Statement Of Purpose (SOP), submitted at PUMBA.
Sharing the Statement Of Purpose (SOP), submitted at PUMBA…
“With business family background, diverse industry experience along with freelancing and building products as academic projects; I have developed a natural instinct towards Entrepreneurship.
It all started from childhood. Those were difficult days to start business in a rented small room, virtually zero capital, no prior experience and even no clients to start with. We did everything right from cleaning, loading and unloading 50-100 units of 25kg Paint bags to finding new clients and managing each Rupee very carefully. I had the privilege of learning the importance of immense hard work, saving on each and every opportunity and building reputation as we grow.
It was a natural option to join family business directly but since I was a bright student in academics at school; I continued academics to complete Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science from Pune University with First Class. As part of academic projects my team successfully developed two products which won awards at inter-college and intra-college levels. We participated into Business Plan competitions at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Mumbai and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) – Ahmadabad showcasing the potential of our final year project Radio TrackIt- Computer based Radio.
Upon completion of graduation I grouped together with few like minded friends to form a freelancing team- www.softusvista.com. We completed projects for Indian and European clients. I then accepted a job at Patni Computer Systems Limited, Mumbai and started my career as a Software Engineer. I was awarded with a “Letter of Appreciation” each year, recognizing my performance at the firm. I was promoted to Senior Software Engineer within 18 months as I lead a team of 9 people comprising of 2 senior developers, 5 developers and 2 test engineers. Our team was conferred upon with “Team Award”. Further I joined Goldman Sachs, Bangalore. Here I was exposed to Enterprise Application Development in financial services domain. I was deputed to visit New York (USA) and London (UK) offices to meet global teams to develop contacts and team relationships. I was successful in building confidence with global Counterparts and bringing back work to India office to pioneer a new team at Bangalore office. We started as a support team and then gradually replaced the London team completely. Bangalore team now partners with New York team for Global Support. Successful in bringing down the costs by 70% for the firm, we could get Bangalore team’s contribution recognized in a global firm like Goldman Sachs.
Apart from concentrating on my career I have also traveled to different parts of India, completed two high altitude treks in Himalayas, clicked more than 3,500 photographs capturing memories and experiences http://www.picasaweb.google.com/swapsshah, within two years my blog has got more than 10,000 hits http://swapsshah.wordpress.com; the most recent adventure was solo-biking from Bangalore to Pune non-stop covering the distance of 890 km. in 16.5 hours in a single day!
Strong academics, visits to Global Financial Capitals in America and Europe, opportunity to work with team members across the globe from diverse cultures, and above all sense of business on a global level has helped me built my career so far. To achieve the ultimate goal of Entrepreneurship in a broader and larger way, I feel the need to learn more on Business Development and Execution before I venture into new opportunities. PUMBA (Department of Management Sciences, University of Pune) Executive MBA program suits me the best as I can continue with my job and empower myself to get into a business venture. I got a chance to talk with the students of the program and faculty members when I visited the campus few weeks back. The interaction gave me a sense of diversity of students that PUMBA attracts; unlike other institutes that have majority Software percentage, Pune being an IT hub.”
Rajasthan Trip – Jaipur Day 2…
…This post is part of the Rajasthan Trip series of posts where I record memories and experiences from the trip…
By afternoon, after consulting few doctors we finally dumped Piyush at a Hospital where he had to undergo few tests… We then left to explore more of Jaipur… Hired an Auto-Rickshaw from outside of the hospital to City Palace… But we had to halt in between seeing this building…
Albert Hall or City Museum...
Albert Hall now hosts a Museum… The architecture of the building is also worth seeing and so are the few artifacts on display there… This was the best museum to see in the whole trip… Few worth mentioning items were the huge Royal Shields, a mini-canon that can be fired from a Camel, Old odd currency note die, jewellery, a Royal wash basin, etc. It was really worth the visit and Pravin gave few good snaps… 
Read the rest of this entry »
Rajasthan Trip – A Mother…
…This post is part of the Rajasthan Trip series of posts where I have recorded memories and experiences from the trip…
A mother...
