Digicorp Events Blog

oDesk site of the month contest

June 8th, 2009 § 1

oDesk site of the month contest is here and we are excited about this one in particular. Why? because one of the site which we designed and developed from scratch is there in the contention.

The site is “i.was.there” and it is an excellent site for music lovers. Check out the site and vote for it below if you think it is worth it. You can rate live music and do many more things here.

After you click on the badge above, click on “Vote Now” button to see the list of the sites in contention. Find “i.was.there” from the list (it has black logo with white text) and click on “Vote Now”.

Looking forward to your vote

“The Pink Panther” show

June 3rd, 2009 § 12

Yeah! it was the first time but it did happen. We organized our first ever inhouse movie show and guess what! we had lots and lots of fun.

The Pink Panther

As the title suggests movie was “The Pink Panther” and it was my choice by the way. Those of you who have seen the movie know how “Fuunny” it is! and those of you who have not, you should just go and watch that movie first after reading this post

Well the start of the event was equally wonderful when Nachiket took the stage and introduced “Digicorp Manifesto 2009-10″ to everyone. It provides brief idea about our vision for Digicorp for the year 2009-10. I have attached the presentation here.

After that the movie started and everyone enjoyed it from the first scene of the movie.

But the icing on the cake was “Dry Paneer Manchurian”, “Cutlet” and “Pepsi” which were sponsored by Kuntal. Basically the smart guy merged his birthday party (which was due) here. Anyways it was good to have it while watching the movie and not on the terrace.

Those of you who are jealous can choose to become even more by watching the photographs below

We are planning to make this a regular affair and have one movie show at least once a month. What say? any other ideas to make work more fun?

Seminar on .NET Framework and Silverlight Basics

May 12th, 2009 § 9

Few days back we were invited to give a 1.5 hours seminar on .NET Framework fundamentals and Silverlight basics in Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University.

Virat who is a project manager and Dhruval who is a very bright and enthusiastic developer of our .NET team grabbed the opportunity thrown at them.

They had to prepare a presentation in very short time but I must say they did wonderful job.

I was also part of the audience and I was enlightened to learn few details about the .NET Framework 3.5 and Silverlight.

We thank PDPU for this opportunity and look forward to have such interactions in future. The audience was wonderful and we had fun!

Presentation is embedded here:

.NET Framework and Silverlight Basics

View more presentations from Abhishek Desai.

Photographs are as below:

virat-and-dhruval-explaining-linq

employees-of-deendayal-university

virat-and-dhruval-explaining-fundamentals-of-net-framework

employees-of-deendayal-university-1

DCL-II Final Match

April 9th, 2009 § 0

After much excitement and uncertainty we have arrived at the teams who will play in Final tomorrow of DCL – II (it is not an official version ).

We have Tigers vs Panthers in Final tomorrow. If you are wondering how this happened check below calculation.

1) Lions v Tigers

Lions
91 -14 (6.5) Lions (+0.0714)
Tigers
90 – 14 (6.4286) Tigers(-0.0714)

2) Tigers vs Panthers

Tigers
89 – 14 (6.3571) Tigers (+1.5984)
Panthers
67 – 14 (4.7587) Panthers (-1.5984)

3) Panthers vs Lions

Panthers
88 – 12 (7.3333) Panthers (+1.119)
Lions
87 – 14 (6.2143) Lions (-1.119)

So final NRR is as below

Lions -1.0476
Panthers -0.4794
Tigers +1.527

I know my team members Lions are sad because of this bizarre calculation of NRR but that’s the way it is. We have to accept with sportsman spirit and lets cheer up for Tigers or Panther tomorrow.

Hoping to see you all at 6:45 AM tomorrow Don’t miss the thrilling match between these 2 wonderful teams.

Treasure Hunt 2009!!!

March 2nd, 2009 § 13

In line with our tradition, we are back again with the Treasure Hunt 2009!!!

Last year in february 2008 we had it in our half constructed office with six teams and six members in each team.

Well, this time Auda Garden, Prahladnagar was the epicenter for the event. Minal and i brain stormed for a while and thought of framing the clues in and around Auda garden, including some entertainment arenas like Fun Republic, Wide Angle, CineMax, Food Junction like Bawarchi, Cakes N Bakes, Lush, Karnavati Club in addition to the shopping marts like Gulmohar park, Iskon Mall and even the impenetrable areas like Satellite Police Station, AMA and IIM.

Now you can imagine how difficult it would have been framing the clues and actually affixing them at relevant places.

The event was scheduled on 28th February,9:00 a.m. @ Prahladnagar garden with all of them divided into eight teams (Pink, Fluroscent Green, Yellow, Orange, Green, Beige, Light Green & Rust), and seven members in each. The funniest part was on the same day at around 8:45 a.m., we were still left out with 10-15 clues to be clipped. Thanx to our dear directors (Kuntal, Abhishek, Sanket & Nachiket) that they somehow managed to place the clues in time.

