happy Indepence Day !!

Dear friend,
advanced Indian Independence Day wishes to you !!
The reason for wishing you a week in advance is because I just came back from volunteering in the day-long Independence Day celebrations organized by the Consulate General of India (CGI) at the Yonge-Dundas square. The program included a procession along prominent streets in downtown area by various states (provinces in India) such as Karnataka, Goa, Rajasthan, describing their states. The most intriguing one was a procession by Indian Oversees Congress Party. I never knew one such association even existed!! Didn't know how appropriate it was for the CGI to patronize a political party, but being a Congress follower, I didn't mind watching Rahul Gandhi's blow-up taken around Toronto!!

Here are some pics from the event:

my state, Karnataka's procession

me with Karnataka Maathe (mother Karnataka)

Rajasthan's procession was quite colorful (but incomparable to Karnataka's)

This summer I've witnessed so many national/cultural events, almost one every week. Yesterday I had been to a Greek festival and the week before to a Caribbean event. I've been to 4 Indian programs this summer. I'm amazed by the amount of diversity in this country and the welcoming nature of its people.

another anniversary !!

On 5th this month its gonna be a year since I stepped foot on Toronto. Can't believe how fast this one year has rolled by. But after having stayed away from home and been put through a grueling MBA program, this year's been replete with lessons for the rest of my life.
In retrospect, it's been a wonderful year, worth every second that I lived.

I haven't able to update blog for quite some time partly because my time management is gone for a toss (a euphemism for "I'm a freakin, lazy guy") & partly because I have my fingers in too many pies.

I'm interning at Sun Life Financial (SLF) where I'm working as a Project Manager for a $500 million outsourcing contract that SLF recently signed with IBM. Its a high visibility project both inside SLF & IBM & I get to interact with senior managers from both sides.

Besides the internship, which has been quite hectic till now, I'm working on an Independent Study Project (a graded course that's counted as part of our 2nd year elective) for a consulting firm called LPR Global. Our assignment is to conduct market research & come out with recommendations for market entry for a South Korea based consumer electronics manufacturer. My team's performance has been quite good till now. We've succeeded in selling few of our products to a leading telecom carrier in the US.

I'm the VP of the Rotman Dance Club for this year. We initially had to put in considerable effort to transform our club from Salsa Club to Dance Club, that would support other dance forms such as Bollywood, Ball Room, etc. We had to conduct surveys among the members, convince the Rotman Club Administration to rename our club. Substantial effort was also dedicated to revamp the club website. But all our work till now has been just to create the new club, lot more effort is needed in the course of the year to ensure successful co-ordination of the various activities we've planned for this year.

A good amount of my time is also being spent on meeting Rotman alumni from various industries to understand their jobs & if I'd want to be in that profession a year from now. I've stuck with technology & marketing professions till now, since these are my preferences till now. Rotman has a great program called the Mentorship program where senior alums are assigned to interested students & the mentor helps the student understand various top manager issues and shares his perspectives on several topics. I've been extremely lucky to have the CFO of Rogers, one of the largest telecom/media firms in Canada, Bill Linton, as my mentor. I've discussed several interesting topics such the role he plays in increasing shareholder value, M&A strategies of multi-billion Dollar firms, etc. Bill has also introduced me several senior executives in his network with whom I can further interact and learn from.

Despite all this work, my social life has also been quite active. This weekend was a long one & I made quite good use of the time to visit few places around Toronto. The weekend also had a wonderful ending with an evening of "rusty pelican" ice-cream at De Metre's and bhel puri with Kashmiri chai at Little India on Gerrard Street.

Looking for another fun filled weekend and an interesting week in between !!

Bye for now..

10 things I didn't know about Poland

Dear friend,

Today’s article is going to be the 1st edition of a topic that’s very close to my heart: “10 things I didn’t know about country X” that I had spoken about a few months ago here.

I’ve chosen Poland for today’s article. I caught up with Dariusz, a Polish classmate at Rotman & dear friend of mine, asking him to tell us about Poland. Let me give you a brief introduction to Dariusz. He has his Masters in Banking & Finance from Krakow University of Economics and has 7 years of experience in invoice finance and asset based lending in London & Warsaw. He’s extremely fond of the Latin American dances and can put to shame many Latinos with his sleek Salsa moves!!

