Spotlight : Brandwitz 2008 – IBA Unveils a New World of Branding

http://www.thedailystar.net/campus/2008/08/05/camspotlight.htm

An Exclusive Interview with Syed Munir Khasru
The Architect of BrandWitz 2008

After the overwhelming success of 1st Inter Business School Marketing and Branding Competition BrandWitz 2008, many of us were pondering upon the genesis of such a ground-breaking concept. Here, Syed Munir Khasru, a Professor at IBA and the Moderator of the IBA Communication Club (IBACC) and the man behind Brandwitz speaks with Mahdin Mahboob from Star Campus about the different aspects of Brandwitz 2008.

Star Campus (SC): BrandWitz Competition was the first of its kind in Bangladesh. How did the concept of organizing such a competition evolve and what were its key objectives?
Syed Munir Khasru (SMK): In recent times there has been an increased awareness to promote Bangladesh as a brand to the outside world. Our country has had its share of negative stints involving rampant corruption, poor law and order situation, and confrontational politics. Yet, as a nation we have shown insurmountable promise. We have pioneered the micro-credit system, empowered women, fought back natural calamities with resiliency second to none and so on and so forth. We have not yet done a good job in positively portraying the country to the outside world. Therefore, if a positive image of Bangladesh has to be established, it has to come from the younger generation. To do so, it is essential to equip them with modern tools and techniques of branding.

From branding commercial products and services to branding Bangladesh, business school graduates are well positioned to do both. From this conviction came the urge to organize the 1st ever Inter Business School Marketing and Branding Competition BrandWitz. The main objective was to create a platform for the brightest of all business school students to interlock in the war of wits and thoughts as they solve business cases and develop social campaigns promoting causes and issues that affect us all. In Unilever Bangladesh we found a natural partner and sponsor as they have the richest portfolio of global brands, which are successfully marketed in Bangladesh. Mr. Naushad Karim Chowdhury, Director, Brands of Unilever Bangladesh joined hands with us when we first explained the concept to him and sought active support of Unilever.

SC: Now that the competition is over, how far do you think has the objectives been achieved or fulfilled?
SMK: Since, BrandWitz was held for the 1st time, we are quite satisfied with the outcome. Apart from solving business cases and branding problems within limited spans of time, the participants also had the opportunity to learn how to develop a branded social campaign. As you know, in the finals the participants had to prepare a Social Awareness Campaign for the following, “Branding Democracy: Defining and Promoting Fair Candidates for the Electorates in the upcoming Elections.”

The very fact that such a complex campaign was designed in less than a week and presented within 10 minutes, speak of the sheer passion and talent these youngsters have. All the participants of BrandWitz are first time voters who are expected to have significant impact on the outcome of the next elections. Hence, it was an opportune moment to hear their views and expectations from the next elections. It was quite inspiring to see the talented young unleash their patriotic feelings in a professional format whereby creativity had to be balanced by reality, ideas had to be supported by facts, and solutions had to be realistic to appeal to the panel of judges. The Grand Finale of BrandWitz mesmerized for hours the audiences which comprised a cross section of people students, academicians, government officials, diplomats, senior corporate managers, and journalists. Hence, we have every reason to believe that BrandWitz 2008 was more successful than anticipated.

SC: How big was BrandWitz 2008? Please tell us about the number of teams and institutions who have participated?
SMK: Leading Business Schools from both the private and the public sectors participated in BrandWitz. 24 teams from 15 different institutions initially participated in the contest. There were three contestants in each team.

Therefore, 72 of the most talented minds were involved in brand-building exercises. BrandWitz was indeed “The Branded Fight of The Branded Minds.”

SC: Have you found the overall performance of the different teams satisfactory enough?
SMK: Yes and of course there is always room for improvement. The knowledge, enthusiasm, intelligence, and analytical ability of the contestants were really impressive. Their ability to formulate creative solutions to complex problems and to make professional presentations of the same within tight time schedule demonstrated not only their efficiency but also the agility of mind. BrandWitz indeed achieved what the slogan of the competition had aspired for, “Unlocking the Talent, Branding the Future.” We have set the stage for unleashing the talent of the youth in pursuit of not only having a branded future for themselves but also for Bangladesh.

