About my life experiences and learning
The hack to un-stuck yourself is this: Cheatsheet (1) Look at your goals(2) Look at the people and resources you have now(3) Do what you can with what you have(4) In the process, acquire more people and resources Repeat steps 1 – 4
I personally love journaling a lot. I’ve always relied on writing as a way to obtain better clarity of thought. I’ve journaled for 6+ years now and writing has never failed me. In 2019, I hit a rough patch with anxiety and depression. And in order to understand how I ended up in this bad …
I’m writing this in light of the countless questions I have received from young men and women alike who ask me why there are so many women in tech scholarships and opportunities. And if we still need them. To be able to answer this, let me take a step back and set the context. All …
Have you ever felt your inner self stopping you from saying or doing something? When you know in the core of your heart that you are not yourself? When you feel something is not right or that you don’t belong somewhere? If you’ve experienced that, then it means you have been lying to yourself about …
Who is this for? What would your ideal listener be like? What are their challenges? How do they feel because of these challenges? What are their goals? What would you talk about and how should that ideally make them feel? What do you want them to get at the end of the podcast? Are you …
Answer these questions if you want to start a podcast Read More »
Second Learning Club discussion was around 20% projects. What are 20% projects? Why do them? How to do them right? What we did Read a bunch of blogs around 20% projects The Radical Notion of Not Letting Work Define You 7 Reasons To Treat Your Career as an Experiment 20% projects – What they are …
I first came across this term Meraki in 2016 or so. Right from the first moment that I learned the word, I knew it meant something to me. I felt like the word really summarised who I am as an individual. I’ve often been told that I leave my signature in whatever I do. And …
It was interesting to say the least! Almabase sponsored my entire travel related to the interview. This itself was very nice of them! One I arrived, we had a rushed interview because Kalyan, the CEO had to leave to the US. So there were 4 rounds of the interview packed in just one day. I flew …
Today I interviewed with Almabase for the role of Account executive. Read More »
Writin a winning scholarship application So today I was obsessed with podcasts and decided to do a small project to figure it out. I’ve done a short intro/teaser, which is, as usual, a shitty first draft. Clip below: This was my first and only take and I kinda like how it sounds. I’m hoping to …
The title summarises my last US trip. It was May 2019 and the end of my fellowship. Rethink and Sijo were kind enough to sponsor a US travel for me. The objective of the trip was to explore the mallu network in the US and also meet with potential partners. Another hidden agenda of mine …
On May 26, 2017, just about week after graduating from college, I started working full time at Rethink. Today marks my second work anniversary. This is more of a reflection post that summarises what I’ve been attempting to do in the last two years. The problem / The purpose There are tonnes of scholarship opportunities for …
Every once in a while, I come across students who really wish to do a lot of things, but face resistance from their parents. Most of them, particularly girls, find it difficult to get their parents to be okay with them travelling. And the degree of the effort required to get parents to agree to …
This is a reflection post based on my recent experiences. I had come to hear about Dr.Vinod Prasad, a professor at NTU during my visit there. He had few research students under his wing and they continued to remember him fondly. NTU also has this NTU — India connect program that he used to anchor at the …
Reflection: Circle of influence that each individual has Read More »
We wrapped up cohort 2 of our WIT program this week and the feedback coming in has been great validation. This time, we attempted to get the learners to start thinking about their goals — long term and short term. This exercise was going by the idea that if you have a goal and write it down, …
I got selected to attend Google I/O in May 2016. Except, I had my 6th semester exams happening right when Google I/O was happening. If I choose to attend the conference, I’d miss 3 of my exams. I’d then have to write these missed exams a year later, which would delay my graduation by one year. …
Google I/O, re-scheduling my university exam and getting a job at Google Read More »
Professional development opportunities such as scholarships, mentorships and internships play a key role in shaping up aspirations, capability and confidence of students. Our thesis with Opportunity Project has been that undergraduate students are unable to leverage such opportunities not because they are not smart, but because They do not know about opportunities They do not …
