July 4, 2009 by ssemergic
In an event organized by Globarena, NASSCOM and JNTU (JN Tech University – the University that controls the largest number of engineering colleges in the country) there were several views on the current state of the jobs for engineering college students post US meltdown. Dr DN Reddy, Vice Chancellor, JNTU and Mr. BVR Mohan Reddy, Founder & CEO of Infotech Enterprise spoke from their vantage points (Head of Academe and CEO of a corporation).
I chaired a Panel with Mr Sheen Akkara of Delolite and Mr Amitabh Mishra of iGate on employment trends and opportunities. I only touched on
- the need to value “loyalty” (to area, to organization) both by employees and employers
- move away from “selling your self to the highest bidder” to “finding the best match between the skills / strengths of individuals to the job / organization profile”
- Institutes looking at long term partnership with specific firms / cluster of firms rather than counting the number of companies that visit a college
- Corporations moving away from “middlemen” (HR consultants) and engage the colleges directly
- Students stressing on long term value growth and focusing on “money to pocket” instead of “cost to company” figures
Dr Sandhya Chintala of NASSCOM chaired a panel discussion on “Being industry ready” with Mr Sanjay Singh of Dr Reddy’s Lab, Mr Ramesh Loganthan of Progress Software and Mr Namala Giri of IBM
It was a good learning experience to see such diverse views (particularly from academia who find it easy to blame NASSCOM, Industry, AICTE and the Government
Tags: NASSCOM, Globarena, JNTU, Hyderabad, July 4 2009
Posted in My views on IT education in India | Leave a Comment »
July 3, 2009 by ssemergic
SEE (Smart Enterprise Exchange) was launched in India by UBM (United Business Media) India (thru Network Computing) and CA (Computer Associates) with an event titled “The power of lean IT” at Hotel Oberoi, Bangalore
I gave the keynote address where I talked of the need to look all over for savings – data center (servers, storage & networking), software, customer equipment (PCs, laptops, smart phones) and services- and to look for million opportunities to save a dollar than looking for an opportunity to save a big one million dollar in one place
Laxman Badiga, CIO Wipro talked of 40+ percent savings in transportation & communication; this was further elaborated by Kenny Kesar, VP, Wipro.
Peter Waterhouse, Strategy Advisor, CA who flew in from Australia talked of the learnings from manufacturing.
There was an interesting Panel discussion with N Nataraj, CIO, Hexaware, V Balakrishnan, CIO, Polaris Software and Amit Chatterjee, MD CA India moderated by Val Souza, Editorial Director, UBM India
All in all it was an educative event
Interesting coincidence – I got a copy of NR Narayana Murthy’s recent book “A better India – A better world” as a gift; only yesterday IUCEE gave me a copy as a present for my talk on “Why teaching is exciting?”
Tags: Amit Chatterjee CA India CEO, Balakrishnan CIO Polaris, Nataraj CIO Hexaware, Network Computing, Smart Enterprise Exchange
Posted in My views on IT | Leave a Comment »
July 2, 2009 by ssemergic
With 600 teachers from all across India and nearly 100 faculty members (mainly from US), the month-long IUCEE Workshop is an exciting event; in its third year of operation, I always make it a point to be there, thanks to Dr Krishna Vedula of UMass, USA (who coordinates from the US side) and Dr MP Ravindra of Infosys (who coordinates from the Indian side)
While several eminent academic heads talked about the challenges of teaching in India and the pathetic state of some of the educational Institutes, I used the time to talk about the positive side; to remind the teachers assembled to “count the blessings“
I talked of just three things
- Widely known ideas about teaching that are well appreciated by the society
- Widely known ideas about teaching that are well appreciated by the society elsewhere, but not in India
- Not widely known ideas about teaching that are NOT well appreciated by the society
Widely known ideas about teaching that are well appreciated by the society
- The general respect academics command in India, something that can be touching many times
- The campus advantage; the fact that students & faculty live together for years leads to several spinoffs; SPICMACAY would not have happened without IIT Delhi campus
- Freedom to pursue what you like; no need to listen to the managers every day
Widely known ideas about teaching that are well appreciated by the society elsewhere, but not in India
- Opportunity to teach “Full time students”, who are supported by families all the way up to PhD without having to worry about supporting them or their families; the students can be given lot more challenging work, demanding work; campus life adds to this advantage
- Students in India viewing Computer Science as Top 3 options for 20 years (unlike countries like USA where Computer Science is NOT in the Top 10 first choices)
- Ability to see the world, thanks to conferences happening all over the world
Not widely known ideas about teaching that are NOT well appreciated by the society
- Age advantage; we age every year but every year we get 18+ age group to teach; it keeps us younger!
- The absence of topline and bottom line!
- The 4Ls of learning getting transformed within the past 5 years, more so in India; Lectures going to e-learning, Library going digital, Labs going online thanks to tools like iLab and Life getting increasingly digital
IUCEE (Indo US Cooperation in Engineering Education) Workshop at Infosys Leadership Institute, Mysore on July 2, 2009
Posted in My views on Indian Education System, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 1, 2009 by ssemergic
It was nice to wish all my doctor friends
Dr Ramana Rao, Physician
Dr Charit, the budding Physician
Dr Achyut Baliga, Dentist
Dr Chinnappa, Child Specialist
Dr Lakshman, Bangalore Medical College
Dr Suresh
Dr Pai, Ortho
I SMSed some, talked to some and even met some
Tags: Doctors Day
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June 30, 2009 by ssemergic
After years the marvelous engineering piece called Bandra Worli sea-link is a reality in India. It was inaugurated by Mrs Sonia Gandhi on 30th June 2009
We have a curse that all major projects get delayed badly; this project is no exception. But we are equally to blame for NOT celebrating the success though delayed. None of the scientific / engineering community would communicate the excitement of such a project to the people at large.
