Bahwan CyberTek’s Post

Transcript

Like a grand buffet with endless options. You name a domain and our esteemed guest has excelled it. Yes, it's none other than the versatile Mike Muralitharan, the chairman of Ethiraj College for Women and the chief operating officer of Bhagwan Cybertech. He's a 1983 graduate from Electronics and Communication Engineering. Thank you for joining us today, Sir. My pleasure, sweetheart. A fantastic. Yeah. How have you been, Sir? Thank you. Thank you so much. So since you have multiple hats, it would be nice to hear from you. What are the multiple roles? Yeah, I've been blessed to do multiple roles, as you already explained, the two primary roles that I played. One is, of course, being the chairman of Ethiraj College for Women, which is just now into its 78th year of existence with about. 8000 women students. So that's something which I've been running along with the good imminent board of trustees. The second thing is I hit this software company called Bhavan Sebatik. I had few of them as head of the company and head of the business unit. And yes, I think that's something which has been for the last 40 odd years since the time I left CG, I worked with Wipro. For about 6 years, HCL for about 10 years and then I've been an entrepreneur. Then of course, Bhawan Cybertech. Good role that I play is heading a NGO called Alert. When the thought process was to probably buy an ambulance and probably have a couple of volunteers to help. Doctor Kalam gave us a guidance that why do you want to just restrict yourself to one road or one pocket? Lives are there everywhere and you should. Have local volunteers available as a local locally as possible and in that context he did say the most local the great man's vision that. Every family should have one person trained and that's another thing which we do. So that's it. These are the three main roles that I play. Great initiative to educate and inculcate the literacy in the people as well, Sir. OK, so I just have a very short section. So it's called the inspiration corner for the the goal is more important than the expression of anger. There's no you have to do things. In your realm of what you call what you do with the best of abilities, don't give half attempts, give it a full attempt. OK full hearted give the best. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not best. In fact, best is not a good word. Better is a better word. You know why? There's always room for improvement. You would be better than the best, Better than the best, OK. So many times I feel when somebody says I'll do my best, I'm I'm not very happy if his best is not good enough. Well. So you have to be better than your best. You have to be. Goal oriented. You have to achieve what is what is given to you as a task. You have to be always looking at. If best is not good enough, your best is not good enough. To achieve a assigned task, you have to do better than that. You have to 1st. Understand that you have it in, you know there are people who are fantastic, They'll say that person was a fantastic swimmer in school. Without much coaching with the natural ability the person would have been #1. But the same ability will put through a filter of a very good coach and what do you call focused approach may reach much greater levels than 1% extra is all. It takes 10 seconds, 9.8 seconds. There are probably 100 and 5200 people running the trace, but that extra bit to reach Susan Bolt, there are very few. But any of them, if they put through the grain, they will also reach that. Umm. And as a leader in both the corporate as well as in a nonprofit sectors, how do you adapt your leadership style to suit this contrasting environments? See, I would put it this way. Leadership while contrasting is all in the perception. Leadership is always about how you relate with people. I think that does not change in whichever role you play. I feel that it's important to understand and empower people around you. And once you empower people and give them the space, I believe that things will quite automatically happen in the best possible manner. So it's all about empowering people, identify the people and then empower. That's all. It's great to know, Sir. And since you spoke about empowerment, slightly shifting the narrative to women empowerment, since you had a women institution, what are the things that's holding back the women from achieving what they want in the current scenario? I don't think it's holding back in the current context. When I meet women, I think the current count for women, one example is in front of me on the screen. I don't think they are going to take things lying down. They're actually believe it is just. I think the men feel that they are having women under their control. It's not so. The one thing is possibly there could be some snide remarks. Like, OK, will a woman be able to do this? I think that's more a envy on the part of the other gender. I proved that almost every, uh, what do you call a job or a professional? That is, in front of a human being, a woman is able to perform equally well. And I also believe that with more and more technology coming in, women are able to do jobs which were earlier. What do you call in the safe constraint of men? Women are empowered, and for that matter in Tamil, they famously say. Woman is called Shakti. OK. So I think it's already there. I think just that the women should feel that I will not allow