SC: What are the future plans of BrandWitz? When is the next competition due and how big will that be?
SMK: Given the overwhelming response from all the stakeholders, we intend to add more value and make the next BrandWitz even more interesting. Together with Unilever, we will be working closely to find ways to increase the depth and the breadth of the competition. Our aim is to organize the next BrandWitz by the next early summer and there might be major surprises which we will disclose in time.

As we began to leave after such an awe-inspiring session of interview, a question kept nabbing at us. In the end we could not help but ask.

SC: Sir. You are a Professor at IBA, an entrepreneur, involved in the media, write articles in newspapers, and a participant in policy dialogues and initiatives. Under such a busy schedule how do you find time to consummate your role as the Moderator of IBACC and design contests as brilliant as BrandWitz?
Mr. Syed Munir Khasru gave a modest smile and replied: God has given every individual an infinite ability to perform and excel. Mental stamina ultimately drives physical stamina. The magic is in each of us if we know how to see it. Of course, there are certain elements which always help, at least they have helped me prayers, certain discipline, time management, professionalism etc. In the end of the day, if your thoughts and acts have impacted or influenced others’ life and made a positive difference it is worth the time and effort. What better opportunity to serve and have fun than to empower the younger generation who will hopefully spearhead the rise of Bangladesh in the global map. If things get too hectic there are always words of wise men to find peace and inspiration from, “What you are is God’s gift to you. What you become is your gift to God.”

Top US State Department Official Visits Dhaka

http://www.thedailystar.net/campus/2008/08/05/feature_US.htm

KATHLEEN KISTING ALAM, the Regional Educational Advising Coordinator for South Central Asia of the US Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs have recently made a short visit to Bangladesh. In a tête-à-tête interview with Mahdin Mahboob from Star Campus, she has talked about different issues relating to students going to US for their higher studies ranging from choosing the institution that would best suit you to the much talked about visa issues. The following are excerpts from that interview:

Star Campus (SC): What is the duration of your trip in Bangladesh and what are the key objectives that you plan to fulfil?

Kathleen Kisting Alam (KKA): It is exactly one working week and the office here has made a packed schedule for me during this time. This includes meeting principals and faculty members of the top schools, colleges and universities in Bangladesh, conducting seminars specially designed for students applying for undergraduate and graduate levels in US, assessing and helping the student counselling activities of the American Centre here and other related things.

My primary objective is to work with the educational advisors. I am here to listen, to look, to watch what challenges they are facing and how we can help them in some way — with more necessary equipments, more books, more training and anything like that.

SC: What are the secondary and other objectives of the trip?

KKA: The secondary objective of course is to meet the educationists in the country to get a clear idea of the challenges students themselves face — with the application process, and it is a complicated application process to the American higher education system. If we have a clear idea about the challenges students are facing, we can understand the resources we need to provide for the Student Advising Center.

SC: What other programs have you been conducting in South and Central Asia?

KKA: Central Asia is fairly new to me so there we are trying to understand the challenges students are facing in terms of the regional perspectives. But I have been working with South Asia since 1995 and here, the challenges students are facing are more country specific.

Right now, we are facing huge problems with private recruiters and private agents for admission into different institutions, and they aren’t always ethical and are taking advantages of the challenges the students are facing. But in some other places we are trying to work with them to yield better results.

SC: Although Visas are not part of your responsibilities, I cannot help asking you one question. Students in Bangladesh tend to believe that after 9/11, students’ visa applications are turned down by the American Embassy only because they are Muslims. Is this fact or fiction? Myth or reality?

KKA: It’s completely a myth. Strangely enough, this myth is only popular in Bangladesh and Pakistan, not even in the gulf (which has a vast Muslim majority in almost all the countries)! I don’t hear this story in the Middle East or even Afghanistan for that matter.

In the recent years, I have observed that a higher number of Bangladeshi students are now applying for higher studies in US and the good news is, the number of student visas being issued has also increased sharply over the last couple of years.

SC: How dependable are the ranking websites?

KKA: They are not quite dependable and students must do a good amount of research before choosing their institution. This is very different for grad and undergrad studies. For Grad school, you have to have a clear idea of what you are going to specialize and hence choose your institution accordingly. In Undergrad level, it is a transition from High School Education to the university level, a much more matured level.

