Dream Chaser - 4 - Being an inventor

Dream came true for me when my idea was recognised as innovative and got the approval from Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (HKSTP). With God's blessing and all your wishes, I have started to embark on putting my idea of SMART INTERCOM into a business along with 600+ companies in HKSTP.

I am waiting to see my App's first module launch very soon. I have to start my research on Hardware part of INTERCOM (patent pending) in few months now.

I met few clients (Developer and University) to introduce my product idea. Though they liked that idea, since we are only a start up and they are looking for atleast only successful implementation or a complete solution, I am still to succeed in my attempt to get a client to use my App. But I am excited to go ahead in this project.

Looking forward to great support from my team and all your blessings to succeed in this attempt of mine.

Note: My dream to do Ph.D was to invent something useful to the society. But though I could not do that during my studies, I got lot of inputs during my study to become innovative and here I am on my way to work on new ideas. I never regret for being late in stepping into this field this late.  I could achieve what I dreamt in my school and college years.

Dream Chaser - 3 - Inviting Indian Scientist to Hong Kong

On 25th October, my 5 years dream of bringing an Indian Scientist before our children born and brought up in Hong Kong (to make them feel proud of being an Indian), came true. Padma Shri Dr. Mylswamy Annadurai, immediate past Director of Indian Space Research Organisation came to Hong Kong to participate in 4 events. He presented the Indian Space acheivements (Chandrayaan - Moon orbiter projects and Magalyaan - Mars Orbiter) very well during Children Cultural Group Event to celebrate Bharat Ratna Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam and CCG-CIBS Day, during the visit to YIFC Tamil Classes and during the dinner meeting with Forum for Indian Professionals HK. More than 400 people who attended these sessions were mesmirised to know about great achievements of India in Space Exploration.

I was literally awestruck during the meet up with Laboratory of Space Research professors of Univeristy of Hong Kong on October 29th. I came to know about the Indian Institute of Space Technology (IIST) in Trivandrum (Deemed University to study only about SPACE) and its tie up with the most prestigious educational institute in USA, Cal Tech. The next heartening outcome was to know the interest of HKU to collaborate with IIST at students, teachers and research level. We saw the life model of the satellite designed at HKU that is planned to be launched in the coming years from China.

Thanks to our renowned guest Dr. Annadurai accepting our invitation (invite from small potatoes) and presenting Indian space achievements to our simple audience.

Grateful to God for making my dream come true. Also for my chase towards this dream, bearing fruitful result.

Dream Chaser – 2 - Globol App Release

App for learning foreign language through your native language 

When my daughter was a kid, going to library is a usual routine. Hong Kong libraries have lot of interesting books for children of all ages. We usually take Picture books with lot of colorful pictures for words. From that time, I had the idea of coming up books like those for Indian languages. After 12 years, I could came up with some books that enables reader to learn a foreign language in their native language.

The first book was Learning Tamil through Japanese language that catered to those Japanese who visit Tamil Nadu. Mrs. Shalini Sandeep helped me in this project.

I started with online books on learning Cantonese through our Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Gujarati. Thanks to all my friends who volunteered in getting the proper native words for my 250 words list. It was released in Neighborhood Advice Action Council’s TOUCH Center website and in my own blog.

http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/matches.aspx…

http://cantoneseindianlanguagedictionaries.blogspot.hk/…

Similarly for learning Mandarin/Putonghua online books were prepared and released on a blogsite.

http://chinesemultilingualdictionary.blogspot.hk/…

All the books are available online in CCG website too.

http://childrenculturalgrouphk.com/EDictionaries.html

Thanks to the Malayalam Association for Art and Culture who helped to print and publish the same and distributed to their members. Later on online Kannada and Hindi versions were launched during Kannada Sangha Event and CCG-CIBS Day events.

After the advent of predominant mobile usage, thought of making an App to learn languages. There were many such Apps in the market. But most of them were for adults. Started with my idea. It was a long journey. Took three years to come to a shape. We named it as Globol meaning Global Speaking (bol in Hindi is speaking). I started with a Hong Kong developer company in the month of January 2015. It was my second semester of Ph.D course. It looked very progressive initially when I got the attractive screen designs. But then it slacked and took more than 9 months to come up with a complete App. But there was a sudden twist. The coder who was just 28 years old passed away with some heart ailment. Then the Hong Kong developer company cannot proceed with this project and it came to a stop.

