When aliens took over my life for a week- a Non-Techie’s take on AWeSOM

Day 1

Let me start by telling you that until recently, the only cookie I knew of was the one that is calorific and the only Python I had heard of was the one that you are supposed to be frightened of.

It was a Friday evening and an idea nestled in my head of conducting an experiment and getting fellow Trippers to tweet about the upcoming AWeSOM (Awareness Week On Security, Online & Mobile) event. While I was still cradling the thought, two human looking aliens (read Piyush and Vikram) sneaked into my world and the rest as they say, is history.

Starting Monday, I was supposed to live-tweet the proceedings of AWeSOM from our MakeMyTrip Twitter handle. (Shame if you don’t know what our brand handle is by now). I was excited, enthused and bursting with ideas. I stepped into “Hindustan” for the inauguration and my world has not been the same since.

Inauguration of the AWeSOM event

It all started well and I liked what I heard. Proposed shift in our culture as a tech-organization, the security measures we must adopt and the quick response plan to handle critical situations was what the talk was about. It all made sense.

And then happened “Casablanca”.

It seemed like they were talking a different language. Apache, Memcache, Sharding, Parsing, Python, Perl, Splunk, Cookies, Logs and what not. My mind was whirling, trying to process all that was happening around me. It was, so to speak, an overhead transmission. I was tweeting, yes, from our brand handle but the trending hashtags in my head were such –

(Morning)  #NewFreakingExperimentYay

(By Mid-morning) #Whatthehellisgoingon

(Noon) #Thiscantbehappeningtome

(By evening, I had a revelation) #Theseguysarealiens

This, my friends, was Day 1 of AWeSOM for me. To be honest, I didn’t understand ANYTHING! I saw my experiment failing. But I am not one to give up easily. I mustered up all my courage and talked myself into attending Day 2 as well.

MMT Trippers @ work

The rest of the week

Day 2 started off with giving myself a pep talk. I was trying real hard to understand what they were saying. The speakers, the panel, the discussions and questions left me dizzy yet again. Popular hashtags for the day were something like this –

(Morning) #youcandothis

(Mid-morning) #areyoukiddingme

(Noon) #takeadeepbreathinandadeepbreathout

(Evening) #ihateflashsalesandaliens

I was beginning to understand.  Google hacking was as interesting to me as Physics to Sheldon Cooper. Offline chats about human hacking, with a practical example of the same on me courtesy our very own Mr. (Konark) Modi made me see online security in a different light altogether. There was indeed a bright light at the end of the tunnel and I was beginning to see it; so what if it was as bleak as my knowledge of Redis or Memcache. (You see I know the jargons now. Booyah!)

Day 3 I realized I had developed Stockholm Syndrome with the aliens. This occurred the minute I entered “Casablanca” to witness Matrix like effects- undoubtedly, the coolest sight of the week. Ping – Pong with the log data and making sense of it caught my attention. Mr. Modi was kind enough to explain logs to me in layman’s terms (But he did dodge the question of “What do you do with this info” by replying very slyly with “Trying to earn a living”).

The cool matrix-like effects were a definite showstopper

Our very own Mishraji from the Content team took coolness quotient to another level with Shakespeare in pink shades while elaborating on content security and the ways to deal with it.

Compliance too made a lot of sense. Why do you think we need compliance? And the right answer is NOT “for the heck of it”. You would have known if you were there. Alas.

Day 4 was even more interesting. Responsive design, Legalities in terms of obligations and rights as per our IPC and other governing bodies, App Sec (for the uninitiated, application security)and Performance Engineering, a lot of interesting stories, real cases and candid questions that were met with even more candid responses (courtesy Mr. Avutapalli) made the day brighter. The aliens looked like humans once again or maybe I was adapting! I was left wanting more, least to say.

A "serious" session on Content Security, in progress

Day 5 started off with the aliens back in their element, throwing jargons at me and I loved every minute of it. Why you may ask? The answer is that I learnt a lot in this week. So what if I still don’t understand VAPT, Sharding, Parsing, Single Identity Login, what Logs are, how SOX is not just a fancy word but has implications beyond belief, what to do when someone has plagiarized my writings and how Cookie is a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in a user's web browser and not just something you devour with milk in the morning!

Most importantly, I learnt, an open mind is more important than your educational background when it comes to learning new things.

The aliens are not so scary anymore. This was all in all a very informative week. For those who missed it and seek redemption, there are videos of the sessions you can browse through. For those who are still not interested, may Spock bless you. Peace.

May Colours @ MakeMyTrip

The month of May was green and pink all the way. But how, I hear you ask. Well, green, owing to all the environment related activities that took place in the office and pink, for all those things that kept our lady Trippers busy!

