Arbit Scratchpad

Each of us are a gift to this world - the very fact that we exist! Beautiful thought put forth by Prof DVR Seshadri during the REIL class yesterday based on his personal experiences. A guest lecture prior to his class was a serious inspirational tale on resilience! There is no need to prove ourselves or feel like failures - these are the wrong feelings of inadequacy that we often times imagine (guess those with greater imagination do so more often) ... We always crave for 'becoming' instead of just 'being'. The antenna must start receiving the divine signals ... Often our antenna is pointed elsewhere, realign. Let us go back once more, O mind, to our own abode! Here in this foreign land of earth. Why should we wander aimlessly in stranger's guise? (From a beautiful song that Swami Vivekananda used to sing) Greed and Lust - the thug and robber on the highway to realization! Self belief and faith will see us through!

On 28, May 2010, IIM Bangalore inaugurated the PGSEM batch of 2010, the 13th batch of this prestigious executive general management education programme offered exclusively to the professionals in the IT sector in India. Mr. Harsh Manglik, Chairman of NASSCOM Executive Committee, was the chief guest for the event. Harsh Manglik, Chairman NASSCOM addressed the PGSEM incoming batch during his keynote speech. He expressed pleasure at being able to speak at IIM Bangalore which he talked of as a privilege. He congratulated the newcomers on their attainments and capabilities and wished them success on their future journey. He mentioned in no uncertain terms the fact that the participants coming in from the IT industry at this point in time from India were in a way born at the right time, as this industry was a very good bet. He went on to speak on India, the Indian IT sector and his perspectives on leadership, which is and will be key to shaping up ot...

The annual business fest ‘Convergenz’09’ conducted by the IIMB-PGSEM student fraternity happened on 15th March 2009. The pre-lunch session in the morning saw the finals of the business plan - Alchemy (judges panel consisted of Venture Capitalists and Professors of the NSRCEL, IIMB) and Case presentation competition (on the topic of beating Nokia’s market dominance in the Indian mobile handset market); with the finalists vying for the top slot; the sessions were thoroughly contested and interesting pitches were made. The ‘Turing Test’ business/technology quiz finals were conducted by Prof Rajeev Gowda in the afternoon after the written elimination rounds and Arul Mani the VP of Karnataka Quiz Association was also present for the show.  The panel discussion at the end of the fest, in the late evening was well attended and consisted of panelists of repute from the IT Industry including Srini Rajam, CEO Ittiam Systems and Y V Prakash, Director R&D, Honeywell Technology Solutions and e...

Close to 8 hours of classical arts (music and dance) on a single day – usually people watch one recital in a day we watched four of them back to back. I have gone to a couple of classical recitals till date but something of this nature was a dream come true! Not that I am bragging, but then the sheer experience of it all was stupefying to say the least. Let me start from the last item which got over at 4:30 AM, yes 4:30 AM on 26 th Jan, 2009, that's today, our Republic Day. The dusk to dawn musical concert 'Yamini 2009' in association with the Spic Macay chapter at IIM Bangalore was an experience for me like never before. The last item - the flute recital by Pandit Ronu Majumdar reached its crescendo in a Druta Teentaal at around 3:30 AM, when the speed of play along with Sudhir Pandey on the tabla reached so high that it was just impossible for me to keep track of the tala , which I had been trying to keep track of throughout the recitals – so I just sat in silence soa...

IIMB-NASSCOM Leadership Summit: A Grand Success Bangalore, India – 14 January, 2009 -- The Post-Graduate Program in Software Enterprise Management, IIMB, in partnership with NASSCOM conducted the first IIMB-NASSCOM Leadership Summit with a panel discussion where eminent panelists, the finest minds in the industry discussed and debated on the topic: "Managing risk in the emerging business environment" The Panel Chair was Mr. Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, NASSCOM and the panel consisted of: Mr. Sharad Sharma, CEO, Yahoo! India. Mr. Aravind Sitaraman, MD, Cisco India. Dr. G Venkatesh, Exec Director, CTO & CSO, Sasken. Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj, Chief Executive Officer, DSCI Mr. Sridhar Jayanthi, Head, McAfee India Centre The entire gamut of relevant topics and thoughts were the highlights of the panel discussion including business risks, financial risks, technological risks, security risks and the overall impact of risks on the Indian IT industry and steps taken to mitigate the same....

The brand new IIMB PGSEM quarterly newsletter ' thought EDGE ' was released last week on 20th December 2008. This first release had the theme of 'Career Planning' with articles by alumni, professors and on continuing studies after an MBA, along with event updates etc.

