Earlier this year, I called up my friend Nidhi. She's two years younger, and has always been gracious and kind. I ask her what she's up to, and she tells me she's going to make a presentation tomorrow. Usually, she would tell me what it's about. But she keeps it a secret. A real professional.

We were both a part of the same Women Engineers program. I graduated two years ago, and she would just be graduating. She mentioned a project that they had made - something they were about to present. Very casual, nothing much, y'know. Having seen her make many presentations in the program myself - I wasn't too nervous. She could handle this.

The next day, I asked her, hey, how did it go? She texted me back with a github link. We made this - see. I open up the link on my phone, and suddenly, I am hit with a funky 80s Atari themed screen. Is this what you have been hiding out on me?

What is this? I decide to open up my laptop and see this thing as it should be seen. And as I go through it, It seems they have made MULTIPLE games. Each for one of our mentors in the program. They have leaderboards, mini-games, and side quests. The design quality was impeccable. All the games matched the retro 80's theme, unified across all the games. Gorgeous backgrounds, attention paid to small details like the expressions of avatars.

Personal details included in the questions asked. In-jokes through the years. Sayings and aphorisms we learnt in the program, little anecdotes. Sound effects for the various catch-phrases our mentors have. And these were so fun. When I couldn't move up a level, I begged Nidhi to give me one of the answers for a quiz. So it goes.

It is a testament to the mentors that this quality of work comes about. 103 people worked on this. They are 20 year old's with 50 other things on their plates. Internships to worry about, grades to manage, parents to deal with. And yet, despite all the troubles, they managed to do this? Groups of 5 are difficult enough to manage, how on earth did they pull this through?

It's not exactly a product, but rather a tribute. The programming tasks were easy enough to manage. You can find templates and groups of 4-5 people can whip up a game in a week or two. But they created a hierarchy. Kunisha - our mentor, the 'Quackmaster'. Two people Nidhi and Anwesha,as the 'Supreme Duckies'. Beneath them, the Head Duckies. And beneath them, the Deputy Duckies, who worked as team leads for individual or multiple games. There were specialist Duckies to manage the individual parts - Technology Stack, Design Decisions and Story Elements.

They would do progress reports each week. They provided medals of appreciation to people who contributed regularly. People talked mostly to their leads. And the individual groups were given enough freedom to make whatever they wanted, keeping in mind the theme and tech stack limits. They mostly made games they enjoyed. And that's it.

This is extremely good organisational ability. Serious grown-ups in serious organisations have trouble co-ordinating between teams in this manner. To organise a group of even 10 people is impressive. Usually, for projects like these - with none of the usual incentives of either better grades, or impressive stipends, people tend to back out and projects fizzle out. But these people felt so strongly that they had to pay a tribute to their teachers, that they made it work.

I have known some of them since they were wee second year college kids. And it made me so proud to see this. I cannot imagine what it must have been to be a mentor and see this. In their position, I would have slept the most peaceful sleep that night. Knowing, conclusively, that they had done good in the world. It's simple really. Give people the challenge and combine it with their inner conviction. If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.