Hola!!
It's been a couple of weeks since I joined a new company and so far I've liked what I have seen here wrt work environment n stuff... One good thing that has happened to my lifestyle after joining Starent Networks (which is now part of Cisco Systems) is that my weekdays schedule has started to become more disciplined...
All the companies which I've worked with so far, provided flexible working hours - mostly because it was guaranteed that there's always loads of work and international calls meaning late night working... So, over the years I have grown into habit of waking up late and hitting the road to office only after the rush hour has started to get over. This has changed with my entry into Starent. As the company offices are located in a tech park campus 30KM away from my home, I have no option but to wake up early, get done with my daily dose of exercise, and hop on to the company transport as early as 7AM!! The good part of the bargain is that I get free from the office responsibilities by 5pm and reach home by 6pm having freewill to spend the rest of the night in whichever way i wish to (uummm... not exactly as I'm staying with my parents;-))
As I got accustomed to the bus travel (given the fact that I've hardly commuted using public transport so far), I embarked on a strange decision - what to do while commuting in the bus for 2 hours every day. There isn't much chance of networking/gossiping with the co-commuters - since most people doze off as soon as they get onto the bus:( and a few who are awake are busy vigorously perusing the daily newspaper for such mundane things as the current state of Indian politics and crime scene - something they aren't willing to do anything about!! Let's not get into that subject coz i know there are newspaper evangelists who upon listening to my last statement shoot back at me saying in today's world "information" is the key, "knowledge" is the biggest power, so reading newspaper for an hour a day is absolutely essential contrary to my opinion that it's an absolute waste of time:)) So be it, I have no issues with what others choose to do... except that newspapers are a huge tax on our planet's resources - they are prepared from paper - which requires cutting trees - the most precious element of our planet's ecosystem...
Anyways coming back to the dilemma of effectively utilizing time spent sitting in the bus, the other options I considered also didn't suit very well... like enjoying the scenery from the window... everywhere the land is full of concrete jungles with no soothing greenery in sight and the air full of vehicular pollution. The other option was to listen to ipod to disconnect from the world but that was impossible with the bus music system squeaking out loud with FM music all the time. So I finally decided to resign to a quiet pondering over my life in the past, present, and future to make some meaning out of it...
While pondering over the circumstances that make me who I am today as a person, I realized that somehow I have become an introvert as a result of more hours spent in front of a computer screen than interacting face-to-face with fellow human beings!!! This realization forced me to start thinking how I can change this. It was evident to me that it's not immediately feasible for me to change my profession, or suddenly make so many new friends that I am not left alone any time of the day...
Well, the solution I thought of experimenting with was to join events and communities of matching interest in the available time... like joining a football club... or get connected with the avenues where I can hone my skills both professional and extra-curricular e.g. join a Spanish language class or a guitar academy, etc. As I started to look out for possible avenues, I came across something unique... through a senior from my undergrad college PICT, I learnt about this international organization called "Net Impact" and it's local chapter in Pune...
nipune.org I was quite intrigued about their philosophy and decided to attend there meet on the immediate weekend... The local team, which was surprisingly nothing more that a couple of young spirited entrepreneurs, were hosting a meet wherein several for-profit as well as non-profit NGOs were invited to give presentations about what they did and how others could join hands with them, etc. The venue of the event also aroused a bit of interest in my mind - it was at a complex called Venture Center - a place for incubation of new startups inside the prestigious NCL (National Chemical Laboratory) campus. Since I personally liked the idea of hosting multiple early age startups in a common block of infrastructure, I decided to check out the place. The only other similar facility which I have seen in Pune is in the Pune IT park campus near Aundh...
So I registered on nipune.org website for the event, upon which I received a hitech looking entry pass in email - which i promptly forgot to carry with me while going for the meet:) By the time I located the facility inside NCL campus and the hall inside it, the session had already started and gotten into full swing. An old man with looks of a quantum physics scientist was explaining easy ways of incorporating some bio-fuel products into our daily lives. It was not a theory lecture but just a sharing of how much results they had achieved in past working with village people in our state.
Up next was a lady from a micro-finance organization called "Mann Deshi". She had just come back after presenting her organization to Bill Gates n co at some prestigious event in US. She quoted hilairous incident that happened there when she asked them who is Warren Buffet in his own presence, much to the pleasure of the old man:) It was touching to know what kind of an impact these people were creating in the lives of village women.
This was followed by a relay race of 8-minute presentations by representatives of various NGOs, I think some 9-10 of them spoke that day... the organizations represented were from a variety of social areas including those working on sustainable rural youth development, bicycles for resolution of Pune's traffic issues, supporting physically challenged people finding the right jobs, empowering village women through microfunding, deriving social impact by training via films, empowerment of rural children,to name a few...
Each of their stories were very touching and eye-opening and in the end what struck me was the fact that none of them were there to ask for funding in terms of monetary donation for their respective causes. They were there just to make us aware of avenues of how we could actively volunteer with them or make a positive difference for our planet in our own way by getting inspired from their experiences.
The event was neatly wrapped up with an informal tea session in the open area where people got a chance to interact with the presenters and build meaningful bridges of mutual collaboration. I snatched the opportunity to get to know the event organizers better since I found their initiative to organize such an event very unique and praise-worthy. Before leaving I made it a point to express my desire to join hands with them by helping organize similar activities future. If anyone reading this blog catches on to the idea, and wishes to be part of the team, do let me know at sandesh dot sawant at gmail dot com so that I can get you in touch with this brilliant folks at netimpact...
Best,
Sandesh
P.S. The guys who's part of the net impact pune team is also an entrepreneur having his own software startup and has implemented a simple idea of sharing books on the topic of entrepreneurship within a group of interested people. If you wish to chip in, checkout OLED
No comments:
Post a Comment