Is it called Moonlighting or Sun lighting or Twilighting? Curious Question to Industry and Academia!

Dear Friends and Students

Moonlighting has become a critical issue in the IT Industry for the last few months. I think the industry is divided in support as well opposing this culture. Just for the people who do not know moonlighting, “it is having a second job, typically secretly and at night, in addition to one's regular employment”.

I have a curious question! Please look at the picture below. In 1995, I was a Trainee Faculty in a Computer Centre named DIMS (Data and Information Management Systems) in my hometown. During that period, I was studying in GITAM College of Engineering. In those days, it was affiliated to Andhra University.

Technically this type of work cannot be called Moonlighting because I don’t have a regular job and this is not a second job, I just joined to pick some experience and pocket money.

Traditionally it cannot be called a Day job as I am studying in the college and am a student during that period! Hence no Sun lighting!! Coining new terms??

We cannot call it a Part time job. It is called part time if we are doing some full-time job. The true definition is- “A part-time job is a form of employment that carries fewer hours per week than a full-time job.”

We cannot call it Internship/apprentice also because during Internship, we learn skills from the organization. Here I am teaching/imparting skills and probably I am trying to give skills to someone!!

What do you suggest in this case? Can we call it Twilighting? Does it sound good? Any other suggestions?

Definition of Twilight: the light from the sky between full night and sunrise or between sunset and full night produced by diffusion of sunlight through the atmosphere and its dust also.

Curious!!

Note: The inspiration behind this post is to promote the concept of Twilighting among the student community. Twilighting adds responsibility, opportunity to develop skills, leadership qualities and many more to learn.

Somebody asked me what is your opinion about moonlighting? In my view, it is always acceptable if we do it transparently with mutual consent between employer and employee.

Students, will you attempt Twilighting?

Ravi Saripalle

Writing this Story with my Heart! Story of My Dearest Student Vivekananda 1.0 as Student and Vivekananda 2.0 as Entrepreneur with Tallest Adversity Quotient! Sunny, Storm and Serene! Life in 3 Words!

Dear Students and Friends

Appeal: Request you to read this complete story though it is a bit long! This is the story of a boy with great ideas, energy, enthusiasm who started his voyage on a calm and beautiful sea! Days passed! Boat struck in a big storm!  Boy never imagined his dream voyage would end like this! Not deterred, never disheartened, this boy started sailing with a small wooden makeshift boat, averted danger and finally reached the shore! Not just shore but planned destination! Read this inspiring story of Vivekananda!

I shifted to the Education domain in 2011 after working for Industry for more than 13 years. My role in the institution (where I am currently working) is to inspire and mentor students. In the last 11 years, I have been working with so many students but this association is definitely different in my life. First time I met this boy in 2012 while he was in 1^st BTech CSE!  Vivekananda told me, “I want to become an entrepreneur”. He came with multiple ideas but never deviated from the entrepreneur goal! You may say I am cooking up the story. Hence this time I decided to share the mail from Vivekananda in my story itself!

=======================================================

From: Vivekananda Nareddula [mailto: vivek.nrt@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2016 7:01 PM
To: Ravi Saripalle
Subject: Re: Idea for Startup

 

Hello Sir,

Once we discussed an idea that is "Branding Yourself”. The idea which we discussed is to create a two minutes Self Video of explaining about yourself. You mentioned some Categories for that too. I have developed the prototype of this idea and placed in  video2.helplena.co. Once you go through the link. Let us have some discussions on this before we launch it. However, I couldn’t reach you directly due to my Job. So, please feel free to contact me via mails.

One more thing is now I have a full overview and ease of making Websites. So, if any students need any sort of help for their start-ups, you can give them my name and Email for support.

 

Thanks and Regards,

Vivekananda Nareddula

==================================================================================

It was October 2018 when Vivekananda got accidentally electrocuted while he was going to his office (met with an accident). He lost both hands below elbows. He was working as a software developer during that time! For a moment, he went into shock! All the dreams got shattered! Multiple surgeries, long months in the hospital! A tearful question popped up! “How will I survive alone?” Of course, parents are the biggest strength in life, but how can I manage this life without hands?

