well good afternoon
I finished from this school about 20
years ago it feels great to be back on
campus a lot has changed I saw a couple
of you walking around listening to your
music on mp3 players and back then we
used to listen to music recorded on
things called cassettes and used to play
them on devices called Walkmans so
here’s a challenge to the audience if
any of you can find either a cassette or
a Walkman by the end of the evening come
see me and I’ll give you a prize of
immeasurable value the point here is
just to demonstrate how things change
when I was here 20 years ago I didn’t go
to class very much all my time was spent
in listening to music on this Walkman
now there’s this one song that I would I
would play in a loop I mean you couldn’t
really play anything in a loop back then
but we would live by that song and there
was a line in that song that talks about
making something out of nothing at all
that line has stayed with me after all
these years and since I’m back on campus
I thought I should use that song to take
you on a journey for the evening so
that’s my plan we’re going to go on a
journey and we’re going to take you
through a few stories ok so I live and
work in Silicon Valley many of you
probably have heard of these now famous
corporations that started out in a
garage in Silicon Valley now what these
stories what they don’t tell you is you
know given a choice between a nice
corner office
air conditioning beautiful ergonomic
furniture and a garage
most of these founder CEOs would choose
the the nicer office nobody really wants
a garage to start their first business
except of course they didn’t really have
the choice the garage was the only
available option to them now the garage
did not have
everything they wanted that was enough
for them to start with and as in the
garage story pretty much everything we
do is about constraints you never really
have everything at your disposal to
solve the problem you try and solve so
the garage really is a metaphor for life
you’re given a set of cards and you have
to figure out where in the garage have
you placed that set of pliers or that
screwdriver that will help you unlock
the next problem we face so as I said
let’s go on this journey
the journey starts roughly thirty years
ago in a place called balloon not from
far from here there was this young man
he was factory worker he was good at
making beds you know the kind of beds
I’m sure he is still having in hostels
kind of this steel not particularly
straight is not very good for sleep he
used to make those in a factory near
balloon and he would make a lot of beds
that’s what factories do he was a good
guy and as he was probably 25 years old
back then he really wanted to start
something now unfortunately what happens
is in a couple of years that factory
shuts down the owners of the factory
they shut shop and they leave now this
man there’s good man who wanted to do
something is suddenly unemployed so when
you don’t really have much you basically
have nothing what do you do well many of
us would probably withdraw into our into
our lives and and and sulk not him so
what he does is he realizes he has
skills he can make beds some of those
beds could be used to treat patients he
has this empty building that was the
factory and and he decides to start a
very rudimentary a very basic patient
service department it was outpatient
only and he would treat people who who
had nowhere else to go so he gets to
work
he has colleagues from the same Factory
who was to work with him and they’re
also unemployed so they get together and
they make these beds and they start a
hospital all of you are probably
familiar with the healthcare crisis in
this country there’s never really enough
hospitals there’s just so much to be
done now people around him people around
baloon realize what’s happening in their
community and they step up soon he finds
doctors who come from the community and
help out in the evenings a few days
later he finds some retired nurses who
are inspired by what’s going on and they
join him and they create the hospital
this hospital
to serve the people in the area now
given the scale of of healthcare and and
the crisis and the lack of hospitals and
infrastructure and all of that stuff
this suddenly becomes very popular
people start showing up a large number
of people start showing up at this
hospital so where do you go from here
you can turn them away or you can take
another leap of faith so our young man
starts another Hospital and then another
one at the end of which he has three
hospitals where you can just walk in and
you’ll get treated if they have the
doctor if they have the nurse and and
that’s how this was his garage he had
the tools he owned this was a factory
worker this is not not somebody with a
medical degree had no background in
nursing her noble background and patient
care but he starts three hospitals these
hospitals run in balloon there’s one in
bowl pour and then Swan insurer
important right now this is the young
man this picture was taken roughly two
years ago his name is funny Gopal
Bhattacharya you can call him watch Asda
and if you have the time go over to
Belle or walk into that hospital and say
hello to him you’ll sit down with you
over a lunch of Dallenbach and he will
tell you how much fun it was I told you
about nurses right so these guys they
don’t really have a lot of money but
treating patients requires skills it
required specialized medical skills so
what do they do they they find these
destitute children from all over the
