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SchoolI did all my schooling at "Don Bosco Mat. Hr. Sec. School" (dear school of our hearts) in Thanjavur. Recorded to be the first ever educational institution started by the Salesian brothers in India, this has been one of the best places of my lifetime. I'd give up anything to be back in school. The first Salesian institution in the town is now named "St.Antony's" and is now run by the Brothers of St.Gabriel. Don Bosco, from where I did all my schooling from my 1st standard until my 12th (Higher Secondary Certificate), was built in the early 1980s. The first Principal I remember is Fr. Packiaraj Royan, who granted me admission to the first standard. Ever since that, school has always been very close to my life. Fr.Paulraj Maniam, Bro. Selvam, Fr. Patrick Alphonse, Fr. Deva Joe, Fr. Michael Vyakulam, Fr. V V Abraham, Fr. A T Thomas and Fr. Phillip Royan filled the school with fond memories I treasure now.
I learnt computers and computing thanks to my then Computer Science Instructor at school "Gerald Joseph". (Too bad I'm still not in touch while I update this page.) He offered me all the freedom I needed to learn and hack at machinery in school. I was soon helping him out with administering the computer lab and also got my parents to buy me a PC at home (in my 8th standard). After my first brush with computers, I've always been hacking and meddling with computers. That learning process has been a continuing and enchanting dream.
My proud hacks are a "Logo interpreter" for kids, a Quickbasic UI (a la ncurses), networking and educational applications based on Quickbasic, 3D accelerated toy games, mathematical computing libraries and a host of other toys.
During my 11th and 12th standards, I joined the NIIT (Thanjavur) centre, which gave access to unix machines and learnt a lot in the process. Soon, I even had a lab time ticketing system written for the centre and lots of goodies to go with it. I met one of my first workaholic friends "Derrick Samuel Matthews" who lived on his work and set an example that I later chose to emulate.
I returned back to NIIT (Thanjavur)during my grad days to manage "QUEST", a club that intended to breed quizzers and increase tech activity among everyone who was involved with the NIIT centre. This was one of my strongest leadership experiences ever! I must thank Rajan, the then Managing Director for being a wonderful mentor and a treasure trove of management practices. |
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Stepping into Professional Shoes During my first year in college, I took to troubleshooting PCs of friends and acquaintances all around town. Finally together with a friend of mine, "Badhrinath", we decided to start a troubleshooting firm. "Badhrinath" has always been the best partner I meld with bringing out the best in both of us, and coordinating each other with a swish of magic that I always envied. We started out with an initial survey of companies owning PCs in Thanjavur, went ahead with planning our quarterly overlays and finally got down to starting it! It was a strong learning experience, understanding registration, tax norms and a lot of legal procedure involved in incorporating companies in India. We started getting compensated with an inverse-time model (much like some law firms in the US). This learning experience was a huge jumpstart to my career and my understanding of computers and people in tandem. We called our firm "Reboot" (not after the exceedingly successful animated show of the same name), but just after the process you would follow to restart your machine in case of trouble. We had some world-class support for printing pamphlets from Rueben who ran a local printing firm that delivered more, and delivered ahead-of-time.
I also learnt basic Computer Graphics stuff, image, photo editing and the likes from a born genius nicknamed "Chitti Babu". He still runs a firm that designs ad hoardings, wedding invitations and the like. He never fails to impress people with the speed at which he improvises, imagines and delivers. I've learnt a lot about basic design techniques from him, some that I have put to use to add to the simplicity of this website.
I discovered GNU/Linux with Slackware while I was doing my undergrad. We tried creating our own Linux distribution and had great fun. Learnt of this cool team at Codito (then Morelinux) who were interested in the initiative and created old unstable alpha versions of the distribution. The distribution didn't quite catch on, but I decided to hack and play around with linux more. I used SuSE Linux 9.x on my laptop and Debian (unstable/Sid) on my desktop. I also had a DWL650+ WiFi access card which uses a TI chipset. Visit acx100@sourceforge for entertainment. I have now moved to kubuntu (on all my PCs and Laptops).