So here I was, at a reading room in University of Toronto’s Graduate House, close to midnight on Sunday, urging a 30ish Polish guy to come up with interesting facts about his country for the rest of us to know about. Here’s the list he churned out:

1) In the UK, the Polish form the 2nd largest immigrant population. The 1st place is held by none other than us Indians!!

2) Currently Poland is the only growing economy in the EU, notwithstanding the economic crisis that has hit hard the whole of the EU. The main reason being large FDI from the richer EU neighbors who want to capture a slice of this developing economy. Technology outsourcing is also supposed to quite be hot. So any techies reading this point, keep a keen eye on Poland.

3) Pablo Picasso, one of the greatest painters of the modern era is supposed to have said “The three most astonishing things in the past half-century were the blues (Afro-American music), cubism (20th century art movement), and Polish vodka. “ As for the Polish food, sausages seem to be one of the most popular dishes they have. The last time I was in a Polish restaurant with my classmates, I saw a separate menu for savories based on sausages!!

Here's one such delicacy:

4)
Poland lost 6 million of its citizens in the 2nd world war and became an USSR satellite state, post WW Lech Walesa, who became later a President, spearheaded the Polish revolt against the USSR domination thereby making Poland the 1^st country to liberate from the Communist bloc. The movement he started was called Solidarity and he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1983.

5) Religion is a critical component of the Polish people. 89% Poles follow the Roman Catholic Church. The previous Pope of The Church, John Paul II, was from Poland. His funeral was the largest funeral gathering of world leaders and public. An estimated 4 million mourners gathered in Rome and cost The Vatican 6 million euro for the entire event. John Paul II was the first non-Italian Pope since the 1520s and was widely acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century

6) In 2006-2007 Polish Prime Minister and President were identical twin brothers elected in democratic elections. One of the brothers is still the President as of 2009. They both starred in the 1962 Polish film “The Two Who Stole the Moon”

7) Polish history goes back to 966, however, there was a period of over 120 years when Poland did not formally exist after political and military partitions among Russia, Austria, and Prussia (1795 - 1918). Warsaw is the third capital in the Polish history after Gniezno and Krakow

8) Main Market Square in Krakow is the largest medieval town square in Europe (200 by 200 meter square)

9) Frédéric Chopin, a world-renown pianist and composer, was born in Poland where he lived until he was 20. He was one of the great masters of Romantic music.

10) Finally, for all the football (soccer??) fans out there, here's something trivia for you: Poland and the Ukraine will be hosting the European Soccer Championship in 2012

The discussion gave me a brief insight from a Polish into this emerging economy and its culture. Hope you'd find this article interesting & useful as I did !!

As winter sets in..

Things are changing so fast & so much out of your control, not just the weather...even your own life.


Yesterday when I came out of school I was delighted to see a white blanket of snow all over. I was witness to withering of leaves from the past one month, but today's sudden transformation of green to white was unexpected. Seeing snow for the first time was an experience in itself. I had to consciously restrain myself from not touching the snow so that I my health doesn't get screwed at this crucial time.


This weather change is in sense a mirror to the way my life is getting transformed here. These three months have done so much polishing to me that I never expected before I came here.
At school, each day we are bombarded with so many bewildering choices and challenges. You can schedule each minute of your time to atleast two tasks. You could either work on you project or the weekend's case competition or you can study for tomorrow's Statistics quiz or do Business Finance assignment. What do you choose? All are are of equal priority.