The train was on a halt for some time now… It was Bhopal Junction… Around 23:30 hours… Got down… Stretched myself… Roamed around for few minutes… Thought of getting my Mobile phone and BlackBerry batteries charged… Got the chargers out from my bag… Walked on the platform from boogie to boogie to find vacant and working charging point… Found one past the Pantry Car… Started with phone on the free socket while the other was taken by another young male… Just as the train moved a lady arrived with her daughter and sat down in the lobby… One of those beggar women with her child… She took her daughter in her lap, made her comfortable and covered her with her Saree ‘pallu’…
I was standing mum like a statue swaying with the train, and changing positions from one leg to other every few minutes… Guess I was better sleeping… Frustrated standing in the night just to charge idiot phones (sometimes wonder if we own a phone or vice-versa), I started walking back towards my Boogie… 1st boogie to cross was Pantry Car and it was locked!!! There was no option but to wait for the next Station to come so that I could walk back from the platform to the other side… Just felt like hitting myself!!! Dam!!! Walked back… Plug-ed in my BlackBerry this time… Powered it up and checked train schedule… Next Station Bina… Arrival 1:40 am… That was another One and Half hours!!! Uff, well, Ummm… @#$@%#^@#% How silly was that??? Read the rest of this entry »
Ramgarh…
…Rajasthan Trip was part of Ramgarh visit… Here are other posts where I have recorded memories and experiences from the trip…
On the way to Ramgarh...
Though part of the Rajasthan Trip, I want to keep Ramgarh out of it… Basically because Ramgarh was not about the trip… It was about meeting Piyush (now Piyush-Toolika 
) after sometime and visiting Piyush’s native-native place (after Rajnandgoan)… Actually it would be more correct to say that Rajasthan Trip was part of visiting Ramgarh… Yes, in fact the whole trip came into existence because of Piyush-Toolika coming to India for a two week visit… I started with taking two days off from office and then making it into a 4 day off and then finally even dragging Pravin and Nimesh into it!!!
Piyush came to pick Pravin and myself at Hawa Mahal, and we started for Ramgarh in the afternoon… Ramgarh- better known or distinguished as DattaRamgarh, is around 180km from Jaipur…
The Journey was pretty decent… It always feels good to see a close friend after a while and then keep on talking and talking… btw, those of you who don’t know about Piyush let me write something about him… Writing about Piyush will also fullfil his long time wish-requests-orders-threats to write something about him on my blog… Yes, this is a difficult and tricky thing to do… Firstly because it has to sound good… And secondly risky to write about one friend and not about others!!!
Rajasthan Trip – Jaipur Day 1…
…This post is part of the Rajasthan Trip series of posts where I have recorded memories and experiences from the trip…
Nimesh's choice... And a disasterously WRONG choice!!!
Reaching Jaipur, Nimesh and Mayur went off to find a Hotel for night stay… And Pravin and I reached an ATM outside the station to withdraw money… Piyush came to receive us here… Nimesh after about around 5 mins called and we reached the hotel… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Am stuck here from last few days to find something to write about it… … … … … Though the hotel came at Rs. 250 per day (for two) and I would have not stayed here even for free!!! But it was with respect to Nimesh’s friendship then I spent the night there, and now will refrain myself from describing the Hotel… The key chain however looks lot better and I specifically clicked it to record this memory and Experience… With a sleepless night next day really started on a heated up end with Pravin; over bargaining with a Auto Rickshaw driver… Maybe I was wrong; but his bargaining expectations were too much and we finally got in a BUS!!!
Questions…
Questions...
I too wanted to start and finish the Rajasthan Trip writeups in one shot… So for those who were expecting something on the same lines, am sorry to disappoint… In the last few days-weeks as I have cut down on mails, chats, phone and friends; and much more including job (Unknowingly earlier and later deliberately)… Thinking and thinking on recent and recent-past developments in life and where and how to go ahead with what’s in life as Next… I came across this writeup lyeing in drafts from long time… I know this was a bit too philosophical me… ;-) Anyways, Publishing it-
Sharing something I wrote to a friend long back…
“Bas basics mein problem hai!!!”
