Startup Weekend Hyderabad is back - bigger and better this time at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad from the 13-15 of July. For those that are not familiar with Startup Weekend - read my post when I attended the last event as a participant.
Watch this video preview of what happened in the last event
Why attend Startup Weekend?
Startup Weekend is an event where ideas that have been nagging you for a long long time can be tried out and evaluated. Come to the event pitch your idea, if you get enough votes for it - the idea is immediately validated. For people who have a clear idea on what they want to do but dont have the team to execute it - Startup Weekend is the perfect place to seed this team. You get to work with your team for a full 54 hours in a very exciting and focused manner - giving you a great insight into your future team. The event is the perfect place to help fine tune the idea with many experts who have started and exited many startups successfully. And finally if your team is able to impress the judging panel you might be considered for incubation or event funding - which will truly set you on your way to Starting Up.
Whats different this year ?
There are more number of participants from very diverse fields which means there will be more excitement and more number of people to network with. Secondly we have a great speaker list, mentor list and judging panel that have agreed to spend time at the event to coach, mentor and evaluate all the ideas that will be showcased at the event.
Book your tickets to Startup Weekend Hyderabad by visiting http://hyderabad.startupweekend.org. You can get more information by calling our IVR system at 040-30512888.
Write a program to swap two numbers without using an additional variable. Solution : vb.net
Write a program to find the biggest number in n numbers without using arrays. Solution : vb.net
Write a program to find the second biggest number in n numbers without using arrays.
Write a program to find the smallest number in n numbers without using arrays.
Write a program to find out m * n without using the * operator.
Write a program to find out m / n without using the / operator.
Write a program to find out m ^ n without using the ^ operator.
Write a program to find out m % n without using the % operator.
Write a program to find out the average of n numbers.
Convert a number in String format to integer - Number entered as "1234" should come as 1234 and "1234a" should come as an error.
Write a program to find the factorial of a number.
Write a program to find out 1+2+3+4+...+n
Write a program that sums up the digits of a number until it is a single number Eg: 2748303 = 2+7+4+8+3+0+3 = 27 = 2+7 = 9
Write a program that accepts a base ten integer number and outputs the binary, octal and hexadecimal representations of that number.
Write a program that accepts a hexadecimal representation of a number and outputs the decimal representation of that number.
Write a program to print all the prime numbers between m and n where m is less than n.
Write a program to find all the prime factors of a number.
Write a program which reverses the numerals in an integer, that is 326 becomes 623
Patterns
Write a program to print the pascal's triangle. The way to compute any given position's value is to add up the numbers to the position's right and left in the preceding row. For instance, to compute the middle number in the third row, you add 1 and 1; the sides of the triangle are always 1 because you only add the number to the upper left or the upper right (there being no second number on the other side). 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 3 3 1 1 4 6 4 1 1 5 10 10 5 1
Write a program that prints * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Write a program that prints *
* *
* *
* *
* * * * *
Write a program that prints * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
Arrays
Write a program to find out the median of n numbers.
Write a program to find out the mode of n numbers.
Write a program to sort numbers using bubble sort.
Write a program to sort numbers using quick sort.
Write a program to find the sum of two m x n matrices.
Write a program to find the product of two matrices.
Write a program to find the transpose of a matrix.
Fibanocci Series
Write a program to print the first n numbers of the fibanocci series.
Write a program to print only the first 10 odd numbers in a fibanocci series.
Write a program to print the list of numbers in a fibanocci series that adds up to n.
Strings
Write a program to reverse a string - "My name is sudeep" should become "peedus si eman yM"
Write a program to find the length of a string.
Write a program to reverse the words in a string -"My name is sudeep" should become "sudeep is name My"
Write a program to display all possible permutations of a given input string - if the string contains duplicate characters, you may have multiple repeated results. Input should be of the form
permute string
and output should be all the combinations of the letters.
Here is a sample for the input cat
cat
cta
act
atc
tac
tca
Write a program that takes an integer and displays the English name of that value.
You should support both positive and negative numbers.
Examples:
10 -> ten
121 -> one hundred twenty one
1032 -> one thousand thirty two
11043 -> eleven thousand forty three
1200000 -> one million two hundred thousand
Write a program that takes two arguments at the command line, both strings. The program checks to see whether or not the second string is a substring of the first (without using the substr -- or any other library -- function). One caveat: any * in the second string can match zero or more characters in the first string, so if the input were abcd and the substring were a*c, then it would count as a substring. Also, include functionality to allow an asterisk to be taken literally if preceded by a \, and a \ is taken literally except when preceding an asterisk.