SC: How does the American Centre exactly help the students planning to go the US for higher studies?

At this point of the interview, we also spoke with Arefin Jahan(AJ), the Student Advisor at the American Center, Dhaka.

AJ: We provide accurate and unbiased info about different institutions and the admission process for students planning to go to US for higher studies. We offer one-to-one advising — which includes information on financial aid, on universities and the application process in general. Here, members can sit for free mock tests of the GRE, GMAT, SAT and TOEFL exams. The library and computers are also open to members and we have daily, monthly and annual membership opportunities.

We regularly hold seminars on the various aspects of higher study in US in our Dhaka office and also in different educational institutions in and outside Dhaka.

Tech Wise [31st August, 2008]

http://www.thedailystar.net/campus/2008/08/05/tech.htm

Enormous Artificial Sand Dune to House Museum of Modern Arab Art

In your next trip to the middle east, or Qatar to be precise, if you happen to be driving through the desert near Doha and notice an unusual number of Bentleys and Ferraris parked in front of a sand dune, you may find you’re actually looking at the Museum of Modern Arab Art, a two-level, air-conditioned 350,000-square-foot facility celebrating over 10,000 works of art.

The museum, designed by architect Rafael Viñoly in NYC, will be completed by 2011, and will show off a collection of 5,000 paintings, 700 antiques, sculptures, metalwork and ceramics, a calligraphy section–not fancy party invitations, mind you, but elaborately ornate murals and manuscripts ranging from the early Qur’anic period to modern times–and other areas will include photography and applied arts. It may not surprise you to know that this collection is actually entirely owned by one man, Sheikh Hassan Bin Mohammed Al-Thani, which he started amassing 10 short years ago.

An engineering firm for the project reports that the building’s surface will be a canvas-like material, and that the whole thing was difficult to air condition, given the combination of new materials, desert climate and priceless humidity-sensitive artworks.

No price estimate for the project is yet available, but it suffices to say this will be the most expensive sand dune ever!

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Ode to Beethoven

These Mp3 speakers provide a mass-produced, popular piece of technology with a decorative alternative accessory.

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Sit Lamp is a doggie!

The following are designs from Thomson , a graduate of the University of Brighton –

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Cordless Candelabra

A superior and celebrated icon of traditional ornate lighting design is transformed into a cordless lamp when lifted from its charging dock.

[StarTech] TechViews – How cool is Cuil.com?

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=52274

When I first heard about cuil.com (pronounced ‘cool-dot-com’), I did two things. The first is quite obvious visit the search engine and the second was to ‘google’ the word ‘cuil’. Shockingly enough, google.com, always proud of being the world’s largest search engine gave, as its second search result, ‘Cuil – The World’s Biggest Search Engine’!

This all new search engine, launched on July 28 and claiming to be the world’s largest search engine with a database of more than 121,617,892,992 web pages, does have a sleek look with its trendy colour combination and fonts.

Cuil claims it has a higher number of indexed pages compared to Google. But does bigger necessarily mean better?

So, Cuil has a lot to live up to and it knows this. Google is one of the most recognised brands on the planet and the most powerful brand globally with a brand value of US$66.5m, according to US research and consulting firm Millward Brown.

Cuil.com is headed by Anna Patterson, a former engineer at Google.com. Her last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google Inc. bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system.

She believes her latest invention is even more valuable – only this time it’s not for sale. Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the internet.

Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers – Russell Power and Louis Monier – searched for better ways to search.

Patterson believes that Cuil has at least three times the size of Google’s index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index’s breadth nearly three years ago when the catalogue spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

Cuil won’t divulge the formula it has developed to cover a wider swath of the Web with far fewer computers than Google. And Google isn’t ceding the point: Spokeswoman Katie Watson said her company still believes its index is the largest.

After getting inquiries about Cuil, Google asserted on its blog that it regularly scans through 1 trillion unique Web links. But Google said it doesn’t index them all because they either point to similar content or would diminish the quality of its search results in some other way.

A search index’s scope is important because information, pictures and content can’t be found unless they’re stored in a database. But Cuil believes it will outshine Google in several other ways, including its method for identifying and displaying pertinent results.