After months of struggle, he started searching for an alternative! He started practicing many things with his legs instead of hands! He ordered a laptop, specially designed to suit his needs. After that he started practicing certain things using elbows- holding a spoon, mobile and sometimes traveling!

During college, He was one of our super coders! Those days, he got placed for a higher package! However, after this incident, he became ineligible for certain jobs! It forced him to start a digital agency, where he developed websites and mobile applications for small to medium scale organizations. He cracked the written test and interview for Punjab National Bank IT Officer and joined the bank in July 2019. He worked for 7 months. However, he doesn’t want to dry his college dream- To become an entrepreneur.

In between he wrote CAT! He scored 97.63 percentile and got calls from all IIMs. He joined IIMB and completed the course this year! The entrepreneur bug never leaves!

God sends Guard if you are determined and persistent! Abdul Khaliq Khan meets Vivekananda Nareddula! Idea turned into a great Reality!  Apaizer - A Premium Goli Soda Brand born!! A brand of Happily Natural Beverages Private Limited

Apaizer was founded for the love of Indian traditional Goli Soda (Banta Soda), for the need to relieve Millennials' nostalgia and introduce this to Gen Z most uniquely and innovatively.

With every flavour, they have curated the best refreshing mocktail recipes with hand-crafted ingredients that everyone can enjoy to celebrate any occasion during any season. They are using Recyclable Plastic, 100% Natural Ingredients, available in Kiranas, Dairy, Pan Shops, Tea Outlets, Hyperlocal delivery (Dunzo, Blinkit, Instamart), Goli Soda Cart/Van etc! Apaizer Premium is available in Supermarket chains, Premium Stores & Outlets, D2C Marketplace. It is 100% Natural, Zero Sugar, and Zero/Low Calories. Apaizer Classic Goli Soda is going to be Flavour customized as per the need, and with Recyclable Glass!!

This month, this duo reached a significant milestone with a Total Sale of 2.5 Lakh bottles to date! Congratulations Team Apaizer!! Abdul acts as CEO and Vivekananda as COO!! What a combination!!

Vivekananda called me recently and arranging a sample! This touched my heart! In fact their caption is “ Beat the heat with our Goli Soda”! However, his conversation really made me -“Beat the Heart with their Goli Soda”.

I sincerely request all of you taste their product! It is not just encouraging Vivekananda with your taste, but you are encouraging and promoting recycled plastic, natural ingredients, local sales, zero sugar, and bringing back our old traditional nostalgia with Banta Soda!!

If you want to invest or partner or any collaboration with apaizer, please do send a mail to vivek.nrt@gmail.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivekanandadotme/

Vivekananda 1.0 as Student and Vivekananda 2.0 as Entrepreneur Pictures below. Wishing Vivekananda 3.0 as the most accomplished and happiest man!

My heartfelt wishes to him! Enjoyed one of the best Mentor-Mentee relationships in the college and Well-wisher forever!

Life is unpredictable. Connect every dot, you see a beautiful beads necklace!!

Ravi Saripalle

30 Secs Sales Cycle! No ivy league MBA can teach this skill but the Power of Hunger! Admire these Unsung Heroes! Read this perspective

Dear Friends and Students

I stay in Visakhapatnam. Every day I cross at least 3 Signals to reach my workplace. Couple of weeks back I stopped at a traffic signal. I was closely watching a traffic signal vendor. He was selling a glass wiper. He was able to complete the entire sales cycle in 30 seconds! Amazing right? Maybe he doesn’t understand the sales cycle process- Finding the leads, Connecting, Qualifying the Leads, Present the product, feedback, close the deal and nurture again!! This is a typical sales cycle process.

If I map all these 7 steps with this traffic signal vendor, he did it in 30 sec! The brutal truth is he only gets 30 seconds for every deal! Red light means business, amber means finish the deal if it is still pending, green means pack up and get ready for the next cycle!! Definitely it is an interesting case study, right!!

