a stone statue cannot teach us how to
excel in archery a stone statue cannot
instruct us how to integrate a function
by substitution method in calculus a
stone statue cannot tutor us how to play
piano yet
a stone statue has been in limited
source of inspiration for a man to learn
a lot and actually equal his rival
actually exceed his rival and you know
the story of a Columbia
ladies and gentlemen in the next few
minutes let us connect a few seemingly
unrelated dots and explain a few aspects
of unconventional learning so one thing
we all know is a Columbia story and we
also know a story of Frankenstein some
of you might have watched the movie
Frankenstein hee hee he’s a scientist
and he created a monster and this
monster was living in a stone structure
abandoned stone structure and observing
a poor family living next to that
cottage and in in that cottage and then
he was watching what how their lips were
moving and what speeches they were they
were uttering and he picked up a few
words from that and he also collected a
bag of books in a forest and then he
started looking I don’t know who goes to
a forest to find the books I have no
idea but this guy went there and he
found a few few books and he looked at
them and somehow he mastered the
language human language so you might
think it is a far-fetched story but it
is not really such for that that
far-fetched at all
because any child if you look at it I
look at him or her
basically they imitate their parents are
other adults around them and they pick
up the language from the air and of
course they look at the picture books
and various things and that is what
exactly Frankenstein’s monster also did
in some sense it is true the only thing
that is so unconventional about him is
he had to learn not from the direct
speeches that were addressed to him he
had to learn from the speeches from
other people that were addressed to the
other people and not only that he had to
learn secretly he cannot actually
directly appear in front of them and do
that one
so that was somewhat unconventional but
it is not totally totally far-fetched so
that is the thing and similarly if you
you might say this is all still
fictional let me give you another story
Helen color many of you must have heard
of the story of Helen Keller she is both
blind and deaf and she has no idea how a
word is uttered or how a word sounds
really except for one word I think she
remembers the word for water of course
that do not complete word she knows like
something like that so that’s all she
knew how did she learn the language she
touched the lips of her teacher and she
was looking at feeling heard at lips and
see how her lips were moving and based
on that one she picked up the language
so is it a bit unconventional of
learning okay so that is one way Helen
color story and similarly you might
think another another thing that you
might have heard of his American sign
language for example if you say I am
worried or something for example this
speech is kind of making me a bit
nervous you will say something like this
or something in American Sign Language
so you think there are signs for various
things and people will act them out and
it is okay and it may be like just my
day-to-day routine jobs you could do do
you know poetry can be written in
American Sign Language
there were poems written what sort of
poetic meter do you think they might
have deployed there okay so and what
about the figures of speech that is
absolutely unconventional right so
similarly when I was very young I was I
used to play chess okay I that was
actually when dinosaurs were here okay I
used to play chess and then
my way of playing just is at that time I
had twenty twelve hundred vision so I
used to feel the chessmen
and I also leaned forward to see the
board as much as I can then I make my
move and a friend of mine who is a
decent player he told me Romana that is
not much of a winning strategy for you
you will never be able to see all
thirty-two jasmine and 64 squares and
come up with an ideal strategy so the
best thing for you to do is go for the
blindfold jiz unfortunately I have a
decent memory so I actually did that one
and my game has improved okay so that is
the another thing that we need to figure
out what is the what are the things that
will take us from one place to the next
place if we rely on some of the things
these are our mental crutches we would
like to give our mental crutches and
cycle a give away our mental crisis and
psychological crisis as many as possible
to learn and to reach the next level to
connect a few more dots then we there
for example we also rely quite a bit on
des Google these days of course Google
has been advanced the has advanced the
human civilization by leaps and bounds
but if we rely so much on Google for
every single thing thinking becomes
somewhat difficult we should actually
need we should we actually rely more on
our memory memory is the the
precondition for any kind of thinking
and that is one of the things
fortunately I am blessed with and I I
remember the things and basically
because I remember the things I can
actually connect the things and and any
for any thinking is nothing but several
things that you connect and those those
connections that you make ET it will
become easier I’m not saying it is
impossible for every single thing you
can look up in Google and you can
actually make the connection if you want
to but that will slow you down actually
if you keep some of the material in your
mind it will be lot easier one example I
will give you John Milton
