Name an instance where you wanted something and went out of your comfort zone to achieve it OR Tell us the biggest risk you have taken so far in your life.
In the first year of my MBA, I participated in the KPMG Ideation Challenge. I came up with a novel idea of using ML to detect autism and dyslexia in children in regional Indian languages. At first, it was just another case competition, where you participate to test the strength of your idea and your business acumen. But as we progressed through the rounds, from preliminary rounds to the national final rounds, the complexities involved in building a prototype got the better of us. Coming from core engineering backgrounds, none of the team members had any coding or experience in Machine Learning. In the final round, where only six teams were left out of 12000 registrations, almost everyone had a working prototype or had already patented their products. We were at a clear disadvantage and had only gone so far because of the uniqueness of our idea. But without implementation, it would have all come to a failure. Our mentors at KPMG reminded us repeatedly that we would need a prototype to show how it works. I took it upon myself to learn machine learning and build a basic app in 15 days time, which was used to build a model working prototype. It enabled us to communicate our vision to the jury. Even though we didn't win the National Finals, it remains to date my proudest moment because it showed me how I could exceed my capabilities to work for a noble cause. D2C was kind enough to publish my story on their page as a token of appreciation.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
During my Work experience at Reliance, I handled the end-to-end execution of a high critical CAPEX project of 75 Lacs single handedly, and I did so without any operational or safety incident. I was the youngest engineer at the site at that time across all plants to be handling such a critical project. For this achievement of mine, I was the youngest to be awarded a Well-Done Award by the site president, and I was also bestowed with the Going the extra mile award for showing an ownership mindset and exemplary leadership skills. The task would not have been so challenging had I had my seniors with me for support during the execution phase of the project. But unfortunately, a major plant breakdown happened, and it was recommended by the Reliance Centre of Excellence that the execution of the Relay Replacement job be taken up on priority, at a time when all of them were on leave. I had to formulate the SOPs, work in conjunction with cross-functional teams to get necessary approvals, expedite the procurement process, and arrange a skilled workforce, all at short notice, to execute the job without any mishap. After four days of rigorous perseverance and countless hours spent in planning before that, I was able to pull off such a critical job with aplomb and I was able to repay the trust of the Electrical Head on site, who had conviction in my abilities and decision-making skills to pull off the job with aplomb.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
As someone growing up in a small town in Northeast India, I always believed in giving back to society. And it has been reflected in the projects that I took up right from my UG Days. Be it volunteering with CRY or teaching impoverished children in remote areas with Reliance Foundation to providing career counselling to kids at XLRI. One such project of mine was a Pro Bono consulting assignment that I took up with Impact Consulting. The client was an Affordable Housing Provider based out of Australia. They had employed our services to formulate a Strategy to attract Investors so that they could achieve their growth targets. During an internal meeting, one of my co-consultants suggested that they change their positioning altogether and target upper-income student communities instead of superannuated women so that they could charge higher premiums from them. I knew that as per the conversations with the client, they were someone deeply passionate about the cause. So, I was empathetic about their viewpoint and knew that proposing such a solution might not be in the best interests of either of us, even though it made sense economically on paper. Hence, as a leader of the group, I asked for the clients feedback on the work and arranged for a brainstorming session with the team, so every one of us was on the same page about the clients goals and the associated constraints. So, after that open channel of dialogue, my team were able to understand the importance of client-centric consulting and not just relying on numbers to arrive at solutions. This timely intervention of mine helped us to serve the client effectively, and my team was awarded the best consulting team award in Q3 in the APAC region out of 260+ teams, and we could leave the client with a solution that made him both proud and profitable.
What is the one thing you can claim to have some level of expertise or depth of knowledge in - it could be anything - a subject, a sport, a hobby, a venture, an initiative which has led you to do deep work in that field?
When I joined MBA in an Online medium, I had my apprehensions about how I would hone my problem-solving skills by applying the concepts that I would learn in my MBA. One way to do that, I realised very soon, would be through corporate case competitions. And with 13+ case competitions in my kitty at various levels, including 5 National Finalists, 2 PPIs, 3 National Semi-Finalists and 4 Campus Finalist rounds, I can safely say that they have played a key role in building my business acumen. After completing my MBA, I plan to share my expertise with my juniors at XLRI as to how they can excel and ace case competitions at various levels. So, this would be the one major expertise that I garnered from my MBA.
If 10 Million Dollars (approximately INR 75 Crores) is given to you to use it any way you deem fit what would you do with this corpus?
I have a keen interest in social entrepreneurship, and right now, I am in the process of getting my Start-Up Dystinct off the grounds. It is a not-for-profit venture which uses ML and AI to create an ecosystem for creating social change by detecting autism and Dyslexia at an early stage and connecting the parents of the patients with doctors and special educators. This idea of ours was nominated as one of the six top ideas at KPMG Ideation Challenge 2021. The USP of our idea was we intended to make the benefits of technology available in regional Indian languages. During multiple interactions with senior directors at KPMG, I got a feel of the enormous potential that this idea of ours holds. So, if given the funding at such a large scale, I would use half of the amount to scale up my start-up, build the tech stack, hire sales professionals to market the product and hire data scientists to make the algorithm more robust and user friendly. And with the remaining money, I would open a Franchise Chain of Schools for the specially-abled. Being someone who has a close relative who is autistic, I understand the perils that children and their parents face at the grass-roots levels. I believe that my app, along with a chain of schools, would be able to create an ecosystem of change for these special children.
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