Rather than trying to mimic Google’s method of ranking the quantity and quality of links to Web sites, Patterson says Cuil’s technology drills into the actual content of a page. And Cuil’s results will be presented in a more magazine-like format instead of just a vertical stack of Web links. Cuil’s results are displayed with more photos spread horizontally across the page and include sidebars that can be clicked on to learn more about topics related to the original search request.

Finally, Cuil is hoping to attract traffic by promising not to retain information about its users’ search histories or surfing patterns – something that Google does, much to the consternation of privacy watchdogs.

Cuil is just the latest in a long line of Google challengers.

Google has become so synonymous with Internet search that it may no longer matter how good Cuil or any other challenger is, said Gartner Inc. (IT) analyst Allen Weiner.

“Search has become as much about branding as anything else,” Weiner said. “I doubt (Cuil) will be keeping anyone at Google awake at night.”

Star Campus and We – Team members speak out : Second Anniversary Issue

http://www.thedailystar.net/campus/2008/08/04/camspotlight_team.htm

…

Star Campus is celebrating its Second Anniversary, and on the eve of this great moment, I feel proud to be part of the Star Campus Team. From the humble beginnings back in August, 2006, Star Campus has today grown to be the largest and most influential campus based magazine of the country.

I joined the Star campus team in May 2007 as a Copy Editor. This job required me to edit the many different types of articles that came into Star Campus every day. Editing itself is a very thought-provoking job. The articles that come in have all sorts of qualities and all sorts of ideas. Bringing all of them to a standard version does get challenging at times. Although my job does get very demanding at times, I still love it because of the general working atmosphere and the wonderful people I work with. Shahnoor Wahid, the Star Campus Editor is almost like a father figure to me being a very good friend at the same time. I feel fortunate to have excellent colleagues in the form of Sarah, Ridwan, Nazia, Towsif, Shayera, Saushan and Shagor.

Many thanks to all the readers of Star Campus for making the magazine what it is today. The readers, who also happen to be our contributors, are the key ingredients of Star Campus and stand to define what the magazine is all about by the students, for the students and of the students.

Seeking feedback for the second anniversary issue, we have received a number of letters from our valued readers who have sent in letters expressing their likes and dislikes about the magazine. Keeping those in mind, we will try to make the necessary changes in the coming issues so that the magazine can continue to achieve its motto of linking young minds together.

All in all, it indeed is a wonderful experience working here at Campus, one that I will cherish forever. I wish Star Campus a very happy Second Anniversary!

…

Tech Wise [17th August, 2008]

http://www.thedailystar.net/campus/2008/08/03/tech.htm

The 2008 Beijing Olympics is on full throttle as the top athletes from all the countries in the world fight it out in the Chinese capital. But this Olympics is more than the athleticism, sportsmanship or team work it is also a technological marvel, and this week, in Tech Wise, we will have a sneak peek at the hi-tech stuff in use in this year’s Olympics.

Chinese Surveillance-
Taking a hand
from the West!

IN what is surely the most surprising of moves and yet the most sensible one China has made, the officials ate Beijing are taking the help of some of the top US Surveillance firms to make sure that everything goes down calm and peaceful in the grand event. With the threat of Tibetan protestors and also a looming threat from international terrorism, it is only obvious that this step was needed. While China prides itself on home-grown technology, ego has not come in the way of Chinese making sure that all is safe and serene at Beijing. China is taking the help of major Chinese firms such as Honeywell, General Electric, United Technologies and I.B.M. to ensure that no unwarranted event happens in during the celebration of human excellence.

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Speedo LZR: Seamless
wonder streaming in the Cube!

THE suit is seamless and reduces drag because of that very reason. Less drag in water means more speed. Drag only slows us down as it is nothing but friction in fluids. The swimsuit in fact has no seam as the costume’s material is welded together to give the effect of having no seams. This top-notch suit is being put to the ultimate test in the grand Water Cube in the games and without doubt all eyes are on Phelps who is there to claim another bunch of gold medals in Beijing.

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Only thing raining at the Olympics
is Medals!