do you know john milton became blind
before he wrote Paradise Lost did you
hear that before he wrote Paradise Lost
he became completely blind and do you
know it’s an epic for him and he needed
to have too many references to come up
with the accurate account of that
particular for him do you think if he
had to rely on Google would he have
completed that particular one do you
know John Milton’s time I have a feeling
Internet did not exist okay
so similarly there is another technique
that many of these people used and the
technique that they talk about is memory
palace I use certain variations of it
but I don’t exactly use the same same
idea for example if I were to tell if I
were to memorize my speech there is a
palace I will imagine where our Prince
Minh Windsor Singh lives and then in
that palace I go in the front door and I
see mr. Alcala via with his bleeding
thumb and I move a little bit ahead
there is a small stone structure on my
left-hand side and I see that guy that
hideous looking creature created by
Frankenstein and then I move a little
bit ahead and I see of course there are
two people sitting in the living room
and playing chess and of course I go
even further into the into the palace of
course one way the thing is allowing me
into the is education the studio and I
see somebody like ulam looking at a
physics textbook oh I am going ahead of
mice my speech so if I have to tell you
the entire memory palace I need to
deliver the speech before I deliver my
speech so therefore I stopped here and
you got the idea idea of memory palace
and there was a poet called Simonides
they attribute this memory palace
concept to him he was sitting at a
dinner and having dinner with a bunch of
people two people actually called him
out for some errand and he went out but
those two people did not really were not
there he was ready to go back and he
looked back and the the banquet hall was
collapsing and he he was he thanked
those two guys
who saved his life but later on what has
happened is everybody who happened to be
at the dining table died and their
bodies were completely damaged without
any recognition so somebody had to
identify who is who there were no dental
records at that time in case you are
wondering so this guy was pulled in but
Simonides went there and he looked at it
the table but that the bodies fell
exactly wherever they were sitting there
so consequently he could actually recall
who was sitting at which place so
therefore he actually reconstructed the
whole thing and he reconstructed the
whole thing and he actually could tell
whose body belongs to which person that
was the beginning of the memory palace
and Cicero and many other Roman auditors
used this technique and this is one of
the things that you you may want to
focus on to that is the memory part of
the thing and since I already moved
ahead with my speech ulam so boredom can
be another teacher in life so ulam was
sitting in a seminar in 1963 he is a
famous physicist and a mathematician he
was getting bored just like the way you
are getting bored listening to my speech
right now and they were getting bored so
then he what was he doing he doesn’t
know what to do and he picked up a paper
he cannot move because out of politeness
yeah same predicament you guys are in so
he was he started writing the numbers he
put one in the middle two next to it
three go down four five six seven eight
nine ten of course you got the idea he’s
creating a spiral of numbers starting
with the one in the middle and going
around and around and around and like
that he was doing that okay what is so
great about that so then you look at
that one of course when you get bored
you do all kinds of stuff he’s a
mathematician he for you and I most
likely would have put some dots or
something but anyway that’s refresh
stuff so but what he found out is if you
look at the diagonal some of the
diagonals have too many prime numbers
that was a beautiful observation and
then if you connect that one to the
later later
the thing and actually later on Martin
Gardner actually popularized this entire
concept and they went back and found out
there is this gentleman called Euler
have you heard of him of course
this guy has obviously kind of had
similar kind of an idea for example if
you start if you her had started sorry
not you you unum has started with forty
one instead of one forty-one forty-two
forty-three like that he would have seen
in the principal diagonal forty prime
numbers in a row without a break forty
of them that was the equation was given
by Euler in seventeen hundreds the
equation was X square minus X plus forty
one okay so with that equation you can
actually find out the forty prime
numbers in a row without without any
kind of a mess so this iron guy is
somewhat interesting to me you might ask
me why is he interesting you might be
thinking I’m thinking about his math no
I’m not thinking about his math when he
was 31 year old he became blind in one
eye okay
that is not too bad at the most you lose
some depth perception no big deal you
can still walk around and you can still
read the books and you can still look at
some beautiful stuff when everything
that’s not a problem but by the time he
reached 67 or 6x or 59 years old he
launched the vision in the second eye
also and you might argue he is a
finished man what is the big deal why
does he need 59 years that’s the long
life and let him go to the his grave
kind of a thing but you are wrong he is
actually very very prolific even after
he was 59 in fact he said now I will
