The Great Indian Media Circus

This does not involve any sort of discourse on the sensationalistic and yellow nature that most papers and channels are acquiring. It instead involves the tight-rope walking and hanging upside-down from a trapeze trying to contact the media to cover the ACE quiz 2008. Asha taught me the basics of media more than three years of an undergrad degree in Journalism could teach.

All's well that ends well. So channels did turn up to cover the event on D-day. Papers did carry bulletins on the ACE quiz in the run-up to the event. The crazy number of phone calls and e-mails paid off. Hallelujah and Hark! The Herald Angels sing!

However, an accident ho gaya moment in the media circus came on June 14th when a reporter from a channel asked if she could speak to a few participants on the ACE quiz experience. "Sure! Let me go inside and check, if any participants are willing to speak to the camera!" I opened the door and saw two participants whom I knew. "Hey! Here are a couple of participants!" And I turned to the reporter, just about to introduce them to her, when a zero-watt bulb did a little fire-fly dance in the dimbulb brain. "Oh! And these participants are leaving!" I announced cheerfully to the reporter, avoided meeting their gaze and walked on inside, found other people who agreed to speak and led them out. A near disaster was averted. It was unarguably a slightly blonde moment. The participants whom I earlier met near the exit, were from another local news channel. :-o

Thank you.

Finally iRevna, the team from Chennai blew away the competition 2nd year in a row. A big thank you to all the participants, sponsors, media folks, ISB, audience members & volunteers. The day started brightly and finished in a somewhat chaotic manner. Here is a quick summary:

Thumbs up -

• Phase Forward team (Rajiv, Saroja and team) who were very supportive throughout, managing to do the TV interviews at such a short notice and even finding time to treat the RUPS kids to idlis, dosas & pastries.
• Dance programme by RUPS kids
• Packed audi for most of the event
• Spectacular quizzing - engaging questions and where-did-that-come-from answers
• ISB arrangements (everything laid out properly) & support staff (very prompt and professional).

Thumbs sideways-

• Late start to the quiz. We started around 2 pm.
• Mini-confusion while handing over the check to RUPS. Everyone except Ravi (myself included) were kind of rooted to the spot.

Thumbs down -

• Saying "thats all we have for you today" twice before the show actually was supposed to end

That's all from me. Not sure whether this blog will continue or morph into something else. Its been fun, no?

Lights, Camera, QUESTION!

Calling all ye quizzing mavens from lands far, wide & from lazy suburbia,

Calling all seekers of answers of arcania,

Drop all your weekend chores,

Head towards the Gachibowli shores,

Hasten, don't be late,

for Phase Forward ACE 2008!


There, now you have rhyme along with reason. What are you still waiting for? :)

High Fives - answers

1. Which English word owes its origin to a Hindu God and the legend of his unstoppable chariot?
Ans - Juggernaut from Lord Jagannath

2. Bhoot Jalokia is the name given to a food item grown in some parts of North East India. What rare distinction does this item have?
Ans - Bhoot Jalokia is a variety of chilly. Recently, it was found to be the hottest chilly in the world.

3. Connect the Hollywood star Guy Pearce, the film actress Jyothika and Aamir Khan.
Ans - The connection is the Tamil film Gajni. Guy Pearce acted in the English original. Jyothika is married to Surya the actor who played the lead in Gajni. Aamir Khan is making a Hindi version of Gajni (or Memento).

4. Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. However which city did it start its journey from? Think Doordarshan :)
Ans - Albuquerque, New Mexico. I remember there was a news reader in Doordarshan with the last name. Never did figure out how to spell it out though!

5. In business terms, what is a cold chain?
Ans - Cold chain refers to the supply chain processes devised to preserve & transport perishable goods over a long distance. For e.g. McDonalds sources its raw materials from farms all over India, like lettuce from farms in Pune. To ensure freshness, the company has to provide cold storages, refrigerated trucks etc.

This is the stuff legends are made of

To,
The Contributors of
A Quiz for a Cause blog,

Dear Sir/Madam,

All cultures have their own legends about the origins of this. In ancient Persia, it was taken from the heart of rock by a hunter’s misdirected arrow. For the Dakota Indians, it was struck from the Earth by the claws of a jaguar-god. For the Aztecs, it originated from the Sun. In Polynesia, Maui is said to have brought it up from the bowels of the Earth. According to some Australian tribes, it was discovered by women while the men were away hunting-they then hid it within their bodies when the men returned.** According to the Greeks, it was brought down by somebody who chose not to ally with the Olympians. What are we talking about here?