IT looks that nothing is impossible for the Chinese to achieve even if it means manipulating the rainfall. To ensure that the Olympic Games become a fair weather event, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau claims to have succeeded in their experiments in stopping the rain. Silver iodide, a seeding agent will be used to increase the rate of collision and coalescence of droplets in clouds above zero degrees producing a downdraft that prevents cloud formation. Another method involves firing seeding agents into clouds from anti-aircraft guns before the clouds could reach the games stadium losing all its perspiration at the periphery of the games arena. The Chinese want no dampener on their grand event!

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Bird’s Nest and Water Cube-
Architecture Extraordinaire!

THE main stadium for this year’s Beijing Olympics is, quite simply, stunning and is an amazing piece of architecture and design. If China has set out to impress the world with the 2008 Olympics, the stadium and its attendant buildings – the Aquatics Centre (aka the Water Cube) and the main stadium are just the right note to start the grand tune off. The Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube are breathtaking venues and provide the perfect stage for the Olympic drama to unfold. In essence, the Water Cube is a big, £50m steel and concrete box containing a huge swimming pool flanked by 17,000 seats. But what an extraordinary box it is. The pattern of the structure has been designed to hold huge pillows of ETFE, a lightweight substitute for glass. The pattern is based on the natural formation of soap bubbles to give a random, organic appearance.

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A million dollar bike
for that one priceless
Olympic gold!
KOGA Miyata has designed this million dollar bike for the Olympic qualifier from Holland, Theo Bos. The bicycle has been designed with a budget of million dollars and one would pretty much feel that it is not too modest. It is a seamless piece of technological marvel. It has no brakes and can cut through the air without drag, much like hot knife through butter. Apparently no ordinary man can handle this mean machine and that is understandable. Keep an eye out and see if Theo Bos does indeed bring home the gold to the Dutch.

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Nike BMX Bike:
A grand debut at the games

IN action sports, the mantra is “I want to be different, just like everybody else,” says John Martin, global creative director for Nike Action Sports. So Americans will help inaugurate the new Olympic discipline of BMX racing in NIKE ULTRALIGHT bike “leathers” that keep riders cool with high-tech “zoned venting,” but are styled for BMX culture. A grand expressive entrance for the modern sport on the grandest stage of them all!

[StarTech] TechViews – Tech marvels @ Beijing 2008

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=50469

Chinese paramilitary on segways (top); Cloud seeding technology (bottom left) and ultrafiltration membrane rainwater recycling technology (bottom right)

The 2008 Summer Olympics is on full throttle in Beijing and the Chinese government has vowed to make it the most perfect and secure game ever. From making exceptional moves like taking technological help from different non-Chinese companies to the attempt of ensuring a no-rain weather in Beijing, this Olympics is much more than sports alone.

In addition to sportsmanship, it is a celebration of state of the art technology and human skill and endeavour. This week, in Star-Tech, we will have a look into the technological marvels of the Beijing Olympics.

Say No to Rain!
The Chinese Government has decided to say no to any form of disruptions in the game, including rain! The administration is using a technique called ‘cloud seeding’, which works in the following way:

- Aircraft or artillery spray chemicals (often silver iodide or dry ice) into clouds to encourage tiny vapour droplets to coalesce.

- Droplets of supercooled water (liquid below freezing) coalesce into snow and melt as they fall.

- Heat released as the droplets freeze boosts updrafts, which pull more moist air into the cloud.

Security above all else
Security at the Olympics is not a joke and the Chinese are spending a staggering $6.5 billion for the purpose, more than four times of what was spent in Athens in 2004! This includes the usage of modern gadgets like segways (see picture) and advanced surveillance technologies.

General Electric (GE), IBM, Honeywell, Siemens, Panasonic, and LG have all won major contracts providing security technology for the Olympicsone of the biggest security-business opportunities ever.

GE@Olympics!
China has decided to let go of its ego about their technological superiority and have deployed a range of American, European and other foreign companies for different purposes including surveillance and electronics supply. General Electronics (the American electronics giant) alone is surpassing $1.7 Billion in Company-Wide Sales Revenues for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The company is providing advanced infrastructure technology to all 37 official competition venues and projects around Beijing.

It has won 400 infrastructure projects in and around Beijing that will generate $700 million in revenues. NBC Universal, who are broadcasting more than 3600 hours of Olympic Games coverage in US has also generated a record of more than $1 billion in advertising revenues, making the Beijing Games the most successful Games in GE’s history.

