There are numerous who aspire to carry prestigious positions at large company homes, however only a few are prepared to work exhausting sufficient for it. Such positions may be achieved by solely those that love what they do. Dr Aloknath De is considered one of them. He calls himself a ‘missionpreneur.’ He refuses to field himself and likes to suppose out of the field. He doesn’t develop into snug in a setting as he likes to do issues outdoors his consolation zone. He has been Samsung India’s first CTO in addition to many extra achievements to his credit score. That is Dr Aloknath De’s story, as instructed to EFY’s Siddha Dhar.
Born within the non secular city of Nabadwip Dham in West Bengal, Aloknath had the affect of holy males on him from a really younger age. Although his household migrated to Kolkata quickly after he turned a yr outdated, Aloknath credit his birthplace for instructing him the teachings of renunciation, discovering success in life, and cherishing it.
Aloknath’s father picked up his LLB diploma out of ardour whereas working as a gazetted officer on the Meals Company of India. Below his tutelage, Aloknath was home-schooled until the age of six. A rigorous man, it was he who constructed the sturdy basis of science and arithmetic for Aloknath.
Aloknath remembers, “He was a really disciplined individual, and he influenced my love for science. So, taking over science after tenth customary was a really pure alternative.” Aloknath went to a correct faculty solely when he was within the 2nd customary. Whereas home-schooling offered him with the fundamental abilities, he gained ‘interactive intelligence’ solely after he went to high school.
Aloknath says, “I realised that pure intelligence, or the power to react in a state of affairs, comes solely once you work together and speak with increasingly folks. The extra you converse, the extra you develop.”
Aloknath’s mom, a homemaker, has at all times been soft-natured. She is an epitome of affection and affection. This fusion of exhausting and comfortable behaviour of oldsters is what Aloknath tries to keep up in his personal life as effectively, even at the moment. The truth is, his management mantra is: “Be Arduous on Purpose, Be Gentle on Soul.”
Diligent from childhood, it was fairly pure for Aloknath to be a topper in his faculty. However by the point he was in sixth customary, a way of restlessness loomed over him. “It gave me a sense of accomplishment to start with, however then it made me really feel as if I used to be not being challenged sufficient.” This notion of not ever getting too snug in one thing was a lesson that has pushed Aloknath all via his life.
Looking out for extra competitors to boost his accomplishment bar, Aloknath determined to seem for a Central authorities benefit scholarship programme, which allowed him to review in a residential faculty of his alternative. And he received admission in Ramakrishna Mission (RKM) Residential Faculty in Purulia—a district 250km away from Kolkata.
Although he had the choice to decide on a faculty in Kolkata and keep close to his household, Aloknath determined to not base his alternative on feelings, and relatively seize the chance to reside and function independently. The pangs of separation from his mother and father and siblings struck him within the preliminary section. However Aloknath knew that he was accountable for the choice that he had taken and that he needed to follow it—a lesson that he would recall once more, years later.
A Few Classes from Dr Aloknath De’s Story
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Though his father was a robust affect in his life, it was his monk headmaster at RKM whom Aloknath regards as his function mannequin. “He was a person of such purity. He had mastery over a number of languages. As soon as I used to be writing an essay concerning the river Ganges. I confirmed him the primary draft and he helped me make it higher—his information was profound. I’d say it was one of the best piece in Bengali that I’ve ever written.”
It isn’t shocking that science and math have been his favorite topics. However Aloknath was not glorious in teachers alone, he additionally took energetic half at school debates, elocutions, recitation competitions, and so forth. He even appeared on quite a few TV debate reveals broadcast by Doordarshan.
A rational thinker since childhood, Aloknath rapidly found out that his coronary heart lay in engineering. When he was within the eleventh customary, he determined to share this together with his father, who was then dissatisfied together with his choice. “My father needed to be a physician, nevertheless it was not doable on account of monetary constraints. He hoped that I’d develop into a doctor, however I selected engineering. I keep in mind it was a long-drawn night dialogue with my father and uncle. They tried very exhausting to alter my thoughts.”