state of Bengal children who have
nowhere else to go there mostly orphans
they take them in into this facility
this is the top floor of a building
which houses our hostel there’s a
there’s a mess everybody gets fed and in
the evenings these kids are given the
basic training that allows them to go
and work in these hospitals they are
training the next generation of nurses
on that on that table in that school
this is the hospital so if you go and I
will tell you where this is and they
would love to hear from you
so this is what making change is all
about we consider on your hands and you
know the problems are overwhelming but
but you got to look into the garage and
find that set of tools and I know you
you all have that changing gears a
little bit I am trained to be a product
manager I am in the business of
electronic money now product managers
create products in in order for me to
create electronic money products
I need people with bank accounts now off
the seven or six what’s the population
of the world now six point five seven
billion seven right so in the rich world
90 plus percent of all people have bank
accounts in our country is roughly one
in five so as a product manager as I’m
trying to build electronic payment
products and I believe you know creating
displacing cash is good for all where do
I even start if most of the people don’t
have bank accounts how can I did you
ties their money how can I create a
create an electronic payment product
well first we get to why don’t they have
these accounts well some of them just
don’t have money for some the bank is
just too far away who wants to walk
hundred kilometers to go to bank branch
for some the bank is not interested in
them if you’re making 500 rupees a month
it’s not really the business case of
having an account at that Bank it
doesn’t exist and finally a lot of times
the banks require establishment of
identity paperwork documentation for us
in this room this sounds pretty basic
but this is could be a barrier for many
many people in our country so back to
the product manager and this is not
something by no means this is something
I created but this is something people
around the world realized very quickly
as they went about the quest of
digitizing money what they found is
there are more mobile phones in the
world than bank accounts heck there are
even more toothbrushes in the world than
bank accounts there is only two billion
bank accounts there four billion
toothbrushes and seven billion mobile
phones so
your constraints of creating product
have a different right so what do you do
so the answer is and this is true the
example on the right is from Africa
where a product manager is somewhere in
the middle of Africa think it was Kenya
they figured out that what if we could
take the mobile phone number and treat
it as as a bank account what if minutes
mobile minutes became your wallet of
value and you use that to transact and
and use that as money you wouldn’t think
of the indian post office as the cradle
of innovation but what the indian post
office has in india that that many banks
don’t is they have presence every
village has a post office everybody gets
mail the postman comes over and delivers
hand delivers to every Indian citizen so
what if that postman became a portable
bank account these are things that have
happened organically these are examples
where people have made products of of
nothing at all
next example this is again from the
business world and as technologist you
probably appreciate this quite a bit
there’s a lot of talk of data and
machine learning in IOT and and fog
computing in the news today no see a CTO
speech would be considered serious if it
didn’t have these keywords but the
constraints and data have evolved over
time so in the beginning and this is
probably 10 20 years ago there was a
problem of storage when you have so much
data that is being generated from your
life where is the database we didn’t
have the database to store all that data
right it was just too expensive it was
either in the labs I mean the average
person couldn’t really figure out a way
of running a data model a map model on
your PC at in your rooms right there
then we solved for it computing became
ubiquitous there is more processing
power now in your phones than then what
used to be on the mainframes 10-15 years
ago so this was solved so first database
not enough we fixed that
second processing power CPU cycles as we
solve that then came the problem of of
the minds right because the computer is
just a dumb machine you need people to
operate it but ultimately the people
running the world are not all data
scientists fundamentally it comes down
to you crunch the letter and you find
out a way to tell the story that’s
hidden in the data to somebody who’s
going to make a decision it’s also
possible that that somebody is looking
at that decision on a screen that is
roughly nine inches so what do you do
about that
this is where along along the themes of
of crossroads this is where art and
science come together right the data
scientists have to work with the
designers and figure out how to bring
out the stories that that are hidden in
the data so let me take an example in in
the commercial aviation business there
are some big numbers like number of
airports for a three thousand roughly
number of flights annually that’s a
pretty big number number of people
traveling on commercial aviation number
of flights being taken that’s a pretty
big number too now it’s hard to make
sense of this these numbers how do you
