 Now, this particular lecture gave me the opportunity to dig out all that and put it together in a particular format, in a format which I could share with you. What I find is the first principle which most of us forget is anything you think about beforehand you tend to do well. If you are not taught about it, you are not going to do that properly. If you plan, that means you call it planning. I call it design for the simple reason that today the whole world is dynamic. Everything will change is permanent, that is what people say, nothing else. But everywhere you see change. Anything you talk of there is a rapid change going on. Today in the domain of engineering, products become obsolete within few months. By the time the product is launched, it is more or less obsolete. So that is the rapidity with which change is going on and how are you going to plan your career in this change? I said why call it plan? Why not call it design? Because it has to start very early when the child is entering into... Unfortunately, we do not prompt our children to look at their careers etc. when they are in what you call their school or whatever it is. We do it at a much later stage whereas we could have started a bit earlier and then give them an idea of what life is going to be in the future. We do not do that but somewhere or other we have to start. So that is how I came out with this. The first thing we notice in this dynamic situation is the only thing that is constant is the basics. One cannot ignore the basics at all. So the basics invariant, these are something which do not change. The basics are invariant. Whatever you do, it is the basics which are invariant. So first thing I insist upon the students having a strong basics or the students or whosoever it is having a strong basics. Having seen that, having made sure that the basics are strong, then I tell the students or rather I go around like this. Look at your strengths. Most of us do not tend to align our strengths with our inclinations. Work is done only when the force, most of you are engineers perhaps, you all know this. Work is done only when the force acts in the direction of motion, possible motion. If you are acting perpendicular to that, nothing is done. I want to push you through this slot but if I push you this way and the slot is aligned this way, nothing is done. You are where you are. So we have to align whatever we do in the direction of our inclinations and we have to examine our strengths and do that. The second thing I advise them is to look at their own talents. Most of us do not explore our own talents. We do not know what our talent is. I always tell my students, suppose in Sachin Tendulkar had got through JEE and got into IIT, he would be sitting in Infosys writing computer programs. You see the difference of where he is because somebody discovered his talent and pushed him into the right direction. The third thing I tell them is they should identify their interests. This is what I did. So this is what I did. You know what happened was many students used to come to me and then tell me that we don't know what I do. The first thing I used to do was to ask them to explore. Exploration is a very important thing. Most of us do not explore anything beyond what is taught in the classroom. So the first advice to the students is to explore. Now I have seen this exploration being encouraged by several places. For example you are asked to find out what is the, what you call that food habits of eskimos. You know what is the food habit of eskimos? You will have to go to the library or if you have the money you go to the Alaska and find out. Hence you go to the library. This sort of a training is given to most children in the West right from childhood. If you go to the Western schools, the library will be the center of the school. There is a building like this. As you enter, the first thing you enter is the library. It's an open library and they are compelled to explore like this. That's one of the most important things that the children are asked to do. Explore, they call it research. So they are introduced to the concept of research right at a very early age, something which we do not do. Though of course it's a paper research. So by exploring like that you discover your own talents and strengths. Whatever it was I extended it beyond and told them to bring something out of their own hands. Then I used to tell them that you have to sort of build these things in something you could relate to. Something you can easily understand. You always start from the known and go to the unknown. You never try to go directly to the unknown. So I told them that you have to go from the known to the unknown. So I used to, I have started asking students to build something which they can relate to. This is all part of the initial laying the base for finding out what you are going to do in the future. That was the basis. So I told them you come build something. Now typical examples of what I did because I belong to the area of robotics. So I used that as a vehicle. Using that as a vehicle I made students build machines which can play table tennis against each other. All which can play football against each other. You make a machine which can play football. I make a machine which can play football. Then the two machines compete against each other. So in the process of the area is you are asked to build these things with whatever is available. And in trying to build it with whatever is available several things come. You explore the properties of material. You explore your own talents and how you