Yarl IT Hub ... The first year review

Yarl IT Hub banner with the YIT
logo created by
Kajan  placed in the middle

Its been an year since Yarl IT Hub commenced work. During the last month of 2010 we had the logo competition within the community and right at the stroke of the dawn of 2012 we came in to existence with a logo created and selected by the members of the community.

With a logo, a boot strapped web site and a facebook page with about 5 members we set on a ambitious journey to "Make Jaffna the next Silicon Valley". We planned out a Strategy with a three point action plan for the year. To be honest it was all at conceptual level and non of us really knew which would be well received and which ones would flop. Its just the passion towards the cause which led us to believe that these were the stuff we could practically do within the year.

Our three point action plan included the following,

1. Community Meet Ups
2. ySchool - Open source school management system project
3. IT competition modeled based on the inspiration from reality shows

Inaugural community meet up ( 3rd of March 2012 )

With the above action plan  on paper we set out on implementing them. As the first step to get a gauge of the kind of reception the initiative would get and to solicit support for implementation within the IT community in Jaffna we had our inaugural community meet up at IIS City Campus in Jaffna. This gave us a shot in the arm. The support and blessing we received from Staff and Students from University of Jaffna, IIS City Campus, other  educational institutions was overwhelming. Most importantly we had a session where we got the participants to solve some of the trickiest analytic questions and the unbelievable speed with which all of those questions were solved made us convinced that we are trying to create the next Silicon Valley at the right place. 

Sarves moderating the cloud computing panel discussion at inaugural meet up

ySchool Project 

With the success of the inaugural meet up we started off on ySchool project.  The intent was to involve IT students from Jaffna and the industry and develop an Open Source School Management System. We identified a technical competency gap in implementing the project within the student community with respect to the  chosen technology stack for the project. To overcome this we set off on having a four week online java crash course  for the students. We had again the support of the YIT experts to conduct exceptional quality training to the students. It was attended by around 20 Students all together connecting from their own homes and of course the Jaffna Uni students opted to gather with a lecture room and hooked on the projector and was learning as a team. A few weeks after when I met some of the students it was heartening to see them making a kind request for us to have more similar sessions in future. The thirst to learn was still fresh!

Jaffna University Students following the crash course

Then on the 29th of July we had a ySchool code jam session. Probably the first of its kind in Jaffna. Where the student programmers on the project guided by Jason had a full day session! Putting in to use the stuff they learnt from Ratha, Ajeethan, Vimal, Jason, Gayathiry and JK during the online crash course. 

2nd Community Meet Up

While the ySchool initiative was happening parallel we had the 2nd community meet up at the University of Jaffna. Its fondly remembered by a lot of people for 2 reasons, 

1. The inspirational talk by Harsha - CTO of hSenid Mobile

2. Two student teams presenting their business concepts. 

The two concepts which were almost discussed as ''toy concepts during the meet up are today implemented as mobile applications by those students teams and ready to go live on the biggest mobile operator here! 

Yarl Geek Challenge

Sponsored by the three of the biggest local IT giants hSenid, Virtusa and WSO2 the Yarl Geek Challenge season one kicked off in style with 14 teams in participation from Jaffna, Vavuniya, Moratuwa, Trinco, etc. Each team was assigned a mentor from the industry and they literally lived through  their concepts during the four days. Teams were put through rigorous process of evaluations by the judging panel at a public trial! The teams which escaped from the brink of evaluation on the first round made a dramatic turn around to end up as the winners and runners up. Team Arima from Moratuwa Universiy clinched the crown , Team Cybers won the second place and Zeroes from Jaffna University won the third place. While the team Crazy Coders from IIS city campus won the opportunity round. 

The judging panel listening attentively to the student presentation.

If the year's activities were the cake undoubtedly Yarl Geek Challenge was the cherry on top! 2013 is going to be a crucial year in Yarl IT Hub's quest to make Jaffna the Silicon Valley as we are planing out some exciting stuff for the new year! 

Wishing everyone a very happy new year! May it be the year in which all your dreams comes true!