really understand how big or small this
is that’s where the data scientists get
together with the designers and the
visualizers and you present something
like this this is way more compelling
this is what it takes to tell the story
that’s hidden in the data that you are
crunching it’s never enough to be able
to know the science ultimately to make
progress you need to know the perfect
amalgamation of science and art and
that’s how you you tell your story
so it’s ultimately about making sense
from nothing at all so in the winter of
2013 me and 9 of my other friends all
from roughly in the 90s batch of late
nineties batch of this college we were
in Kolkata we this was December and we
were visiting the school now if you see
in the frame there’s a little bus
there’s a picture of a bus there can you
tell me what’s the number on that bus
fifty-five this bus note has been there
since this probably this since this
college was started well I guess eight
in the 1800s there was no automation but
this bus has been around for a very long
time decades in fact my first trip to be
college then being college now i IE st
was on this bus I got a I arrived at
Howard I know get my trunk on the bus
and off you go anywhere I ever first get
and then the story begins this much by
the way runs from Esplanade through
Howard a station through Howard a bridge
too for Shore Road GT Road and goes up
to being a Botanical Garden so ten of us
crazies decided we’re going to run this
road this is exactly ten kilometers by
the way and we were by no means fit
enough to run it but we said let’s try
it right we made sure we had an
ambulance with us because who knows what
something went wrong but we did complete
it we ended up in the college we we had
a very large breakfast and we had we did
a few other things which shall go
unnamed for for tonight and then we went
home the next day this thing comes up on
the on the paper somebody picked up the
story of ten students or X students who
decide to run this road which is
considered a Calcutta heritage Road so
you run through Eden Gardens and red
road and all that so this news comes out
and that gets me thinking well this was
all for us what are we doing to give
back to the community maybe is there a
way to connect this bus that runs
through the community of Hara to to the
community and do something for the
community well next year we decide to
tie up with from OGB hospital remember
our first story and we decide this bus
route is 55
so everybody who runs has to pay fifty
five dollars roughly translates to
thirty five hundred rupees to this
hospital and and we this is all being
done on a whim on social media this
really nobody here we design custom
t-shirts and we go live next year so
2013 there were ten people next year 150
people show up they’re all paying this
thirty-five hundred rupees all of that
money is going to the hospital right in
the scheme of things that’s not a lot of
money but if you go to show ma GB and
you see
how they’re treating the completely
underprivileged you realize that money
goes a long way for those guys we
created a brand if you look closely you
will see that the that the road that the
bus takes is stylized you using that
kind of blue ribbon there is a B College
is team we were trying to figure out
what is the right brand to use this
balloon Sean would you be hospital and
we created this this brand called 55
which is which is roughly inspired by
more famous route in the United States
called route 66 so we’ve been doing that
for five years now last year we had
about readiest about 7 lakhs we had
about 40 different international cities
represented in those runs I have people
coming in from all over the world and
it’s not a big run there are more unique
events there the longer runs in Kolkata
but this is very special
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
so the cave you see the last shot
running into the finish line is from
that nursing scope so look this is not a
lot but it’s more than what I was doing
five years ago right making a difference
is not that hard it might look
overwhelming but you got to get off your
backside and just go for it
you have all the tools so in closing let
me tell you a deeply personal story
my late father walked across the border
from Bangladesh to India in 1947 the
country was getting broken up he was 12
years old he just lost his parents so he
was an orphan and he had absolutely
nothing and he was going into a
completely foreign country in the middle
of chaos he was not alone there were
millions of his generation who took that
journey now the good thing the positive
thing in all of this is mostly they
figured it out the fact that I’m here
standing and speaking with you is
because they did so did mr. phony
Gopalpur charge or what Chaza who when
he was unemployed didn’t sit at home but
went out and figured it out and he
figured it out out of mostly nothing and
that is the crux of the matter
look the fact that you’re here today in
this place in this time with friends
around you with access and knowledge and
and teachers and all this
interdisciplinary and heritage in this
institution make you really in unique
never forget that they say that the
future is uncertain what that basically
means is there will be good days and bad
days and on those bad days you gotta
look deep inside and remember that
nothing is really impossible because
it’s right there within you well that’s
all I have to say good luck and safe
[Music]
[Applause]
and I don’t know [Music]
