Thank you SAP & PYXERA Global for your invaluable ‘Local Social Sabbatical’ with Bal Utsav

 
Tell us a little about yourself.
Hi! This is Anusha R. I am with SAP for that last 9 .5 years and have around 12 years of IT experience. I am from Pondicherry and settled in Bangalore for the last 13 years 🙂 I am also an ardent reader of murder mysteries.

Why did you sign up for the Local Social Sabbatical program ?
I have always questioned where my real passion lies and my answer has been to engage in projects that have an impact on the local community. My biggest motivation was to understand the grass-root issues in the society and come up with solutions instead of being a seasonal armchair social worker.So I was elated when the Local Social Sabbatical program came along as it presented an opportunity to explore my passion.

What skills and qualifications did you have that helped you during this program?
Having a Master’s Degree in Computer Applications with 12 years of software development experience was a real boon in this program for creating solutions to the problems faced by the client. In addition to this, I consider my communication and listening skills have helped me a lot in this program to clearly understand the client’s needs and work with my team.

What challenges did you face during your stint?
• Translating the problem statement into a workable scope that’ll be valuable to the client.
• Stopping myself from over-engineering the solution and really look at what will help Bal Utsav.

What did you learn about Bal Utsav and the state of education in general?
• About Bal Utsav:
o When we first met Ramesh and asked him “Why Bal Utsav was born?”, his answer was “to create more than a Band-aid solution” – I understood he’s exploring sustainable solutions to address the issues in school education.
o Ramesh’s approach to get the out-of-school children mainstreamed via innovative ideas like museum schools, creating an eco-system of support for the children through community mobilisers etc., and his vision of extending these to the Government schools was a big eye –opener for me on how a long-term view is essential to bring about a social change.

• State of education in general
o I find it very unfortunate that access to education is restricted to people with money in our country.
o Compulsory Primary Education is a Right for every child only on paper, but the reality is far from it.

Did your role inspire you to sign up for a more intense role in the development sector?
This stint has helped me to broaden my understanding of how the development sector works, and inspired me to continue this journey beyond the Local Social Sabbatical program.I haven’t signed up for anything new as yet, but this is definitely on my cards.

Tell us about your current experience, while working with Bal Utsav?
• The experience was very educative. It made me think on a social subject and how every small step can impact so many kids.
• We got a very challenging scope and I felt an adrenalin rush throughout the duration of the project – right from conceptualization to designing & delivering the solution.

What made the role challenging?
• This was my first project where I had frequent interactions with the client.
• Understanding and assimilating the current processes in Bal Utsav.
• Responding to changes in scope during the project to come up with a customized solution that will meet Bal Utsav’s needs.
• Designing the complete Architecture from scratch.

How do you feel about working with people different from yourself? (Development Sector, Persons from a Non-Technical background, etc)
Working with a diverse set of people has been very educative for me. I feel I’m now more empathetic to points of viewdiffering from my own.I also gained exposure to a new world, different from my regular tasks at office.

Describe a typical day for yourself during the Local Social Sabbatical program?
Brainstorming within the team was a key element for us during the entire program. A typical day at the start of a week began with a discussion on the topic of focus for the week to decide on the solution-approach we must take. We then split the tasks and worked on them individually. Towards the end of the week, we re-grouped to integrate our work and update the client on a weekly basis.

 
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m Ankita, 23, originally from Ranchi – Dhoni’s place :), and spent almost a decade of my life in Delhi. Did my college from KIIT University, Bhubaneshwar & working in SAP for past 1.5 years. Love to read, travel & swim. Big Harry Potter fan!

Why did you sign up for the Local Social Sabbatical program?
A chance to learn how CSR is carried out in a company as big as SAP. Wanted to observe and learn how to implement such tasks at a corporate level. Local Social Sabbatical came up as an opportunity to use my technical skills to contribute for a social cause.

What skills and qualifications did you have that helped you during this program?
Problem Solving skills, Stakeholder Management, Database model structure & designing.

What challenges did you face during your stint?
Understanding the overall process of Bal Utsav & the complexities and challenges involved at each step of their functioning.

What did you learn about Bal Utsav and the state of education in general?
No doubt, Bal Utsav is doing a great and challenging job, bringing out of school kids into the education system. Understanding their process gave a view of the hurdles that crop up while you take up the task to educate the under-privileged. The kind of problems one can face, I could never have imagined. It was an eye-opener for me! It gave me a broader view and understanding of the problems faced in the education system & in our society in general.

