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 https://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.”

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) 😉 🙂

My interaction with Religion and God…

 

Nopes... It isnt a temple of any God... Just a picture from my album at Picasa...

Continuing on last thread and Inspired from a write-up that my friend Prashant Murarka shared with me few days back…

 

All of us some time or other have had some interactions with these words… God, Religion, caste, etc. Trying to share a few of my major interactions from since childhood…

 

—Religion for me started when I was told by my Parents that I was a Jain as I was born in a Jain family… Maybe my rational thoughts even as a child did not make me feel that I should follow Jainism as I was Jain by birth… It was not like my parents were forcing me to follow Jainism… They were in fact very liberal and always said, ‘follow if you feel it is right’… But I guess the whole environment, big joint family, close society, etc. were embossing on me that Jainism was a obvious choice when I was to still understand for myself what is a Religion?, what is Jainism?, Why Religion? Why God? before I started accepting things…

 

—Most of my childhood days I spent at my home town village Vaduj. My Grandma used to offer 24 mangoes to God, before anyone in the house could start relishing the mango season… I still remember those mangoes… Bigger, better quality and TWENTY FOUR of them were offered to God and what we all 4-5 grand children got was one mango in the morning and one in the evening… When God never ate any of those 24 best ‘chosen’ mangoes and I always felt that it is unfair on me and my cousins; when I used to think that I alone could have taken all those 24 at the same time in my small tummy… 🙂

 

HARD work OR JUST a TODO list???

Even if does not be a good blog entry, maybe I now have a answer to my friends sms that he sent me 26th Sept 2006… too late to reply him, but better late than never…

“””One of my friends sent me a sms that read-
“Sometimes the road traveled turns out to be more beautiful than the destination reached. Enjoy leading your life no matter what it turns out to be.”

(to be continued…)

Continuing… after almost 2 yrs…

This was meant to highlight me ‘working HARD’ and not enjoying my life as it came; and he enjoying his life without thinking of the future… And I was not able to explain him that this was the most important phase of his life, and he should ‘work HARD’ here… If he failed here, things would get beyond correction and he would have see the effects the whole life… And today after almost 2 yrs. after this sms unfortunately for my friend this has come out to be true… 😦

OK, now let me get back to the topic… ‘TODO list’ OR ‘HARD work’…