I’d start off at the story when I was in
school specifically when we were in
middle school first and it’s extended
what connected to me and my two best
friends was a deep interest that we
shared in computer science and science
itself in fact in substandard supposed
to be interested and you know
fortunately or unfortunately we ended up
being the nerdy can we ended up learning
programming in world we we were doing
small experiments we were learning to
code a brief history of time and we
present our first scientific paper in
the research facility by the time we
were in 11th we want an inter college
programming contest which was supposed
to be for college students and all our
competitors where the pre final and
final year students of engineering
colleges right which let us believe we
really wanted to pursue a career in
computers and science there I years
later we are 23 one of us is a
neuroscientist doing his doctoral
research in switzerland ii built the
product it got acquired as a team and is
now a data scientist and i am the third
when I got into engineering the what I
wanted to do was to build something
meaningful in technology wanted to build
a meaningful product and and and I got
into engineering with high hopes I
thought hey I’m going into a technical
cause and I’ll be able to learn
something that I’ve never seen before
right but then two years into college I
kind of realized that was not what I
know that that was not happening we
ended up building a couple of products I
ended up doing two products and a bit of
consulting on the side made money learn
technology but the more important thing
is I got so much exposure into how
things actually work and by the time I
was in my first semester the college
kind of came down on me they said you
know you got any 75% attendance or you
know you can continue here right and
higher to make a choice so so I compared
a compare very objectively in first year
of college I built the software that was
used to manage the attendance of
students in that College interestingly
none of my computer science faculty
could really read it they didn’t
understand or they did not they were not
able to maintain it and that lead me to
understanding the learning curve that
either he have here is going to be not
as steep if they respond you know as
compared to what I was doing outside
right so the decision was pretty natural
for me I decided to drop out and
continue with my startup but I did go
back two years later and I hired the
smartest students in my batch into my
company the common thing that runs
across the story we can’t call ourselves
excess but then what I’m happy about for
all three of us is that we are doing
what we love we are doing what we are
extremely passionate about and the
reason for that is we went beyond what
was required of us we
and beyond what people asked us to do
and we took some ownership and we did
something that we really cared about we
put the extra mile right and I think
that made all the difference today I’m a
head of operations at gas stack we are
we’re a start-up we start off in 2015 we
are enterprise product in the u.s.
dental space we are backed by the same
investors in Facebook and Flipkart
and we have a hundred and twenty member
team of super smart engineers and
analyst building the product out of
Trivandrum for a worst three billion
dollar us dental market right and in an
effort to build solid technology we hire
year-round and every year I meet a good
number of engineering graduates to hire
as engineers to hire as analysts we even
hire into a marketing team and the
experience of hiring graduates is both
satisfying and disappointing at the same
time and I’ll tell you why satisfying
because I get to meet a very few very
smart extremely driven very passionate
individuals whom we are able to give an
opportunity to to kick-start a career
disappointing because those few are a
very very very minor portion of the
total number of people we meet and what
I often come across as much as 80% of
the graduate students I meet is that
they don’t really know what they want to
do after their education so I heard
someone saying in India you either
become an engineer a doctor or a family
disappointment right and so I can
understand the reason why
people go into the go into engineering
or a professional degree and that’s fine
right and going out of engineering
understanding that I don’t want to
pursue a career in engineering or I
wanna I don’t want to pursue a career in
the field that I’ve studied it’s
completely fine in fact it’s great
provided you knew what you want to do
and that’s missing and that’s where we
have a problem
right so why is it why is it that we
have 17 million graduates we have 1.5
million engineering graduates coming out
every year and still only 7% of our
talent pool is employable at least
that’s what the report says why is it
that we have to talk about unemployment
or young graduates not getting jobs and
the industry not getting enough skilled
talent both on the same stage that’s
ironic right but that’s that’s a that’s
what I want to talk to you about so we
all know the villain in fact we talk a
lot about the villain here everybody
does the system right the system is
wrong the system is this that you know
the system is not the best and I agree
with you but it does have a beam and
there is only so much we can do by
