A six-month course on web development at their workplace has prompted a group of software engineers from Chennai to come up with their own portal dedicated to the Indian sportspersons who will be competing at the Rio Olympics.
The website,www.roarindiario.in, developed by a team of nine from Cognizant, has details about the various events which the Indian sportspersons are going to participate in as well as their bios, latest articles and links to social media profiles of them.
“We discovered that there were not many websites which offered complete information about every person participating under every category of sport for the upcoming Olympics. Our web portal provides information about all these athletes including their past achievements,” said Niranjan Shankar, who is part of the team.
He further said that after a course on web development, they decided to put what they had learnt into an innovative project and hit upon the idea to come up with a comprehensive website. “It was a learning experience as a team for us and we are hoping for all the Indian athletes to have a wider reach across the world. We are promoting the portal across social media sites as well and are hoping that more people will be interested in the days closer to the Olympics,” he said.
Get rewarded
for ‘mapping’ in
Do you have expertise about a specific locality in Chennai? Or can you contribute reviews, photos about a place? Sharing these on Google Maps can fetch benefits such as Google Drive 100 GB storage for one year and exclusive invites to events, according to a Google executive.
“You get rewards for sharing details about localities. One can opt in to becoming a local guide for a city. As one gets more points, they go up different levels. When you reach Level 5, you get exclusive invites for events with all expenses paid for some events,” Sanket Gupta, Product Manager, Google Maps said.
Showcasing features of Google Maps, Mr. Gupta said the Maps app now has a feature to add multi-stop directions while travelling to a destination. “Say you are travelling from Chennai to Puducherry, you now have the option to add stops such as restaurants, petrol bunks or a detour. You can add as many stops as you like and you will have the same seamless driving experience you are used to,” he said. Mr. Gupta said the app also helps people find cabs. In the latest version of Google Maps, when a person searches for directions, the user will also be shown an option of cab services in addition to the existing driving, public transport or walking options. Currently, the Maps feature shows distances with pricing of Ola and Uber. “When a user clicks on the preferred cab, they are taken directly to the preferred cab service providers’ payment page,” he said. India is in the top five countries using the offline maps feature, he added.
(Reporting by S. Poorvaja and T.K. Rohit)
