If the western blockbuster ‘Mackenna’s Gold’ had the audience sitting on their seats’ edge, then the innovative Treasure Hunt,
organised by the Google Developer Group (GDG) Goa, had the participants, over the edge with excitement! This eagerly
awaited Google initiative was held on August 23 2014 at PCCE Verna, spearheaded by the ever enthusiastic HOD of the IT
Department, Kavita Asnani, assisted by her team of Googlers. Acting GDG manager Pranav Tendulkar gave a brief description of how we should go about conducting future Google events. Douglas Vas kick-started the interactive sessions with ‘Agile Engineering Practices’ while Seemran Xec gave an eye-opener on the many uses of ‘Google Glass’. In his discourse on ‘Artificial Intelligence’, Tanay Prabhu Desai pitted Skynet, the fictional AI system that features in the ‘Terminator’ franchise, against
Google. Valindo Godinho demonstrated how
‘Google Accounts’ get synced across various
devices in real time while yours truly spoke on
‘Project Loon’.
During the latter half of the event, the
participants were divided into teams for the
Treasure Hunt – an event that promised to summit a new
peak! And indeed it did. While Mackenna had to memorise the
cryptic clues to the mystical peak from a map before burning
it, our participants had to use their android phones to access
the clues, in the form of QR codes, with quizzes on our server
and riddles that led them to various locations in, and around
the campus.
This was ‘Google Search’ at a new high level and the victory
for the winning team was very sweet and golden indeed!
