Networking Skills 

Cisco organised its first regional-level networking skills competition recently. Asia Pacific NetRiders 2008 featured 45 participants from 15 countries. These teams competed for an alllexpense paid trip to the U.S. 

The competition was connducted virtually for the first time over Cisco TelePreesence'M and Cisco WebEx™. Cisco TelePresence is a technology that utilises the latest video and audio techhniques to establish realltime, live, in-person commmunication while Cisco WebEx provides collaboraation applications that enable individuals, small businessses and enterprise organisaations to leverage the web as a channel for interaction with customers and co-workers. 

Asia Pacific NetRiders is an annual competition held 

by the Cisco Networking AAcademy. It tests the skills of students in computer nettworks hardware design, connfiguration, development, and maintenance, all of which are covered in the Networking Academy curriculum. 

"Cisco Networking Acaddemy encourages career addvancement, supporting the growth of the ICT industry, and promoting economic development," said Lokesh Mehra, Regional Manager, Cisco Networking Academy. 

Competing for the first SAARC NetRiders were stuudent teams from American International University, Dhaka; Amrita Vishwa Viidyapeetham, Coimbatore and Bangalore campuses; Sona College ofEngineering, Salem; and Edutech NTTF, Bangalore. 

HP Innovate 2009 Hewlett-Packard India announced the launch of the second edition of its annual 

technology innovation and entrepreneurship event 'HP Innovate 2009.' The award seeks to reward outstanding creative ideas of engineering graduates. 

HP Innovate invites :reesearch papers and protootypes from students in the areas of intelligent docuument processing, nanotechhnology, cryptography;;multimedia and gaming, emmbedded technology, network security, server virtualisaation arid other disciplines. 

Some of the top instituutions that were present at HP Innovate 2008 included BMS College of Engineering, lIT Kanpur, BITS Goa, and the NlITs. 

"HP Innovate 2009 furrthers our commitment to the collaborative academic community that is advanccing innovations in computer science and engineering," said Vinnie Jauhari, Region Lead, India Open Innovaation Office, HP Labs. 

The winning team will 

win a sponsored trip to Palo Alto, U.S., and the opportuunity to interact with emiinent researchers at HP Labs. 

Details on participation in HP Innovate are available at: http://h50025.www5.hp. com/ENP5/Public/ Content.aspx?content ID=25572&portalID=372 

&pageID=1 ./