Code Wars 2008. It’s On.

Code Wars 2008 is firmly on schedule now – on 21st November 2008. It was earlier supposed to happen on 14th (Google search still gives the old date)…but due to a few circumstances and popular demand it was thought it would be best to shift it back). That would make for one hectic week, with WarP (DPS Mathura Road’s), CORE (DPS Dwarka’), our event Code Wars, and DPS MUN happening back to back (and soon followed by Exun). Seems like DPS Society schools are hogging all the space this month!

It was a difficult decision to distill Code Wars 2008 down to one day, but it was done to retain the standard of the event. The economic recession did hit us badly with almost all companies cutting down on their advertisement budget. Thankfully, Renew Information Systems and NIIT pitched…and we had an event. The interest shown to support the event by MapMyIndia – started by Code Warrior alumnus Rohan Verma – at a stage when the CW team was in dire straits gave us confidence to go ahead with this. Continuing with tradition, Code Wars 2008 is an open invite event, i.e., in case your school hasn’t got an invite through postal mail yet, then you can download the invite and rules and come for the event anyway (the downloaded versions are equally valid). Remember to register your school online – it’s mandatory.

By cutting it down to a one-day event, we decided to raise the difficulty level across all events. That should keep the excitement up. (Or maybe we’ll just have teams sobbing they couldn’t answer anything.) I’ll be conducting the quiz and crossword and I can vouch this for my events at least. I’m sure a lot of people who’d be coming read my blog so this is my message to them: you still have about a week left. Start preparing. Broaden your horizons and read up stuff like crazy. If you don’t, you won’t know what hit you in the quiz / crossword. Similar to last year, I’ve tried to incorporate knowledge of multiple fields (beyond tech / computers), so be prepped to think outside the box. To make life easier for everyone I’ve decided NOT to include any acronyms (‘mini Ankit Sud’ from DPS Dwarka will be dejected). It pains me when I see kids frantically flipping pages through Babel minutes before an event. Range of topics covered? Everything (except for a slightly less focus on tech, more of trivia; although you may say that there might be a slight bias in covering more of stuff. I. like.) Crossword will be a ‘monster’ crossword with a LOT of clues.

Code Wars 2008 has also had some format changes. Since every event can’t be fitted into a one-day fest, it was decided that we’d hold web designing and digital imaging online. Details are there on the Code Warriors website. I sure look forward to some creative entries!

There’s a funny anecdote here regarding a company which was approached for sponsorship for Code Wars 2008. This kind of stuff is not something I’d discuss generally, but the kind of hypocrisy displayed was so astonishing that I feel I must share it. Among the companies the current CW members approached was Virgin Mobile; their corporate office is in Vasant Square Mall, darn close to our school. So our guys met this woman who was in their marketing department about Virgin Mobile sponsoring us. I gave them the idea about approaching them since it makes perfect sense for Virgin to sponsor us – after all, their brand is targetting the youth segment and an event like Code Wars would give them valuable exposure without Virgin having to pump in a lot of money (unlike college events). Seems like DPS RKP had approached them too because at first she mixed up VK and RKP. Anyway, she heard the team out and in the end she said they won’t sponsor us because

…DPS schools have a slightly shady reputation when it comes to cellphones…

I mean, really? That was ages ago. And this is a lecture on propriety coming from a company which releases ads like the hospital nurse one. I don’t object to the ad which was good, but I do find it ironic that someone from Virgin Mobile’s marketing department said this. More ironic when you consider that Richard Branson owns the company. Maybe this Virgin Mobile lady wasn’t there at the launch of Virgin Mobile (this video, BTW, was put up by Virgin Mobile India’s own marketing department). Talking of ‘reputation’, Airtel has sponsored Code Wars – twice – in the past. Admittedly a company with much greater reputation. CW’s sponsor list has had Microsoft, Intel, Lenovo et al – a veritable who’s who of top tech companies. Virgin Mobile India must be kidding to throw away the marketing opportunity we gave them on those grounds.

See you at Code Wars 2008. soBIG.g. It’s on.