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Quizzing grey cells
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An assembly of the IT community gathered to watch the masterminds battle it out for the title at the Mega Mind Quiz. Conducting the grand finale was the inevitable quizzing guru Derek O' Brien.
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QUIZ TIME: Derek O' Brien quizzes the contestants.
"I HAVE always been second, this is the first time when I am at the No.1 position," says a humble Hariharan Iyer, winner of the Seagram's Royal Stag Mega Mind contest held here recently, walking away with a Compaq Presario Laptop and accolades.
A little help from friends with general knowledge and his inherent IT prowess got this software engineer at Satyam Computers the title, who's a product of the College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, Chennai with a BE in Computer Science.
The nail-biting finish found Harish Raman of DE Shaw on a close second, with Nandakumar Gurumoorthy of Juno Online Service following on the third position.
A two-hour nail biting contest rocked the Hyder Mahal, ITC Kakatiya Sheraton Hotel & Towers, which was set in the hi-tech Star Wars theme.
Eight rounds of techie-cum-GK questions made rounds with the six finalists. It was polymorphism, protocols, IP addresses, mail servers and chips on the opening IT round `Read my mind'. While the video clips on the `Minds I' featured Friends, American Beauty and more.
And conducting the live-wire quiz was the inevitable Derek O' Brien, the quizzing guru himself.
WINNING TRIO: Harish Raman (left), Hariharan, winner of the contest, and Nanda Kumar.
"Have you heard of Air Force One? So have I. It is the official carrier of the US president. But what is the plane for the US vice-president called," he asked.
Apart from the numerous giveaways for the audience - Britannica, Fast Track watches, children's dictionaries, crosswords, Idea Cellular connections, Seagram's Royal Stag and more, Derek O' Brien did offer them abundant laughter.
Keeping the audience in splits with a succession of digs and fast ones he proved beyond doubt his image of the brisk quizmaster with a magnificent stage presence. "Live is so much fun," he says.
As for the audience, they couldn't have had it better, so too the finalist on the stage, who made it here after several preliminary and semi-final rounds. From about a thousand IT professionals in the twin cities for the preliminary online round, 150 participants qualified for the offline tests, before arriving at the finale. Seagram's wanted a Brandequity event for the software professionals.
And with the immense IT population here, Hyderabad was the ideal choice for the pilot quiz.
The event would be taken to other cities also. As for the Hyderabadis, this will be an annual event to look forward to. It is three cheers then for the IT community here.
SYEDA FARIDA
Photo: K. Ramesh Babu
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