Innovation Challenge Finals Experience

Having finished two exams, I am taking time to write this detailed post about my experience at Darden.

The whole thing started on 25th October when we got a mail from Innovation Challenge event manager.

I had a class at 8:00 am and I woke up at 7:30 and found this mail that arrived about 10 min back. The mail said that our team has been selected for the finals and that we have to confirm our participation within 24 hrs. For the next one hour or so, I didn't believe in it fully and went to the class. I checked with others who participated in the competition to verify if they have got a similar mail. Initially I was under the impression that it was some kind of spam but the mail id appeared authentic. By the time the class got over, all our team members checked their mails and they started sending congratulatory mails and it was time for me t believe that it was true. One of the reasons it took me so much time is that this was the only competition I took part till then.

Our team captain, Jaspreet, proceeded with sending the confirmation mail. Initially there were rumors that four teams made it to the finals but by evening it became clear that only two teams made it to the final.

The next 12 days or so we were stuck in the administrative problems including that of getting visa to US. Our tickets were booked only one week in advance. We did loose lot of time juggling between subjects, admin follow and we could take only a little time to work on the final problems.

Two of my team members were also in study group for two different subjects. All the study group members supported me a lot and for the first time my involvement was very less in the assignments for one subject. That team had two young bright ladies and the other guys didn't bother me much. For the first time I did some free-riding. I really thank that study group for all the help and support.

Finally after we decided how we are going to deal with the exams and the classes and then got started working on the problem. We have spent about 50 - 60 hrs in the week before we flew. Our flight was on 15th morning at 5:00am and we working till 11:00pm on 14th night. One of our team member dropped out as he wanted to attend an interview and I am sure that affected us a bit.

We landed at Dulles at about 7pm and by the time we came out it was 8:30pm. We booked a Siena from Avis and Rao drew the car and I played the navigator holding the map. Everything was well organized. We booked the car online and we were given a booking number and as soon as we came out we found that there are shuttles to the rental car office. We took a bus and we realized that one of our team member, Nandu, was missing. Me and Jassi started looking and found him on the other side.

By the time we reached Darden Exec residence, it was 11:00 pm. We met Anil Rathi right at the entrance and he helped us with our luggage. He is a very nice guy. We reached our rooms and wow what a nice room it was. Outside the temperature was aroung 5 or 6 deg C and inside it was warm and nice. Each of us were given a separate room and we got connected to the Lan immediately without any hassle. That was indeed amazing. I have added the video below - don't pay too much attention to my commentary though.



The session was to start at 9:00 am and we planned to get up by 5:00am and do a practice round. We met up in the group room and worked till 7:30am and by 8:15am we reached Abbott hall for breakfast. After breakfast we reached room no:50 and that's where the competition was being held.

I will take a break now and will continue in the next post.