I was going through Quora on this topic. I found an interesting math and law of probability theory. Author assumed the vendor works for 4 hours per day. Periodicity of red light is 3 minutes every 10 minutes. No chances to sell are 6 chances per hour, 24 chances in 4 hours. Average no of vehicles contacted per red light in 3 minutes =15. Hit Ratio to sell every time the street seller meets 15 vehicle owners in 3 minutes= 3 clients. Total earnings per client made =Rs 5. Total earning per chance taken = 3X, Total no of chances taken in a day = 24, Total earning in a day working (4hours) = 24 * 3X. Assume x=5 rupees. Hence total earning per day is 24*15=Rs 360. Assuming he works for 25 days, total earnings per month would be 9000. When they are selling, generally their whole family works in the same region, assuming 3 of them are potential sales people in their family, their family income is around 27000 per month! Mind there is no input cost, no rentals, no tax and zero infrastructural/warehouse costs. Profit margin is highest among any known commerce. If the working hours increased to 8, earnings per family goes to 54,000 and family yearly package goes to 6.24L! Mind, there is no educational cost, hence return on investment is 100%.

Can any MBA teach this negotiation skill? They didn’t write any entrance exam nor trained for deal negotiation. Look at their expressions! True, most of them close the deal with expressions! Usually, they come from different states. Hence there is a language barrier! However, sometimes they smile, sometimes they plead, sometimes they attract with half baked vernacular language, sometimes hard to negotiate and demand and these expressions are uncountable. They change the track based on the buyer’s reaction. Who taught them? The true answer is “Hunger”.

Hungry stomach, Empty Pocket, Broken Heart are the three best teachers in anybody’s life. Everyone should experience it. Even if you are blessed materially, try meeting these 3 teachers. Hope you know this story of Hari Krishna Exports’ Scion, Hitarth Dholakia, lived the 'Aam Aadmi Life' in Hyderabad. Hitarth Dholakia, son of Ghanshyam Dholakia, one of the Founders of Hari Krishna Exports Pvt. Ltd., a Rs. 6,000 crore-diamond firm that has its presence in 71 countries, was in the Hyderabad as a part of an age-old family tradition that required him to live in a city unknown to him, without the family tag or even a mobile phone, to find a job on his own and moreover, and to keep finding new jobs every week (prnewswire.com).

Why is their family following this tradition? This is the best way to teach 100 qualities in a 3 months crash course! Sales, Humility, Living in Odds, you name any quality, everything is experienced!

While I am preaching this, if you ask me whether you will allow your son to live this way? The bold answer is Yes! However, I will not force him as times have changed. They can be exploited as well. If he wants to do it at his mature age, I encourage. If you ask me whether I did something similar in my past? Partly Yes! It was not for a job, but for a post graduation seat. I was on my own journey for more than 15 days with minimal amount, without any communication with the family & friends, in unknown states, without much proficiency in language, negotiating with multiple professors to recommend or refer a seat for me (in some universities there is no entrance but referral works in those days). I experienced life without railway reservations, food on the streets, staying in waiting rooms, luggage in cloak rooms and many great experiences! Today I can go back to that life easily if God dictates.

Life without family support, job without friend’s reference, sanction without God's blessings, journey is not on bed of roses rather on thrones of roses. It was true in the past and it remains true today!!

Dear Students, 

Happy for what you have today! Be grateful to the support you received till date and don’t exploit it to the core! Try to live on your own feet when you are deserved and matured!

If I hurt anyone’s sentiments, my sincere apologies.

Ravi Saripalle

Community Led Grassroots Fightback against Biodiversity Crisis! What is our Vow to Rewild?! Read this Perspective

Dear Friends and Students

Recently somebody commented on my blog that most of the time I am touching career aspects. What about a climate emergency? Though I did it in the past, let me try to attempt another one.

Yes, the climate emergency is a burning issue. There is only one Mother Earth! Each one of us on the earth is influencing another in some or other way. We believe in the concept of   Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. It is a Sanskrit phrase in Hindu texts such as the Maha Upanishad, which means "The World Is One Family". One part of the geography is directly or indirectly influencing another part of the world! There is no Planet B though we have Plan B for Education, Food, Shelter and for many aspects of our day to day life!

