I woke up from the couch and Atal called me over.

It was close to 9.

I worked on drawing up the flow for the entire process on excalidraw.

After submission at 11:30 a.m. Atal got the cameraman to do an interview for our app.

It was my first time doing something like that, where they put a tiny mic on you.

I was mentally and physically drained, but I kept up a good persona, and did a good job overall.

Then, Atal went around showing our app, did all the talking for us in the first round of judging.

We got into the top 7 finalist, and had to present in front of everyone.

Even though all I did was control the slides, I was nervous about messing up. Thankfully Atal aced the presentation.

In the end, we got the Social Good Shout out award.

I really wanted the cash prize in the top 3, but looking at the other projects, they had a lot more technical implementation.

It was understandable since they consisted of young undergrads like me could not afford to sleep until they finished their app.

Overall through Atal, I got to meet a lot of people.

I'm glad I took the decision to reach out to people, because you never know what will happen.

You might end up coding for their team, and build a winning project.

I got the chance to talk to CEOs and YC startup founders. It was great to have casual conversations with them. Only in SF can you talk to a CEO directly.

I really want to be in SF when I graduate.

The energy here is insane.