Unusual & Meaningful Holidays for kids

Come April-May and kids and parents alike are off on their summer vacations. Gone are the days when kids went away to their parent's native places and stayed with their grandparents, uncles and aunts and a host of cousins until the end of the holidays. There are no such options available today with nuclear families, working grandparents, uncles and aunts & small city houses without adequate outdoor spaces. Besides, this would be too boring!! for today's kids who need to compete with their peers on which "foreign" destinations they are going to for their summer holidays.
As disposable incomes grow in India, so has over indulgence of kids by their parents and their possesive ways where they try to live their lives through the lives of their kids. The Joshis, Swaminathans and Chawlas need to compete amongst themselves even over their kids summer holidays!! My daughter (9 yrs) wanted to visit the USA this summer to visit her cousins and because her friends are going to Singapore, Europe and other places. I told her that she will get to go on just one "foreign" holiday (paid by me) from 1st to 12th standard and she is free to choose the year when she would like to do this (3rd, 5th, 8th or 12th standard). After some persuasion, explanation on why, etc. she agreed to this. Next morning she gets up and says "But what about my US trip this summer"?
I am sticking to my guns on this one and did some research on some unusual holidays for kids that will hopefully help them appreciate nature, develop good social skills, teamwork, responsibility and other values while they get to see places and enjoy themselves. Here are a few that I have found:

1. Summer Training course at Bhonsala Military School, Nasik. Am sure many other military schools conduct these one month training courses in the country. As of today, this one seems to be for boys only.
2. Various eco-friendly adventure tourism camps conducted by Pugmarks Holidays (http://www.pugmarksholidays.com/) a completely kids focused Travel/Tourism company. They conduct simple introductory 4 day camping trips for 8-10 year olds to 20 day adventure trips to various parts of the Himalayas (trekking, rock climbing, white water rafting, skiing, mountain biking), Lakshadweep (snorkeling, scuba diving) to jungle safaris in Kanha, Ranathambore, etc. The best thing about them is that (over indulgent, possesive) parents are not allowed to contact their kids during these trips!! Parents can check out how the camps are going and what the kids did at the camp on a daily basis on their website.
3. Spending a summer holiday working at some media company, art studio, engineering company or any organization that the kid has some interest, aptitude for.
4. Historical tours, art tours and visiting places that are relevant to kids, roughly matching with what they have learnt in school in the previous (or next) couple of years
5. Visiting places that have unusual bio-diversity, bio-spheres, unusual physical phenomena (hot water springs, stalagmite caves, etc.), Galapagos islands
6. Sports Camps - cricket, football, tennis, golf, swimming, etc.
7. Some meaningful social projects - working with NGOs, working for a cause, etc.

As for "foreign" trips they can do that once in a 10-12 year period! (on a shoe string budget) and as many as they like later in life with their own money!!

I am sure kids will get to see Paris, Singapore, London, LA, Disneyland in their lifetimes, but doing meaningful activities, building social skills, making friends is what we can help our kids with.

Write in to me with any other holiday ideas that you may have for kids.

Skills Assessment - Can help bridge skills gap

Merittrac (http://www.merittrac.com) recently won the NASSCOM IT Innovation Award. This company, born out of the need of the IT and ITES industries to manage their quality of recruitment and to "pre-qualify" candidates has been providing a much required service to the industry. Its one of those examples where an environment creates a new service or business model. The huge recruitment needs of the IT industry and the gap between Quantity and Quality gave rise to this service in India, which I am not sure is being used anywhere else in the world.
These assessment services must be throwing up a lot of data and statistics that can be used to perform a "gap and needs analysis" which can then be used by the education industry to focus their courses on offer. Continuing in the excellent statistical traditions of India with the Indian Statistical Institute, NCAER, Census Data, Election psephology this data can be harnessed to develop the right kind of curriculums.
My favourite is an assessment of values/soft skills - such as sense of responsibility, initiative, task based leadership, accountability, customer focus, drive for quality, sincerity, cost conciousness, honesty, etc. These are more big impact skills/values as compared to tech skills which can still be "taught" quite quickly. I am sure there is a way to assess these as well, even though they look difficult. Some of the best hirers can assess these thru a few questions!! When this "soft" assessment gains ground, this will itself make students aware that these are (seen as ) important for the industry and they'll focus on developing these "values"!!

