Akshay Surve

I feel I am free, albeit for a moment. If only I could tell you all how occupied I have been especially for the last two weeks. Its been really crazy. Now that I have checked off the 3 longest standing items on my todo list, I really feel relieved. By coincidence it also happens to be our Independence Day :)

Are you really interested in knowing those 3 items? Aha.. nope, I surely don’t want to pin them up here to be reminded of them again.

By the way I was just wondering why does August tend to be a crazy month year after year. You remember last year? I don’t know.

Few hours back I was watching this documentary on Nat Geo of 3 guys deciding to walk the whole Great Wall of China from its South Western tip till the Pacific. Thats close to 4500 km and a temperature shift of -40*c to +40*C (Gobi Dessert). Real crazy isn’t it? At the end it was just one guy who made it till the end and it took him 15 months. Other notably fascinating documentaries that come to my mind were finding the source of the Amazon river and locating the mystical place Shangri-La. Those guys finally stood by a puddle and pointed to it as the source of the Amazon, the world’s largest river by volume. I would sure like to do something like that… anyone have ideas? Not sure why? but I am longing for a true vacation already. Come December and I have some exciting plans, though can’t wait that long;)

What to change?
Simply put I would like to start getting up early (be in the early riser group) and see if it affects me positively. Do you feel the same?

Is something wrong without it?
No, in fact I can go without it. Currently, I consider I have a schedule which allows me to put in the requisite amount of hours in my work and other activities that I want to indulge in. Overall I am happy with the pace of things and I have learnt to avoid the areas which produces the guilt feeling.

I will give you a small example here: Now the ideal time to go for a run/jog is early morning. I have tried my hand at it numerous times and finally settled at time around 9 pm. Now, I wouldn’t say I failed in all the previous attempts because all the times I consoled myself rationally that it was not the right time *for me*. Sometimes saying to myself that ‘I need more sleep as I have slept late’, ‘I am not the early riser kind of person’, etc. Bottom-line: I decided that it shouldn’t make a big difference if I jog/run at evening/night plus I get to avoid that guilt feel of not being able to meet my goals. This has worked wonders for me. I have been able to do all the things I want to in the time I have and surprisingly without the guilt feeling of not waking up early. For all these years I have enjoyed working late nights. I Feel it comes naturally to me. I love the calmness of the night, I love its silence. I feel hitting all-nighters (here, here and so many times) is a trait which I am proud of and has benefitted me over the years.

So, why now?
Right from childhood this has always been in the back of my mind. I have tried but I have not stuck with it for various reasons (they may seem rational while hitting the snooze button but not any more). I want to give it one more shot and for the simple reason that I know I can. But, from my past learnings I also know I can come up with some rationale to avoid it and so this post and a call for everyone who wants to cultivate this habit. So, let not make it an individual struggle but a collaborative experience.

What’s the game all about?
Lets play this game as a team. Remember, together we can.

Format:

• We shall draft the rules of the game together. :) All of them should be personally acceptable to each of us participating.
• We play this game for a fixed time period (say 30 days)
• We won’t make it a closed struggle. We shall publish online our small victories (waking up on time on a particular day) and write about our big failures (not waking up on time on some day)
• Seek active advice from people and allow anyone to comment of scold us if we don’t act by the rules.
• We shall not give up unless we are out of the game (you break the rules more than x times and you are ousted). Winners get accolades, looser feels the shame (but they can give it one more shot if they feel like and emerge as winners)

Hope you get the gist?

Vision
Is this only about getting up early? No, not at all. This is about change. This is a part of an un-named project that I am initiating (its yet to have a name and I am open to your suggestions, any?) Oh yeah, I can hear in the background cheers of… “yes we can, yes we can… ;)”

So are you game?
If you want to become an early riser than this is for you. Please leave a comment below or contact me on my email.

Updates

Barka and Anil have joined in :) Please give them a standing ovation (or better send them some words of appreciation in comments below. Pokes and vampire bites a strict no, lol)

For updates head straight to 42times project wiki project page:

• 30each

If you would like to join in, you can leave me a message below or contact us through the contact page on 42times project.

Akshay Surve said on Wednesday that he will not be part of the Olympic torch relay in New Delhi this week as … (I am sure you can imagine the rest of the story with references to Baichung, Aamir, Soha and now even Sachin.)

Media (specially, 24 hours news channels in India), please stop being elitist and flash the title of this post in your “Breaking News” section ;) You can also use my head shot with the news :)

Please, I hold the sentiments of everyone who have accepted or even declined the offer to run in the Olympic torch relay in high respect. This rant of mine is only targeted towards the media.

I have submitted an entry to the N2Y3 Mashup Challenge.

From the N2Y3 website:

The N2Y3 NetSquared Conference brings together a unique mix of people from the public and private sectors to develop and release Mashups designed to provide deeper insight into the social issues affecting communities around the globe.

I have proposed ‘SocialHub - Dashboard for Social Change‘.

