Crafting Your Academic Journey with Dr. Manish Kothari - – An Initiative by MentorCloud

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Welcome to Amrit Kaal Mentors. Today is the launch day of this movement that we designed to make expertise available to every aspiring Indian youth across the country. Right? Nobody should be, you know, have difficulty listening and learning from experts from all over the world, including experts within India. We just heard from ramesh from the 1960 batch of IIT Madras, 65 batch. So the intent of the movement is to bring expertise to every Indian youth because India holds a phenomenal demographic dividend and you can call it a dividend if every Indian young professional is killed and is able to achieve their full potential. And we chose this important day, January 12th because it is the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda who is undoubtedly the national mentor who has brought India in the right frame of mind to the Western world. So we remember him. It's also the National Youth Day in India. So that's why we chose today to launch something that's going to empower youth across the country. So throughout the day we have been listening to HR heads, entrepreneurs, thinkers.

Mystic leaders like Sadhguru. And now we have a very unique.

Talk coming up by Dr. Manish Kothari who I had a chance to meet very recently. Dr. Manish is the president of ISBR Group of Institutions. He's a dynamic and visionary leader who has made significant contributions to the field of education in India. He's currently serving as the president of ISBR Group, a premier institution known for its academic excellence and global outlook. Dr. Kothari is a highly qualified professional with a PhD in management and a Master's degree in Business Administration from top institutions in India. With over two decades of experience in the education sector, he has transformed ISBR into a leading institution that provides a world class learning experience to students which I'm sure we'll hear some of that today. He's the recipient of various awards like the jewels of Rajasthan. Are you from Rajasthan, Dr. Manish?

Yeah, one of the. I mean the great grandfathers are from Rajasthan or else I'm from Karnataka.

I see. Wonderful. So you are a jewel of Rajasthan and Karnataka. You know, Business Excellence Award, the Goldwood Gaurav Award, a prestigious award given to for achievement of excellence in the Jain community. The Young Achievers Award by the Lions Club International and many more. His institutions have received various awards like the National Excellence Award as the most upcoming business school of the year for higher education by ASOCHAM and Association of Indian Universities. Also awarded the Business Excellence Award rated A plus and so many more. All India winner of Industry Linked Institute AICT awards.

Incredible.

Really so you represent a very unique group of people who are shaping the future generation because you are actually chiseling the people and creating a workforce for India and for the world. So over to you, Dr. Manish. And once when we are about five minutes away, I will come back on on video. Both Harish and I will be here and we will do the moderation of the questions. So over to you, please get started.

Thank you, Ravi. Thank you, Harish. I think before I start, I should be thanking Mentor Cloud. I should also be thanking Ravi for such a great initiative and a special friend, Vinay, who in fact introduced me to Ravi. He's also doing a great work. Amrit Kaal mentors. What a phenomenal movement is this.