Here are some of the cool things I've learnt in past few weeks. This is just to show you how much intersting learning in a B-School is. Mind you these are just few of the plethora of things that are currently on top of my head:
1) New technology doesn't always mean big money. Ex1. InVitro Maturation Artificial Reproductive Technology (IVM-ART) - Medi-cult, a pharma company had a real bad time selling it. Ex2: Very Light Jet (VLJ)- Linear Air, an air-taxi service started by an HBS grad is facing a tough challenge making profits out of this cutting edge technology due to the already overcrowded airline industry.
2) Lets say there are two stocks with risks r1 and r2 such that share2 is riskier than share1. If you create a portfolio having these two stocks, the effective risk r(1,2) of the portfolio can adjusted to be lesser than r1. In other words, your portfolio risk is lesser than the lowest risk of individual shares in the portfolio.
3) There are quite a number of ways for a company to borrow money from a bank but not show it on its balance sheet !! This one is really intersting isn't it? :)


I had almost forgotten what a festival celebration is till I got a lucky chance to watch a Santa Claus parade on Bloor street this Sunday. There were tiny tots with their parents waving their hands and singing "jingle bells". I could actually feel the joy in those small kids by remembering the jovial mood I used to be in during "pallakki" festival in my home town.



This picture is from the parade passing near the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) near my school.

We've got two more weeks for Q2 exams to commence and before that submissions of various assignments and projects are due. I've joined as a PM for an UofT student project, I'll discuss more about it in a later blog. It's been a very good experience with lot of learning till now.

So these are some of my updates from past few weeks..

A new series in terraintamer.blogspot.com

Q1 exams got over yesterday. Q2 will be starting in full flow from Monday. I Need to read through 2 two topics for Strategy class. And by "reading" I mean I need to be completely through with the topics & also gather few points for class participation. My gut feeling that I may need to slog the entire Q2 like we did in last 2 weeks before Q1 exams.


The past few months in Rotman has been a truly International experience for me. My classmates are from 30 odd countries. For any topic discussion in the class, each student brings out her perspective that's so unique to their culture & different from mine that I instantaneously feel "wow !! what an amazing point that was". This has inspired me to start a new series on my blog. I am planning to interact with some of my classmates & understand what's unique in their country/culture that many of us don't know of. Then I'm gonna compile it on my blog with a title like "10 things I didn't know about countryX".
Hopefully, this exercise will let me learn a little bit more about global cultures & also spread the "gyan" to you guys..

For a starter, did you know that "hola" with stress on "A" is Portuguese & "hola" with stress on "O" is Spanish? Basically, you greet a Brazilian with the 1st option & any other person from Latin America with the 2nd option.


Ciao..

Indian Railways @ Rotman

We got this article from our Media Relations office this tuesday:


Indian Railways Return to UofT’s Rotman School of Management.

Toronto – For the second year in a row, a program at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management will provide a look at the latest trends in management thinking and transportation for 40 senior managers from The Indian Railways, the second largest railway network in the world. Managers, from the finance and human resources functions of The Indian Railways, will be in Toronto from September 22 to October 4.

The two week program will provide participants with focused classes in finance, human resources, strategy and marketing. In addition to the classroom-based activities, the participants will have site visits to transportation and logistics firms.

“The Indian Railways have underwent a grand transformation in recent years becoming one of the most successful transportation companies in the world,” says Prof. Dilip Soman, Corus Chair in Communications Strategy, at the Rotman School, who is the academic director of the program. “Education and training, such as this program, are important for the company to continue its renaissance.”

The Indian Railways is the second largest railway network in the world and the largest civilian organization under a single management. It carries over 13 million passengers and 1.2 million tons of freight every day, runs 12,000 trains daily with nearly 8,000 Railway stations.

The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world’s most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The School is currently raising $200 million to ensure Canada has the world-class business school it deserves. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.



This explained why we were seeing so many well dressed Indian men & women in the School over the weekend. I has initially thought that Rotman had rented out our CIBC Hall on 3rd floor for some Indian business meeting..


Later, I was able to collect some more info from Prof. Dilip Soman. This program was previously being done at NYU-Stern & Prof. Soman was instrumental in getting this program to Rotman.


Indian Railways has been a life-line of sorts for India, ever before Independence. So much so that there's a separate Railway Budget presented by the Central government.
It has been performing brilliantly well of late, very much inline with the economic boom in India. Contrary to most of the PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings) that have crumbled post liberalization, Indian Railways has been one of the few organizations that was able to capitalize on the booming economy.

