6. December 2009 by amal.

Sharing career options in India.

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6. December 2009 by amal.

Pranav Mistry (PhD student of Indian origin in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab) recently shares few of his innovations, which can connect digital world to the real world objects. During his recent he shared his phenomenal vision of “Sixth Sense”; where physical objects (for instance camera, hand movements, human motions etc) can be felt, sensed directly/feed into computer. ” SixthSense” is a wearable gesture interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.His past projects include (not limited to):

- “Quickies” is an intelligent physical sticky-note which can be digitally stored and can be searched as well

- “TaPuMa” a digital, tangible public map that allows people to use their own objects to display pertinent information on the map

- “Third Eye” - multiple viewer viewing different things on a single screen

- “inktutive” Pen & paper workspace project which can be directly feed into computer

Pranav is planning to launch his API’s as open-source project, which can be used directly or extended to connect real world with digital world. Personally I see his projects as break-through defining project, which is going to define/build new paradigm.  Hat’s off to Pranav. Simply amazing! His website is www.pranavmistry.com

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4. October 2009 by amal.

Recently I participated in CGI leadership summit on 21st, 22nd September, organized at Clarks Exotica resort located @ the outskirts of Bangalore.  One of the event highlight was the top of the worlds Ice-breaker session, which connected entire participants (sr. & middle management team) in amazing spirit. Just to give perspective, entire team of participants (BLR+Mumbai+Hyd) reached venue between 7:30-8:00  am. After decent breakfast, entire management herd was guided to the three storey conference hall.

Once we reached there, we were instructed to climb stairs to 3rd floor. While climbing stairs with high energy levels, we could hear drum music. We thought it’s probably Bhangda (Punjabi folk music) music is being played. Once we reached conference hall @ 3rd floor, we saw one person drumming and chairs being arranged in two semi-circles.  One drum was placed @ each chair for each participant. We started settling in while playing drum with the best possible energy levels. Key drummist (from Drum Jam) started giving us swift instructions, so that can play music in harmony.  Instructions were how to play high/low musical chords while playing drum and how best to harmonize together. For instance, instruction was to have eye-contact with person sitting opposite in semi-circle. Also how we can harmonize with members seated left & right side.  It was unbelievable, we (70+ members) all were orchestrating together without any practice, rehearsal. In fact it was altogether spontaneous rhythmic music flowing continuously.

We continued Jamming session for almost 75-90 minutes. We were also given some alternate music instruments for jamming. Towards the end part of the session, we all were playing tunes of “We will Rock you..”. Unbelievable but true, 1+ hour of most unsynchronized but synchronized & rhythmic music being produced with amateur group of people. Of course, with somebody like me who was drumming 1st time.  I never realized I can participate for jamming sessions. Not a bad deal

There were multiple sessions organized @ the summit (can’t disclose much)  and one of the key event was management speech by Rahul Bose. Most of us know Rahul Bose as bollywood star who has definitely curved niche for himself and he’s definitely atypical (Jara hatke - it’s different) personality altogether.  What we don’t know is that he was captain of Indian Rugby team and also chairman & founder of The Group of Groups, an umbrella organization for 51 Mumbai charitable organizations and NGOs. He also launched the Andaman and Nicobar Scholarship Initiative through his NGO, The Foundation. His speech centered on team dynamics with real time examples of his rugby and NGO experiences. BTW, he never touches upon his bollywood experiences during his speech. Also we didn’t ask single Q around bollywood. Only once the Q&A was completed, MC asked to share his bollywood experiences with his co-stars. He smiled perpetually and asked, “So you want to know more about Mallika Sherawat”. We all winked and smiled :-)  He did share few incidents. This time he was trying to be politically correct unlike while he was sharing his rugby & NGO experiences.  Check one of the snaps below:

There were many more memoirs, which I will share once time permits. Signing off until then.

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