I finished from this school about 20
years ago it feels great to be back on
campus a lot has changed I saw a couple
of you walking around listening to your
music on mp3 players and back then we
used to listen to music recorded on
things called cassettes and used to play
them on devices called Walkmans so
here’s a challenge to the audience if
any of you can find either a cassette or
a Walkman by the end of the evening come
see me and I’ll give you a prize of
immeasurable value the point here is
just to demonstrate how things change
when I was here 20 years ago I didn’t go
to class very much all my time was spent
in listening to music on this Walkman
now there’s this one song that I would I
would play in a loop I mean you couldn’t
really play anything in a loop back then
but we would live by that song and there
was a line in that song that talks about
making something out of nothing at all
that line has stayed with me after all
these years and since I’m back on campus
I thought I should use that song to take
you on a journey for the evening so
that’s my plan we’re going to go on a
journey and we’re going to take you
through a few stories ok so I live and
work in Silicon Valley many of you
probably have heard of these now famous
corporations that started out in a
garage in Silicon Valley now what these
stories what they don’t tell you is you
know given a choice between a nice
corner office
air conditioning beautiful ergonomic
furniture and a garage
most of these founder CEOs would choose
the the nicer office nobody really wants
a garage to start their first business
except of course they didn’t really have
the choice the garage was the only
available option to them now the garage
did not have
everything they wanted that was enough
for them to start with and as in the
garage story pretty much everything we
do is about constraints you never really
have everything at your disposal to
solve the problem you try and solve so
the garage really is a metaphor for life
you’re given a set of cards and you have
to figure out where in the garage have
you placed that set of pliers or that
screwdriver that will help you unlock
the next problem we face so as I said
let’s go on this journey
the journey starts roughly thirty years
ago in a place called balloon not from
far from here there was this young man
he was factory worker he was good at
making beds you know the kind of beds
I’m sure he is still having in hostels
kind of this steel not particularly
straight is not very good for sleep he
used to make those in a factory near
balloon and he would make a lot of beds
that’s what factories do he was a good
guy and as he was probably 25 years old
back then he really wanted to start
something now unfortunately what happens
is in a couple of years that factory
shuts down the owners of the factory
they shut shop and they leave now this
man there’s good man who wanted to do
something is suddenly unemployed so when
you don’t really have much you basically
have nothing what do you do well many of
us would probably withdraw into our into
our lives and and and sulk not him so
what he does is he realizes he has
skills he can make beds some of those
beds could be used to treat patients he
has this empty building that was the
factory and and he decides to start a
very rudimentary a very basic patient
service department it was outpatient
only and he would treat people who who
had nowhere else to go so he gets to
work
he has colleagues from the same Factory
who was to work with him and they’re
also unemployed so they get together and
they make these beds and they start a
hospital all of you are probably
familiar with the healthcare crisis in
this country there’s never really enough
hospitals there’s just so much to be
done now people around him people around
baloon realize what’s happening in their
community and they step up soon he finds
doctors who come from the community and
help out in the evenings a few days
later he finds some retired nurses who
are inspired by what’s going on and they
join him and they create the hospital
this hospital
to serve the people in the area now
given the scale of of healthcare and and
the crisis and the lack of hospitals and
infrastructure and all of that stuff
this suddenly becomes very popular
people start showing up a large number
of people start showing up at this
hospital so where do you go from here
you can turn them away or you can take
another leap of faith so our young man
starts another Hospital and then another
one at the end of which he has three
hospitals where you can just walk in and
you’ll get treated if they have the
doctor if they have the nurse and and
that’s how this was his garage he had
the tools he owned this was a factory
worker this is not not somebody with a
medical degree had no background in
nursing her noble background and patient
care but he starts three hospitals these
hospitals run in balloon there’s one in
bowl pour and then Swan insurer
important right now this is the young
man this picture was taken roughly two
years ago his name is funny Gopal
Bhattacharya you can call him watch Asda
and if you have the time go over to
Belle or walk into that hospital and say
hello to him you’ll sit down with you
over a lunch of Dallenbach and he will
tell you how much fun it was I told you
about nurses right so these guys they
don’t really have a lot of money but
treating patients requires skills it
required specialized medical skills so
what do they do they they find these
destitute children from all over the
state of Bengal children who have