I mean, India, if it has to get into the stage of Vid Bharat, I mean, we need mentors and we need the right mentor. So Amrit Karl Mentor is such a good name and what a good initiative that Ravi has taken. And I'm proud that you have taken it on a day where it's a birthday of Swami Vivekananda Ji. I mean, who better than Swamiji who have craved a path for the youth of this country? And we are celebrating it on a day known as our National Youth Day. So. And I'm proud, I'm happy, I'm thankful, gratitude today that on this day I am getting a chance to speak to so many of other members here. Let me tell all the listeners, yes, I am an entrepreneur, no doubt about it. But yes, even before an entrepreneur. I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher, I'm an educationist. And that's what makes us very humble. The type of profession that we have taken. I think it's all about service and is all about giving back. And Swami Vivekananda Ji spoke about giving back and that's what we are all here today. What a great topic that the Mentor Cloud team or Ravi has chosen. Employability by design, Crafting your academic journey. Employability by design Crafting your academic journey. Long back in an education institution, say a classroom had 60 students. So there was nothing on his employability by design. What used to happen is all these 60 students in the classroom used to sit and have common course curriculum, have to have commerce subjects. And these common subjects were delivered by the faculty. And once these delivery of subjects were done, all these students were then exposed to the corporates. And then corporates like 10, 20 corporates used to come and hand pick students in, in huge numbers, say 40 numbers, 50 numbers, 70 numbers. And the institutions used to Put out the notices saying 25 students selected by company X, 45 companies selected by company Y. I mean that was the type of past we have seen. But look at what is happening today. Today in a class of 60 students, you have 60 different aspirators, you have 60 different aspirations, you have 60 different thoughts, you have 60 different careers. So education institutions have changed from a faculty just being a faculty to a faculty being a mentor, to a curriculum designed for 60 students is large to a curriculum that is now designed to every student, individually targeted and specifically carved as a different product, as a different instrument. And that is what is happening today. So today I am going to speak about how crafting your academic journey is important. As I see many of the people here are academicians and students. I would try to shape it across students community and the faculty of community so that it makes meaningful sense to all of them. McKinsey just recently has published a report and in his report it says that 60% of the jobs in 2030 will require cross functional skills, holistics education and the values based system added to it. McKinsey also says that in the next 10 years the type of jobs that are going to be available are something that we will not be able to predict as of today. So now let's look at what is the type of tomorrow that we are talking about. In fact, I would say at this point of time that the best way to predict such a future is to create it. And to create it you should be the master of your own and you should have the chisel in your hand to see that the stone that you have carving is finally crafted as per your choice, as per your design. And as for your passion and as for your thoughts, when I was going through all this and I was looking at where we are moving for a tomorrow, for a greater tomorrow, for a better, better tomorrow, I was very happy to see that the answer I got is not on the future of where we are going, but the answer to this problem or the answer to this or to this challenge is in the old earlier Bharat is in the Gurukul Bharat that we are talking about. And this is where learning was not just confined to books, but it was included in lifestyles, life skills, ethics and problem solving. In fact, if you really go deep into NEP 2020, you will see that the whole NEP has been, has been designed with your age old India, the Gurukul India, and added with the present technology that we have. So I am going to discuss in detail case studies of how a Few people, how a few leaders or how a few students have shaped up this academic journey of theirs by crafting it themselves. And their whole employability was by design and was not by chance. I would give a small presentation to this effect and take it forward.

Harish, if you could just see. I'm just sharing a file. It's one sec.

Available. Okay. Okay. So I've specifically named it as Amrit Kal Mentors because I love this term and I'll just move forward. We are again, as I discussed, we are talking about employability by design, crafting your academic journey. I'll just take a case study. A case study of one student. He is from an institution. He's an alumni now. He was from the batch 2016, 18. So my whole talk that I'm going to do is through cases. So about some six, seven cases. And I would let you know of what is the type of tomorrow that we are looking at and how are we going to design our future. So this, this student, you know from 2016-18 batch in ISBR we didn't have a TEDx as that at that point of time. He's an I. He came forward and he said to the faculty that hey look, I want to design the first TEDX of ISBR and the institution, yes, being a modern innovative institution gave the permission to the students. Go ahead and give a student a true mentor. Now this student led the first TEDX program at ISBR Bangalore. It was done so well that he has received appreciation from the TED community itself. And he went on to see that ISBR not only completes his first TEDx but as of now we have completed four TEDx at our institution. This boy, Kamlesh Kesakar now is in Dubai as a category specialist and is leading a great company. He also has all the skills of an entrepreneur. Now this student showcased that your academics is not just in your books but it is also in leading and innovating. He led and he innovated. So to all of those present here, I would like to start. Yes. With such a case study and would like to tell you how students becomes the students of tomorrow and craft the types of future that they are looking for. I would now move to a lovely case study of. Of someone whom you know, if you could just read the name you are seeing Sundar Pichai of Google. You know, you would have all heard about him after he became the CEO of Google. But you know what happened before this. He was pursuing his MBA at the Wharton School. During his MBA at the Wharton School he Had a keen interest for technology and innovation. Apart from all his courses and subjects that he was doing, he spent great amount of time learning about technology and innovating innovation. This time that he spent, honed his skills in these two aspects and post his MBA when he went on to become the CEO of Google, his journey of the past paved the way for the future. So this is where you see that if there's something that is of passion to you, if there's something that desires you to scale up, you should be spending more time in that area.