blaming the system so how can we fix it
that’s the most important question how
can we make sure all our smart kids are
equally successful how can we make sure
the nation can use its human capital to
its fullest well the most common advice
it’s available out there and we have all
heard it three words
follow your passion we’ve heard it so
much that we’ve grown so familiar to it
and we now probably start ignoring it so
let’s break it down let’s break it down
into terms we understand right so what
what do you want to do what you’d love
doing for a large part of torah of your
life and you’d still love doing that
more and more
that’s what passion is so you need to be
good at doing that and you need to enjoy
doing that so if we were to put it in a
single sentence passion is what you
enjoy being good at right and that’s
what people find hard to identify so and
I’ll tell you why and that’s that’s a
first problem that our new generation is
finding hard to identify what they enjoy
being good at because the school system
and the college system teaches you know
the only thing that’s supposed to be
good studies right and if anything is
enjoyable
that’s not something good for you we are
so used to putting our kids in templates
that you repeatedly do over and over so
that you know you get out of the system
and you’re supposed to follow a
direction right you want to build a
start that’s a destruction you want to
build a short-film don’t do it while
your exams are nearing you want to
become an artist you know draw me a
front view section of a this machine
with a medium dark HB pencil the
engineering graduates would understand
right that’s a problem we have been
asked to do things over and over again
that a million others already did and
still didn’t make it big so if we fix
that was one problem if we let our
younger generation just identify what
they are good at just identify what they
would want to do just allow them to try
and think about that that allows them to
at least identify that passion so to the
students to the parents and to the
teachers of this generation and the next
if we want our kids to be able to follow
their passion give them the space to
think about because the kids are smarter
every generation every succeeding
generation is going to be smarter than
the previous one and they themselves are
the best people to decide what does what
DPN John what they’ll enjoy and what
will be good and right so now let’s
consider this problem solved
let’s consider we all know what we are
good at we all know what our passion is
what’s the next thing what do we do if
we do nothing we are extremely good at
doing nothing right so recently a
graduate you know a student who was
doing his graduation not engineering but
something else told me he wants to do
marketing which was not a field of study
and I was excited to hear that I said
okay you have identified that you’ve
identified your passion so what kind of
marketing do you like what do you love
about marketing so that I can help you
write that you know I don’t really know
I don’t really know how marketing is
done but I like it so that’s the first
problem we choosing random things so
it’s good that they’ve identified
something right but then we have not
taken action and so there is no way to
validate that if it’s a passion or not
there is no way to genuinely understand
if you enjoy doing that for the rest of
your life so what do we do if something
genuinely excites you the only thing you
can do to be good at it let’s just start
taking action should start doing it
right and our students need to
understand the value of doing things
which is not taught to them ever we need
to understand how is how different that
is when you actually do something when
you build something you know how it is
to innovate how it is to approach
learning from a very practical and
experiential point of view so I I meet
computer science graduates top of the
class who can tell me what cloud is
right at the same time I also meet
commuters and graduate probably not top
of the class probably flunking the exams
but who are building cloud applications
and deploying it on Google cloud and has
the other and Amazon Web service right
that’s a difference and the latter this
who will succeed in tomorrow’s
revolution because the industry is
moving away from needing people who will
do what they’ve asked to do to
innovators and artists and people who
are very passionate who will take things
on their own and will drive it right so
that’s what we need to understand and
once you’ve done that we need to empower
and we need to encourage each one of us
our students ourselves our sons and
daughters to stop thinking and start
doing it you want to be a writer
start writing start writing a micro
story and then a story and then a book
you want to be an entrepreneur work in a
start-up or charter and on your own
right you teach at whatever you like to
do start doing that because if there is
one thing I have learned by being in a
startup by running something it is that
things never ever ever happen on its own
and that’s that’s not what we’ve been
taught we thought we thought things will
happen on its own
you know Dooku’s of time but that’s not
what I’ve seen if you’re running
something on your own you’ll understand
that things never happen on its own you
always need to be pushing it you always
need to be controlling it there is not
