WELCOME MESSAGE

@channel Hi everyone! Welcome to the Android Basics Scholarship slack channel. :wave: It’s really great
to have you all here. :grinning: Just a few opening notes here so that everyone can get started on slack:

1. ​I already saw that many of you have introduced yourself on the #introductions channel.​ It’s
really great to know that everyone is getting along so good. Please go ahead and introduce yourself if you
haven’t already. A few points to consider when introducing yourself: mention what are you doing currently
in your career, what do you expect to achieve from this scholarship, few good words or a quote about the
scholarship and maybe you linkedIn profile url. :hugging_face:

2. ​I have now made different channels for each lesson in the course​, you can find them by browsing
the channels and entering the name of the concerned lesson that you want to join. If you want to request
a channel please drop your request at #channel_request. Please note that if we do not get a good
response for a channel, it will be deleted. So please work on getting as many students to your regional
channel as possible. :slack:

3. ​For those of you who don’t know slack, not to worry. ​It’s just like any other messaging app but just
on steroids. :sunglasses: To learn more about slack and how to use it please refer to it’s official guide
here: https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/categories/202622877-Slack-Guides. If you still don’t understand
anything just post your request on #slack_help and I am sure your classmates will be very helpful.:grin:

4. ​Also I saw that many of you are having problems with discussion forums.​ To get this resolved
just drop an email at india@udacity.com explaining your issue.

I will be making many announcements today around slack etiquettes, live_help and AMAs schedule,
answers to general problems and queries, forums access, ​CODE OF CONDUCT​ (:point_left: Very
Important) to get you all started, so just keep an eye out for this channel. I know you have many doubts
right now, but I am sure all will be resolved by end of day today. :innocent:

CODE OF CONDUCT
@channel I am sharing below the code of conduct for the Google India Scholarships. It is very important
that everyone follow this code. Violating this code will result in expulsion of the program. If you find
someone violating this please report it directly to me.

*Google India Scholarships - Code of Conduct*

Our Slack channels and Forums are where you can be part of a team that genuinely wants to grow and
make the most out of the Google India Scholarship program. The positive response we’ve gotten from the
community so far has been monumental.

With that said, we’ve put together a quick guideline of general rules and tips that will ensure these
channels continue to be encouraging and friendly spaces for everyone.

While we know how awesome you all are, ​*failure to follow these guidelines will result in a warning
for your first offence and removal from the Scholarship program on the second offence*​ for the
student who chooses to disregard the following code:
*Communicate respectfully with all scholarship participants.*​ We’re all here to learn, so let’s make
the effort to keep the conversations free of any conflict. You can respectfully disagree with someone, but
there’s no need to escalate these discussions into arguments. Similarly, don’t feel offended by the
constructive feedback offered to you by your peers. Their intention is not to point out your errors but to
help you succeed. As a general rule, it’s always a good idea to assume the best intentions from people.

*Do not send comments to other Scholarship participants that can be seen as harassment.*​ This
includes, but is not limited to, flirting, hostile PMs, personal attacks or remarks on their physical
appearance.

*Do not share any content that is obscene, illicit, threatening, or discriminatory.*​ A good rule to go
by is that if you really need to ask if it’s allowed, then it’s probably easier to skip sharing it altogether.

*Be considerate and respectful of others as hurtful language will not be tolerated.*​ Sexist, racist
and other exclusionary remarks risk not only your removal from the Slack and Forum but also your
enrollment in the Scholarship program from the very first offense.

*Avoid spamming the forum.*​ We know some of you may be eager to have your work looked at by your
peers, but we ask that you be patient. Likewise, if you’re waiting for another student to review your
submission, take the time and opportunity to participate in our community and leave constructive
feedback on another student’s request.

*Do not discuss politics, religion or any other topics that could be considered a slippery slope.*
While we understand these may be important topics for some of you to discuss, ultimately, this is a space
for learning and education. We can only foster your ability to learn if the focus remains on the tasks at
hand.

