Coffee, Spreadsheets, Eat, Sleep

Sleepless in Seattle! after being well fed in India!

Hi all! I am Nupur Bagaria, MBA Class of 2013. A brief introduction is in place: I am born Indian, raised in Africa for 17 years, did my undergrad and first job in Southeast Asia (Singapore) [and became a citizen there because I absolutely loved that country!] and worked for the last 3 years in New York. And to make my life more interesting than just globe trotting, I have now decided to switch industries from financial services to high-tech! Prior to Ross, I worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the banking and capital markets space. Now for the summer, I will be going to Microsoft in their Office Division- Corporate finance.

But before I take you to the world of Windows 8 and Office 365, I would like to share my MAP experience with you because it was in the true sense of the word- UNIQUE. I was part of a team of four consulting for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). This organization, which is an amalgamation of public and private individuals, has created the world's largest biometric database! They have taken on the task of issuing biometric identities to the 1.2 Billion people in India. As you can imagine, this is no mean feat. In fact, they have amazed the world by issuing approximately 200 millions IDs within a year of establishment. My team's MAP project revolved around developing the application ecosystem for this identity system. We realized that this system has the potential to transform the lives of millions in so many ways, especially the under-privileged.

As part of the MAP, we traveled to India for 3 weeks. We had the opportunity to meet with the Chairman of the UIDAI- Mr. Nandan Nilekani- co-founder and ex-CEO of the multi-billion dollar IT company, Infosys. For the uninitiated, here is a wiki on Mr. Nilekani=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandan_Nilekani and several other very senior government officials in the organization. In fact, we had a chance to speak with Mr. Nilekani right after his meeting with the IMF Chief- Ms. Christine Lagarde! (see picture).

My team found that the UIDAI has shown exemplary innovation in several ways (organizational structure, technology, technology management etc.) and its impact on Indian residents is so massive that I fall short on words. For those interested, here is the website of the UIDAI=> http://uidai.gov.in/ Thank you Ross for this unique experience!

Well folks, I can go on and on about my MAP project, and the excitement that I have for my summer internship is similar. Interning at Microsoft will be a game-charger for me. First- it will be a switch from the world of banking and financial services to high-tech, second from the east coast to the (much warmer!) west coast and thirdly from suits to business casual :) I have heard the techies are fond of denim and t-shirts and am really excited to experience that!

And now I will go back to being busy with what I plan to do throughout May- CHILL.

Stay tuned for my next post- till then- Chao!