Yarl Geek Challenge - Season 1 - Competitive round 1

Round: Requirements
Place : Kokuvil Hindu College, Jaffna
Date: 26th of October 2012
Sponsored by : Virtusa, WSO2 and hSenid

On the 13th of October 2012, 14 teams turned up for initial workshop at Sarvodya center in Jaffna. Weather gods decided to do a tensile test on the location and we started with a rain interrupted session. To be honest it was bit of an inauspicious start, Sarves the pillar of geek challenge organizing committee quipped to me as soon as we reluctantly eliminated one of the teams, "we are starting with 13 teams on the 13th, let's see how it goes"! I for one doesn't believe in any other number than 7, replied I don't believe in numbers and luckily Sarves also not too much in to it. We decided to keep this part of the story to us till we completed the  whole event.

After the initial session mentors from the industry were assigned to work with the teams. By the time it was the 26th, 5 other teams found the preparation and expectations to be too hectic and dropped out of the process, but the other 8 teams who were hanging on had bigger ambitions, none of them wanted to be pedestrians, they wanted to go on and prove a point. On 26th morning they were meeting their mentors for the first time, till then it's all been collaboration with the team over Skype for the last 2 weeks.

During the morning hours each team had their appointments with  the 'customers'. Giving the teams an opportunity to validate and verify the preparations they had done for the requirements round. I hear that these customers were as 'good' as the usual customers, giving true perspectives, confusing perspectives, requesting three year products to be built in 3 weeks, etc! The purpose was to give a sneak preview at Yarl geek challenge for these youngsters on what the world holds for them when they do their own business in IT or when they start work in IT industry.

We were all good to start but we had one major problem, Yarl geek challenge organizing team maintained an excel sheet to track the todo list. This was a shared google spreadsheet and till the last day there was a todo item  'find a person to compere' to which some cheeky guy went and added a comment - preferably good looking female announcer who could engage audience, we couldn't find any announcer. As a consequence and out of total bad luck for the audience and the teams they had to put up with a very cheap compromise in the form of yours truly as the 'host'!

So the afternoon session kicked off in style in front of the audience and a an eminent judging panel consisting of Dr. Maheson ( Senior lecturer), Mr. Thabotharan ( Senior lecturer), Mr. Preethi ( DB Architect) and Mr. Vignesh (CEO of IIS). Out of the eight teams, for me two teams clearly stood out during this round.  Team zeros from University of Jaffna was prepared well including a simulated screen flow created for their concept of implementing "Aadu pulli aattam" a traditional strategy board game played in Jaffna as an android application. Preparation for requirements round by them was impeccable. For me they looked as the team to beat during the competition. I had a casual chat with them and asked whether they have enough tricks up their sleeves for future rounds, I asked this since I had this doubt whether they were playing all the trumps in round one itself.

Team picture of Team Zeroes with their mentors

Team smart friends stunned me with their style of expressing the requirements.It was an absolute novelty by them, they enacted a role  play in their allocated 11 mins to express the use cases to be covered by the system. It was totally unexpected, it took a few mins for me to digest the fact that requirements can be expressed in this form. They deserve a pat on the back for having the courage to experiment with such a high risk strategy!

Not that other teams were bad, but these two stole the show during the first round. My biggest disappointment in this round was Team Arimaa, a talented bunch but totally mismanaged their time and moved in to the real substance expected for the round only when I made the announcement "you have one minute left ".

Then the judging panel went in for consultation and after a lot of thought they were ready with the results. Tension was building around the hall as people were waiting for results. I called up five teams and introduced them as the bottom five teams and after the judges had given the feedback, Preethi said this guy pulled your leg - you guys are the top five. These five teams breathed a collective sigh of relief I am not sure what really went through the minds of the 3 danger zone team, I don't want to know either! Then the danger zone teams were called in which included Team Arimaa.. After careful review and feedback, panel wanted to give the three teams a life line and declared that since it was the first round there would be no elimination, but warned that from the next round they would come down hard on the teams.

As the dusk started to settle on Jaffna peninsula and the rest of the world went to sleep, some teams were burning their midnight oil determined to make a come back at the design round.. await the next post to read about round two and the twists in it...

Yarl Geek Challenge - Requirements Round

Before you start reading the rest of the post please do remember the following unwritten rules about Yarl Geek Challenge.

