My road to an Asia Pacific ICT Merit Award as a teenager.
The Asia Pacific Information Communication and Technology Alliance (APICTA) Awards is a once a year competition organized by a group of 25 economies in the Asia Pacific region. On 5th December 2016, as a member of the Pakistan delegation I received a Merit Awards at the APICTA Awards night in Chinese Taipei in the school project category. I was one of the nine award winner in the Pakistan delegation. This is the first post in a series that documents my journey.
Day One — 30th November
It was the middle of the week. A Tuesday and the most hectic one ever. My flight to Dubai International Airport was scheduled for this evening and I had to be at Jinnah International Airport by 5:30 pm.
College would end late afternoon at 4:00 and on the best of days it would take me an hour to get home. The flight was scheduled for 7:30 pm and we had to reach the airport two hours in advance to clear security and immigration. That meant that I had to figure out how to shower, change, and eat all within 30 minutes. We were travelling on special visas from Taipei so we had to make sure immigration would clear us for our flight to Chinese Taipei.
I was travelling with a mentor for Team Pakistan to APICTA. It had been a long-time dream of mine to be at an event of this scale. I was finally old enough to realize the impact this would have on my university application and on me as a person (but that’s a different article). It was also the first year I had a viable project. Something that would make a difference in society.
The project I was working one was a prototype for taking in chat scripts designed for chat bots and testing them for readability. Then producing an improved script which would ideally lead to better understanding and better conversation between a human user and a chat bot. The original inspiration was to help e-commerce sites to improve sales and customer interactions. If you give customers a better experience they will be more inclined to purchase. But many new startups in that sector didn’t have the money needed to pay for a customer service team. And chat bots still had some ways to go before being effective. Higgin’s Engine, the product I was working on was supposed to help bridge that gap. I had worked on a test implementation using the botsify engine and also put together a guide for basic rules for building conversation scripts for chat bots.
I arrived home, quickly showered, had two bites of lunch, said goodbye to my parents and siblings. They knew the journey had started six months ago when I had signed up for the local ICT awards known as The P@SHA ICT Awards. P@SHA is the Pakistan Software Houses and IT enabled services companies Association, responsible for promoting, representing and facilitating innovative technology firms in Pakistan.
Checking in at the Emirates counter (no direct flights to Taiwan) , I glanced at my watch and it was 5:45 pm. We were making good time and proceeded to immigration with our visas and boarding passes. It went well enough till they encountered the visa from Taipei. In all honesty, if I was an immigration officer who had a visa in my hand from a country we didn’t officially recognize and had no embassies here then I’d be concerned too. It took a bit for them to clear it with superiors and then we went on our way to the boarding area.
An hour and fifteen minutes on from now we would reach Dubai, where we would check into a hotel and rest for a few hours before leaving for the airport again to catch the 3:50 am flight to Chinese Taipei. Other than a can of spilled drinks and a fast paced walk through Dubai airport the transit was uneventful. We did do some gallivanting before crashing for the night and found this new sushi place known as Yakitate. It is a must visit for sushi lovers in Dubai. They offered us sushi burgers. Lovely sushi of your choice between two rice patties thus creating a sushi burger.
Day Two —1st December — Middle East
I was a bit groggy waking up. Sleeping at midnight and waking up two hours later does that to you. But I was happy that we had made the decision to take a break and sleep on a proper bed. It let us rest and recharge our batteries (and try sushi burgers).
We arrived at Dubai International Airport to rendezvous with the rest of Team Pakistan. They had decided to catch a later flight and stay at the airport to ride out the transit period. The first thing we see as we enter the Terminal is fellow delegates everywhere in green shirts that represent our national color. Some passed out on benches, some lying spreadeagled on the floor, some wrapped around the circular sofas that they have at the transit lounge, and some deserving a gymnastics medal the way they managed sleep on seats with partitions in the middle. Travelling late at night had taken its toll on Team Pakistan.
But this was just the start. The flight from Dubai to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport was supposed to be ten hours long. I’m pretty sure most of us had decided to sleep the entire flight if we could, just so that we’d be rid of any feelings of sleep deprivation when we landed. But for me it was different. Being part of the student category for the APICTA Awards I had my work cut out for me.
The student and school projects category was one of the most competitive, with the highest number of entries from all member economies. Students from China, Australia, Japan, Macao, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia were just some of the participants. Every year the winner and runner ups were separated by a razor thin difference in points. The thing about APICTA was that every participant was a winner of the national ICT Awards from the country they were representing. To be recognized within this crowd would require a great deal of work.
I was going to use the time I had at my disposal during the flight to perfect my presentation. Before coming to APICTA I had won the national ICT Awards in the student category in Pakistan. That presentation took three or four variations, a month of preparation and twenty five slides. The APICTA presentation, by the time we boarded the flight to Taipei, had already taken a hundred and fifty three variations and a hundred and forty slides. We still had two more days to go. Imagine my joy.
