Ecuador at the Imagine Cup 2005 Japan finals. Day One.
And well, after the welcome party, it came the day for the first round of presentations, so things were getting serious, which was clear even as the team arrived for breakfast:
As a reliever, nor the Jamaican neither the Japanese teams look far better than ours. After recovering energy with a champions breakfast, the team went to check their official post:
And not, it's not like anything is broke. It's simply that as the presentation time got closer, the stress grew (by the way, this is Byron's picture debut, who did the trip to Yokohama through Newark, which made our team actually make a travel around the world and half to get here). Once the place was set up, it was the time for a final rehearsal and minor adjustments to the script:
As you can see, even Sergio Victorio (Microsoft responsible for academic evangelism for the Andean region) is dead serious about it, which just figures as he is the one who is actually paying for having the team here. The rules of Imagine Cup establish that every team has to start making two 15 minutes presentation, the first one for three of the six judges in our category, Software Design.
And there you have the Ecuadorian shirt doing its first presentation, which is basically for reducing the stress, as the judges even if they are present didn't take any notes or qualified the team in any other way. Moreover, only two members of the team must do the talk, that's why Mario and Leonardo, even as they were there could just watch from behind:
And try hard to telephatically transmit the script to the guys in the front. It's hard not to be able to do any more. In the end things didn't go bad, there's a lot to fix and better for sure, but that was what this presentation was meant to, so that after the mandatory feedback the whole team could even smile and breathe:
Anyway, you have to check out Christian's face: he hasn't fully overcome the first round and the second one was just a few hours ahead. At the left you can see Leonardo Doeyo, Microsoft responsible for academic evangelism in Latin America, an Argentinian who is as good as any Caribbean at singing and dancing salsa (which I know for what happened later, but I digress). After lunch, the team waited for the presentation for the second group of three judges:
Once they got the handle of the game, they are more relaxed as they must basically repeat what they did in the morning (totally OT and only relevant to Latino audiences: guess who is becoming known as Elvis Crespo across all Imagine Cup?). I save you the picture of the second presentation because, as I said, it was pretty similar to the first one, only more relaxed hence better (now the real question is how the other teams are doing). At dinner, the agenda said it was karaoke night. It's widely known that karoke is a Japanese National Sport (they've got entire buildings dedicated to it around here), so every team *just had* to do it. Team Ecuador choose one of the very few songs in Spanish: "La Bamba" (Para bailar la bamba, para bailar la bamba se necesita una poca de gracia...)
No national pride involved here: Team Ecuador was one of the best at it! Again, the relax was what everybody needed as tomorrow comes the real thing: two 25 minutes presentations done by the whole team. The judges will take notes and decide. For good or bad (or better, whatever).