Internship for Students

Writing this after a while. 

I was thinking of doing something like this for a very long time (many years probably) but took while. Dr. Sankaran's post is one of the reasons [Thank you Sir]

Hope you guys still remember OpenGyan. I am planning to do something similar but for folks who are really want to take programming to next level. The thinking is to come up with real world problems and TRY solving it and on the way you will learn some cool things. It will be like internship (of course with no stipend).

Program Structure:

1. Identify folks who are interested to do this. Ideally someone with good (this is purely relative) programming skills and willing to put efforts to learn something new. Should be doing graduate or post-graduate course in a college (and interested in computers)
2. Willingness to put 4-5 hours of efforts per week. I think this will be a big differentiation. 
3. Willingness to work in latest technologies - cloud/containers/tools/http/REST (some of these are highly talked about in industry)
4. Has Google hangout or similar tool for interaction
5. Talking to geeks and learning from them (expands your learning)
6. Planning to do for two teams each containing not more than two people. The members of team are co-located (either from same college or live near by each other or connected by Google hangout in the order of preference)
7. Finally a demo of your work (a write-up on what you have done and learnt) and move on to next problem (if you are still interested)

What you will probably get (no guarantee):

1. Problems that the world is trying to solve (tough part)
2. How some of the problems are solved (easy part once tough part is found)
3. Get hooked to problems (disciple)
4. Apply what you learnt. If you have not learnt anything, learnt it first and apply it (consistency)
5. Learn tools that professional use to debug/solve problems (smart work)

What you pay:

• Your fee is through your commitment and valuing the folks' bandwidth
• No exchange of money or favour to be involved

If you are interested - write to me GRABYOURFREEDOM AT GMAIL DOT COM

If you feel it will help someone that you know (or don't know) - Just Share.

Two TED Talks - Must Watch

I thought i would write my own post. But i thought i should share something more important than my posts. I will leave you today from my crappy posts but some other day i will give you a double dose. 

Today i watched few TED Talks and few of them are little outstanding than the others. The ideas are simple but inspiring, straightforward but difficult to do it consistently. Your investment is 40 minutes. Watch it and share your thoughts.

Paradigm shift

Human beings are designed to thrive and evolve. Most of us think that we have limitations. It is our own thinking that is causing us stagnated. But we are limitless possibility. Here is a video that someone shared in Facebook.

Inspiring Story

Whatever we do might be a very simple like fixing a puncture in a cycle. But it might have given us a new thinking, new eyes, new possibilities. If it gives us a new perspective, even a tiny thing is a paradigm shift. New perspective gives us limitless possibilities.

Perspectives are important as they fetch shift in frame of mind.

Happy weekend

Programmer who dreams in code - Inspiring

I just want to share this video to you. No words and the video speaks by itself :-) but pretty
inspiring.

Being with RIGHT GUY and turning UPSIDE DOWN

Changing the status quo needs a vision. You got to know where you want to go. It is your "point zero".

Only then comes the resources. Most of the times, you just don't commit to a change initiative thinking of resources. Resources are assumed to be available when you need them.

If you are convinced enough that you have to change and facilitate a change, the next important thing is being with RIGHT people. I m not saying you need to be with a visionary. I m just saying that you got to be with someone who sees tomorrow, next month or probably next couple of years. The way he is seeing may not be consistent. But the key is seeing tomorrow.

As long as he sees "some tomorrow", he is the guy and he is going to question you and probably shake things up to make tomorrow little better.

Be with RIGHT guy and turning UPSIDE DOWN would be a wonderful experience. You will simply love being part of such a change.

Your age means nothing to people

The days have changed. People generally don't accept things. Don't think that they don't trust you. They test it, explore it and experience it. Good thing?

It applies to people too.

Don't expect people to follow you just by your age (either at home or work).

People will like you and people will respect you. Likes and Respects are given your personality and age. It is different. It is purely because we are social.

People follow those who think, ask questions and set them directions (but not actually directing them how to do it).

The age and thinking have little relation. Yes, it is related to extent to which the biologically our brain starts to develop (biologically the human brain development start prenatal, every human being has an opportunity to be a thinker even before they are born). Once it is developed well, it depends on how you use it.

