A couple of weeks back, a team from Orange&Bronze Software Labs, Inc. came to our school to hold a technology seminar and recruitment activity that highlighted and showcased the usefulness and power offered by Google technologies.
Normally, seminars like these are organized by the companies' HR departments who tie up with school officials. And normally, you only get to see representatives from these companies do all the talking. But this technology seminar I had attended was something else. Why? Because you don't normally get to see both the CEO and CTO of a software company come all the way over here and do the talking themselves.
This certainly made an impression on me as a member of the audience but what I was more interested in was what they had to talk about. And needless to say, Orange&Bronze(O&B) didn't disappoint. Although they were time-constrained, the speakers and staff of O&B managed to convey their message clearly from my point of view: "
GOOGLE rocks. And it can help you." As a technologist and student studying the disciplines of computer science, this was something I already knew but only to some extent. I have been using Google and some of its technologies and software applications for years. In fact, looking back at it, it makes me feel kinda old knowing how long I've been using Google-stuff.
Two years ago, during my term as president of our school's Computer Science Society we were using a multitude of Google-related technologies and apps (aside from other free and open-source software) during our year-long school activities.
Google docs made it easier for us to share files and presentations that we needed during our pre-planning stages for
Software Freedom Day(SFD). And during the post-SFD activities,
Google sites allowed us to do our annual event reporting in style while documenting the event photographs using
Picasa.
For our software engineering classes we made use of
Google codes as repositories for the software applications we were developing. And every time we needed to discuss things we resorted to go online using
Google wave.
I was there when Google pushed forth its cross site access functionality by linking up with video-sharing website, Youtube. I was there when Google came out with its own web browser
Google Chrome (to which I am now loyally using). I was there when our school's IT infrastructure and mail system was finally integrated with
GMail and Google apps. And more recently, you can now even log on to your Yahoo account USING GOOGLE!
Thanks to O&B, we got to experience first hand how Google Apps Engine can become a potential powerhouse utility that is useful in our careers as software engineers. When sir Butch Landingin, O&B Chief Technology Officer, demonstrated in developing a simple Android App using Python it reminded me of my classmate Jasper who also demonstrated to me how android apps were made using the android emulator (because we didn't have an android phone to test with) a few months back using Java. This just goes to show that student software developers are already on the right track of using powerful resources such as Google Apps Engine and Android in developing calibre-grade softwares and applications.
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MSU-IIT students and faculty together with Sir Calen and Sir Butch.
Photo by Sir Andrew. |
At the end of the seminar, I learned that our school was O&B's last stop to culminate their Mindanao-wide roadshow. Prior to us, they had already been to other schools in Mindanao like Ateneo de Davao, Capitol University, Xavier University, and Mindanao University of Science and Technology so I feel privileged and extremely lucky that I got the chance to sit down and listen to such a wonderful group people (who really know how to hold their seminars down).
I remember O&B's Chief Executive Officer sir Calen Martin Legaspi commenting that we Filipinos are known to excel in fields like sports and entertainment, but not really in the field of technology let alone in software development. And he is dead right in saying so. But it's never too late to turn things around. In the hopes of bringing not only recognition but also support from our government, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that companies like O&B continue to do roadshows and technological seminars such as this one that help encourage students and software developers like myself to pursue this fast-paced career. Although I have been a Google fan ever since, I am now more thoroughly convinced that Google is really all that powerful. A force to be reckoned with I daresay. So I'd like to thank O&B for reinforcing that idea.
To end this post, here's another proof why Google is awesome. I recently joined the Google vs. Yahoo war that some of my friends from
MLIA have been getting into these days. I looked up the phrase "Did you take" in both google and yahoo today. Yahoo came up with "Did you take microbiology." Google came up with "Did you take a bath in rainbows and cupcakes." Total win, Google. You so funneh'. :)
My Orange and Bronze Google Experience
