Author: Shrirang Karandikar

  • A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin

    A bit of a change of pace, a bit of variety…

  • My (Evolving) Intern Selection Strategy

    This is part of a series of articles on internships. Previous posts talked about the motivations of doing and offering internships (Why Intern?) and my motivations for taking on interns (Why I Work With Interns). This one is about how I go about deciding whether you are the right candidate. First a bit of background —…

  • The Course of Love: A Novel, Alain de Botton

    See this. In the recent past, I’ve been observing an interesting pattern — I end up reading books closely related to each other, and one complements the other perfectly. In this case, I had been reading The Road Less Travelled, and it meshes perfectly with this book! I’ll skip my personal reflections on this book,…

  • Why I Work With Interns

    This is part of a series of articles on internships. A previous post talked about the motivations of doing and offering internships (Why Intern?). In this article, I discuss my motivations for taking on interns. This is very much about my perspectives. If you are interested in interning with me, my hope is that this…

  • The Road Less Travelled, M. Scott Peck

    Re-reading an old favorite, and encountering once again the thrill of identification and discovery! Like work experience is to an MBA, the wisdom in this book makes more sense the more life-experience I get. The last section (Grace) is the weakest, but that is again a reflection of where I am in my journey right…

  • भगवद् गीता

    There are multiple goals I have with this project I’ve been meaning to read it in the original sanskrit for a long (long, long!) time. The sheer poetry of the few श्लोक that I know is astounding, and I want to (try to) understand and appreciate the original This fits in with my memorization practice. I’d…

  • Why Intern?

    This is the fundamental question, one that unfortunately nobody pays any attention to! I think there are two important perspectives: The Student’s Perspective Because it is needed, either mandated as part of the syllabus, or because it will look good on your resume, or it may lead to a job without the hassle of campus…

  • This is Marketing, Seth Godin

    I used to listen to the Akimbo podcast when I had the bandwidth, and have been an avid follower of Seth Godin’s blog for ages. I’m fully on board with the philosophy he espouses and was hoping this book would be an opportunity to tie up all the different threads that he has into one…

  • Thoughts on Internships

    This is a series of articles on internships. If you are a student planning on interning, I hope this will structure how you look at, how you can make the most of, and how you can have a successful internship. Potential topics are: Why do an internship? How can I identify the right opportunity? What…

  • The Road to Character, David Brooks

  • The Three Marriages – Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship, David Whyte

  • आपकी नज़रों ने समझा

    Are there any lines more beautiful than these? Penned by Madan Mohan and Raja Mehdi Ali Khan आपकी नज़रों ने समझा / प्यार के काबिल मुझे दिल की ऐ धड़कन ठेहर जा / मिल गयी मंजिल मुझे आपकी नज़रों ने समझा जी हमें मंज़ूर है / आपका ये फैसला केह रही है हर नज़र / बन्दा…

  • Deep Thinking, Garry Kasparov

    This was a memento from my colleagues at Shell when I was leaving. How wonderfully apt – something that captured my interests (chess and AI)! This book seemed like it would get into these topics at a philosophical level, rather than the nitty-gritty details. Or so I thought. I was anticipating an enjoyable read, and…

  • Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Daniel C. Dennet

  • Scaling Challenges for MOOCs

    I’ve been a massive fan of MOOCs ever since they started, and have personally leveraged the opportunity to the fullest (though it did take some time to figure out how to complete a course, versus starting one!). Students get to learn from the best educators in a variety of different subjects (sometimes they (the teachers)…

  • Internships!

    I’ve had great fun in the last year with a fantastic group of interns (Dhanashree Bajoriya, Kimaya Badhe, Himaja Chandaluri, Neha Choudhari, Akansha Dakre, Sonali Jeswani, Samruddhi Kanhed, Nayana Mangalpalli, Kanchan Sarolkar, Shraddha Vibhandik) and the year before that working on Blockchain with Shikhar Bhatt, Kailash Gaur and Sumit Hotchandani). Oh, and we got some great…

  • The Stone Sky, N. K. Jemisin

  • Emergent Ventures, Seventh Cohort

    I’ve been selected! I’ll post what I’m trying to do shortly. More than the funding, this is an excellent validation of the core idea.  Links to Emergent Ventures and the philosophy behind it  

  • The Obelisk Gate, N. K. Jemisin

  • Little Things

    Student activities: Operate a slot machine using your eyes This is cool and fun and took just a few days to do. BUT this could be done by using other interfaces – mouse, keyboard, sound(?), etc. What would be a good use of eye-tracking or blinking that would not be possible with existing interfaces?