(Technically and practically) A child can think much better than grown-ups.


So, your age means nothing to people but your thinking REALLY MATTERS.

Excellence is never a Destination - Professor Walter Lewin

I consider myself as one of the guys who is so passionate about sharing knowledge. I want to invent new ways to communicate effectively in sharing knowledge. I want to take classes in such a way that everyone who attends it feels as if the classes is happening one-to-one. I want to take the participants out of this world and travel to new world where we share knowledge.

And now, i have found a way and a benchmark that i can copy shamelessly. But i feel even copying is going to be very tough.

After watching this video by Professor Walter Lewin, i don't have words to say. The only thing that i can do after watching this video is to get inspired. Thank you, Sir.

Unconditional Burning Desire To Make Everyone The Best - Teacher's Day

Today is Teachers' day - a day that is dedicated to teachers. There will be at least one teacher (if you are lucky enough, you will have more) who made a difference in our lives. Often, they are Gods in disguise. They give us knowledge, wisdom, experiences, motivation, inspiration and what not without any expectation. The unconditional burning desire to make every student a better human being. During this wonderful day, I would like "thank" my teachers/professors (and all teachers of the world) and "dedicate" my professional and personal successes to them. In a sense, our parents, friends, siblings and seniors at work are wonderful teachers and my dedication to them too.

My Teacher, My Role Model - Prof C K Prahalad

A couple of years back, when I was attending an event of setting organizational vision at my workplace, I happen to hear one of my teammates (yes, my CEO, Mr. Vineet Nayar) speaking about Prof. C.K Prahalad. Quite impressed that, I happen to read his book "Competing for the Future". Slowly but steadily Prof C K Prahalad happen to occupy my mind. Many teachers have made very big impact in me and helped me to be where I am today. But Prof. C.K Prahalad is very rarest teacher in a sense that he makes me to think where I should be in 10 years from now. Prof C K Prahalad is a Cheeranjevi (the person who never dies) and I believe still he is alive. Here is one of the videos that inspired me.

Again Mr. Subroto Bagchi - "The Professional"

Having been a professional for past eight years, I was bit late to understand who a professional is? It is better late than never. It is again Mr. Subroto Bagchi with his classical writing on a very complex topic without a pinch of overdose. The book has little more than 200 pages and it talks about the characteristics of a true professional. The book has seven parts - Integrity, Self Awareness, Professional Qualities, Managing Volume, Managing Complexity, New World Imperatives, The Professional's Professional and finally a short write up on "The Unprofessional".

The whole of book is nicely written with deeper insights There are many anecdotes from Mr. Bagchi's work life. The portions on the topic "Integrity" and the story of Mahadeva is inspiring and it gives me courage to keep up my integrity. This is my second reading of the books my Mr. Bagchi and the previous one was "Go Kiss The World".After reading the book, I understand what it takes to be a true professional and the missing pieces in me. I urge you to read the book "The Professional" at least once. When you retire, you will leave a legacy at your work place.

The Professional (Buy from Flipkart.com in India)

I Must Fail

Today, it was a great experience to see someone failing and everyone around her was holding her up. On seeing that I wanted to fail because such a failure was not really a failure. Tonight there was a singing competition in Vijay TV for kids. I think, one kid (a singer) was eliminated. The views of the judges were impressive. The playback singer Mano and Malkudi Subha were the judges. I was quite impressed with the way they handled the situation. Being in the position of judging talent is very tough.

The judges said, looking at the girl who was eliminated, "you came as seed and you are going as a flower, you blossomed here". WoW, what a word? You must see the kid's eyes go bright, her mom's eyes go bright, audiences were smiling like sunshine and the entire arena was awestruck. What a way to give a feedback (on the other side, and in the corporate world, the monkeys that are paid to give feedback deliver it in a pathetic and insensitive way). Both of them rightly pointed out that the girl has transformed in the competition and the girl was trying something extraordinary. I learned two important lessons in my life.

Never shy away from trying extraordinary things.
Never hurt someone who is trying to be extraordinary. Praise her and take her as role model.

In a nutshell, I feel that I must fail because it is fine to be a failure rather than a mediocre success. It is another good night sleep and tonight I feel so much happy on learning important lesson about failure.