have fewer distractions that was his
famous quotation after he became blind
and that turned out to be absolutely
true when he was 68 that was in 1775 he
wrote a professional paper a
professional mathematical paper every
week one paper a week okay normally if
you are you are lucky if you can get a
good paper once every six months okay
and this game manages one paper every
single week
okay once again going back to the memory
part of this one this one also connects
to the memory aspect of it so that guy
has a lot of memory and he was able to
connect the dots he was able to dictate
theorem of the theorem of the theorem to
this the these scribes and he was able
to publish paper sentence so teaching is
another aspect of unconventional
learning whatever you learn if you teach
someone else your teaching your learning
becomes completely consolidated the way
I look at it is learning is like initial
conquest teaching is the final
consolidation our Subedar sub will
certainly agree with this particular
thing so if you want to consolidate your
knowledge please teach it so then the
words the words will for me the words
actually make a lot of sense I always
look for words words and words many of
you might think a picture is worth a
thousand words in my case a word is
worth thousand pictures so thank you
that is that that is why actually I
prefer anyday a well-written word
document microsoft word document to a
well-crafted a PowerPoint presentation
so this will make and I also believe of
course I am not dead I’m not telling you
don’t use the pictures I say it is
absolutely fine of course if you use the
tone picture if you use the pictures and
created PowerPoint you will become a
stone statue for me that’s a different
story but but the main thing that you
really need to remember is you express
yourself and you articulate much better
your thoughts if you actually write a
document that is what I feel and some of
the PowerPoint presentations do not
contain all your thoughts very in a very
clear precise manner so several of the
pictures can be interpreted in a several
different ways so Socrates is another
guy he is he he is very very humble
person he says I know I know nothing
that is his famous quotation so
first thing that I I don’t know whether
we really need to go that far
to Socrates this level of humbleness or
humility what I really want us to really
remember is to to learn anything new you
need to first of all understand what you
don’t know you need to be able to
confess what what you don’t know I that
is one of the things that I learned
quite early first of all I need to
confess what I what I don’t know there
are several things for example currently
I am a data scientist but much of the
literature is not known to me it is a
very vast field I keep learning so once
you learn that particular thing once you
realize that you don’t know much other
stuff then you learn that is the first
thing and the second thing also is we
need to be extremely graceful in our
defeats to accept our defeats when I was
a child if you go back to our just a
thing again whenever somebody defeats me
I used to take my hand like that hit all
the points because I am so frustrated
how can you beat me that is not at all
for that’s not right to do do that to me
so that is actually a very not a very
good thing to do that is that is not a
very graceful way of accepting the
defeat the graceful way of accepting the
defeat is what mistakes did I make what
were the strong points of my opponent
and of course if you know how to play a
blind failed blindfold chess and if you
remember the entire great game properly
you can analyze in your mind and you can
say yes that was my mistake this was
your best move and that is why I lost
thank you you taught me something so
then you will learn something too okay
and you you want to learn
unconventionally even from a
three-year-old there might be some
things that you can learn from a child
you should learn several times I also
feel we should not question why we
should learn something we should
question how we can learn anything as
long as we actually practice that
particular thing I think we can learn a
lot and we can do these things
so one thing one thing that I would like
to say is I have I have chosen a path I
have not chosen the path that I am
traveling on
I have been given the path and I have
decided to maximize as much as I can and
you might wonder what do what do I mean
by that there are several things that
actually changed the direction in my
life one thing for example when I was in
my 10th grade I was one of the best
students in my mathematics class and
what do you think my score was in the
final examination and I was also
expecting it to be 100 out of 100 but it
was not
I got 66 do you know why I had a scribe
who happened to be an administrative
assistant to the headmaster he could not
take everything that I gave a person
that was sick that is the excuse that I
am giving why I got 66 out of hundred
but that was one of the reasons why I
thought when I wanted to go into my 11th
grade which we call which we used to
call intermediate in Andhra Pradesh and
the group that I wanted to take was math
physics and chemistry the first thing is
could I really score well in math is it
possible that is one question that came
to my mind and my principal very clearly
told me there was no provision to
support a blind guy in the lab work of
physics and chemistry consequently I
ended up choosing commerce economics and
civics okay because I thought at least I
get some chance of doing some math in
