This is a first-person account by Dr. Ravishankar (Ravi) Gundlapalli describing the life-changing experiences that led him to found MentorCloud. He recounts a near-midair aircraft incident after a keynote in Mumbai, reflects on his multi-industry engineering background (automotive, aerospace, ship design, supply chain) and explains the motivation to create a mentorship platform aimed at impacting millions.
Chapters
Foreign.
Cloud happened after a life changing moment. You know I, you know in my background I have a advanced degree in engineering, have a PhD.
And I worked in the auto industry developing hybrid cars. I did supply chain optimization for, you know, high tech companies and then worked on a 787 Dreamliner. So I've touched multiple industries and I have an undergraduate degree in designing ships. So I pretty much touched all the industries except trains. And one day I'm going to do the hyperloop as well. But really what changed in my life was a moment when I almost died in an aircraft incident. I was on a plane, I finished my keynote in India in the city of Mumbai and I was on a plane, 148 of us, the plane just about to take off, the front wheels were off the Runway and then our pilot saw a helicopter landing on the Runway. So literally it was a 1.2 second miss what could have been a mid air crash. Now luckily for us, the rear wheels of the aircraft were still on the Runway so our pilot could actually apply brakes. And of course he averted the accident. And later we realized that helicopter had the president of India in it. So it could have been a huge news story. And my entire family later was because it came in the news. So.
I felt like, you know, I was given a chance to leave again. I felt like, you know, you know how after school if you don't finish your homework, your teacher is saying stay back after school and you know, and you're not going home. That's what I felt. You're not going anywhere until you finish your job. That was the first sort of moment. The second thing, which was slightly annoying was the next day in the newspaper everybody was talking about thank God the President got saved. And I was thinking, how come nobody's saying beyond my family? Of course thank God Ravi got saved. Like what should I have done for the world to miss me was a thought that kept going in my mind. And then I said, I gotta do something that impact a lot of people. Back then all social media platforms had about billion, 2 billion people. I said, okay, if I impact even 5% of that audience, that's how I came up with the hundred million number, then I'm sure the world will miss me and I don't need to be here after that. If you do something that impacts so many people. So that's how the mentor cloud was born. And.
Having come from a supply chain background, I always think about flow of things. My PhD is in fluid mechanics, so I talk about the flow of fluids. And my work in supply chain was all about streamlining the flow of products.
Now I said, what if I apply that to the flow of human wisdom? And mentorship is nothing but the flow of human wisdom. So let's take up this problem of optimizing what I call streamlining the supply chain of wisdom. And when you take supply chain, you essentially have supply and you have demand. People who have the wisdom and people who need that wisdom, let's bring them together. That's how Mentor Cloud was born.