SLACK ETIQUETTES
@channel Hey Everyone! It’s been an incredible start to the program! I can’t tell you how awesome it is to
see your enthusiasm and energy! :heart_eyes:

As we enter into this week of the program, I want to briefly highlight two things that will help make this an
even better experience for everyone by keeping us organised and keeping you focused on learning!
Please take a second to read:

*KEEPING SLACK :slack: ORGANIZED*​ – We love seeing everyone interacting and building the
community, but with so many classmates in Slack, it’s *​CRUCIAL​* we keep this place *​ORGANIZED​*.
The two most important things you can do:

1 - ​*When replying to someone else’s comment or post*​ - please start a thread and reply in the thread
rather than in the general channel itself. This really helps keep each channel focused and organised. If
you need help on how to do respond in a thread, go to #slack_help (where you can get advice/assistance
on using Slack). Responding in threads will greatly REDUCE chaos and make Slack more useful for all of
us.
2 - ​*Post topics in the correct channel.*​ There are channels for each lesson (search by title), to meet
study partners (#meet_study_buddies), to get live help from classmates (#live_help), to discuss about
individual lessons (#lesson<lesson number>_<name of the lesson>). Please read the purpose of each
channel to find out more about them.

Also I have taken into account all the channel requests that everyone made. Really loved those ideas!
Will be making those channels by EOD today. Do remember to check the new channels tomorrow.

IMPORTANT UPDATES
@channel Just a few updates before I share the official schedule for AMA sessions:

1. ​*No public integration of slack apps.*​ First of all I saw that plenty of you have installed integration of
slack apps on public channels. Please don’t do this as that would also be seen as spamming the channel
and will result in code of conduct violation. I have gone ahead and revoked all those integrations. Please
only make private integrations of apps that you want to use.

2. ​*Why regional channels?*​ I also heard some concerns where students don’t want regional channels.
Just wanted to clear this that regional channels are made to increase peer to peer engagement with each
other. There are students from all over India in this slack workspace, thus having specific channels for
different states and cities will help them conduct meet ups and/or stand-up sessions which will definitely
result in good experience. I will still keep a closer look on each channel and will remove inactive channels
at the end of each week.

3. ​*Please refrain from using DM*​ - Many of you are reaching out to me using direct messages, just
wanted to clear this that sometimes direct messages gets overlooked because of the volume of them
being received. Unless absolutely important please refrain from directly messaging me. You can always
reach out to india@udacity.com if you have problems with content, discussion forums or any other query
that concerns the Udacity platform. Also you can raise these issues in AMA sessions which will be
conducted by me every week.

4. ​*Have technical sessions?*​ If you have any technical queries please bring your questions on the
discussion forums as they have dedicated forums mentors to help you there.I would urge everyone to
help each other as well, as your interaction with others will decide whether you will get into the phase 2 or
not.

5. ​*Have already completed the course before?*​ Not to worry! Even if you have previously completed
some of the free courses that form phase one of this scholarship program, we hope you will take this
opportunity to iterate on your work as much as possible, to seek feedback from mentors and to discuss
your progress with your fellow students. Playing an active role in the community is how you will get the
most out of this scholarship and it will help you stand out as a top student for the follow-up Nanodegree
scholarships.

NEW CHANNELS MESSAGE

@channel Good morning everyone! First of all thank you so much for the healthy discussion on the
#channel_request channel yesterday. ​*Using your responses I have done the following changes in
our slack workspace*​:

1. #chandigarh has been renamed to #punjab to support a wider pool of scholars

2. #external resources has been created for the students to share best practices and resources among
themselves
3. #share_ideas has been created so that you can share your brilliant views and ideas with everyone
4. #ahmedabad has been renamed to #gujarat and #surat has been archived so guys in surat can now
join #gujurat instead.
5. #assam has been created
6. #kolkata has been renamed to #west_bengal
7. #kerala has been created
8. #chennai has been renamed to #tamil_nadu
9. #pune has been renamed to #maharashtra
10. #rajasthan has been created
11. #lucknow has been renamed to #uttar_pradesh and #kanpur has been archived so guys in #kanpur
can now join #uttar_pradesh instead
12. #haryana has been created.
13 #patna has been renamed to #bihar

*Please note that I will be creating new channels and deleting inactive channels each week on
friday depending upon your conversation in the #channel_request channel.*​ Soon I will be
appointing channel moderators and mentors which will help manage these channels.
*One last update and really sorry for the delay on this:*​ will be sharing the schedule for AMA and
live_help sessions very soon as well as also share the criteria for phase 2 selection.

