Dear friends,
It's been a long time (it always is) since I posted on this blog. But rest assured there's some powerful inspiration to do so for the glory of God. Today, it's been more than a year since the day I embarked an a journey for the differently abled. Last year, 2014, Code for the Kingdom www.codeforthekingdom.org organized the first Christian Hackathon in Bangalore at the Marriott Hotel on Vittal Mallya Road. On day 1, a number of official challenges were presented, one of which was the differently abled challenge. This challenge was presented by Dr. Chip Kingery of ProVISION Asia and I too presented my own project proposal, Service Finder, a mobile application to find any service in a place of worship. My idea was for a crowd-sourced application, and the technology I planned to use was AngularJS front-end on top of a RESTful API. Long story short, I teamed up with ProVISION Asia with inputs from especially useful inputs from Manju and Muniswamy, and ended up building the entire app alone, since by end of day 2, my 2 fellow team members, neither wrote a line of code for the front end which was assigned them. So on day 2, I basically coded the backend and that night, I went home and wrote my first AngularJS application using the Internet for reference working till 6am. I then took a 2 hour or so power nap and attended the morning Holy Eucharist at my parish, then landed at the hotel in time to prepare for the final presentation.
Sunday (presentation and demo day) For the morning and even after lunch, no one from my team showed up nor the team from ProVISION Asia. Since Dr. Chip Kingery also serves as a pastor, he did come in the afternoon perhaps with his wife though I don't recall if they were present for the demo. In any case, I gave it my best shot and presented a kind of technically sound case. When prizes were announced, the top prizes went to 2 groups who used audio-visual to good effect. One built a small app which talks Biblical words displayed on screen. The other big prize went to my friend and his team who built a Bible learning game for tiny tots. A participants choice award was also given out. Each of these prizes were of ~50k. OneHope also announced a special prize money of Rs. 50k to take forward projects for people with disabilities.
Fast forward a year since. I get a mail from C4TKIndia organizing another hackathon (v2.0) at the Fairfield Marriott. Later last year after the first hackathon, I had visited ProVISION Asia office and met Dr. Chip and his team of Krupa Paulson (manager), Manjunath, Muniswamy, Winfred Viren and others once there. I've seen their special school for children with disabilities. We had a simple lunch together sitting on the mat on the floor, Indian style and shared some fellowship. Post lunch I made a small presentation about the project for the benefit of the staff who were absent at the final demo at the Marriott. We discussed on a course of action. The team from ProVISION Asia agreed to prepare a set of questions and answers. I look at a list of features and we decided to co-ordinate. We decide that an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) can have a few basic features but most importantly, sufficient question and answers that can help people with disabilities. When last I heard from ProVISION Asia, no progress is reported on this.
That same year, God blesses me with an opportunity to visit Silicon Valley for a project at WhiteHat Security. Before leaving for the short 2 month trip there, I attend a program organized by Christian Vision at their new software development center in Indiranagar area. Much against my wishes, I leave for Sunnyvale to spend a Christmas away from home. Royston flies from New York to Bangalore to spend Christmas season with my parents. Upon return to NY, Roy does drop into the Bay Area for a weekend in between and we drive to Los Angeles, visiting Universal Studios there. That's a crazy memorable weekend when he had to wake at 5am or something and singlehandedly do the 6 hour plus drive forth and back. On our return trip, we stop by at a restaurant at Santa Barbara for Pacific crab and super seafood. I return to India on Feb 1st after a hectic time at WhiteHat Security, Santa Clara, CA. The project has given me the opportunity to visit a couple of cousins and make some friends there.
Some time later, I see on facebook that Chip has made a trip to the US for his daughters wedding. Some months later I call him and as I congratulate him, he shares his joy in walking his daughter to the altar and then conducting the wedding service as a pastor. On my return to India, I assign to my staff, Maria Shalini, the work on Project Enabler to make it responsive so that it works on both web and mobile. No news yet from Chip or from ProVISION Asia on the prize money.
I also attend a follow up event at CV Global Bangalore office where I make a short presentation on the progress with Project Enabler. Dr. Chip is in Bangalore but pulls out reportedly due to some last minute scheduling conflicts. I meet the good people at Christian Vision, including Ben Scales and Alwin Daniel. Chip meanwhile has been telling me he's waiting for Ben to conduct a hackathon to build more features into Project Enabler. Still no news of the prize money.
