Caloy Mapua bests Indian students in national competition
By JULIE JAVELLANA-SANTOS
abs-cbnNEWS.com
Caloy Mapua started drawing before he could write. His mother, Beth, remembers that from the age of three, he would always be holding a pencil and a sketchbook. His favorite past-time has always been drawing. His girlfriend is even a ‘manga’ character in his sketchbook.
So it was no surprise 16 year old Caloy bested many of his Indian counterparts in the All-India National Graphic Contests held recently in New Delhi.
What was surprising, his parents Lorenzo and Beth told abs-cbnNEWS.com, was that Caloy was even in the contest, which was supposed to be for students in India. His teachers at the American International School in Chennai just thought his nationality did not matter and sent in an entry, which won first runner-up.
The competition was held by Computer Literacy Foundation (http://www.silverzone.org), an India-based non-government organization founded by experts in information technology, science, education and media with the objective of promoting IT talents in India and abroad and to raise the expertise of Indian students at par with the international level.
This foundation also holds the more popular International Informatics Olympiad which is also open to students.
The All-India National Graphics Contest, however, is a contest where students work in a team with the latest computer graphics software and hardware to come out with best of their software project. The championship is all about students working and learning together.
All alone
Caloy’s entry was a multi-media presentation entitled “CO2 Overdose,” a more scientific reference to Global Warming. And this presentation was not a team effort. He alone worked on his entry.
The presentation takes one through the causes of global warming.
A world map then comes out on the screen and one just has to point the computer mouse at a certain country on this map to see its immediate effects in that country. And these effects are not just the immediate ones but also facts like the reduction of spawning fish due to melting icecaps in the North and South poles.
Caloy said his sources were mostly Web sites but the design was purely his.
He even placed some flowers which he said would surely disappear with global warming, and some scrollwork on one side of the presentation “para manalo kasi Indian.”
In the contest, Caloy scored highest for his concept and theme as well as for his lay-out and graphics quality.
The 16-year old was actually transplanted to Chennai when his father was transplanted to India three years ago.
Working as an engineer for the feeds manufacturing subsidiary in India of Cargill Corporation. He said that was when he brought his entire family (his wife and three kids) to Chennai.
This was a year after Chennai was devastated by the big tsunami that hit the Indian gulf in December 2004.
The Mapua family has just returned with the transfer of Caloy’s father. He said Cargill’s business slowed down with the drastic reduction in the production of tiger prawns, one of their premier clients in Chennai.