can do. You utilize the knowledge you have in order to build. All these things come to the forefront. And you start, you go to the shop. It's very strange these things happen. The fellow wanted a machine which can go under water. Then you have a machine which can go under water like a submarine. Let's say you have a bottle as a submarine and you have a motor driving the propeller. Water can leak into the bottle. So you need what is known as a seal. So the student comes and asks you, sir we need a seal. I said yes, where can we get the seal? I said look up the other pages. I never give the answers. I usually tell them you find the answers. I am not going to give the answers. So they come to me and they ask where is the seal available? I said you look up the other pages. So he looked up. Then suddenly he comes running to me. He says seal manufacturer has sealed. They will give me the seals. I was a bit skeptical. I said let him go. One bus ride is not going to harm the student. He goes all the way to Embayy. And what that fellow showed me, he only asked him. He asked him how much is the cost of the seal? That fellow asked the shopkeeper or the shopkeeper or the manufacturer. How many seals do you repair? He said about 11. Because they mostly spoil things. They keep stock of first pairs. So he heard that he, that captured. Okay, you just come and take the dozen. No cost. Take it free. So he went all the way there. And you know what he found? You have seen the injection bottles. Small bottles of injection. There is a rubber cap. There is an aluminium seal. That was the seal that fellow was talking to. And this fellow was talking to. So communication is a very important part of life. Most of us fail to communicate. Communication and language I feel is one thing that is sadly lacking in our country in particular. All these come out when you know how to clearly articulate. Language has been derided in our country. We speak a foreign language. All of us. And that's what is going on now. Whether you think in Hindi or in Telugu or in Tamil or in... If that thought process is okay, that's good enough. You see, we unfortunately, we are not good at any of the languages, including our own Mazata. This is the situation we have brought ourselves into. I don't know in which language each one of you thinks. But there is nothing wrong in thinking in Hindi and translating it to English. That is something which we do not understand. Language, thought process is language independent. But clarity will come only if you properly think about it. Communication and language are extremely important. And then there is one more thing called conceptualization. This is something we feel to do. So, conceptualization is very, very important. There is something which we feel to do. I will give you a very simple example. Now, many toys you see nowadays, there are several types of toys which come out. I take a simple example to illustrate what I mean by conceptualization. There are some toys like, when you pick them up, a baby like toy, when you pick it up, it stops crying. Otherwise, the moment you put the baby down, the toy down. So, these are all being together. They have been called the behavioral toys. In one word, they have captured the entire scenario of toys which respond to your behavior. They are called behavioral toys. And the moment they coin this word, from this you branch out the baby who can cry. You must have read about the Japanese toy. There is a little one. You have to daily feed it food and all that. Otherwise, it will die also. So, you see how from the basic concept everything has been built up. So, conceptualization is very, very important. Most of us feel to do, we always talk in terms of what you call as detail, not concepts. Now, this becomes very important, particularly when in today's world where opportunities are existing in multi-dimensional or multi-disciplinary areas, not in areas which have one discipline. You see, in the past, you could stick to your discipline in work, but today opportunities exist in boundaries between disciplines or intersection of disciplines, to be more precise, intersection of disciplines. Mechanics is mechanical plus electronics. You have got now lot of opportunities in medicine plus electronics. If you know Japanese and you know engineering, there are lot of opportunities because people around are looking for people who can translate Japanese engineering literature into English. See, opportunities are not in specific domains, but in intersection of various domains. So, whenever I tell students, I keep telling students, don't think that just because you are done engineering, you can't do this in law. Today IP, intellectual property and patenting demands and expertise both in engineering and in law. So, the opportunities are numerous and they are all at the intersection of various disciplines. That means you should be convergent with more than one discipline. That's where the exploration comes into picture. You should be convergent in more than one discipline. This is one of the most key elements of looking for career paths, more than one discipline. Whether we train our engineering students in more than one discipline, that I leave it to you to decide. Unfortunately, we don't encourage them to step out of their disciplines. Our electives, et cetera, are all tailored to one discipline and not multiple disciplines. Today UST is like your Wapen School and the University of Pennsylvania together offer a degree, which is degree in mechanical engineering and a degree in entrepreneurship. You see, that's what they