The Making of Himalayas - where earth meets Sky
Himalayas - Where Earth Meets Sky is a culmination of about 8 months of dedicated collaboration among three high school students and their coaches from separate continents. The project forms an entry in ThinkQuest (1997), an annual contest that challenges students to use the Internet as a collaborative teaching and learning tool.

The project started when three students, Debangsu Sengupta of India, Simon Wisselink of the Netherlands and Yian Cheng of the USA met each other over the internet last year. The web team was formed in December 1996 and the project got under way. Debangsu, Simon and Yian were supported by their coaches Anindo Ghosh, Vikas Sonak, and Woodbridge Greene respectively.

The team submitted a proposal concept to ThinkQuest and once it was approved, work began in full earnest. Himalayas - Where Earth Meets Sky aimed to be the most comprehensive web site on the World Wide Web about the Himalayas. The next few months saw a flurry of activity as all three of us started collecting data from a variety of sources. We also contacted a large number of knowledgeable people most of whom kindly agreed to help us with our project by contributing material. We are very grateful to them for their invaluable contributions and advice that helped make our project a success.

Many sleepless nights were endured, and obstacles overcome while creating the project. Our busy school schedules and important exams meant that we had to suspend work on the project for long periods of times. Our geographic locations also made communication a tricky affair. Real time meetings on the net were difficult to organize because of the different time zones that we followed. Moreover, in mid-project, two of us had to relocate to other places. Debangsu moved from India to Ivory Coast, West Africa in late April, while Yian moved from USA to Taiwan, Asia in July. However, thanks to the presence and stability of the Internet, we were able to stay in touch with each other and carry on with our project.

Over the months we stayed in touch with each by relying completely on the internet. Frequent e-mails, regular IRC sessions in spite of the time zone problems and use of programs like ICQ helped us collaborate successfully with each other and complete the project in time.

After eight long months, we finally completed the web site in the last week of July 1997. It is the result of countless hours of hard work put in by the three of us under the able guidance of our coaches.

Some salient features of Himalayas - where earth meets sky :

• A few hundred pages of original textual material was prepared after extensive research and compilation from various sources.
• At last count, over 500 photographs have been touched up and used to illustrate the information provided at the site.
• Coding for over 400 pages were painstakingly done by hand.
• Excellent graphics, audio files and java applets accompany the text and photos to create a delightful experience for the viewer.