Reinventing IT

In my last post, I talked about the IT industry layoffs and the opportunities and challenges before it. In a speech by Anand Mahindra at a NASCOMM Summit recently, he advised the IT industry to reinvent itself. Coming from a person who leads companies in the Auto industry which has had to reinvent itself and in a space thats driven by "products" that need to be developed to compare favourably with a global playing field and where the basics of "Revenues vs Costs" applies at its stringent best, its advice that should be carefully considered by the IT industry.

Here's Anand Mahindra's speech at NASCOMM>

IT Layoffs: The opportunity

Every now and again, IT industry layoffs in India (and other parts of the world too) create a furore and generate extreme reactions. IT companies declare that "its routine and is performance based", the stock market thinks that its a sign of a "slowing economy", non-IT folks think "it was overdue and much deserved for the obnoxiously high salaries that they get". Whilst, such layoffs are still a speck in the overall numbers, they should give an opportunity to the IT industry leaders and employees alike to rethink the way they work, train and deploy resources:

• Use this to cleanup the system, cut costs (not just direct employee costs) such as travel related perks, outbound program costs and other "non essentials". Gives employees a clear message that the IT business, like all other businesses, runs on the real business basics of Revenues Vs Costs.
• Give a message to society at large and aspiring IT aspirants in colleges and their parents that there is just that much growth that can happen in the industry and that IT engineers are just like all other engineers, where real business needs determine engineer demand. That there are many more sunrise industries that they should train for!!
• Gets the stock market to realize that IT has had its run of 15+ years and that they should look for other industries that has true intrinsic value
• Gives an opportunity to the IT industry to re-focus resources, manage the bench better and think of redeploying some of the bench costs to develop differentiating "products, processes and services" for the future. Get their best people on their bench and have them work on these, to create capabilities for the future. Juggle your bench to achieve this!!
• Give a clear signal by getting the dead wood out, but at the same time give a differentiated "fast track" to their best by motivating them to create value and a signal that they will be valued for their initiative and unique contributions.
• The public at large and IT engineer aspirants in particular that they need to train and (continually) work hard to retain their place in the industry and be part of the quality workforce that can then create differentiated offerings for the world.

The strengthening rupee and competition will force the IT industry to take these tough decisions, which in itself the IT industry has not been faced with or has been unwilling to do. The hegemony of middle level managers and HR managers who always seem to convey that they will lose their people if their salaries are not increased will also be held in check. These layoffs will force them to focus on other "values" such as responsibility, productivity, real motivation and leadership.

It will perhaps, also force a number of "over the hill" middle/top level managers who have reached their levels of incompetence to seek out other things to do in life and make way for younger, brighter engineers with new ideas!

Spring cleaning?

BLOGGING....finally

BLOGGING....its utility and its power to democratize expression of thought has always fascinated me. Have been reading a number of BLOGs written by many eminent people and friends. A couple of years ago, we also did a lot of work on the technical concepts around BLOGs and how to support them on mobile phones. I first thought of starting my BLOG about 3 years ago, but never got around to starting one, until now!

With my experience of many kinds of organizations and travel to many countries, I have been narrating a number of experiences to family, friends and acquaintances. Many friends and my wife Padmaja in particular would keep reminding me on starting a BLOG so that people could read my stories when they chose to :) (rather than when I chose to tell them)

My sensibilities and interests span a plethora of areas and I would write about many of them including:
- Innovative Ideas - Technologies/Products, Business/Economic Models, Community Models
- Green stuff - organic food, sustainable architecture, Waste Management, natural gardens!
- Compelling Human Resource Development & Community Development ideas & initiatives
- Social Sector projects - Actions that are helping make our public space comparable to our private
- Education - whats right for our kids?
- Travel, Food, Fun things in life

I dont profess to be an expert on any of these topics, all my articles can be taken with a pinch of salt!! However I will express my opinion anyways, all articles can be taken to begin with "IMHO" (In My Humble Opinion, that Hinglish term that gives us the license to say just about anything)

Hope you find my writings interesting and useful.