One of our learning program participants brought this up and I felt compelled to write about it First up, I think this is a quite common feeling. And not one specific to women either because I have had male colleagues and friends mention they feel uncomfortable owning their achievements. I have myself gone through the …
This is a common problem. I have seen lots of students restrict themselves from doing things because of their fear of speaking in english. Somehow, they think that they really are unable to speak well in the language and hence stop short of even giving it an attempt. Taking the specific case of scholarships alone, …
This is about things I found amusing/interesting/useful form INSEAD. To know more about my visit to INSEAD, read here: Lessons to adopt from Universities in Singapore Diverse Class Each INSEAD cohort has about 70 students. At the start of the classes, you will be put into a group of 5–6 students and each student in …
This is about things I found amusing/interesting/useful form NUS. To know more about my visit to NUS, read here: Lessons to adopt from Universities in Singapore They have a decent campus tour So you can actually signup on the NUS website for a campus tour. On the day of the tour, one person from the admissions …
This is about things I found amusing/interesting/useful form NTU. To know more about my visit to NTU, read here: Lessons to adopt from Universities in Singapore They don’t have to go to classes. They can instead learn by watching recordings of classes! But if they do wish to take classes, they have to pre-book them. Flipped …
This Feb, Sharon and I visited universities in Singapore. Both of us wish to pursue higher studies from a reputed, world-class institution and thought it was only legit to go see these places we one day aspire to study at. From understanding how these universities are, realising how cool it would be to study in …
Jekyll is a static site generator that you can use to create simple sites or blogs and Github pages is a static site hosting service. By using Jekyll with Github pages, you can quite easily put together your first blog/website for free. I created my first personal website using Jekyll and then went on to …
Creating your blog for free using Jekyll + Github pages Read More »
A number of students write in to me with this question. They get selected to an opportunity and then wonder if they should take up on it. Sharing a case of guidance facilitated in this regard. Second year student at MEC, Selected to an AI Conference I’ve read your blog and I’ve sat for one …
I got selected for an opportunity. But should I go? Read More »
Rethinking Education for the new Knowledge Economy Table of Contents What is my vision to change the world? Why a 21CU? Who will benefit from 21CU and How? How do we go about building 21CU?– Foundational frameworks of 21CU– Story so far Impact Stories Where to? : Roadmap to the future How can Toptal help? About Me …
In the 2weeks of engagement with our WITx Learning Program, we have some real huge things in mind. Let me walk you through our program plan. Program Design Before talking about the Program Plan, let me share some perspectives about how we went about designing the program. Feeling we wish to leave you with I can …
Last week, the girls were on their own and they did really well! I sent one email to them with all that they’ve got to do this week and then stood by the sidelines, watching them help each, figure it out and get it done. When we decided that this is how this week would …
Last week, the WIT cohort 1 girls had a call which went great and Bubbles is a fictional character that took birth during that call. During the first activity that gave our WIT Cohort — to create an intro video, Adheetha wrote t me and said, “I’m not too comfortable speaking in English”. She somehow felt that …
This article has 2 segments: Professional email behaviours On drafting good emails Professional Email Behaviours Stay on top of your email Being regular with checking your emails is important. Since emails are the primary means of communicating reliably with you online, almost all opportunities and organisations stick to email for their communication purposes. Checking your inbox …
Coaching approaches that worked and left an impact on the WIT Cohort 1 students. Dear WIT Cohort 1 Coaches, Last week, we had the WIT Participants pick their coaches and have their first call with them. Some of you have one coaches, some two. And most of you managed to have your very first intro call …
Well the week that went by was absolutely hectic. Both for me personally and for the WIT Cohort! After a slow, comfortable and breezy start, last week we really did accelerate and get a lot of cool stuff done. This blog is me letting you in to my thoughts about our week 2 activities and …
TD for Thought Deck BTW! and TWTW stands for The Week That Was, which is basically a weekly summary of the experiences and learning the person has had. Some of my observations and learning from Week 1 TWTW submissions by our WIT Cohort 1. Here are some TWTWs by participants for you to understand what …