myself to be countdown. Women have got the talents, they're just unaware about their hidden potential and they just need to break their barriers. Or absolutely. Is there any advice that you would give to the women who are starting out like startups or entrepreneurship? Fundamental fact is any startup for that matter? Should not just think an idea is not What do you call the only reason why you will do a startup? You probably will have to take. 3-4 steps. Where an idea should be validated with some type of a market understanding. And then there should be something which will meet a fundamental requirement of a test market. There's two or three cycles to be done so that there will be a user community which will tell you whether it's useful. So those are some valuable insights. I think the women students will take it from you, Sir. So going back to the alma mater and the institution which has groomed you into a successful person today. I think those days. All of us used to come by public transport so invariably. The walk from the main gate to the Red Dome is itself an experience, a feeling of you have come into a place which is extremely valuable, important and probably going to determine your destiny in your life. The basic thing is. All the people, we were about 300 of us those days in a batch. One of the key elements which we used to enjoy is the Marutani. In front of the canteen, which still remains the same in the same place, there are about 5-6 trees. And every time when one batch moves out the final years, the first years will occupy that. And so there is that Mercury was something which we all used to go for our lunches and things like that. Small joys, but those joys remain. Looks like you've got really amazing experience when you were at TACC, Sir. I don't think if the students today have the similar experiences because it's all mobile phones now and they're not very much connected as how you, the older generation used to be. I think you have to only envious for that. We do, we do. It's it's not a surprise. Like we can see the number of registrations is higher from the previous batches and there's been a call for the younger generation to please register. But no, nobody's I'll tell you we had only 300 students in a batch and probably you have 1000. What are the importance of such alumni events? See. Definitely, with all due regards, CG. As I told you, has some of the best. Academically performing people who have moved from schools to the college and. There is a there's a good all round holistic capability that they walk out with. That community is very strong and spread across the globe. That is, easily a 2030% of the students have gone to US or Germany or anywhere for doing their higher studies and then they are all parked in various universities and various key positions across the globe. And similarly, if you look at it, they're all in various official positions in public sector units, corporates. Everywhere. Now, the strength of all of this as a community is very high. And there is a, I would not call it as a. ******* due to being from the same institution, but it actually gives you a filter that a person who is joint CG is reasonably a good well qualified person and. He could be trusted. And therefore when somebody meets each other, some two people from CG meet, there is a definite mutual respect that is there. Under. Compared to many other institutions. Which are very strong in maintaining their alumni relationship. CBD has been a little lesser in that front. So the alumni association, which was. Formed in 1925, which is celebrating its 100th year now. Has had a reasonably good. Existence in the last 2530 years. With a good set of presidents and the whole office barriers trying to get the network together. But I feel that more has to be done. And that's how this global aluminum meat was initiated around 2012 if my memory serves right. I think this is the 4th or the 5th version. Fault so. Every three years when we do this, what do you call eliminate meat? It gets more people. To interact and not just that. You suddenly find that there are people whom you never knew had reached such absolutely very powerful and admirable positions in society. And. We did not know they are from seed. I can easily see in the Indian Administrative Service. Indian Passport Service. You need police force. Many emergencies. Entrepreneurs, you have a range of people who are from CG. Under if only that the good two alumni who have complementary interests find a relationship and if it can workout. With mutual benefit it'll be great. Uh, what do you call a growth? What can I say? It could be. It could be for the benefit of both. I'm. To get everybody under one umbrella for two days. Is going to definitely give a lot of interfaces. And. Other institutions are making a great benefit out of this alumni network. CG needs to what do you call scale it up? And I'm very glad that using this centenary year of the alumni association. Big plans are there, which I'm sure should create a a a second level of. Second level of. It could be a launchpad compared to the first 3 global aluminum meat. The 4th one could possibly accelerate the relationship and the alumni network. For the benefit of all the debt eliminating across the world Illuminate network with the type of profiles that are available the number of what do you call alumna alumni? It's a huge asset. Looking forward to meet you there, Sir. Certainly.