Ideas Behind Life Lessons

Whether or not you like this post, you will like the image

I m posting a series of articles with title "Life Lessons @ OpenGyan". The idea behind it is to document my journey towards something which will be a game changer in my life. OpenGyan, as you may know now, is an non-profit initiative run by couple of folks towards students' community in this part of the world who do not have enough exposure towards software engineering and they get to know only when they join a company (after being branded as non-employable).

The document helps me for two reasons.

It is going to convey to me that it is not going to be easier [though it may be simple, i doesn't mean that it is easy to do]. It helps me in a great deal to keep up the focus on the vision and values. It makes me to think why i m part of this and how much i can add to its functioning.

Second, all these experiences should give me wisdom (a big question mark) and enough strength to absorb anxiety. [I already feel that i m reasonably successful in handling the anxiety]. I see these posts as a way for self improvement and self leadership (and most importantly build some good/pleasant qualities, if that is possible :-))

Life Lessons @ OpenGyan

I haven't got a chance to write about my learning at OpenGyan for a while. It is very easy to write something [for me it is even easier as i m currently reading some books and i can vomit that i learnt in my own horrible language] but i thought that it has to be a honest review/reflection. These posts should not appear as a mere "accomplishments" but rather i always felt that it has to fuel me to overcome the obstacles. In that aspect, i wanted to think and write about one of the challenges we have in OpenGyan - Word of Mouth and it is taking a while for me to think through.

As far as i understand, we stand bad in terms of Word of Mouth [read it carefully, we dont have bad mouth :-)]. Yep, we miss the masala and marketing and I should say we miss it terribly. It is good as it paves way to learn something, it paves way to be successful at something new. It is always exciting when you think it is only matter of time and keep changing the strategy and be patient until fruition. 

Our story goes like this. We were writing emails to people at colleges and there was only a little traction. Then we wanted to start a Facebook page as we thought the social media is so powerful and the traction was little more. While we were clear on what we wanted to do, we weren't quite clear on how it should be done. Blame (which is very easy) the lack of experience in marketing, sometimes we thought the things are not working out. For a while, we even thought the content was not good but time and again the participants prove that in fact the content and delivery as excellent (on an average we score close 80 on a 100 point scale). But again, we didn't cash on this feature - good feedback. We never requested participants to share it with their friends. Was it a bad decision? We thought that the participants would actually share OpenGyan's workshop with their friends but it seems like they didn't. Was it out bad reasoning and decision? May be yes. We should  change this in future.

Nevertheless, being close to heart, i feel that we have not learned the trick, holy grail or the magic it. There are few initiatives in pipeline and i feel all those will take us to next level in realizing our vision - "providing cost free workshops for students' community". The failure in marketing making us to do many things and i would be very glad to share with you once some of those are put in to action. Like you, i sincerely hope we turnaround this and continue to provide/host workshops with impact.

For all those supporters out there, a very big thank you. I shall wrap up saying, "we are here because of your support and we will live up to your expectations". Thank you again for supporting OpenGyan.

On the way to "Asking Right Questions"

As a follow up to my previous post, i would like share my progress on my effort to ask right questions. So far i have read around five chapters. I already got the feeling that i should read the book again [this is the book that i m talking about. seems like 10th edition is out but i m reading 9th edition that i bought a couple years back].

First two chapters are general that talks about the benefits of asking questions and critical thinking as a social activity. I think, these two chapters are placed well which give us motivation to continue reading. I am a soft of guy who would like to work with book using exercises. First 20 pages of the book are theory and i m glad that it is small.

The real fun begins from chapter 3.

Chapter 3 talks about finding the issue and the conclusion in a speech or material. For many of us who are grown up and literate, i feel that finding the issue and conclusion is simple but yet after reading this chapter i felt i have learnt more. I got to know what are the aspects i should do while reading a material.

