Meet the national winners of AB InBev Maverick 2.0 Bot-a-thon from SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur

We were so thrilled that we started hooting. Yes, the feeling of becoming a national winner was awesome. We started getting calls from friends and relatives. At that time it was difficult to absorb our emotions but with time, we realized that we are actually the national winners of AB InBev Maverick 2.0 Bot-a-thon. Here is an excerpt from our winning journey.

Our journey kickstarted the moment we began looking for hackathons and found AB InBev Maverick 2.0 Bot-a-thon posted on the Unstop (formerly Dare2Compete)website. We were really motivated to participate in it because it is a great platform to showcase your skills and knowledge in front of such esteemed and experienced panelists. We knew that with the help of this competition, we can amplify our idea to a great extent so that people can understand the importance of technology in solving even the biggest of problems. In addition, we were pretty much attracted to the mentorship/guidance sessions hosted by AB InBev and the opportunity to get a PPI!

Ready, get-set, go...

In the first phase of the competition, we had an online quiz related to automation, data science, and python. We did it well. At that stage, we had no knowledge of the problem statement, but we expected something related to automation stuff.

Then once the problem statements were announced, we had to choose one among the three statements and submit our ideation in a single slide presentation. We chose to create an IVR chatbot, but we had no idea how we would proceed further. Initially, we were not able to understand the problem statement properly but we referred to various articles and blogs related to the project and then we understood the real essence of the problem. And then we documented the features of the chatbot in a single slide and waited for the results.

On a broader level, we maintained a document for jotting down all the ideas and characteristics related to the project. Then we prepared the workflow diagram in order to get a better understanding of the project. After the documentation part was done we started the coding part. We distributed the work equally and as per our convenience, we used to push the code on GitHub. Working on the problem was a challenging one. However, the most challenging phase was developing the product because as per our problem statement we need to take care of both the vendors as well as the users. But with the support of the team, we tackled all the problems very easily.

Challenges help you in making your mark

We faced many difficulties in choosing the right technology for the product. For creating chatbots we had Amazon lex, Google dialogue flow, and many other prebuild services. But went with RASA, a customizable chatbot framework. But in the entire journey, we made sure we never had conflicts. We used to listen to each other's points very carefully and sincerely and implemented whatever best suited our project. We should always maintain a proper balance in our team and avoid conflicts as much as possible because it lessens the efficiency of the team.

Also, there is no denying that it's very tough to collaborate and work together in the current situations. But we overcame these challenges by maintaining a proper server of our team on Discord. We use to help each other a lot. Some days we sat for 7-8 hours continuously but the trick is that if you are full of energy and have the fire of excelling in a competition in your mind, then trust us it will surely give you the courage to handle any problem.

We were super supportive and productive. We didn't waste much time on unnecessary meetings and tried to keep them simple, short and productive. 

All in all, AB InBev Maverick 2.0 Bot-a-thon was amazing in terms of judgment quality, organization, and framing. The judges were very cooperative and they made the environment so much comfortable for us that the feeling of nervousness vanished into thin air. Apart from technical skills, the major things which we learned from this competition are that if you manage your project properly and present it in a good manner then you can surely win any challenge or hackathon.

To catch up on the latest feed, read:

• The difference between a CV and Resume you probably didn’t know!
• This 19 year old Jamia Millia Islamia student's quarantine shelter design has won several national & international accolades
• An elevator pitch that sells your business idea all the time!
• Aligarh-based boy bags 100% scholarship at Stanford University
• From Microsoft to BYJU’S, these big shot companies are looking to hire interns!