Look at this person, Raman Kumar. Raman Kumar is from 2016, 1517 batch. Now what he did was when he completed his MBA from the institution and then went back to his place and he was serving the company. Later on Covid hit and when Covid hit he was out of his job. And when he went to his hometown, he could see that lands after lands were unutilized and the farmers were suffering. So this boy during his time, during his MBA realized the importance of agriculture and had learned to in depth about what agriculture is. He also went ahead and he had during his PGDM presented a case on how to become an entrepreneur. He went ahead and took the lands of all the farmers in and around his father's land, got them together and said that let's grow lemon tree lemongrasses with this lemongrass. What he did was he created lemon tea products and went ahead to see that the complete Bihar had his products flourishing there. The government of Bihar asked him, invited him and has awarded him for being an innovative entrepreneur. Not only that, recently he has come to Karnataka and has started a market for his product in Karnataka too. Very soon he is going to be in all parts of this country. If you go online and google about his agri feeder agriculture is the name of this company. I mean why am I taking this example of this boy? Because this boy is one such student. Like how you are and look at this journey. I mean his English was not that very excellent. But yes, his communication in local language was amazing. So this case study teaches us a very interesting aspect and the quality that I want to specifically talk about the student of tomorrow. If he wishes to grow successfully and strong in the area that he is, the solution is not in solving other problems but the solution is in solving the real Indian problem problems. Solving problems, communicating in your own local language and seeing that you win over the hearts of people just like.

The hearts of the other fellow agriculturist is what the student of tomorrow is going to. Such entrepreneurial skills in the students. Whether he wants to be an entrepreneur or he wants to be working, such skills are required to be incubated in the student at all time. I move ahead and I would like to show someone who's very dear to me in the type of work that she is doing. Indira Nui of PepsiCo. Now she is another one such case study that I, I always have appreciated and have read about her. When she was in Yale School of Management and was doing her management program, strategic planning and corporate leadership was very, very dear to her and, and she was, she found that topic very interesting. This topic that she worked upon, the type of cells and clubs that she joined was in the same space. Her experience during this time paved her to see that she becomes the CEO of PepsiCo. That means the seeds were right sown during the time when she was a student. So to all of you here, I'm sure that there's something that is going to interest you while you are going to educate yourself or while you are going to be working in a company. Now how you nurture that talent and how you nurture that part of passion is what is going to count and take you to the next level. I mean I come back to another student's life and this student is a very interesting student by name, Shantanu Paul. During his time as a student what he did was he went ahead to take a project of the Harvard School and he represented our institution at the Asian and international level. Finally this led him way to see that he becomes the global project manager for metcom. Now look at how he started and where he is working at. He already represented at international level during his education and he went and he goes ahead to see become a global project manager in this company. Now how did this all happen? The passion that he had for this project is what scaled him up to the next level. Guys, all the fellow learners who are listening to me, Industry integration is something that we should be looking at. Anything and everything you do at the institution, you need to see that you integrate that with the industry of yours. And the best way to do that is to hi is to see that you have a mentor in the industry of your choice and start working with a mentor at isbr. We have seen that every student gets one individual mentor attached to it. I mean if your education institution do not have a concept of mentorship you should be approaching people from various places. I mean LinkedIn is a very good tool. In fact our our friend Ravi has himself developed an amazing tool on mentorship. You should be through Such tools that are available, get in touch with mentors and see that how you hone yourself. This boy broke the barriers. He just didn't restrict himself to his community or to his institution. But he grew international. In present, today's era, where technology is growing, where you see AI flourishing, you also need to see that you break barriers and move on. And that's what is going to make you the student of tomorrow. That's what is going to make you an individual of tomorrow.