Given a pair of words (the first is the correct spelling and the second is the contestant’s spelling of the word) determine if the word is spelled correctly.
The degree of correctness is as follows:
CORRECT if it is an exact match
ALMOST CORRECT if no more than 2 letters are wrong
WRONG if 3 or more letters are wrong
Write a program to read a sentence and calculate the average word value for that sentence. Word value is calculated by finding the average of the ASCII values of all of the letters in a word. Average word value is the average of the word values of all of the words in the sentence rounded to the nearest integer. All letters are upper case. Any non-letter characters are not part of the word in which they are located. Eg: MY NAME IS SUDEEP = (77+89)/2 + (78+65+77+69)/4 + (73+83)/2 + (83+85+68+69+69+80)/6 = 83 + 72.25 + 78 + 75.67
= 83 + 72 + 78 + 76 = 309 / 4 = 77.25 = 77
To convert a word to Pig Latin, the first letter of the word was moved to the end (after the last letter of the word) and the letters “AY” were added.
For example, PIG becomes IGPAY. Write a program to convert a given sentence to pig latin. Eg. MY NAME IS SUDEEP. In Pig latin : YMAY AMENAY SIAY UDEEPSAY
Files
Write a program to find the number of lines in a file new line defined as "\n" and the number of words in a file. A word is defined as two patterns of characters separated by one or more spaces.
Count the number of times a word occurs in a file - the word and the location of the file are inputs to the program.
Write a program that will merge two files and give an output of 1 file.
Linked Lists Note : The format for the node should be a struct containing an integer value, val, and a next pointer to the following node.
Write a program to find out the length of a linked list.
Write a program to find out if the linked list has a loop.
Write a program to print a singly linked list in reverse.
Write a program to reverse the entire linked list in place. By in-place, I mean that no memory can be allocated. The resulting code should be function that takes the head of a list and returns a the new head of the reversed list.
Write a program to implement push and pop functions in a linked list.
Write a program which can insert a new node at
any index within a list. The program may specify any index in the range [0..length], and the new node
should be inserted so as to be at that index. The index is calculated as the position from the beginning of the linked list.
The saturday before last, I was invited to give a small informal talk at Startup Saturday (SS). SS is organized by the Headstart Network Foundation - a non-profit organization focused on creation of a startup ecosystem in India. The following video gives a clear idea about what Startup Saturday is all about.
This meeting was held at LaMakaan and there was a very interesting mix of attendees. There were a few students but a lot of attendees were from either those interested in starting up or those having just started up. There were also a couple of reporters of startup related websites. There were some members from angel investor organizations or incubation centers like the IIIT Incubation Center.
The theme of the session was registration, compliance & finance for early stage startups. Every month there is a theme and experts are invited to talk about that theme. It started off with each of the attendees giving a short introduction and then there were a couple of sessions given by a Chartered Accountant and a Company Secretary about the theme. The format is quite informal and interactive and there are a lot of questions from the participants.
After this some startups were invited to talk about their ventures and their experiences in starting up. The startups who spoke were
Inforica - Founder- Sudeep D'Souza
Luminart- Founder- Prabhu
Acuvate- Founder, Amitesh Anand
HuSys.net- CoFounder, Kalyan
Again the discussion was lively and interesting with a lot of real world examples and experiences.
After this it was all about networking and exchanging business cards to continue networking beyond the event. I was asked how the startup environment now is different from how it was 6 years ago and the answer is that it is events like this that make it so much easier to startup now with information so easily available so readily.
I would advise anyone who is planning to startup or has just started up to attend this event. I hope more companies that provide services also attend so that startups are aware that there are experts out there to hep them quickly startup.
It all started on Thursday when I saw a post on one of the blogs announcing that there was going to be a Startup Weekend being hosted at ISB in Hyderabad. Something in that article triggered my imagination that it would be a fun event to attend to understand and feel the start-up ecosystem. With a lot of encouragement from the home front I was all game to go. I went ahead and bought 5 tickets to the event and then started to ask all my friends and colleagues asking them who would like to come for the event and the 5 tickets disappeared fairly quickly.
To tell you a bit about Startup Weekend, I copied a paragraph from Annkur's post, one of the organizers about startup weekend
"Startup Weekend is this 54
hours madness that brings together business folks, developers, designers
and jack of all trades like me to build a startup over a weekend. Ones
with an idea pitch it, voting follows and teams are formed organically.
These teams have to come back with a product / prototype / demo /
whatever by Sunday evening and present to the judging panel. In march,
Startup Weekend, which has as of today done over 100 cities and 250
action packed weekends, came to India."