DIFFERENT CHANNELS FOR EACH LESSON MESSAGE

@channel From you suggestions I have created different channels for each lesson. You can find the
channel by typing ​*lessonXX (XX = number of lesson) or the name of the lesson*.

PHASE 2 SELECTION CRITERIA MESSAGE

@channel Hi everyone! This announcement was long awaited and really sorry for the delay on this.
Below I am stating the ​*selection criteria using which we will be selecting students for the next
phase of the scholarship program.*​ In general, we will allocate the follow-up scholarships to high
performing students. Please take a second to go through this:

1. ​*Successful completion of course material and attempts at all quizzes.*​ To be clear, there is no
reward for finishing first or early (so it doesn’t matter if you have already completed the course before or
you are just getting started). We will evaluate everyone’s progress after the course ends in May. This
means making as much use of the forums as possible in order to iterate on your work.

2. ​*Support of fellow students and active participation in forums and on Slack.*​ We have seen time
and time again that the most successful students are those that learn in a community. We expect to see
continuous engagement on Slack and the forums over the next three months. This does not mean that
you have to spam the slack channels or forums unnecessarily. You will have to follow all the slack
etiquettes that were shared earlier as well as keep to the code of conduct.
Top 350 high performing students will be awarded the Phase2 6 months scholarship.​ *Just to be clear
that we are constantly monitoring your responses on slack as well as on the discussion forums
and keeping a track of high performers as well as the violators. So please try to maintain a healthy
conversation with all of your classmates.*

All the best and happy learning!

PINNING MESSAGES
@channel Hi Guys! Good Morning! Just a small announcement before we start our day. Since we have
reached our 10,000 messages limit, the older messages might start to get disappear from here. So I will
start pinning all the messages here so that they can still be available after getting disappeared. You can
find all the pinned messages by going to the ​*Channel Details*​ and clicking ​*Pinned Items*​. I am
sharing a small doc file which contains all the announcements that I have made previously:
https://goo.gl/1ZrhsE​. 
 
 
SESSIONS SCHEDULE 
@channel Hi Everyone! Here is the long awaited schedule of the AMA sessions and the Live Help 
sessions (The sessions will begin starting from next week): 
*Please do see the instructions after the schedule to know how these will be conducted to avoid 
spamming.* 
 
*AMA Sessions* 
1. The session will be 1 hour long. 
2. It will happen every Tuesday and Friday 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm IST on the newly made ama_official channel. 
3. Please refrain from asking technical questions here, we will be having Live Help sessions for that. 
 
*Live Help Sessions* 
1. The session will be 2 hours long. 
2. It will happen every Tuesday and Friday 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm IST on the newly made live_help_official 
channel. 
 
*Now the main part, how these sessions will be conducted:* 
 
*Introducing the Red light/green light system.*​:vertical_traffic_light: (Please read carefully) 
So it goes like this: We will only begin taking questions written on the channel when there is a green light 
posted. (See the image attached below) We will then accept some questions and put up a red light (see 
below) after which we will not take any new questions. Then all the questions will be answered. We will 
then again put up a green light to accept more questions. These steps will be repeated until the AMA 
session is over and it generally helps keep order. 
 
*Please don’t spam these channels before or after the AMA session is conducted. Spamming here 
would be considered a code of conduct violation and may result in expulsion from the program.*​ These 
channels are strictly for conducting official sessions. 
 
 
SLACK MODERATOR 
@channel Hi everyone! :wave: Well I think it’s time for the most exciting announcement since we began 
our course and that is the *​selection of the Channel Moderators​*. :drum_with_drumsticks: Now you all 
must be wondering what exactly a *​Channel Moderator​* is. :thinking_face: We’re looking for students 
willing to step up and be leaders in a particular slack channel. It’s an opportunity for you to help us keep 
the community organised and helpful for everyone. :star-struck: 
 
*Being a student representative does not in any way provide you with an advantage for the 2nd round, 
so you should only do this if you are truly interested in helping us set up a really productive and 
successful student community.*​ :innocent: 
 
