Innovar 2013 - a mega event and an amazing day

Innovar 2013 was organised on 30th January at Bangalore. This was my first experience with such a grand occasion at NTT DATA. A lot of dedicated effort goes behind the scenes for organising such big events. I was privileged to work with some of my senior leaders in close proximity while planning the event. I am amazed by their contagious spirit, passion, creativity and undeterred determination while organising these events. Such events provide employees a good chance to meet the members of
leadership council of the organization. I am highly impressed with the leadership council members of NTT DATA. All of them depict a high level of passion at what they do.
This year Innovar was held in tandem with town hall where leadership council addresses the employees. I could feel that the LC members were highly impressed by the talent shown at Innovar stalls from different verticals and practices across the organization. Each stall demonstrated innovative solutions used in different projects. One of the key takeaways from the town hall was emphasis on spreading the talent shown across NTT DATA in various geographical locations and momentum to grow.
The other highlight of the day was tech sessions by some of the highly motivated speakers on topics related to latest technological advancements including cloud and mobility. I was not much surprised to hear about HANA in one of the SAP related session.
I would let the pictures do the rest of the talking:

Looking back at those five years!

I have suddenly realized that I have completed five years in IT. I had a sudden urge of ranting my experience so far. I think the trigger point is the book 'The passionate programmer'. Here I go: I started as a fresher in Wipro Technologies. My first client was Convergys. I was trained in ABAP and till day I am an Abaper. I was hyperactive in my first project. I remember an incident when a fellow coder estimated an object for few days and I had thought "Why is she taking days, I can sit down and finish it today". With time, I have gained understanding as to why she estimated it for few days! I started my career with HR ABAP. I remember, I used to go to office on holidays to debug and understand the BSP Application, I was supposed to fix bugs or do changes in. I was very naive and not aware of IT culture when you have to follow "Your boss is always right". I have learnt it the hard way and also perhaps by reading different books. My next project was in Insurance domain. The client was Lloyds. I must say, that has been the best team I have had so far.
I had an excellent lead who motivated me and entrusted me always. There were lot of challenges that I faced in that project but it taught me most parts of ABAP. There were many breathtaking moments in that project but I enjoyed and overcame every such moment victoriously. Till date, I meet my ex-colleagues from that project.
I moved on from Wipro and switched my job to Keane, now NTT DATA. I did not much like the change in initial days but gradually got used to it. I have spent two years in Keane India by now and the journey has been good so far. I have added few new skillet to my CV. My current client is Honeywell and I have visited my client site once. After joining Keane I have become an active member of a well known site known as SCN which has added many different people and perspectives in my life and all of them are very good rather fantastic.
So far, if I look back at those five years, I find that exciting, challenging and most importantly full of fun. I hope future years add to the fun and bring new set of challenges.

In search of Mr. Right!

2013 has begun on a chirpy note for me. I was in mumbai (Bollywood city of India) on the first day of the year. However, purpose of the visit was to meet the guy whom my parents think is Mr. Perfect for me. Alas! how badly do our opinions differ. The fact is unlike many rather most, if not all girls, I have not established criterias to look into a guy to finalise him as my Mr. Perfect. C'mon we are in 21st century, anyone fit to live in this changing era is good enough. Obviously, there are few basic things that are necessary. I have already decided after meeting few guys, that I would not go for looks (lol) else I would keep waiting......this being said, looks does not matter to me, there are many other things apart from that.
If by go by traditional ways, girls were not even allowed to meet guys before marriage...the same would have happened to me had I not taken my friends' advice and decided to meet guys before hooking up with anyone of them. The last one I have met was rather weird, as he did not come to Bangalore to meet me rather I had to travel to mumbai to meet him. That's certainly a negative point on his part. However, it was good that the guy respected my travel by taking me to almost all the tourist places in mumbai possible in one day.
Mumbai is amazing. Apart from visiting places like marine drive, Juhu beach, gateway of India etc. I went to the market of mumbai. I was surprised to see that many dresses that I saw in trend in USA were trending in mumbai as well. I did my shopping and am very happy. I met one of my sisters in mumbai.
Let photos do the rest of talking.