[Music] awesome soag so ladies and gentlemen stick around with us to the last over Nikita host boss our respect Alin of Manet who is striding into the pitch like a seasoned cricketer ready to face any challenges he is the managing Trustee of a school of data science founder of SSP and mun campus get ready listeners as we witness is masterful Strokes of knowledge and insights that promises to shape the game of education and Technology welcome boss how are you doing very good Nikita thank you so much is I'm feeling really great to be here and talking to Junior of Manet that really invokes my nostalgic feeling it's a great to connect with you guys it's an honor to have you here with us boss may we start with the podcast questions yeah yeah please um as College days are often some of the most memorable times so being an aluminous of M how does it feel boss to revisit the college life memories after all these years so I think every moment of my life I cherish the time which I spent in Manet given chice stat time col I'm sure you have countless memories and even now countless memories count particular bre h it was very funny moment crazy mement but that was a different ER different crazy time time different era uh boss we would like to hear how your time is significantly contributed to your success like uping reflecting on your education was what lessons or experiences have been particularly influential in your entrepreneur Journey so I think I was a quite introvert person uh till school time I used to purely focus on my studies my books and school and I entered into this wild wild wild forest called Manet of that time uh wild field uh that gave me an opportunity to explore other aspects and I thought let me explore other aspect and improve upon other areas which is in fact coming out of my own shell so I took an extra effort I got into this drama and I said okay let us try to really creatively channelize my energy in positive direction because our time uh the environment was quite different not so study friendly right until you're so motivated unlike today's time so I think one of the most important lesson which I have learned that it is not only study which can really help you to grow in your life right other aspects like drama uh can also work equally well for laying down your foundation so today if I see my entire entrepreneur journey I contribute that entrepreneural Journey not to my studies but the time I spent doing the drama so this is one of the most important learning I have gained from the college uh the other part is of course I have learned the group dynamics I have learned uh various aspects of the human being emotions which I have seen closely and and that was like a prototype and then now you can really see if you really extrapolate you can really see the world model so just like a large language model can really give you the insight about the world man and those hostels has given me a complete view about the world and that has also la down a very strong Foundation or a character for uh leading the real world or facing the real world to give you instance when I joined my first job opal Telecom in Bal that was optical fiber plant and this was a production plant and heavily dominated by the unions uh but I think courage I could really handle the UN and when I really look back I see that yes all those four years including ragging we preparing me for those uh production plants unlike today's very white color jobs you didn't had those kind of white color jobs those days you have to work on field you have to work on and all those kind of stuffing boss we Mo to the like entrepreneurship entreprene misconception misconception myth delusion misconcep risk alone cannot be motivation entrepreneur money making is not your primary consideration tiv primary motivation moving ahead since you have established thees award innovators in fact every innovators actually touches me and inspires me so last almost 14 years I have seen hundreds and hundreds of Innovations entrepreneurs innovators intra entrepreneurs and they have also shaped my life and my thinking after college right so I am truly inspired and humbled with uh the kind of work they have done one which I really mention in almost every forum is Dr Gita so Dr Gita is also researcher she used to work with zerox Research Center uh along with Dr man Gupta who is now current director of research with Google so both of these guys were working on a project called uh detecting the breast cancer in Xerox lab and eventually after Xerox Dr Gita started her company called nay so nay they have developed a deep learning model and with this deep learning model what you do you can use your mobile phone and just put a thermal camera on top of this mobile phone and thermal camera will cost you roughly around 15 to 20,000 rupees Android phone will cost you 10,000 rupees so maybe 25,000 to 305,000 rupees a multi-million dollar uh cancer detection device is ready and uh this underhood this uses the Deep learning model uh which is able to really detect the breast cancer so whether you are in sitting in a mall or you're in office or anywhere there's no touch no intrusion into your privacy right and typically a cancer detection machine cancer diagnostic facili treatment facilities around so it's a very costly proposition Diagnostic and treatment both so using this uh deep learning model they're trying to democratize uh this cancer diagnostic right so I think that is something amazing work Dr Gita has done she got the funding from Japanese fund and they have now she's being appreciated across the world so ucation use and she's creating a huge impact right and she will be leaving a legacy behind that so this is a perfect a deadly