The Train to Vijayawada (APSCHE 2023)Archived

May 6, 2023Personal

Gain and Shine reached the final round of the APSCHE Student Innovation Award. We had two days, no money, and a waiting-list train ticket.

C Sarath Babu's writing on the APSCHE Student Innovation Award, 2023. Sarath and Pavan on arrival in Vijayawada at night

Gain and Shine had a pitch by then. What it did not have was anywhere to give it.

The APSCHE Excellence Award had a Student Innovation category, and our college had a slot for it and nobody to put in. So we went to them. They looked at what we had built, decided it was worth it, and applied on our behalf.

May 1st, 2023, the mail came back. Selected for the final round. Deck due to APSCHE by 9 PM the next day, and report to their office in Vijayawada.

Getting there

Pavan and I sat with Canva and whatever else we had, reworking the pitch into the format they sent as reference, which was somebody else's winning deck from the previous year.

No reaction time for the travel. A bus would cost too much and take too long. So a train.

That was the first train ticket I ever booked. First train I ever travelled in. I thought booking a ticket meant getting a seat. It came back waiting list 30. Nothing confirmed.

We got on anyway.

The night

Madanapalli to Vijayawada, changing seats every time somebody with a real ticket turned up. Rain outside. Full enjoyment mode for a while.

C Sarath Babu's writing on the APSCHE award, 2023. Sarath and Pavan on the train to Vijayawada — Pavan and me, somewhere on the way.

Then the people whose seats they actually were arrived, and there was nowhere left. No place to sleep. No place to sit and work on the deck. General compartment was too crowded to even stand in.

Vijayawada, late, the station sign still lit. We freshened up in the railway station itself and waited for morning.

C Sarath Babu's writing on the APSCHE award, 2023. Sarath and Pavan on arrival in Vijayawada at night, lit from behind — Off the train.

C Sarath Babu's writing on the APSCHE award, 2023. Sarath and Pavan under the Vijayawada station sign — Vijayawada, finally.

C Sarath Babu's writing on the APSCHE award, 2023. Vijayawada railway station lit up at night under a full moon, the night Sarath arrived — The station from outside.

The auto

We trusted Google Maps, and so did the auto driver, who did not know the route.

There was a flyover. We needed to go under it. We took it. Midway we had to stop, get down, and pay extra to sort it out.

Hard morning. After that it got better.

Inside

The APSCHE building was full of people with different ideas, from different colleges. I talked to almost everyone. Genuinely talented, good pitches. Some were friendly, some were heads down rehearsing.

The slot was 9:30. It started around 11:30.

One by one, people went up.

Pavan could not present. Tooth pain, could not talk. So the pitch was mine alone.

It was a good pitch. First time presenting to a panel like that: people from manufacturing, lecturers, someone from the education ministry, the APSCHE chairman, people from NASSCOM. They gave real feedback, and the improvement points they raised were things we had not seen ourselves.

The chairman

In the evening the appreciation came, and it came from the chairman himself, Prof. K. Hemachandra Reddy.

C Sarath Babu's writing on the APSCHE award, 2023. Sarath and Pavan with APSCHE chairman Prof. K. Hemachandra Reddy in his office — With Prof. K. Hemachandra Reddy, in his office.

Everyone got their participation certificates. They said the entries would go to the directors.

We left with a couple of friends whose ideas were good enough that we are still in touch.

Going home

The plan covered getting there. It did not cover getting back.

Parjan, from another college, gave us a lift as far as Madanapalli. Then we waited an hour in the middle of the night for a bus that eventually turned up as a private one, and took it the rest of the way.

C Sarath Babu's writing on the APSCHE award, 2023. Sarath, Pavan and Parjan outside the APSSAAT building — With Parjan, outside the building.

Later we presented it at the college.

What I remember is not the award. It is that the whole thing was decided in a morning, built in a day, and carried on a ticket that was never confirmed.