one thing you can leave to chance and
expect it to succeed right so failure is
good so every every time you do it you
might fail and that’s good because the
moment you fail you have to make a
decision you have to take a decision
whether do I want to continue doing this
know do you feel passionate still after
failing on something to again do it over
and over again or you know do you think
it’s a good thing that you feel you have
learned something and you want to do it
again
you won’t do it better if you don’t feel
motivated to move forward understand
that’s not a passion that was an
interest you explode it good right go to
the next thing but if you still feel
passionate to move forward then do it
again
so let’s humor me and imagine every time
you do something every story you write
every project you make imagine every
action that you take it’s just 10%
better than the last one just 10% right
it will take you your tenth action the
tenth time you do something it’s going
to be 2.5 times better mathematically
you’re 20 at the time you’re going to be
more than six times better and your 30th
time you’re going to be more than 17
times better
that is the cumulative nature of
learning it’s never linear it’s
exponential and every time you get up
and start doing it you’ll be better at
it and you’ll be telling yourself that
you like to do it do it because people
like to do whatever could that awful
alright so before before our end
just take five seconds take a deep
breath and think about that one single
thing you think you’ll enjoy being good
now take another deep breath and think
about that one thing you can do which
makes you confident you will learn that
thing that you previously thought about
what is it one action we can take to
that’s what you should do go do that and
tell me if your finger succeeded and
tell me but you still want to get up and
start doing it if you’re filled and tell
me if that’s something you feel enjoy
being good at and you want to follow
that with all your might I want to end
with a quote from The Alchemist and it’s
not about the universe conspiring the
only way to learn is to do it is through
action everything you need to know you
have learned through your journey so act
on what you enjoy doing and make your
journey a memorable one thank you [Applause]
school specifically when we were in
middle school first and it’s extended
what connected to me and my two best
friends was a deep interest that we
shared in computer science and science
itself in fact in substandard supposed
to be interested and you know
fortunately or unfortunately we ended up
being the nerdy can we ended up learning
programming in world we we were doing
small experiments we were learning to
code a brief history of time and we
present our first scientific paper in
the research facility by the time we
were in 11th we want an inter college
programming contest which was supposed
to be for college students and all our
competitors where the pre final and
final year students of engineering
colleges right which let us believe we
really wanted to pursue a career in
computers and science there I years
later we are 23 one of us is a
neuroscientist doing his doctoral
research in switzerland ii built the
product it got acquired as a team and is
now a data scientist and i am the third
when I got into engineering the what I
wanted to do was to build something
meaningful in technology wanted to build
a meaningful product and and and I got
into engineering with high hopes I
thought hey I’m going into a technical
cause and I’ll be able to learn
something that I’ve never seen before
right but then two years into college I
kind of realized that was not what I
know that that was not happening we
ended up building a couple of products I
ended up doing two products and a bit of
consulting on the side made money learn
technology but the more important thing
is I got so much exposure into how
things actually work and by the time I
was in my first semester the college
kind of came down on me they said you
know you got any 75% attendance or you
know you can continue here right and
higher to make a choice so so I compared
a compare very objectively in first year
of college I built the software that was
used to manage the attendance of
students in that College interestingly
none of my computer science faculty
could really read it they didn’t
understand or they did not they were not
able to maintain it and that lead me to
understanding the learning curve that
either he have here is going to be not
as steep if they respond you know as
compared to what I was doing outside
right so the decision was pretty natural
for me I decided to drop out and
continue with my startup but I did go
back two years later and I hired the
smartest students in my batch into my
company the common thing that runs
across the story we can’t call ourselves
excess but then what I’m happy about for
all three of us is that we are doing
what we love we are doing what we are
extremely passionate about and the
reason for that is we went beyond what
was required of us we
and beyond what people asked us to do
and we took some ownership and we did
something that we really cared about we
put the extra mile right and I think
that made all the difference today I’m a
head of operations at gas stack we are
we’re a start-up we start off in 2015 we
are enterprise product in the u.s.