Aloknath didn’t budge from his purpose and readied himself to organize for the following chapter in his life.
IIT and discovering his calling
A big chunk of Aloknath’s future plans started taking form in his undergraduate years that he spent at IIT Kharagpur. Whereas finding out Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE), he remained a high-achiever right here too. Having performed his secondary training in a Bengali-medium faculty, the fluency with which some college students at IIT spoke English alarmed him. However he didn’t let it intimidate him. He remained headstrong and mastered the language fairly quickly.
At an institute of IIT’s stature—the place the brightest minds of the nation got here to make their goals come true—Aloknath discovered there have been many who have been simply as meritorious as him. However he took it as a blessing in disguise, as he was at all times searching for a extra aggressive area the place his limits could possibly be examined, and his thoughts may develop.
Aloknath says, “It’s necessary to simply accept that some persons are higher than you at one thing and it’s completely okay to be inferior to them. However what’s necessary is to deliver your self to a minimal threshold stage on attributes that matter in life and excel in a number of dimensions.”
As his world-view expanded and he met extra folks, Aloknath discovered his calling—telecommunications—at IIT Kharagpur an enchanting discipline certainly! “I noticed the ability of communications and the way it helped folks keep related remotely. I noticed the way it may compete with transportation and thought it was revolutionary.”
The realisation didn’t happen in a single day, although. He spent months and months studying books and magazines, listening to radio, and speaking to folks to soak in as a lot data as doable after which come to this conclusion. “Inquisitiveness to discover makes a giant distinction. If you maintain your queries alive, one nice morning you’ll come throughout some data that makes you pause. And you’re taking a second to consider it and ask additional questions. It’s on this technique of asking and answering these questions that you simply realise what you’re drawn to.”
A 3-step course of Aloknath likes to observe for his purpose is ABC of Achievement: Align (your ideas), Beam (your vitality), and Collaborate (your ecosystem). As he started the seeding for his future roles, he realised how telecommunication techniques could possibly be constructed with {hardware} and then-new software program parts. He additionally began appreciating how engineering deployment may complement technological improvements.
Dream job and recollections at IISc
The unpredictability of life is enthralling. It makes you do belongings you by no means meant to, and offers you outcomes you by no means anticipated. Though Aloknath had deliberate to pursue his grasp’s diploma after IIT and even received admission to a US college, a monetary disaster compelled him to begin working proper after his commencement in 1985. But, he didn’t let this setback derail him from his plans.
Fortunately for Aloknath, he discovered his approach to Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL). In an period when MNCs didn’t rule the subcontinent, PSUs have been the dream job of many, and Aloknath was no totally different.
However, whereas becoming a member of BEL, he knew what his final purpose was—to be taught telecommunication techniques as a lot as he may.
At BEL, he was a part of a workforce that constructed a low-flying goal detection radar, which was the primary indigenously constructed radar system: INDRA 1. Until date, INDRA collection of radars are deployed on the borders of India.
His function in BEL, Sahibabad wanted him to journey loads to the headquarters in Bangalore (now Bengaluru). He made it a rule to take a special route throughout every of his journeys. This was his method of getting enjoyable and exploring the nation whereas working. As he travelled the size and breadth of India, Aloknath’s mantra to at all times exit of his consolation zone discovered extra power. “Even at the moment, at any time when I see that I’m getting too snug, I attempt to discover new issues to try this make me uncomfortable for some time.”
However going out of your consolation zone may be scary in addition to being uncomfortable. How did he deal with that? He says, “The trick is to maintain your self anchored 50% in consolation and unsettle the remaining. Going utterly out of your consolation zone makes it most likely very dangerous. Deliver stability from the consolation zone, and development from outdoors the consolation zone.”
