Over 1 lakh students to take part in Rural IT Quiz 2001

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, AUG. 10. Over one lakh students are expected to take part in the Rural IT Quiz 2001, an event which was dovetailed with the Bangalore IT.com for the first time last year. The Bangalore IT.com 2001, which is scheduled to be held from November 1 to 5, has become a much-awaited annual event in the past three years.

Mr. Vivek Kulkarni, Secretary for Information Techonology, Secoretary, told presspersonss here today that the Rural IT Quiz, drew over 34,000 participants from rural areas last year despite the short notice given to them.

The aim of the event, which was being organised jointly with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), was to create awareness about IT in rural areas. Now that the quiz was being held for the second time, the TCS had realised that it would have to raise the standards of the questions selected which were earlier intended to help students identify and remember brands, the use and applications of IT and its potential, and so on.

This year, however, ample notice would be given -- the preliminary round, which had 20 questions, would be published in leading newspapers on August 16. Entries would be submitted by the students to their respective schools by August 18, and the schools would send them to the Deputy Director, Public Instruction. The entries would have to reach the Director, Information Technology in the M.S.Buildings here by August 27.

In the next round, the top 50 teams from each district would be selected for a zonal-level quiz, which would be held at Gulbarga, Bellary, Dharwad, Mangalore, Mysore, and Bangalore on various days from October 3 to 15. The finals would be held on November 2 in Bangalore, Mr. Kulkarni added.

He said there was no entrance fee, and any number of two-member teams could participate. Students of schools and PU colleges within the city corporation limits of Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, and Gulbarga, were however, not allowed to participate in the quiz.

Mr. R.Ramanan, Vice-President, TCS, which will pick up the tab for the entire event this year (the cost, Rs. 20 lakh, was shared by the Department of IT and TCS last year), said his company was involved in the project because it was felt that the vast bank of IT talent in rural areas needed to be nurtured. In fact, the TCS which conducted quiz programmes and other events round-the-year in urban schools and colleges, had noted that in the past year, on a scale of 10, rural students could be placed anywhere between 8.5 and 10 in comparison with their urban counterparts in terms of awareness.

He said the TCS had offered scholarships for the winning students. The three winning teams would receive amounts of Rs.10,000, Rs.5,000 and Rs. 3,000 as I, II and III prizes at the zonal level. In the finals, the award money would be Rs. 50,000, Rs. 30,000 and Rs. 20,000.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Mentally-ill patients chased away from dargah
Next     : HC upholds LDF Govt.'s decision