Tell, tell?







Think, no?





No, we are not looking for an incendiary answer. (Or are we?)






Alright, give up?




Answer: Sex. :D

This was an answer given by one of the participants at an internal quiz conducted by Asha volunteers (Yamini, Siddharth, Ludwig and Pavan), at a company recently, for selecting teams to the final edition of ACE 2008. The answer, Fire, is workable even if one has not heard the legends. Extremely creative responses were dished out to the twenty questions set. But this one was unarguably the most hilarious! We sat in Yamini’s car cackling and hooting with laughter for at least five minutes. Alas, we don’t have the original copy with us. It would have made for a good souvenir.:) However, the absence of evidence does make this incident a Legend. “Long, long ago, when our forefathers were young, four volunteers conducted an internal quiz at…”:p

** We read this line out in the car after the quiz and truly went bonkers this time around.:)

Spot-o the typo

Some of you may have seen the poster we have designed for Phase Forward ACE 2008. There is actually a cute-sy little spelling mistake there. Because of lack of time, we could not get around to fixing it.

Lets see if you can spot it! :)

High Fives

Now that we just have 1 day left for the quiz, here are some teasers to get you into the mood -

1. Which English word owes its origin to a Hindu God and the legend of his unstoppable chariot?

2. Bhoot Jalokia is the name given to a food item grown in some parts of North East India. What rare distinction does this item have?

3. Connect the Hollywood star Guy Pearce, the film actress Jyothika and Aamir Khan.

4. Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington. However which city did it start its journey from? Think Doordarshan :)

5. In business terms, what is a cold chain?

Watch this space for answers!

Short story

Story begins.


You are a bird. You sing very well. Every bird, worm & bug in the same tree as you are enchanted with your voice. You want to tell the world that you can sing in the sweetest voice imaginable. But try as you might, you can't find anyone who can take your message to the world.


Suddenly, one fine morning you get a call from the most respected bird song writer group. They have heard that you sing well and want to tell the world about your singing.


Also, as a bird, you may be not very prone to excitement. However, the call from the song writing group has left you jumping up and down from every branch of your tree.


Story ends.


Someone from The Hindu contacted us today. They want to write an article on ASHA Hyderabad.

Small step for man

There is still some speculation as to what was said by Mr. Armstrong when he landed on the moon. Whether or not he said the actual phrase is immaterial, in retrospect. What is important is things were never the same again for space travel.

39 years after man set foot on the moon, something equally momentous and paradigm-shifting is about to happen tomorrow morning. Radio City, Hyderabad will announce the Phase Forward ACE 2008 during its morning & evening shows. Also, our promos will be aired between 9.15 am to 9.40 am. One can only hope that things will get bigger from here on. Of course, we need to be mindful on keeping our roots firmly on the ground while we reach for the sky.

One can choose to be cynical and say that we are not talking about the Super Bowl, or that such announcements come dime-a-d0zen. Thats not the point. Credibility for the event is only one side of the story. What's important is that this milestone has been achieved by a group of volunteers & companies who have only 1 thing in common. Which is, the belief that every child is entitled to basic education, food & shelter. That every child irrespective of their background or caste or religion has the right to dream to be a doctor, engineer, pilot or cricketer.*

And it is really heartening to see that as we extend our hands and look for partnerships, corporate India is extending theirs too. We are seeing ample evidence of companies willing to contribute freely towards what they believe is a genuinely good cause. In some cases people are coming on their own and adding to the effort. Then it becomes academic whether you call it Corporate Social Responsibility or simply Do Good.

* I once spoke to a little girl who is living in a residential school for poor children in Bidar, Karnataka. I asked her what she would like to become after growing up. Her answer was simple and straightforward. She wanted to run a school similar to the one she herself was living in. :)

5 days to go

Now that we are within striking distance of the quiz, things have really started hotting up. Along with an clearly upward trend on the participation (more on this below), planning has started for the D-Day. Who's going to man (or person, for gender-neutrality :)) the various desks, who will help check the papers, who does the speeches etc. would need to be sorted out soon.

As you may be aware, this time, we have been very fortunate to have been chosen by our valued sponsors. In addition we have our media partners who will cover the event LIVE. We would surely love to have more folks helping in the arrangements. Just drop an email to ace2008@ashaindia.org with "Wish to volunteer for Phase Forward ACE 2008" as the subject line and we will get back to you at the earliest. Please note that you would need entry passes for the event. So please get in touch early in case you wish to help out.