Two names on your screens and a very interesting case study. I always appreciate what these two people did, Brain and Joe. I mean they were studying together and when they were studying in Rhode Island School of Design, they, they together created too many designs together. In fact, they saw that their passion together was on design and entrepreneurship. And what you see today as Airbnb, which happens to have transformed, in fact a revolutionary platform that have transformed the complete travel and hospitality industry came from two students who during their education also had interest in this same field. So it's time if you are a student, to identify where your passion lies. If you are a faculty listening to me at this point of time, you need to understand how you get out or how you bring out that passion of your students and hone him or her towards that passion. If you are a person from an HR community or from industry listening to me, I think you need to, I, I have already got feedbacks from you to understand that you look out from for students who have shown passion in that particular area. And that's the type of working that we should be working. Moving on with an amazing candidate by name, Watan Singh. I'm taking case studies of students because I was told that since morning there have been too many sessions, too many people that you have listened to. I thought the one of the evening sessions that you're now listening to should be of case studies. And when they are case studies of people whom you know or whom you could closely relate to, you would enjoy on what they did and how they made it more interesting. Now look at this boy, Singh. This person was. He used to plan events, any events in the institution. He used to come forward and take those events and convert those events to be events of entrepreneurship nature. He did everything and anything that came on rural immersion. He went to, he went to villages next to the institutions. He went and served them, he spoke to them. And his attitude changed during his two years period to see that he started caring for different people at the institution. When we got an international project by European Union, he went ahead and he organized Events again in those ones. Finally he was represented at University of Nicosia Cyprus for the meet. And you would be amazed to know this boy spear government projects with vision Karnataka Foundation. Now look at the points that are listed on your screen. He got into rural immersion. Then he got into the international programs and then he got into the European Union and finally he went into the government projects. And see that in seeing that he has spearheaded those programs. Can you connect the dots? Now that's what I'm trying to talk about. The attitude is what is going to define your altitude in the future. Every student, you need not have your education institution to guide you towards a rural immersion program. It's time that each one of you start working at some year and and supporting a community. I am talking about rural immersion. Let me not forget a great case study. At this point of time they are about 40 students who are in the age of 17 to 18 years of age who got together and have started what is known as a senior citizen school. You should all study about it. Www.happyfolksclub.com www.happy folks.com these people, these students, all of them are students either. PU now trained 500 plus senior citizens in and around Bangalore and have certified them to see that they scale up to the next level. Now imagine when These students at 12th and 13th years of studies when they have got to corporates or when they go to corporates. I mean this would be an enough case study for them to be picked up. And the corporates want. The corporate knows that every skill can be taught but attitude is something that you bring along. And the best things that defines the culture of India is to see that you immerse yourself in rural programs. You immerse yourself on quality value systems of this country. And this is what these 40 plus students have done. I'm in an amazing initiative. You have the WHO of Bangalore talking about it. Check it out happy folks club.com and this is one of the students who led so many such things in his past. I'm showcasing you a name of a lady and she is an inspiration to the world.

Now Kiran Mazumdar Shah. When she was doing her MBA from Melbourne Business School she saw that biotechnology is something that inspired her and she started working on everything in biology and industry today. This lady from Karnataka founded biocon and she is one of India's leading biotechnology companies. I mean great number of innovations that have happened from her company. Now look at it. It was education that that honed her and skilled her to the next level. She was not like Any of her other 60 students who went on doing what every other student was doing. She realized that her strength was biology and biotechnology and started working on it. It's again passion that drives student to the next level. And you also need to understand where your passion is and when you. Where you are going to be taking things forward.

Is presently in Nagpur. In fact when the education institution asked her to do just one internship she went ahead and she saw that during a two years program she did seven internships. She did seven internships. TCS Nagpur picked her up and she is now leading TCS Nagpur as a senior manager in the company. In fact she's now been even scaled up as a branch HR lead of this company. Now just imagine she was not necessary. It was not necessary that she had to do more than one internships. But she went ahead and did seven internships during her period. She also made it a point that her communication skill scales up and she became a Toastmasters club and she became a best speaker at the Toastmasters. What does she teaches us? Everything and anything that we do now at one level it's your. It's your theoretical learning. At your second level is your practical learning. How you together bring your theory and practice together is what is going to define you is what is going to create that next generation students that we are talking about. Along with that she went ahead to publish her papers and now she's doing her PhD and going ahead to see that research becomes an important and integral part of life. Every corporate when it looks at a future ready student he or she looks at how does. How is a student inclined towards research. So if. If each one of you needs to be that. That student of tomorrow, I think you should get into research and start looking at how you solve the real life problems and take things forward. I think I would like to before I end I would like to take a small case study of Google's 20% time on innovation. What did Google do? Long back Google asked all its employees that out of the hundred percent of time that you have in your company spend 20% of your time on seeing that you do something that you like doing. Innovate something new, come out with the best of the ideas and you would be shocked. Ladies and gentlemen, the best products of Google have come because of the 20% time they have started innovating. Now how much of the time do you spend innovating? So that's where I need to tell you that it is not only about books, it is not only about studies. It is about you going out and trying to transform. It is about you going out and trying to work out on ideas that maybe would not have come to anyone else's mind. And that's where you're going to grow. And today's Gen Z or the alpha and the beta category, children have got it in their mind. It's there in the DNA. It's just that you need to go and explore. I think that's what is important. And when a company like Google is doing it, I'm sure that there's something a lot that has been told by this case.

