Techonomix

"We're making a version of Hangman using
images ," says 21-year-old Sumit
Mulchandani. Sumit and his classmates
Akshay Sharma and Akash Giri are from the
Vellore Institute of Technology and were in
the city to participate in a app-a-thon held
last week at KTPO in Whitefield, Bangalore.
The trio was huddled around laptops as
they pounded away on a development
program. "We've already built this app for
the Windows Phone," said a proud Sumit.
"We are trying to tweak it so that it works
as well on the larger canvas provided by
Windows 8."
Microsoft, Blackberry, Yahoo, Facebook and
Samsung are among those trying to tap
into Indian developers . And increasingly,
"Catch them young" is the motto.
Sumit, Akshay and Akash are three of the
beneficiaries of Microsoft's big push
towards getting more and more students to
work with its development tools. Microsoft
is acutely aware that it lags behind tablet
market leader Apple in terms of the sheer
number of applications available for the
platform. Unlike competing tablet operating
systems iOS and Android, Microsoft's
strategy is "PC down" versus "Mobile Up" .
It's logical , considering that the PC
platform has many more applications than
the Windows mobile platform. But it
remains to be seen whether those
applications can be made Windows 8 and
tablet compatible fast enough.
Yahoo has been hosting hackathons in
Bangalore to get developers to use their
technology to develop applications. They
hosted their fifth edition of the event in
Bangalore in August. "Bangalore's hacks
are always looked forward to because of
the amount of innovation they bring,"
Arunav Sinha, head of corporate
communications for Yahoo, had said during
the event. The event saw 730 developers,
who submitted an impressive 157 hacks at
the end of a 24-hour coding session.
"Last year (at Yahoo's hackathon), the
theme was the web, but this year it was
mobile devices. Everyone is trying to come
up with an app that can combine social
and mobile elements," said Sandeep
Bhaskar of Ideaphone, a startup that
developed a carpooling app.
Facebook hosted "World Hack" in
Bangalore earlier this month. The event
saw about 175 developers creating apps for
Facebook. "It's surprising we weren't here
earlier," said Bear Douglas, developer
advocate for Facebook. Bear was
coordinating the event and making sure
that the coders were getting information on
Facebook's technologies, permissions and
APIs "We had some issues with our beta
version when it came to permissions , but
we got it sorted out here at the event,"
says Vishnu Govind, a developer at the
event who was working on an app which
would give a better social stratification of
your friends on Facebook.
Douglas said that the India leg of World
Hack generated a lot of interest in Android
and Web based applications for Facebook.
The US leg saw developments on iOS
platforms.
Microsoft's New England Research and
Development Center (NERD) hosted a paid
12-week internship program between June
to August this year. Selected interns
underwent a boot camp, mentoring and
training, and produced six programs at the
end of their training, including a Fedex
package tracking program, an alarm clock
and a game that involves penguins and
aircraft.
The VIT team is a beneficiary of a Microsoft
program called Dreamspark. Dreamspark is
a program that's open to students,
teachers and educational institutions.
At KPTO, Mayra Dolos was hunched over
her laptop, working on a video streaming
application. Mayra is from Pune. She is the
kind of enthusiast that any software
company would love. "I'm a huge fan of
Microsoft. I was a Microsoft Student
Partner," she says proudly. "I went through
a rigorous selection process - there were
four levels of selection and now I'm
spreading the message of Microsoft
Technologies," she says with evangelical
fervour.
Her partner, Mandar Kulkarni nods. He was
working on a game called Tilt - using
motion sensors. "I gave up a better paying
job with Oracle Financials so that I could
work with Microsoft Technologies," he says.
Mayra nods. She gave up a better paying
job with Sears to work with Microsoft.