Some of the clues were quite traditional while the others outlandish. Here are some examples of simple and twisted clues:

B
O
B O O K S
K
S (Crossword)

chaurahe pe baith ke C roma
ta ta mat kar
C roma c roma
(Croma)

From japan to USA
Infinite is my reach
solid is my performance
but lonely in this city i am
(Infinium)

It was complete hustle-bustle with the rollicking teams looking for the clues everywhere. Inspite of the jumbled up clues, the promptness that the teams showed in solving them was clearly throwing an in sight on the team spirit and the bonding wide spread amongst the digicorp employees.

There was cut throat competition amongst all the teams; finally it was the Beige (Vishal Shukla, Kuldip, Nayan, Nishant, Darshna, Deepak, Rohit Dubaria) team that stealed the show.

Catch the excitement live, here are a few snapshots of the event…..

Congratulations to the winning team, I hope you n’joyed the Treasure Lunch(Hunt) @ Lush.

Lastly thankyou Minal for those mysterious clues; directors as well for riding the rails at 7:00 in the morning and sticking up the clues; and not to forget hetavi’s sleepless night in triming the clues.

I hope you all enjoyed the event and would like you all to put up your experiences by dropping in your invaluable comments.

Amitabh Bachchan Visits Digicorp!!

February 17th, 2009 § 8

Tomorrow we will officially complete 1 year at our new office. We call it “Digicorp House”. And after one year I can say it is almost complete now and there won’t be any new construction work in near future.

So now we have lot of different areas in our office where various team members sit together. We have .NET cabin, PHP cabin, Conference room, HR cabin, Lunch area, Gaming room, Server room, PM cabin, Business development cabin, Reception etc. So there was a need to name each of these cabins properly to avoid confusion.

We thought about naming them after Indian rivers, mountains, Mahabharata names and all those traditional stuff most of the companies are doing.

But then there was no fun, no uniqueness to it. So Payal and I brainstormed for a while and here is the idea!!

“We name them after some great movies of Amitabh Bachchan, arguably the greatest actor of this millennium. ”

So here are final names

1 ) Server Room -> Sholay
(as there is too much heat and noise from the servers all the time)

2 ) .NET cabin -> Deewar
(D for Dot Net, D for Deewar)

3 ) PHP cabin -> Pukar
(Same logic as above)

4 ) Sanket and Nachiket cabin – Trishul
(This is one of my favorite movie)

5 ) Conference room – Shakti
(Give us strength to work after meeting )

6 ) Director’s cabin – Don
(Well we are wanted at least in 11 countries )

7 ) PM Cabin – ShehanShah
(Messiahs to save the projects )

8 ) HR Cabin – Sarkar
(As the name suggests HR is the Sarkar who pays us)

9 ) Gaming Room – The Great Gambler
(One of the most favorite areas of developers)

10 ) Reception – Lawaris
(Most of the time there is no one over there )

I hope Amitabh Bachchan visits some of this areas himself one day Just kidding guys, Let me know how did you find this idea and the names?

PS: Vishal (Sr. Developer, PHP) wrote wonderful reply to my mail about these names. Read it in comments.

Innovations & E-Presence, Amalgamation & Resolutions Summarizing the year 2008

January 9th, 2009 § 0

The year 2008 is over now and again it is time for a post summarizing the year at Digicorp. But this time Payal, Sanket and Nachiket has done most of the job for me.

They have created one beautiful newsletter highlighting main events of Digicorp. Check out the newsletter here.

Digicorp Cricket League 2008

January 6th, 2009 § 8

3 people having lunch on a normal day, spark of an idea and that’s the birth of Digicorp Cricket League (DCL).

I was so excited about the idea that in a day we (Mehul and I) decided three teams and names of the teams

1) Lions

2) Tigers

3) Panthers

I love these names as it reminds me of my school time (St. Xavier’s Loyola) where 4 dens were there. 4th one was Bears. But here we could make only 3 teams of 11 players out of more than 40 guys in the company. I was in Lions den in those days so I had to be in Lions team here.

Obviously girls were at a loss this time but I did make it up for the loss after the league.

All the matches were kept on the weekdays to avoid disturbance on the big public University Ground.

On Saturday, Sunday it is impossible to play on University Ground for most of you out there but people who do play on that ground can not play anywhere else. Energy flow on this ground is so high you simply can not miss that. This ground needs another post of its own so I will not go into details here. Perhaps someone can write a thesis on this lovely ground of Ahmedabad.