Now for next steps, interested students can fill this form: https://goo.gl/forms/bt6wpF11x8oqAett2. and 
show their interest for the role. 
*P.S. More details on the role will be shared after you get selected.* 
 
 
SLACK MODERATORS SELECTION ANNOUNCEMENT 
@channel​ Hi Everyone! Really sorry for the delay on this, but now it’s time to announce the new *​Student
Moderators for slack*​. First of all thank you so much for all the interest that everyone showed towards
this. Loved the enthusiasm and participation by everyone. Don’t be disheartened if you didn’t get
selected, as the number of channels on slack increases the demand for new moderators will also
increase. So I will be opening the moderators form again in the future. Not to worry!

Moderators, it might be possible that you didn’t receive the channel that you applied for, but the decision
was made by looking at your current activity on the slack and your choices on the form. If any moderators
have any doubts regarding the channel allotted to them, please do reach out to me.

*Here is the document that contains the names of all the new moderators and the channels
allotted to them:*​ https://goo.gl/nWDNPT.

*What this means for other students?*

You now have a first line of defence i.e. your moderators to reach out to whenever you have any doubts.
It will be the moderator’s responsibility to reach out to me if they are not able to get your queries resolved.
Also you too have a responsibility where if a moderator is not up-to the mark, you can reach out to me
with a valid proof and I will surely take action on it. Just please do remember this that moderator won’t be
online the whole day. So please have some patience and give him/her time to reply back whenever you
ask him/her a question.

*What this means for moderators?*

Well will share all the details of your role with you very soon. Just stay tuned!

SESSIONS SCHEDULE CHANGE ANNOUNCEMENT

@channel Hi everyone! Just a small announcement. Here is the new schedule of the official sessions that
we will be having every week.
*Live Help Sessions*
There are not much differences in the schedule of the live help sessions being conducted apart from the
fact they will be now 1 hr long. @iip.udacity will do stay online for the other hour as well but he will be
answering the follow up queries instead as some of the technical queries requires some time to get them
resolved.

*Schedule: Each Tuesday, 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm, IST AND once in every 2 weeks on Friday 8:00 pm
to 9:00 pm*​ (Just look out for the announcement)

*AMA Sessions*
For AMA sessions, we are shifting towards having one session a week instead since I am already
answering most of the queries via DM. And no worries at all, if you have any queries that needs my
attention then you are more than welcome to reach out to me personally. ​*But please don’t spam the
DMs unnecessarily.*

*Schedule: Each Tuesday, 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm, IST*

*Office Hours*
Since we know that there still remains some queries that cannot be answered publicly, we are introducing
*Office Hours*​ on Friday. During this time I will stay online for 1 hour, where if you want you can reach
out to me personally expecting a prompt reply, or you can even tag me in a thread that I have missed and
that needs my attention.

*Schedule: Each Friday, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm, IST*

*P.S.*​ I know many of you are having problems attending these sessions due to the time constraints.
*Just to clear something here that the sessions are not mandatory to attend and it won’t add to
your progress in any way.*​ If you guys have any unresolved queries then you are more than welcome
to reach out to me.
 
 
COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS ANNOUNCEMENT
@channel Hi Everyone! I hope everyone is doing great. First of all really happy to see such a helping and 
contributing community. Both the moderators and students are doing a really great job. I think it’s going 
to be really tough for me to select the applicants for phase 2 of the scholarship program. 
 
Well now getting to the business at hand. So introducing one of the programs that we have been working 
on for you guys, ​*Collaborative Projects*.  
 
*So what are collaborative projects?* 
In this program, you have to work with your peers on the slack workspace and create a technology 
solution that will help the community or maybe the whole world. A technology solution can be anything - 
maybe a android application or a website(mobile/desktop). 
 
*What will you gain out of this?* 
Contributing in this will not only increase your subject matter knowledge but will also give you an 
experience of working in a team collaborative environment that most of the companies out there are 
looking for. 
 
*How are we going to do this?* 
We will be collaborating using one of the best version control platforms i.e. Github. I know most of you 
won’t know about Github yet and it may be tough to get into this. But GitHub is something that you should 
be using on a daily basis. It is like bread and butter for any developer out there. If you want to get started, 
just enroll in this Udacity’s free course:​ ​https://in.udacity.com/course/how-to-use-git-and-github--ud775​. 
 