GE is managing projects in all 37 official Beijing Games competition venues and 168 commercial buildings in and around Beijing. Several projects feature technological firsts for China, including filtration technology for safe drinking water and rainwater recycling at the National Stadium (Bird’s Nest), 73 electrical substations to provide power at more than 50 Olympic Games venues, and advanced baggage screening at the Beijing Capital International Airport.

[StarTech] TechViews-New look of Facebook

http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=49362

In an attempt to hold on to its popularity, Facebook, the fastest growing Online Social Networking site, has recently introduced a complete ‘new look’. Whether the new look is here to stay or not still remains to be answered, but let’s have a sneak peek into what the new look is all about and its share of pros and cons.

Facebook has been developing its new design for the past 6 months and as a part of this process has received feedback from more than 100,000 of its users. One of the principal changes in the new Facebook is an expanded ‘Wall’ section, which will incorporate feed information about friends’ activities as well as the ability to leave comments.

In addition to that, a Publisher feature allows users to add photos, upload videos, or write notes from a single place. Other information, such as applications or photos have been organised into tabs.

Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “We’ve made the changes rolling out in order to highlight the most recent and relevant information that users value, give users even more control and ownership over their profiles and simplify the user experience. Facebook’s new design makes it a lot easier for users to share information.”

The development comes as Facebook and rival MySpace vie to become the central hub of online communications and social networking.

With the new updates, you won’t be able to see a member’s entire profile on one screen. Personal information about someone will be included on one “tab” of a profile, whereas the “wall”- public messages, developer-created applications, News Feed updates, and other activity-related information – will be on a separate tab. A third tab will link to the photos that the member has uploaded. Facebook has also said that members will be able to create separate tabs for their favourite applications.

Part of this is because of technical issues, Facebook has said, telling members that the changes will make the interface cleaner. “As more and more information is available on Facebook – more photo albums, more applications, and more history -we’ve realized that Profiles have become cluttered and slow as a result,” a release from the site read. “We’re trying to make profiles more simple and relevant, while still giving you control over your profile and how you express yourself.”

In the ‘all-new’ Facebook, users will now have more control over their “Walls”, the sections of their profiles where friends can leave comments and videos. Downloaded applications, such as Text Twirl, will be listed under their own tab, and information that does not change frequently has been relegated to a less visible section of the site.

Most importantly, however, the manifold updates that a user receives about what their friends are up to known as “feeds” will be brought together in a single place, making the site cleaner but also more appealing to advertisers.

I personally found the new look of the Facebook ‘Home’ much less appealing than what it used to be. It seems to be a badly organised notice board with too many notices on it! It might be true that I too might become used to the new ‘looks’ in the long run, but if the first impression fails to be impressive, I really don’t think it will be able to impress later.

Facebook, which has 80 million regular users, is hoping that the new features will reassure users who have become concerned about the amount of clutter on the site, particularly as they store more personal information on their profiles.

Goodbye Randy Pausch

http://www.thedailystar.net/campus/2008/08/01/feature_3.htm

PROFESSOR at Carnegie Mellon, who inspired millions, dies at 47

To those of us who have seen ‘The Last Lecture’ and have found it inspiring and motivating, this news is not shocking, but sad nevertheless. Randy Pausch, a professor at the Carnegie Mellon University who inspired countless students in the classroom and others worldwide through his highly acclaimed Last Lecture, has died of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was only 47.

Also a Carnegie Mellon alumnus, Pausch co-founded the Entertainment Technology Centre and led researchers who created Alice, a revolutionary way to teach computer programming in what Pausch termed as ‘a fun way’. He was widely respected in academic circles for a unique interdisciplinary approach, bringing together artists, dramatists and designers to break new ground by working in collaboration with computer scientists.

Outside the classroom, he gained public fame for delivering what would come to be known as “The Last Lecture.” On Sept. 18, 2007, only a month after doctors told him that he had three-to-six months to live following a recurrence of pancreatic cancer, he presented a lecture called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” to a packed auditorium at Carnegie Mellon.

The moving and often humorous talk recounted his efforts to achieve such childhood dreams as becoming a professional football player (which he wasn’t successful in achieving, but which helped him become what he finally was), experiencing zero gravity and developing Disney World attractions. In the process, he shared his insights on finding the good in other people, working hard to overcome obstacles and living generously.