Chapter 4 talks about the reasons. By reading a material we wear the hat of the author and we tend to bury ourselves in his shoes or go against it (we take positions based on whether or not we buy the author's point or it could be due to our very own conditioning). We hardly find the reasons for the conclusion. This chapter gives us the process of finding "reasons". Only when we find reasons, we learn from the material. The reasons are critical for continuous learning.

Chapter 5 has some excellent material. It talks about dissecting the material given. It shows us how to find ambiguity. By ambiguity i mean anything that is hard to be believed without giving enough data points or research.

I have found examples exercises in all the chapters that hand holds us [which do provide hands-on on the topics]

More learning and more excitement. Will keep you posted on "asking right questions"

 

OpenGyan's Workshop on Networking

This post has very few words and a picture. We @ OpenGyan happen to use the silent period (or no activities at colleges) to our advantage of getting a good content on our next workshop on "FUNdamentals of Networking". I m sure that this workshop will help you to understand networking little more with lots of activities and fun. Here is the mind map of our workshop.

Share this with your friends who are in colleges. If you have any questions, add a comment here or email us at ping@opengyan.com (and expect a response back :-))

Back on Track - Reading Books

It is a while (may be close 6 months) since i touched a book [not literally though, i touched them when we shifted to new home as i had to physically touch them for arranging]. I particularly liked this activity. It gave me a guilty feeling. It appeared to me as if the books were saying, "why are you neglecting me? Had i been bought somebody else, would have felt the human touch". So, i thought, i should read them one by one. So, all the books in my cupboard are going to be happy :-)

After careful thinking, i thought i should read "Asking The Right Questions, A Guide to Critical Thinking". I read couple of chapters of "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene (and i was unabated by my lack of understanding on superstring theory) before jumping into "Asking Right Questions". I thought the universe can wait till i correct my thinking flaws :-)

The book "Asking The Right Questions" promises to improve critical thinking for those of you who think critically and to make people like me to think critically (who are not thinking critically or who do not know how to think or forgot it due getting married). So, in next few weeks, i m going to be a superman with my critical thinking :-)

On a serious note, i am glad that i bought the book. After reading couple of chapters, i felt that this book is written exclusively for me (to fix flaws in my thinking). Once i read it completely and put some of the concepts in practice, i shall share my experience with you. You can also become superman.

Great Book on Compilers

Recently, i have been trying to keep myself focused on learning the basics. The interesting thing about this i keep finding something very interesting. The digging things is really very interesting. I failed understand this when i was doing my under graduate degree nevertheless i learned the lesson and from here it is going to be another personal undergrad course in computer science :-) and most of the credits should go to the students who attend our workshops @ OpenGyan.

While i was reading a textbook on C, i found another interesting book and just thought of sharing here. I just skimmed through the table of contents and it is massive 1000+ pages book but it gives an excellent understanding on compilers.

Next to Discrete Mathematics, this book is likely to get into my shelf (and possibly to my brain little later). Please buzz me if you are interested for a group learning.

OpenGyan Workshop in PEC

The last two Saturdays have been nothing less than awesome. It was most satisfying moment in my life as i happen to meet few students of Pondicherry Engineering College, Department of ECE, @ their college campus for two day workshop on Linux Programming from OpenGyan.

First, after a long time, i happen to meet folks who speak in black and white. It is much easier for a teacher or trainer if the students convey whether or not they have understood (especially when they didn't understand). When the understanding is not clear, the teacher should think more and come up with better way of presenting. A teacher can think better only when there are intelligent questions or when an articulation was not understood. For sure, this workshop has sowed a seed of self improvement in me and i should say that this will make me to think better.

Second is the puntuality. We never had a situation where we started the session because of delay due to students. Everybody was there on time (1 or 2 minutes before).

Third and most important aspect is that almost everybody showed genuine interest to listen and "do" the exercises.

Overall, it one of the most fulfilling moment in my life and i hope this continues. Here are few clicks from the event.

