Dynamic words by Siva Prasad Pinnamaneni

 “Align your skillset with the interests of the industry.” 

 You must be adapting to the new dynamics of the industry every now and then! 

                                                                                                                  - Siva Prasad Pinnamaneni 

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Siva Prasad Pinnamaneni holds a Master's Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from JNTUK and has been in the Tech World for 15 years. Excited by Blockchain Technology, he published two research papers and is currently pursuing a PhD in it. He is leaning towards applying Deep Learning Algorithms in Blockchain. He joined Freela in 2020 as Chief Technical Officer to help turn the company's vision into a reality                                                                                         

 

• How do you keep yourself updated on the latest developments and trends in your expertise?

 A. Yeah, I must say the Internet is my primary source of information. But I am "not" the kind of person who believes everything I read or watch on the Internet. I use my own analysis and I just don’t blindly believe in everything, but I still consider the Internet to be one of the great sources of knowledge. Most of my knowledge comes from the Internet and I am not afraid to say that. It is quick and convenient because we have access to the Internet these days and we have Smartphones, pretty much available instantly. I keep myself updated through a lot of blogs and I also have some trusted sources like Wikipedia. It’s a great source by the way to gather information. Also, through news, magazines, and tech magazines, I have followed a lot of tech magazines on the internet.

•  Being in a Technical field, how did you move your interest towards Shakers and Movers? 

 A. Well, it’s not particularly Milkshake’s business but we kind of ventured into entrepreneurship out of necessity. My wife particularly wanted to enter the business field when a great opportunity knocked at our door. A friend visited us, and he proposed an idea to enter the business and it’s not exactly business, it’s kind of… we just want to try it out. So, we did that and my Wife, did fantastically well handling that business. “Once you are successful in the field of Business, a lot of opportunities will flood automatically. But you must be smart enough to specifically select a few of them and reject the bad ones.” And you must be lucky as well because some opportunities will be disguised but you must be extremely picky. About the Milkshake, we wanted to create a brand where we could get the ingredients from local vendors, and we wanted to formulate the shakes ourselves. We tried a lot of ice cream because ice cream is the most important ingredient in milkshakes. We have talked about this too many times and finalized one who agreed to specifically manufacture the ice cream according to our formula. So, everything worked out and we are into the Milkshake business.  

                                               

          

•  How do you balance your teaching, research, and service responsibilities as a technical professor?

 A. Yeah, that’s one luxury we enjoy being a teacher. We get plenty of holidays either they are the occasional holidays or Weekends. Also, during Students are writing examinations, we get a little bit of free time. So, I use that time productively to focus on the business. Most business deals are taken care of by my Wife, I only act as a consultant, I only add my knowledge or wisdom whenever it is necessary, and I do take part in strategic planning but most of the executions are taken care of by her.

•   What are some of the challenges or difficulties that you have faced or overcome as a cafe owner?

 A. The immediate challenge we faced was how to create a brand that matters the most to the younger generation. There are already good milkshake businesses around in the town like “The Thickshake Factory” they are doing fantastically well. “Makers of Milkshake” are coming up with fantastic milkshakes. So, to beat the best, you must be good at what you are trying to do. One lucky thing I can say is that We started this business not in the city directly, competing with the other brands, that advantage we have. We started this business at VIT Campus located in Amaravathi. So, the kind of competition is less, we are kind of fortunate to start without direct competition. But usually, the students relate when they have a milkshake, and they can easily compare our milkshake to other ones. Being a new Brand, you must be affordable because we purely deal with students here and generally students expect value for money, and they do not compromise with quality. So, we must be extremely careful while crafting and formulating our milkshakes. One big challenge is understanding the taste of the students, so we must do a lot of trials again and again, getƫing feedback from the younger generation, filtering the feedback, changing the formula again, and repeating that again. That was the challenge we faced and of course the branding, how do we appeal to the younger generation even though you have a fantastic product, if you don’t produce it in a meaningful way to the consumer, they just don’t accept it. That is another challenge we faced. Luckily, we have enough bright minds working with us to counter all these challenges.

                                                       

•   While working on Shaker’s and Mover’s, what is the most fun part about launching it? 