So far, we have around 45 confirmed teams. These include the who's who of the IT industry (Wipro, Microsoft, Google, SAP, Infosys etc.). NVidia, the brains behind the lush & sharp displays of notebooks worldwide is sending 6 teams (clap, clap). Meanwhile, registrations are still coming in, at a rate of 3-4 per day. Since we allow teams to register on-the-spot, we wouldn't know the final count till after the quiz. We have at least 1 out-station team. NTPC, one of only 10 Navaratnas in the Indian public sector is sending 2 teams all the way from apni Dilli.

We have all the ingredients of a thriller: the best brains pitted against each other in an august setting, live media coverage carrying the emotions to lakhs of listeners across Hyderabad and prizes worth more than Rs. 50,000 at stake. Did I mention the wonderful kids from RUPS who will be there cheering the teams? And you thought IPL was exciting!

P.S. What will it take for Federer to beat Nadal at Roland Garros? An extra "e" in his name? Nadal playing right-handed? More suggestions welcome :)

Blog trivia

Hey Guys,
Here are some interesting facts about our blog - (all figures courtesy of Google Analytics)

1. We just reached 100 visitors on the blog!!! A sincere thank you to all the readers.

2. The average time being spent on the site is 5 1/2 minutes.

3. As expected Hyderabad tops the list of cities with 29 visits so far.

4. 2nd comes London! It shows 19 visits. Not sure how many are from folks working at our diamond sponsor Phase Forward.

5. There were 3 visits from a town called Fishkill in NY, US :)

6. There was 2 visits from Linux based machines and 1 from a machine with SymbianOS.

7. The split for FireFox vs IE is 33:66. Who knows, maybe this is the same as their market shares. :)

Of football and cricket

As we are just coming out of the IPL daze (what else do you call something that keeps men away from news & women away from the daily soaps) and into the European Championship, here are a couple of questions that spring up:

1. Why does it require to re-invent the game of cricket every 5 years or so? The format of football has been a constant for decades now. Were the makers of football exceptionally far-sighted to have invented a timeless game?

2. Both cricket and football came to us via the Brits. So why does cricket occupy such a large part of our psyche while football continues to languish.

Any thoughts?

Note to all Hyderabad-based participants: Please let us know ASAP if you had a holiday on Friday because of the bandh etc. and expect to work on the 14th.

whatte Fun!

Here's a Friday teaser to all those quizzers out there. Which brand connects the US Emergency phone number, the first private version of its kind in India and the company Music Broadcast Pvt. Ltd.

If it helps, this brand is present in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vizag, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Sholapur, Sangli, Pune, Ahmednagar and Akola (phew!)

Give up? - why, its our esteemed media partner Radio City!

Radio City rules the airwaves on 91.1 MHz, it started the first private FM station in Bangalore on July 3 (just 2 days after my birthday, he he) 2001 and is owned by the company Music Broadcast Pvt. Ltd. What truly sets the channel apart from other run-of-the mill stations is that it has more than song & dance in store for listeners. For e.g. programs like City Spice & Meeru Nanu help women achieve their full potential, both at work and home. Of course, when people just want to unwind, Radio City Joyride makes a hard day's night as pleasurable as a Whatte Fun Morning.

It is really great to see the channel willing to publicize Phase Forward ACE 2008 on their shows. They have even agreed to cover the event live. That's surely a FIRST for us.

Echoing Ludwig's sentiments, hope this is the start of another beautiful friendship. :)

Tackling child labor

From http://blackboxes.odeum.com/en/asia_in_school/labour/facts_about_child_labour.htm

Half of the world's child workers live in Asia.
According to UNICEF, in India alone there are 44 million children working.
Children are forced to work because of poverty, local customs and lack of schools.
Child workers are often working under dangerous conditions. Especially girls are more exposed to dangerous working conditions because they begin to work at an earlier age than boys. Moreover girls tend to have longer working days than boys.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of ASHA Hyderabad's projects is NICE (Needy Illiterate Children's Education). The aim of NICE is to provide Food, Shelter, Health and Career path of children presently being employed as child labor, orphans, etc. One of the most common reasons parents push children into labor is because they cant afford the education expenses. However, projects like NICE ensure that children get access to education free of cost. That way, they can rid themselves of the vicious cycle of proverty and look to a better future. You can read more about NICE here.