I would like to in fact give one of the last case studies of the day before I move forward. She. She was working in Doordarshan before she joined the institution. And then when she joined the institution she started a channel by name Expert Matters. If you have time later on go to YouTube and study about expert matters. She started interviewing the who's who for her institution and her interview build her network one after the other, one after the other. And now she has almost 100 programs on her channel which she has designed. She's already an alumni of the institution but she didn't stop interviewing on expert matters. It was just last week when I heard another expert matters of hers. She's become an expert in this area. Her network and her community has become so strong that sometimes the institution reaches out to her to get some guest lectures or to get some leaders around the industry to come on your network is your network now. How you create your network is how you. I, I mean it's something upon you. But look at this. This girl, she designed an amazing product and the product sells on her on its own. She not only showed her talent but she also went ahead to show her entrepreneurial skills and she did what she was passionate about. This Expert Matters is a hit. I mean you should be looking at the best of the sports persons are there on this place. She is presently working with posterity as talent acquisition and a case study for every one of you to understand.

You go ahead and do not follow a herd mentality. That's where you create a different tomorrow. I mean I have two or three more case studies. I would not take many of them. I would just like to end with again a case study on Soumya Mangalapalli from the 2010 batch. She wanted to join the institution for a program in marketing of finance. But later on she realized that healthcare management was her interest. She went, I went ahead to talk to everyone in the institution to tell that I want healthcare the Institution did not have healthcare specialization at this point of time. She took her journey to the top and made convince the management that this is an important specialization just for one student. This specialization was introduced and she went ahead to be selected at Apollo. And now she has served almost the best brands of healthcare in this industry. And healthcare management happens to be one of the great specialization that the institution is offering. Now look at this case study. She not only did good to herself but she went ahead to good to do good to her passion, to her family and to the next generation of students that were coming in. I mean with these case studies I. I would like to tell each one of you that life is going to give you amazing things and amazing ways to make things happen. You have to see that one. You stay curious and you start moving forward. See that your mindset of continuous learning is there with you to network extensively. See that you understand the opposite person. What is he doing? Why is he doing? How is he doing it? How can he make it better? And with these mindset, I mean the type of network that you are going to create is going to be amazing. 3. Engage in extracurricular activities. Every possible extracurricular activities that you like that pulls you, please don't go away from it. Join clubs, attend seminars, participate in competitions. Not only in your education institutions but also in the companies that you are working at. That's going to define what you are going to be. Now all the examples that I gave, they were very strong in their extracurricular activities. 4. Seek mentorship. You need not have one common mentor for one common aspect. If I need to do something with the government of India, I have a mentor who guides me to see that how do I talk to them if I have to do something with the AICTE on getting permissions, I have a mentor who tells me how do I create my files and take it to them if I have So I have different mentors for different things in life that I want to do and if I am doing five different things at one time, it is because of such mentors. Please identify your mentors and get close to them. Start talking to them. And my fifth point is balance life and your studies. I mean it's not only about studies, studies and the marks and the great you get. It is maintaining a healthy balance between what you are passionately wants to do and with the studies that you have to take things forward. I mean with this you are bound to see that you make India a Vixit Bharat. You make India reach the place that we have to reach in and India cannot do it without the youngsters. India cannot do it without your help. It has to be a partnership of each one of the stakeholders to see that we reach this space and we reach what is known as the Amritka. I mean given the time, that's what I could tell you on these areas and aspect. Thank you one and all and I hope to see you all in person whenever you are in Bangalore. Please do visit our institution. It will be so nice and appreciate.

Over to you Ravi for the question and answers.

Yeah, I think there's some audio issue on your side. We're not able to hear you clearly.