Day 1: The first 14 hours - Product Concept, Team Formation, Branding and Technology Identification
On Friday afternoon about 2 hours before we were to leave we had no idea what we were going to pitch. So we called everyone we knew into a room to help us brainstorm and come up with ideas to pitch at the event. After about an hour we settled on 5 ideas and then used the next hour to narrow down the ideas to 3. We all then jumped into the car and started our 30 min drive to ISB. It was here that we finally gave shape to our ideas and wrote a pitch for each one of them.
On completion of our registration we had pizzas and a lot of coke to set the right mood and then it was onto the pitches. While having our pizzas we got talking to other participants there and this kind of got us in touch with other participants that can become team members. It is important to take this networking session very seriously and meet as many participants as you can. It is during this period that you can introduce your self to everyone present there and
also get to know about them as this can influence
the team formation as there is not much time later on if your idea is shortlisted.
We all stood in a line and started to make our pitches one after another in fairly quick succession and it was down to the voting. The results were announced and since there were some ties we had 15 ideas that were selected and out of the 3 ideas that we pitched 2 got selected, Park-e-mon and Feriwala. We quickly formed into our teams and the Park-e-mon team consisted of 4 members Krishnamraju (Developer), Jeevan (Developer), Shahnawaz (Sales and Marketing) and Sudeep (Team Lead).
Soon after forming the team it was all work from then on. We had to decide on the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) i.e. the least amount of functionality that can be coded on a weekend and that will show the functionality of the application being built. At the same time we had to fill up a brief description of the product and also submit other paper work like the team details and stuff. We closed the day at about 2:00 AM with a clear idea of what was our product and the division of tasks for the next day. We had a mobile component and also a web component so each developer took one, the other two of us came up with a product validation strategy and branding which we had to complete before 11:00 AM the next morning, this included coming up with a survey, presentation demonstrating our product, name of the product, logo and buying of the website URLs and shortlisting one or two potential clients to meet and check the viability of the product in the market.
Day 2: Hours 15 to 40 - Market survey and Development
The next morning while the developers were hard at coding the product, we spoke to a couple of mentors that gave us very valuable feedback about the product. There were altogether 5 mentors that were present the whole day but we had time to talk to only 2 of them. After this the business development team went out to meet some potential customers. We met the owner of a construction company that builds commercial spaces, an architect and the parking administrator of a large mall. After having met them the idea fine tuned itself into a truly promising product that can be taken into the market. The business development team touch based with the developers who promised to have the product completed which finally happened at about 5:00 AM in the morning.
Day 3: The final 14 hours - Presentation, Fine Tuning and Pitches
After a few hours of sleep it was the start of Day 3. We all headed back to ISB, while the development team was fixing all the final issues in the product the business team worked on the presentation and the video that was going to demonstrate the usage of the product. We were done by about 4:00 PM and the pitches were to start at 5:00 PM. A few practice runs and it was time to make our pitch which went well. The pitches were all well managed. You were given 2 min to setup while the previous team was answering questions and then your 5 minutes started as soon as the previous team was done. On completion of the 5 minutes, there is 2 minutes of questions where the judges and audience were free to ask any thing. How to ensure that you make the best of the pitches
Ensure you are ready for any eventuality, during our pitch the internet was very slow and so we could not show a live demo but our video bailed us out. So have a back up plan to show the demo.
Practice your pitch and ensure that it does not cross 4:30 min. It will finally end up being 5:00 min.
Check out all the connections before hand and do not let the members of the team doing the pitch operate the laptop, unless there is no other option.
Once all the pitches were completed it was time to announce the results and our team the Park-e-mon team came first. It was a nice surprise as there were some very nice product ideas that were very well presented. On the whole the learning experience was amazing and also the opportunity to interact with so many different people in an environment where you are all thrown together and forced to work on an idea and this brings out the best in everyone.
As part of the office picnic we went to this outdoor adventure fun place that is about 75 km outside Hyderabad near Vikarabad called Deccan Trails. Its a camp site that is situated on the edge of a forest and it's about 40 acres of fun and activity. We reached there at about 4 in the afternoon after driving through the heaviest rain that I have seen all season so far. The road was good and the drive there very nice.
We were welcomed with some mint flavoured lime juice and some hot pakoras that tasted very good. The rest of the evening was spent monkeying around on the rope ladders and the nets and swinging on the numerous swings there until we finally started a game of football in the light drizzle. The evening was spent enjoying the serene calm fresh air until it was time for dinner that consisted of a very homely meal. There was a bon fire started to add to the lovely evening. Music is not allowed as it is close to the jungle and it disturbs the peace of the place.
