Let me introduce myself, albeit belatedly.
I am mostly about engineering education, a lot about nature conservation and a little about rural empowerment. Engineering education is incomplete without its laboratories. That is where I come in. Right from school time, I loved making things (& teaching). The former took me to doing engineering, which I did from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. I continued to complete M Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. I found plenty of time to spare from studies. I used the time to work part time in a company making oscilloscopes in Delhi, very near to IIT Delhi. I worked here for about 3 months and that was enough to teach me entrepreneurship. My Dad, always supportive, gave me some money and got me a premises on rental and had a Bank account opened.
And there I was, making in India, right after M Tech, many years before “Make in India” caught on. No MBA done-no lessons for start ups taken.
I began making instruments and other things which I had seen in I.I.T. Labs. In making such products, my love for making things & and the love for education joined hands. My first product-(shown in the picture below), was an Analog Computer and my first customer was Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh.
Subsequently, I made hundreds of things-Laser range finders, infrared imagers for defense labs, custom power supplies for our Space organization, Coding stuff for Signal Intelligence, instrumentation for earthquake monitoring and practically everything needed for Electronics Engg Education. This included Basic Electronics lab, Instrumentation lab, Control Systems lab, Microwave lab, Fibre Optics Lab, Communication lab, Radio & TV lab, Digital Lab and so on so forth. My stuff covered course from Vocational to Diploma to Post Graduate. A Director General level officer once said behind my back-if you give him an order for a satellite, he will make it. He was perhaps being sarcastic, but I took it as a complement. If there were an award for making the largest variety and types of products, I might get it. There are few educational institutions in India which do not have something or the other made by me. A lot of stuff was exported also after importance of education dawned upon Africa and Middle East and World Bank began to fund their Universities.
I like to flatter myself with the thought that I have the spirit that I.I.T.’s were established for and in practicing hard core engineering; I gave my heart & soul to it. I am happy about it.
Today, I continue to tinker & make things, and have no regrets except one: – A product we wholly made decades ago in India, does not have even its packaging made here today. We go ga-ga over plants set by foreign multi nationals and even they don’t do the core stuff. I fail to comprehend why India could not become a manufacturer, a core engineering giant like China.
What happened? I wish somebody would post an answer.
And I am here to help you start up, help you tinker with things, mentor you if you enjoy transforming raw materials into finished products, help you educate the uneducated and attempt to infuse in you a love for the beauty that is nature.
MORE ABOUT THE PRODUCTS WE MADE will be found if you click on the picture below: