2010 November if I recall correctly is when the first version of Technolympics was held. Tomorrow, 31 August, the 10th version will be held.
Even cooler is we are attending it. Remotely since its all remote.
And some of us are even judges !
FOMO as Motivation
2010, I along with a friend (Read: Saurabh Misra) were on a programming competition spree roaming across NCR skipping school (legally this time). In one such event, we were pissed off with us losing and blaming it on the questions when we decided we need to join the cool kids who make questions. But why just force others to solve programming questions, why not force others to come to an entire suite of events and be our guinea pigs!
And that followed by selling the idea of a tech fest to teachers is how we came up to decide to do the first ever techfest of Cambridge School Noida (I spent 14 years there!) and we called it Technolympics.
I am till date impressed with that name and how bunch of 16 year olds came up with it. Googling it still has the fest as first result!
Perks!
Now that we were organising a fest which involved things that we didnt even know at that time from raising sponsorships, designing marketing content, deciding and creating events, managing logistics and of course playing counter strike in computer lab whenever the teachers are not around. But in all fairness, counter strike was the gaming event so had to test it. But with responsibility comes power (It reversed in this case). We had a free pass to get phones to school, bunk classes, chill in the air-conditioned computer lab instead of roasting in class and the loads of banter with each other as most students were taking notes in classes.
The perks were such an ingrained part of the organisation that when we were asked to talk about the fest 10 years later, everyone mentioned the perks more than the learnings. shakes head
While the benefits were fun then and sound cool to talk about, the real take away from this opportunity is the hustle and confidence we developed which is still within us.
In my case, technolympics gave me bragging rights that very few people had in college and even today, its a great story for a first date ;)
10 Years! Really?
Today to realise, something we created has stayed for 10 years is crazy and unbelievable. It is super rare to find people who can claim that something they created stayed for this long and even more so at the age of 26.
But this deserves a ton of credit for every teacher and student who has carried forward this tradition and given time and effort to it and have added to our bragging rights.
Thank You!
P.S. I wish I could give more details of how the fest organisation was done but 10 years is a long time to remember details. Neuralink, Please be quick.
Edits
31⁄8 - Attention seeking that Saurabh is, I had to add his name which I had skipped due to my no-names-without-consent-policy.