Fun @ Azealot

Fun with technology is what techies at Aztec Software want to have.

Azealots.com is thus born, promising lots of such fun, and perhaps more.

Azealots.com is a techies-for-techies forum, now hoping to bring eight lakh

techies from across the country onto a common platform. It all started at Aztec

Software in Bangalore, when its engineering community discovered that fun

competitions like quizzes, puzzles, and code manias are great bonding agents.

Ideas on taking the fun model to a larger software community looked real after

another discovery: just building great applications and products all year long

gets monotonous for everybody.

Within

three weeks of its launch, the online community now boasts of more than 15,000

members. Membership is open to techies at all levels. The first of its events

called 'Back to Basics' started on April 18. It is about solving problems

faced in everyday life-but apolitically. One can only use coding skills in any

one of the four languages (C, C++, C#, or Java), or SQL (where applicable), and

provide a code-based solution to the problems posed. There will be one problem

posed every week for the next 10 weeks. One gets points for his solution and

every week there are some good and handsome grand prizes as well-a Bose home

theatre system, a Dell Laptop or an iPod. The prizes, at the moment, are being

sponsored by Aztec Software.

Goutam Das