There are tons of opportunities available today and not all of them may be great. Some opportunities may be a scam, others may not be deserving of your time and effort. In any case, validating an opportunity and carefully understanding more about it is important before you decide to apply. How do you go about …
These days, you can find opportunities everywhere. From the newspaper, from your peers and also from the internet. Most education supplements with newspapers have a section on opportunities. Aside, you can also search on the internet for various opportunities. There are some specific websites also that list opportunities and the list below contains some of …
WIT Learning Program Designing and running the WIT Learning Program is really quite different from how I expected it to be. There is so much uncertainty in terms of figuring out how to shape the program. Our key objective is to leave the participants with the feeling and confidence that they can figure things out on …
In the 4 weeks of engagement with our Cohort 1, we have some real huge things in mind. Let me walk you through our program plan. Program Design Before talking about the Program Plan, let me share some perspectives about how we went about designing the program. Feeling we wish to leave you with I can …
We recently built Anita Grace, a chat bot that provides information about the GHCI Student Scholarships. This was very well received by AnitaB India following which we did a quick video sharing our experience. Here’s our chat bot Here’s our video and demo on Anita Grace And here’s our website on Anita Grace Now given …
Tweeting to Brenda, President and CEO of AnitaB.Org Read More »
A lot of our students these days are being selected to attend various conferences and programs that require them to raise money for their travel/visa/accommodation and so on. Since most students are not earning while in College, they will need to source money to attend these programs from various sources. Here are few plausible solutions …
How to make money to travel to conferences/events Read More »
No one likes rejections. I hate it just as much as everyone else. SKG is currently running an Entrepreneurship course at XIME. He had all his students create and publish a dialogflow chatbot. Most of the got rejected but their response to the rejection was phenomenal. They exclaimed, “Rejected Successfully!”! That’s when I realised that …
When publishing your Google Assistant App, there is a possibility that the app will be rejected if it does not comply with the general policies associated with developing the app. https://bingewith.com/article/::_Generate_Audio Let’s look at some common errors and solutions to fixing these errors. Invalid Privacy Policy Invalid Invocation Name App leaves Mic Open Invalid Privacy Policy This …
Fixing a few common errors when publishing your Google Assistant App Read More »
July 14, 2018 | Riviera Suites, Thevara Being aware of our laws and systems to protect women and other minorities from sexual harassment as a whole and specifically at workplace is crucial. As it stands now, a vast majority of women are unaware of what ‘sexual harassment’ really means and what they can do if they …
CCRRA’s workshop on Sexual Harassment at Workplace: Issues and Challenges Read More »
DialogFlow is a wonderful platform for you to try out building a chat bot. This is a quick tutorial on how you can build a test app on DialogFlow and test it using the Google Assistant on your mobile phone. So first, you need to create your assistant on DialogFlow. Then you need to click …
Anita Grace is a Google Assistant that provides information about GHCI Scholarship. This is a fun and tech-savvy way of know more about the program and works wonders in stimulating curiosity along with providing information. Here’s where you can download it from: Once you do, you have to say “OK Google, Talk to Grace Hopper …
When I was in college, I badly wanted to live on my own. I used to think to myself that some day I’d have an apartment of my own, home decor my heart out, get a scooter to hang around and a puppy dog to share some love. Well, most part of it did come …
I’ve been leading efforts at WTM Cochin as the Community Lead for the past 3 years. At the end of my first year, I was given the opportunity to attend Google I/O 2016 on a full sponsorship by Google. This is an opportunity granted to GDG and WTM Community Leads and is not open for …
I’ve often had a lot of people do things for me. Things like accompany me to some place where I could have gone myself, arrange for things that I could have arranged myself and even do things that I was supposed to do by myself. Mostly this was done by the few men in my …
Today I spoke at PEHIA’s Opportunity Hackathon. The event provided students more insights into applying for GHCI and Venkat Scholarships. By the time I got there, the students were all charged from their previous sessions with the winners of the respective programs. Ansu Joseph, Pritika Merryl and Felix Josemon shared their experiences. I started out …
Pehia’s Opportunity Hackathon:One #Deckless talk Read More »
This is a list of movies that I liked. Not in any particular order and not from any particular genre. I usually have a hard time picking movies to watch. If you have any recommendations, do let know 🙂 Julie and Julia The Butler Lion Mahanati Dangal Mary Kom Newton Hindi Medium Intern 102 not out …