commerce and economic cities so that is
what I did when I finished my bachelor’s
I actually wanted to apply for Rob XLR I
I am and ear ma all three institutes in
1984 they told me the same thing we do
not have a provision to educate a blind
person of course I if I had been an
American I would have sued them by this
time but that’s a different story so
that was that was the that was that
change in my path and I went into math
MA in economics and later on I went to
do my PhD also in economics and you
could see this was not the path that I
have really chosen but I had done
reasonably okay then I went and taught
in a university in the University of
Colorado at Denver but later on I
thought all of you guys I mean the
computer guys were making truckloads of
money and I decided to move
into computer field I learned the
computer ok once again this was not the
thing that I really planned for I was
actually using lot of mathematics of a
lot of computer programming for my PhD
dissertation so therefore I picked up
some programming one of my cousins
actually asked me to solve the problem
of a tween problem you must have heard
of that one that solving the eight
Queens on it
please keeping them on a chess board
such that no Queen should capture the
other Queen that problem I managed to
solve with the C programming and I got
all 92 solutions that is when she told
me why are you struggling in economics
and living like a poor man so why don’t
you move into computer science and make
money so that is when I move to that
Moodle so that is the another thing that
actually changed my path and I moved
there and I have been working as a
programmer for a for the next ten years
or so one fine evening in a birthday
party I met in a by chance one gentleman
who knows somebody in IBM research and
he actually forwarded my resume and I
got that his job as a technical staff
member in IBM research and that is how I
started I restarted my research career
again and five years later I ended up in
as a research scientist on in Amazon for
the last three years I have been with
worldment Sachs as a data scientist you
decide whether I have chosen the path
that I am traveling today or somebody
else has chosen my path so but in all my
life I have been extremely fortunate
first of all I was born in 20th century
but not in Middle Ages number two I was
born in a middle-class family not in a
poor family and my father is a very
well-educated man so that also helped me
a lot many people helped me and
consequently several things worked out
many people selflessly they wanted me to
be successful
consequently I am here but anyway what I
would really want to tell you is keep
learning unconventionally are
conventionally the moment that you stop
learning that is the day you die thank
you [Applause]
excel in archery a stone statue cannot
instruct us how to integrate a function
by substitution method in calculus a
stone statue cannot tutor us how to play
piano yet
a stone statue has been in limited
source of inspiration for a man to learn
a lot and actually equal his rival
actually exceed his rival and you know
the story of a Columbia
ladies and gentlemen in the next few
minutes let us connect a few seemingly
unrelated dots and explain a few aspects
of unconventional learning so one thing
we all know is a Columbia story and we
also know a story of Frankenstein some
of you might have watched the movie
Frankenstein hee hee he’s a scientist
and he created a monster and this
monster was living in a stone structure
abandoned stone structure and observing
a poor family living next to that
cottage and in in that cottage and then
he was watching what how their lips were
moving and what speeches they were they
were uttering and he picked up a few
words from that and he also collected a
bag of books in a forest and then he
started looking I don’t know who goes to
a forest to find the books I have no
idea but this guy went there and he
found a few few books and he looked at
them and somehow he mastered the
language human language so you might
think it is a far-fetched story but it
is not really such for that that
far-fetched at all
because any child if you look at it I
look at him or her
basically they imitate their parents are
other adults around them and they pick
up the language from the air and of
course they look at the picture books
and various things and that is what
exactly Frankenstein’s monster also did
in some sense it is true the only thing
that is so unconventional about him is
he had to learn not from the direct
speeches that were addressed to him he
had to learn from the speeches from
other people that were addressed to the
other people and not only that he had to
learn secretly he cannot actually
directly appear in front of them and do
that one
so that was somewhat unconventional but
it is not totally totally far-fetched so
that is the thing and similarly if you
you might say this is all still
fictional let me give you another story
Helen color many of you must have heard
of the story of Helen Keller she is both
blind and deaf and she has no idea how a
word is uttered or how a word sounds
really except for one word I think she
remembers the word for water of course
that do not complete word she knows like
something like that so that’s all she
knew how did she learn the language she
touched the lips of her teacher and she
was looking at feeling heard at lips and
see how her lips were moving and based
on that one she picked up the language
so is it a bit unconventional of
learning okay so that is one way Helen
color story and similarly you might
