Understanding the larger picture

I used to play a fair amount of Chess while being at school. I was an average player, but I did love the game. So most of my after school hours were spent pondering over the squared board and hammering the chess clock using the captured piece. We didn't have a coach, so it was all our paradise.  So one fine day one of our distinguish old boy's came to spend the evening with us and put up a nice little competition.  He set up a position on a board ( I don't recall the position he set up. But for those who are new to chess, it will look something like this)

Image from http://chess-king.com/

He gave us a task. Was pretty simple, we were given three minutes to look at the board. After which he would break the position. We need to go to our own chess boards and re-create the same position. The competition was to evaluate how many pieces each one of us managed to recall and set up at the right square.

With a bit of swollen headed arrogance, I wondered that it was a pointless task and went about simply memorizing the position. So rank by rank I tried to store in memory the shapes of the structure. For example, unmoved rook, white king side castled. Kings gambit like pawn structure for white, etc... Then when three minutes ended I went and tried to set up the position. I was left bitterly confused. Managed to set up only about 50% of the pieces. That too mostly the pawns.

On the contrary there was this other player who managed to set up the whole structure. I was about to conclude that he had better memory power and was good at memorizing. Then when the old boy asked him to explain how he managed to remember and set up the exact position. He explained that, if its white to move there was a two moves forced mate. The mate was to sacrifice the queen and mate with knight and rook. Largely its a two pawn up position for white. For the rest its black squared bishop against white knight.

For me it was one of those "Eureka" moment's in life. Initially as soon  I realized the blunder I had made, it made me sweat, felt half ashamed that "how come that this kind of a thinking didn't even cross my mind". Seriously I had been arrogantly fighting with granular details, without even realizing that this was not the approach to solve the problem. What I was fighting against was not even the real problem. It made me cringe and realize I was the absolute "frog in the well" . Growing up, this incident gets replayed in my mind often. It always reminds me irrespective whether if its in IT, Software engineering, Business analysis, organizing, planning, life etc,,when you  want to solve a problem understand the larger picture. When larger picture is clear, rest of the petty issues and details will fade in to insignificance. Its only after you understand the bigger picture you are really starting to solve the real problem. Till then keep fighting the petty issues like counting the pawns :D

Yarl Geek Challenge - Season 2

Last year's Yarl Geek Challenge was a resounding success and even before the dusts had settled a lot of super hyped competitors, judges, mentors and organizers started discussing about the next season. One of the most pertinent points discussed was how this could be extended to reach the grass root level.

After much contemplation the team Yarl IT Hub team this time has announced the competition at two levels.

1. Yarl Geek Challenge - Senior

The competition will be similar in format to last years one but with a few minor changes to the rounds. The introductory round will be on the 5th of October and the competitive rounds will be from the 17th to 20th. We had picked a week end where if you  take a days (18th) official leave from work, you could get a 5 day 'vacation', be in Jaffna, forget about all the daily chaos, get in to a zen state and immerse yourself in an environment where IT ideas clash!

For those who are new to Geek Challenge, its a reality show styled competition where teams compete in 4 rounds and at the end of each day face a panel of expert judges who decide on elimination/s! All eliminated teams will be given another shot by competing in the 'opportunity round'. If you are planning to compete keep an eye on the announcements on our facebook page. Its all set to pick up from where we left last season and continue to set higher standards.

2. Yarl Geek Challenge - Junior

To reach out to the younger geeks at schools, we had opened up a new category, where school students are expected to form teams and develop a mobile application and send in their entries. A panel of judges shall evaluate the sent applications and call up the top 10 teams for demonstrations, which will happen in parallel to the Yarl Geek Challenge Senior round 2 on Friday the 18th of October 2013.

To get more details and to participate at YGC junior please read http://www.yarlithub.org/yarl/yarl-geek-challenge-junior/

So yet again as we gear in for an exciting time ahead, we are on the look out for volunteers who could help us out on various aspects of this competition.

How can I participate?

Competitor : Form a team and as per your age category send in the application. Then start preparing to compete. We guarantee that you will walk away with a tremendous amount of knowledge and memorable experience.

Judges: The panel of judges are the sole decision makers in the challenge. They evaluate the teams against pre defined criteria, give feedback to the teams and most importantly call the shots in eliminations. If you are a Senior Academic or a Senior IT professional, we would love to have you on the judging panel of the competition and share your expertise and guide the participants during the competition.

Mentor: Each team in the senior competition will be assigned a mento. The mentor will guide the team starting from the 5th of October. During the competitive rounds the mentor will be with the teams and help the teams prepare for the rounds. If you are an IT practitioner or an Academic who would be able to mentor a team through the requirement, design, user experience and business strategy rounds. You should be on board with us. We assure you would walk away from the competition with a lot of self satisfaction and a great network of IT professionals and students!

Organizer: A competition of this magnitude needs a lot of ancillary activities, from stuff like creating graphics for YGC content, media coordination, announcing, writing, linking up potential sponsors, etc. Yarl IT Hub is a not for profit initiative by the community for the IT community. So please do join us - you could make a lot of difference!

If you could contribute in any way, please do get in touch with us by filling in the following form  at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1AjWw8VyZqr-ubm4w2x-FvHi65ZGTwlRPMXg1WU0GkZ0/viewform or leave a comment here or on our facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/264218806991707/...So we could contact you!