In present day scenario, it would be nothing less than a blasphemy if someone was to comment thatt the world can survive without mobile networks. The dependency doesn’t just end there with mediocre networking, what runs today’s human population is the access to ever-evolving high speed internet and call services. However, this magnanimous transformation of cellular technology occurred majorly in the past two decades, when several private business conglomerates ventured out into changing the face of Indian mobile networking.
As a small kid back in early 2000s, one can recall basic versions of mobile phones, some in flaps, some with lights and sounds, which connected us to cousins, even some miles away at times. It is then that one of the earliest pioneers in the arena, Birla AT&T Communications (which slowly evolved into Idea Cellular LTD (2002) under Aditya Birla Group (2006)) brought to us, the Idea that changed our lives. Walking and talking with Idea, Indian users touched a spontaneous 1 million Idea subscribermark in 2003. It wasn’t just the cellular network provision that connected us, it was the thought behind Idea that made it one of the fastest growing GSM network. This was the time when television advertisements running in the households created more impact than any strategized marketing campaign can aspire to, today. With Abhishek Bacchan cheerfully loading... “What an Idea, Sir ji!” to the entire country, we truly believed that Idea was nowhere “ullu banaaoing” and it truly was our “honey-bunny” at the end of the day.
The impact a technological advancement creates on a country is beyond measure. From bringing several families, institutions and business together, to elevating the complete economic growth of a country, the advent of high-speed networks brought around an un-equivocal revolution to the telecom industry. Idea, while competing to continuously enhance cellular provisions for the country, served as a blessing in disguise to its earliest users working away from home for several hours.
However, to a ten year old child belonging to a simple nuclear family in Bhopal, the sentiment of being able to talk to her parents whenever desired, was phenomenal. With a mother who diligently delivers Physics lectures one after the other to several under-privileged students in the far corners of the state, the ability to know her well-being and safety brought un-explainable amounts of relief to a child working hard on her school homework to become like her mother one day. Since then, throughout my journey, I made it a point to connect with people and learn from their experiencesband that has greatly enlightened my outlook towards the beauty of human behaviour. As an early Idea subscriber, it’s a late realization how a mobile network has undoubtedly stood as a major pillar that strengthened this communicative ability of mine and has made me the people’s person that I am, today. Like most of the students, the interest in management had not dawned in the initial years and it was around the second year of my under-graduation that I undertook my first management project.
The Nano-Electronics project at NIIT University, inspired by the Erasmus+ programme of European Union inspired me to understand, analyze and structure the academic infrastructure for the first year students to accommodate the streamlined functioning of an inter-disciplinary industry driven project in the curriculum. The situation presented numerous challenges when it came to amalgamating a project based initiative for under-graduate students in the very initial stage of their college tenure. With minimum awareness around fundamental concepts of Nano-electronics, the project plan had to be devised in the most feasibly comprehensive manner.
As the project manager for the venture, I was not only exposed to various realms of industrial
collaboration with academic foundation, but also to the development of an effortless process flow
keeping student interest in mind. For an under-graduate student, creating such a framework was a completely new domain and here is where the communicative ability came into play. Following the agile scrum methodology, continuous discussions led me towards creating a scalable model for further domains of project subjects. Amendments were made with proper scrutiny, taking concerns of all, students, faculty, leadership and industrial mentors to arrive at an optimal design. Over the period of a month, I along with my team delivered an efficient structure for project-based learning in
first year, which still functions smoothly across various disciplines in NIIT University. Throughout this journey, it was not just a mere sim-card that Idea had provided to us, it was a way of connecting through distances and time, without failure.
If we take a look back, through a decade of trying to bring the best connectivity to their users, Idea
has evolved as one of the favourite networks of the country, bringing to us, ideas that can change our lives.