After those extra classes, that too on a Saturday evening; 'imagine' - numb brains yet charged up minds!! Discussion time folks... Amit Bhalotia is explaining something in great detail, observe Karthik like the perfect disciple - listens... D'Souza (green T) is at his argumentative best. Naufal is like having fun, and absolutely oblivious - Parashar starts texting his girlfriend. :) Shashidhar is not bothered, he concentrates on checking the % complete of his movie downloads from Spidi. The discussion gets more intense, Karthik starts to expound his hypothesis. I get Naufal distracted with my mobi-cam/my antics. As others listen, Parashar continues to exchange messages with his girlfriend... ;) ;) Ah! I have got the pack disturbed, but look at the concentration level of Bhalotia - he goes on and on ..... :) Far from the maddening crowd -Get Away! I am too saturated to discuss any more....

There comes a time when the new replaces the old, and the cycle begins afresh … The 2008 batch of Post-Graduate Program in Software Enterprise Management (PGSEM) conducted Pehel-08 at IIMB as our first cultural fest, usually an annual fare. A number of events we lined up for the evening, to keep everyone engaged and enthused. A debate, a skit, address by alumni and industry folks and some songs by the in-house music band 'Sur Shunya Aath' marked the evening of Pehel'08 on 20th July 2008! Having danced hard at the end to the tunes of some fast numbers it got absolutely tiring and the sweat flowed unhindered - my legs are just losing their ache ... ! Songs we sang as part of the music group: - Raina Beeti Jaye - Solo (Yours truly did this Amar Prem number, my all time favourite) - Maeri - Group (The Euphoria track) - Yeh Jawaani - Group (The Kishore da classic) Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhishek_dan/sets/72157606285885486/?page=3 http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhis...

The IIMB PGSEM application for 2008 had a SOP section which required 5 short essays to be written. Here are the ones I had written: Statement of Purpose How do you see the PGSEM helping you in your goals? (150 words) My taking up the PGSEM course has twin objectives, namely, self-development and learning all aspects of setting up, managing a commercial/social enterprise. Having worked in the software industry for five years, I have closely seen the software development life-cycle. However, there are several aspects of business and the economy that are of interest to me and I find the time ripe to explore these in a formal way, through academics; specifically strategic management of a firm, innovation strategies, and the scope of strategic consulting. Getting ready to usher in acceleration in growth opportunities in my care...

Phew! The last two days went by like a storm. Demand - supply curves, balance sheets with assets and liabilities and SWOT analysis related to case studies including one on Robin Hood's predicament kept me busy these last two days @ IIMB along with a biz domain Fun Day celebration – an evening full of fun @ office which I co-hosted (master of ceremonies) along with a colleague. Awesome fun it was on Friday with the evening @ Radiant Resorts off Banerghatta Road – we conducted several contests, karaoke rounds, individual talent rounds including singing, skits, a superb group dance performance and much more! It ended with a dinner and an open dance floor which left everyone exhausted by the end of the day. Ended up winning the funkiest dress (thanks to a colourful kurta) and the best singer awards (thanks to the romantic number 'Kehna Hai' by Kishore da from the movie Padosan). Addressing a few members, say ten is boring, whereas chatting or conversing with a single pe...

Well what if you underwent an orientation camp for two full days in an institute - wouldn't it be rather tiring as also energy sapping? It was exactly the opposite this last week when I was inside the IIM Bangalore campus attending the three night, two day orientation camp for the PGSEM Batch of 2008. I am in awe after getting a feel of what a fine institution can be like. Never before have I had an experience quite like what awaited me as I entered the hallowed portals of this elite institution, which was setup in 1973. As cliched as it may sound you got to experience the same in order to believe it. Actually last Friday (30 th May 2008) the IIMB PGSEM (2.5 year part-time programme which I joined ) was having their summer event called L-CUBE (Leadership, Learning and Leisure). It started off with the aptly chosen words of Saint Iqbal: A grand vision, beautiful speech and a compassionate soul are the true characteristics of a caravan leader . This was followed by the inaugural ...

The IIMB PGSEM ( http://pgsem.iimb.ernet.in/ ) faculty interviews went something like this: Professors M & F seated on one end of a large roundtable; I am seated across them. Date: 11 April, 2008, Time: 2:30 PM sharp. Q: So … Tell me about yourself (Most standard Q) Mostly spoke about acads, work, and project. Q: How has your role changed from Deputy Engineer (in BEL) to Team Lead (currently). I explain architect’s role, leading technical decisions and volunteer, initiative driven approach also communications focal in the domain etc. Also about how stringent avionics software development needs to be adhering to the FAA standards etc. So the path is always testing to development to design and it takes sometime to go ahead. Q: How will the course help you? I mention strategic management here, going ahead. Q: What do you understand by strategic management? I give a generic answer here. Q: Why don’t you pursue the full time course? I say stuff like applying the k...