combination so rather than we just hearing the stories from America deep learning or chickena WEA May so management now he's also generating lot of employment course like building any prominent institution from the ground is not an easy work and so like how uh was it being the managing Trustee of kg School of data science how did this idea come about again this idea germinated while I was studying in college then I opted and joined opal Telecom they I really got to work in Telecom and uh very quickly I realized that yes uh Engineers they think in One Direction uh they only think about technology and that two also obiously technology uh and we have not been exposed to other aspects which is management aspects uh regulatory aspects so I've been thinking of uh I started thinking that we need to really start a telecommunication management institution in India uh and then I reached out to uh bhel group I wrote a letter to Sunil mital G and then eventually he passed it to Rajan mital uh Rajan actually met me he called me up in indor uh so we had a good discussion and then Rajan actually liked the idea so I shared with him that uh look not all of us we are Einstein and we can only build what we have seen so most of the people those who are employed by uh touchtel that time airel was a touch uh can only provide the solutions what has been FedEd by the vendors so their education is provided by the technology vendors because they want to sell the technology but unfortunately they have all bought the technology which was junk or op technology and we can't really H them responsible so I want to start an institution which will give them idea about the futuristic technology and other aspects regulatory management aspect so the idea was to really build a cross functional Renaissance leaders uh so cross functional leader who will know almost all aspect about the technology and business so that they can really build a good sustainable business uh so he really liked this idea he gave me 15 minute time but set with me for almost an hour very next day invited me Delhi and then bti group supported us so that's how we started uh a school of Telecom Management in indor that was in 2002 uh long story short we shifted uh to Bombay and then 15 uh while I was sitting in b w I used to really see how uh analytics Advanced analytics and machine learning is getting infused into a lot of Innovations so 15 we thought of is starting India's first postgraduate program in data science uh and we infused lot of Technology like machine learning deep learning big data and unfortunately that time there was no uh faculty available uh here in India so we got lot of faculties from Europe and other part of the world right and and that's how we started India's first data science program and then it became history today almost every company uh every fintech company or every company you'll find a alumni is working uh the challenges uh typically what we I particularly face setting up the institution is regulatory framework because if you have to set up any education institution you need to really take the various government approvals you need to align with AIC or ugc or those bodies uh I have nothing to against with these bodies but they bring lot of uh the bureau structure and in this whole process you lose the autonomy in term of curriculum design and by the time you change the curriculum uh the program becomes obsolete so that is number one second problem you need to offer two years Masters program and I was not in opinion of offering two year I we wanted to uh go on the UK way which typically offers one year Masters right of course we maintain the credit structure which is 45 Credit Unit which all North American universities offer so number one was Freedom into curriculum uh number two was of course one year Master which was not permissible even today right third thing of course credit transfer so let's say for any reason you drop out of the program and you have to really go and do a job and then come back you lose lose all the credits so the credits are not uh accounted right and and the credit structure system is there in the North America but now new Under new education policy we will also have this kind of Freedom so there were a lot of reasons uh mainly these reasons and we said okay uh let us keep ourselves away from any government or regulatory body and we'll offer 11mon pgp program and that's how Aegis was started initially we had a lot of trouble because everybody used to ask about what is affiliation and all those stuff which slowly and grally now nobody asked and then later on ISB during that time ISB also started with one year pgp and ISB also kept itself away from various University and AIC stuff uh because of these reasons which I told you right uh the good part uh of keeping ourself away from this regulatory uh clutches is that we could really build a program which is in tune with the industry we could really change curriculum very quickly right so let's for example today Transformer network is very popular so we don't have to really go through a bureau structure and try to get the approval now we can really just introduce Transformer and that decision even a faculty can really take but I think now this kind of autonomy is being offered under ugc and a as well slowly and gradually India is also moving toward that path but uh in 20 to way back then it was uh too bureaucratic hope I am able to answer you yes definitely during the transforming idea into such a prestigious institution shows your determination was and a school of data science one it would be imperative to understand and per required to all the list yes course definitely um first like as a leader managing ages knowledge what are