Monday, November 22, 2010

fetterlock: how mere conversations can change lives

It's hard to believe that one evening's casual but subtle conversations/discussions can change the course of lives. Fetterlock was mere a domain name purchased by my friend (I have no idea why the name). That evening, as usual, my friends were discussing about things in general. There may be very few topics on which we haven't still discussed. Unfortunately, I was absent from the meeting but the story took a turn which we never expected.
Lemme give you a little background. Roy and mittal, lived for 4 years in jwala hostel, iit delhi. Both from different departments and different wings. I'd say fate had something for them both. Mittal had started a company in his third year itself called mitbots. Due to some compatibility snags he had to withdraw from it. Roy, a cheerful, friendly and extremely resourceful young guy of our wing, met and came to know mittal when the latter was frustrated from politics and started visiting us frequently. Although we and him were of opposite sides but in final year, smart people lift themselves from petty politics and make friends rather than enemies. Now you know how Roy and mittal came along.
We had (actually we still have) a zone of "no embarrasment". That means we were all allowed to talk on any topic with any bias. This, I think, gives us an edge as we understand many things with possibly all angles. That evening, roy and mittal were discussing about the education system of India. Of course all past political regimes were blamed and cursed. Then mittal shared his experience about a college in Indore. He said, when he gave a lecture there (representing his previous firm), he noticed something strange. This was the wall of inequality between himself (an iitian) and normal engineering college student's skill set. His mind stuck on a single thing that how could this be. Are the students of those colleges are still paying the price for not clearing iitjee ? Or wether the education system is so blind that it ignores 90% of the students failing to qualify iitjee ? Is it being interpreted as an offense by the system ? So why are they not given the same quality education which we in iit received ? It'll not be a surprise if one notices the lack of even general awareness in them. To talk about other skills development is a total waste of time. To be very frank they don't even know how to make a resume! This took a toll on both mittal and roy and they decided to start fetterlock which aims at developing the skillset of any engineering student in varied vocational fields including web based entrepreneurial ideas. Today every firm needs an engineer. Any job which a doctor or a lawyer can't do, an engineer is game for it. So why shouldn't the engineers be trained in such a way that they stand out from a crowd? They started working on the model. Joined by some more guys gave them tremendous moral boost. I myself could only help them in "cheering up" department. It started from a mere thought which through our discussions got converted to concern and through hard work and brainstorming an idea got conceived. I think it has the potential to change the face of engineering education system in India. Consequently, they named the program as "better engineer", which I think is very relevant.
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2 comments:

Cheeku said...

impressive...!! :)
i totally back the idea..!! :) :) GO GO GO..!!! :) :)

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