"Quora.com - It starts with a Q and ends with an A and seeing its recent outburst, it clearly deserves to be UE's Company Of The Week."


                 
              Quora.com is a question and answer social networking website which allows users to ask as well as answer questions, upvote or downvote answers and interact with a highly intelligent and diverse audience in all fields. Quora was co-founded by two former Facebook employees, Adam D'Angelo and Charlie Cheever.  
                    

                      One would now be led to wonder how Quora is any different from Yahoo! Answers  or Answers.com. Here is a precise answer by a Quora user:
"In my rough estimation, about 70 IQ points."
Indeed, Quora's intelligent user base is its USP and puts it way ahead of its competition. 

                    Quora first launched in private beta on January 4, 2010. It was founded by  two Ex-Facebook employees and raised $11 Million in March 2010 which valued the start-up at $86 million! What really inspired the co-founders to come up with Quora was the belief that the internet was short of a lot of useful information which is in people's mind, desperate to come out. In their own words:

"The way we think about this is there’s actually a lot of information that’s still in people’s heads that’s not on the internet. And when you think about it you would say that probably 90% of the information that people have is still in their heads, not on the internet"

It was only in June 2010 that Quora opened to the public. Since then, it has come a long way. As of June 2012, Quora has 1.5 million active users per month. 

                   The most addictive characteristic of Quora is that it makes one feel smart. To be a part of an intelligent discussion and sometimes being the expert in that field not only booms one's confidence but also aids in virally spreading the word about this social network to everyone else - as one would want one's friends to know about one's smartness. Here, talking what makes sense is fashion. Even the most simple questions would find a well researched answer. That is the beauty of Quora.

                    Quora is certainly up up for a bright future. The Daily Telegraph has predicted that Quora will become larger than Twitter. Quora, along with Airbnb and Dropbox, has been named among the next generation of multi-billion dollar start-ups by the New York Times. Adam D'Angelo was ranked number 22 among the smartest people in the technology industry by CNN Money in 2010. Cheever and D'Angelo were both listed in the Inc. Top 30 Under-30 entrepreneurs list of 2011. 



 - Videt Jaiswal

Gone are the days, when the filling of  the answer sheets was done manually and answer scripts were sent to university, followed by the declaration of results. Thiswas a tedious and time consuming process. So, the university has planned to streamline the scheme of setting and distributing question papers from the next academic session. Furthermore, the university question papers will be set and printed in both English and Hindi. As per Pradumn Kumar, principal of Hindu College, who was a member of the exam reform committee, “It will benefit students to have all the information regarding exams, admit cards, results and mark sheets online. The new system under this reform will help streamline the entire examination process as well as minimise paperwork."

This semester onwards the students of Delhi University will be saved from the effort of crowding around the notice board to catch a glimpse of their result. DU has planned to declare the results of ongoing semester examinations online. The results of one lakh twenty thousand students appearing in the exams will be declared online, by DU for the first time.

Keeping clear of all the talks of delayed results, Dinesh Singh, vice-chancellor of DU, said that the results would be fast tracked and declared this time, within 14 days of the completion of the exams. The results of all students would be put up by December 15 on the
university website (www.du.ac.in). Singh says, “Results will be announced online and students will be supplied with their mark sheets as well. If students want a certified copy, they can get the principal's stamp on the mark sheet after that."  

The whole system of evaluation and declaration of results has been revamped and will further be refined in the next series of exams."The evaluation system was made online this year beginning with the practical exam results that were generated by the colleges directly. For theory exams also teachers will submit the corrected answer scripts and award sheets at the evaluation centres, which will be uploaded on the university server. The software systems of colleges are connected with the university server." adds Kumar, principal of Hindu College.

This indeed will make the examination and evaluation procedures for the students of DU, very easy to follow.

In the month of November, Dilli Haat Mela Complex saw a bunch of students hailing from Enactus, Shri Ram College Of Commerce , who were pitching for a puppet festival comprising a two hour long puppet making workshop, followed by a Rajasthani puppet show.

Project Kayakalp is an initiative that aims to empower the artists of Kathputli Colony of Shadipur Depot, consisting of Puppet masters, folk dancers, sword-swallowers, drummers, singers, magicians and fire fighters with a stable and sufficient source of income by identifying and capitalizing on existing markets and modernizing their art forms to tap newer markets. They represent an Indian heritage which is valuable and on the verge of being lost forever. The artists here have the potential to entertain the world. But ‘potential’, not backed by market opportunities, has forced them to survive on dwindling incomes. They have begun the project with 4 puppeteers where they are trying to hone their skills of not only puppetry but also marketing their art. The enthusiastic puppeteers have undergone training with Kataktha. They have created a show on Bullying and conducted 10 successful shows till now in schools, NGOs and residential colonies and have received a great response from the audience. 

The workshop, a charge –free effort, began at 1pm when small enthusiastic children began to flock towards the stage, ready to craft their very own Bundraku Puppets out of newspaper and tape rolls , motivated by their parents who waited till their kids had a moving paper soul in their hands.
 
After the workshop,  the energetic train of students went around , a few wearing big puppet heads and all crying out slogans and distributing brochures among the Sunday Shoppers, urging all to rush to the stage for a Rajasthani Puppet Show. And so they came! Came in large numbers to support the puppeteers and acknowledge the vision of reviving Indian art forms. A puppet entered from behind the screen and was greeted with a round of cheering by the younger spectators. It was time to sing, set the stage on fire and pull the strings of change!

After the play which saw a mesmerized audience, the puppeteers performed a wrestle fight between a human sized Bundraku Puppet  and  a real muscle man which left them wide eyed with respect for the austerity and authenticity of traditional puppetry. The festival drew to a close only after another round of applause from the giggling audience which was reciprocated by the students in the form of a thank you note which emphasized, “Together we can prevent the slow yet incessant fading away of the history and culture we are so proud of. It’s time we realize and give our artists the stature they deserve.”

On the occasion of the World’s AIDS Day celebrated on December 1, AIESEC in Delhi University organized a Blood Donation Camp to unite people to fight against HIV. The camp was set up at Select City Walk, Saket and longed for six hours, commencing from 12 noon to 6 in the evening. The event was linked with Leading Young India Project initiated by the organization.


The organizing committee planned the blood donation camp to spread the message of love and kindness, and emphasized the need to work together to eradicate the absurd hatred towards people suffering from HIV-AIDS. The motive was to bring the people together to donate blood for the betterment of the society.

The blood donation camp was a pre-event for the National Leadership Summit to be organized in February 2013 and saw participation of interns from Sri Lanka, Japan and Russia as a part of student exchange program. The blood donation camp saw a total turnover of eighty donors, of which majority were youth. The message and objectives of the camp oozed out clearly. “Be a blood donor.
All it cost is a little love.”