Look at some of the disasters! We witnessed more than $3.64 trillion losses due to Weather, Climate and Water Extremes between 1970 to 2019 (https://news.un.org/). Can we forget the deadliest drought of Ethiopia in 1983 caused 3L deaths? Can we forget the Bangladesh storm (Gorky) in 1991 caused 138K deaths? The extreme temperature of 2010 in the Russian Federation caused 55K deaths. Bushfires, Australia – 2019-2020 (8 million hectares burned over 9000 buildings and homes destroyed, and 400 deaths (holidify.com)), Volcano Eruption, Philippines – 2020, Swarms of Locusts, Asia-East Africa-India-Middle East – 2020, and Green Snow, Antarctica – 2020 (parts of Antarctica are turning green due to climate change and the bloom of snow algae. Snow algae tend to thrive on temperatures). Recently Monsoon rains have caused devastating floods in Pakistan, leaving millions homeless, destroying buildings, bridges and roads and leaving vast swathes of the country under water(bbc.com).

Nature is angry! Yes, terrible! These disasters are the response of the aggressive Nature. Recently we witnessed yellow crazy ants attack in the southern Indian state. Hundreds of people who live in seven villages complained of crazy ants’ attacks. They are reeling from an infestation of yellow crazy ants. These insects, they say, attack their livestock and affect crop yields, putting their livelihoods in danger. Yellow Crazy Ants are leaving Snakes dead and causing Cattle to go blind. In fact I remember a movie named Empire of the Ants , directed in the year 1977, a science fiction horror film. The movie was all about a heavenly paradise, becoming a hellish nightmare when a toxic spill turns harmless ants into gigantic rampaging monsters! Some of the imaginary things are becoming true in reality!

Is there any solution? Yes and No! Every issue has two sides of the coin! If we ban certain things, it is causing economic loss. If we allow certain things, it is causing environmental loss. Governments are under tremendous pressure about what is right and what is wrong! These types of issues cannot be resolved through regulation or government intervention. Charity begins from the home! Each one of us is responsible and should develop a micro plan to combat the Biodiversity Crisis!

Recently the Scottish community completed historic land buyout, and vows to rewild. The community raised £3.8m via crowdfunding to buy 5,200 acres from the Duke of Buccleuch (positive.news). One of my LinkedIn contacts, Anand Malligavad, a techie turned Lake Conservationist in Bengaluru. The 39-year-old has so far rejuvenated 11 lakes and is currently working three more, apart from four others he helped to revive. He has set a goal of rejuvenating 45 lakes across Bengaluru by 2025 (indiatimes). Interestingly, all these water bodies are interconnected. If we want to rejuvenate Bellandur and Varathur lakes in Bangalore, they have to start it from the 'input lakes' from which the water reaches these two large ones. Once the input is clean, it will automatically clean Bellandur and Varathur," Anand said.

It is not just a few lakes in the Bangalore interconnected. The whole water body system in the form of oceans is interconnected.  Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is an emotional form! The one Ocean is a physical form. In fact, the theme or belief of reincarnation is clearly reflected in the Upanishads through the concept of 'Samsara', which means wandering or world. It is the concept that every living being will, after death, come back to life on this Earth in some form, be it animal or human. If we believe in this concept, every action we take today will have a return gift in our next life. If we don’t believe this, even then, every action we take today, our children have to pay the price.

Charity begins from the home? What is your share of Fightback against the Biodiversity Crisis?

Ravi Saripalle 

Is Computer Science Course (2022 Beyond) an Opportunity or Obsession? Fad or Fortune? Vertical Skill or Horizontal Skill? Read this perspective

Dear Friends and Students

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) revived the American economy but it also created a significant negative impact. Indigenous societies were attacked, approximately 3 lakhs people migrated to California from the rest of the US and abroad, gold worth tens of billions were recovered, which led to great wealth for a few, but for many a little. One large negative aspect of the Gold Rush was how it affected the environment around it, miners devastated the surrounding ecosystem and flooded the rivers with sediment, the sediment washed downstream and flooded farms, and ruined the crops.