So I anyway decide to attend this years hackathon, hoping to meet some people from last years. As a soldier of God, and a Christian in solidarity with all Christians, I attend the second hackathon. I pitch for Church Finder, to find churches based on Language, Geo-location proximity and denomination. Our team of 3, including Kingsley Fernandes and Snehan Solomon build something demo-worthy and present it on Sunday, day 3 of the hackathon. We win the 2nd prize of INR 10,000 in the best idea category. Neither Chip nor anyone from his team attend this hackathon though Chip is reportedly in Bangalore. After the event, I follow up with Code for the Kingdom and Christian Vision and OneHope, and learn that the prize money is to be transferred to ProVISON Asia and Chip. I received email confirmation to this effect from Ben Scales, representing CV (www.cvglobal.co). I therefore proceed to register a domain and put up Project Enabler with the hope to received 2014 prize money and use it to recover some of my staff salary expenses and to pay for the domain and other project costs. Till date ProVISION Asia has not contacted regarding what they intend to do with the INR 50,000 given them to take forward projects for people with disabilities.
Having shared this long story, I want to use this time to bless the Lord for the opportunity to give Him glory through my skills and talents. I write this with immense joy and gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ. Also in solidarity with the Lord, who wept for Jerusalem, he probably weeps for the corruption in some organisations which call themselves Christian, and also to strengthen you, my fellow brothers and supporters in my mission, because we know that Christ conquered sin and death and evil once and for all at Calvary, and as today is a Friday just like the special Friday we observe, the Good Friday, when Christ took up our own sufferings in his flesh and nailed evil and death on the cross forever, and rose again on the third day.
As a Catholic young man, I therefore boldly proclaim and join me if you do, that
For our sake he [Christ] was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
And we are a Resurrection people and hallelujah is our song.
And we will hold fast to the Sacred Tradition handed down to us through the Apostles,
And we young men will take up arms against Satan,
And with Christ our commander and St. Michael our captain,
We will fight to good fight,
We will run our race,
We will keep the faith.
Amen.
UPDATE: I've had sent an invoice to help ProVISION Asia claim the prize so that they can in turn pass on my part in the expenses incurred in paying for the development of the software application plus the maintenance charges. They eventually paid 20,000 of the 50,000 amount and I have not pursued it further.
He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD,
And He will repay him for his good deed. - Proverbs 19:7
It's been a long time (it always is) since I posted on this blog. But rest assured there's some powerful inspiration to do so for the glory of God. Today, it's been more than a year since the day I embarked an a journey for the differently abled. Last year, 2014, Code for the Kingdom www.codeforthekingdom.org organized the first Christian Hackathon in Bangalore at the Marriott Hotel on Vittal Mallya Road. On day 1, a number of official challenges were presented, one of which was the differently abled challenge. This challenge was presented by Dr. Chip Kingery of ProVISION Asia and I too presented my own project proposal, Service Finder, a mobile application to find any service in a place of worship. My idea was for a crowd-sourced application, and the technology I planned to use was AngularJS front-end on top of a RESTful API. Long story short, I teamed up with ProVISION Asia with inputs from especially useful inputs from Manju and Muniswamy, and ended up building the entire app alone, since by end of day 2, my 2 fellow team members, neither wrote a line of code for the front end which was assigned them. So on day 2, I basically coded the backend and that night, I went home and wrote my first AngularJS application using the Internet for reference working till 6am. I then took a 2 hour or so power nap and attended the morning Holy Eucharist at my parish, then landed at the hotel in time to prepare for the final presentation.
Sunday (presentation and demo day) For the morning and even after lunch, no one from my team showed up nor the team from ProVISION Asia. Since Dr. Chip Kingery also serves as a pastor, he did come in the afternoon perhaps with his wife though I don't recall if they were present for the demo. In any case, I gave it my best shot and presented a kind of technically sound case. When prizes were announced, the top prizes went to 2 groups who used audio-visual to good effect. One built a small app which talks Biblical words displayed on screen. The other big prize went to my friend and his team who built a Bible learning game for tiny tots. A participants choice award was also given out. Each of these prizes were of ~50k. OneHope also announced a special prize money of Rs. 50k to take forward projects for people with disabilities.