ACE 2007 - poster

For the history buffs, here is the poster from the last edition of ACE:

All about "posturing"

We never realized that the changing sponsorship fortunes would have such an impact on all our decisions. One of the worst hit, of course, was the poster. We had these grandiose plans that we would have the posters ready well in advance this year; and that we would display them at every nook and corner, and also hand them out every time we contacted an organization for participation.

To be honest we did have the first cut of the poster ready rather early, thanks to Deepti and the other Sid. We, of course, didn't do anything about it. About a month back, once the diamond sponsors were confirmed, we started to look into it. We didn't really like the first draft too much, so a lot of changes were asked for. And of course, the logo of our sponsor had to appear as well.

Just as we were finalizing this, we got more sponsorships and media partners. One of our sponsors came forward to pay for printing the poster. More changes - so that we could get their logo in as well. At this point, Deepti and Rashmi came up with two designs. The more the choices the more difficult it is to make a decision, isn't it? We had the same problem. We just couldn't decide which one to choose. We deliberated, discussed and ruminated before we finally settled on one.

The final poster? Of course, that wasn't it. This is when we started to work on our media partners. We met Radio City and NTV. And then we waited for them to confirm. Radio City got back to us with an affirmation rather quickly. So the poster changed yet again.

This should have been the final one, isn't it? Not to be. This is when out of the blue Ludwig staged a coup - convinced Odyssey to step in and support us. Space was a major constraint on the poster and we weren't sure how we were going to put in all these logos. There was still NTV to confirm they would support us. We also started to get worried about the time left - did we have enough time to put the posters up?

Well, we had to do the best of the time we had left. So, with just two weeks to go, thanks to Ajit, the posters were finally ready.

Before I sign off I should, of course, express my heartfelt thanks to Deepti and Rashmi, who quietly put up with our continuous demands for changes and patiently delivered all the time. You guys truly did a great job!

For those interested, this is what the poster looks like now. Not to worry, there won't be any more changes done to this.

The deceiving clouds

Remember that song in Lagaan - Ghanana ghanana, where the entire village starts to sway and dance with glee as they notice dark, rain clouds at a distance? And remember what happens at the end of the song? - the clouds just deceive.

As Ludwig so rightly mentioned here, when it rains it does pour. But there are also times when clouds just deceive. This year just when we decided not to run after corporates for sponsorships we were inundated with calls from them offering to sponsor the event. There were moments when we were so overwhelmed that we had to tell ourselves that this indeed was happening . We even talked about putting a stop to accepting sponsorship requests.

But not all calls were converted. One fine morning we received a mail from someone from a multi-national bank with just one line: "We want to sponsor the event. Please call." We judiciously followed up; called the person, set up a meeting and went to talk to him as well. It fizzled out only because we couldn't offer them what they wanted. This was much after we had already landed our diamond sponsor. Which is probably why we weren't too worried. If it weren't for them and if we were in the same state as every year, would we have responded differently. We wouldn't know, would we?

And then there was another, a corporate to whom we had only sent the participation details. The lady who called asked us to send her all the sponsorship package details. We did. And never heard from her again (we probably should take a closer look at the sponsorship document to see if there is anything that puts off people). A couple of reminder emails later, she at least confirmed that one team would participate.

We also wrote to a few companies outside of Hyderabad - again, for participation. One person we heard from was wonderful - he said he couldn't send outstation teams because of the travel costs involved; but he would definitely look into some kind of sponsorship support. Promptly the sponsorship package details went to him. He wrote back, thankfully - putting us on to the HR at their Hyderabad office. Well, they didn't really agree to "sponsor" the event, but upped their participation from 3 teams last year to 6 this year. Better still, they actually qualified for the early bird offer, but when they made the cheque they plain forgot about it. We pointed out the mistake, but they weren't too worried about it. We had no complaints, of course!

ACE 2020 - a preview

Hardly 3 weeks left till the start of the quiz and so many things left to do. Making a list here so that nothing gets missed...

1. Need to create more awareness in Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. Last year we had only one team from Oz.

2. The team from GE, Brazil has sent their DNA and a request for 4 live ports. Someone needs to scan the samples and create avatars.

3. Need to ask someone to pick up the trophy on the way back from Mexico. Hope they dont get us confused with the Oscar Awards again this year. We still have some statuettes lying in Major's apartment.

4. Space TV has also shown interest in becoming the media partner. Their best offer is to beam our name over the Atlantic. Need to check with Galactic Broadcasting Corporation if they have a better offer.

