A Journey Ends

Hello Everyone!

With a heavy heart, I have to state that this will be my last blog-post as a Sun Campus Ambassador. January 18th 2010 was a sad day here, at Sun Microsystems Inc. The Sun Campus Ambassador program has been closed all over the world as of Monday.

This announcement ended my wonderful 17 month journey in Sun as a CA. I joined in September 2008 and was a part of Sun till January 2010. The experience is unforgettable and is one of the best parts of my college life.

It would be very ungrateful on my part if I don’t express my gratitude to all the people who have helped me in this journey. I would like to thank everybody who has supported me throughout this program directly or indirectly.

Here is a brief review of my journey of 17 months in Sun.

All this started a year and half ago when my senior and the previous Sun CA of my college, Anil Kuppa graduated and inspired all of us to continue the legacy of the Sun Campus Ambassador program at our campus. He helped us to get in touch with Sun personnel and got interviews fixed for the interested students of my class. I would like to thank him for his guidance and his inspiring aura.

Initially I was guided by Ankit Srivastava and after he left, I came under Rajesh Uma Shankar. Rajesh was a big support in Sun Microsystems for me. Any problem, issue or question, a mail to him was enough. Rajesh has always been there for us and supported us at every moment. In this period I got an opportunity to meet other coordinators like Abhishek Kumar, Anuradha ma’am, etc. who have always led us in the right direction and have taken the Sun CA to a completely new level. Thank you everybody for your constant support and guidance. And a special thanks to Rajesh for everything he did for my college during IAP.

It would be incomplete to talk about the Sun CA program without mentioning Mr. Ganesh Hiregoudar, the program manager for the academic programs (APAC). Ganesh sir was a wonderful mentor and was very understanding. He always motivated us to reach new heights and taught us how to think out of the box. Thank you for everything, sir.

The best part of the Sun CA program was that we could meet a lot of like-minded people. We had an opportunity to collaborate with students from all parts of the country. We all were a team and took the CA program and OSUM forward at our colleges. I made a lot of friends and got to know a lot of people. On this parting day, I wish everybody the best of luck in their future endeavors and hope that someday our paths will cross and we will work together. I will miss you all. :(

One of the biggest element of my term as a Sun CA was OSUM. Big thanks to Gary, Tzel, Cecilia and Eze who have always supported us through OSUM and helped me complete my SCJP and SCWCD through the vouchers.

Throughout my phase as a Sun CA, my biggest support and the back-bone of my tenure as a CA was my college. During my first month, a new open source group, S.O.U.R.C.E, was started at my college with the support of Sun Microsystems Inc. We are greatly indebted to Prof. Venu Gopal Reddy, the principal of my college; Prof. S. Ramachandram, the head of my department when I started my tenure and Prof. Lakshmi Rajamani, the current head of the department for their cooperation in building up a vibrant open source community at my college.

My classmates are a few of the best people I have ever seen. I am extremely grateful to them for extending their helping hand in every event/competition at my college and standing by me at every moment in the past 17 months. I am also thankful to my seniors for their timely advices and great suggestions. My juniors have always been a great support and gave me the courage to do things as a Sun CA and I appreciate their help a lot. Thank you all for your incredible support and cooperation in helping me sustain Osmania University’s reputation at Sun Microsystems Inc. and bringing me to this position. If you go through my blog-posts here, you will realize how much Osmania University has done for me and the open source community.

Before I conclude, I would like to thank my parents from the bottom of my heart for their inspiration and unbeatable guidance and support throughout this period. I am grateful to God for giving me this opportunity and hope I have done justice to my role.

Finally, I will quickly list out the important mile-stones reached in the last 17 months -

• Inauguration of S.O.U.R.C.E
• Software Freedom Day 2008
• The Ref Contest (Received accolades from several people and the idea was replicated in many countries)
• Establishment of Sun FTP Server at Osmania University
• Sun Tech Days 2009
• Sun support in Infinity 2009
• 18 internships from Sun Microsystems Inc. as a part of Industry Association Program
• Software Freedom Day 2009

Besides these major mile-stones, Osmania University was a part of several competitions and technical sessions in this period.

My recognitions as "Sun CA of the month" and "Sun CA of the quarter" were the biggest honors for me at Sun.

Well, before I say goodbye, I would like to thank Sun Microsystems Inc. on behalf of Osmania University for giving us this opportunity and at the same time thank Osmania University on behalf of Sun Microsystems Inc. for their unvarying support and cooperation to the open source community.

You can reach me at 14gautam@gmail.com and read my technical articles at http://gautam-m.blogspot.com/. And in case Sun pulls out this blog, I will replicate it elsewhere and provide the link at my tech blog.

Good bye.