00:03Good afternoon, Founders, Anil, Yogesh, the Torch Bearer, Sahil, and the Director, Dean, Dr. Srinivasan.
00:22All the faculty members, all the proud parents, and more importantly, the heroes of the day, all the students.
00:42You know, I just couldn't help but admire Anil not because of his spiritual wisdom, not only because he covered
00:53everybody, which included the staff which keeps our life running.
01:00So, Anil, thank you for that graciousness. And since he is the only one who can do it with such
01:09elegance and, you know, take everybody into his embraces, I feel very, very happy that I am here today.
01:22So, again, students, I can only share some stories with you. And these stories are more as a reflection. It's
01:32got nothing to do with how you would deal with your life.
01:36I think you have been prepared very, very well. I've had the chance to work with some of your colleagues.
01:43So, I can say that you come very, very well prepared.
01:54The story is, I'm graduating in 81. I end up in a company called HCL. I walk up to my
02:04regional manager. I was a management trainee.
02:07I walk up to my regional manager, Wing Commander Verma. Unfortunately, he is no longer alive. But I go to
02:16him and he was called popularly Titch.
02:19And the culture in, you know, luckily in the software industry and the computer industry is everybody is known by
02:26the first name.
02:27So, I walk up to him and I said, Titch, I have a question. He said, what is that? And
02:33I said, when do I get your job? What are the promotion policies here?
02:40You know, and he looks at me and he said, you barely joined the company, but I'm happy that you
02:48started asking this question because you want my job.
02:52He said, I'll give you a very early wisdom. Because I started by asking job satisfaction. You know, I started
03:03by asking promotion. I started by asking what are the other policies.
03:09And Titch being, though a wing commander in armed forces, but he started saying, Kake, job satisfaction is that the
03:22satisfaction that you have a job.
03:28And it doesn't apply to you anymore. Please remember, I am, as a, as a compere here introduced, you said
03:35four decades of experience.
03:37It should be four and a half decades of experience. So, now you know the vintage. Slightly, I think older
03:46than Anil, but it's okay. That's what he would like to believe.
03:50Because he, he walks faster than I do. That's all I can tell you. So, I said, sir, okay, I
03:59got satisfied that I have got a job. But policies, promotion, he said.
04:06You know, you joined private sector. You did not join IAS. And in private sector, as long as your boss
04:14listens to you, you are doing all right.
04:17I said, thank you very much. Now that you are listening to me. He said, no, the other thing you
04:24need to take care is your peers should admire you.
04:29I said, it's a contrarian statement, peers admire you. I mean, peers should be envious of me, but jealous of
04:36me, but admire.
04:37He said, no, you will understand as you go along. Because if you are doing well, initially they may be
04:43jealous of you, but eventually they'll admire you.
04:46I said, all right, that's again profound statement. I'm sure Chinmai mission did not teach me this. Then, I still
04:56waiting for the answers.
04:57He said that at the end of the day, the third thing happens with you, you will automatically feel empowered
05:06and you will feel the ownership.
05:07What is the third thing? Third thing is that your juniors follow you. They are the ones who respect you
05:16so much, they love you so much that they stand up and work for you.
05:22Now that I think, in a way, has been a guiding principle of my life. That if I am empowered,
05:31if I feel like an owner, then obviously all these three things will get aligned.
05:37Which is, my seniors, it doesn't matter. You could be running your own industry. You still will have a board.
05:44Your peers, you may think you are the CEO, but ultimately there will be peers. You could be a member
05:50of a FICCI, member of a CII, member of an ASSOCAM, or any other body where there will be peers.
05:57And juniors, remember, they don't follow the job satisfaction. Now they follow, where is my learning? Where is my recognition?
06:09Where is my reward?
06:10But they still, if they are willing to follow you or they are willing to listen to you, you have
06:17done well.
06:18So my, this reason I am sharing this story is because when I meet the youngsters now, they try and
06:26remind me that in 2000 there was a management language called VUCA.
06:34Volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. How would you describe what is happening today?