 A. The fun part of working on Shaker’s and Mover's was none for me. I am not a guy who enjoys Milkshakes, I don’t know whether I can say this openly or not (laughs). In my whole life, I never had a Milkshake before entering this business. So, it’s kind of a hard thing for me to have all those shakes and understand the way a milkshake is made. But the fun part is working with the team of course! I have beautiful people around me while doing R&D for Milkshakes. During that, not only learned but also enjoyed doing it. Of course, the Brand creation, how can I forget that!? Designing the Logo, picking the colors, and choosing how the brand should be presented. I enjoyed the entire process. 

                                                                    

•  Being in a tech world for more than 15 years, what would you like to suggest to future techies…...!? 

A. Umm… In one line I would say, “Don’t run after the fancy words” For the young techies, for the young engineers, who are still in college, I just sincerely recommend not to run after the fancy words you hear in the tech industry. So, if someone says, ‘Machine Learning’, it does sound fancy and students immediately rush towards learning only ‘Machine Learning’. But don’t just do that, Alright! So, if you wanted to be a Techie, if you wanted to be placed in a good company then try to understand what the Tech industry is going to be like in 5-6 years because by the time you pass out of your college plenty of opportunities will be there but in what ‘Domain’ in what ‘Stream’ those opportunities going to be? How is the industry moving? So, one sincere suggestion I would like to give to young engineers is to analyze how these big brains in the industry are thinking. What direction did they want to take the economy? So, based on that you must assess that you must learn some of the skills to procure because it won’t make sense if your skillset is not aligned with the interest of the industry. So, one line if I have to the young people is “Align your skillset with the interest of the industry” And I do warn you the interest of the industry quite changes dynamically. So, you must be adapting to the new dynamics of the industry every now and then! That’s the challenging part of the tech world!

•  Being a Chief Technical Officer in Freela, tell us about the experience you had in it.?

 A. It’s like a rollercoaster ride for me. Because, when I entered Freela, I did not have formal experience working with any of the big companies and Freela is a very big idea, I would like to take some time to appreciate Mr. Mahadev Vasireddy for giving me that opportunity for trusting and believing in me and for a guy of his age, he was very young while we were discussing the idea of Freela with me, he was just 24, I was just  impressed with the idea how deep he learned about the economics of working with blockchain-based app, how a blockchain-based app can generate money, how it can create employability to a lot of people, lot of freelancers across the world. So, his idea expanded across the world and it’s not just a local idea. So, I was excited after listening to that idea and I was understanding the dynamics of it. Once I started working on it, being honest my role in Freela is very simple. I must handle both front and back-end blockchain. I was very fortunate that I worked with both teams simultaneously. I have a bit to learn from the front- end team, I must learn a lot from the back-end team as well. And the team I have worked with (both front-end and back-end) are the brightest minds I have ever met and during those 2 and half years, the interactions helped me to learn a lot. Freela gave me a broadening of the view of the tech industry. So, it’s just a fantastic experience. I hope and wish Mr. Mahadev to be very successful with Freela in the coming days.

•  How do you handle feedback or criticism from your students, peers, or superiors?

 A. Uhm! Basically, you must accept it. I mean the fact is “No matter how good you do there will always be criticism, you must be smart and wise enough to understand whether it is constructive criticism or not. So, Yeah, I am that guy who can accept constructive criticism always. I do get criticism from my elders in the teaching, I accept it, and I embrace it. There’s nothing to worry about that. One problem we have with it is The Student Community generally don’t open to their faculty. I mean a kind of ‘Stigma’ is created between the faculty and the student community which I have been trying to break for the past 14 years. But every time I start syncing with the frequencies of the students, they pass out from the college and the new batch comes in. All the well I must work out again to break that stigma. You know it was like, the right word is stereotyped. Faculty and student relations are so stereotyped in the culture, that students are not open with their faculty. In these 14 years, there’s never been a situation where a student came to me and said “Sir, today’s class is not as good as the other classes” There is no single instance where a student came to me and appreciated me for a good lecture. Honestly, these things will run through the student's mind once my class is finished student will assess the last 55 minutes and he will come to an opinion “Okay! Today Sir presented the class very well” or the other way “Today the class was not good”. They don’t open. We can just call it out of respect. Maybe the students were not giving feedback to the faculty or maybe they just didn’t care about it. But either way, it’s not good. “If you are truly respecting the faculty, please do share the feedback with them that improves the teaching environment.”

•   I have heard you are Crazy about DBMS! So, write a short poem in a minute and present it to us 😆