So Dr. Manish, thank you so much. Harish, are there any questions or any questions you have? Because you, you. You're almost a young student.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. I think how you ended it was extremely good. Dr. Manish, one of my mentor asked me this powerful question recently which is when was the last time you did something for the first time?

I think that's online with the Google.

Yes, yes, yes. And I'm sure that every day. Yeah, you have to do something new.

True, very true, Extremely true. I think that Google 20% is a scalable framework that most of our audiences can take and apply. One question, I wanted you to talk about this. In today's world where Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, every single thing we see is perceived as knowledge. Something that Dr. Ravi talks about is there is a massive difference between knowledge and wisdom. Right. Which is what academic institution actually imparts you with.

But today in the world of AI we kind of get misguided with.

Pseudo or part information that social media gives us with. Right. You want to share some of your thoughts on how do you recommend the mass aspirants to differentiate between this and chess wisdom?

Okay, very interesting question, Harish. Why it's very interesting is you asked me what is something that you know, something last that you did the first time. And it's just that two days ago we have launched our center for artificial Intelligence and we realized that education institution should be in the forefront to see that you start transforming artificial intelligence and you ingrain the sense of quality of artificial intelligence on the youth of tomorrow. Now how do you do that? So we cut across artificial intelligence across all the courses that they go through. I mean it is. Look, everything comes as a bane and a boon. And it is very necessary that we make artificial intelligence a boon. I mean artificial intelligence is going to change. I mean we are, we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. But there's something lot that is going to come for you and me to take across. But when this is going to come, it comes along with this bane. And the best way to avoid these banes or to go across all this is to see that you inculcate the value system in the next generations that are coming forward. And if that value system is strong, I mean you have achieved it. You may have laws, you may have penal actions.

A lovely youth for this country. So I think we have launched this center for artificial intelligence and we have, we, we wish to do difference. We have invited the industry, we have invited mentors. We have seen that a lot is being done. We have already started publishing papers and the faculty have started working on it. I mean we have, we are going blindfolded to some extent and to some extent we are plan. And that's what Harish, my answer to you is just like you have built a great ecosystem in the country with value system in this place also. We need to see that we have mentors who handle these next generation students and who make things happen.

Fantastic. Manish, I think the case study approach of your presentation was, you know, very, very brilliant. We saw some, we saw comments that students felt that I could be that person. I could be that person. You know, I could be doing events, I could be starting toastmaster clubs. I could be going to the villages around my college. Now I. Today we had students from Karnol, from Chandigarh, from Bihar, from Varanasi. So don't look at the college as to what projects can they give. Your entire world is your project. Your neighborhood is your project. So I think every one of the case studies is so exciting. And you as the head of the institution to cater to that one student and start a healthcare specialization is very brilliant. So I think the advice to students is don't give up. If you believe in something, just go for it.

Yeah, very true, very true.

So.

And that's the story I'm presenting today. You see, when a student does not give up, he becomes a story of tomorrow.

Yeah. In fact I must say something. You know I. I studied at IIT Madras in a department called Naval Architecture. And you know since the, since the formation of IIT Madras every other department was allowed to go on industrial tour except Naval Architecture.

So I found it total discrimination. And this was the pre Internet, pre mobile phone days. So I went to a director and fought for it. And he said no, what will you do as Naval Architecture? Mechanical. I said no, I'll go visit all the shipyards. Then he said, okay, if the shipyards are interested in having, you know, all of you guys to visit them, then I will make it happen. So I had to write handwritten letters to all the shipyards in Mazagran Docks, Cochin, and everybody replied saying, yeah, we'd love to have you for the summer. And then we got the funding approved. So I say the story. You know, earlier, somebody said, what's the biggest challenge you overcome? These are the kinds of stories you want to have, and if you don't have one, create them. Go fight for something that you believe in.

Go.

If your neighborhood is not clean, pick up some of your friends and go clean it. That will be a story to tell in your interview. That is how you craft your experience. Your story and your case studies are just amazing, I think. Congratulations to all those students, and congratulations to you for giving them that space. Just. Just giving them that space. Because you could have said, hey, this is what we do. Now, there might be colleges that have done that. So thank you for. For being such a great leader. Really appreciate it. Appreciate your time. I know you're traveling extensively, but you took the time to put together your thoughts and really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.