With Codito, I started out on Embedded Linux and had a really cool run with OpenRTLinux for an ARM platform. I've been working with Embedded Linux ever since, and've always found lots of excitement hacking around. I enjoy working with the folk at Codito who make it an awesome learning experience!
Codito was my first exposure to a team of people who strived to be way above average. They made any average person feel too small and disappear. They created a work culture where people were encouraged to think big, think deep and essentially out-think everyone who had thought about the same idea earlier. I have seen one of India's (I should write world here) best idea incubators, managed by the free-est hand I've ever seen.
Briefly, for a period of a year, I left Codito in 2002 to join another startup in Singapore named Innvo which had been started out by a couple of people my age - Abhaya, Srijon, Rajiv and led by the ominously experienced Guruprakash. They got funding and the backing of Chay Kwang Soon (co-founder of Creative Labs) and worked some magic sitting in a city that otherwise lacked truly geeky work. We worked together for a year, going ahead and setting up an off-shore development center in the process. This added immensely to my learning experience about companies!
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Work makes Free I came back to Codito, a year later, this time not to just be an idea-maker like the majority of the team, but to put together competitive, fast and easy-to-use management practices that made them very professional in the market place. We worked on the management practices making sure that the strengths of hi-tech idea incubation was only enhanced, if it was in any way affected by the new management techniques we infused. Patanjali has been one of the most energetic CEOs, always full of spirit and enthusiasm. Coditons (as they refer to themselves) form most of my circle of friends as we share a like wavelength of thought, intellect and geekdom. They later restructured and are now within Azingo as part of Celunite .
These days, I hack on code selectively, spending more time on the technical leadership roles. I strive to understand strategic moves rather than be a trigger happy tachyon. I am always willing to look out at other teams that differentiate themselves from the rest of the world and want to do their share of going out and taking on the future!
I decided to leave Codito in February 2005 and find my destiny elsewhere. It had been a year and three months and I hadn't punched the air for something geeky happening. Fate has been kinder to those who code, for they win or lose, their code runs or crashes and they have tangible targets to hit.
During this period, I freelanced from Thanjavur - the Temple City. I helped people out to build business models around the open source community, merge open and closed intellectual property, consulted on setting up development centres, buying computing and storage equipment for existing development centres and the like. It helped me in a way staying closer to my parents and be in a stronger symbiotic relationship than working from elsewhere. I did visit the people who availed of my services frequently as people still found remote-work new and challenging to cope with; (seeing is believing).
I decided to move on further in May 2006. The place I chose to move to was D-Link R&D, Bangalore. I liked a lot of attributes about the team including the people, the style of management and the way the premises are maintained. I have opted not to choose too small or too big a name to associate myself with. I spent a lot more time here than I did previously in startups that were much smaller in size and had fewer long-term goals compared to such an organised setup. More of this decision was influenced by my desire to be close in a Product oriented company where the scale and nature of work differs from Services oriented companies I have associated myself with earlier.
Today, This organization (in Bangalore) has transitioned from the hands of Capt. J V Avadhanulu, a visionary and a leader to Mr. Aravindan, an excellent Engineering expert and finally to the hands of Mr. Natarajan Sankaranarayanan, a bridge between Business Development and Technology in the years I spent with D-Link R&D, Bangalore. Now they have become SmartLink, a research arm of Digi-Link after D-Link India Ltd. underwent a de-merger into two entities.
Moving on, from April 2009 I have started offering my services in platform creation and integration for product development in the telecom space. I specialise in integrating Free and Open Source components with commercial grade products. In all my role I have been creating and integrating "free" (freedom) software. My Work makes free software. I have experienced two full end-to-end product development lifecycles from concept to delivery. My work doubles as a hobby letting me pursue it with undiminished enthusiasm. |
Sunil Beta Baskar