1. Think out of the box
2. Playing it safe will give you an average score, having average scores will not make you win!
3. So remember there is nothing to loose and everything to gain, its a competition for you to take risks and pursuit your dreams!
4. None of the tools techniques given here might give the right answers to your project, they are just indicators, feel free to innovate and achieve the objective of the round.

Round Objective: Express the user experience of the chosen concept.

There are different techniques in which teams could start their requirements analysis, for example a simple approach might be to do a stake holder analysis. Where you simply start by identifying the potential users of the system and then trying to map the features and functionality each of these users expects from the system. By doing this you could try to capture a greater part of the user experience that users will expect from the system. Alternatively you could start with an analysis of the domain or analysis of a bench marked product. There are plenty of methods which could be used. Trick is to choose a simple yet effective way which would allow you to capture the scope well for your project.


Teams are free to choose how they want to express their user experience design, they could do it via a presentation, they could use a PPT, they could run it on a simulator like windows mobile or android, they could use a prototype, they could even design it on some sheets of papers and show it, they could use a story board, use case diagrams, etc. The trick is to use the technique/s which would best express the intended use of the system to the judges. Evaluation will not be based on the standards the teams had adhered to, but will be based on the quality of the user experience they had designed/envisioned for their product.

When at requirement stage another important trick is to figure out the minimum viable product. Which basically means for you to find out what are the minimal set of features you could start shipping your product with. This is important for teams which had picked large scale projects.

Make sure additionally you identify the following too,
- Areas which you wouldn't consider under the project scope ( "No go areas" ;) )
- External integration
- Any special non-functional requirements

The judges will be looking for the following when evaluating,

1. Quality of the user experience expressed
2. How well the scope had been identified and defined
3. Understanding of the domain and the problem being solved
4. Depth of analysis

Good luck with the preparations, if you have any questions about this round please do not hesitate to contact me!

Yarl Geek Challenge - Season 1

Seated around a table at queens cafe peering over a mind map some of Yarl IT Hub's Geek challenge organizing team members turned themselves in to a team and tried to apply a fictitious concept of "Mobile based early warning system" through the rounds of Yarl Geek Challenge. As the prospectus explained (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-PqEkLVNu-EUndzMHhSZUw4c28) its a 5 round competition.

So what the team was trying to do was trying put on the hat of the participants and trying to live through the competition assuming if they themselves are competing how they would face each round. Each round was quite intriguing, there were cross arguments, critical analysis, burst of brilliance and of course a lot of comedy.

The first real fight started at the design stage, trying to figure out which was the most appropriate technology stack. It was quite a spectacle and leaving us with some of the questions judges could potentially fire at teams. Then picking the complex algorithm part of the competition was quite interesting, team wanted to flex their (brain) muscles by trying to pick the part of the early warning system which had the highest complexity so that they could show off their skill in designing algorithms, discussions were not just about making the algorithm correct but also on how team could show efficient algorithm designs.

Then the most intriguing problem was how to justify a business model for an early warning system - its saves lifes but where does it 'make money' ! A spark of innovation in business modelling was needed. It cannot be analysed using the usual pattern of thinking we would apply for a consumer product, the team digged deep to come up with the most astonishing business case for it. Its more a dream being painted as a business model but it was a beautiful dream being weaved together as a team. Almost all of a sudden after spending a few hours on it we all felt an affection towards the concept. Now imagine spending four days and living on a concept?!

Now this is the opportunity that's their for the participants of Yarl Geek Challenge. You come with your own concept take it progressively through the above mentioned rounds while being in a competitive environment. Each team must and should strive to win, but at the end of it if each participants leaves 'Yarl Geek Challenge' having learnt and improved themselves, when compared to where they started we could all walk out as winners!

Its a rare opportunity where there will be mentors from the industry and academia who would guide you and be there to help you in the above process. There would also be some of the premier local IT companies participating as sponsors and its one of the rare opportunities to show case your talent to them! Registrations close on the 11th of October and the proposal round is on the 13th of October. So do not miss out on a golden opportunity! Be there or be missed out and regret for a long time to come!  (click here to register )

Striking poses

They are turning out to be good models now! At the same time slowly managing to get on my mother's nerves with their mischief. But then mischief is quiet obvious with those blue eyes!

The cat collection

Just a few weeks old but they are quite good at posing!