After a two-year stint at BEL, Aloknath went on to pursue his grasp’s diploma from one other premier institute of India—IISc Bangalore. A fond reminiscence of IISc that he holds near his coronary heart, past research, is how he would avoid wasting cash from his scholarship grant to purchase cassettes of classical music. An avid lover of classical music since a younger age, Aloknath had even tried studying the stringed musical instrument sitar. Though he couldn’t sing effectively, his affinity for classical music drove him to seek out solace in it, no matter his prevailing temper.
At IISc, Aloknath additional broadened his information about telecommunications and realised how each facet uniquely complemented one another. It was this fascination that took him from India to Canada, the place he pursued his PhD and likewise began one other section of his life.
Flight to Canada and worldwide publicity
Like many middle-class Indians at the moment, Aloknath’s flight to Canada was the primary one he had ever taken in his life. Whereas he was working exhausting to revolutionise telecommunications, calling from a international nation was a luxurious that he couldn’t afford then. And that may additionally make his mother and father anxious at occasions.
“Once I first landed there, I despatched them a telegram nevertheless it took ten days to succeed in. Within the meantime, my father would go to the Air India workplace once in a while to investigate if my flight had landed. The folks there assured him that many flights had gone and are available again since my flight, so I used to be most likely already well-settled in Canada,” he laughs.
Aloknath did his PhD in ‘communication with sign processing’ from McGill College on a full scholarship. After ‘communication with management’ in IIT and ‘communication with computing’ in IISc, he needed to fathom this mix as effectively. Aloknath knew that it will finally deliver him to a extra holistic view of telecommunications.
Surviving in Canada was no straightforward feat. Aloknath needed to regulate to the restricted meals decisions and the chilly local weather. Nevertheless, he favored the cosmopolitan tradition of Montreal and noticed himself residing there for a very long time, and therefore took up studying French language.
Aloknath’s PhD thesis was supported by Canadian Institute for Telecommunication Analysis; he additionally bagged the Alexander Graham Bell prize in Canada for his doctoral analysis. His PhD mentor was an exquisite man who made the entire studying course of at McGill very satisfying for Aloknath. “He was an immigrant himself; so he knew what challenges I used to be going through and he helped me navigate via them.”
It was via this mentor that Aloknath received his first break in Canada. He bagged a possibility to work in Nortel Networks, which was then known as Bell Northern Analysis. His first task had ample scope for innovation. He simply wanted to seek out the significant enterprise hole. This, he credit to being curious and searching for means to go above and past to discover a ache level he ought to repair.
However as he saved getting higher at making these discoveries, he missed the thrill of implementing them and seeing them of their realised kind. He knew it was time to get out of his consolation zone and soak deeply into sensible implementations and discipline points to develop in trade. “I instructed my supervisor that I needed to do the dirtiest work. Probably the most mundane issues that no one needed to do.”
In the summertime of 1999, Aloknath decided that may change the trajectory of his life—leaving Canada after a decade and coming again to India. “It was one of many hardest selections I needed to make in my life,” Aloknath remarks. He was eligible for a Canadian PR. His son was three years outdated and had entry to higher training there; and he himself had a thriving profession.
In his true spirit to suppose via and make a name, Aloknath mulled over the state of affairs for a whole yr. He thought rationally but infused parts of lateral considering earlier than taking choice. In spite of everything, he couldn’t look again and remorse his choice. “I made a decision to return again to India. Though it appears unbelievable now, I did envision one thing alongside the traces of how India would seem like in 2020, and needed to see if I could possibly be a part of that imaginative and prescient coming true.”
His reasoning to return again was primarily based on two issues. First, he had constructed a broad worldwide perspective that expanded his thoughts and made him perceive what makes a rustic developed. Second, he understood deeply what was wanted to be an issue skilled on communication with controls, computing, and sign processing parts, and construct world progressive merchandise.
He remembers, “With all that information in my bag, I felt full and thought it was the precise time to return again. Many round me felt that I used to be taking a step backwards. However what’s fascinating about life is that typically taking an obvious step again may help you leap ahead by ten steps.”
