Volume : 2Edition : 1January 2009

Learning is a life long continuum!!

‘I have never let my schooling interfere with my education’ –Mark Twain

In a global knowledge economy, the ability to succeed depends on the capacity of individuals tolearn. With phenomenal market breakthroughs of disruptive technologies, it has becomeimperative for intellectual capital to continuously hone, re-focus, and re-orient to changing businessneeds. Corporate today would rate self learning skills of an individual on top of their priority list.Learning is a natural phenomenon! Human beings are endowed with a body-mind-intellectapparatus that enables them to create conditions for survival in the stiffest of challenges; be itpersonal, social, corporate, global or environmental. Tony Buzan, an expert in the concept of ‘Mind Mapping’, through his study has reported that thinking tools (aka creativity) used by childrenare as high as 98%, which by the time one acquires a university degree reduces to 25%, and ingrown up adults, diminishes to as low as 10%. True education is caught, than taught. Are we readyto change the learning paradigm? That’s the moot question

If only exposure to facts is the edifice of education, students cannot be prepared for life. Studentsneed to understand that life long learning with a solution conscious mind and right attitude is thekey to retain the competitive edge. Active learning has shot into significant prominence in recenttimes and educational institutes are trying to catch up with the change to make learning better.While in the educational institutes, the students should improve their reading habits and developa guided thinking pattern. An active application of skills based learning, improving capacity toreflect, augmenting the desire to learn more, willingness to learn new material on their own,reflecting on their learning process, participation in professional body activities, attending / takingprofessional certifications are a few demonstrative factors of active learning. Interacting withpeople who invest time in learning new skills, initiating new projects and seeking challenging jobswould also help convert life long learning into a habit.Life long learning has two attributes, firstly the need to develop further and secondly the abilityto engage into it. Internal commitment is a hall mark for learning and students today need toembrace this attitude to survive and progress in market places engaged in intense competitionand constant renewal. Designing learning interventions and pedagogical constructs with the helpof high end robust technology can help disseminate knowledge to learners in a better and efficientmanner.

A course like MSIT, with its pedagogical shift in place, offers a holistic learning experience.The course while improving positive attitudinal dimension facilitates a seamless transition of astudent into a professional.

Talking about the next phase of a students’ career, i.e., learning on job, a learner needs to solveproblems as they crop and it is active learning, which can provide the platform to assimilatenuggets of necessary information to solve task at hand. Therefore the learning process continuesto have its relevance through out one’s career. Our ability to compete as a nation today requires afresh approach to education by constantly improving value adding learning potentials of studentcommunity.

‘All of the top achievers I know are life long learners. ….looking for new skills, insights, andideas. If they are not learning, they are not growing… not moving toward excellence!!’ quotesDenis Waitley.

-- Padmaja MPrincipal Mentor- Soft Skills, MSIT

Know Your World : nVIDIA

Full Company Name: nVIDIACEO: Jen-Hsun HuangHead Quarters: Santa Clara, CaliforniaTarget Customer base: Graphical processors for personal computers, workstations and mobile phonesNet Value: $20 billionAnnual Turnover: $4.1 billionNo of Employees: appx. 5000If the very sound of the word ‘nVIDIA’ sends a thrilling sensation through your body, then you are eitheran avid gamer or employed in producing high-quality 3D animation content like movies and games. If youcannot find yourself in the above listed categories, then you might be either dreaming of having a systemwith an nVIDIA graphics card in it. Unless of course, you haven’t heard of the company itself!! Don’t worry,this article is primarily meant for YOU!

Early Days:

The story of NVIDIA’s early days is a lot similar to that of many other recent startups. The company wasestablished in 1993 by the combined efforts of Jen-Hsun Huang, Curtis Priem and Chris Malachowsky.Sequoia Capital which funded several iconic companies including Cisco Systems, Oracle and Apple, providedthe initial funding to NVIDIA.Initial Failures:The company made big mistakes initially, with its choice of making the design dependant on the conceptof ‘quadratic surfaces’. The company’s first graphics card went largely unnoticed in the market, because itfollowed a new proprietary format and most of the graphic buyers preferred sticking to the establishednames, rather than try out something new.Following Microsoft’s footsteps after the latter’s release of DirectX multimedia specifications turned intoanother disaster, with Sega, the company funding the project, deciding that the working on the concept of ‘quadratic surfaces’ was a bad idea after all!Re-starting from the square one:With the company’s legacy reading as “one dud + one abandoned”, NVIDIA’s CEO, Huang knew that thecompany had to make some drastic changes, in order to survive.Huang’s decision to appoint Dr. David Kirk as its Chief Scientist was the first right step on its road torecovery. It then revised its strategy to support DirectX standard, instead of its own new standards. It alsoset into implementation, a 6 month-product cycle. The benefit of the latter strategy is the ability of cushioning the effect of any of its products on its survival.The sweet taste of first success:NVIDIA came into limelight with the introduction of RIVA 128 into the market. A company which waswritten off as an “also-ran”, had torn apart the specifications and speed of the industry leaders, by deliveringunbelievably fast graphical processing units.GeForce:Its success march continued with GeForce 256, with the company gaining a larger market footprint, whileleaving all the existing competition several miles behind.Its successors, including GeForce 2 MX and GeForce3 only helped it in further expanding its market presence and out beating its competitors, time after time.Agreement with Microsoft and dealing with new headaches:Microsoft, impressed with NVIDIA’s success, chose NVIDIA as the preferred graphics hardware providerfor its yet-to-launched Xbox consoles. The pricing of the succeeding NVIDIA models turned into the boneof contention between the two giants. It eventually led to NVIDIAVinay Babu V VI Year, IIIT