Mentoring journeys!! Mentoring JOYs !

 Sunday 25th Jan 2026

Day 23416

A new deep tech start-up cohort started at GDC IIT-M on 10^th Jan 2026. Seven startups. Seven mentors. The GDC team and the entire cohort co-created along with Shell Corporation. So, it is a Shell GDC program. An opportunity for me to mentor a startup (though it is almost 15 years old!!) and work with an esteemed professor and his two team-members. Helping hardcore technical researchers and tech professionals understand the fundamentals of business and look at the Market’s problems first and not get entangled with your tech solution!

A gathering of distinguished personas at the Annual GDC symposium on 17^th Jan 2026. Startup teams, Govt agencies, Industry experts, success stories, esteemed mentors. All in one place. And getting felicitated by GDC for having been a mentor over the past five years.

Each mentoring journey is a kind of transformation in both thinking and action for the startup teams. Especially the founders, as they may have to abandon their original mental fixations and grasp market realities.

Each of these mentoring journeys has been (and always will be) a joy for me as a mentor. An opportunity to learn and discover some new technology and a set of problems in the marketplace that it could solve. Helping the tech teams to understand these market realities. Handholding them through traumatic change. Helping them pivot gracefully. Putting fuel into their confused minds. Helping them bring more clarity into their thoughts.

A chance meeting with an IITM Batchmate and getting a few books gifted to me by his mother. One of these books is a stellar work on Astrology by my batchmate friend’s father. Introducing me as a layman to Parasara Astrology. It was meant to be. Just a few days after I had reached out to another friend whom I had come into contact in the late ‘80s. Someone who was deep into astrology then and even now.

Life is just that. Meandering through many moments that we ourselves draw into our lives. Relishing each one of these precious moments. Adding as much value as one can, unconditionally. Being in a state of flow. Consciously and not compulsively.

Living Life To The Maximum!