What is the connection between Gold Rush and CSE Crush? Looks like both are creating a similar impact. As per statista.com, Number of students enrolled in engineering at an undergraduate level across India in 2020, by discipline (CSE 9.35L, Mech 6.84L, ECE 6.11L, Civil 4.84L, EEE 3.7L). Furthermore, in the last 2 years the number of seats in CSE have dramatically increased! A few colleges converted traditional core engineering seats to CSE. A few colleges increased intake in CSE. A few colleges added new branches of the CSE family (AI-ML, DS, IoT, Business Systems, Blockchain, Cybersecurity etc.) For e.g., the state of Tamil Nādu increased seats in these courses by over 50% this year (2021- 35K, 2022- 57K).  

Multiple Signals now point to Europe/ U.S. Recession. The link between the US slowdown and IT is always significant. Margin pressures are increasing for all IT companies. As A Result, there would be slowdown in lateral hiring, campus hiring may happen but delayed onboarding, significant layoffs, risk for professionals on bench, expecting deep expertise from the freshers and so on.

How does this situation impact aspirants wishing to join CSE only? Today out of 10 enquiries, 9 enquiries for CSE, 1 for ECE and rest almost nil! This is not a good sign. This is a clear obsession! Computer Science students are of 3 Types- Type 1. Deep Algorithmic & High Reasoning/Problem Solving ability (only 10% have this) Type 2. Reasonable Coding Knowledge with average reasoning (>60%) Type 3. Low computational thinking (30%). Type 3 students are unfit for the software industry.

Today Type 2 students possess basic programming, a little bit of data structures knowledge, peripheral view of databases and a few software tools. They are called CSE graduates. These students suffer a lot during a recession. If a mechanical/EEE/Civil/Chemical student with basic programming, basic database & data structures orientation, can outperform Type 2 CSE students. They learn worldly knowledge through their core domain skills. With basic automation skills (Programming and IoT orientation), they can bring more business to organizations. They can also contribute towards Engineering automation.

The Departments of CSE and ECE are no longer Vertical Skills!! It is a hard truth. Mechanical, Civil, Chemical, Electrical are Vertical departments. CSE/ECE are horizontal departments. They provide support to Vertical departments in their automation pursuits. Core engineering domain industry needs people with good domain skills, programming skills, and engineering software usage skills. These students are more productive than Type 2 CSE students in future. CSE AI-ML and Data science branches need students of CSE Type 1 level. They need a good understanding of Math, Statistics, Programming, and domain orientation. Type 2 CSE students merely use the algorithms developed by Type 1 CSE. Even Mechanical/Civil/Chem/EEE can use (not create) these ML algorithms and can be called Data scientists.

Institutions suffer if they keep on depending on CSE Glory. They have to quickly divide whole education into verticals and horizontals. Horizontal departments should offer skills/electives and make them compulsory for every vertical student. Horizontal departments students should groom towards Type 1 level. Type 2 CSE/ECE students have less market sustainability.  Hence, they need to be moved upwards (Towards Type 1). For e.g., they need to be trained in competitive coding or VLSI design/IoT expertise, etc. If they cannot go upward, they should be trained in Management and Entrepreneurship. Type 3 students should be quickly identified and push them towards their passion. If this strategy is not implemented in the institutions, CSE crush becomes CSE crash!

Convert Obsession to Opportunity! A Fad to Fortune! Avoid Crush to Crash!

Are you Type 1 CSE/ECE or Type 2 CSE/ECE or Type 3 CSE/ECE? If you are Type 2 go upwards or change your hat quickly! If you are Type 3, wear a new dress altogether!

Ravi Saripalle

 

75 Years of Independence! What is India’s Greatest Asset that has remained till date? Which Asset is put at risk and imperiling?

Dear Friends and Students

 

Finally, we crossed 75 years! Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav is an initiative of the Government of India to celebrate and commemorate 75 years of independence and the glorious history of its people, culture and achievements. The first half of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav is a great success!! These celebrations started on Fri, 12 Mar, 2021 and will end by Tue, 15 Aug, 2023. It has instilled Nationalistic fervor among the people. This celebration is a form of respect for the Indian independence movement which was a series of historic events lasting between 1857 and 1947.

Now time has arrived to examine the assets and liabilities left in Independent India! Assets have to be preserved and Liabilities are to be converted to opportunities. There are many assets and liabilities but the greatest asset ever could be the “Family and Culture”. The immediate question would be which asset is at risk? In my view the answer is again “Family and Culture”.