5. The venue has not yet been confirmed yet. Voice signals are not being responded to.

6. Personal - need to watch the taping of this years Champions League finals again. Especially Sir Alex's rantings at the poor refs. Hilarious it was esp. the stick waving.

When It Rains, It Pours

And this isn't even a post on the weather, Subir's got that covered.

I'm talking about sponsorship and publicity for ACE. In 2006 and 2007, we started talking about and planning for ACE pretty early. Emails went out in early March, the first meetings more or less corresponded with the death anniversary of Julius Caesar, and by the time early April rolled around (bright eyed and bushy tailed) we would shoot off emails and phone calls to all and sundari (who was utterly mystified) asking them to sponsorship.

Then started struggle. Why? Mails sent, calls made, sponsors absent. Sooner or later, we (i.e. the hapless Asha Hyd volunteers) would go into a sort of With Or Without You mode as far as sponsors were concerned. In 2007, we lucked out in the nick of time, thanks to the generosity of unexpected well-wishers and all said and done were nicely covered by the day of the event.

This year was different right from the start. The perseverance of the last few years at Asha Hyderabad seems to have paid off, our Diamond Sponsor found us, rather than the other way round, and so far we seem to gel nicely with each other. The beginnings of a beautiful friendship? These guys have been in town for a while, but now want to be proactive about being seen as a socially responsible and intellectually oriented corporate. And thanks to the kindness of friends and strangers, we have Hyderabad's top site, one of India's top FM radio channels, and one of India's top bookstores involved.

Which explains the title of this post. This should be the biggest and bestest ACE yet, but we'll know in 2 weeks, won't we?

Question of the day.

In the context of Indian quizzing, 2 gentlemen have done more to popularize the game more than anyone else. Both Siddhartha Basu & Derek O'Brien are household names, the former starting with Doordarshan & the latter via BQC. Mr.Basu always seems to bestow a certain dignity to the quiz with his formality. No one who spends 5 minutes watching him conduct a quiz would doubt that a serious sport is going on. Its interesting though that he was the brain behind the mega-popular KBC. On the other hand, with his trademark enthusiasm & unending wisecracks, Derek manages to create a bond with everyone present. Having had the pleasure of seeing him work first hand, i can assure that he knows the pulse of the audience. But if you had to, which one would choose as the best quiz master of Indian television?
Stay tuned for an update on the teams who have signed up so far for ACE 2008.

Its raining in Kerela!

No, we are not playing favorite-movie-quotes type of thing here. :)
Since it has started raining in God's own country, the wise men in the weather dept. have declared that the annual south-west monsoon is here. And peering into their fancy crystal balls (or their supercomputer screens, if you don't believe in prophecies) they expect rains in Hyderabad by the start of next week. This should surely help in bringing the mercury down in time for the quiz. Don't expect things to be any cooler inside the auditorium, though! The best quizzing brains are just getting warmed up for the event. Till then, so long sunshine, wilkommen water..

How the website was won

Those of you who have visited the website would have noted the clean & nifty interface. I especially like the little tabs that let you navigate to the content instead of scrolling endlessly. However, till last week we hardly had anything up. Along with lack of volunteer time, things seemed to have got stuck because of some design approach differences. Everyone knew that it was absolutely imperative that the site be up before we even uttered the word ACE in public. Finally, thanks to "kind" words of motivation from some of the folks & the amazing efforts of the web team, the site was up & ready. Things are still changing though. Adding a sponsor here, a media partner there still keeps the team on its toes.
For history buffs here is the 2007 website.
Prep

Welcome to the Phase Forward ACE 2008 quiz blog!

Phase Forward ACE 2008 is Asha Hyderbad’s annual fund-raising Corporate Quiz, a battle among the best brains from Hyderabad’s corporate houses. Asha Hyderabad is delighted to partner with Phase Forward and the Indian School of Business (ISB) to bring this premier quizzing event to the people of Hyderabad. The quiz will be conducted by Quizerati, a leading group of quizmasters.
The proceeds from the 2008 edition of ACE will go primarily for the mid-day meal programme at the Ramakrishna Upper Primary School (RUPS) and also to other projects supported by Asha Hyderabad.

This blog is your window into the "behind the scenes" activities. Along with participation updates, you will also get a chance to meet & hear from the tireless folks who are making the event happen. We may also go down memory lane to visit past quizzes. So here we go....