Rajasthan Trip – Fatehpur Sikri and Agra…
…This post is part of the Rajasthan Trip series of posts where I record memories and experiences from the trip…
After a decent day at office, Friday evening I rushed toward Bangalore City Junction (SBC) to check the status of my ticket… Confirmed!!! And the journey started on a good note… The journey by Karnataka Express was mostly uneventful, except for the 45 minutes between Itarsi Junction and Bhopal Junction; which deserves a separate post outside of the trip… Will write it soon… After a 36 hour journey by the Indian Railways, I reached Agra on Sunday morning…
Yes, a Rajasthan Trip that started from Agra (Uttar Pradesh)…
Getting out of the Agra Cantt station I was invaded by loads of Rickshaw Drivers and I thought I was prepared well with the inputs from Nimesh and Pravin last night from their experience… But still ended paying out 20 Rupees to reach the hotel which was hardly few hundred meters away from station… 
For the first time I thought the Rickshaw’s in Bangalore were lot better… Getting ready, our first task was to reach out Fatehpur Sikri…
On the way from Agra to Fatehpur Sikri-
Pilgrims walking to some place in Rajasthan... Clicked on the way to Fatehpur Sikri from Agra...
Rajasthan Trip -Preface…
…This post is part of the Rajasthan Trip series of posts where I record memories and experiences from the trip…
swapsshah-n-sand
Half asleep, today morning as was walking down my house building ready for office; my shoes were giving me a unusual feeling… Yet felt like something that I have felt earlier… I came to office and to my seat I untied the shoe lace, removed shoes and it looked all clean… Even shook the shoe toe side up and tried to empty it out to check if there was something in there… Nothing!!! Under the effect of sleep, I ignored it off… Wore them again… Switched on monitors, logged in and started with the same Microsoft Outlook with a few hundred unread mails sitting in my inbox!!!
Though my shoes were getting more sensitive with time, I Ignored it for a while and then forgot about it completely as I got in work… I love my job and work But something was really unusual in there… I suddenly felt a move in the right shoe… And by now the nervous system of my legs was so alert that it even gave me a jerk… I stayed unmoved for few seconds… Trying to track the movement in my shoe… No movement at all… Something in there was acting smart…
Childhood reloaded!!!
Alpenliebe lollipops...
After my cook shouting at me to get Jeera (Cumin) from last two days; today I set-up 2 alarms and still got up bit late to run to the nearby grocery store… With the typical male ‘go and get it as told‘ approach, I picked a Jeera packet to the cash counter… The bill Rs 22… We both gave each other frustrated looks over change… The owner looked around his counter slowly trying to get my attention to buy some small items on sale… Usually I don’t pay any attention, and wait for him to tender change that adds into my piggy bank (well, currently my Kingfisher Airlines pouch… I don’t have a piggy to swallow the coins)… But then I noticed few lollipop’s there… A childhood smile emerged on my face… And I ignored the change that he was about to give and pointed my finger to them…
He generously got the whole box towards me… And my mind just thought of grabbing all of them at one go!!! I even picked chunks in both my hands… But then later released them seeing that I needed only 4 (Rs 2 each) to get to a round figure of 30…
As I came home and opened one of them it was childhood relived for next 30 mins!!! Slowly and gradually the lollipop melted drowning me into childhood……………… Childhood reloaded!!!
Swapneel*
PS: I had 2 of them on Friday, and have saved the rest two for later… (Have hidden them carefully in my cupboard to protect them from my roomies)
………I should have…
(GO) NO FREE left turn...
Funny??? Actually it isn’t… Numerous people including me passed this square each day with the (GO) NO FREE left turn… The paper sticker put up by someone to convert the ‘NO’ to ‘GO’ for fun/convenience/timepass/etc had changed the whole meaning… I noticed it… I even clicked it from my cam… But did not get down from my cab and give a minute to correct it…
But thankfully it was corrected by someone, before my inner voice got strong enough to make me spend few minutes and act…
Somewhere we all feel that things need to change… Maybe even wish that we contribute… But then nothing happens until we act………
Each individual acts!!! ……… I should have…
Swapneel*