dental space we are backed by the same
investors in Facebook and Flipkart
and we have a hundred and twenty member
team of super smart engineers and
analyst building the product out of
Trivandrum for a worst three billion
dollar us dental market right and in an
effort to build solid technology we hire
year-round and every year I meet a good
number of engineering graduates to hire
as engineers to hire as analysts we even
hire into a marketing team and the
experience of hiring graduates is both
satisfying and disappointing at the same
time and I’ll tell you why satisfying
because I get to meet a very few very
smart extremely driven very passionate
individuals whom we are able to give an
opportunity to to kick-start a career
disappointing because those few are a
very very very minor portion of the
total number of people we meet and what
I often come across as much as 80% of
the graduate students I meet is that
they don’t really know what they want to
do after their education so I heard
someone saying in India you either
become an engineer a doctor or a family
disappointment right and so I can
understand the reason why
people go into the go into engineering
or a professional degree and that’s fine
right and going out of engineering
understanding that I don’t want to
pursue a career in engineering or I
wanna I don’t want to pursue a career in
the field that I’ve studied it’s
completely fine in fact it’s great
provided you knew what you want to do
and that’s missing and that’s where we
have a problem
right so why is it why is it that we
have 17 million graduates we have 1.5
million engineering graduates coming out
every year and still only 7% of our
talent pool is employable at least
that’s what the report says why is it
that we have to talk about unemployment
or young graduates not getting jobs and
the industry not getting enough skilled
talent both on the same stage that’s
ironic right but that’s that’s a that’s
what I want to talk to you about so we
all know the villain in fact we talk a
lot about the villain here everybody
does the system right the system is
wrong the system is this that you know
the system is not the best and I agree
with you but it does have a beam and
there is only so much we can do by
blaming the system so how can we fix it
that’s the most important question how
can we make sure all our smart kids are
equally successful how can we make sure
the nation can use its human capital to
its fullest well the most common advice
it’s available out there and we have all
heard it three words
follow your passion we’ve heard it so
much that we’ve grown so familiar to it
and we now probably start ignoring it so
let’s break it down let’s break it down
into terms we understand right so what
what do you want to do what you’d love
doing for a large part of torah of your
life and you’d still love doing that
more and more
that’s what passion is so you need to be
good at doing that and you need to enjoy
doing that so if we were to put it in a
single sentence passion is what you
enjoy being good at right and that’s
what people find hard to identify so and
I’ll tell you why and that’s that’s a
first problem that our new generation is
finding hard to identify what they enjoy
being good at because the school system
and the college system teaches you know
the only thing that’s supposed to be
good studies right and if anything is
enjoyable
that’s not something good for you we are
so used to putting our kids in templates
that you repeatedly do over and over so
that you know you get out of the system
and you’re supposed to follow a
direction right you want to build a
start that’s a destruction you want to
build a short-film don’t do it while
your exams are nearing you want to
become an artist you know draw me a
front view section of a this machine
with a medium dark HB pencil the
engineering graduates would understand
right that’s a problem we have been
asked to do things over and over again
that a million others already did and
still didn’t make it big so if we fix
that was one problem if we let our
younger generation just identify what
they are good at just identify what they
would want to do just allow them to try
and think about that that allows them to
at least identify that passion so to the
students to the parents and to the
teachers of this generation and the next
if we want our kids to be able to follow
their passion give them the space to
think about because the kids are smarter
every generation every succeeding
generation is going to be smarter than
the previous one and they themselves are
the best people to decide what does what
DPN John what they’ll enjoy and what
will be good and right so now let’s
consider this problem solved
let’s consider we all know what we are
good at we all know what our passion is
what’s the next thing what do we do if
we do nothing we are extremely good at
doing nothing right so recently a
graduate you know a student who was
doing his graduation not engineering but
