Blog It Forward – Kumud Singh

I was honored to be tagged by Fred in Blog it forward initiative. I very much like this idea of Blogging it forward to community members as these are few distinct features of SCN. Even though there was no question to tell about myself, I would do that 😉 .

About me:

I have got potential to make a hall packed with hundreds of people burst into peals of laughter with activities that does not seem funny to me but somehow to people around me. It so happened, that I was asked by my best friend in College to participate in a singing competition as it was last year of Engineering and they were somehow delighted to have me in the team. Let me inform you that the same group had always won first prize in all the previous competitions held. The group had made me stand in the first row on stage. Just before going on stage, I saw my friends writing songs on their wrist. I just followed them and wrote the songs on my wrist. We went on stage in front of the entire college and started singing. To the great surprise of my team, everyone in the hall was laughing their heart out and the team could not understand the reason until they saw me with my wrist help high till my eyes. [Ok, in case you did not get the joke, friends wrote songs on their wrist, just in case if they forget the sequence of songs they could see their wrist but silently and not the way I did] Later I came to know that my teachers were laughing hysterically as they thought, “Kumud is bothered about timing constraints not only during exams but also in singing competition” as they had thought I was seeing time. It’s all together a different story that I cried, as just because of me the team could not get any prize but they all happily forgave me and suggested that few things are better done privately than publicly.

The Three Questions:

1. Tell us something about your favourite hobby.

I love reading books and I have got quite a collection of them. My latest read books includes Chanakya’s chants (book you would not want to miss if you like thrilling stories), Good to great  and The One Thing You Need to Know . I love adventurous activities.

The latest includes a trip to Jammu, high on mountains as can be seen from the few pictures that I was allowed to take:

I love exploring places with my parents and the latest includes trip to Kerala.

                                                       [This one was at Taj-Mahal, Agra]

Apart from this I love get-togethers with old friends and colleagues.

I like blogging on my personal BlogSpot account. For a good laugh you may read this.

2. If you were not in your current role, what/where would you be and why?

I would have been a Professor. My dad is professor of Mechanical Engineering. I love his passion and dedication towards imparting education. In his free time, he does also give free teaching to poor and needy students. I remember, I had requested forced him to take me to his institute as there was a vacancy for a temporary Guest Lecturer and I had few months’ time before joining my first job as a Software Developer.

I did that without knowing any further details. Much to mine and my dad’s surprise I was offered to teach ‘Artificial Intelligence’ to final year students. I highlight final as to teach final year students for a fresher wasn’t going to be any easy. I remember my dad had asked me to take back my proposal which in turn challenged me more to go there. Much to my dad’s and Director’s surprise I had 100% attendance in my class. [I think students paid respect to the class as they could easily make out that the teacher was putting lot of efforts to prepare for the class 😉 . I also found out later that my dad secretly visited my classes in between to make sure, I was not bullied upon by students 😛 ].

3. What is your favorite SAP event and why?

I do not have much of a choice here 🙂 as I have attended just two SAP-events so far.

One was Design thinking workshop at tech-ed 2011. Thanks to Marilyn. Other was SIT India at Bangalore.  Both were very good but I have a deep respect for design thinking initiative and it has certainly impacted me and to some extent, my daily life. Best part is, the feeling of design thinking is contagious and I don’t know how many I have affected with the same feeling. However I feel that this initiative has huge potential to change things and people.

                    [My team at Design Thinking workshop at tech-ed 2011]

                                                       [SIT India participants at Bangalore]

Blogging It Forward

I would like to blog it forward to David Hull Jan Penninkhof Jim Spath Vinod Kumar and I would be happy if they could answer these:

1) Latest books you have read and would suggest community members to read as well?

2) Had you not been into software at all, where would you have been?

3) Biggest challenge as a Mentor / Moderator?

On that note, thanks for reading my blog. Looking forward to read everyone’s Blog It Forward.