have done, because they know that degree in business, degree in law, two degrees. You spend four years, you conduct a couple of mechanical engineering subjects, you study a few on law and you want to do a degree, a degree in two. Or you spend one more semester and you want a degree. So, this is how things are evolving and we are still sitting back where we were compartmentalizing our disciplines. So, one of the ways of enhancing one's career is to look at other disciplines other than what you have. Then, in the field of communication, there are many ways of communicating. It could be verbal, it could be pictorial, it could be, yes, and that is not so important. Now, most of us seem to think that when you want to communicate, you should talk the other person's language. We do not do that. A very simple example is when the American and the Russian cosmonauts and astronauts go together in spaceships, the Americans were asked to speak Russian and the Russians were asked to speak English. The idea was very simple that as you speak, when I am speaking, suppose I don't know Russian and you are very fluent in Russian, as I speak in Russian, hultingly, you start filling up the gaps with your good knowledge and clarity emerges. And when you speak in English, which is not your native language, I start. So, they were asked to speak like this. So, the most important thing is to speak the other person's language if you want to build up a good career. And I am not saying it's just that if you speak Japanese and I speak English, I speak in Japanese to talk to you. I speak in your language, what I mean by that is, if I am talking to a doctor, I try to use his terminology to explain to him. Then it will be halting. And if he is talking to an engineer, he should try to speak my terminology so that I understand it with clarity. Unfortunately, I have seen this happen very frequently. Many people talk in their own terminology and the other person doesn't understand. Communication and conceptualization are two things which I am not talking to how you should prepare your background. Later on we will go to how you should utilize this to go further. Then the next thing which I keep telling the students is to go around them, as I said, explore the world through doing certain things. There are students who we have sent out to villages to go and find out what is going on so that they see what are the opportunities available. They find out what society is like, what is real life in short. Real life is something which we are far away from. We live in our own world of approximations. Everything we do, we are engineering or whatever it is, is an approximation of the real world. We don't go and look at the real world. So that's what I keep telling them to explore when they go out real life. Find out what are the requirements in the rural side. Now, for example, having done this, some of our colleagues at IIT have set up systems by which rural people can do trading through what you call that mobile. The mobile has become a very important feature all over the country. We have 200 million collections. It's not a small thing. And here is one thing which allows you to talk to anybody anywhere in the world. So why not use this medium as a mode of transmitting knowledge or transmitting information? All these things were done. So that has been explored. See, they wouldn't have known about this unless they went to the rural area and saw the number of mobiles which were going around there. They saw this. Then they decided, why not we start this. Now, these are all things. Plus, you have to develop what I call as portable skills. Nowadays, this word is being frequently used. See, there are many skills. For example, the skill of geometry is utilizable in civil engineering or mechanical engineering. But there are other skills which are used all over the place. These skills include communication skills, conceptualization skills. These are skills which are... To just illustrate how powerful these conceptualization skills, how important they are, I'll just give you a small... I want to communicate what this is to my friend who is very far off. A simple exercise where I want to tell my friend what this is. How do I communicate this? What is this? He's far off. How do I tell him what this is? If you can give me, we'll conceptualize. From there, we'll conceptualize. You'll understand what I mean by conceptualization. How do I tell my friend who is very far off what this is? You just tell me. You give me an answer, I'll build up. Any one answer, one by one, you give me an answer. How do I tell him what this is? Right? Yeah. So, no, that's true. But then, how do I tell him? How do I communicate that? What is this? See, he's standing there, far away. Now I have to tell him what this is. So, there are many ways of communicating to him what is this. What are those ways? I am asking you. Sign language. Sign language, okay. Then? Pardon? Send an image. Send image, okay. What else? Tell loudly. Yeah, they're doing the purpose. That means I send this itself. Send the pen itself. No, that's okay. Now you will see slowly what will emerge you watch. Okay. No, there are many ways of... See, you are sitting in Pune, I am sitting in Mumbai. You all know what this is. There are many ways. One of them is I come to Pune and give you this. That's also one of the solutions. What are the others? Come on. You have given only one, two, three, four, five. There are dozens of more. Pardon? Couriered. What is that? Couriered. Little communication. Anything else? Photo. Email. Email. Okay. Broadcast. Bye. Okay. So