Unique you!

A common boat owner’s son, India’s most distinguished living technocrat, ex-President of India, People’s President – whatever the description that you have for A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, India’s love for this man is unquestionable.

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has touched many during his illustrious life and his presence in Sri Lanka made many congregate to hear him, with many in full suit too, though Dr Kalam himself was simplicity personified.

It appeared that across the Palk Strait the same respect is there for him in abundance. Speak he did in many foray during this short visit to Sri Lanka and at University of Moratuwa, he fittingly addressed both students and staff titled ‘Unique You’!

The audience consisted of those holding high office as the event was organised with State patronage. Plato’s word rang true – Wise men speak because they have something to say. In such instances it is important for us to listen and listen well. Those who were present were treated to many ideas coming from a person who is reputed to have clocked 18-hour work cycles per day and of course with results to show.

A compassionate person with his name linked to satellite launch vehicles, missiles such as Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul, Nag, etc., certainly has to be interesting if not intriguing and his reasoning for such engagements is simple and direct.

His answer to gaining self respect for a nation is realising self reliance. He had asked from India: Do we not realise that self respect comes with self reliance? This question and the implied answer is important for any developing nation. He is also on record having stated that only strength respects strength.

His biography ‘Wings of Fire’ with the built in message Indians can be world beaters… with no foreign training or degree… has been compared to the worth of 100 management tomes!

His interest in speaking to and interacting with students is well known and he was quite interested to know how many students were in the audience at the outset. Lack of space in one place meant that the university had to use technology to stream the proceedings to a student audience in another hall which prevented more eye-to-eye contact with a wider student group.

Discovering and unleashing one’s uniqueness

His presentation was in identifying one’s aim and realising what one can achieve. His recipe was not complex though in practice simple recipes appear to be quite challenging – having a great aim, continuous learning, hard work and perseverance were the attributes in discovering and unleashing one’s uniqueness.

Analyse the four ingredients, think critically and look around you and we know where we stand. His life was a demonstration of adherence to these values he espoused and results bear ample testimony. Hopefully the student body present is still digesting these basics and will strive to take note some of the points made.

The recipe of course if not only meant for students as we all can consider discovering our uniqueness. Institutions, he stated, should continuously be sending the right message. He was suggesting the university should go carbon neutral to show direction and also made a confession on how much carbon dioxide he may have contributed due to the ‘presidential cavalcade!’

Dig into his biography and you will find his aim of flying from an early age – his fascination with mysteries of the sky and the flight of birds from early childhood. With limited resources but with unlimited drive, he went on to become an aeronautical engineer and he readily acknowledged the great teaching and mentoring from his many teachers.

There again he reminded us once again the need for an evocative place in education when he writes about his alma mater MIT (Madras Institute of Technology). He had been captivated by two decommissioned aircraft displayed on site for demonstrating of various sub systems and confessed readily of his spending time dreaming about the man’s will to fly by the side of these machines for extended hours while the other students had retired to the hostel.

His expressed view was for universities to go green, make use of renewable energies from solar to biofuels and also to act on the minds of the future generation in a practical way to drive positive developments.

Making a difference

He sincerely believes each and every citizen in a nation can make a difference, especially the nation’s youth; this where he had been driving with his program of ‘Ignited Minds,’ touching the children and youth of India.

Sri Lanka unlike India is not a youthful nation as our demographics are different and we need to understand the importance of this complexity. Definitely we have to make more from less and the youth becoming better focused is more important.

For challenges, his answer is simple: We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us. These messages, backed with examples and positive empowerment, need to reach the youth of Sri Lanka.

What Dr. Kalam exemplifies is action. George Patton – the famous US General – is reputed to have said that a good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.

Dr. Kalam brings this line to his biography, perhaps with the same message intended? May be all that stress on strategic planning is not to be taken away but this is something to be to be kept in mind as we move from one committee meeting to another in search of perfect answer with execution at times never seeing the light of day.

Excellence through dedication

He was encouraging the inquiring mind while giving the example of India’s Nobel Prize winning scientist C.V. Raman (the first Asian and the first non-white to receive a Nobel Prize for science!) of Raman scattering fame.

It was his questioning mind during a sea voyage seeing the sky and the sea appearing blue that led him to his now famous discovery. He was moving away from the simple reasoning of the sea appearing to be blue due to simply reflecting the blue sky. His mind decided that something else is the cause – the usual a-ha moment!

It is also known that Raman once he returned home carried out many experiments to test his hypothesis and the experimental set up enabling the breakthrough was around Indian Rs. 200. He was giving many examples from the great Indian mathematician Ramanujahn, Edison to Graham Bell to drive home the point of excellence realised through dedication.

Multidisciplinary engagements

He touched on new developments and spoke of the great opportunities that may come in our way due to convergence of information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology. This is important as though we are active in all these three areas are not working with the convergence mindset.

The deficiencies in operating and seeking development by working in separate technology silos should be understood. The fact that India is consciously spending money on R&D was a fact that he stressed and he touched on fundamental and applied sciences.

He related his formative age experience of the multidisciplinary design project and stated the added learning that resulted from the exercise. These were the days of the slide rules and T-rules and with all what we have today at our disposal it is time to take stock of the productivity enhancement from then to now. Dr Kalam urged our universities to go more in that direction of multidisciplinary engagements.

His visit certainly must have opened up some eyes as his passion and sincerity are great eye-openers. I wish to conclude with Plato’s conclusion: Fools speak because they have to say something. Listening to him and going home to listen to some of the media broadcasts of the day demonstrated well what Plato meant.

I cherish the few moments we had at the university and feel that particular Sunday morning was spent with gain! I do hope that the powers that were there on that day and in other gatherings who definitely listened with attention took home some of the fundamentals Dr. Kalam voiced, such as investing in education, science and technology and understanding the value of your own human resources. That would be the ultimate respect to his effort. As for myself, I will search for that ‘unique me’.

(Professor Ajith de Alwis is Professor of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. With an initial BSc Chemical engineering Honours degree from Moratuwa, he proceeded to the University of Cambridge for his PhD. He is also the Director of UOM-Cargills Food Process Development Incubator at University of Moratuwa. He can be reached via email on [email protected])