Quantitatively I may not be able to write this article but thematically I try to represent the situation.

75 years back a family means parents, their 5-6 children and their children together living in a single house. Couple of them work, a couple of them serve, a couple study and you will see all varieties​ of services available under one roof. This is called sharing of wealth. Old age, illness, unemployment, loneliness, stress, divorce, well-being of children, their personality development, marriage alliances within family and friends, zero food waste and many more are under one-roof managed! A small business managed by father and sons (backup plan, shift plan, roster plan by father as Project Manager). Today we have to purchase every piece in the above list as a service (SaaS or PaaS etc)? Is it an economic gain or loss or Family & culture gain or loss or both? In my view, Loss!

75 years ago a piece of land was cultivated by a group of brothers! Division of families is inviting farmland shrinking.  Part of the land is cultivated for rice, adjacent pieces used for commercial crop, another brother mortgaged for educational loan, another brother sells it for real-estate! One acre land is divided into multiple shareholdings and multiple services are generated! (Today we believe more in microservices architecture right!) Where are the economies of scale? Is it not the cause for soil mismanagement? (Erosion, fertilizer mismatch, water sharing disadvantage and field workers management)

75 years back mother-in-law was dominating and controlling 5-6 daughters-in-law. Of course, there were a few hiccups in those days as well. However, under the joint family system mother-in-law was like a corporate program manager and her ultimate goal was to execute the project (house) successfully. In the process, a few ego exchanges (change requests) but they were not out of budget (family). However, today the same project is divided into multiple projects (we believe in agile methodology) leading to multiple project managers (wife/husband) managing micro teams (managing their children) and finally trying to integrate and deploy as a single project (Integration Failure). DevOps is invited (automated services) but costing heavily to each micro project (nuclear family issues). Due to overall project integration errors, finally the overall program head (grandparents) laid off from the company! The Standish Group's 2020 CHAOS report estimates that around 66% of software projects fail due to various project management issues! Similarly, I am sure a large number of parents are suffering in their old age!!

Unfortunately, 75 years back the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law story was within the walls. When the occasion rose, they were together. Keeping this weakness (this age-old issue exists from Satya yuga onwards), a few investors are cashing in by creating movies, serials, web-series etc. While this is fun and entertainment, it affects the individual reticular cortex of the human brain. This seed slowly sinks in the human consciousness and becomes like a plague in the society. This leads to family breakup and disintegration of our culture. I am sure a few other cultures are also suffering from this. 20 years ago I stayed in Singapore for 3 months. Evenings I used to watch a Chinese serial (through English subtitles and expressions). Theme was again the same issue! Now you can imagine how a few invested in the cultural weakness! Any weakness in our family and culture leads to another coronavirus! This is the most important economic principle.

The Indian population is crossing 138 crores or 1380 million. According to a Ministry of External Affairs report, there are 32 million NRIs and OCIs residing outside India. Overseas Indians comprise the world's largest overseas diaspora. Every year 2.5 million (25 lakhs) Indians migrate overseas, which is the highest annual number of migrants in the world. Sometimes, we cannot stop this. Partly it is healthy as well.  We get a lot of FDI. Culture spreads across the world. This is a good sign. However, among this 2%, we have a lot of intellectuals and talented people who could have contributed here. This is called opportunity loss. We all need to work innovatively to bring their mindshare here while they reside out of the country (captive centre model). 75 years of India is carrying this risk. I am sure a lot of these intellectuals are helping in outsourcing of services back to India. However, more conscious effort is needed (revenue sharing or profit-sharing model)!!

How much are you contributing and how much are you withdrawing from our greatest asset- “Family and Culture”?

Ravi Saripalle

 

Do You Love Data? The 60 Years of Data Career Story! Every Computer Literate should know from Early “Database Management” to Contemporary “Data Thinking” in Simple Terms! Read this!!

Dear Students and Friends

Recently many students are aspiring for CSE, CSE(Data Science), CSE (AI-ML), etc. Yesterday I was talking to a parent. He is not computer literate but he is betting big on Data Science for his ward’s software career. He was bullish that if his ward does BTech in Data Science, he gets a huge package!! I asked a simple question-what is Data Science sir? Chuckling! He sincerely said, he doesn’t know anything beyond this word! Moreover, he was not expecting this question from me!