And finally, the "moment"

Life Lessons @ OpenGyan

It is always honor if people look up to with trust that you can bring in a change. Top execs take charge after promising that they will bring about a change. Change is something good. Rather than change, we should call it shifts, a paradigm shift. Change is not so easy, it is pretty involved. Though there is a hope of turnaround, the change is not rewarding until it happens. Since it doesn't provide us an instant gratification, often people disengage themselves from the change. This is exactly why top execs are fired (or resign gracefully).

The youth, the students often think that they can do many things. It is true because the potential is always infinite. We have potential to do infinite things because we, the human beings know how to build systems up, from simple systems. Few smaller systems give us a little bigger system and by moving up further, the integration leads to much bigger system. So, it is possible to build infinite things and to produce infinite number of smaller things.

So, when you want to bring about a change (or rather a paradigm shift), keep focus the change, the much bigger and might system and at the same time draw a genuine motivation from milestone. A recent example is OpenGyan. While there is something big behind the idea of OpenGyan, the genuine motivation is drawn during every workshop. The motivation helps me to keep the bigger reason of existence of OpenGyan relevant.

And ultimately, i tend to think that everything decompose on how you break the system (goals, software, human relations, life's challenges) and how you integrate it again.

So, enough?

Our first workshop in 2013 at PEC, Department of ECE, Pudhucherry and eighth workshop (overall) is most satisfying experience.

Visit us http://www.opengyan.com and join us in Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/opengyan

More you share, the more you learn

Knowledge is the only thing that grows when shared. All the other things diminishes when you share. The idea is during the sharing process, you get questions from curious minds that helps to understand the subject more. You tend to uncover a lot of different perspectives by mere thinking. Another perspective is that you tend to study the subject from multiple sources and revise the subject that makes the understanding little deeper.

After a little experience in programming/software development, i wanted to study programming from the scratch. (Gyan from OpenGyan). So, from yesterday, i have started an exercise of reading through Discrete Mathematics. I m planning to follow the book Discrete Mathematics With Applications (Buy from Flipkart.com). I got this book sometime last year and never found a time to read beyond first chapter. This year, i m planning to study this book with a strong focus on solving all the exercises and couple more books on theoretical computer science. 

The idea here is to read, solve problems, share in my workshops and repeat it. If possible, i would be posting interesting puzzles and problems so that it helps folks who are following my blog. Nothing hurts. Once again it is knowledge sharing.

Another few books i find it valuable to read are - Write Great Code (guess, there are few volumes)

Together, we are stronger.

Happy learning.

Life Lessons @ OpenGyan

Meeting great teachers have become a rarity. I m not talking about teaching as a profession but "teaching" as a quality - an ability to be a source of inspiration. I do not have words to express my experience in meeting Dr S Jayaraman, Professor, Dean & Head, Department of Electronics and Communiation Engg @ Sona College of Technology.

OpenGyan Team with Prof Dr S Jayaraman and Prof Ayubkhan

One of the reason why i do exist in OpenGyan is because of my father (who is teacher) and when i meet great teachers like Dr. Jayaraman, my longing towards sharing knowledge grows more. An humble human who speaks less and the words that gets uttered from his mouth revives energy and makes me to feel that i m doing something divine.

I felt uncomfortable to say a "thank you note" but decided not to say "thank you" as i felt the only way of paying him back is "living the life of purpose" and steer OpenGyan's initiatives.

Happy to end 2012 with so much positive vibe and looking forward to make 2013 little more meaningful.

I wish you and your family, friends a very happy and prosperous new year.

Photo Post - Workshop @ ACET, Villianur

As a part of OpenGyan, a week back, i happen to spend a day in Achariya College of Engineering and Technology, Villianur, Puducherry and the workshop was on "Data structures and algorithms". This visit is kind of special to me because for a very long time i have been thinking of contributing back to my home town (Villupuram - the place where i did my schooling/grew up). After visiting this place/college, i feel like i m little closer to my home town (and in a while, i should be back to my home town for another workshop and to Pondy for few more workshops). Surely the visit to Pondy/Villianur is nostalgic (the place where i did shopping for diwalis and engineering books @ Higginbothams @ Pondy)

Here are few clicks from the workshop (and more in coming months).