Abhishek Arora might be the baby of the family - he's 14 - but when it comes to technology, he's the grandpa . It's little wonder that when Mohan Lal Arora wants to embed an interactive chart in his PowerPoint presentation, he calls on his son. Ditto for Ruhani Arora , who understands technology but turns to her younger brother for a helping hand every now and then.
The thing is, Abhishek knows computers , and how. He can design websites with HTML, he can work Photoshop like a pro and, if push should come to shove, he can code in C and C++!
Should you have trouble believing any of this, just ask Google. They'll tell you Abhishek is one of 10 winners of this year's Google Code In, an open source competition for pre-university students around the world, or at least anybody who can log onto a computer.
Code In, one of the most prestigious of its kind, booted up on November 21 last year. Open to children between the ages of 13 and 17, it aims at introducing the world of open source software to teenagers.
"I read about it on a Google blog post," says Abhishek, who spends most of his evenings surfing the web. Once in, Abhishek realised he'd found his calling.
Google provides Code In with a platform but the competition is run by third-party organizations that hand out tasks, like coding a piece of software or finishing simulation models.
Each completed task, depending on its level of difficulty , is worth a certain number of points and contestants are expected to accumulate as many points as possible.
The 2011 edition ran for eight weeks before Google went into a huddle with its partners to declare the results. Between November and January, the competition saw 542 students from 56 countries completing 3,054 tasks. The results were announced on February 14. Of the 10 winners, five were from India.
"These 10 pre-university students completed an impressive 449 tasks during the contest," Stephanie Taylor, the Google executive who oversaw the contest, wrote on the company's official blog.
Abhishek, second on the list with 150 points, was the youngest of them all. Shitiz Garg, also from India, topped the list with 200 points. Gaurav Narula, Gautam and Aneesh Dogra are the other winners from India.
Not that it was a cakewalk. The competition took a toll on participants . Abhishek, for example, had to juggle his classes, school assignments, his lawn tennis classes and the Code In tasks.
"There were no strict deadlines since the contest was about finishing as many tasks as possible. That helped. And of course, winter vacation came in handy," says the kid who learnt coding and designing from free tutorials on the web. Once he finishes school, Abhishek wants to work on the next-generation search engine.
"I'm fascinated by search engines and how they work, bringing information to us the minute we want. It could be Google or some other company but I have my sights set on Silicon Valley," he says. Well, he's halfway there. For in June, Google will fly him to its headquarters in Mountain View, California to take part in the prize ceremony and to meet the company's engineers.
Abhishek Arora wins Google's open source competition, 4 other winners also Indians - The Economic Times
Seems like Indians have proven this time.
The thing is, Abhishek knows computers , and how. He can design websites with HTML, he can work Photoshop like a pro and, if push should come to shove, he can code in C and C++!
Should you have trouble believing any of this, just ask Google. They'll tell you Abhishek is one of 10 winners of this year's Google Code In, an open source competition for pre-university students around the world, or at least anybody who can log onto a computer.
Code In, one of the most prestigious of its kind, booted up on November 21 last year. Open to children between the ages of 13 and 17, it aims at introducing the world of open source software to teenagers.
"I read about it on a Google blog post," says Abhishek, who spends most of his evenings surfing the web. Once in, Abhishek realised he'd found his calling.
Google provides Code In with a platform but the competition is run by third-party organizations that hand out tasks, like coding a piece of software or finishing simulation models.
Each completed task, depending on its level of difficulty , is worth a certain number of points and contestants are expected to accumulate as many points as possible.
The 2011 edition ran for eight weeks before Google went into a huddle with its partners to declare the results. Between November and January, the competition saw 542 students from 56 countries completing 3,054 tasks. The results were announced on February 14. Of the 10 winners, five were from India.
"These 10 pre-university students completed an impressive 449 tasks during the contest," Stephanie Taylor, the Google executive who oversaw the contest, wrote on the company's official blog.
Abhishek, second on the list with 150 points, was the youngest of them all. Shitiz Garg, also from India, topped the list with 200 points. Gaurav Narula, Gautam and Aneesh Dogra are the other winners from India.
Not that it was a cakewalk. The competition took a toll on participants . Abhishek, for example, had to juggle his classes, school assignments, his lawn tennis classes and the Code In tasks.
"There were no strict deadlines since the contest was about finishing as many tasks as possible. That helped. And of course, winter vacation came in handy," says the kid who learnt coding and designing from free tutorials on the web. Once he finishes school, Abhishek wants to work on the next-generation search engine.
"I'm fascinated by search engines and how they work, bringing information to us the minute we want. It could be Google or some other company but I have my sights set on Silicon Valley," he says. Well, he's halfway there. For in June, Google will fly him to its headquarters in Mountain View, California to take part in the prize ceremony and to meet the company's engineers.
Abhishek Arora wins Google's open source competition, 4 other winners also Indians - The Economic Times
Seems like Indians have proven this time.