think another another thing that you
might have heard of his American sign
language for example if you say I am
worried or something for example this
speech is kind of making me a bit
nervous you will say something like this
or something in American Sign Language
so you think there are signs for various
things and people will act them out and
it is okay and it may be like just my
day-to-day routine jobs you could do do
you know poetry can be written in
American Sign Language
there were poems written what sort of
poetic meter do you think they might
have deployed there okay so and what
about the figures of speech that is
absolutely unconventional right so
similarly when I was very young I was I
used to play chess okay I that was
actually when dinosaurs were here okay I
used to play chess and then
my way of playing just is at that time I
had twenty twelve hundred vision so I
used to feel the chessmen
and I also leaned forward to see the
board as much as I can then I make my
move and a friend of mine who is a
decent player he told me Romana that is
not much of a winning strategy for you
you will never be able to see all
thirty-two jasmine and 64 squares and
come up with an ideal strategy so the
best thing for you to do is go for the
blindfold jiz unfortunately I have a
decent memory so I actually did that one
and my game has improved okay so that is
the another thing that we need to figure
out what is the what are the things that
will take us from one place to the next
place if we rely on some of the things
these are our mental crutches we would
like to give our mental crutches and
cycle a give away our mental crisis and
psychological crisis as many as possible
to learn and to reach the next level to
connect a few more dots then we there
for example we also rely quite a bit on
des Google these days of course Google
has been advanced the has advanced the
human civilization by leaps and bounds
but if we rely so much on Google for
every single thing thinking becomes
somewhat difficult we should actually
need we should we actually rely more on
our memory memory is the the
precondition for any kind of thinking
and that is one of the things
fortunately I am blessed with and I I
remember the things and basically
because I remember the things I can
actually connect the things and and any
for any thinking is nothing but several
things that you connect and those those
connections that you make ET it will
become easier I’m not saying it is
impossible for every single thing you
can look up in Google and you can
actually make the connection if you want
to but that will slow you down actually
if you keep some of the material in your
mind it will be lot easier one example I
will give you John Milton
do you know john milton became blind
before he wrote Paradise Lost did you
hear that before he wrote Paradise Lost
he became completely blind and do you
know it’s an epic for him and he needed
to have too many references to come up
with the accurate account of that
particular for him do you think if he
had to rely on Google would he have
completed that particular one do you
know John Milton’s time I have a feeling
Internet did not exist okay
so similarly there is another technique
that many of these people used and the
technique that they talk about is memory
palace I use certain variations of it
but I don’t exactly use the same same
idea for example if I were to tell if I
were to memorize my speech there is a
palace I will imagine where our Prince
Minh Windsor Singh lives and then in
that palace I go in the front door and I
see mr. Alcala via with his bleeding
thumb and I move a little bit ahead
there is a small stone structure on my
left-hand side and I see that guy that
hideous looking creature created by
Frankenstein and then I move a little
bit ahead and I see of course there are
two people sitting in the living room
and playing chess and of course I go
even further into the into the palace of
course one way the thing is allowing me
into the is education the studio and I
see somebody like ulam looking at a
physics textbook oh I am going ahead of
mice my speech so if I have to tell you
the entire memory palace I need to
deliver the speech before I deliver my
speech so therefore I stopped here and
you got the idea idea of memory palace
and there was a poet called Simonides
they attribute this memory palace
concept to him he was sitting at a
dinner and having dinner with a bunch of
people two people actually called him
out for some errand and he went out but
those two people did not really were not
there he was ready to go back and he
looked back and the the banquet hall was
collapsing and he he was he thanked
those two guys
who saved his life but later on what has
happened is everybody who happened to be
at the dining table died and their
bodies were completely damaged without
any recognition so somebody had to
identify who is who there were no dental
records at that time in case you are
wondering so this guy was pulled in but
Simonides went there and he looked at it
the table but that the bodies fell
exactly wherever they were sitting there
so consequently he could actually recall
who was sitting at which place so
therefore he actually reconstructed the
whole thing and he reconstructed the
whole thing and he actually could tell
whose body belongs to which person that
was the beginning of the memory palace
and Cicero and many other Roman auditors
used this technique and this is one of
the things that you you may want to
focus on to that is the memory part of