06:41And I said, if it was true in 2000, it is true in 2026.
06:48He said, no, there are people who come back with new management jargon.
06:52I said, whatever jargon they use, they are still using the same words.
06:58Volatility, uncertainty, complex and ambiguity.
07:02But that's what all of us have been prepared for.
07:05We have been prepared for positivity.
07:08We have been prepared for being able to correlate all the ups and downs.
07:14We have been able to correlate right from our childhood when we were asked to play a game called snakes
07:20and ladders.
07:23That, you didn't know what your dice will roll out.
07:26But you still played the game smartly.
07:29You still believed in reaching the destination.
07:34So my belief is, yes, the geopolitics is uncertain.
07:37Yes, I do believe things around us will change.
07:42And it doesn't matter whether the change is called AI or not.
07:45It doesn't matter where the change is called the price of crude oil.
07:53It doesn't matter where the change is considered.
07:57Nepal saying the route to Mansarovar only goes through them.
08:02That, there will always be a conflict.
08:06There will always be something which is uncertain.
08:11So my request to all of you is, how do you deal with this?
08:16You deal with going back into your education.
08:19And I am glad that your school by design asks you to correlate history.
08:28Correlate spiritual.
08:29Correlate all the data points that a normal person does not correlate to.
08:35A normal person is looking only at data which is coming to him through whatever.
08:40Now what do you call it?
08:41ChatGPT.
08:42You call it cloud.
08:43But that data is not sufficient.
08:46There is a power of mind here.
08:48And that power of mind, I do believe that you all possess.
08:53And the more you are able to correlate and make that data work for you, AI is an advantage.
09:03AI, it is an applied intelligence.
09:05AI will help you become better at how you deliver.
09:12I mean, I still remember one more.
09:14I used to be the chairman of NASCOM in 2015.
09:18And I had invited Mukesh Ambani to be the chief guest.
09:23And Mukesh Ambani, and it became a very popular slogan called data is the new oil.
09:29And he predicted, you know, if you have seen all the announcements regarding AI, in 2015, Mukesh Ambani, in a
09:38NASCOM conference, actually, you know, predicted that data is a new oil.
09:44Except that the latest ones started saying, the real oil is the crude oil that you get.
10:00But anyway, that's not important.
10:02Important is, I think India has a huge advantage.
10:06The advantage is data of 1.4 billion people.
10:12Think about it.
10:13If you are able to harness it in the right direction, what is the cost advantage?
10:19What is the innovation advantage?
10:21What is it that you can achieve in the future?
10:26Most of us have been asked this question, at least the people like me who have been in the industry,
10:35why is India not producing intellectual products?
10:39Why is an Nvidia or an Apple or a Google's market cap is bigger than the economy of hundreds of
10:49the countries?
10:50And when will India start producing products of that lever or that capability?
10:56And in my opinion, that responsibility is now yours.
11:02And it is an opportunity.
11:05Reason is, think of, what is life sciences?
11:09When he was in COVID, you know, the one vaccine was produced by somebody who was able to mass produce
11:20it.
11:21They took the license from AstraZeneca.
11:24They mass produced it.
11:26Very successful.
11:27But the real success was Dr. Krishna Ila.
11:31Because they produced a vaccine which was designed, engineered, R&D, developed and manufactured in India.
11:43So that Bharat Biotech, in my opinion, leveraged the data sciences in India.
11:51Think about it in many different formats.
11:54It's not only life sciences, our hospitals, our, you know, medical management system.
12:02Think about agriculture.
12:04You have seen the education.
12:05If we start applying AI and data, I think it's a real opportunity.
12:10And I know many of you here will be the next Nikhil Kamats, the next Narayan Murthy's.
12:17And I would be your cheerleader.
12:19I would be happy to be clapping for you.
12:22And thank you, guys.
12:23And congratulations.
12:31Thank you for this beautiful ceremony.
12:33And thank you, Sahil and Anil and Dr. Srinivasan for inviting me here.
12:38Congratulations.
12:39And let's celebrate together.
