A mail to my summer interns

Dear Interns,

I'm writing this mail with great excitement despite the mess the world is in today. The reason for the mess is quite obvious, but the reason for excitement is not. I feel, as Dr. Arul [1] said, after every disaster there is a great opportunity. I'm excited about the opportunity that we are creating for each other, after the world gets healed. 

As you you have completed one week of internship at FluxGen, I would like to share a bit about the purpose, background, plan and the notion at a high level. You may use this mail as your compass when ever you get confused or get lost between multiple things that may come your way during the internship.

The ultimate purpose of the Internship programs at FluxGen is to elevate the thinking of the students, prepare them for the future and utilize the training provided in the process to build the company (FluxGen). We believe you guys are amazing people, you have extreme energy levels to learn anything under the sun and solid skills to communicate ideas. We also understand that you are in the age to get easily carried away by things that may seem alluring, in general. Through this program we are trying to burst some of those myths that causes the confusion in your mind - like for example the concept of preconceived notion of success that Guruprasad [2] mentioned in the interaction. In place of confusion, we will put you into tasks that will help you think beyond academic levels and create something that you never did it the way you would do here - at least that's what is our pursuit. As we train you in full spectrum, from philosophical to skills level, we would churn out the best quality work from you - we are a business, we do this the best!

We have been running Internship program at FluxGen for last 8 years. As a matter of fact the first employee of FluxGen started as an intern. We have evolved over a period of time but this is the first time we are doing the Work From Home Internship. So we are learning from you how to run the program in a new format - we will be grateful to you for years to come. You have already heard from one of the ex-interns, Sharath Kamath [3] also NITK Alumni, though he seemed to have worked on a very technical task of creating the mobile app for FluxGen, he got directions here to go into a management career path. We don't really think any task is a technical task or non-technical, we believe a task is a way to help you think beyond that paradigm. As a visiting faculty at my alma mater IISc, I offer course on IoT and Data Science for CleanTech and Agritech. The experiments I have tried with my students is something I do at the internship program too. The experiments mainly include in assignments, tests and projects/hackathons. I'm extremely glad weather it is my students or our past Interns, they took the mentioned experiments in a good spirit and have done wonders. Some have become very successful entrepreneurs, many have landed in very reputed universities and jobs across the globe [4].

The internship is planned in such a way that you understand FluxGen's products at a business level, further understand the requirements at a system level and at the component level, build prototypes from the requirements ( for new product) to satisfy the minimum viability, integrate the working prototype with the existing products of FluxGen, test and validate the developed product thoroughly even if it requires to discard the first prototype to make a new one that is more reliable and efficient.

The internship will be filled with challenging activities, which require your full attention on a daily basis. Our commitment to you is that we do our 'Dharma' of making sure you get the best possible exposure that we can offer you in this two months To tell you what I mean by 'Dharma', I will share an interesting story from the epic 'The Mahabharata' [5]:

One of the most fascinating Characters in the Mahabharata, is the third oldest or third most valorous, the interpretation of the third is still in doubt, Kaurava called Vikarna.

He was the only guy who called out Duryodhana, during Draupadi's disrobing. He said, in the court, that, "Draupadi is the daughter in law of the Kurus, Her insult, is the insult of the whole Kuru clan".

Obviously nobody gave a shit to his words. But he upholded Dharma, when everyone forgot.

However, during the war, he fought alongside the Kaurava. And when Bhima went on a rampage, he came face to face with Vikarna.

Remembering his words of opposition in court, Bhima asked him step aside as he didn't want to kill him. Mind you, this was the guy who had vowed to kill all the kauravs.

But Vikarna refused, and insisted on the fight, probably knowing fully well that Bhima would kill him. And his words, "I had to protect Draupadi, because That was my Dharma then. I have to fight, because that is My dharma now"

And when he defeats Vikarna, Bhima cries that he had to kill him. Vikarna was Probably the only Kaurav, whose death was grieved

Vikarna is one of the most underrated Mahabharat characters. Probably one of the only few who upheld his Dharma, in entirely unfavorable situations, when people supposedly greater than him, forgot theirs.

This story is very relevant today 'cause we are also facing a very unfavorable situation due to the epidemic. All I would say as I come to nearly the end of this long mail is, we will stick to our Dharma and I request you to stick to your Dharma - let things unfold on its own, as we can only do our duty, results are anyway seldom in human control. 

While this lock-down is going in the history books of my son, your future children and grandchildren, let's not miss the opportunity to make epic stuff!  

Cheers,

Ganesh

[1] Dr. Arulalan Rajan sharing his journey as an academician to the 2020 Summer Interns of FluxGen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW-RkQ1qV-4

[2] Guru Prasad JG sharing his career journey with FluxGen Summer Interns 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdKdmrvvjp4 

[3] Sharath Kamath - Ex- Intern of FluxGen, interacting with 2020 summer interns on the first day! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3rzB5wnSTQ 

[4] Story of an intern at FluxGen, and finding my career mission: https://www.ganeshshankar.in/post/how-i-figured-out-my-career-mission-in-the-previous-decade-2010-2019

[5] Vikarna has been an influential character in Mahabharata to me for a long time. The wordings in the story is taken from the internet.