if you look at all these things, you will find that if I break it down, I will find that there is what is known as a content and there is a node of delivery. Okay. So we are confusing between content and delivery. We mix them up. Whenever we come up with these ideas, if you break them down, you will find that there is a content. The content is the description. The description could be in words, in pictures. Okay. In 3D, these could be the descriptions. And the mode of delivery is through wireless. Okay. Through speech. Okay. Then here through photo. Then somebody said email. Now what is this email? It is actually a word sent by electronically. Correct? If I connect these two, it is email. So if I connect words with photo, then there are facts of your description. Right? If I connect picture with delivery by, you know, this is, I shouldn't have written here, photos. This is delivery. Photo. This should have been facts or something. So, basic concepts, there are two. One is the content and the delivery. Under each of them, you have various concepts coming up. And they are mixed in various ways. Today you know that if I take a photo here, I, you can have the same photo at your end by transmitting it electronically. Photo plus electronics is your facts. Correct? Photo plus electronics could also be your printer, the computer printer. That also could come. So like that, if what we do is we, I mix the content with the delivery to arrive at new ones. Now I will arrive at a new one like this. I take the 3D object. Can I transmit it electronically across? Can I transmit the 3D object electronically across? Instead of selling it by courier. You have seen it in Star Wars or something like that. Star Trek. But today already that is happening. I can have this model, convert it into a computer. This one, like a AutoCAD or whatever the drawing is. At the other end I have an NC machine which will replicate the model. That's already in a way happening. When you are printing out your word file, selling it to, firing it to your printer, the printer could be in the next room or could be across the world. Today that is going on. So you are electronically converting whatever you have whether it is a 3D or a 2D object or this picture into some electronic format, selling it across reconstructing it. Do you know that now the same idea has been used to transmit smell? You have three basic colors currently in printers in order to transmit your picture across, the color picture of your photo, across. The three basic colors are mixed to get the various colors. The same thing is being done by smell. They have three or four basic smells which are mixed in various proportions to get what you want at the other end. That's what is going on. So this is what I call as, you know, how to find the conceptual basis basis and for many things and use that. That's what I call as conceptualization. Okay. And the knowledge is there. Okay, you know what I said, change is permanent, basics remain. Knowledge also is keeping on changing very fast. This I have told you already. Okay. Communication, conceptualization, two skills which are very important in today's world. Analytical and lateral thinking, you are all aware. It's all needed. Portable skills, these are all actually portable skills. By portable skills what they mean is it can be used in any domain, not necessarily only in engineering or whatever. Domain specific skills are a different issue. These are portable from domain to domain. Okay. Attitudes which you have to develop are curiosity, willingness to explore, questioning, willingness to learn, absence of fear of failure. These are the attitudes one must inculcate in himself or herself if you want. These are all preparatory to a good career planning. Let it be. Most of the time what we tell today is we kill all the attitude, let me tell you. We kill every one of them nicely. We are very good at that. So, if we are stealthy, you have to write. I will write that for most of our Indians. Ability to kill all these attitudes. If the child is curious, you slap him. Okay. As teachers also we do that. I mean unfortunate. Assessing yourself, we rarely do that. Leave it to others. Skills, talents, interests, attitudes. You know. You yourself assess. You worry about what others think. You worry about what you think of yourself. That is. The core competence. What is your core competence? This question we never ask ourselves. What is your core competence? See, if I kick you out of the current job, what other job can you do? George Soros, the famous, very rich man. There is a Soros Fellowship. It's very difficult to get it. He says, he was fed up of making money. He is a top notch investment fellow. And he has made. He is a very rich man. He ranked among the top rich people. So, he was fed up. So, he said, no way. Then he decided, I stop all this money making. Then he found that there was nothing else he could do. He can't type. He can't sweep. No other skill he had. He had only one skill making money. Then he said, I have the skill, perhaps something which God has given me as a gift. I will use it to make money, but to satisfy myself, I will distribute the money. So, that's how the Soros Foundation gives a lot of money to worldwide for this. So, that was his core competence. So, each person has to identify what is his core competence. Otherwise, you know, you are. We never try to identify. What differentiates you from others? I ask myself, what is the difference between me and others? Okay, I am satisfied in some extent that I have been able to encourage students