Embedding code in Medium is pretty easy. There are two ways to primarily do it — by embedding the code directly on to medium or embedding it using Github Gist. 1. Embed directly in medium To embed code directly in medium, type in Command+ Option+6 (if you use mac) If you use other OS, this is what you …
This is the very first google script I tried out. Have created a tutorial also to make it easier to understand. https://gist.github.com/aryamurali/e027517468a4c05a17fb36a3f86ebc29
Last year, somewhere around August, I found myself creating 50 copies of a google document and renaming each one of them with a different title. I sent close to 2 hours doing that. At the end of the entire activity, I realised that I had missed to add something in the template document whose copies …
Information Literacy is a very important 21st century skill to possess. What does it mean? The internet today is flooded with information. Chances are that all you need is available on it. But all this information is no good if we do not know how to locate it, evaluate it and effectively use it. This …
We often receive requests to communicate to our audience through calls/Whatsapp. But our preference rests with emails. Here’s our reasoning: Emails are a professional communication medium. The professional world runs on it and conversing over emails with the students will help them get used to it. We want all our communication to be on record. …
J and K — Move up and down Shift + 3 — Delete A — Reply All R — Reply F — forward Y — Remove Label Useful Gmail Labs Canned response Auto Advance Keyboard shortcuts Conversation view
https://medium.com/learn-love-code/learnings-from-learning-how-to-learn-19d149920dc4 Take breaks, meditate, think about other things, and give yourself plenty of time in both modes. One way of making sure you’re taking regular breaks is to follow the Pomodoro technique. This is where you program for 25 minutes, then take a break for 5 minutes. ChunkingThis is the idea of breaking what you …
I’ve been using the free version of mail merge since a while now to send customised bulk emails using gmail. Today I finally decided to pay INR 1885 and subscribe to their premium plan. After I purchased the package, I noticed this: It appears that the founder has managed to sell 22349 premium packages. Now …
Making money using Apps Script: The Mail Merge case Read More »
https://www.womensaid.org.uk/ — Their information and support segment is resourceful. One of the first steps to preventing abuse is to know that you are being abused. They seem to have included a quick pop-quiz to help women realise this. Although the quiz is specific to domestic abuse, it is quite useful. I’m worried about someone else segment — https://www.womensaid.org.uk/the-survivors-handbook/im-worried-about-someone-else/ Your …
Psychological abuse (also referred to as psychological violence, emotional abuse, or mental abuse) is a form of abuse, characterized by a person subjecting, or exposing, another person to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. It is often associated with situations of power imbalance in abusive relationships …
Our lives are so fast paced that it’s sometimes possible that we get carried away as our life goes on. Somewhere in between the rush, I felt the need to pull the brake. Just for 5 minutes. That’s when I discovered the 54321 meditation. It’s a quick, simple way to be present at this very …
[facebook url=”https://www.facebook.com/rethinkcollect/videos/1016329885187967/” /] Where you naturally stand apart is where you have inherent strength or interest. Find those areas and learn deeper. Get a certification. Every time there is a higher bar you are trying to breach, there will be self-doubt. But courage is clamping down your fear and moving ahead. Don’t go for half-baked …
The WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholarship applications recently closed. In 2015, we did a focussed outreach effort to ensure that maximum girls know about the opportunity and apply towards it. As a result of that, 16 of the 18 scholars across India were from Kerala. This time around, we tried to do the outreach efforts online …
2017 was a great ride! I celebrated my last new year at Jagriti Yatra. The Yatra itself was a pretty good experience. It gave me a lot of time to reflect upon my past, my mistakes, my values and what it is that I really would like to do. That is when I had decided …
Almost always, when I discover a new opportunity I start getting excited thinking what it would be like to actually get this. But as I read through about the application process and requirements, I find myself questioning if I really want to apply. I was super excited to know about the WeTech Qualcomm Global Scholarship— …
I recently read this exceptional interview with Naval Ravikant by Farnam Street. Naval is the CEO and Founder of AngelList. In this interview, he speaks about reading, habits, decision-making, mental models, and life. Here is the original Source and Interview Transcript. Adding my notes below. Reading These days I find myself rereading as much or …