But my wish in coming up with the App did not vanish. I kept on hunting for some App developer who can work within my budget. I earmarked some of my Ph.D stipend money for this. Finally found one in Coimbatore in January 2016 through Mr. Thilakraj. I was in my fourth semester of Ph.D working on my Ph.D little more seriously. Here again the initial things went on well. But started to slack down after six months. Android version was up in 2016 November. But the app was very slow in retrieving the data. I requested for faster retrieval. The developer had to work more and more and got stuck and also got busy with other projects. The follow up on this project deteriorated and reached nil point when I had to work on my Ph.D thesis. Whenever Globol comes to my mind, I message the developer asking about the progress. It went on and here we are at the end of second year with the second developer. The Android App is up ultimately on production 23.11.17 on Google Store after a long struggle.

Please download the App, use it and give your feedback. It is listed under ‘Aham Solutions’ on google playstore. This App enables to learn foreign language through native language. Currently it offers 8 languages English, Cantonese, Japanese, Mandarin, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. It has little more than 500 words with attractive pictures. The medium of transcription is in English. Words for 7 more languages Korean, German, Sanskrit, Bahasa, Tagalog, Swahili and Nepali are ready. Once the sound files are ready, they will also go online. More than 20 volunteers have worked on this project.

App can be downloaded free of charge. Advertisements on top and bottom are implemented to generate revenue from the app. This generated revenue is earmarked for educational services for needy in Hong Kong and India. Your support in this project would be much appreciated.

The iOS version is under development and will be launched soon. Looking forward for some funding in developing this App where the medium of transcription will be in the native language as well. I am planning to submit this project on crowdfunding platform to generate some fund.

Dream Chaser - 1 - Ph.D Studies

Joyful moments. Past and Present. 

26 years back. University of Madras. Congregation Day. I am MCA 2nd batch of the University. Newly married. Travelled to Madras from Bangalore with husband to get the MCA degree at University of Madras Congregation Ceremony. All First Rank holders were invited. Mother was there to see that moment of receiving my First Rank certificate. When all rank holders of long run courses were invited on stage to get their certificates, the rank holders of new courses were conferred their degrees on their seats. Great disappointment for not receiving the certificate from Governor of Madras. I could get few photos with husband and mother just standing near the stage. Later was happy to receive the Gold Medal at the Meenakshi College for Women Graduation Ceremony.

Thought of a day when I can be on such congregation platform. It came true. For past 12 years, I attend UK's Staffordshire University Congregation for the City University of Hong Kong, SCOPE students as a lecturer and sit on the platform all through the ceremony.

But it was different on 11.11.17. Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Center. Around 11am in the morning. Before an audience of more than 2000 people and thousands of Graduates, only doctoral students were conferred degree on the stage. On that double eleven day, my dream of getting Ph.D and degree conferring on the stage came true in front of my Ph.D advisor Dr. Ron Kwok. It was a proud moment for my advisor and IS professors as he was siting in the first row. It was my dream walk on that day. Happy to have my husband and daughter this time to witness this occasion.

After the ceremony, I was so delighted to hear some good comments from my Ph.D advisor. My advisor told my husband that my research work also helped them to get the UGC Grant Award for their team who designed the Overseas Exchanges nurturing creativity in Global Business Systems Management undergraduate students. I had great time interacting with all 27 students of this course.

Took lot of photos with my family (my sister and niece joined us too in the afternoon) the whole day as we had College of Business congregation again at University Campus in the afternoon. I wanted to thank God for giving me the opportunity, courage and all resources needed in doing this course in three year time. We went to Kowloon temple on the same day to thank.

On Monday 13th, when I had a chance to share my Ph.D experience with our first year Ph.D students during Prof. Sia Choon Ling’s (Head of the Department) class, I was very excited. I told my dream chasing story. Thanks to all those who listened to this lecture. Thanks to Professor for considering my experience to be valuable enough to share with the students.

I am indebted to God and my parents for the success in dream chase of my life.. Also thankful to my daughter, husband, fellow classmates and friends for lending me support whenever I get depressed and had health problems during my study.