9 highlights from the @AdilZainulbhai convocation speech at IIT, Gandhinagar @iitgn

Nikhila Natarajan
Aug 8, 2017 · 4 min read

See the video here, Mr. Zainulbhai’s speech begins at TC 1:54:00

Quotes from the speech (below) are edited and kept in first person, errors mine.

1. I look back with great fondness on what I learnt and was able to do and how that shaped me going forward

2. Can you imagine when you get 10% marks in a course — it did teach me what it means to not be smart all the time. When we walked in for this particular test, the first person walked out in 5 minutes. He couldn’t understand anything. By the way, the gold medalist that year got 23%! Two folks left IIT after that test. I got past IIT but I promised myself never to be in a situation that I do that badly, no matter if it is a subject that I don’t like. I decided I will put 100% of my effort, no matter what.

3. In my graduation year (1977) the economy wasn’t doing well. Hardly 10% of us had jobs. Then Harvard Business School, “the golden passport’ to quote the title of a book, came by. Then McKinsey. All these happened to me. But they were never planned. They happened because I focused on doing as good a job as I could, in whatever I did. Then the opportunities came. It typically didn’t work out for people who planned far ahead and took rigid steps.

4. A very important part that nobody can plan for are luck and the world changing. Luck happens. Similarly, how the world will evolve. My focus therefore has been to do a very good job — not care if somebody else is accelerating.

5. You have 50 years of working life ahead. You can’t predict luck or the world 50 years ahead. But you can do a very good job.

6. Noblesse Oblige used to be a concept entailing obligation of the nobly gifted. Today, the gifts of a different kind, ie, intellectual ability nurtured by your teachers and parents. The fee in my time was very low, say, Rs 1,500 a year. But when I sent my children to study in the US, the fee was some $50,000. That set me thinking on the obligation that I have.

7. The obligation I mention above brought me back to India (after working at McKinsey in the US for 25 years). Today, I have made my entire experience available to India and the government. I don’t have a salary or title. But I am able to help. You too can do that — especially, given your understanding of technology. You can help solve problems. Let me share two simple examples: a) smoothness of roads being measured using technology already existing on Ola and Uber cabs b) municipal authorities understanding traffic congestion by asking google maps.

8. Solutions using technology are limited only by our imagination. In my time, technology wasn’t evolved enough to make a difference. Now it is.

9. So, I leave you with an ask. Can you devote 5% of your time and intellectual horsepower for such an obligation? I leave you with a thought — when you come back to IIT, how will you be counted in the same breath as these IITians: NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, Arun Sarin, Vinod Khosla, Sundar Pichai and Manohar Parrikar.

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