We had this little guy come into our life couple of days back. When he came home, he was ill and injured. Someone had broken his leg and he was constantly shivering. After couple of days of nursing, milk and pedigree, he is now as healthy and happy as any other dog. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb6fg1DBmpr/?taken-by=aryacmurali The guy …
Our hypothesis is that there are a number of opportunities available to students and youngsters but most of them miss out on it because They don’t know about these opportunities They don’t believe they are capable enough to get through to these They do not know how to approach these opportunities In June, we helped …
This post comes as a reflection of my experiences and observations conducting events. When we were helping girls apply to GHCI scholarship, I travelled to MEC, TOCH, NIT Calicut and CET, Trivandrum. These could easily be divided to two cases. At MEC, TOCH, CET, the event had about 2–15 girls who already knew the agenda. …
It’s time we started getting rid of the chechi’s, chettan’s, Sir, Ma’am. To me when I was first told to address everyone on a first name basis, it was hard. I did not entirely understand why, but it has started to sink in now. When you call someone X chechi, X Sir, you think you …
Today I spoke at GEC SKP on Opportunity Project and it was a phenomenal event. The students, faculty and the principal were very warm 🙂 Thank you for having me! And that is some nice feedback 🙂 Means much! Sijo also went live and the audience at GEC SKP watched him live. https://www.instagram.com/p/BaIzp2vg6Pt/?taken-by=aryacmurali Some of my observations: There …
Been helping our smart girls in Kerala apply towards the Adobe Women in Tech Scholarship. We have been speaking with them in some capacity and today I wrote an email to the girls who are applying. Some really touching responses came my way. Sharing them here. And this was my email to the girls Hello Fathima , …
Yesterday I had the opportunity to listen to Vinay Menon, a stand-up comedian and English teacher. He made us literally laugh out loud. His TEDx talk is very very informative one that gets us to think — What is the purpose of our Education System? Very well spoken, Vinay 🙂 Few take-aways: Being creative is about making mistakes. …
How was your JY Experience? Did you experience any difficulties during the yatra? How was the whole JY team? What was the total expense of the Yatra, other than the amount we pay to them? How did you go to Mumbai from Kerala and reach back? What was the impact of this yatra in your …
A tribe is a group of people connected by a shared interest, connected to a leader or an idea. It takes only 2 things to turn a group into a tribe: A shared interest A way to communicate A leader can help increase the effectiveness of the tribe and it’s members by: Transferring the shared …
What appears as an overnight success is often the result of compounded effort over a long time. You only have limited time and resources. You can’t do everything at the same time. Focus on the one thing that you want to get right and then move to the next.
Compilation of resources we use to get FB lives done A handbook on how we organise FB live sessions at Rethink. Organising Rethink Talks FB Live — Tutorial Handbook that you can share with your speakers FB Live Tutorial Best practices to conduct FB lives FB Live tips
This is something I picked up from House of Cards. In it’s first few seasons, Frank and Claire share a fantastic personal and professional relationship. Whenever one person is in the middle of something, the other person only asks “How can I help you?” Merely asking the question is one of the best ways to …
Last night, Sijo, his mummy, Saleeh and I were playing Catan. At the start of the game, mummy and I were doing fairly well while Sijo and Saleeh were at a disadvantage. Soon, Sijo and Saleeh teamed up and started helping out each other. They started reaping the benefits and tag teamed to rob us …
I’ve just started reading Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky. The book begins by saying that most of us spend our free time watching TV and drinking alcohol, not because we don’t have anything else to do, but because we never realised that we could do something else with our free time. If we take into …
People love to create and share: Cognitive Surplus Read More »
These emails came in just now. One of the first things I did at Rethink was to help students get into the Grace Hopper Student Scholarship India. This year we also have 42 GHCI scholars from Kerala, which is the highest in 3 years. Our girls make up 21% of the scholars selected across India. These …
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief that comes true because we are acting as if it is already true. Now that I know the definition of Self Fulfilling Prophecy, I recall going through this phenomenon multiple times. Whenever I come across an opportunity and read through it, the initial vibes set the tone for the entire …
And design your life around it. Have values and guiding principles in Life. Use them to design your life and take everyday decisions.