Charles (aka Dr. Chip) and Jean Kingery - co-founders ProVISION Asia
Fast forward a year since. I get a mail from C4TKIndia organizing another hackathon (v2.0) at the Fairfield Marriott. Later last year after the first hackathon, I had visited ProVISION Asia office and met Dr. Chip and his team of Krupa Paulson (manager), Manjunath, Muniswamy, Winfred Viren and others once there. I've seen their special school for children with disabilities. We had a simple lunch together sitting on the mat on the floor, Indian style and shared some fellowship. Post lunch I made a small presentation about the project for the benefit of the staff who were absent at the final demo at the Marriott. We discussed on a course of action. The team from ProVISION Asia agreed to prepare a set of questions and answers. I look at a list of features and we decided to co-ordinate. We decide that an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) can have a few basic features but most importantly, sufficient question and answers that can help people with disabilities. When last I heard from ProVISION Asia, no progress is reported on this.
Krupa Paulson with Manju
That same year, God blesses me with an opportunity to visit Silicon Valley for a project at WhiteHat Security. Before leaving for the short 2 month trip there, I attend a program organized by Christian Vision at their new software development center in Indiranagar area. Much against my wishes, I leave for Sunnyvale to spend a Christmas away from home. Royston flies from New York to Bangalore to spend Christmas season with my parents. Upon return to NY, Roy does drop into the Bay Area for a weekend in between and we drive to Los Angeles, visiting Universal Studios there. That's a crazy memorable weekend when he had to wake at 5am or something and singlehandedly do the 6 hour plus drive forth and back. On our return trip, we stop by at a restaurant at Santa Barbara for Pacific crab and super seafood. I return to India on Feb 1st after a hectic time at WhiteHat Security, Santa Clara, CA. The project has given me the opportunity to visit a couple of cousins and make some friends there.
Some time later, I see on facebook that Chip has made a trip to the US for his daughters wedding. Some months later I call him and as I congratulate him, he shares his joy in walking his daughter to the altar and then conducting the wedding service as a pastor. On my return to India, I assign to my staff, Maria Shalini, the work on Project Enabler to make it responsive so that it works on both web and mobile. No news yet from Chip or from ProVISION Asia on the prize money.
I also attend a follow up event at CV Global Bangalore office where I make a short presentation on the progress with Project Enabler. Dr. Chip is in Bangalore but pulls out reportedly due to some last minute scheduling conflicts. I meet the good people at Christian Vision, including Ben Scales and Alwin Daniel. Chip meanwhile has been telling me he's waiting for Ben to conduct a hackathon to build more features into Project Enabler. Still no news of the prize money.
So I anyway decide to attend this years hackathon, hoping to meet some people from last years. As a soldier of God, and a Christian in solidarity with all Christians, I attend the second hackathon. I pitch for Church Finder, to find churches based on Language, Geo-location proximity and denomination. Our team of 3, including Kingsley Fernandes and Snehan Solomon build something demo-worthy and present it on Sunday, day 3 of the hackathon. We win the 2nd prize of INR 10,000 in the best idea category. Neither Chip nor anyone from his team attend this hackathon though Chip is reportedly in Bangalore. After the event, I follow up with Code for the Kingdom and Christian Vision and OneHope, and learn that the prize money is to be transferred to ProVISON Asia and Chip. I received email confirmation to this effect from Ben Scales, representing CV (www.cvglobal.co). I therefore proceed to register a domain and put up Project Enabler with the hope to received 2014 prize money and use it to recover some of my staff salary expenses and to pay for the domain and other project costs. Till date ProVISION Asia has not contacted regarding what they intend to do with the INR 50,000 given them to take forward projects for people with disabilities.
Having shared this long story, I want to use this time to bless the Lord for the opportunity to give Him glory through my skills and talents. I write this with immense joy and gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ. Also in solidarity with the Lord, who wept for Jerusalem, he probably weeps for the corruption in some organisations which call themselves Christian, and also to strengthen you, my fellow brothers and supporters in my mission, because we know that Christ conquered sin and death and evil once and for all at Calvary, and as today is a Friday just like the special Friday we observe, the Good Friday, when Christ took up our own sufferings in his flesh and nailed evil and death on the cross forever, and rose again on the third day.
As a Catholic young man, I therefore boldly proclaim and join me if you do, that
For our sake he [Christ] was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
And we are a Resurrection people and hallelujah is our song.
And we will hold fast to the Sacred Tradition handed down to us through the Apostles,
And we young men will take up arms against Satan,
And with Christ our commander and St. Michael our captain,
We will fight to good fight,
We will run our race,
We will keep the faith.
Amen.
UPDATE: I've had sent an invoice to help ProVISION Asia claim the prize so that they can in turn pass on my part in the expenses incurred in paying for the development of the software application plus the maintenance charges. They eventually paid 20,000 of the 50,000 amount and I have not pursued it further.
He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD,
And He will repay him for his good deed. - Proverbs 19:7
