Jeai-cArlos Cl. Tee

“Kabataan Online” was an entry in an inter-school Website development contest, hosted by Bitstop Network Services, Inc. in Saint Paul University Philippines (SPUP) back in November 2003. I was a freshman then. Our entry web application showcased news, articles and information about the local Sangunian ng Kabataan (SK) chapter, throwing in a suggestion box, a forum and a guest book. This is the first project that I feature in my online portfolio.

Kuya Bry and I worked on the programming and interface while Kuya Kelvin, Ate Che and Ate Rose researched and wrote the content. We had a just over a week to research and implement the application. The suggestion box, forum and guest book were written in ASP and VBScript and developed in Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, the rest of the site was static. The graphics were designed in Adobe Photoshop 7.0. It had a text file database to store content. I remember waiting in an office in city hall to get content. It was a really nice experience feeling the pressure like that though it was eased by a sense of cooperation, support and chemistry within the group.

Our sleepless nights paid off when we won the competition. The Judge, the CEO of Bitstop, Mr. Wilson Chua, who later became my mentor in my On-the-Job training at the same company, very much liked our entry. We had the only website that featured dynamic content among the other entries and our design was just right. We won a year of free website hosting at Bitstop, three Altec Lansing speakers and some shirts (I think). We never used the free hosting package though, but I did get to bring home one of the speakers! SWEET! :D And, it still works until now!

The sad part about this web application was that it was just an entry in a contest. It never became anything else. Nevertheless, let’s not forget the value of the experience itself. It helped me a lot. I discovered some talents I didn’t know I had and it also made the group a lot closer, as friends and as collaborators. Ever since, we made our mark as the creame of the crop, the go to guys when an IT contest needed to be won. However, I never thought that being one of the elite students mattered. It was just me, doing what I wanted the most, proving to myself that I can.