CONTENT:
i. EduAid milestone
ii. Development brief
iii. At the Office
iv. Indian Summer (message from Shubho)
EduAid milestone
After almost a year of supporting poor families with children who need support for education, we are receiving some results. Moumita's (left) progress report shows she has been ranked fourth while Rekha has ranked third. Although marks and ranks are not any accurate indication of achievements, nevertheless they at least indicate that the children are "engaged" and are enthusiastic about their school activities. For children of parents who have had just basic or no education themselves, this itself is a very positive sign. We hope we can continue this effort in the future through partnerships and other activities.An outline of the plan of action:
i. Convert EduAid into a NGO (non-governmental organisation) for which we visited several people and organisations this week (like "Banchbo" or "(I/we) Want to Live!", a NGO that operates in villages from Calcutta to provide medical aid and runs schools in remote areas). We received very good advice and offer to help to set up a NGO to carry on our work.
ii. Shift EduAid children to Narmada School where octogenarian Shanta Mukherjee has established a very caring and principled system of education unlike many of the mushrooming schools which are clearly more "business-oriented"
iii. Look for sponsorships and partnerships with International Schools through their CAS programmes to form collaborations and partnerships and faciliatate school to school networksiv. Turn our old Garia development centre into a training cum community centre for EduAid activities in which voluntary teaching and learning activities may take place side by side with real training for developers
v. Induct coordinator and assistant to work exclusively for EduAid project after formation of NGO involving a board of members.
Please refer to: http://eduaid.blogspot.com
Development brief
1. Last Saturday (27th) was a working day as we were forced to keep the company closed on Monday owing to a successful general strike. Attendance was high of Saturday (100% InquirySys team)
2. Full fledged development on second phase of Unit Planning Module for Kyoto International School and RCHK with collaborative features expected to be completed towards the end of first week of May, 2008 after which curriculum mapping tools will be built in
3. Work under way to add enhancements to Koddaikanal International School for MYP ARR module integrated with RSchool system as part of support and some new customisations being planned
4. Web development for K International had begun. Full fledged implementation of new modules and customisations for K International to also begin in the second week of May and concluded towards the end of the month. Many new features and modules which were discussed earlier this month at Tokyo will be implemented
5. New Web 2.0 module released at RCHK under working name of "RCHK Handbook". Interesting features like tags and tag clouds, keyword searches and "Did you mean..." suggestions based on phonetically similar sounding words implemented or being put in place now
6. Work continues on various school websites
At the Office
This month we inducted two new comers both experienced and trainee to the team. While Sudan Chhettri joined us as the graphic coordinator, we have also welcomed Nayan Mondal as a trainee. Nayan comes from Siliguri, a city/town at the foothills of the Himalayas in the north Bengal. Nayan is a very enthusiastic learner and our team members are already sharing their knowledge so that she soon learns the ropes in various aspects of development. The ladies in the pictures (above) 35K) are Debolina (left), an experienced web software developer who has been with us for a year now is seen instructing Nayan. Our team frequently forms small groups or teams of two or more developers and work following a "hands on technique" often referred to as peer programming. This helps to share knowledge and augment learning/domain knowledge even as we implement new modules or provide support.Indian Summer
Message from Shubho
The heatwave continues unabated with temperature soaring to near 45 degrees Celsius. In spite of the continuing and increasing traffic chaos in Calcutta, our developers make it to office in the heat and work until after sundown. The flyover bridge over the railway tracks near Garia / Bagha Jatin is still not repaired after over six months or more. Recently office - goers have came down from the packed buses and vehicles at the level crossing which usually takes over 40 minutes to clear from both sides of the crossing and stopped the suburban trains on more than one occassion to protest against both the metropolitan and railway authorities dragging their feet on reconstruction work. While Debolina travels on one of these trains from Canning every day, many others who travel from South Calcutta to Salt Lake development centre are affected by the traffic. Alternate routes exist, but the traffic situation is sometimes worse in them. To tackle such problems, developers frequently leave homes early and settle down in time: A very commendable effort! Thank you everyone!
Bengali cuisine like at home! Perfect for a summer afternoon or dinner. At very, very affordable prices. This is at Relish, a restaurant run by a Kajalda at Garia panch mathar more (5 point crossing). The food is served in a delightful traditional way on banana leaves decked on a steel plate. The fare is a wide range of vegetable, egg, fish, chicken and mutton curries. The menu is full of a wide selection of sweet water fish curries cooked in the true Bengali style so rarely found at restaurants even at Calcutta. Of course, I settled for a mutton curry:Fine rice (large portions and repeats), cauliflower curry, mutton curry, dal with mango (lentils), potato and "karela" fries and sweet-sour mango "chutney". All for free (well, it was an invitation from old friend Kajalda). Usually it costs about Rs. 65 (US approx. $1.25) per meal of the one I ordered. The range of meals start from Rs. 25 to 30 up to Rs. 125 for more expensive fish curries. Next time we have our cook on a holiday, we can try it for our office lunch. They don't do deliveries but can easily pack the food for us. Meanwhile anyone who wants to visit Relish and have a meal, please go ahead (ask for directions to me): highly recommended!
Sudip Banik, our ex-graphic coordinator had a severe lower abdomen ache yesterday morning (28th April). He had to be rushed to hospital by 10 AM and was administered pain killers immediately. When Sudan (our current graphic coordinator) and I met him last evening, he looked and sounded as normal and cheerful as he always is. Except for the fact that he was still in pain and the diagnosis is a 6 mm kidney stone. Let's hope he recovers quickly and responds to continuing treatment.
In his short but eventful stint with us (about 7 months), Sudip created a transition using the logo of Renaissance College which forms the customised dynamic flash slideshow on the home page of Renaissance College website ( http://www.renaissance.edu.hk/home.php ). He also created some interesting skin designs for FolioMaker some of which are packaged with FM Pro. He created the persona of "Beta", the Indian boy who appears with Betty when FM Pro standalone starts up.
