Impressions competition was held showcasing the projects by Govt Teacher taught students at the ACE schools.
ACE Impressions at Amazon
You may view the album here.
In October 2023, Asha signed a MOU with the state education department and launched the ACE (Asha Computer Education) program. The goal of the program was to train 52 government middle, high and higher secondary schools to teach a one-year Computer Science curriculum. It aimed at empowering them to teach computer science at their schools directly. You may read about it here – ACE Program Inaugurated. Initially the program was kick started in Thiruvallur. We named this ACE V1.
The next year, in 2024, we launched the ACE V2 in 53 more schools, offering a more extensive, two-year computer science curriculum, and expanded our geography to Thoothukudi, Thiruvannamalai and Villupuram, in addition to Thiruvallur. Currently, the ACE program has been running in 105 schools with 107 government school teachers trained by Asha. You may read about it here – ACE V2 Inauguration
Submission of Projects
Like every Asha computer science (CS) program, the curriculum dedicates 1/3rd of the term to Project work. Students are encouraged to come up with their own ideas for the projects in consultation with their teachers. As this was the first time we were looking at projects from a program taught not by Asha teachers but by government teachers, there wasn’t much expectation with respect to the projects. But, like always, children managed to astound us!!
The quality of the projects was at par and some even better than those of our other programs. Considering the lesser number of sessions and time taken by the students to learn the contents of the curriculum, it was an incredible show of perseverance and talent!
We received 373 project submissions from all the 52 government schools!!
Asha lead teachers did the first level filtering of the projects and Asha volunteers, Mr. Rajaraman and Mr. Venkat did the second round of filtering. At the end of this, we had selected 17 projects to be showcased before external judges for Asha’s first ACE Impressions.
Organizing the event
Since this was the first event for the ACE program, there was a lot of enthusiasm amongst staff and teachers. The ACE program is funded by Amazon under its Amazon Future Engineer program. We approached Amazon to provide us their office as a venue for the event. Usually we host Asha Impressions at Amazon, but this being ACE’s first event, we found it necessary to host it at a nicer venue.
With Amazon confirming the venue, the date for the event was set for 19 March, 2025.
When ACE was launched, Asha had committed to awarding prize money totaling ₹4,20,000 to the winning teams, to be used for setting up computer labs at their respective schools. The students who are part of the winning teams would also be receiving small prizes. We bought water bottles for 3rd prize, school bags for 2nd prize and smart watches for the 1st prize winners.
Day of the Event – Competition
The event was scheduled to begin at 9.30 am. The students and teachers along with Asha staff arrived very early around 8 AM. Packed breakfast was organized for all in the Amazon cafeteria. Everyone had their breakfast and assembled on the 20th floor for security briefing by the Amazon team.
Once the judges arrived, Mr. Rajaraman took some time to brief them on the judging parameters. Since we had to make sure to keep time, each presentation would be given 15 minutes including Q&A. The judges were requested to maintain the time strictly. We calculated that 17 presentations at 15 minutes each would take up 4 hrs and 15 mins. We planned to end the competition by 3.15 and proceed to prize distribution.
The presentation competition was held on the 18th floor. Amazon has organized a team of volunteers who escorted the students to and from the rooms. Since only 100 people in total could be accommodated as one time due to fire and safety requirements, the teams who were scheduled to present first were brought to the 18th floor. Rest of the students were divided between two conference rooms on the 16th floor where Asha’s RTC teachers showcased projects by RTC students in one and Amazon volunteers showcased Amazon tech like Alexa in the other.
The judges were handed the score cards and presentations began around 10.15 am with the first one by PUMS Aranvoyal on Indian freedom fighter and politician Mr. K. Kamarajar. One of the student has dressed up as Kamarajar adding their creativity to their presentation. The students were seated in the order of their line up and it proceeded from there. As the first set of 5 teams finished their presenting, they were moved to the 16th floor and the other students were brought in to the room. We managed to keep the number of students to 130 with this ongoing rotation.
As the competition proceeded and the children who completed their presentations were escorted out, they took some time to help themselved to the beverages on offer at the floor cafeteria. The children enthusiastically picked mugs and choose amongst the wide array of drinks on offer. Some chose to have tea/coffee, others picked soup or boost. They had a good time operating the machine and marvelling at the entire organization of the space. They took pictures with their teachers after which Amazon volunteers kindly escorted them to the other floor.
We broke for lunch at 12:30 pm. A packed meal consisting of chapatti, vegetable kurma, gobi fry, veg biryani, raita, and gulab jamun was arranged for everyone in the dining area on the 20th floor. The competition resumed at 1:40 pm, by which time the 9th presentation of the day had just concluded. The next group of students took the stage, confidently presenting their projects and responding to the judges’ questions. Once all the presentations were completed, the judges deliberated to decide the winners.
While the presentations were underway, the Auxohub team visited Amazon to observe the event and interview both government and Asha teachers. Auxohub is conducting an independent evaluation of Asha’s initiatives across all our projects. As part of this, they have visited our Rural Technology Centres (RTCs), met with school Headmasters, and engaged in in-depth conversations with our teachers and students. We look forward to receiving their evaluation report soon.
Prize Distribution
While the judges were contemplating on the winners, all the students had to move to the 20th floor for the prize distribution event. The children were buzzing with excitement and chatter. Mr. Rajaraman started the session by talking about the conception and impelementation of ACE which had culminated in the first ACE Impressions. He then invited ACE Government teachers, Asha teacher and HMs to talk about their experince of the ACE program over the year. The teachers took their time talking about different aspects of ACE.
Mrs. Gayatri Narasimhan from Namme School Namma Ooru Palli (NSNOP) gracefully accpeted our invitiation to the event and spoke words of encouragement to the students.
Mr. Kumar Parthasarathy from Amazon was a Chief Guest for the event and he talk to the children about the importance of learning Computer Science. We then invited one of the judges, Mr. Bala Vijay to annouce the winners of Asha’s first ACE Impressions. There were shouts and cheers as the winners were announced-
3rd place – GHS Atimacheripet, winning prize money of INR 1,00,000
2nd place – PUMS Nallatur, winning prize money of INR 1,40,000
1st place – GHS Murukkampattu, winning prize money of INR 1,80,000!!
As we wrapped up the event, the judges and guests were presented with handmade gifts as token of our gratitude.
Our thanks to all the judges of the event-
1. Ms. Ramya KA
2. Mr. Vimal Anand
3. Mrs. Joan Mary
4. Mr. Bala Vijay
Judges’ Testimonials
Mrs. Joan Mary – It was my privilege to be a panel member for the presentations delivered by students from various schools. I was impressed with the confidence and energy each team brought with them. Most of the teams were able to answer the technical, content related questions which shows their enthusiasm, efforts and time spent to learn and create the presentations in a creative way. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole event by learning through the innovative thinking of these young minds. Kudos to ASHA team for creating such a positive impact in future generation!
Mr. Bala Vijay – First of all I would like to thank my leadership and Asha for giving me an opportunity to be a judge for these amazing 17 projects that got shortlisted from about 250 projects originally submitted. I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations, the ideas and thoughts behind each of those projects. One thing I liked about these was that the students presented these projects with more joy and passion and not with fear. This clearly shows their readiness and depth of knowledge in the content and the technicalities of getting it done over the tool, in this case ppt. Kudos to the teachers and Asha who were the root that held this whole tree of event and I am sure these students would emerge with flying colours as was their presentation. And I was glad to witness the Corporate Social Responsibility that Amazon as a company holds. All the best and keep up the great work!!