Simple acts of kindness can significantly impact someone’s life. Our today’s feature Bhavya has proven that, by helping an underprivileged girl who aspires to become a doctor clear her 10th Board exams. She went out of her way to help the girl and gave her the confidence to do well. Bhavya’s need to help others and her keenness on promoting social businesses in the country is what got her placed in our Best 30 Most Employable Graduates of 2021 list. Read her story here.
The following is Bhavya Poddar’s set of responses to a questionnaire floated amongst MBA graduates to determine the top-30 most employable MBA graduates of the Class of 2021. Amongst the massive number of entries and responses being evaluated by the Founder of InsideIIM-Kampus Konversations, Raahul’s story and profile stood out. Here's her own story in her own words.
“I hail from Delhi, and I am a Mechanical engineer by profession. Prior to my MBA, I worked with Mahindra & Mahindra for 2 years. I am always eager to learn and I love exploring the creative side of me. I have trained in Indian Classical music and I also play the acoustic guitar. I have performed street theatre at more than 25 locations in Delhi, which helped me get over my stage fright. In my free time, I love to write articles and read books. It is my dream to become a writer and a social entrepreneur in the future.”
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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.
During my internship with P&G, the project allotted to me had 3 deliverables out of which one required heavy VBA modeling. I have never had any background in coding and on sharing my apprehension with my manager, he agreed to change that deliverable. However, I decided to keep working on the original project and took it up as a challenge to complete it on my own. I devoted 2 hours daily after the normal working time to learn VBA online. Once I got familiar, I was not only able to finish my project but I also added many new features to the model that I had built. The entire senior management and my team were quite impressed with how it had turned out. I feel proud to have earned this new skill in just 2 months, and now I am learning more languages online to enhance my knowledge further.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
SPJIMR gives a unique opportunity to mentor an underprivileged kid through its "Abhyudaya" initiative which goes on for a year. My mentee was a girl in class 10th, preparing for her board exams. She was very sincere, ambitious about becoming a doctor. Over time I had developed a special bond with her and her family and I looked forward to meeting with them every weekend. We talked about her aspirations, her friends, family, and hobbies. As her board exams came nearer, she told me about how she was feeling anxious about some subjects like English and History. I tried to make her confident about herself but her scores constantly dropped in mock tests. I genuinely wanted to help her as I believed in her and her dream. I started sharing English Grammar questions on WhatsApp every day which we would discuss for half an hour every evening. I also visited her house 3 times a week instead of once to help her with History chapters. She fared quite well in her exams, scoring above 80% in all subjects. I am still in touch with her even though officially my role as her mentor has ended. We talk on the phone very often, and I feel proud of how much she has grown in the last year.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
During my stint with Mahindra, I wanted to introduce a new logic for developing a fuel efficiency-related feature for the driver dashboard. My boss was apprehensive about trying the new method as it had not been tested before, and the launch date of that vehicle model was due in another 3 months. I was confident about the new idea that I was proposing and hence I decided to pursue it further. I backed my claim with data and simulations on software showing positive results. Once my team was convinced of the potential improvement, the next step was to test the logic on the vehicle to get more surety. The entire testing schedule had to be fast-tracked to meet the launch deadline, and it was a challenge to manage the manpower at such short notice. Keeping my calm and pre-planning every day’s schedule for the entire workforce helped me achieve positive results in record time, and ultimately the new logic was launched in the vehicle without any delay from our end.
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?
My engineering gave me an opportunity to participate in Baja SAEINDIA, a National event that sees participation from various engineering colleges in India, wherein students design and build an All-Terrain vehicle and race it during a 5-day long event. I participated in this event for 3 consecutive years, first as a designer, driver, and then the Team Captain. I led a team of 25 girls from my college, and ours was the only all-girls team out of 400 other teams. We first designed our vehicle on software and then fabricated it from scratch in our college workshop, and the entire experience helped me understand all subsystems of an automobile. It also gave me hands-on experience of working with power tools and rigorously driving an off-road vehicle in tough terrains. Our team secured the 32nd rank in India, and we also got felicitated by the Government of Delhi for our inexpensive and unique design. I got so passionate about the field that I decided to start my career with Mahindra Automotive, to get industry experience. All these experiences helped me learn vehicle dynamics in detail and make a mark in an otherwise male-dominated field.
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 always been interested in the feel of social entrepreneurship and it is my dream to do something on similar lines in the future. I also visited Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, to meet with the Nobel prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus and understand their social business model. If I get INR 75 crores, I would like to use INR 20 crore to invest in social businesses in India. I want to work towards integrating the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of big companies with the idea of promoting various social businesses in India, something which is still unexplored in the country at a larger scale. I would use INR 15 crore of the corpus to invest in real estate, most probably in a prime location in Delhi, where I have always wanted to open a contemporary restaurant. I would use another 10 crores to publish and distribute my own book and another 5 crores in funding the education of an underprivileged (but) aspiring student. From the amount remaining, I would spend INR 6-8 crore in learning film making from New York Film Academy and producing short films on social topics, another INR 2-3 crore on visiting some places on my bucket list in India and abroad, and the rest I would probably invest in stocks and fixed deposits to cover for future requirements and other contingencies.