Yesterday was a very unique day as it was completely unplanned meet but turned out to be one of the best so far. How does a software developer get to meet head of NBAII? Well, it all started when I had proposed in front of few big shots (ahem) of my organization that we should present ourselves in demojam held at TechEd Bangalore. It was a big and sometimes heated discussion. I don't know what clicked but after several rounds of discussion the team agreed that we could not focus entirely on marketability of idea at the moment. At my current position, I sometimes am not able to understand why people much up the hierarchy focus on sellability of whatever we do. That makes sense to an extent but it make things delayed to get started at first place. I remember I had to write that we could first focus on doing and then remodeling what we do to meet their expectations. This itself is a huge topic of discussion under 'Different People' category but since that's not the intention of this blog I'd not discuss that here.
Things moved and process moved from 'why' to 'what'. There were many brainstorming sessions held with different ideas. Many got rejected as they were too sophisticated to get implemented with resources at hand. One of the team members has little exposure to agricultural concept because of close family relationships working in that area. Thoughts were diverted in that direction and after few meetings it was finalized that demo would be done in that area. Finally the team found few other team members whose close family members are in that area to better identify problems there. Things moved and to get a clear exposure to the concept and clarify our doubts, a meeting was organized with Dr. Abraham Verghese. Appointment was from 3:30 pm to 4:00pm.
We went there well before time and had to wait for close to 40 mins. The team was greeted well inside the big room of Dr. Verghese. I was a little surprised to see Dr. Verghese's humbled behaviour by holding the door until we all entered, though he had his assistant! We were seated and the discussion started. He had a completely calm and composed attitude. This was one such meeting wherein I just wanted to listen, listen and listen more! Each of his sentences had a heavy weight. He said that no farmer in India is poor because of production issues, it is all because of storage and distribution problems. He suggested that if we could do something for storage and distribution of perishable food products, that would be good. He was talking about the network set up of the transportation and storage of crops among different locations.
He said that the crop production capability of India has increased more than 6 times post independence. There is appropriate food produced for everyone in this country. But since there are gaps between production, distribution and reachability to the masses, the lack appears.
He also mentioned that there are middle men involved who helps farmers to get their production from farms to markets. In older times, these middle people were viewed with little skepticism but are now treated as facilitators. He has done many researches which are being used around the world. He highligted few examples where his deparment has helped solve bio-terrorism. In some year, there was an insect imported from another country which caused papayas to rot and hence causing huge damage to the many farmers many of whose income depends entirely on papaya production. They had to analyse the insect causing the damage, identify the country it was imported from and then propose the solution. The solution was interesting. No spray could help solve the problem. They had to import natural agents to destroy the insects from the same country. This process had to be quick and not take much time. His other example was that of mangoes which too were getting destroyed because of imported insects. He had done research and proposed the solution which is now being used at many countries around the world.
There was a similar example with eucalyptus which if damaged would cause paperless India. Thereby he also emphasized the need of evolution in 'quarantine' process. Few of his other examples highlighting areas of improvement in India couldn't stop me from laughing.
All in all I had a great experience meeting him. I have also started to conclude that all amazing people have one quality in common - power of listening. He listened to all of us as if we all made great sense to him but I could make out very well that he was much beyond and above us. Seeing his calm behaviour I couldn't resist thinking about my own dad who is just the same. I was not much surprised when even calm people like him end up cracking jokes on me. While leaving us till door, he asked me where am I from and then said that he visits my state frequently and I would not have an iota of knowledge about the agricultural importance of my place. I said that if both of us are there at the same time I would certainly meet him again.
Things have moved good so far. I don't know if we would be able to submit our entry in the time required but trying causes no harm. I always feel that while doing any such extra work apart from regular day job, someone in the team has to be hyperactive to keep things moving. I did that in the last Innojam I participated. I would like to do that again but time management becomes little difficult when you are at the age of handling additional personal responsibilities.
Things moved and process moved from 'why' to 'what'. There were many brainstorming sessions held with different ideas. Many got rejected as they were too sophisticated to get implemented with resources at hand. One of the team members has little exposure to agricultural concept because of close family relationships working in that area. Thoughts were diverted in that direction and after few meetings it was finalized that demo would be done in that area. Finally the team found few other team members whose close family members are in that area to better identify problems there. Things moved and to get a clear exposure to the concept and clarify our doubts, a meeting was organized with Dr. Abraham Verghese. Appointment was from 3:30 pm to 4:00pm.
We went there well before time and had to wait for close to 40 mins. The team was greeted well inside the big room of Dr. Verghese. I was a little surprised to see Dr. Verghese's humbled behaviour by holding the door until we all entered, though he had his assistant! We were seated and the discussion started. He had a completely calm and composed attitude. This was one such meeting wherein I just wanted to listen, listen and listen more! Each of his sentences had a heavy weight. He said that no farmer in India is poor because of production issues, it is all because of storage and distribution problems. He suggested that if we could do something for storage and distribution of perishable food products, that would be good. He was talking about the network set up of the transportation and storage of crops among different locations.
He said that the crop production capability of India has increased more than 6 times post independence. There is appropriate food produced for everyone in this country. But since there are gaps between production, distribution and reachability to the masses, the lack appears.
He also mentioned that there are middle men involved who helps farmers to get their production from farms to markets. In older times, these middle people were viewed with little skepticism but are now treated as facilitators. He has done many researches which are being used around the world. He highligted few examples where his deparment has helped solve bio-terrorism. In some year, there was an insect imported from another country which caused papayas to rot and hence causing huge damage to the many farmers many of whose income depends entirely on papaya production. They had to analyse the insect causing the damage, identify the country it was imported from and then propose the solution. The solution was interesting. No spray could help solve the problem. They had to import natural agents to destroy the insects from the same country. This process had to be quick and not take much time. His other example was that of mangoes which too were getting destroyed because of imported insects. He had done research and proposed the solution which is now being used at many countries around the world.
There was a similar example with eucalyptus which if damaged would cause paperless India. Thereby he also emphasized the need of evolution in 'quarantine' process. Few of his other examples highlighting areas of improvement in India couldn't stop me from laughing.
All in all I had a great experience meeting him. I have also started to conclude that all amazing people have one quality in common - power of listening. He listened to all of us as if we all made great sense to him but I could make out very well that he was much beyond and above us. Seeing his calm behaviour I couldn't resist thinking about my own dad who is just the same. I was not much surprised when even calm people like him end up cracking jokes on me. While leaving us till door, he asked me where am I from and then said that he visits my state frequently and I would not have an iota of knowledge about the agricultural importance of my place. I said that if both of us are there at the same time I would certainly meet him again.
Things have moved good so far. I don't know if we would be able to submit our entry in the time required but trying causes no harm. I always feel that while doing any such extra work apart from regular day job, someone in the team has to be hyperactive to keep things moving. I did that in the last Innojam I participated. I would like to do that again but time management becomes little difficult when you are at the age of handling additional personal responsibilities.
This reminds me of a conversation we had about environmental management, and the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board. Does IT (thinking Big Data here) help with important insects?
ReplyDeleteHe had proudly mentioned that a lot of Technological tools are being used in Indian Agricultural department but I never asked or may be that could not be shared, how exactly the identification of insects is done. If I have to assume and think then I would say Big Data would certainly be one of the good and needed way of doing it. Q's for next time!
DeleteI remember that we had a chat about environmental management but I don't remember about Karnataka State Pollution Control Board!? (Drop in sometime?) Looking forward to more talks this TechEd! Thanks Jim!