Thought behind SocialHub:

If you think you do, when you do you should share because when you share you spread awareness and make people think.

SocialHub is all about aggregating the latest and most popular content from various social change initiatives (platforms, websites, blogs) together and create a dashboard for social change.

SocialHub will act as a starting point for you and me who want to keep themselves updated about the latest and most popular content related to effecting positive social change. In addition this will also be of great value to social change initiatives to be showcased and build traction among its constituencies.

Proposed Status:
This is at a concept level. I would also like to add that like a true mashup its best to hack a version 1.0 and follow it up with an iterative approach to build upon recommendations from the community.

Proposed Roadmap:

To achieve our goals plus build upon learnings from verticals like web2.0 and technology. I would like to propose an approach which is heavily borrowed from ‘popurls‘ and learnings from ‘techmeme‘ and ‘digg‘.

To start with we will feature the latest and most popular content from top websites in their categories. As we move on we will take into consideration click-through, social filtering, recommendations and personalization to leverage the long tail.

Project page at N2Y3 Mashup Challenge:

http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/socialhub

I would really appreciate if you could vote for my mashup entry provided you like it. Also do explore the Project Gallery which boasts around 120+ mashups.

Voting ends in the next 24 hours so you need to Hurry!!! (reads like a super-bumper offer).

Voting Rules:

1. Please register and log in to the NetSquared site.
2. Go to the project page. http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/socialhub
3. To vote for a project, click on the voting badge or “Add Project to Ballot” link at the top of the page.
4. You may only vote once for a project.
   You must choose at least 5 (and up to 10) of your favorite projects. So please visit Projects link to review project proposals from others. Your ballot will only count if you have atleast 5 projects.
5. Submit your ballot to cast your final votes. Once you SUBMIT, that’s it!

General Observation:

I was going through the mashup proposals in the Project Gallery and most of them (I am generalizing, but thats what I feel) were in BETA. Contrasting it with SocialHub I would say is at the Concept stage. So here are some encouraging words from the Netsquared team:

We want to help separate apples from oranges this year. That is, we believe projects at the ‘concept’ level would benefit from being evaluated separately from projects that are much further along. To this end, please identify which phase you believe your project is in

I would like to add that although SocialHub is in its ‘Concept’ state its very much hackable ;)

Thanks:

I did mail people who I thought would be interested in the mashup challenge for some feedback and support. It was good of some to revert back quickly in support. Thanks. I am still scouting for your views and feedback.

I never wanted to realize, what is sky,
I was happy knowing I could touch it someday.

I never wanted to realize, how far is the moon.
I was happy knowing he would come to greet me everyday.

I never wanted to realize, how big is this world.
I was happy knowing things around me is my world.

I never wanted to realize, what is rain.
I was happy knowing even God shed tears like me.

I never wanted to realize, what it is like to win.
I was happy knowing I will get to play one more time.

I never wanted to realize, what people expect from me.
I was happy knowing what I want for myself.

I never wanted to realize, what is right.
I was happy knowing things I wanted to do.

I never wanted to realize, all these things.
I was happy knowing nothing about them.

- Akky

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.
I have lost almost 300 games.
On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed.
And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is precisely why I succeed.”
- Michael Jordon

P.S.: I will be adding another stream to my website ‘Quote-Unquote’ where I will try to post some of _my pithy quotes_ ;) There will be some you must have already come across on I Am and some which I haven’t penned down before. Post frequency will be 1 in 2 weeks. Would you find it to be interesting? Post ‘+1′ in the comments if so.

Update: Thanks, guys. Here it is » Quote-Unquote

Was browsing through some of my older posts and came across this rhyme I posted nearly two years back which still holds true for me.

Would be interesting to know how many of you relate to this particular rhyme?

E-Week India PLEDGE

If even one of the below resonates with you, please pledge:

Today, I renew my Pledge to an Entrepreneurial India.

I Will:

• Break barriers between industry and academia
• Foster information flow between the sectors
• Regularly include entrepreneurs, industrialists, investors and professionals in campus programs
• Find new and innovative ways for students to experience industry before graduation
• Facilitate faculty interaction with industry
• Work to bring the discoveries of the lab into society
• Innovate in my work
• Consider working for start up companies
• Stop complaining – and start fixing the problems and barriers to entrepreneurial growth
• Change my thinking from, “Why?” to “Why not?”
• Continue, always, to dream big and work to bring those dreams to reality
• Encourage and support others, so that we all might live in a richer, better India.

Take your Pledge here!

Did you miss the India Poised anthem? I am sure you will relate to it at some level. It is a must see for every Indian.

Find more videos like this on VentureSprings

Add to it the Lead India spirit - D.O. (Tum chalo to Hindustan chale) and we are unstoppable.

Feeling patriotic before the Republic Day, 26th of January.

Jai Hind!

I am back!

Looking forward to make some blog posts:

• The year that was 2007
• Konkan Entrada
• Year Ahead

Wish you a Happy New Year 2008.