to work with their hands. That is the major differentiator between me and many of my colleagues. Outside the class. I mean, not within the... That's a different issue. I mean, young people, I have been able to encourage them to work outside with their hands. So, that differentiates me from my colleagues. Then, second differentiator is, I have been able to introduce my students, work with geometry as a tool in some engineering domain, rather than analytical algebra or whatever. That's another differentiator. So, I differentiate myself. My commitment, yes, that's one thing. Delusion and ability to be a member of a team. So, here you see that core competence and differentiators are very important. Ability to add value to self and to society. This is another very important this. See, I have six sheets actually. I just wrote, talents, strengths, weaknesses, limitations, interests, available opportunities, lost opportunities and what you would like to be also, to wage to be at the age of various ages. Now, this is the toughest sheet to write, in fact. Many students tell me, so, the others we can, but this one is very difficult to write. But this one changes as you go along. So, monthly or fortnightly, if you encourage them to prepare, they start understanding themselves. Over a three-year period, he will get an image of what sort of a personality he is and he would like to be. Then, he also identifies his own strengths and he knows. Then, you can channelize him towards working, actually, in that direction. So, as I said, strength and this must be aligned. Okay? Now, what do you want to be in the future? Discover your talents through real life explorations. That is one of the most important things, why? I made them work hands on. Align your strength and talents with your aspirations. If they are at variance, there is no use. Then, obtain and use feedback from others. Okay? You obtain. See, everybody will give you an earful, but you should seek those people who will give you a proper unbiased feedback. Mentor others. This is a very important thing. You see, most of the American universities encourage this, what do you call that, teaching assistantship. What is the reason? You teach another person. You learn a lot in the process, because they all know it as teachers. So, that is for teachers, but for others it is mentoring others. So, some of our businessmen here, you know, I am heading the society for incubation, where we are incubating 17 to 18 companies. So, I come across top watch businessmen. They say that when somebody comes and when they want to help somebody, they don't ask for anything in return, they help. They know that that return will come one day or the other, in some form or the other. And mind you, it's a businessmen telling you, not an ordinary person, not a Gandhian. They were telling you, you just help. When you need to know, that means you are building the network of goodwill. So, mentor others. That is very important. That is the network of goodwill you are building, which will help you in your own career. Observe the world around. You miss out opportunities. That's another thing. We tend to drown in our day-to-day activities to such an extent that you miss out opportunities. So, once in a while you have to stand back and watch. Keep up rest of development in your field. This is not necessary to... I am sorry. Scout and step into new areas. Scout. New areas won't come to you. You have to look for them. That is one more thing which we tend to forget. We think that everything will be put in our laps. Somebody will bring it and put it. Stretch your boundaries through reading, thinking. Learning should be a lifelong habit. So, if you fill that up to the age of 105, you will find that an important component at every stage is learning. What else do you do? Then, build your brand. Attempt to be a key person. That's very important. In any organization you should try to be a key person. That means if you are on duty for one day, that is too extreme, because everything depends on you. But people should trust and your advice, that's what I mean. Not that you should be, if you are away, the whole thing should come to your heart. They should feel your absence. Engage in dialogues, not monologues. Don't keep on giving lectures. That is our habit anyway. I have found it makes a lot of difference when you encourage students to question you back. That comes as part of that questioning attitude. Judgment plays an important role as one moves from knowledge to applications. You have to judge. Which portion of this knowledge will help me deliver this application? There is a lot of judgment. For any job, in designing or anything, there is a process of judgment. We are poor at that, because we have never tried to utilize what we have to deliver something. Most of us are very... See, you see, my fear is today the economy is going towards the service economy. In a service economy, somebody else dictates and you serve. So if you want to shift to an economy where it is manufacturing and you are the leader, we have to worry about this. Kiss. They keep it simple, stupid. That now has become made the acronym kiss. Keep it simple, stupid. Don't make complicated things. Keep them as simple as possible. Prioritize and simplify your life. See, it is not necessary you should follow all these 20. Prioritize, follow these 12 or whatever it is. But prioritize. Then and only then will you be able to be effective. Okay? So that's it. So this should have come in the beginning. Unfortunately, it has come to his head. It will help you a lot. So thank you.