Sunday, July 8, 2018

DSC Summit 2018 Experience

Transformation: A revolutionary act or process which brings about change in our 
lives. It is the phenomenon which governs the birth of many ideas, inspirations, 
motivations and I got the opportunity to undergo such a transformation at the first ever 
DSC Summit 2018, as I became a part of the exciting congregation of DSC Leads 
from all over India, who religiously worship technology 
in their own campuses and ecosystems!

My journey to the DSC Summit began with an email stating that I had been 
selected as the DSC Lead of PICT, on the 30th September 2017, a day I 
remember so well! Since then, I had been conducting sessions on mobile 
development along with the ACS Facilitator, Nikita Kotak, and Akshay Ubale, 
a friend who is extremely passionate about development on my campus, out of 
my interest to learn about technology and share the learnings. We enjoyed the
process as it was! The sessions were going well, we were still to get the 
bigger picture of things, at that time! All of that was about to be levelled up soon! 

The DSC Summit, the catalyst, began with the enthusiasm of leads from all 
over the nation, moving towards one goal: harnessing the power of technology to 
create impact in the society! Till that day, each of us had been engaging in technological
activities in our respective campuses, transcending limits and yet, a little oblivious to 
what other leads were doing. And there we were, on the first evening of the Summit, 
gathered at one magical place, Goa, introducing ourselves, talking about our work, 
our likes and dislikes and networking with each other! On the very first evening, 
I got to know about the wider perspective of things, which was only to be expanded 
further on the next days!

We had sessions on leadership which gave me teachings of a lifetime, design thinking 
workshop which introduced me to innovative and effective ways of problem-solving, 
panel discussion on careers in technology on the first day! The next day unfolded exciting 
tech-talks, a talk on internationalization, storytelling, and much more.., each of which gave 
tremendous amounts of learning, much more than any tutorial, lecture or book :D

Here’s a slightly more detailed account of the sessions in the Summit: 

Day 1:
  • The Persuasive Leader by Anson Ben: The session on effective communication skills 
    gave me teachings of a lifetime!
  • The Design Thinking workshop by University Innovation Fellows: Ghanshyam S and the Fellows 
    conducted a fun session which enabled us to interact with a local business person, understand 
    his/her problems and develop a solution prototype. The activity helped me to understand a 
    creative, innovative and fun process to approach a problem, gave me an opportunity to 
    work in a team and exposed me to innovative ideas!! 

  • Product Excellence by Dimple Batra: The session by Program Manager at Google gave wonderful insights on how to develop fantastic products.  
  • Panel Discussion on Careers in Tech- Anson Ben, Shikha Gupta, Arjun Pratap, moderated by 
Vaishali Sabhahit: I got a chance to view technological careers from different perspectives.

Day 2:

Included sessions like: 

Karthik Ramakrishnan, and moderated by Deepak Sridhar:
This discussion made me understand that the scope of DSC activities 
can extend far and wide beyond the college campus. It was truly 
motivating to hear success stories of each of the community leads,
  including one involving the setting up of a startup support 
platform by the Mangalore Government, because of startups being founded 
by the efforts of the Community Lead!

  • Jobs at Google By Suhail AH: This was the most awaited talk of the day!! 
    Suhail talked about what Google looks in a candidate before hiring, how 
    students can prepare and how we, as DSC leads can spread information 
    regarding this. Google looks for the following qualities while hiring candidates:
    • The thought process
    • Leadership skills
    • Domain knowledge
    • A hint of Googliness!
     
The pathways to a job at Google:  
  • CodeJam Kickstart
  • YouTube Livestreams
  • Tech Dev Guide
  • Developmental Workshops
With these exhilarating sessions, we also had a fun DJ night, where all of us put on our 
dancing shoes and grooved to the beat! The standup comedy by Azeem Banatwala 
lightened the air!

The DSC Summit was a combo of networking, leadership skills, problem solving and 
more than that, FUN!! Every minute, I learnt something and eventually realized that 
I have a world full of possibilities, to be traversed, explored and discovered! 
With every step that I took, I could learn something new, move closer to transformation, 
for, “Life and death are illusions, we are in a constant state of transformation”!





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