The sleeping arrangements consists of tents that are setup quite wonderfully. There are 2 community tents that consist of 15 beds each and there are some 2bed and 3bed tents that have an attached toilet and bath. There are cots and mattresses in the tents with lights and fans. After a restful night the morning started early with some hot tea and a long 5 km trek through the jungle. This trek set us up perfectly for the breakfast that was simple and nutritious.
After breakfast it was off to try out all the adventure games such as walking the burma bridge, balancing planks, tight rope, rock climbing and zip lining. All fun games that can tire both your hands and legs fairly quickly. There are other games such as archery and table tennis. The setup again basic and rustic but fun at the same time.
After some nutritious lunch where the meat is given out in measured portions it is time to say bye and leave the place so wanting to never go back into the hustle and bustle of the city that is just a few minutes away.
The good things about the place is the games, the setup of the tents and the general conduct of the activities there. The not so good things of the place is the toilets, they can do with some improvement. The mattresses and pillows are hard - so those not used to sleeping on hard pillows may be advised to carry their own. The kitchen and dinning area can do with some improvements - there are a lot of flies and ants around and those not used to the outdoors will find it a bit uncomfortable.
On the whole a great place to go - I will surely be going back there soon.
About a week ago I was going around the old city when I chanced upon the Chowmahalla Palace just next to the Charminar. The entrance to the palace is very unassuming and boring but once inside the world is so different. Lovely gardens, beautiful buildings and well done up interiors when just outside the palace is the hustle and bustle of Charminar. The palace belongs to the Nizam's of Hyderabad and gives you a very upclose and personal view of their lifestyle and their history. There is a lot to see here and you can get all the details of what there is to see on this wikipedia web page.
I would advise everyone who is visiting Hyderabad to visit the Chowmahalla Palace. It should be a must visit even before one goes to Charminar, Salarjung Museum, Qutub Shahi Tombs or Golkonda Fort. That is how highly I rate the visit here. The history of Hyderabad through a lot of old photographs is captured on the walls of the palace. There are very few people that visit this palace and that adds to the whole unhurried charm of the place.
Below are some photographs that I took during my visit to the palace.
A few days ago I went to have dinner in the new themed restaurant "Dialogues in the dark" which is located at Inorbit Mall, Madhapur, Hyderabad. Having read about the restaurant at the website and a few reviews in the WOW Hyderabad magazine I was quite excited. So gave them a call to make a reservation and was told that I can choose either a non vegetarian meal or vegetarian meal.
We arrived there at about 8:00 PM and paid for our meals which needs to be done in advance and it costs Rs. 750 per person all inclusive. Any cold drinks (no liquor is served) purchased in the restaurant were to be paid for after the meal. We were then asked to deposit our mobile phones and any other bags we were carrying in the locker there. We were then escorted to the door and then handed over to a visually impaired person who guided us into a pitch dark place. It is incredibly eerie when you walk in first as you cannot see anything not even your finger if it is a centimeter from your eyes. You are guided to your seat and the table is already set when you get there.
You are then served a 4 course meal starting with soup, a starter, a main course and a dessert. The meals are served slowly and there is a lot of time for one to munch on their food and wait. The meal itself wasn't much of a surprise, to put it simply there was tomato soup; chicken nuggets for starters; biryani, romali roti, dalh, chicken curry and some stuff i never even found on my plate; a custard kind of a dish for dessert. The food is eaten completely by touch and feel. There is cutlery to be used but again one has to feel for it. After a while you get a comfort in where everything is and then it becomes quite easy. The water is served in bottles and one can order from a variety of soft drinks to be had with the food.
Since the restaurant is completely dark you do not know how many others are there in the restaurant or how far apart they are. The two tables next to us seemed to be quite close to us as we could hear all the conversations quite clearly.
The experience was interesting for just the one visit. The food was not exciting - with the first taste we knew what was on the plate. The food was not very tasty. The chairs were quite uncomfortable. One interesting thing is that there is an verbal interaction going on between the people as no one knows who is there and how many people are there. The noise levels are quite high - conversation is quite loud and animated.
What in my view will make the experience more exciting? All the food should only be bite sized helpings - they should feel the same but when you put it in the mouth each bite tastes different. There should be a surprise element in every bite. Serving regular food does not really enhance the experience. The chairs should be super comfortable so that when you sit in them it should feel like you never want to get out of it. The music at times was a bit loud - the music should be very faint in the background.
On the whole an interesting experience for that one time and its worth going there to understand what happens when one of the senses is taken away.