nowhere else to go there mostly orphans
they take them in into this facility
this is the top floor of a building
which houses our hostel there’s a
there’s a mess everybody gets fed and in
the evenings these kids are given the
basic training that allows them to go
and work in these hospitals they are
training the next generation of nurses
on that on that table in that school
this is the hospital so if you go and I
will tell you where this is and they
would love to hear from you
so this is what making change is all
about we consider on your hands and you
know the problems are overwhelming but
but you got to look into the garage and
find that set of tools and I know you
you all have that changing gears a
little bit I am trained to be a product
manager I am in the business of
electronic money now product managers
create products in in order for me to
create electronic money products
I need people with bank accounts now off
the seven or six what’s the population
of the world now six point five seven
billion seven right so in the rich world
90 plus percent of all people have bank
accounts in our country is roughly one
in five so as a product manager as I’m
trying to build electronic payment
products and I believe you know creating
displacing cash is good for all where do
I even start if most of the people don’t
have bank accounts how can I did you
ties their money how can I create a
create an electronic payment product
well first we get to why don’t they have
these accounts well some of them just
don’t have money for some the bank is
just too far away who wants to walk
hundred kilometers to go to bank branch
for some the bank is not interested in
them if you’re making 500 rupees a month
it’s not really the business case of
having an account at that Bank it
doesn’t exist and finally a lot of times
the banks require establishment of
identity paperwork documentation for us
in this room this sounds pretty basic
but this is could be a barrier for many
many people in our country so back to
the product manager and this is not
something by no means this is something
I created but this is something people
around the world realized very quickly
as they went about the quest of
digitizing money what they found is
there are more mobile phones in the
world than bank accounts heck there are
even more toothbrushes in the world than
bank accounts there is only two billion
bank accounts there four billion
toothbrushes and seven billion mobile
phones so
your constraints of creating product
have a different right so what do you do
so the answer is and this is true the
example on the right is from Africa
where a product manager is somewhere in
the middle of Africa think it was Kenya
they figured out that what if we could
take the mobile phone number and treat
it as as a bank account what if minutes
mobile minutes became your wallet of
value and you use that to transact and
and use that as money you wouldn’t think
of the indian post office as the cradle
of innovation but what the indian post
office has in india that that many banks
don’t is they have presence every
village has a post office everybody gets
mail the postman comes over and delivers
hand delivers to every Indian citizen so
what if that postman became a portable
bank account these are things that have
happened organically these are examples
where people have made products of of
nothing at all
next example this is again from the
business world and as technologist you
probably appreciate this quite a bit
there’s a lot of talk of data and
machine learning in IOT and and fog
computing in the news today no see a CTO
speech would be considered serious if it
didn’t have these keywords but the
constraints and data have evolved over
time so in the beginning and this is
probably 10 20 years ago there was a
problem of storage when you have so much
data that is being generated from your
life where is the database we didn’t
have the database to store all that data
right it was just too expensive it was
either in the labs I mean the average
person couldn’t really figure out a way
of running a data model a map model on
your PC at in your rooms right there
then we solved for it computing became
ubiquitous there is more processing
power now in your phones than then what
used to be on the mainframes 10-15 years
ago so this was solved so first database
not enough we fixed that
second processing power CPU cycles as we
solve that then came the problem of of
the minds right because the computer is
just a dumb machine you need people to
operate it but ultimately the people
running the world are not all data
scientists fundamentally it comes down
to you crunch the letter and you find
out a way to tell the story that’s
hidden in the data to somebody who’s
going to make a decision it’s also
possible that that somebody is looking
at that decision on a screen that is
roughly nine inches so what do you do
about that
this is where along along the themes of
of crossroads this is where art and
science come together right the data
scientists have to work with the
designers and figure out how to bring
out the stories that that are hidden in
the data so let me take an example in in
the commercial aviation business there
are some big numbers like number of
airports for a three thousand roughly
number of flights annually that’s a
pretty big number number of people
traveling on commercial aviation number
of flights being taken that’s a pretty
big number too now it’s hard to make
sense of this these numbers how do you
really understand how big or small this
