Dr. Sam Pitroda Delivers a Guest Talk at IIM Indore
IIM Indore held a Guest Talk by Dr. Sam Pitroda, internationally recognized telecom inventor, entrepreneur, development thinker, and policy maker on February 22, 2016. He spoke on the topic ‘Dreaming Big’ wherein he shared his personal and professional life experiences and interacted with the participants.
Professor Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore welcomed Dr. Pitroda.
‘Time flies and you never know what changes and what happens next’, said Dr. Sam Pitroda while starting his talk. He mentioned that after the birth of his grand-daughter, his life changed and he realized how today’s generation doesn’t quite believes in what used to happen. ‘I tell my son, that during our days, the biggest entertainment would be placing a coin on a railway track, watching it been thrown away from the track as the train passed and searching for the flattened coin, and my son thinks what kind of entertainment this could be…’, he said.
Sharing his personal experiences, he mentioned how he with his brother rented a place during his teenage years, learnt managing life and gathered the fact, that the best way to raise kids is to leave them alone. One should let the kids do what they are supposed to do.
Dr. Pitroda shared about his initial visit to India. ‘Since I couldn’t make a phone call to wife who was in Chicago, I dreamt of connecting India in every way possible. I had no clue how to do that, but I knew I had a dream and I wanted to achieve it’, he noted. He also discussed how the professional life of India differs from Western countries. ‘People here are excellent workers when they work solely. During the days I began working on the project, girls were not a part of the team. When they became a part of the team, male employees didn’t quite interact with them. They had to be taught to work in a team’, he said.
Talking about education, Dr. Pitroda mentioned that the current education system needs to be changed. It is the next big challenge for the country. The world we live in is very obsolete. Information is been democratized. Everything is available yet we don’t know how to use it.
Discussing about careers Dr. Pitroda mentioned that everyone needs a break from the routine job at some time. You need to find new ways to handle things. The joy of doing different things is unique. The ups and downs, the highs and lows you face while achieving your dream make your journey interesting. The jobs which existed a few years ago don’t exist today and may not exist a few years later, as everything would get replaced by technology. ‘To learn something, you just need motivation, time and content. If you have enough motivation and time, you can get surplus amount of content on the internet and you can learn whatever you want’, he said.
Dr. Pitroda concluded his speech asking the students to face the unknown, redefine yourself. ‘Be creative. Be innovative. Take risk. Get out if comfort zone. Think out of the box and you will surely achieve big’, he concluded.
The talk was followed by a Q&A session wherein the participants got a chance to interact with Dr. Pitroda. The event was attended by students, staff and faculty of IIM Indore.