Biography - Jason
Hello! I'm Jason, from India. I'm 19 years old and I'm pursuing my undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Engineering at SSN Institutions in South India. I was the technical content writer of Hash That and I also did the audio-video editing, something I enjoyed doing very much. Namrita and I worked on the structure of the site – we had to decide on how we'll be approaching the topic "cryptography" as a whole, chalk out the different sections in the site and organize the information we wanted to present into coherent units. Since cryptography is predominantly a technical topic, we had to groom and package it well to present it to the uninitiated in a concise format.
The XPerience:
The ThinkQuest experience was unique in that, I got to work with an international team, spanning the globe, with peers from different cultural backgrounds (and different time-zones :-)). The experience was diverse, enriching and thrilling all the way. We had the opportunity to interact with eminent personalities in the field of cryptography whose enthusiasm in helping us inspired me a lot. Scheduling our interviews with them was quite interesting, since we, the interviewers, lived half way across the globe in India and when it was day for us, it would be night for them. Then there was Daylight Saving to add to the fun! Producing a movie is no walk in the park! Prior to doing the videos for the Hands-on section, I didn't realize the amount of work that goes into making a movie. An innocent little three-minute video clip takes about an hour or so to edit and render. Phew! I now appreciate movies better. I also realized that technical writing requires a lot of research and ground work before the actual writing process starts. I thus devoted a lot of time reading up content from various sources before drafting an article.
And above all, I have learnt the art of managing time efficiently – A lesson for life.
The Team:
Through it all, I enjoyed every bit of the passing moment. Jim and Kishore, in the lead, did an awesome job mentoring us. Kishore, ever-willing to help, even offered to help me out with my class assignment once! I had a nice time 'learning' Spanish from Laura. (It turns out, they go jajaja in Spanish when they laugh, just the like the English go hahaha. :-D) Erika did an amazing job also! Rajesh's skill in game development was amazing. I would suggest a change in a game and he would get back to me with the updated version at the wink of an eye. David did a splendid job coding the site and putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. And finally Namrita! We had a wonderful time working together. We would talk about anything from Cryptography to our pet Egyptian Macaw! During our long working hours, we would give each other company, constantly reviewing progress.
We've burnt so much midnight oil, working on this website that I suspect, we've exhausted a couple of oil wells in Arabia! We've put in our best effort into this project and I hope you, our audience, will find it as interesting as it was when we created it.
Signing off,
Jason