The Trailblazers - Lecture 3
InsIghT presents the third part of a daily review of the Trailblazers series, a set of interactive sessions with eminent alumni. The guest for 15.10.08 was Mr. Shirish Deodhar. Mr. Deodhar passed out from the institute in 1980 with a degree in Electrical Engineering and a ticket to Hawaii. He did his MS from Hawaii university in Electrical Engineering.
The evening was quite an enjoyable affair, with Mr. Deodhar giving a presentation on his life in IITB and his various endeavors. This included hilarious accounts of his stay in Hostel 8, including gaali fights, booze sessions and discussions over infinite cups of tea. This, he believes, helped him hone his communication skills and make many close friends. One among them was Mr. Mayank Patel, a chemical engineering graduate from the same batch.
He went on to talk about what he did after passing out of IIT. After passing out of Hawaii university he took up a job in Burroughs Corporation (now Unisys) and believes his boss was the best one could possibly have. After winning an outstanding achievement award and filing a patent he came back to India and joined Tata Electric. After this he worked for Tata Unisys and then started doing project work for Veritas Corporation (which later became Symantec). The heads at Veritas were so impressed with the work in India that they took over his company and named him CEO. He realized his obligation to the Indian society and started the Mood Indigo foundation in Pune with the help of 13 other alumni of his batch.
After the presentation he gave some advice based on his experiences in life. He said that you need to learn from your mistake and never dwell on them for long. The work you do is for yourself, and you should do it with passion. You never succeed as an individual, the team is branded successful. If the team fails, it fails even if you’ve done an outstanding job. The most important thing, he said is to expand your circle of influence as it’ll help you a lot in the future.
He was then joined by Mr. Mayank Patel, a close friend and batchmate, for a Q & A session. All in all, the evening was a very enjoyable one, and the lecture was well worth attending.