the specific qualities you look up for before building a Global team any specific qualities you want in a person to be there one of the most two three things I really look into the person so now I buil a team in us UK I got couple of co-founders with me one is value character value it is not about being righteous it's about doing the business in a right way and ethics is one of the most important thing and that will come from the very strong value system so and of course second thing is learnability Paramount and of course third thing is ambition so rest everything can be acquired knowledge can be acquired skill can be gained but value character learnability that they forget they need to learn more like was considering the dominance of AI in the job market [Music] still it is essentially arithmetic operations so what outcome you're seeing out of chat GPT is basically Matrix and vectors multiplication right so machine does not know that it is doing some intelligence stuff machine does not understand whatever you're feeding but this mathematical operation is giving you the illusion that this outcome is so magical so transformative that it really creates a wow impact for you but right num up and then this become so dominant that you pick and choose right which is selective picking and choosing so you will pick up that piece at the end of the day as AER it doesn't matter whether that software is written by the AI or whether it's a human being or whoever is writing that software is he taking the help of coot as a customer better than Mech electri mechan will not survive and theor is are the practical knowledge Focus like first next as you mentioned about the placements so next year mathematics and data science student first time okay so yeah these are the bachelor's student or Master's students uh no sir bachelor's bachelor's okay so I think again very generic advice uh of course they need to do the project which everybody will tell but my specific advice is now today as an employer when I see I say that okay you have done this project facial recognition project the boil Downs the point that whatever you showing me you should be able to explain everything and when explanation comes there is a deep Theory and there is a deep mathematics so my recommendation to everybody do not just work on the library right because when you use tensor flow or py toch or Kos it builds a abstraction layer right it hides the say beautiful mathematics which is which which seemingly which seems the ugly mathematics for a lot of people but that is a beauty that is the engine and you need to really understand deeper level of mathematics in every algorithm every piece of activity you are doing if you are able to do then definitely any employer will hire you because what is the differentiation every project you are doing every other guy is doing aspect important just by showcasing project somebody will hire you the answer is no so both things are very important what is a big deal in that and so we have to really not forget this paper and pen so when I really teach I say okay forget laptop close it use your paper and Pen I don't use PP while I teach because your learning improves and there research done by Bay professor and I think there's another University Professor I'll send you those links which we have been using it for long so while we use paper and Pen our neuron activates so this actually goes into deeper level of our uh brain and our learning becomes much better your advice is bound to be invaluable oh thank you so much I really enjoyed this this conversation uh because some of the stuff I don't really talk on the public specifically those ker stories and stuff but I can open my heart considering that this is my family yes you not only motivated us but you have like fill a lot of encouragement we learned a lot it was wonderful uh having this conversation Nikita first uh let us now move to a fun segment where I just give you a topic it n difficult okay the very first step we have the word education okay so education Okay so education uh I don't find any funny stuff in education education is empowerment education is equity and education is about finding the god wow um let's jump into the next one then was it would be bopal Bal B and legs and [Laughter] M without M Bal is not there wonderful course we had the uple question n Only M yes M hostel number ch right ker or [Laughter] party wow um okay B now the next word could be a favorite entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is empowerment improving the life and time to get to the next question and it would be was um your favorite food mes food rather if you can remember as a favorite mes food uh under Curry okay I agree the very last word we have for today would be books importance yes books uh food for mind mind uh window to the world right and know the God yes we often neglect reading books we avoid and we just go to PPS but we need to understand books has the power yes and today whatever we are it is just because of the books we have read absolutely yes um well that's it course uh this brings us to the end of today's podcast thank you so much boss like for joining us and sharing a part of your immense knowledge and experiences with us we hope you had a good time talking to us wonderful and I I didn't realize that we just had conversation for almost 1 hour 45 minutes [Laughter] right every great journey begins with a single step and when you take your first step you're already halfway to the destination we hope Mr Bish the bosses Tony has F the FL of fion and FY in your heart thank you so much for listening and sticking with us till the end until we meet again keep your entrepreneur Spirit tied and make things up thank