All three teams were quite equal in strength and thank you Mehul for helping me in that. League matches were of 14 overs each and Final was of 16 overs. All matches were played on the hard tennis ball.

First match was held between Lions and Tigers on Friday. Match started early morning at 7:30 and kicked off DCL.

Tigers won the match quite convincingly thank to their captain Nilesh’s performance. Nilesh was man of the match.

Second match was between Tigers and Panthers on Monday and Panthers lost the match in the last over by an inch.

So that makes an interesting, jaw dropping, do or die match between Lions and Panthers as both lost to Tigers in their league matches. Only a win was a way to get into finals.

As promised match started with sheer excitement and Lions scored well batting first. Panthers started well and played well till the end but again their bad luck came to haunt them in the last over. Panthers again lost in last over but they won hearts of everyone including mine.

So now comes the Final between Lions and Tigers. Tigers were favorites for the final as they had won both the league matches but Lions were roaring to take revenge of the first match loss.

Tigers won the toss and elected to bat first. They scored 86 runs in 16 over which is a very good score on that pitch and ground. Target of 87 runs look tough but achievable as Lions had good batting line up.

Lions fumbled early on but one person in the team stood the ground. That was Samarth and whole team had high hopes for him. He did not play well in first 2 matches so he had to play this time. He was there till the end. 14 runs were needed of the last 2 overs and he was the only recognised batsman on the ground at that time.

But there comes a part time bowler of Tigers team which was severly missing one full time bowler and Samarth hits a GIANT GIANT six in that over. Well 11 runs were scored in that over and only 3 runs were required in the last over. Aryaman took the last over but it was too late and Lions won the nail biting final of DCL.

That makes a glorious end of 2008 for Digicorp and Lions . With great hopes and aspirations we are entering a new year 2009 now.

Happy New Year to all of you and thank you for reading this article.

Don’t forget to check out the Photos of prize ceremony held on the same day at Digicorp House.

Team Building Activities 2008

October 23rd, 2008 § 7

Apology for not updating for soo long…recently we have done 2 exciting events at Digicorp one of which is explained here…

29th of September 2008 and the day has come. I was waiting for this day very eagerly as I had read lot about team building and other motivational stuff lately.

Payal and I had worked hard to find out proper games for which will suit our company and its people.

We shortlisted following games:

1) Do you know me? (15 to 25 mins)
- make groups of 12 people
- make them tightly coupled with each other
- ask them to introduce themselves and
- A proud moment in your work or personal life,
- Something most people do not know about you,
- Interviewer’s choice of any question.
• What is your favourite season?
• What colour are your eyes?
• What’s your shoe size?
• What type of shoes are your wearing?
• What’s your favourite colour
• What’s your star sign?
• Which leg do you put into your pants first?
• Which eye do you prefer to wink with?
• Which side of the bed (left or right) do you get out of in the morning?

2) Do you know what I mean? (20 mins)
Have a volunteer hold a sheet you have created with different shapes drawn on it. With their back to the group, the volunteer describes the shapes on the paper; everyone else tries to draw the same design based on only the verbal instruction of the volunteer.

How it helps: The group’s pictures will not be exactly the same as the original and some will be really far off. Everyone will be reminded of the importance of communication.

3) All Aboard (15 mins)
-This activity requires working together in close physical proximity in order to solve a practical, physical problem. It tends to emphasize group communication, cooperation, patience and problem solving strategy, as well as issues related to physical self and physical proximity.
- The activity can be run in many different ways.
- Basic method: Ask the whole group to try to fit inside a small area which can be marked by:

* small platforms, or
* circle of rope, or
* tarpaulin or blanket

4) Do you trust your team members?
Ask one person to free fall on his back trusting that his/her team members will catch him. Same teams can be used as previous events. It will improve the trust levels between team members.

5) Evening Dress (20 mins)
The instructor asks 2 pairs to take part in this game. He/she suggests their making the evening dress, using only newspapers, pins and scissors. The winner is chosen by the spectators.

We could not do game 4 as time was running out but had lots and lots of fun in all other activities. Especially in All Aboard and Evening Dress.

Looking at people getting on top of each other in All aboard was once in a lifetime moment

I have embedded album of the whole event below. Have a look at them and you will get the idea of fun we had

Cheers Digicorp

Abhishek

Young Turks @work

June 14th, 2008 § 5

“Even as they celebrated their graduation ceremony in May 2003, Abhishek Desai, Kuntal Shah, Sanket Patel and Nachiket Patel had little idea that their camaraderie would turn into a business venture someday.”

This is how the story starts. I am talking about digicorp’s story in latest edition of India Today supplement “Simply Gujarati”. India Today is one of the most popular magazine of India and we are honoured to be featured in there.

Please visit India Today online edition to read the full article.