“If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself,” Pausch said. “The dreams will come to you.”

A book version, “The Last Lecture” co-written by Jeff Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal (and a fellow Carnegie Mellon alumnus), became a best-seller upon its release in early 2008.

“Randy had an enormous and lasting impact on Carnegie Mellon,” said Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon. “A brilliant researcher and gifted teacher, he was a key member of our Human-Computer Interaction Institute and co-founder of the Entertainment Technology Centre. His love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance came together in the Alice project, which teaches students computer programming while enabling them to do something fun making animated movies and games. Carnegie Mellon and the world are better places for having had Randy Pausch in them.”

Pausch was also a pioneer in the development of virtual reality, including creating the popular Building Virtual Worlds course at Carnegie Mellon.

He is survived by his wife, Jai, and three children: Chloe, Dylan and Logan. For more information on Randy’s life and legacy, read In Memoriam: Randy Pausch, Innovative Computer Scientist at Carnegie Mellon, Launched Education Initiatives, Gained Worldwide Acclaim for Last Lecture.

To those of you who haven’t yet seen the video, I would suggest that you do so soon. The Last Lecture I can assure you, is indeed very inspirational and motivational to say the least.

Download Link from Youtube:
Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Information Source : CMU Website

Tech Wise [3rd August, 2008]

http://www.thedailystar.net/campus/2008/08/01/tech.htm

Dumbell Shaped Sports Bottle Gives You a Thirst Quenching Workout

IT remains a question that how much of a workout you are going to get with some really light-1-pound weights, but the idea behind this Dumbell Sports Bottle design is sure appreciable. Not only would a bottle weight serve as a constant reminder about proper hydration, it would also encourage recycling. Plus, if you were to drink from the bottle, it would unbalance the weight, which could benefit your muscles by working them in unique ways. It’s only a concept at this point, but if you add on some litter and gallon bottles it could perhaps be a much more viable product.

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Dell’s Budget But Decent Inspiron Line:
Inspiron 13 Laptop and 518 Desktop

THERE’S the all new Dell Inspiron series — Inspiron 13 which starts under $800 (BDT 56,000 approx.), with a 13-inch “high definition display,” touch controls, and a slot-loading DVD drive.

The Inspiron 13 laptop is a great choice for back to school shoppers looking for a smaller, lighter, more efficient mobile PC. With a starting weight of just under 5 pounds, the Inspiron 13 combines a simple and clean design encased in glossy Pacific blue with black trim. Smart features include a 13-inch high definition display, capacitive touch media buttons, 8-in-1 media card reader and slot-load DVD drive. Optional features include built-in wireless networking, built-in webcam and Bluetooth connectivity.

The Inspiron 518 desktop is a standard budget tower but dressed up in glossy black, starting at $349(BDT 24,430 approx.).

The Inspiron 518 desktop features a gloss-black exterior with chrome accents. Families will appreciate the top media tray with two easy-access USB ports for quick MP3 player syncing and cell-phone charging. It provides performance to meet the most typical family PC activities, like faster networking connections with Gigabit Ethernet, DX10 integrated graphics for casual gaming, optional 500GB hard drive for storing digital images and music libraries, and optional quad core processors. Both these Inspirons are available online at www.dell.com.

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SimpleTech [re]drive is a 500GB Green Machine

SIMPLETECH’S [re]drive is the self-proclaimed “World’s Most Eco Friendly External Drive,” calling attention to its bamboo and aluminium casing, low power hard drive, energy star power adapter and lack of fan (the aluminium acts as a heat sink). Whether or not it actually is the world’s greenest seems somewhat subjective, but with 500GB of space and Turbo USB 2.0 connection, it should get the job done either way. The [re]drive is currently available in US markets at $160. [BDT 11,200 approx.]

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Freecom Mobile Drive XXS Is the Smallest, Lightest 2.5-inch Hard Drive

Freecom’s just taken the portable hard drive crown with what they’re claiming to be the smallest and lightest 2.5-inch USB drive on the market now. Their Mobile Drive XXS comes in 160GB, 250GB and 320GB sizes, and is bus-powered for one less thing you have to carry around.