Category Archives: critical thinking

What’s your success statement?

Posted by Ashesh on

Hello and hope you are having a nice Sunday…

Let me ask you a question dear blog readers; Just put a pause in your life to sit down and think on what have you been doing up till now in life? Do you deserve merit for any achievements till yet? How’s life, does it present itself with challenges or just some boring routines and a salary credited at the end of month?

Well, the purpose of this blog post puts down the output of my thinking and my ‘success statement’ is as follows:

Being young at age, I currently stand in front of a long career path. There is a long way to go in order to be successful in leadership and in life. Since childhood, I was fascinated by the processing abilities of computing machines and I wanted to learn more and more on the ‘magic of technology’. Today, I aspire for a career in Information Technology as I strongly believe that Internet technologies could be a wonderful tool to keep people connected and metamorphose tasks which took time to do or which were done inefficiently due to lack of information.

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration” – Thomas Alva Edison

Taking into consideration my age and study constraints, I believe that I have worked hard in the several web projects undertaken. I am successful as a Young IT specialist in Web and Internet Technologies as after the last 12 months, I feel very proud of seeing the projects running live on the designed IT infrastructure. The client testimonials on my CV would clearly indicate the extent of satisfaction related with the service level agreement. I founded ‘Garaz Developeurs’ with the aim to share my knowledge of Web 2.0 and Managing a Web Business to others. Hence the students obtained the necessary materials to start developing websites and integrate in a team of Freelance Web Development under my leadership. I provide guidance to the team of 4 young IT professionals in order to deliver projects on time, within budget and deliverables of high quality. Agile Methodology is adopted for the project development and the different occupations in team include: Web Developer, Database Administrator, Web/Graphic Designer, Web Editor, eMarketing Manager, Testing and Quality, Project Manager.

Being an advocate of Open Source Web Technologies, I undertake strategies for my clients to be closer to their target audience through social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr etc.) on top of having a website powered by Open Source CMS (Drupal, WordPress). Being a passionate of the Web, this year marks my 4 years of blogging on http://asheshr.com where I have relentlessly shared information on the BCS Higher Education Qualification/ BCS Membership and BCS Regional Activities like the IT Personality Awards etc.

To be successful in life, I am simply passionate about anything I undertake and at the same time I try maintain a work/life balance. I apply effective time management and stress management techniques. I do not neglect the cultural aspects surrounding me and hence to be an all-rounder, I practice sports (badminton) and performing arts (Drama, Indian classical music instrument playing). I also take time to engage in social activities and to help others.

That’s it. So what’s your success statement?

Le Boss fostering Mauritian Entrepreneurship

Posted by Ashesh on

Le Boss

The finals of the competition ‘Le Boss’ was held yesterday night (2 July 2011) on MBC TV (http://www.mbcradio.tv/browse/news/local/finale-du-concours-televise-le-boss/). Its for the first time that on MBC, the Development Bank of Mauritius (DBM) created the initiative for ‘re-boosting’ Mauritian Entrepreneurship and Innovation.  The website of Le Boss can be accessed here: http://www.dbm.mu/leboss/index.html . The Youtube videos have been uploaded by Darkprint ltd on http://www.youtube.com/user/quickdarkness#p/u. And the Facebook page link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/LE-BOSS/107708422646875

There were 7 finalists who were entrepreneurs in a specific industry who had submitted their business plans to a panel of Jury. On the competition, they were given 6 minutes to answer questions of the jury members, who were professionals in their field. The winner of the first edition of ‘Le Boss’ is Ved Luchmun.

Ved (the banana transformation guy’)was very proud of winning this competition and became emotional at the end of the show, as all TV viewers witnessed. Many Congratulations to him and wish him all the best for his entrepreneurial spirit and his journey towards self-actualisation.

My Personal Opinion:

Firstly, It was nice to have Mr. Francois Woo, Director of Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile Ltée (CMT), the leading textile company on TV. He told his personal experience of how he started to become where he is today. On the web there is already a short description http://www.factory-buildings.com/compagnie.htm , however his live ‘testimonial’ had a greater weight. What I will retain is that: 1) one needs at least 10 years of learning and gaining experience in the field that one wishes to do business 2) hard work and sacrifice is essential as during this period (10-year), one will make savings, that will be invested in the new company that will take birth 3) With your own money invested, you will be more careful and this will have an impact on your decision-making process. Mr Woo had also taken the support of DBM for the financing of his projects and today, CMT can aspire to be amongst the top ten in garment manufacturing. For me, personally, Francois Woo is a role model for new Mauritian Entrepreneurs who are willing to compete on a global stage by seizing Government Support (whether in form of a DBM loan or help in business planning etc.).

Secondly, the members of the jury asked questions requiring critical thinking as they need to defend their business plan and be convincing. I appreciate the nice job of the members of the jury. Their questions liked to sustainability, feasibility of the business model- in the form of ‘what’s your strategy to tackle X and Y Challenge? What is your marketing plan? Management questions – Can you define Success? How can you assure Quality in your products? etc.. However, the thing of ‘buzzers’ – euhh , this concept is a bit ambiguous for me.

Thirdly, given I am in the shoes of a Freelance Web Developer (or Mauritian Technopreneur), it was nice to see a young finalist defending his eMarketing Business plan (SEO, Copywriting etc.) Miss Nabiilah is also a student whilst trying to conduct her business affairs. This is very encouraging to see female entrepreneurs emerging. I hope the ‘glass ceiling’ will eventually not exist. Also, Web 2.0 can provide most businesses a competitive edge and this has been outlined by someone in the audience in the TV show. So allez Nabiilah, ‘manz r li’ with your Mauritian Technopreneur spirit. I know its not easy as I had done the same during my UoM days.

To conclude, Le Boss has a good start. I hope that MBC could inspire a bit from BBC Dragon’s Den http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/ for any further editions.

What do you think of the show? Do not hesitate to comment….