We would love to introduce to you our Programmer of the Month for July – Akhil Ravidas! He has been a part of the CodeChef scene since March of 2009 and has solved over 30 of our contest problems since then. He was also part of Counter Gambit, the team that came third in the CodeChef Campus SnackDown and represented India in the ACM ICPC world finals in harbin, China this year! And yes, he has even been a problem setter for two of our previous contests.

Let’s find out what our programmer from NIT Trichy has to say!

Name: Akhil Ravidas
Age: 21
Institute: National Institute of Technology, Trichy [Graduated]
Userid: akhilravidas
Twitter ID: akhilravidas

How/When did you start programming?
I started programming in my high school. But back then, I programmed in Visual Basic which was mostly drawing forms. I started competing in competitive programming contests from the second year of my college.

What do you do when you’re not programming?
My free time hobbies vary a lot. I finished my college last month and I am currently staying at a beautiful place in Kerala. So for now, I roam around in the nearby areas and click pics.

What do you like most about CodeChef?
I like the challenge problem idea of codechef. It brings in a much needed variation from the other programming contests.

How many hours a day do you program?It again varies a lot depending upon my other work. These days I’m on my computer most of the time, though the hours spent in ‘productive’ programming would be much lower than the total hours spent with my comp.

What’s your favourite book and why?
My favourite book is “Fooled by randomness” by Taleb. It is an brilliant and insightful read about role of chance and relation to skills.

If you could eat dinner with any famous person (past or present), who would it be and what dish would you have?
I have a very long list of people from almost every century whom I’d like to dine with. It will be very hard to choose one person. But then again, if there is a guarantee, I could try harder

Dish: Not too particular about it.

What are your plans for the future?
I am at home until fall. I look forward to working on something exciting and challenging. My long term future goal is to create a really awesome product.