It is not one parent, but many educated parents are getting into this domain specific trap. Last year I made a YouTube video explaining the difference between CSE, CSE (AI-ML), IT and CSE (Data Science)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puRhpSSzHJ4 . I am happy that I can see more than 15000 views of this video. However, I thought we would write a special article on Data oriented careers. Please read this!

Computer Science is no longer a branch of other disciplines (earlier it was part of EEE and then specialized to ECE and CSE etc. That was an old story). Similarly, Data World is another dedicated discipline within computer science. People who take up Data related careers need different qualities and traits.

For e.g., If I want to take up a core algorithm development job using some programming language, I require a lot of IQ and mathematical & logical aptitude. If I have to do a Testing job, I need a lot of creativity and patience. If I have to do a software project management job, I require a lot of EQ and SQ. If I have to do an IT Infrastructure related job, I require critical thinking, Problem-solving and decision-making skills. If I have to do Data Family related jobs, I require analytical thinking, visualization capability, mathematical modelling, articulation and storytelling capability!

The Data Family is huge! Let me try to explain concepts with a few examples.

Database: Anywhere you need to store, analyze and retrieve data, you use a database. A Phone book is a database. Your transactions in your bank account are a database. When you go to the doctor, your diagnosis and treatment are stored in a database. Your company sales is a database.

Datawarehouse: Databases provide real-time data, whereas warehouses store data to be accessed for big analytical queries including historical data. Data warehouses are primarily designed to facilitate searches and analyses and usually contain large amounts of historical data.

Datamart: A data mart is very similar to a Datawarehouse, However, unlike a Datawarehouse, the scope of visibility is limited. A data mart supplies subject-oriented data necessary to support a specific business unit.

Data Lake: A data lake stores an organization’s raw and processed (unstructured and structured) data at both large and small scales. Unlike a Datawarehouse or Database, a Data Lake captures anything the organization deems valuable for future use including images, videos, PDFs, etc. However, the technology used in a Data Lake is much more complex than in a Datawarehouse.

Big Data: Big Data in the simplest of words is huge amounts of DATA. A Data Lake is a repository for Big Data.

Datamining, Data Analytics/Data Analysis, Data Science, Data Thinking: Data mining is a process of extracting useful information, patterns, and trends from huge databases. It is a subset of Data Analytics/ Data Analysis. Data Analysis is a subset of Data Science. Data Science + Design Thinking is now termed as Data Thinking. Data Thinking is the new philosophy adapted in the data world. It is a human centered way of dealing with data strategy (empathy, synthesis, ideation, prototyping and testing). 

Let me share a simple example to understand these technical terms better:

ABC marriage bureau stored all prospective brides and grooms’ information in a Database. However, if you add their Horoscope, their family history and all relevant information then it is called Datawarehouse. If we want only one sect in a particular caste, brides and grooms’ details, it is called Datamart. If we add entire social media details of all brides and grooms belonging to one particular city, their Facebook and Instagram’s photos, their educational degree proofs in pdf formats, their employment details and certificates in multiple images and so on, it is called a Data Lake. If we store all city profiles of this size into one repository, then it is called Big Data.

If we want to get meaningful information from a particular family/surname specific detail, it is called Data Mining. If we want to bring some visualizations/ analysis using some statistical models in a particular family and their upbringing over a period of time then it is called data analysis/data analytics. If we want to know how this family is going to behave or be financially positioned in the next 10 years, or how they change their lifestyle etc, then we have to use advanced statistical tools and it is called Data Science. If we want to understand why one particular segment of grooms are not getting married or why particular segment of pairs are divorcing, then you have to deal that data with an empathetic view and create an analysis, generate ideas to solve this problem, develop a few solutions etc which is called as Design Thinking way of dealing Data. Now this kind of view is called Data Thinking.

When Data Science meets Design Thinking, it is called Data Thinking. Design Think employs Human-centeredness, associated with art and creativity while Data Science is a rigorous, quantitative discipline.

Hope you understand how to develop a Data oriented career? Do You? Transition from Database Management to Data Thinking! Will you?

Ravi Saripalle