*What should we make and who will be managing this?* 
So I will be appointing special moderators for this work which will be handling this. Now about ideas, why 
don’t you give us some? Please find below a small google form that will not only help us decide a idea but 
I will also be making the moderators selection using it. 
 
Form Link: https://goo.gl/forms/x0y49QkIMeCmq8E73 
 
So start brainstorming guys and all the best! 
 
*P.S.*​ I know many channels requests have been pending and many students are awaiting for the 
creation of the new channels. The channel moderators have already compiled a list of prospective 
channels that we will be needing and I will be creating them very soon. 
 
 
NEW CHANNELS ANNOUNCEMENT 
@channel 
*NEW CHANNELS ANNOUNCEMENTS* 
 
Hi Everyone! Just a small update. I have created the following new channels as recorded by @venkatesh 
in #channel_request. Please if you have more channel requests, just reach out to him with an appropriate 
audience and he will be more than happy to record them. Please note that only those channels will be 
made who have a great audience. Try to get as much upvotes on your choice as possible so that it 
becomes easier for the mod to identify the new channels. 
 
1. #jharkhand has been created. 
2. #showcase this has been created so that you can now showcase your achievements here instead of 
your regional or any other inappropriate channels. 
3. #git_github has been created so that you can get your queries resolved that you have on the Git/Github 
platform. 
 
Since we have created these new channels, we will be requiring some new mods as well. Just fill this 
form to show your interest only for these 3 channels: ​https://goo.gl/forms/bt6wpF11x8oqAett2​. 
 
 
SLARCK ANNOUNCEMENT 
@channel Hi Everyone! A very ​*Important Announcement*​. I know for the past few weeks many of you 
are having problems due to the slack 10,000 messages limit, well not anymore, introducing *​Slarck​*. 
*Slarck is a message archive web app that helps us keep a record of even those messages which have 
disappeared due to the slack messages limit.* 
 
To get started just navigate to this link: 
https://slarck.com/link/Xkqwg9YczIT9xRPqAnMvPj7brNC3F8qFw5dOyS8M/ 
 
*NOTE:* *Slarck*​ will start recording messages from now on and does not contain messages that 
previously disappeared. 
 
@channel Wohoo guys! ​*Got access to all the previous messages on slack.*​ Just use this link instead of 
the above one: https://slarck.com/link/Xkqwg9YczIT9xRPqAnMvPj7brNC3F8qFw5dOyS8M/. I have 
edited the link in the above message as well. 
 
 
WRITE OR RECITE YOUR “STORY” ANNOUNCEMENT 
@channel​ Hi Everyone! I hope everyone had a great week. We just crossed our ​*1 month milestone*
into the program and I wanted to congratulate everyone for being such a great part of the community and
making this a huge success.

Today I am here to not only ask you about your experience in the program so far but also to know you
better. It’s time to ​*Write or Recite your “Story”*​. In this activity, you are required to either write your
story the usual old way or to make a video of yourself reciting your story to the world. (You can choose
either one!)

*So what’s a story?*

A story is something that includes 3 things: ​*Knowledge, Experience and Inspiration*​. If you are here to
up-skill / re-skill yourself, then we would like to hear it. If you are a working mother / father trying to make
a name for herself / himself, then we would like to hear it. If you are someone who are fighting against all
the odds to complete this scholarship, then we would like to hear it and there many other ways you can
write your story. Just do keep in mind the 3 things that I mentioned above.
At the end of story, you can also tell us about your experience in the scholarship program so far.

*What’s in it for you?*

Some of the best stories will be featured to Google in my next update to them and who knows maybe
your story will get published publicly to inspire the whole world.

Use the form given below to submit your response:

https://goo.gl/forms/OpLq7epXhX6xpKDi1
(You can submit your story either by writing in the form above, uploading your video in the form or upload
your video on YouTube and share it’s link in the form)

*P.S. This is not the new initiative that I was talking about previously. Also I will be sharing more
details on the Collaborative projects in the last week of this month*