Kalam speaks at Satyam

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam spoke at the Satyam Technology Center last month and as usual he stumped everyone present with his sheer brilliance and ever charming character.

He talked about 5 beautiful points that everyone involved in any mission related to Science/technology ought to know and ponder upon.
The first one is of course the ability to attach 'value' to Science. It's commonplace even in technology companies to forget that we are doing something scientific and we do compromise on this aspect in the midst of running around our operational priorities. Dr Kalam illustrated this with an example of Sir CV Raman writing a polite letter to Dr Rajendra Prasad refusing his personal invite to the Rashtrapati Bhavan , because of the fact that he was guiding a Phd research student who was about to complete his thesis and Sir CV Raman felt it his duty to be with the student at that critical hour.

The second point was to make science a life time mission and not restrict it to a project/task. He described how Prof Chandrasekhar Subramanian used to travel regularly hundreds of miles in the US to guide his doctoral students who in turn also rose up to become Nobel laureates after him.

Next was his effort to make us believe that Science has become truly borderless. He quoted the example of Prof Sakman who was a German physicist & a Nobel Laureate, who attended medical schools across the world to make his research meaningful and closely worked with scientists across numerous disciplines.

The fourth point that Kalam stressed was the one that interested me the most. He said Science is also about converting challenges into opportunities .For this he gave the example of Prof Paul Crutzen , a Chemistry Nobel. Prof Paul was initially interested in pure sciences but took up a job in a different area due to some constraints. But he kept alive his passion and that very passion came to his aid when he faced a challenge in a later assignment leading him to the highest scientific honour.

His closing point was on Scientific magnanimity. Norman E Borlaug , the famous agricultural scientist who was associated with India’s Green revolution was quoted this time around. At the age of 91, when Prof Borlaug came to receive an award in Delhi, he never actually talked about his own contribution to the revolution. He gave all credits to Dr MS Swaminathan and his team. He also individually pointed out the chief contributors from the audience who were of course distinguished scientists from their respective fields. Dr Kalam stressed on the fact that only this kind of Scientific magnanimity could do wonders in nurturing young talent and building team spirit.

The talk then progressed more into specifics which won't be of general interest here. All in all a great learning experience from a truly humble teacher. Dr Kalam also agreed to join the EMRI initiative as Chairman Emritus during the course of this visit. EMRI or Emergency management research institute is the brainchild of Satyam founder & Chairman , Mr B. Ramalinga Raju. You can learn more about it here.