Wondering why our lady Trippers are looking prettier than the usual? Well, knowing how important it is for our lovely ladies to look and feel their best, a beauty and grooming session by a famous cosmetics brand was organised in the office. The workshop focused on skin, body and hair care, make-up tips and general beauty and grooming. And it wasn’t just beauty advice that the ladies took away. There was also a fun quiz at the end of the session and lucky winners took home exciting gift hampers!

A health talk on Cervical Cancer was organised in association with Max Healthcare. Conducted by Dr Kaushiki Dwivedi, the aim of this session was to spread awareness about Cervical Cancer, which is the second most common form of Cancer affecting women.Letting people know that timely prevention and treatment can help fight this deadly disease is the first step itself in the battle against Cervical Cancer. We all know the importance of environmental conservation. Though a lot is being done to save the environment, there’s a lot more that can we can do. As an organization, MakeMyTrip has taken several initiatives towards conservation of environment and carries out numerous activities on a regular basis to promote eco-friendly practices.

From dressing up green to going on scavenger hunts; May was a designated ‘green’ month and a plethora of activities were conducted to make our Trippers go all environ-mental! And like everything else at MakeMyTrip, the ‘Go Green Drive’ too came with a bag full of prizes and rewards.Trippers went all out for the eco-drive and came dressed in green, donated books for reading and volunteered for the Green Cleanup Drive. Many lucky ones also received free couple SFL passes and Jhumroo passes at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurgaon.

In addition to all this, WE sent out regular emails with tips on saving energy, advantages of paper versus plastic bags and a carbon footprint calculator to help trippers calculate their own carbon footprint on their gadgets such as the iPad.

The icing on the cake was the exciting Scavenger Hunt; the get-out-and-explore-the-world-around-you hunt wherein more than 50 Trippers participated in teams of 4. Each team went in and around the office searching for green plastic items, pieces of garbage (yes, garbage!), flowers, plants, animals, people wearing green clothes, vegetarians and much more! The team that ticked all or the maximum number of things on the list won the hunt and bagged exciting prizes.

From dressing green to beauty and grooming sessions, the month of May was quite an eventful one. But the ‘green’ fun does not stop here and there’s a whole lot more to come. So keep checking this space for more updates and keep the eco/green drive going!

The Month That Was

With India having the largest youth population in the world, it is not just important but crucial to be concerned about issues that affect the youth of the country today.  And education or rather the lack of it is perhaps the most critical one of such issues. We at MakeMyTrip believe that nurturing children today and helping them gain knowledge and education will lead to a better and brighter future. And we are doing our bit through MakeMyTrip’s corporate mentoring program with Udayan Care, which runs homes for orphaned, abandoned and abused children. This month, employees who have volunteered to mentor children, spent time with children between the age group of 5 to 17 years at their home on MG road and discussed their career interests, future goals, further studies and part time jobs. The evening ended with what we do best – eat and have a super fun time!

Trippers with Kids of Udayan Care

At MakeMyTrip, it’s not just work but a whole lot of play too because we all know that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! And there could be no one better to endorse this theory than our very own CEO, Mr. Deep Kalra, who, along with our CPO Mr. Amit Somani joined other Table Tennis champs of the office for an exciting ping-pong tournament. Not only was this a chance for all the TT aficionados to showcase their talents but also pure fun and entertainment for the spectators. The battleground was the 4^th floor cafeteria and the champions’ weapon of choice, the paddle. And what were they all competing for? Pride, honour? Naah...to be the TT champ of champs at MakeMyTrip! Watch this space for the results and more details on the tournament.

And from Table Tennis, it’s now onto Cricket. This month, as the nation is gripped by the IPL 5 fever, so is everyone at MakeMyTrip! ‘We’ decided to run a cricket quiz or ‘Cric Quiz’ with IPL tickets up for grabs. From IPL trivia to ‘green’ initiatives to face painting; a loWinners of IPL Quizt happened in the name of IPL and more than 100 tickets were given away in prizes! The face painting competition took place on April 26^th and after much fun, coloured hands and faces, some 300 plus votes and a massive counting task, we finally got our winners. The winning team oola la la la le o-ed their way to the top, bagging couple tickets to Jhumroo at the Kingdom of Dreams. Other two teams, which also received Jhumroo tickets, shared the runners-up position. Kudos to all the face painters!

Winners of Face Painting competition

Is there is any such award for ‘The Most Happening Workplace’? Well, if there is, guess who’s going to be the most deserving candidate? No prizes for guessing eh!

The month of April in particular has been quite an eventful one. From Table Tennis to IPL fever to social initiatives; no single day has been the same at MakeMyTrip.