Germany's and Trinity's transformation

The German story 

Rewind ten years back Europe was a growing Economy and Germany was referred as the “Sick man of Europe”. In 2002 Germany’s economy grew by a mere 0.2% and it was the slowest rate in the whole of Euro zone. The unemployment rate was soaring and the chances of a recovery looked very slim.

Fast forward to today, the economic crisis has gripped Europe, but ironically Germany stands as the biggest light of hope for the European economy. Not only Germany is managing to withstand the debt crisis, today German bonds are considered the ultra safe investments, doing better than the US treasury bonds! Almost all other European countries look up to the Germans to bail them out.  

The nation is on a high and deservingly a lot of accolades are being showered on its leader Chancellor Angela Merkel. She is arguably the most powerful woman in the world and often compared with Margaret Thatcher and referred as the ‘Iron Lady’. But if you really look beyond the clichés the seeds of recovery were planted and the dirtiest part of the recovery was engineered by Chancellor Schröder. He seldom gets reference or credit for it. His first term of office was dominated by populist and opportunistic economic policies, but on his second term of office he was forced to take the bull by the horn and implement radical and unpopular economic reforms. Immediately he was battered at the elections and ended up losing his job. But the policies and reforms laid the foundations on which the current miracles are being performed. 

The Trinity story

In striking resemblance a decade earlier when we were at school each one of us had great pride in being at Trinity but in sports we no longer had the consistency that was expected out of us, it was exactly 10 years ago we lost the Bradby by the biggest margin. (I personally hate to use rugby as the barometer of measuring Trinity’s performance, but using it since it’s the easiest most of us understand and remember) In sports whatever we won during that time were due to the courage, passion, individual brilliances or due to the luxury of having brains like Mr. Quintin Isreal, who manages to out think and ‘out fox’ the opposition with a smart game plan despite having an inferior line up on paper than the opponent.

Fast forward to today, the present day Trinitians had taken the sports pages of local news papers on a long term lease.  The domination has been consistent and remarkable in almost all the sports, which includes Cricket, Rugby, Swimming, Weight lifting, Chess, etc.  Other coaches plot on ways in which they can out fox them on the particular day, since these boys are much better on a man to man basis.

For those who look from a distance it looks as if it 'just happened' or in the cycle of things its Trinity's turn. But having breathed and lived at Trinity, I see this differently. I see this as the net effect of a very strategic approach undertaken more than a decade ago to create a system which creates brilliance. For this matter I guess a lot of credit goes the likes of Prof Breckenridge, Mr. Fonseka, junior school staff, scrummage, cricket foundation and all the others who were the visionaries who created a process of creating champions. If I am not mistaken it was in year 2000 or 2001 a rule was brought in at Junior school which made it mandatory for each student to take part in at least one extracurricular activity and in parallel investments were made on the junior level coaching structures. I can still remember hearing about the kind of resistance that came from parents; since they couldn’t get the kids back home using the same school van on all five days. The action was unpopular at that time but today Trinity reaps what was sown back then.  I can bet on the answer majority of the boys’ of the champion teams would have for the question “When did you start the game?” It will be a cheerful “When I was in Year 2” and its highly likely they would name Mr. Franklin Jacob as the person who taught them to handle the ball (if I remember right he coached both rugby and tennis for year 2 in 2001/2002). 

Strategies have long term repercussions, when the right thing is placed in motion it goes through a process where it builds a snow balling effect and gives glorious outcomes, but when it reaches the crescendo the people who set in motion might not be in the picture and for spectators from the sidelines its only the crescendo that’s visible but the painful process that had to be undertaken to achieve it goes unnoticed.

The goal of this blog is not to take any credit away from the current school administration, just like I mentioned in the case of Chancellor Angela Merkel they deserve all the credit and admiration for leading the lions and nurturing them. At the same time we need remember and acknowledge the contribution these past silent strategist who had done to make Trinity what it is today. Most importantly bear in mind the need to keep this system intact, improve and invest on it, so that this journey of ascendance continues even a decade from now!

The men that tanned the hide of us,

Our daily foes and friends,

They shall not lose their pride of us,

However the journey ends.

Their voice to us who sing of it,

No more its message bears,

But the round world shall ring of it,

And all we are be theirs.