We had a similar show five years back in Bangalore. The KR Puram bridge is a marvelous piece of engineering; no one ever sang a glory for the project. Today it is not even painted (white washed even) or lit!
I do hope we Indians learn to celebrate (just not movies and cricket) but great pieces of engineering too
Tags: Bandra Worli sea bridge, June 30 2009 inauguration, Sonia Gandhi
Posted in My views on India, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 29, 2009 by ssemergic
For 90% of the population in an economically poor country like India, the high-end brands Jaguar and Land Rover may not mean much; yet, the fact that they are owned by an Indian company, that too a trusted industry house like Tatas is something that makes an average Indian proud.
June 28, 2009 was an important date in Indian economic history when Mr. Ratan Tata formally launched Jaguar and Land Rover (the trusted high-end British brands in the automotive sector) vehicles in India
Such developments are significant milestones in the long march of India towards an economically developed country (one hopes to see that stage becoming a reality in our life time)
Tags: Jaguar, June 28 2009, Land Rover, Tata Motors launching high end British brands in India
Posted in My views on India | Leave a Comment »
June 28, 2009 by ssemergic
KEA (Karnataka Examinations Authority) manages the CET (Common Entrance Test); CET pioneered a more transparent and efficient management of admissions to technical institutions in the country.
It was interesting to note the statement from KEA Chairman last week, where he talked of IT accounting for just 30% of the much-sought-after seats in the CET of the year 2009. For nearly 15 years, the position has been the other way; IT accounting for 70% of the seats that were in high demand.
Interesting times indeed
Tags: CET, IT falling to 30% of the CET seats, KEA
Posted in My views on IT education in India | Leave a Comment »
June 27, 2009 by ssemergic
The king of pop Michael Jackson died on June 26, 2009 at LA.
With 750 million album sales Jackson is a phenomenon unparalleled in history. Many of us are ignorant of this pat of human activity; but what caught my attention was the fact that Jackson’s death could bring down parts of Google and Twitter; people either got an error message or very slow to no response for several hours on these two hugely popular global sites, demonstrating that the online world is susceptible to the problems similar to the physical world (I remembered the chaos on the road when Rajkumar died in Bangalore or MGR died in Madras)
Tags: Micael Kackson dies, online stampede, Twitter and Google sites crash
Posted in My views on global developments | 1 Comment »
June 26, 2009 by ssemergic
In an article published in New York Times this week “Acer Everywhere”, the author talks of the quiet transformation of this Taiwanese company that has moved from the No 1 position of “Lap top computer assembly” company for every brand in the world to the formidable position of No 2 branded laptop company in the world! It will soon take the position occupied by Dell (and next only to HP)
Netbooks seem to be one sure success strategy of this turnaround.
Will some Indian software companies too follow the trend? Moving from providing services to most Fortune 500 companies to be one among the Fortune 500 companies? That would make the country proud.
Tags: Acer, Acer everywhere, No 2 brand laptop
Posted in My views on IT companies | Leave a Comment »
June 25, 2009 by ssemergic
Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and vice chairman of the iconic $ 4.5 billion Infosys Technologies has resigned from the posts of Vice Chairman and Board member of Infosys to head a unique organization – UID (Unique Identity) Authority of India).
UID Authority of India has the ambition to uniquely identify every Indian; with 1.2 billion population, India’s UID is rather complex.
Countries like USA have their SSN (Social Security Number) that was designed a century back. Many counties (both big and small) have similar schemes. I was in Thailand in late 80’s when Thailand initiated such a project. India started very late. Though the idea has been around for several years, it got bogged down with some States not co-operating; these States relied on illegal immigrants to win election often using the bogey that Muslim women do not want to be photographed); techies got bogged down with the “right” smart card technology; and, Election Commission did a great job with EPIC (Electronic Photo Identity Card), but forgot to addresss the “backend” issues.
Nandan is the right person with technology, business and execution skills to execute this mammoth project. Once executed, it can make a huge difference to the country; it could be a technology to break the disease of corruption – the way Railway Reservation project removed bribery to TTE (Traveling Ticket Examiners). UID can also help in targeting subsidies direct to the beneficiery.
Nandan is a tall business leader. Within hours Forbes, New York Times and Reuters carried the news item.
Infosys and Nandan must be complimented for their corporate governance; within hours Nandan resigned from Board Membership and Vice Chairman post of Infosys.
Nandan is
- an outstanding programmer, systems analyst, project manager, CEO and vice chairman of Infosys for the past 27 years,
- a celebrity author who wrote the best selling “Imagining India”, and,
- head of an Authority of the Government with the rank of a Cabinet Minister,
Nandan would be donning every role!
Tags: Forbes, Infosys, Nandan Nilekani heading UID Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani of Infosys, New York Times
Posted in My views on people | 11 Comments »
