KAKATIYA UNIVERSITY, WARNAGAL

ENGLISH FOR CAREERS

UG CBCS- SEMESTER 6- TEXTS

UNIT1: Sreelakshmi Suresh (prose)

(Youngest Girl Web Designer and Youngest CEO in the World)

In 2009, entrepreneur Sreelakshmi Suresh founded a company to design professional websites for
clients. She had a fair bit of experience at web design already, and had even won domestic and
international awards for her work. Still, running a company would be a challenging task nonetheless-
especially when she also had homework to attend to. For Sreelakshmi was just eleven years old, and
with the launch of her start-up, eDesign, she had become one of the youngest CEOs in the world.

Click here to view her eDesign website:

https://www.edesign.co.in/index.htm

Sreelakshmi Suresh was born in 1998 in Kozhikode, Kerala. She started using computers at the age of
three. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, computers and the internet were not essential components
of a household. Pioneers of the IT industry such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and N.R. Narayana Murthy
were well known, and young admirers dreamt of emulating their successes. However, design
applications available for a home desktop personal computer were few and quite basic.
Sreelakshmi's parents, Suresh Menon (a lawyer) and Viju Suresh (a school-teacher), owned a
computer and taught their young daughter how to use it. Sreelakshmi used Notepad to type letters
and learn the English alphabet; she used MS Paint to draw and colour pictures.

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These early experiences helped Sreelakshmi become familiar with computer programmes. She grew
curious to see what more could be done with a computer, and her parents actively encouraged this
interest. Suresh would often tell her to try out something new and different. He showed her
websites designed by young children who were about her age or older. He noticed that most young
web designers were boys, and believed that his daughter was just as capable as them. Sure enough,
when Sreelakshmi tried her hand at web design, she proved to be a quick learner.

For the next few years, Sreelakshmi spent every free moment after school teaching herself how to
design websites. After finishing her homework, she would work on the computer for as long as her
parents allowed. Though her parents did worry about the consequences of spending so much time
on the computer-especially the strain on her eyes-they also knew that she was not merely playing
around. Their daughter was working hard, and they were confident that she would benefit from the
experience.

Sreelakshmi proved them right when, at the age of eight, she designed a complete, sophisticated
and fully operational website for her school, Presentation Higher Secondary School, Kozhikode. She
had taken it upon herself to design an official website for the school after realising it did not have
one. The result was far better than the school could have. ever imagined. The website she created
had information about admissions and curriculum, the history of the school; its faculty members,
students, headmistress and staff; as well as a section allowing parents to ask for and view their
children's school reports.

The school website garnered worldwide recognition for Sreelakshmi. Over the next few years, she
was the recipient of nearly thirty awards from different countries. These include the Golden Web
Award, the Art Space's World Web Award of Excellence for 2006-07, the Webmasters Ink Award,
and the Global Internet Directories Gold Award, to name a few. Two honours deserve special
mention. The first of these was Sreelakshmi's enrolment in the American Webmasters Association. A
professional group founded in 2003. the American Webmasters Association connects and supports
those individuals responsible for creating innovative websites through design, management or
marketing. At the time of her enrolment in 2007, Sreelakshmi Suresh was the youngest and only
member below eighteen. The then CEO of the organisation took it upon herself to write to
Sreelakshmi, commending her on her work on the school's website.

The second award that stood out from the rest was conferred upon Sreelakshmi on 5 February 2009-
which also happened to be her eleventh birthday. This was the National Child Award for Exceptional

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Achievement for the year 2008, given by the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare in New Delhi.
Receiving a national award at the age of eleven is not something many can boast of, but Sreelakshmi
certainly deserved such an honour.

By this point she had launched her own start-up, eDesign Technologies, a web-design company.
Sreelakshmi was proud of her efforts, and had big plans for eDesign. She was well aware of the
expectations people had. Starting a company would only increase the pressure on her to live up to
and exceed these expectations. She was ready for the challenge.

