How an Invisible Man is Killing Traditional Jobs and Creating Alternative Opportunities?

Dear Friends

Listen to my story! I am not threatening you but to create awareness!

This is Ravi Saripalle. I hail from a small village in Vizianagaram District, Andhra Pradesh. I speak Telugu at home. I studied in Telugu Medium school and college.

After a lot of struggles, I learnt how to develop an application using HTML, JavaScript and Java. However, I did not have the confidence to face an interview. One day I got a pamphlet titled, “Become Fluent in English in 30 Days”. I visited their office. However, one teacher is teaching 110 students in a big hall using Mic! I went for 3 days but I didn’t receive the tutor’s attention. In 3 days, I could speak only for 5 seconds- “Tell about yourself”. I was disappointed. 

That is the time I heard about http://skill2030.com, AI Powered Metaverse Based English Language Tutor cum Mock Interview Prep Tool. The master trainer Ms. Kiran (AI Avatar, I can select Indian Male/Female or Brit Male/Female or American Male/Female) has given me excellent opportunity to learn one-on-one, personalized feedback on various aspects of Language learning like phonology (sounds), syntax(grammar), semantics(meaning), and pragmatics(usage), the 4 critical aspects of English Language. I attended an interview and got selected for a company as an app developer.

First one month was great. Induction program went well. I was assigned to a project. I was asked to develop a simple form, report and connection to the database. I took 10 days to write basic code, still testing. My manager was not happy with my productivity! He hired another developer with Zoho Creator experience! This developer developed a form and report in a single day. I was shocked! My insecurity doubled. I started learning Zoho Creator, a low-code application development platform that helps to design, develop and run any business software we need. My productivity increased by 10 times.

As part of my job, I need to write a lot of emails. As I studied in a non-English medium school, my grammar is not that great.  In one of the mails, I wrote this way,” Hi, youre doing well. Did you got a chance to check the report? I hear He take lot of time to open. I hear your fedback.”. You can imagine the response from my customer. Immediately my manager subscribed to Grammarly Business (grammarly.com)! Now my life has become easy. 

I became project manager. I need to write proposals to various prospects. I used to take 2 days to write a single proposal. Problem is not with technical words. Problem is how to present it in English. I used to be nervous every day to show a one page note to my manager! One day I sent an apology mail to my manager-“I promise not to bother you again today”. Manager patted my shoulder. He looked at my sincerity. Next day gave me a Jasper account (jasper.ai). It is an AI Copywriting Assistant. It writes original and creative content. Today we are using Jasper to write blog articles, social media posts, website copy, and many more!

This story doesn’t end here. There are many invisible people visiting my office, shaking the traditional jobs and creating new sets of opportunities. Stay tuned for my next post!

Responsible AI is to empower, transparent, accountable, and more ethical

Ravi Saripalle

Hard to Accept this Definition but Soft to Reject? Soul Pleasure and Pressure Vs Societal Pleasure and Pressure? Read this perspective!

Dear Friends and Students

Gustavo Petro, the Mayor of Bogota, Columbia, said" - “A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation?”. It is hard to accept the definition right! However, you softly reject it as society would not agree for this? Sometimes our soul disagrees but we accept it for society! This is the problem with educated?

Today Education is more layered! Initially, education aims to transform individuals and bring some light into their life. As we progress, layers get added. Sometimes, we mask with artificial faces. I was happily riding my bicycle till I got a job! I bought a second hand TVS and rode happily without ego, though I was capable of buying better at that time. I was thinking it was a natural extension. However, today I am thinking twice before downgrading our luxuries. We are adding more and more. It is definitely an ego! It is all about proving in society! We are not making souls happy. We think more about what others think about us.

I strongly believe poor is the state of mind. In this world today, opportunities are democratized. We make hue and cry but if we invest the same time in developing our mind, opportunities are created.

Andrew Carnegie: His first job was at age 13 as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a Pittsburgh cotton factory. His next job was as a telegraph messenger boy. Colonel James Anderson, gave a boost to Carnegie's education and passion for reading. He began making investments in steel and oil companies that earned him huge returns. By 1889, Carnegie Steel Corporation was the largest of its kind in the world. In 1901, he sold Carnegie Steel to JP Morgan for $480 million, established the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, which is now known as Carnegie-Mellon University. He went on to become the richest man in the world.

Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp, a poor Ukrainian immigrant, immigrated to California with his mother when he was 16. He used to sweep the floor of a grocery store and stood in line to collect food stamps. By 18, he was an expert computer hacker. Rest is history!

Dear Students, Money is the byproduct! It is a state of mind! 7 of the world’s top economic minds think a global recession is coming. Prepare for a ‘long and ugly’ recession, says Dr. Doom, the economist who predicted the 2008 crash.

In this hour, spend more time on Internships! If needed, right from the 2^nd year. They provide high quality skills, understanding of an organization culture, opportunity to correct yourself, and build your profile. If you hanker more for a job and package, you lose an opportunity to demand and command for a particular kind of work or skill in the long run. We have to make a compromise in future. During a recession, please reach out to companies and work for free. But, do not sit in the home and wait for your turn. You become obsolete.  This is going to be the right investment strategy for 2023-24.

Soul Pleasure is an antidote for Societal Pleasure!

Ravi Saripalle

Plenty but Purposeless results Pathetic! Living in scarcity vs. Living in Abundance!! Read this perspective

Dear Friends and Students,

Couple of days back I received a LinkedIn message with the following picture and subtitle- “Doesn’t matter how many resources you have when you don’t know how to use them”. Initially I enjoyed the cartoon but when we see it deeply, it is teaching a great lesson.

A few years back I met a boy preparing for JEE. I saw a huge pile of JEE books on his table, Physics with 4/5 different authors, similarly maths and chemistry. In my enquiry, it is understood that he was also enrolled in a couple of online coaching/test preparation courses. I asked him every day what time do you come home? His honest response was 7PM in the night. How many hours do you get to refer to these books? His candid reply was at most 3 hours. He goes to college at 8AM, continuously hears from various teachers for 9 hours and comes back to home for little self-preparation.

Can you expect that student gets sufficient time to understand concepts, solve on his own, and prepare for tests? Absolutely no. What is he/she doing? They are just memorizing the sums! If a similar sum comes in the paper, they get 150+/300 during the weekend test; else, you can fill the answer! During our days, I used to have a good friend named Ravi Kumar. He used to hold only a couple of books- Mostly Telugu Academy. Once in a while, he used to go to Library for better concepts. He used to clear all our doubts. Without much financial support, he was able to crack entrance examinations. It is a natural process!

If you have one ladder, you ensure that you use it for the right purpose and in the right way! Abundance is not good for the students. In scarcity, your ideas get streamlined and implemented optimally. In abundance, you lose rationality. Mostly we will misuse them.

Living in scarcity but with a purpose is like a rice cake cooked directly with jackfruit leaves!

Living in Abundance without that purpose is like buying expensive cutlery (A golden plate with a fork, knife and spoon kept on it) but with no food!! You buy it to eat but you don’t eat it!

Students, don’t subscribe to too many resources for your goal. One goal at a time, and a few resources to master the skill to reach the goal. This is the only success mantra that helps you to win in your life!!

Ravi Saripalle

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