Bengaluru lad wins Google award

Sachin Rammoorthy, a Class 11 student of Stonehill International School, Bengaluru, is one of the 50 winners of Google Code-in event. Google Code-in is a contest to introduce students aged between 13-17 years to open source software development. This year 17 other Indians have won the prestigious competition. In an interview with Dhanyata M Poovaiah, Sachin talks about the event.

»What is the Google Code-in event.

Every year, Google holds an annual coding rite of passage for high schoolers, called Google Code-in. Several open source organisations, such as Wikimedia, Drupal and Redhat, partner with Google and publish tasks for students to complete during the 50-day event. Eventually, each organisation selects 2 Grand Prize Winners from around the world who contributed the most to open source.

»What were your tasks?

I partnered with an organisation called Liquid Galaxy, which produces solutions that incorporate immersive video displays, typically seen in museums. For over 50 days, I devoted myself to tasks related to coding, research, documentation, quality assurance and design. When I was declared a Global Grand Prize winner the beginning of this year out of more than 3000 other participants, I was overjoyed.

»What do winners get?

The winners are flown to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, interact with Google employees, participate in workshops and presentations by experts and get a sneak peek into the world of technology.

»What made you interested in coding? Since when have you been coding? How did you learn it?

I first started coding in Class 6 when I was taught HTML and CSS and their applications in creating simple websites. In Class 9, I started playing around with Android apps. I learned to develop Android apps by following a video course online. This proved to be a segue into other programming languages such as Java. Soon after, I got into machine learning and artificial intelligence as well.

»Any advice to a beginner

Overall, Google Code-in has been a very memorable journey for me. I would wholeheartedly recommend this event for all who are interested in the field of Computer Science. My advice to beginners would simply be to start small, learning how to make a basic website or app. Eventually, this will lead to proficiency in several domains in the field.

»What do you wish to pursue after schooling and why?

Although I am not completely sure of what I want to pursue as a career path, I would definitely want to connect it with computer science in some way. I am interested in the applications of Computer Science and would like to integrate it with another field.