Sunil Pai and Sujith Shenoy of Manipal PU College in Udupi district emerged winners at the first-ever state-level IT Quiz for rural students which ended here today. N R Chirag and Kushal of PES College, Mandya came second while Rajeev and Anil Kumar of Om Sree Public School, Hoskote in Bangalore Rural district, secured third place.

In a battle of brains and nerves at the finals of the IT Quiz, organised by the Karnataka IT Department and Tata Consultancy Services as a part of the BangaloreIT.com 2000, Sunil and Sujith, both II PU students, pulled up an incredible come-from-behind victory over the PES College team. Representing Mangalore Zone, hot favourites Manipal team were trailing behind PES team till the beginning of the 5th round in the six -round competition, but changed gears in the last two rounds to lift the coveted IT Quiz Trophy and pocket a cash scholarship of Rs 50,000 sponsored by TCS. Not quite able to hold on to the lead secured in the first four rounds, Chirag and Kushal, both first PU students, representing Mysore Zone, were quizzed out by Sunil and Sujith, both sons of doctors. They had to be contented with second prize which assured them TCS cash scholarship of Rs 30,000. The youngest team in the competition, Rajeev and Anil Kumar, both 14-year-old class nine students of Om Sree Public School, Hoskote, representing Bangalore Rural Zone, succeeded in clinging on to the third position after a snake-and-ladder ups and downs. They got a TCS cash scholarship of Rs 20,000.

The team of Rajiv and Sujay, students of St Annes Convent, Bagalkot, representing Dharwad Zone finished fourth while Sunil and Dhananjaya of STJ PU College, Davangere, representing Bellary Zone finished fifth. The team from RTPS High School, Raichur, which had the youngest member of the competition in Ashwin, a class 8 student, teamed up with Chandrashekara, a class 10 student, could not deliver it on the big occasion and finished last.

Apart from the prizes for winners, all the teams who had entered the finals of the IT Quiz, were given the TCS cash scholarship of Rs 10,000 each besides a host of gifts. In a Quiz organised to promote information technology in rural areas of the state, the brains of rural Karnataka not only showed that they are no less to their counterparts but also gave a clear indication that they can overtake students from urban areas given proper facilities.

The grand finale of the Quiz was kicked off by the lively Quiz master Giri Balasubramanyam popularly known as Pick Brainwith a googlie. And, the victims of that tricky question What did Bill Gates do when a person threw a cake at his face during his visit to Belgium in 1998?were none other than the winners of the Quiz. How many could muster the courage to tell that Bill Gates filed a complaint that the cake was not tasty, which in fact was the right answer! Amidst all the puzzlers and teasers, came a real dirtyquestion: What is Q-DOS?Poor quizzers gave all kinds of wrong answers except the correct expansion Quick Dirty Operating System. Witty, tough, googlies- the merciless quiz master fired questions from all cylinders. But, the contestants were no less as they shot back with equal vigour, never ceasing to surprise the capacity crowd gathered at the Palace Grounds to witness the show. The logical brains cracked toughest of tough riddles, but disappointed the crowd with some silly misses. The team from RTPS, Raichur, failed to answer a sitter as they failed to identify the photograph of IT giant Gururaj Deshpande, who in fact hails from the neighbouring Dharwad district.

The winners of the quiz, the duo from Manipal, failed to identify Mr Arun Netravali, the first Indian to be appointed President of Dell Labs, who in fact hails from Karwar. When the contestants were having butterflies in the stomach, the motley crowd had a gala time as many of them won several prizes answering the audience questions.

After many thrills and spills, the IT Quiz 2000 came to end but not before proving that mettle of the rural kids.

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