I spent my entire time on the plane trying to fix my presentation while being asked by different passersby about what I was working on. In turn I asked them how one phrase or another sounded. It was interesting getting feedback from randomly selected individuals with different backgrounds. Eventually I started pitching to them as practice. It was a bit hard since the cabin was blacked out and most passengers were sleeping. It was just a few of us sitting and working quietly so that we wouldn’t disturb anyone sleeping around us. Every now and then one would go off to sleep and someone new would walk by and gain an interest. The air hostesses and stewards also helped me practice my pitches. When all the passengers were sleeping I’d go further down the aisle towards the back of the plane and pitch to them. I even had my dinner and breakfast there! But the good thing about bonding with them was that when I stepped out of the plane almost the entire cabin crew came to wish me luck. So I did feel a bit important then.
Day Two — 1st December — Far East
Being a ten hour flight by the time we touched down it was evening in Taiwan. It took a long time to walk to immigration. And like I said, we’re not a country that recognizes Taiwan so they were pretty surprised to see us. And some names just stood out to them. They held another one of our mentors for an hour I think, possibly because of his middle name or his travel record. Which coincidentally also is my middle name but who knows. We never asked them when they released him, we were just happy we were finally going to the hotel to get a bed with a mattress.
The Taiwanese association had set us up at The Grand Hotel Taipei. A five star resort and one of the most famous places in Taiwan. After checking in we all headed to dinner area in the hotel.
One thing you should know about the mentors. They’ve been doing this for a few years now. They get to go to countries they would otherwise never have the opportunity to visit. Over the years they have developed this habit of trying new things.
As soon as they saw grilled fungus written on the menu they said “Let’s try it.” Each member of the team did not regret having what was served that day but before eating it I’m everyone did exchange worried glances when they decided to order it. This hotel was where the Awards were taking place and where most of the participants were staying.
After dinner we all went up to our rooms. We’d been divided into groups of twos and threes. We had to unpack, make sure whatever we were wearing for the actual presentation was in a decent shape, and most importantly, we had to make sure whatever food we brought with us hadn’t been squished. Some of us had specifically picked up supplied for the next three days. Chocolates, cookies and nachos. Desperate food for desperate times.
Day Three — 2nd December — Last round of preparation.
We’d rested up and were going to spend the day preparing our presentations. Day one was the Judges and Executive Committee (EXCO) meeting where the association and organizers discussed updates in judging criteria or any changes that needed to take place.
While the judges and mentors were away in their meetings some of us went to each other’s rooms to practice our presentations in front of one another. The more “practical” type went to catch up on sleep. We didn’t want to look bad while performing in front of our mentors so we’d gather feedback from one another beforehand and make the appropriate changes before going in front of the mentors again to present our most recent version of our presentations. In between we’d take breaks and find out more about one another. Making us closer to one another and making it a pleasure when meeting at the events scheduled between judging hours.
We’d also go out to the markets in the main city. We’d always heard about how Taiwan was an electronics hub for the world and had some of the best and latest electronics to offer. It also helped that a mobile convention was taking place at the same time the awards were being held. So at night we made plans to go the some of the markets like Shilin and Linjiang. I even got my first proper metro experience in Taipei.
I wasn’t going out tonight because tomorrow was the big day. But I had gone around with members of Team Pakistan during the day getting images and footage for a documentary that everyone was planning on contributing to after the awards. Something that would make the trip a little more memorable and personal.
Day Four — 3rd December — D-Day
Today was the big day. My slot was scheduled at 11:30 which meant I had to be at the Economy Coordinator’s desk by 10:45. Then check in with the organizers and sit outside the judging room until it was my turn to present.
Silence and isolation is both a blessing and a curse. It lets you gather your thoughts. But sometimes those thoughts scare you. I just knew that whatever the feedback you get shouldn’t be taken to heart. That I needed it to make my project stronger, to make the idea better, and to give it the jump it needed to make a difference. Unfortunately in order to make my presentation stronger I also had to shave. I had been told that for an event of this stature every little bit counted. A more respectable and serious image meant a conversation between the razor and the fuzz on my face, a suit and a tie — formal all the way.
I stood outside the door. The mirror behind kept tempting me to look into it and fuss over myself. To second guess whether my tie matched my suit and whether I had shaved properly. I fidgeted with my suit, thinking about how nervous I was. The first impression you make as soon as you walk into the room is it. You have to look presentable. You have to look your best. My parents even voted on what I would wear to make a positive impression.
I knew that the feeling of nervousness would fade when I stepped in. The routine I had practiced for the pitch would take over and the muscle memory would kick in. I opened the door and walked in…
[To Be Continued]
