Late Mr. Shrikant Rasane, DERE-1986 and Ex GB Member of CWITIAN

Dear friends,

Success and Failure are relative terms and it totally depends upon our approach and context through which we are looking at it. So rather than calling it a success story, I would like to term this as sharing of learnings, experiences of my career and entrepreneurship journey. Today, when I look back, it has been a very interesting journey full of learning’s and experiences for me at every stage.

I belong to and grew up in Pune, the city of education, culture and engineering industry. We always get influenced by the environment, people and role models that we see around us during our childhood days. I came from a typical middle class family and during my school days, I was aspiring to be an Engineer. Though, I never studied for marks, I was amongst the so called rankers and toppers in the class.Against all odds, somehow even years acted as milestones during my education for e.g. 1982 – SSC, 1984 – HSC, 1986 – Diploma in Electronics and Radio Engineering (DERE), 1988 – GRAD IETE, 1990 – B.E. (E&TC) and 1992 – M. Tech. (Computer Science).

I did my schooling from NMV High School, Pune and Junior College study from Fergusson College. Cusrow Wadia Institute of Technology (CWIT) and IIT Bombay are the two institutions, where I was shaped through the graduation and post graduate education.These institutions have a special place in my career. In 1984, after completing my higher secondary education, I had an option of doing engineering degree or a post 12th special diploma. I chose to do the only post 12th diploma course – Diploma in Electronics and Radio Engineering from CWIT, Pune, over doing an engineering degree in metallurgy. This was because DERE was one of most sought after course and it was an era of Electronics and Instrumentation wave. During those two years, I learnt what discipline, strictness and rigor in education means. After completing DERE in 1986, on one hand I had number of job offers from leading and renowned companies through campus placement and, on the other hand I had teaching assistantship job opportunity in CWIT itself. I wanted to pursue my educational objective and so I preferred CWIT job over other offers. This teaching assistantship in CWIT helped me to improve subject understanding, communication skills, confidence on one side and also parallely complete the Grad IETE.

In 1987, I got a job opportunity in Defense Research & Development Organization (DRDO). In DRDO, I got exposure in the area of Electronics, Telecommunication, Instrumentation, Computer Hardware, Software and an opportunity to work with the state of the art technology and instruments. I also worked on the project – Fire Control Computer for Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher System and its field trials. While I was earning, I continued learning through part-time mode and completed Engineering Degree in Electronics & Telecommunication from CWIT. Subsequently, I also pursued M. Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay. IIT days were completely different in terms of education and had its far reaching impacts on me.

It is here, I learnt that there is nothing like from syllabus or out of syllabus, what a depth of understanding means, and approach to education/study, excellence and passion. After M. Tech, it was very much possible to switch to a good job in IT Industry or go overseas like my classmates did but I preferred to remain in India. Due exposure to the technology and leanings from IIT, I wanted to do something which will be challenging and give satisfaction than just a job. So in 1994, along with my DRDO colleague Narendra Barhate, I started the IT Training Company with an objective to bridge the gap between Academia and Industry expectations. We thought that it is due to our passion for education and the ever known biggest challenge that is faced by all the industries i.e. the scarcity of employable skilled resources and this is far more impacting and applicable in Information Technology industry where technology is changing very rapidly.

Today, my company – SEED Infotech Ltd – is India’s one of the leading solution providers in Information Technology Training, Staffing and Products & Tools Consulting Services to both Retail ( i.e. students, professionals and individuals) and Corporate customers. Our headquarter is at Pune and the activities are spread over many locations in the state of Maharashtra and other IT Metros in India. We are an ISO 9001:2008 certified organization with a formidable team of over 600 qualified professionals, 35+ locations in India, over 300+ corporate clients and strong associations with global technology leaders such as Microsoft, ,IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, Salesforce and PMI, USA. Till date we have trained more than 3,00,000 students and professionals through various training programs.

As recognition of this work and contribution towards creating skilled human resource in Information Technology, my company has also received Maharashtra State’s prestigious ‘IT HRD- Training Award’ So to my realization, my accomplishments are in: passion to do something, continuous persuasion and never stop attitude, depth of approach, there is always urge to learn from everything and everyone and I always remember two lines from CWIT class rooms – ‘Perfection is not a small thing, but small things make perfection’ and Shrikant Rasane Co-Founder and Director SEED Infotech Ltd, Pune