something else told me he wants to do
marketing which was not a field of study
and I was excited to hear that I said
okay you have identified that you’ve
identified your passion so what kind of
marketing do you like what do you love
about marketing so that I can help you
write that you know I don’t really know
I don’t really know how marketing is
done but I like it so that’s the first
problem we choosing random things so
it’s good that they’ve identified
something right but then we have not
taken action and so there is no way to
validate that if it’s a passion or not
there is no way to genuinely understand
if you enjoy doing that for the rest of
your life so what do we do if something
genuinely excites you the only thing you
can do to be good at it let’s just start
taking action should start doing it
right and our students need to
understand the value of doing things
which is not taught to them ever we need
to understand how is how different that
is when you actually do something when
you build something you know how it is
to innovate how it is to approach
learning from a very practical and
experiential point of view so I I meet
computer science graduates top of the
class who can tell me what cloud is
right at the same time I also meet
commuters and graduate probably not top
of the class probably flunking the exams
but who are building cloud applications
and deploying it on Google cloud and has
the other and Amazon Web service right
that’s a difference and the latter this
who will succeed in tomorrow’s
revolution because the industry is
moving away from needing people who will
do what they’ve asked to do to
innovators and artists and people who
are very passionate who will take things
on their own and will drive it right so
that’s what we need to understand and
once you’ve done that we need to empower
and we need to encourage each one of us
our students ourselves our sons and
daughters to stop thinking and start
doing it you want to be a writer
start writing start writing a micro
story and then a story and then a book
you want to be an entrepreneur work in a
start-up or charter and on your own
right you teach at whatever you like to
do start doing that because if there is
one thing I have learned by being in a
startup by running something it is that
things never ever ever happen on its own
and that’s that’s not what we’ve been
taught we thought we thought things will
happen on its own
you know Dooku’s of time but that’s not
what I’ve seen if you’re running
something on your own you’ll understand
that things never happen on its own you
always need to be pushing it you always
need to be controlling it there is not
one thing you can leave to chance and
expect it to succeed right so failure is
good so every every time you do it you
might fail and that’s good because the
moment you fail you have to make a
decision you have to take a decision
whether do I want to continue doing this
know do you feel passionate still after
failing on something to again do it over
and over again or you know do you think
it’s a good thing that you feel you have
learned something and you want to do it
again
you won’t do it better if you don’t feel
motivated to move forward understand
that’s not a passion that was an
interest you explode it good right go to
the next thing but if you still feel
passionate to move forward then do it
again
so let’s humor me and imagine every time
you do something every story you write
every project you make imagine every
action that you take it’s just 10%
better than the last one just 10% right
it will take you your tenth action the
tenth time you do something it’s going
to be 2.5 times better mathematically
you’re 20 at the time you’re going to be
more than six times better and your 30th
time you’re going to be more than 17
times better
that is the cumulative nature of
learning it’s never linear it’s
exponential and every time you get up
and start doing it you’ll be better at
it and you’ll be telling yourself that
you like to do it do it because people
like to do whatever could that awful
alright so before before our end
just take five seconds take a deep
breath and think about that one single
thing you think you’ll enjoy being good
now take another deep breath and think
about that one thing you can do which
makes you confident you will learn that
thing that you previously thought about
what is it one action we can take to
that’s what you should do go do that and
tell me if your finger succeeded and
tell me but you still want to get up and
start doing it if you’re filled and tell
me if that’s something you feel enjoy
being good at and you want to follow
that with all your might I want to end
with a quote from The Alchemist and it’s
not about the universe conspiring the
only way to learn is to do it is through
action everything you need to know you
have learned through your journey so act
on what you enjoy doing and make your
journey a memorable one thank you [Applause]
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