Onward & Upward - Team Divergents and the Walmart Global Techathon

"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." – Phil Jackson

A couple of months ago, when the Walmart Global Tech - Global Techathon was announced, my teams wholeheartedly jumped at the opportunity and registered our interest for participation. Our intent was straightforward - learning and prototyping new technology that could help solve real problems for our Customers. We jumped headlong into it, and after a whirlwind week of hacking, the final submissions were made. 

It was truly inspiring to witness the majority of the team taking part, and even more rewarding to realize that we were growing through our participation. What stood out for me was the exemplary teamwork on display. Even though we were divided into smaller groups, competing against one another, there was a unanimous commitment to assisting each other.

Our Subject Matter Experts ensured everyone understood the system they were crafting solutions for. Technical experts generously shared their knowledge, storytellers skillfully crafted our narrative, and the leaders valiantly spearheaded our efforts. It was beautiful to see the synergy in action. 

A week after the submission, we got the good news that one of our teams - The Divergents, had been shortlisted in the Top 22 teams to present in the final round before a Grand Jury. Top 22 out of about 500+ odd teams, was no mean feat. I was super proud and super excited, emailing, texting and IM-ing everyone I could about the achievement. 

However, the team soon reminded me of the looming final presentation in three days, and the opportunity to refine our pitch before then. Eager to perfect our story, we embarked on reshaping it from the ground up. We had a solid solution, for a real problem, and we wanted to use the time to make sure our story and narrative was pitch perfect. The zeal was palpable. The team was not just satisfied being finalists – they believed in victory.

Over that weekend, we meticulously crafted a pitch video using Canva, fine-tuned our story, ensured a flawless demo, and with yours truly recording the voiceover (frankly, because we couldn’t get anyone else to do it :)), we polished every second of every detail of the video ensuring it fit the 3 minute mark. In hindsight, creating that video was among our best decisions, allowing us to present our pitch exactly as intended.

The final presentation was to be made before a Global Grand Jury over Zoom. We joined our slot and listened to a couple of teams present their pitch. It was well and truly ‘a final’. We were in the midst of some top-class teams with innovative ideas. The questions from the jury were also absolutely on point. Of course we were nervous. There was a parallel chat going on between us on Zoom, where each of us were nervously contemplating the questions that we could be asked, and the answer to be given. It was finally our turn, and we let the video roll. We could feel that the video was well received. Surprisingly we had fairly less questions than our previous teams, the reason for which I would like to believe, was because our pitch was fairly comprehensive in pre-empting and answering some of the questions. It was a fairly smooth pitch and we felt good. 

The results were going to be announced during the Walmart Global Tech - ‘All Hands’, which is a Quarterly headline event in the Global Tech Community. The anticipation was palpable as we joined late in the evening, Indian time. The event began punctually, and halfway through, the Techathon results were announced. Out of 521 teams globally, across 11 diverse categories, we were among the top 22. This already was huge. And while we were processing the magnanimity of the situation, the unexpected announcement happened: 

“In 3rd Place, are Team Divergents - for their work on Dispute Negation System - Powered by Blockchain - Sudhakar Manivannan , Sooraj G , DRISHTI JAISINGHANI and Manikandan Kuppusamy uppusamy.”

I will admit, it took some time for that moment to sink in. It was surreal to see our names flash on the screen, next to ‘3rd Place’. Everything after that was a blur. The following day, I had to rewatch the event recording, having missed everything after that announcement due to the overwhelming joy. Celebrations on a parallel conference call with the whole team had already erupted, while I was letting Karunanithi Sivasubramanian and Sukanya Santhanam , who were equally elated with the results. The whole of the STFC Team was celebrating this win as theirs, and rightly so. Congratulatory messages had begun flowing in. We had done it. We were on the top of the world. Well technically, the top 3 of 521. 

I am proud of everyone in my team who participated or contributed in any way to the Techathon piitch that eventually lead to the podium finish. While Manikandan Kuppusamy , Sooraj G and DRISHTI JAISINGHANI were part of the winning team, Sathya Bama Ramathas and radha krishnan helped immensely in giving the team direction on picking the right use case. Palaniappan Jayapal , Aakanksha Gupta , Vignesh K B , Naman Purwar and Prakash Saravanan , all of these folks helped us in reviewing our pitch video and helping the team in everything they could to get to the Grand Jury Round. And of course, a super big dose of gratitude to Karunanithi Sivasubramanian for his constant guidance, and to Sukanya Santhanam for her relentless motivation and unwavering support, driving us to go for it. Thank you everyone. 

Yes, this has been long time coming. I had intended to publish this when Techathon results were announced, but had always got sidetracked. Today, as the Divergents received and flaunted their new Apple Watches from the Global Techathon Team as their prizes for the win, it seemed the perfect moment to reminisce all the special moments culminating to today. This endeavor was an invaluable learning experience, and I eagerly anticipate our next big adventure with my superstar team.

Onward and upward!