Imparting top-class business education to top management is one facet of its willingness to innovate & revamp itself. But I think this is one the most important steps towards nurturing a better organization. Its this top management that's going back to implement new strategies to increase profits & at the same time move to around tonnes of freight & millions of Indians at least possible prices.

This program is going to be a good image building for Rotman as well. Now you know Rotman is behind all those innovations Indian Railways is going to roll out in the coming years. Hope delayed trains will be a thing of the past soon.. :)

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camp Manitou - an unforgettable experience

"Dude, this orientation camp was so dis-orienting" -- this was what one of my friends said after we came back from the 3 day camp to Camp Manitou (http://www.manitoucamp.com)
It was 3 days of exhausting fun. We had lots of team building competitions during day & we then partied all night. The entire period was so action packed that we didn't have time to gasp a breathe.



On the way to the camp, we had speed networking sessions (a 2nd year's idea, inspired by speed dating) by which we were supposed to meet many of our bus mates. I had a nice conversation with Jen Provan, a sailor who had represented Canada in Beijing'08.

After reaching the camp, we were shown to our cottages where we threw our luggage & headed to the dining hall to have lunch.
After lunch we had the Finance competition. Were given about 30 cards of 4 different colors, each representing land, labor, market & money. The mission of the competition was to form as many possible combinations of land, labor, market & money of the same color. If we needed any cards to complete our combination, we could trade it with any of our cards in a trading session that was held for 10 mins at 3 intervals. My team ended up garnering 880 points, the winning team had about 1200 points.


After the competition, the Desi gang went out to play cricket. Guess where we played? In the baseball ground. Indian improvisation right over there.. :)

Later, our Dean, Roger Martin visited the camp. We had an interactive discussion about his brainchild & the main buzzword at Rotman: Integrative Thinking.

That evening we had a casino event hosted by the faculty, including the Dean & the Vice Dean. We got to play with all these big guns in a very informal environ. There were free drinks to further relax our nerves when talking to them.. :)



Next day morning after the breakfast, we had the Consulting contest. The case was to come out with a recommendation for a leading credit card company that wants to enter the calling card market.
We came out with quite an out-of-the-box idea & we presented it quite well, so we got a clearance for the final round.
But in the finals, we missed out the 1st place by just 2 pts & had to content with the 2nd prize.

After lunch we had one of the best events in the camp: the Olympics. We were again split up into teams of 5 & were to play some of the more popular games such as basket-ball & volley-ball and some customized games such as "Grapefruit passing" (its a very interesting game, you've to play to know it). I got to play ice-hockey for the 1st time & I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even scored the winning goal for my team !!
By the end of the Olympics all of us were completely, all-and-out exhausted.
The soccer fans still had some batteries left, we went & had a good game of soccer.

As the sun came down, the party animals started coming out. Today's theme was movie costumes. We had been previously informed about the theme, so all of us had brought some kind costume along with us. I had brought a flashy "jhink-chak" shirt that I had brought in Pune, a pair of sun glasses. These were enough to make people believe that I was some Bollywood star.
One guy in my cottage had a costume of Ghost Busters while another had dressed himself as some Star Wars characher.
At the venue, it was amazing to see so many colorful people. One girl was a Marlyn Manroe in her famous white dress, there were a bunch of pirates & a whole lot of Jokers, inspired by the cult icon Heath Ledger. Can't forget his line "do you how I got these scars?"
Some of the Desi gang recognized me as Rajinikant, so I decided that's what I am gonna be. I was boasting some of the heroics of Rajini such as lighting a cigarette with a gun, etc to some of the curious "phoren" students..




Next morning was our last day in the camp. All of us were dead tired by now. I saw most ppl limping around. It must be either coz of the Olympics or they had tripped while heading back to cottages after all the drinking & partying. I confess mine was because of the Olympics.. :)

We had a marketing contest right after the breakfast. Most of us were too tired to participate. Winners were decided based on which team receives the max numbers of claps or table banging for their performance. The winning team had put in quite a good show.

We then had lunch & got on to the buses & head back to the school.