is that’s where the data scientists get
together with the designers and the
visualizers and you present something
like this this is way more compelling
this is what it takes to tell the story
that’s hidden in the data that you are
crunching it’s never enough to be able
to know the science ultimately to make
progress you need to know the perfect
amalgamation of science and art and
that’s how you you tell your story
so it’s ultimately about making sense
from nothing at all so in the winter of
2013 me and 9 of my other friends all
from roughly in the 90s batch of late
nineties batch of this college we were
in Kolkata we this was December and we
were visiting the school now if you see
in the frame there’s a little bus
there’s a picture of a bus there can you
tell me what’s the number on that bus
fifty-five this bus note has been there
since this probably this since this
college was started well I guess eight
in the 1800s there was no automation but
this bus has been around for a very long
time decades in fact my first trip to be
college then being college now i IE st
was on this bus I got a I arrived at
Howard I know get my trunk on the bus
and off you go anywhere I ever first get
and then the story begins this much by
the way runs from Esplanade through
Howard a station through Howard a bridge
too for Shore Road GT Road and goes up
to being a Botanical Garden so ten of us
crazies decided we’re going to run this
road this is exactly ten kilometers by
the way and we were by no means fit
enough to run it but we said let’s try
it right we made sure we had an
ambulance with us because who knows what
something went wrong but we did complete
it we ended up in the college we we had
a very large breakfast and we had we did
a few other things which shall go
unnamed for for tonight and then we went
home the next day this thing comes up on
the on the paper somebody picked up the
story of ten students or X students who
decide to run this road which is
considered a Calcutta heritage Road so
you run through Eden Gardens and red
road and all that so this news comes out
and that gets me thinking well this was
all for us what are we doing to give
back to the community maybe is there a
way to connect this bus that runs
through the community of Hara to to the
community and do something for the
community well next year we decide to
tie up with from OGB hospital remember
our first story and we decide this bus
route is 55
so everybody who runs has to pay fifty
five dollars roughly translates to
thirty five hundred rupees to this
hospital and and we this is all being
done on a whim on social media this
really nobody here we design custom
t-shirts and we go live next year so
2013 there were ten people next year 150
people show up they’re all paying this
thirty-five hundred rupees all of that
money is going to the hospital right in
the scheme of things that’s not a lot of
money but if you go to show ma GB and
you see
how they’re treating the completely
underprivileged you realize that money
goes a long way for those guys we
created a brand if you look closely you
will see that the that the road that the
bus takes is stylized you using that
kind of blue ribbon there is a B College
is team we were trying to figure out
what is the right brand to use this
balloon Sean would you be hospital and
we created this this brand called 55
which is which is roughly inspired by
more famous route in the United States
called route 66 so we’ve been doing that
for five years now last year we had
about readiest about 7 lakhs we had
about 40 different international cities
represented in those runs I have people
coming in from all over the world and
it’s not a big run there are more unique
events there the longer runs in Kolkata
but this is very special
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
so the cave you see the last shot
running into the finish line is from
that nursing scope so look this is not a
lot but it’s more than what I was doing
five years ago right making a difference
is not that hard it might look
overwhelming but you got to get off your
backside and just go for it
you have all the tools so in closing let
me tell you a deeply personal story
my late father walked across the border
from Bangladesh to India in 1947 the
country was getting broken up he was 12
years old he just lost his parents so he
was an orphan and he had absolutely
nothing and he was going into a
completely foreign country in the middle
of chaos he was not alone there were
millions of his generation who took that
journey now the good thing the positive
thing in all of this is mostly they
figured it out the fact that I’m here
standing and speaking with you is
because they did so did mr. phony
Gopalpur charge or what Chaza who when
he was unemployed didn’t sit at home but
went out and figured it out and he
figured it out out of mostly nothing and
that is the crux of the matter
look the fact that you’re here today in
this place in this time with friends
around you with access and knowledge and
and teachers and all this
interdisciplinary and heritage in this
institution make you really in unique
never forget that they say that the
future is uncertain what that basically
means is there will be good days and bad
days and on those bad days you gotta
look deep inside and remember that
nothing is really impossible because
it’s right there within you well that’s
all I have to say good luck and safe
[Music]
[Applause]
and I don’t know [Music]
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