I had heard so much about Coimbatore & had also passed couple of times, but never got a chance to stay. I knew it’s famous for education, manufacturing industries & known as “Manchester of South India" due to its cotton production and textile industries. I was not surprised when PM included Coimbatore in 100 smart cities. I spent good 4 days teaching and exploring Coimbatore. When I asked Professor Soundarrajan (thank you sir for all the assistance!) what is that famous thing which I can take home, he told “Cotton Saree and Krishna sweets Mysore Pak” in a single breath! And I managed to take second thing home!
Chiranjeev Brahma (CJ), Country manager for University Alliance, SAP & more interestingly, a wonderful creative friend was primarily reason behind this trip. Thank you so much for making this happen! We drove together from Bangalore to Coimbatore enjoying nonstop conversation on education, society, marketing & any/every topic under sun! We didn’t realize we had spoken for 7 hours straight! I was put up at PSG college guest house- which for first 2 days offered me cold water bath & on third day- fuming hot water from all water outlets, including flush in toilet! Otherwise, I enjoyed my stay in the guest house munching on dosa overdose.
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| Aravind Eye care visit |
I was there to conduct Internet of Things Workshop with 42 Professors from 18 engineering colleges along with Vinay C. Workshop also included hands on exercises using Arduino boards and SAP HANA Cloud Platform. This was as part of the faculty development program that PSG College of Technology organized. Next 2 days we were with 60 students from PSG Institute of Technology and Applied Research repeating the show! Thank you Kavitha ma’am for all the support. I also clubbed this opportunity to meet Aru & new startup friends in TiE summit for Education Entrepreneurs at Forge accelerator located in KCT College.
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| 8am Ooty Botanical Garden |
I had my best time in Coimbatore when I visited Aravind Eye Hospital. I had studied the model as part of laddership circle & I was just excited to be there. Thanks to Uma ma’am, Ranjith & Sangeetha for showing & explaining the fascinating model in 3 hours. I had lot to take away from experience- making healthcare affordable at 50 INR & looking at volume of 6 lakh operations with twin bed innovations+workforce empowerment+free treatment+same quality! Infusing goodness to business- salute to you Dr. V!
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| Coimbatore trip comes when I am looking forward for a serviceful goodness roadtrip :) |
Next exciting moment came when CJ, Vinay & I decided to go to Ooty which is 3 hours drive via Coonor for only 5 hours. Crazy! Decision came while eating dinner at Tangerine sizzlers. We were just unwinding and the idea stuck us- thanks to which, I had amazing time visiting botanical garden for early morning walk and pedal boat ride in the lake. Waking up at 3.30am on a Sunday was truly worthwhile…
We did some incredible fun things together- go karting to bowling to checking Avinashi road mall to exploring Marutamalai temple to having dinner at Taj to eating ghee rava masala dosa at Sree Annapoorna to long deep meaningful conversations! So much learning- Coimbatore trip is going to remain very close to my heart and all those who made this happen- deepest gratitude and smiles :)