the thing and since I already moved
ahead with my speech ulam so boredom can
be another teacher in life so ulam was
sitting in a seminar in 1963 he is a
famous physicist and a mathematician he
was getting bored just like the way you
are getting bored listening to my speech
right now and they were getting bored so
then he what was he doing he doesn’t
know what to do and he picked up a paper
he cannot move because out of politeness
yeah same predicament you guys are in so
he was he started writing the numbers he
put one in the middle two next to it
three go down four five six seven eight
nine ten of course you got the idea he’s
creating a spiral of numbers starting
with the one in the middle and going
around and around and around and like
that he was doing that okay what is so
great about that so then you look at
that one of course when you get bored
you do all kinds of stuff he’s a
mathematician he for you and I most
likely would have put some dots or
something but anyway that’s refresh
stuff so but what he found out is if you
look at the diagonal some of the
diagonals have too many prime numbers
that was a beautiful observation and
then if you connect that one to the
later later
the thing and actually later on Martin
Gardner actually popularized this entire
concept and they went back and found out
there is this gentleman called Euler
have you heard of him of course
this guy has obviously kind of had
similar kind of an idea for example if
you start if you her had started sorry
not you you unum has started with forty
one instead of one forty-one forty-two
forty-three like that he would have seen
in the principal diagonal forty prime
numbers in a row without a break forty
of them that was the equation was given
by Euler in seventeen hundreds the
equation was X square minus X plus forty
one okay so with that equation you can
actually find out the forty prime
numbers in a row without without any
kind of a mess so this iron guy is
somewhat interesting to me you might ask
me why is he interesting you might be
thinking I’m thinking about his math no
I’m not thinking about his math when he
was 31 year old he became blind in one
eye okay
that is not too bad at the most you lose
some depth perception no big deal you
can still walk around and you can still
read the books and you can still look at
some beautiful stuff when everything
that’s not a problem but by the time he
reached 67 or 6x or 59 years old he
launched the vision in the second eye
also and you might argue he is a
finished man what is the big deal why
does he need 59 years that’s the long
life and let him go to the his grave
kind of a thing but you are wrong he is
actually very very prolific even after
he was 59 in fact he said now I will
have fewer distractions that was his
famous quotation after he became blind
and that turned out to be absolutely
true when he was 68 that was in 1775 he
wrote a professional paper a
professional mathematical paper every
week one paper a week okay normally if
you are you are lucky if you can get a
good paper once every six months okay
and this game manages one paper every
single week
okay once again going back to the memory
part of this one this one also connects
to the memory aspect of it so that guy
has a lot of memory and he was able to
connect the dots he was able to dictate
theorem of the theorem of the theorem to
this the these scribes and he was able
to publish paper sentence so teaching is
another aspect of unconventional
learning whatever you learn if you teach
someone else your teaching your learning
becomes completely consolidated the way
I look at it is learning is like initial
conquest teaching is the final
consolidation our Subedar sub will
certainly agree with this particular
thing so if you want to consolidate your
knowledge please teach it so then the
words the words will for me the words
actually make a lot of sense I always
look for words words and words many of
you might think a picture is worth a
thousand words in my case a word is
worth thousand pictures so thank you
that is that that is why actually I
prefer anyday a well-written word
document microsoft word document to a
well-crafted a PowerPoint presentation
so this will make and I also believe of
course I am not dead I’m not telling you
don’t use the pictures I say it is
absolutely fine of course if you use the
tone picture if you use the pictures and
created PowerPoint you will become a
stone statue for me that’s a different
story but but the main thing that you
really need to remember is you express
yourself and you articulate much better
your thoughts if you actually write a
document that is what I feel and some of
the PowerPoint presentations do not
contain all your thoughts very in a very
clear precise manner so several of the
pictures can be interpreted in a several
different ways so Socrates is another
guy he is he he is very very humble
person he says I know I know nothing
that is his famous quotation so
first thing that I I don’t know whether
we really need to go that far
to Socrates this level of humbleness or
humility what I really want us to really
remember is to to learn anything new you
need to first of all understand what you
don’t know you need to be able to
confess what what you don’t know I that
is one of the things that I learned
quite early first of all I need to
confess what I what I don’t know there
are several things for example currently
I am a data scientist but much of the
literature is not known to me it is a
very vast field I keep learning so once
you learn that particular thing once you
