Designing her own website

It was on November 14, 1998 that the Pune edition of The Indian Express, launched a quiz series titled Quest Milestones in Science.' The...

It was on November 14, 1998 that the Pune edition of The Indian Express, launched a quiz series titled Quest Milestones in Science.8217; The series targeted at Pune8217;s English Medium schools, focussed on 200 scientists, both of Indian and foreign origin. The students taking part in the quiz were expected to add more information, other than that offered in the clippings and put it all in a scrap book.

When Maitrayiee first heard about this quiz series in her school, it aroused her curiosity enough to participate in the quiz. So the enthusiastic youngster started gathering the requisite information in right earnest. Says Maitrayiee, 8220;I was very curious about the scientists and my curiosity was further aroused as the paper published more and sketches of scientists in the series. As I probed for more information on them, I came across an amazing wealth of information regarding the contributions which they had made in the field of science and how they had gone about doing it. There was also information on what travails they had to go through while making these contributions.8221;

This gathering of information went on and her room became full of papers; all about information on the scientists.

The second stage was to put them in a scrap book. Here, Maitrayiee faced a practical problem. The loads of information that she had painstakingly compiled could not be accommodated on the pages of a scrap book. 8220;At the most, I could just give two to three pages to each scientists and I felt that this would not do justice to the work that I had taken up,8221; says Maitrayiee.

Faced with this practical problem, Maitrayiee realised that an alternative had to be found. And it came sooner that thought possible. As a daughter of a website developer and one who also runs a computer company, Maitrayiee was aware of the immense capacity of computers, and the ocean of information called the internet.

This lover of basketball, hit upon the idea of putting all the information on the Net by creating a website of her own. With full support from her father, Manoj Palwe, Maitrayiee took upon this new activity with zest. As she says, 8220;the internet seemed a very feasible idea to do just that and without worrying about how much space it would consume.8221; She adds with an impish grin and a twinkle in her eyes, 8220;it was a good strategy to collect information on the scientists and put it all on the net, as one of the selection parameters of the quiz was how much information the participant would give on each scientists.8221;

So, Maitrayiee would spend about two to three hours after her studies everyday in developing the website. Apart from continuing to collect information from libraries, she also started to download information from the net. Here, another problem cropped up. There was a mine of information on scientists of foreign origin but almost next to nothing about scientists on Indian origin. She had to depend on the libraries for this and it proved to be her Achilles heel as she could not gather adequate information on them and had to finally contend with a consolation prize.

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The website contains first an introduction to Maitrayiee and then the information on the 200 scientists and their discoveries. And to let the judges know about that extra effort, she put in information about the website in her scrap book.

What strategy will she adopt to tackle the next Quest series on Badge of Honour8217;? The youngster who desires to be a pilot says, 8220;wait one year. You will know when I8217;ll win the first prize.8221;