My Experience with Engineering Students

After having done an inaugural keynote in a high profile glittering conference in Asia Pacific HRM Congress in Bangalore

I had an opportunity to do a guest lecture in a different set up…

This time, there were

• No colourful backdrop images; No high resolution LED screens;
• No eye catching glittering stage; No professional photographers;
• No high profile audience wearing Blazer and Tie;

but there was a bunch of Engineering students with dreams in their eyes.

I thoroughly enjoyed delivering a guest lecture in #VIT (one of the most premier institutions in Chennai) on “Technology Trends and New Business Models” as part of their #TechnoVIT 2019 technical festival.

How did I get the attention of students for couple of hours?

I utilized the technique I learnt from our agile coaches on creating a #SocialContract. In Agile world, Social Contracts are used to define the way that a particular team chooses to work.

We (VIT students and me) agreed as a team on certain ways of working for the next two hours and we wholeheartedly signed off on it ??

It is all about setting and managing expectations, right?

How did I know it went well?

Because many students were waiting to talk to me once the lecture was over ??.

“I want to pitch a #startup idea with you and get your opinion. Do you have 2 minutes?”, a student asked me. I was thrilled. We find it so difficult to teach #elevatorpitch for leaders in corporate, and here was a student who is practicing it with me.

He briefed me on the need, the market opportunity, how he plans to address the need, what products are already available in the market, how he believes his product will be unique, what is the market segment he is targeting and concluded saying how passionate he is in addressing the problem. I was absolutely amazed. What I liked the most was... he didn’t start with the features of his product…neither he talked about the revenue he is expecting…he focused more on the problem and how passionate he is in solving the problem. I am super confident that he will be a successful entrepreneur ??.

There was another student who asked me, ”Can we write a paper on #blockchain together?”. “Oooh…why not? Let us explore the possibility”, I said enthusiastically.

 I was remembering #DrAbdulKalam who once said “In the present context, the education system has to be designed in a way that produces large number of employment generators and not just employment seekers”

I am very confident that there will be many employment generators emerging from Engineering colleges. However the questions coming to mind are

- Are we willing to nurture them?

- Are we willing to mentor them?

- Are we respecting them enough?

- Will we protect them?

- Will we embrace them?

After having a good lunch and talking to many students, I came out with a proud feeling that India is in good hands.

What is your experience with engineering students? Do you think they will steer us for the future?

 Eagerly waiting for your comments, views and feedback!

Join me on twitter https://twitter.com/dhamayanthin