realize that you don’t know much other
stuff then you learn that is the first
thing and the second thing also is we
need to be extremely graceful in our
defeats to accept our defeats when I was
a child if you go back to our just a
thing again whenever somebody defeats me
I used to take my hand like that hit all
the points because I am so frustrated
how can you beat me that is not at all
for that’s not right to do do that to me
so that is actually a very not a very
good thing to do that is that is not a
very graceful way of accepting the
defeat the graceful way of accepting the
defeat is what mistakes did I make what
were the strong points of my opponent
and of course if you know how to play a
blind failed blindfold chess and if you
remember the entire great game properly
you can analyze in your mind and you can
say yes that was my mistake this was
your best move and that is why I lost
thank you you taught me something so
then you will learn something too okay
and you you want to learn
unconventionally even from a
three-year-old there might be some
things that you can learn from a child
you should learn several times I also
feel we should not question why we
should learn something we should
question how we can learn anything as
long as we actually practice that
particular thing I think we can learn a
lot and we can do these things
so one thing one thing that I would like
to say is I have I have chosen a path I
have not chosen the path that I am
traveling on
I have been given the path and I have
decided to maximize as much as I can and
you might wonder what do what do I mean
by that there are several things that
actually changed the direction in my
life one thing for example when I was in
my 10th grade I was one of the best
students in my mathematics class and
what do you think my score was in the
final examination and I was also
expecting it to be 100 out of 100 but it
was not
I got 66 do you know why I had a scribe
who happened to be an administrative
assistant to the headmaster he could not
take everything that I gave a person
that was sick that is the excuse that I
am giving why I got 66 out of hundred
but that was one of the reasons why I
thought when I wanted to go into my 11th
grade which we call which we used to
call intermediate in Andhra Pradesh and
the group that I wanted to take was math
physics and chemistry the first thing is
could I really score well in math is it
possible that is one question that came
to my mind and my principal very clearly
told me there was no provision to
support a blind guy in the lab work of
physics and chemistry consequently I
ended up choosing commerce economics and
civics okay because I thought at least I
get some chance of doing some math in
commerce and economic cities so that is
what I did when I finished my bachelor’s
I actually wanted to apply for Rob XLR I
I am and ear ma all three institutes in
1984 they told me the same thing we do
not have a provision to educate a blind
person of course I if I had been an
American I would have sued them by this
time but that’s a different story so
that was that was the that was that
change in my path and I went into math
MA in economics and later on I went to
do my PhD also in economics and you
could see this was not the path that I
have really chosen but I had done
reasonably okay then I went and taught
in a university in the University of
Colorado at Denver but later on I
thought all of you guys I mean the
computer guys were making truckloads of
money and I decided to move
into computer field I learned the
computer ok once again this was not the
thing that I really planned for I was
actually using lot of mathematics of a
lot of computer programming for my PhD
dissertation so therefore I picked up
some programming one of my cousins
actually asked me to solve the problem
of a tween problem you must have heard
of that one that solving the eight
Queens on it
please keeping them on a chess board
such that no Queen should capture the
other Queen that problem I managed to
solve with the C programming and I got
all 92 solutions that is when she told
me why are you struggling in economics
and living like a poor man so why don’t
you move into computer science and make
money so that is when I move to that
Moodle so that is the another thing that
actually changed my path and I moved
there and I have been working as a
programmer for a for the next ten years
or so one fine evening in a birthday
party I met in a by chance one gentleman
who knows somebody in IBM research and
he actually forwarded my resume and I
got that his job as a technical staff
member in IBM research and that is how I
started I restarted my research career
again and five years later I ended up in
as a research scientist on in Amazon for
the last three years I have been with
worldment Sachs as a data scientist you
decide whether I have chosen the path
that I am traveling today or somebody
else has chosen my path so but in all my
life I have been extremely fortunate
first of all I was born in 20th century
but not in Middle Ages number two I was
born in a middle-class family not in a
poor family and my father is a very
well-educated man so that also helped me
a lot many people helped me and
consequently several things worked out
many people selflessly they wanted me to
be successful
consequently I am here but anyway what I
would really want to tell you is keep
learning unconventionally are
conventionally the moment that you stop
learning that is the day you die thank
you [Applause]
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