However, she did not intend to work full-time on web design immediately, and wished to first focus
on her studies. After completing her schooling, she pursued an undergraduate degree in Business
Management from a college in her hometown of Kozhikode. She knew. she had a lot to learn.
Technology is constantly changing; what is popular today can become obsolete by the end of the
year. In order to maintain the quality of her work and to grow her venture, Sreelakshmi kept
studying new and developing technologies. She learnt animation search engine optimisation, PHP, e-
commerce, and user interface design.

Her dream is to make eDesign a leading IT company. Instead of trying to secure foreign clients,
Sreelakshmi chose to start small and work her way up. She has created websites for many
organisations and firms. Her clients include the Bar Council of Kerala and the Kozhikode District
Association of the Deaf. At present, eDesign Technologies offers website design, custom web
development, online marketing services, and even logo designing. In 2010, she launched State of
Kerala, an online encyclopaedia about Kerala.

In 2012, Sreelakshmi gave a TED talk about her journey to becoming one of the worlds youngest
CEOs. She talked about her dream of becoming a world-class web designer, and about the struggles
of launching a start-up as a minor.

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Click here to view TED-X talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7YYJFWrql8

Over the years, Sreelakshmi has been invited by several engineering and management colleges to
interact with their students. She has also spoken at functions organised by the Confederation of
Indian Industry (CII), Lions Club International, and Rotary International The department store chain
Shoppers Stop invited her to their annual business event, where he addressed a gathering of more
than a hundred CROS

When we talk about how age is just a number, we often refer to how growing older does not mean
you should give up on your dreams. Sreelakshmi Suresh has turned this expression on its head and
reminded the world that being young does not mean you cannot dream big as well-‘Don't think that
something is impossible for children. We can achieve whatever elders can do, if we have the will’.
She firmly believes that ‘if you are confident that you are competent and prepared to work hard,
nothing is impossible’.

Click here to read her interview: https://guindytimes.com/articles/interview-with-sree-lakshmi-

suresh

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UNIT1: For Whom the Bell Tolls (poem)- John Donne

ABOUT THE POET

John Donne (1572-1631) wrote many religious sermons, letters, verse

satires, elegies and love poems marked by wit, profundity, and subtlety
of thought. Most of his work was published only after his death. Today,
he is considered the greatest of the metaphysical poets' in English.
(Metaphysical poetry blended emotion with intellectual inventiveness,
bringing together seemingly unconnected ideas in such a way that the
reader is forced to think deeply about the argument of the poem.)

ABOUT THE POEM

When Donne was seriously ill in 1623, he wrote a series of essays titled Devotions. One of these,
Meditation 17, has become famous for the excerpt below. Although the lines are in prose, this
excerpt is often published as a poem because of its vivid poetic imagery. The essence of these lines
is the interconnectedness of humankind: the death of any person is a loss for every person.
Therefore the bell that tolls at the funeral of a stranger also commemorates a personal loss, for a bit
of our own self has died with the passing of the deceased. We belong to a single human race. and
every death is a reminder of our own mortality. These lines are an argument against isolation,
communalism and self-interest, and instead make a case for unity. brotherhood and fellow-feeling.

POEM

No man is an island entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

As well as if a promontory were,

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As well as if a manor of thy friend's

Or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

Click here to listen to the poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mfus7QCeWU

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UNIT2: How work can be made meaningful (prose)- Katie Bailey

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie Bailey, Professor of Work and Employment at King's College London, has
authored several articles, reports and books on meaningful work, employee
engagement, and human resource management. She has held positions of
leadership four business schools, and won several awards for her work. In
addition to research, Bailey also involved in coaching, consultancy, training, and
development projects. She presently works with the UK government on making post-Covid work
environments healthier and more sustainable.

ABOUT THE TEXT

During the course of the everyday prosaic routine of one's working life, most people don't stop to
think about the greater purpose and impact of the work that they do. However, very large portion of
one's adult life is spent at one's workplace, and hence the significance of one's work-to one's own
life or to the lives of others-is an important factor contributing to happiness in life. What is it that
makes work meaningful? Read on to find out.

TEXT

While most people spend a good proportion of their life at work, few will ever stop to consider
whether their work is meaningful. "Meaningfulness' is not something that tends to feature in our
daily thoughts, preoccupied as we often are by more mundane matters like rent, bills and lunch.

