also bagged the consolation prize in the Student's Category.
The competition was organized by WAKHOK University, Japan in association with Kathmandu Engineering College and White House College of Science & Engineering with the objective to generate greater awareness and excitement among students, professionals and the general public about the scope of IT and the potentiality of Nepali Software Industries. Participating projects were evaluated on multiple rounds on the basis of software documentation, presentation, demonstration and code evaluation. Preliminary evaluation was done by a judge panel comprising of influential figures in Nepali IT sector, and the final judgment was carried out by the Japanese panel led by Prof. Maruyama Fujio, President, WAKHOK University Japan.
"All's well that ends well", and looking back now, Java contest certainly appears a worthy experience, a learn while you have fun (and earn 🙂 ) event. But the development efforts were mostly affairs of the weekend and keeping up with the deadlines and selection process sometimes took the toll out of us. The contest provided us with an experience of software development under constraints: resources, time and ideas. The organizers made an appreciable effort to measure software quality not just on the basis of the final deliverable application but also on the coding structure, documentation, performance and user friendliness.
Starting around July, we anticipate another edition of the Contest. We may need a few more enthusiasts from D2HS to make sure we retain the dominance and set a tradition. Top two ain't that bad, but we need a few more teams for a whitewash!!