"The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth" - Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus
There's absolutely no debate over the fact that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was a great visionary. He knew fully well that the progress of our nation will depend on scientists and engineers in the years to come. So in 1946, he inspired Bhaikaka, a distinguished engineer himself, to approach Shri GD Birla, the founder of the Birla Group of Industries, for establishing an Engineering College in the educational campus of Vallabh Vidhyanagar, Gujarat. Advised by Sardar Patel and impressed by Bhaikaka's detailed plans, GD Birla donated a generous sum of Rs 25 lakhs, more than enough to build the engineering college. Thus in 1948 came into existence, my alma mater, Birla Vishwakarma Mahavidyalaya, the first engineering institute of Gujarat.
The institute has gone on to become one of the top engineering colleges in the state of Gujarat under the aegis of different leaders, many of which alumni of the college itself. Besides producing entrepreneurs of small and medium-sized enterprises, the institute has also given the corporate world many stalwarts, most notably A.M. Naik, a Padma Vibushan recipient and Chairman of Larsen & Toubro, and Mohit Gupta – CEO of Zomato. If you look into your leadership team, I’m pretty sure you will find someone from this institute. Over 17000 students have passed out from this institute since its establishment and each of these 17000 students, their families, all the people they had an impact on, owe a lifetime of debt to the Birlas which cannot be repaid. Talk about touching a million lives, it doesn't get better than this.
India is a cricketing nation but it is football which catches the pulse of a lot of young people these days. I grew up in a typical government colony and it had a cricket ground within the campus. It shouldn't come as a surprise when I say that in the evening the whole ground was filled with kids playing cricket. At this time a bunch of kids and I, the iconoclasts that we were, started playing football in any corner we could find. What started with just 4-5 kids playing soon rose to over a dozen of regular players. The actual fairy tale happened 8 years later in the summer of 2011 when we had just completed our 12th boards and were awaiting college admissions. We decided to organize a 7 a-side football tournament on that very cricket ground and that too under floodlights. This for us was our very first startup, us trying to enter a market in which cricket had the monopoly. We did everything, from getting permissions from authorities (akin to registering your startup ) to finding sponsors (the VC funding!!), to marketing the tournament to find teams for participation (finding customers for the product), to preparing the pitch and other facilities for the players (the actual product). All this whilst practising our game to put the best foot forward.
The response was overwhelming. Within a week we were hosting 22 teams at that ground with teams coming in from as far as 300kms. The tournament ran for 2 nights starting from 5 in the evening till midnight. We officiated the games, broke up fights between players, arranged food for them and much more. All this whilst progressing through the tournament ourselves. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the golden snitch and lost in the finals but the experience was much more satisfying. Turning a cricket crazy society to stand on rooftops and see them catch their breaths during a penalty shootout, the impact we had on them, making them realize that they can equally enjoy something other than cricket was all worth it in the end!!
#ABGLPWooMe #SJMSOM