But when conversation with friends turns to complaints about work, we might fantasise giving it all
up and living somewhere warm and sunny with no boss demanding round the-clock attention. In
fact, research often finds that when respondents are asked what they'd do if they were to win the
lottery, most would choose to carry on working. Despite our tendency to grumble about it, clearly
something about work meets some of our basic human needs laid down by Maslow's famous
hierarchy of needs, notably for belonging achievement and, beyond this, for purpose and meaning.

We have known for many years that humans are driven by an innate desire to find or foster meaning
in what we do, even under the most extreme conditions. Given below central work is to most
people's lives, it is a key place to seek meaningfulness. In my recent research with Adrian Madden

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we interviewed 135 people in a wide range of jobs to discover what they considered meaningful
work, how work can be made meaningful, and how this sense of meaningfulness can be erased or
destroyed.

The meaning in meaningfulness

What marks meaningfulness out as distinctive from other attitudes such as feeling satisfied or
engaged? These and other positive attitudes are linked, but meaningfulness is distinctive in several
ways.

First, it is almost invariably associated with other people-work tends to be found meaningful if
people can see it has a positive impact on others. These need not necessarily be people the worker
comes into contact with, such as clients or customers. Some of our respondents were bin men, and
they spoke of the benefits their recycling work would bring to future generations in the form of a
cleaner, greener planet.

Second, meaningfulness may not necessarily be a positive experience--meaningful moments can be

tinged with sadness, such as the priests who told us that they found their work most meaningful
when they were able to help and support people who were ill or bereaved.

Third, meaningfulness is associated with specific episodes or moments in time it is not a continuous
state but rather arises in peaks and troughs. People tend to become aware that their work has a
profound significance for them at unexpected moments. One example from our study was an actor
tasked to get inmates at a high-security prison involved in the arts. Although terrified at the thought
of performing in front of prisoners she knew had committed violent crimes, she managed to connect
with them and draw them into the performance. She described this experience as emotional,
challenging and highly meaningful.

Fourth, people do not generally tend to go home and announce, 'Hey, I found my work really
meaningful today!" The meaningfulness of work doesn't always make itself known at the time at a
conscious level. We need time to pause and think through what happened.

And finally, a key difference of meaningfulness is that it is not just related to work. Job satisfaction is
described in terms of the job. But the meaningfulness of work is described through reflection on the
link between individuals' jobs and their personal lives. One entrepreneur told us that she had set up
her bakery business to make her grandfather proud.

Making and losing meaning

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It's easy to assume that only certain types of jobs, such as doctors or nurses, might offer meaning to
those that do them, but we actually found the overwhelming majority of respondents found
meaning in what they did-whether they worked as retail assistants, bin men, priests, stonemasons,
solicitors, or entrepreneurs. But no one found their work meaningful all the time, and it seems
unrealistic to suggest that would be achievable, or desirable.

But while people are adept at finding meaningfulness in what they do, managers are a skilled in
destroying this meaning through their actions. By failing to involve employees in important
decisions, not thanking or acknowledging them, using isolating or bullying tactics, and failing to
protect employees from physical or mental harm, the worker's sense of meaningful work is croded.
leaving only the feeling of 'why do I bother? Meaningfulness is all too easily destroyed by bad
management for example through focusing on costs rather than quality. We found that treatment
by managers frequently came up in our study when our respondents discussed times they felt their
work lacked meaning.

If employers want their staff to find their work meaningful, they need to tread carefully People like
to find their own meaning, by reference to what matters most to them as individuals, and
organisational efforts to force the issue can lead to cynicism. However, organisations can nurture an
environment that helps people to find meaning in their work through adopting authentic values,
ensuring workers are in jobs that suit their skills and personalities, fostering a positive and respectful
working climate, and helping workers see how their work has a positive effect on others.

Knowing that our work has improved the life of someone, somewhere even just a little bit- makes
the job worthwhile.

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UNIT2: Team work (poem) - Edgar Albert Guest

ABOUT THE POET

Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959) was a British-born American Journalist

whose sentimental poems were widely read throughout North America
during the first half of the twentieth century. His newspaper columns and
inspirational verse were so popular in his time that he was referred to as the
Peoples Poet and the Poet Laureate of Michigan. Guest's poems were
imbued with the values of small town America, and had an optimistic view of everyday life.

