A whirlwind tour to the prominent Indian seats of learning and wisdom

It has been a whirlwind tour to some of the prominent seats of learning in the first four months of 2022. The journey gave me a wonderful opportunity to make pitstops at four esteemed colleges pan India.

It all started with my online talk on Achieving Problem Solution Fit and Product Market Fit, delivered to a wonderful academic fraternity of MIET, Jammu on 8th February 2022. All thanks to a good friend of mine from my undergraduate days at REC Surat, Parveen Abrol, who is currently a Professor in School of Management at MIET.

Next stop was at the picturesque foothills of Ettimadai in Coimbatore, home to Amrita School of Business (ASB), in late March. Thanks to Dr. P. Balasubramanian (fondly called by students as Bala Sir) for introducing me to the Colloquia forum at ASB. Thanks to Dr. Rajkumar Ranganathan and the 3 musketeers Arun, Nikhil and Saran (MBA students of ASB), for organizing and facilitating my talk on Customer Discovery and Road to Product Market Fit on 24th March 2022 at the Executive Class Room (ECR) at ASB. It was well received by the ASB MBA batch, and was quite a delightful interactive session with different activities for students like preparing BMCs and VPCs for certain scenarios. The above picture captures a moment during the talk. Thanks to Dr. A. V. Shyam, Principal of ASB, for hosting me and connecting me with multiple Professors and the placement coordinator at ASB and the management team at CIR and ACE departments at Amrita University. Thanks to Prof. Deepak Gupta for a wonderful interaction at his quarters. Forgot to mention, I was lucky to spot many peacocks in the morning, near the university guest house where my stay was arranged.

The next halt was at Udupi in the first week of April. It was after a long time I got a chance to set foot in this town, almost 20 years and all my memories of Udupi were shattered, on my way to the MIT Manipal campus from the bus stop where I landed. I was quite surprised to see the traditional town transformed into an infrastructural delight, with wide and well-laid roads and tall buildings. Thanks to Dr. Smitha Pai, Prof. Veena Mayya, Prof. Chetana Pujari for facilitating my online talks to MIT students on Fundamentals of 3D Graphics on 22nd February 2022 and on Customer Discovery and the Road to Product Market Fit on 4th March 2022. Thanks to the wonderful students of MIT for making these sessions quite interactive and for actively participating in the session polls and breakout sessions. Dr. Smitha Pai, HOD of ICT department hosted me and provided me with a rare and wonderful opportunity to interact with Dr. Anil Rana, Director, and Dr. Somashekara Bhat, Joint Director of MIT. I feel humbled and privileged to become a member of Industry Advisory Committee at MIT, Manipal, and thanks to the nomination from Dr. Smitha Pai. I got a chance to visit Dr. Ashalatha Nayak, HOD of CSE department, Dr. Mohan Rao, HOD of Physics department and they introduced me to some of the Professors at their respective departments. Finally, I got to interact with Dr. K V Sriram, Associate Director, Industry Liaison, Placement & Practice School, regarding placement opportunities at aiRender. It was an icing on the cake as the visit gave me a chance for the first time to meet in person the MIT interns working at aiRender and to spend quality time with them at the college canteen, departments and lush green open spaces at MIT campus.

As of now, the touchdown (hopefully, instead the 4th in many more to come :-)) was at a heavenly abode in God's own country, NIT Calicut, in the first week of April. A special mention goes to Dr. G Abhilash and Subodh Raj M S, a PhD student in Electronics and Communication department, who facilitated my online talk on 3D graphics to a curious crowd from IEEE SPS SB chapter at NITC, on 21st March 2022, which set the ball rolling for my visit to NITC. The Electronics and Communication department over there gave me a wonderful opportunity to interact with several professors like Dr. G Abhilash, Dr. Sudhish N George, Dr. Sudeep P V and Dr. Praveen Shankaran. Then I took off to a different wing of NITC across the street, where I got a chance to interact with Dr. Aji Anappara, HOD of Physics department. Finally, I got to have a discussion at length with Prof. Sajith V, Chairperson, Centre for Career Development at NIT Calicut, on the placement opportunities at aiRender. And here is something that is still fresh in my memory, when I sat down to jot down my experiences during the stay at NIT Calicut, without which the description seems incomplete. The water rose apple trees in the guest house, where my stay was arranged, with plenty of those pinkish fruits (called Chambakka in Malayalam) was a pleasant delight and made my mouth water as I took a trip down memory lane, playing with my childhood friends near the water rose apple tree in my neighbourhood, plucking the fruits in lazy afternoons and tasting those priceless gifts from the heaven.

The links for the talks are available in the first comment below.