This quote was said by Frank Underwood in House of Cards (season 2), one of my favourite TV shows. This is how I understand this quote: You have the power to change something you don’t like Often times we find ourselves suffering in situations we don’t really enjoy living in. Truth is that there is no …
If you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table. Read More »
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. If we decide that a particular task will take 20 days, then the task will extend for 20 days and will probably not meet completion even then. If we decide that we will get the task done in 20 minutes, it will take …
Rich Dad poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki A must read book for those who want to get started with financial independence/planning. An informal, easy read. https://www.instagram.com/p/BXIGOCngL-S/ Animated Book Review I found this resource on youtube and I highly recommend the video if you want a quick review on what the book talks about. This 7 minute video …
I recently started working on a full time job and very quickly realised that 100/100 is a myth. As a student, you are always taught to get “full marks”, make no mistakes. In fact, I’ve had incidents where I was scolded terribly for making mistakes. But as I started working, I realised that I will …
4 years back I discovered Jagriti Yatra during a lazy evening Facebook browsing. That very moment, I knew that I had to go on the Yatra. Jagriti Yatra is an exciting train journey taking 450 bright youngsters to 12 locations across India over 15 days to learn from the perspectives and ideas of today’s change-makers …
One Country | One Train | 15 Days | 450 Change-makers Read More »
I found his extra large nearly human-sized backpack on the seat next to me in the local train and figured out that he was a traveller. Excuse me, “Do you mind if we chat for sometime?” I asked and the rest of the story is here ☺ Hi Joaquin 😀 He is from Argentina. It’s been …
Ever caught yourself worrying a lot? Thoughts consuming you and sucking the life out of you? Getting so lost in them that you don’t even notice the cute guy who just walked by? I see myself fussing over countless issues, some immaterial, some super sensitive. Overthinking and analysing all possible terrible things that can happen to me …
Until I decided to change it. I have never really liked sitting in one place and reading for hours. I always preferred something more hands on like recycling junk or painting or trying to build a website. I always knew that books are one of the greatest resources that can transform you. But I just …
Do it for the story you’ll be telling for the next sixty years. Do it to inflame passion in every new person you meet. Do it to inspire the ones holding back from their true selves. Do it, so someday you are an example they cite to their own story. Do it, for you, every …
We are all in the quest for happiness, for a purpose in life. But little do we understand that it is human behaviour and values that impact our happiness, particularly in this materialistic world so many are living in. When asked “What makes you truly happy?” His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet replies …
My recent CF campaign #AruforJY has been well-received. I managed to attain my target amount, INR 62000 in 5 days with 52 backers! Campaign link: #AruforJY More on the campaign here: #AruforJY — Thanks for believing in me!, Campaign Overview. Here’s my two cents on running a successful CF campaign! 1.Tell a compelling story Make sure you …
10 Tips to run a successful Crowd Funding Campaign Read More »
4 years back I discovered Jagriti Yatra during a lazy evening Facebook browsing. That very moment, I knew that I had to go on the Yatra. Jagriti Yatra is an exciting train journey taking 450 bright youngsters to 12 locations across India over 15 days to learn from the perspectives and ideas of today’s change-makers …
So, this happened to me an year back, when I was in my pre-final year of engineering — It was unexpected, yet exciting. It was hard, yet rewarding. It was emotionally draining, yet one of the most beautiful things that happened to me. Oh no! I’m not talking about love. It’s about my startup journey! Packing our …
#SVAlumnitalk : Learning enginnering by building real products with #StartinCollege Read More »