ABOUT THE POEM

"Teamwork is a short, simple poem extolling the virtue of working with others towards a common
goal. It's good to be recognised for one's talents and skills. but, the poet says, it's even more
important to know how to work in a manner that contributes to the success of the entire team. One
should not be so caught up in chasing personal glory that one forgets the greater good of the group
that one belongs to and the needs of the people who work with us towards a shared objective.

POEM

It's all very well to have courage and skill

And it's fine to be counted a star,

But the single deed with its touch of thrill

Doesn't tell the man you are;

For there's no lone hand in the game we play,

We must work to a bigger scheme,

And the thing that counts in the world to-day Is,

How do you pull with the team?

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They may sound your praise and call you great,

They may single you out for fame,

But you must work with your running mate

Or you'll never win the game;

Oh, never the work of life is done

By the man with a selfish dream,

For the battle is lost or the battle is won

By the spirit of the team.

You may think it fine to be praised for skill,

But a greater thing to do

Is to set your mind and set your will

On the goal that's just in view;

It's helping your fellowman to score

When his chances hopeless seem;

It's forgetting self till the game

And fighting for the team.

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UNIT3: How Corona virus sparked a wave of innovation (prose) -
Sreevas Sahasranamam

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sreevas Sahasranamam studies entrepreneurs and innovators who

tackle big challenges-especially in emerging markets-as well as the
institutional factors that affect their work. He leads the doctoral training
centre in Socially Progressive Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the
University of Strathclyde (Glasgow. Scotland), and is a part of the Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) UK team. At the Strathclyde Business
School, in addition to teaching, he supervises work on the commercialisation of technologies.

ABOUT THE TEXT

The following essay, written in April 2020, enumerates a number of innovations made by Indian
entrepreneurs and start-ups to help combat the deadly outbreak of COVID-19. The author also
examines a few reasons for the rapid development and deployment of these innovative ideas.

TEXT (LESSON)

Entrepreneurs and innovators across India have responded quickly to the challenge posed by the
COVID-19 pandemic. A host of new innovations, some emerging from start-ups that have been
incubated by universities, have appeared in recent weeks.

There are a number of reasons for the quick response, including the urgency of the humanitarian
situation and a proactive approach to crowd sourcing ideas from the government. India also has a
wealth of trained engineering talent and helps foster what's called jugaad-a frugal innovation
mindset to find hacks to problems with limited resources.

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Robots, apps and ventilators

Around the world, social distancing and contact tracing have been the buzzwords of the response to
COVID-19. A particular problem as lockdowns begin to ease will be how to stop the virus spreading
in public spaces such as airports or bus stations. Asimov Robotics, a start-up based in Kerala, has
deployed robots at entrances to office buildings and other public places to dispense hand sanitiser
and deliver public health messages about the virus.

Robots developed by Asimov Robotics are also being deployed in hospital isolation wards to carry
food and medicines, which eases the pressure on medical staff.

In early April, the Indian government launched a COVID-19 tracking app called Aarogya Setu which
uses GPS and Bluetooth to inform people when they are at risk of exposure to COVID 19. The app
was launched before a similar initiative from tech giants Google and Apple got off the ground.

Start-ups, including Klinic App and Practo, are providing COVID-19 tests at home and online
consultation with doctors through their platform.

In response to the shortage of ventilators for critical care, start-ups such as Nocca Robotics
(incubated at Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur), Acrobiosys Innovations (incubated at IIT
Hyderabad) and AgVa Healthcare are developing low-cost, easy-to-use, and portable ventilators that
can be deployed even in rural areas of India. These ventilators would need. medical regulatory
approval before they could be deployed.

Start-ups are also supporting the government's public information campaign on coronavirus by
developing technology platforms to disseminate government notifications. The Kerala state
government launched an app called Gok-Kerala Direct using a platform developed by QKopy. It
sends COVID-19 updates and travel information via phone. notifications, and via SMS to older
phones for the less than half of India's population without smartphones, These messages are
delivered both in English and in Malayalam, the local language.