Did your role inspire you to sign up for a more intense role in the development sector?
Definitely! Working in this helped me explore my own potential to work on a problem like this. The learning has been tremendous & I hope I get more chances to work on challenges like this.

Tell us about your current experience, while working with Bal Utsav?
It has helped me grow my understanding & getting a perspective on how these complex problems, both in our society & education system, need to be tackled. Working with BalUtsav turned out to be a huge learning experience.

What made the role challenging?
Reading about something gives you a perspective of how things could be. But I realized, once you dig deeper & see the real word scenario, even the simplest of issues could cause huge problems. Also, making our questions least technical & easily understandable for others posed a challenge.

How do you feel about working with people different from yourself? (Development Sector, Persons from a Non Technical background, etc.)
It was an exciting experience for me. The whole sector & environment of work was completely new. Interacting with so many people from different backgrounds helped me broaden my horizon & think of a wider scenario.

Describe a typical day for yourself during the Local Social Sabbatical program?
Typically, we used to start in the morning around 9:30. Sitting in a meeting room, discussing what all has to be done & reviewing what we had already done. We tried to document everything discussed in case we missed something later. We took pictures of whatever discussed on the white-boards. We have a WhatsApp group where we shared pictures & it also worked as an offline communication for us. We used a shared location in one of our laptops where all the Local Social Sabbatical-related documents were shared between the three of us. By the end of the day, we would discuss what all we finished that day & decide on the roadmap for the next day.

 
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m Abhijeet, currently working for SAP Labs India Pvt Ltd. I’ve been here for 8+ years and currently I am Project Lead. I am married and I have a 16-month old daughter, Viha. I love cricket, music and movies.

Why did you sign up for the Local Social Sabbatical program?
The Local Social Sabbatical program was an excellent opportunity to be more than what we are in our normal life. It was giving me an opportunity to make a difference to the society. Coupled with the chance of meeting and networking with fellow SAPians this was something which worth applying.

What skills and qualifications did you have that helped you during this program?
Project Management, Stakeholder Management, Problem Solving, Software Lifecycle Management.

What challenges did you face during your stint?
– Understanding Bal Utsav’s problem completely from their perspective
– Coming to a conclusion in case of a conflict

What did you learn about Bal Utsav and the state of education in general?

Bal Utsav is doing a great job in the field of education. Most of the NGOs I’ve come across have an eco-system which ends at the students but Bal Utsav goes one step ahead and talks to the support system of the child – parents, relatives, teachers etc which is great as these entities play a huge role in the whole education system.

Did your role inspire you to sign up for a more intense role in the development sector?
Yes, this was a good learning experience no doubt but it was more of an eye-opener. While we were trying to solve, probably a small section of a small issue at Bal Utsav there was still so much to be done. So yes, it did inspire to do more!

Tell us about your current experience, while working with Bal Utsav?
Bal Utsav is a very inspiring organization. Every time we went there as a team we came back all inspired to make our solution better. The colleagues there would tell us everything about what they are doing to make things better for children and how what we were going to deliver as a part of this sabbatical would help them in their everyday work. They would answer our questions patiently and ensure that we got it right so that it would help us move forward. Ramesh as their leader was the most inspiring! At such a young age he had achieved so much, so being there, working with him at Bal Utsav was very enriching.

Besides that they are a bunch extremely hospitable people offering us yummy lunch!

What made the role challenging?
The fact that we were introduced to a real world problem where we had to solve a problem that was affecting a whole lot of people was very over whelming. Also we had to be as less technical as possible in terms of discussing the subject with Bal Utsav. We were also very inspired and hence we had decided to work hard to ensure that our deliverable was useful to Ramesh and his team, so it sometimes took a toll.

How do you feel about working with people different from yourself? (Development Sector, Persons from a Non Technical background, etc)
It’s very enriching, you learn so much. In the daily routine of working on a particular section of a particular technology in the IT world we tend to forget what’s happening outside. People working in development sector etc deal with real world problems and hence it is a lot of learning. For example while working here we learnt a great deal about the education system here in Karnataka and how NGOs like BalUtsav are working day and night to improve the situation. So yes it was extremely enriching.

Describe a typical day for yourself during the Local Social Sabbatical program?
We would meet in the morning after having our breakfast and sit and discuss about what we need to do that day; what would be our deliverables for that day. Then each one of us based on our previous experience split the tasks and start working. We would sit in a room and if needed discuss on a particular issue. For brainstorming we usually start writing on a white board while one person would take notes of whatever we discuss. We would also ensure that everything we discussed and decided would be documented in relevant formats and sent across to the stakeholders. Then at the end of the day we would decide on what we were going to work on the next day and bid adieu.