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.
I am a computer science engineer from SRMIST which is home to Asia's second-largest auditorium with a seating capacity of 4000+ people. During my first year as a fresher, I entered the auditorium to attend a stand-up comedy show as part of a techno-management fest and saw two boys anchoring for Kanan Gill. I was mesmerised to see the anchors swaying the audience with their words. I also noticed that there wasn't a girl in sight on the stage. That day I decided I wanted to accomplish two things before I graduate. First, to see a girl anchoring in front of thousands of people up on that stage, and Second, to make sure that girl is me. I started my journey by becoming a part of the organising committee as a volunteer in 2015 and worked hard to become the Public Relations Officer of the National Level Techno-Management fest of SRMIST, Aaruush; leading a core team of 45 members and a huge team of 400+ members in 2019. Not only did I anchor on that stage 20+ times for various celebrities and esteemed dignitaries but also went on to inspire hundreds of students to pursue their dreams in the arena of public speaking. The journey was filled with delays, setbacks, backlash, and obstacles along the way, but I took the risk of standing up to people for what I believed was required to progress, female representation at a National Level.
When was the last time someone relied on you? OR What did you do which was purely for someone else - a truly selfless act.
In the year 2017, I received a horrifying call from the hospital that one of my friends had met with an accident and that I should come right away. He had had a distressing accident while riding his scooter. Most of his jaw was broken and he had severe injuries which required urgent surgery. After a sleepless night, the doctor told us that the surgery was successful and he would be alright. What followed was months of recovery and rehabilitation to recuperate. The reason he had such bad injuries was that he was not wearing a helmet. This incident really troubled me and in the upcoming months, I had heard of more friends and acquaintances meeting with accidents on the grand southern trunk road, one of the most dangerous highways on which my college was located. I knew I couldn't sit and watch the loss of life and had to do something. I was perplexed as to why students wouldn't wear their helmets even after seeing their peers go through tough times. I decided to partner with similar friends and the student organisation I was working with to help raise awareness about helmet safety. We conducted awareness drives to highlight the importance of wearing helmets to save the lives of oneself and others. Not only this, we reached out to all the security personnel at all checkpoints and made it mandatory for students to wear helmets in order to enter the college premises. Even though implementation of this was met with a lot of backlashes and it took 2 months for students to implement, we knew we were fighting for the right cause, and even though wearing a helmet might cause discomfort it was for the betterment of students. I don't know if this helped decrease the number of accidents occurring near the area but it was imperative for students to inspire other students to follow the path of safety with increased involvement and making being safe cool! Although I wasn't directly involved in an accident, I think that this entire activity of creating awareness and educating students has helped save lives.
Tell us about a time when you disagreed with an opinion/idea/decision. What did you do about it?
As the head of a student organisation, it was my primary responsibility to manage the inaugural ceremony which would be attended by all the faculty, guests, media, and students. It was an important affair with no room for error. One of the primary responsibilities was to finalise a chief guest for the event and it was critical to bring in a guest who could inspire students to expand their imagination to soar high in the fields of science. With less than a week to go for the inaugural ceremony, we still hadn't finalised the guest and the pressure was intense, the team was stressed and we needed a solution to this roadblock. Our efforts of cold emails, cold calling were all in vain and we hadn't received any confirmation. One of the members suggested that we pay upfront to bring in a guest by looping in an agency that could potentially connect us with a guest, the only catch was that we would have to pool in a hefty amount. I was baffled at this idea since we had always been true in our functioning upholding high morals and ethics to inspire students. With intense deliberation among the team and the faculty in charge, I was in disagreement with the method being discussed as it didn't seem right and went against our values. I put forth my point and explained to the team the long-term repercussions of this act. After a long discussion, I finally asked the faculty in charge to give us 3 more days and if we aren't able to progress then he could take a call. With this risk, a few team members and I decided to spend the next 3 days and nights, typing email after email, making calls to various dignitaries, and physically visiting offices to finalise our guests. On the third day, we finally got through one of the dignitaries and spoke to him, we apologised for the short notice and invited him to grace the inaugural ceremony as the Chief Guest to which he graciously agreed and we rejoiced on spot! The inaugural ceremony was a huge success, the highly inspiring and motivating speech by the Chief guest not only got him a standing ovation but filled tears in the eyes of countless students for igniting the fire within budding leaders of tomorrow. It was a proud moment for the entire organising team. Even though the risk we had taken was of high magnitude, I knew it wasn't right to compromise with our values and stand true for what we believed in.
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?
Public Speaking is an art form that I am deeply passionate about. I have been anchoring since the age of 10 among large audiences and have tried to utilise every opportunity as a learning experience by understanding the pulse of the audience. I am deeply moved by the impact public speakers have through the conviction in their voices. I have been studying the styles of different public speakers to identify traits that I can imbibe in order to become a better speaker myself. I started my journey as an anchor and moved on to take workshops in public speaking teaching students in schools and colleges the art of public speaking. When I gained more experience I moved to take workshops for a few corporations as well. I identified the gap of students not being able to communicate effectively during my undergraduate studies and designed a workshop called the emcee training workshop to train students in improving their communication capabilities. The workshop which was initiated in 2018 as a passion project continues to this date and is held every year in the college by the name of Anchor Away! I took this a step further when I partnered with the NGO, Literacy India to teach the graduates at the NGO about the power of communication as a part of their Future Skills Program. I have a community known as SurabhiSpeaks wherein I share material about how people can improve their public speaking skills, productivity, and life hacks over Whatsapp and Instagram. My hashtag #surabhispeaks is what I use to express my views on LinkedIn which has helped me hone my writing skills as well. I have big plans to go further and pursue my passion in greater depth in order to bridge the intent-impact gap and impact people positively.
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?
If I was given this money, I would take some time to understand how I can use this wealth to generate more wealth. I would invest a portion of this money into more money-making assets. This would be done so that I can keep using this money to do the following that I have always wanted to do: 1) To sponsor the education of 5 orphans who want to study, right from their schooling to higher education 2) To empower females homemakers to pursue their interests, boost their self-confidence and fund their small businesses 3) To raise awareness about increasing deforestation among the adult population and this would be done by the young and bright school-going children of our country 4) To raise awareness about mental health and how important it is to take care of it from an early age, by partnering up with NGOs and organisations that are invested in this cause 5) Lastly, I would use this money to fuel my passion project, SurabhiSpeaks which helps people pursue their public speaking dreams to become strong, efficient and effective communicators.
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