All-in-all, it was a great effort & co-ordination by the 2nd years that made this event a great success.

my updates

Dear friend,
Just few more days left before the D-day when our MBA program starts formally. Almost all the profs we meet scare us by telling it’s going to be a grueling fall/winter session. We are getting mentally prepared for the worst.


The past 3 weeks have been a completely different experience for me. Never ever have I stayed away from home for this long & that too so far away. Every now & then I’m reminded of mom & dad, I think “should I have listened to dad & stayed back in my home-sweet-home?”

Each time I have something at McDonalds or Subway, I’m reminded of those occasions where mom used to prepare some curries that I didn’t like very much & she used to plead “eat this one time son, I’ll prepare your favorite mutton curry tomorrow”
But each time such emotions run through me, I’m reminded of the moral of how even gold needs to be heated & melted in order to make it an aesthetic jewel.


Nagaraj uncle & his family are a great respite for me. Staying with them, I feel as comfortable as I would have staying with my family.
Internet has also been of great help. By visiting some of the Kannada websites, we can ‘almost’ feel at home. I frequently visit kannadaaudio.com, thatskannada.com & prajavani.com. I am constant touch with all my dear friends through mails & chat.


I happened to visit a few must-visit places in & around Toronto such as the Niagara falls, Toronto islands & the CN Tower. We decided we’d rather visit them now, since there may not be much time later to go around.
We had also been to the Toronto Blue Jays baseball game with Boston Red Sox. It seemed more like a networking session where I got introduced some of my Rotman classmates.


In the past 3 weeks, I’ve stayed at different places in Toronto such as Brampton, Dundas West, Elmhurst, Lansdowne & Toronto Downtown. The one thing that completely impresses me is the cultural diversity that’s made this beautiful city. I think you’ll find people from almost all places in the world such as Ethiopia, Ukraine, Burma, China & India (of course).

I think Toronto is a blown up version of Bengaluru. Just as you’ll find people from every corner of India in Bengaluru, you’ll find people from every corner of the Earth here.
SABA (South Asian Business Association), a Rotman club, had organized a very useful session on PR (Permanent Resident, equivalent to US Green Card) application. This has given me some josh to complete the formalities & submit the application. Will have to dedicate some more time this week & weekend for this.


Most of the recommended book list for this quarter is out & most of the students have started preparing seriously. Even I need to start off now, hunting for the books i.e :)
Ok, too much info in this 1 posting. Bye for now..

tips for a good presentation

1st week of International Student Orientation Week just finished today & the air is filled with so much competition.
There was a presentation competition where all the students were split into teams of 4 (mine being the last team had 3 members), each team had to give a presentation on a chosen topic. My team's team presentation on Operation/Supply Chain Mgmt. was a big disappointment. Although we had some very good visuals & had aimed at reducing text in the ppt to as low as possible, the judgment panel had a Logistics Prof who grilled us thoroughly.
Although, we didn't quite manage to get to the finals (any surprises here ??), I did managed to compile few tips that need to considered when giving future presentations. This was a collection of feedbacks that our & other teams received from the panel. (after adding Soumak's contribution)

When preparing the presentation:

1)1^st word of each bullet should be of same case (upper case/lower case).

2) Show slide number, date & ppt title on each title.

3) Diagrams must be easy to read, non-cluttering & not confusing. If too big, cut it & split it to the next slide.

4) To impress the subject expert, try to cover the future trends of the topic.

5) Use humor, but let not the humor be criticizing the topic.

6) Ensure there's a logical structure to your presentation. For instance, it must have a contents & conclusion section.

7) Do not have too much text.

During the presentation:

1) Dress code should be uniform for all the team members.

2) Support a team member if he’s stuck at a particular point.

3) For guys, having hands in the pocket is a big no-no, since it may seem that the presenters are bit laid back for the occasion.

4) Beware of the time constraint.

5) During the presentation, don’t “read out” what’s on the slide. Don’t turn back to the display to refer to it. Look at your laptop in your front to get clues if you are stuck.

6) Its better to not move around. Too movement may distract the audience.

I'm sure you'll have more tips that could be added. Please add them as comments, I'll consolidate them.

Update on Sep 9th, 2009:
Here's an interested read on this topic: LINK