The hygiene of public spaces is another area of notable innovation. Start-ups such as Aqoza
technologies and PerSapien claim they have developed chemical formulations that disinfect public
spaces. Aqoza's approach, developed during an outbreak of Nipah virus in Kerala in 2018, is a water-
based sanitiser disinfectant, while 'Airlens Minus Corona from PerSapien is a machine which the
company claims dispenses ionised water droplets to oxidise the viral protein.

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Another startup, Droom, claims it has come up with a special anti-microbial coating called Corono
Shield, which inhibits the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria. algae, yeast, moulds, and
mildew on the surfaces of vehicles. It is being tested by police in Gurugram in Haryana state.

Start-ups such as Marut Dronetech have partnered with state governments to test the use of drones
to monitor adherence to social distancing rules. Drones are also being used to deliver medical
supplies and even check people's temperature using thermal imaging.

Connecting people

My conversations with some of these entrepreneurs and innovators from India have highlighted a
good example of the triple helix model of innovation, integrating efforts between universities,
industries (start-ups) and the government, in response to COVID-19. Although the active
involvement of engineering volunteers from universities and industry is the lifeblood of these
innovations, two other enabling factors are also particularly crucial.

First, the intermediary organisations helping to bring the three groups together. For instance, the
national government's Department of Science and Technology has set up a task force to map
technologies developed by start-ups related to COVID-19. It is also funding start-ups to develop
relevant innovations such as rapid testing for the virus.

Another example is that of the Kerala Start-up Mission (KSUM), a government-supported

entrepreneurship development agency. It launched initiatives such as 'Breath of Hope' which brings
together an interdisciplinary volunteer team of IT professionals, biomedical engineers and doctors to
develop innovative medical devices. Start-ups such as Asimov Robotics and QKopy are part of KSUM.

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Crowdsourcing ideas

Second, crowdsourced platforms have also proved to be an important channel for bringing together
the wisdom from universities, industry and government. The national government launched the
COVID-19 solution challenge on March 16 that invites innovators to offer ideas and solutions for
tackling the pandemic. Industry associations such as the Federation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry collaborated in an online hackathon to develop non-medical solutions for
COVID-19.

Similar crowdsourced platforms from start-up incubators such as BreakCorona received 1,300 ideas
and 180 product solutions within two days of launch. In another effort, volunteers. have set up an
online crowdsourced portal called Coronasafe-Network, a real-time open source public platform
containing details on COVID-19 precautions, tools and responses which serves as a useful starter-kit
for innovators.

India needs to sustain and enhance this entrepreneurial mindset to create the next wave of
innovation to continue the fight against COVID-19 and for the socio-economic recovery once
lockdown restrictions begin to ease.

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UNIT2: See it Through (poem)- Edgar Albert Guest

ABOUT THE POET

Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959) was an American writer whose poems were
widely read and anthologised. The immense popularity of his sentimental and
inspirational verse led to television appearances, and to his hosting one of the
longest-running radio shows of the time.

ABOUT THE POEM

The following poem offers words of encouragement to those facing difficulties in life. The poet
advises us to face adversity head-on without evasion, and with a positive attitude that will help us
stay composed even under the most challenging of circumstances. Even when confronted by a
seemingly unconquerable obstacle, he asks us to persevere, reminding us that many others before
us have gone through what we now face. True failure is running away from our troubles; the one
who sees things through to the end, even when crushed by hardship, will become all the stronger
for it.

POEM

When you're up against a trouble,

Meet it squarely, face to face;

Lift your chin and set your shoulders,

Plant your feet and take a brace.

When it's vain to try to dodge it,

Do the best that you can do:

You may fail, but you may conquer,

See it through!

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Black may be the clouds about you

And your future may seem grim,

But don't let your nerve desert you;

Keep yourself in fighting trim.

If the worst is bound to happen,

Spite of all that you can do,

Running from it will not save you,

See it through!

Even hope may seem but futile,

When with troubles you're beset,

But remember you are facing

Just what other men have met.

You may fail, but fall still fighting;

Don't give up, whate'er you do;

Eyes front, head high to the finish.

See it through!

Click here to view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1HL4CapqTQ

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