Return to India and re-building from zero
Again in India, Aloknath had uprooted his life in Canada by taking the chance of making use of to solely two corporations. Happily, he obtained gives from each the businesses. “The identical postman introduced the 2 supply letters on the identical day. I discovered the phrase so true: God helps those that assist themselves. The facility of hope and ambition beats every little thing,” he remembers.
He went with considered one of these corporations—Hughes Software program Techniques in Gurgaon. His interview with the Director of Hughes India had occurred whereas he was nonetheless in Canada. By the way, the Director had made it some extent to focus on how totally different his life could be as soon as Aloknath was again in India.
In such a case, one may take a second to rethink the choice. However Aloknath knew precisely what he needed. “I instructed the chief that I’m cognizant of all of that, and I used to be making the choice whereas being absolutely conscious. I’m able to face challenges as they arrive.”
This director who additionally grew to become his supervisor and is now a great pal, was a supply of inspiration for Aloknath as he made his swap so seamless; he by no means felt like he had left residence. At Hughes too, Aloknath’s imaginative and prescient for becoming a member of an organization didn’t alter—he needed to do one thing that no one else was doing or was prepared to do.
He remembers, “Throughout that point, digital sign processing within the base layer was successfully not there in Hughes communication stack. Many potential shoppers stated that they might have a service settlement with Hughes if that answer could possibly be included in service supply. That was really a defining assertion for me.”
He was entrusted with constructing a workforce for a similar. Right here got here a second to take one thing from zero to 1, a possibility of intrapreneurship. “Taking one thing from stage one and scaling it to infinity is comparatively straightforward as a result of you will have performed it as soon as. Constructing one thing from zero to 1 is the true problem.”
Aloknath needed to construct a workforce of twenty folks with sturdy DSP experience and likewise begin securing the DSP enterprise past Hughes. It gave him pleasure that, on account of this twenty-member workforce, Hughes may garner not directly about eighty different folks in higher-level stack areas. And this continued scaling up.
After a four-year stint at Hughes, he had a brand new itch. Although the chip was by no means his core, he realised that semiconductors and VLSI design have been part of telecommunications and had an amazing potential. So, he determined to hitch STMicroelectronics, which was trying to begin telecom enterprise ab initio in 2003. He joined them as the top of this division.
In 2008, when a three way partnership between STMicroelectronics and Ericsson was signed, Aloknath was appointed because the MD of the group in India. He was dealing with the groups of each Noida and Bengaluru. He constructed an enviable workforce by inside switch, exterior hiring in addition to firm acquisitions. By the point he left, he had 1000 workforce members.
To grasp the complete stack higher, he grew to become a ‘scholar’ of chip design. Although he was the MD, he would usually be a part of the freshers throughout their coaching periods to be taught extra about frontend and backend chip design, the processes and nuances. “With a purpose to make selections as an MD and work together as a world chief, I wanted to know the topic to an incredible extent. I believed it was an integral a part of choice making and I needed to be taught it to do my job effectively.”
After eight good years at ST-Ericsson, a world big was ready for Aloknath to knock on their door.
Samsung and a missed alternative
Aloknath had the great style of administrative life for a very long time at
ST-Ericsson the place he was additionally a Board Director of the corporate, and he now craved for a extra technical function. He needed to steer with know-how. However earlier than that, he needed to pause and take time to ponder—very like he used to do in his childhood days.
He took a sabbatical of about six months and determined to experiment with a number of issues in the course of the interval. He taught at IIT Delhi as an Adjunct Professor, served as a marketing consultant to Accenture, and mentored a location-technology primarily based startup throughout this section. Whereas mentoring the startup, he received all the way down to interacting with the ground-level prospects to grasp issues from their perspective. “Should you can take a month or perhaps a few days to work together with the folks on the bottom, there is no such thing as a higher studying than this. I’d not commerce this for anything.”
However as they are saying, you can’t conceal distinctive expertise anyplace. This time, Aloknath’s expertise was discovered by South Korean electronics big Samsung. Though the parents at Samsung needed Aloknath to return over to Korea and work with them from their headquarters, Aloknath’s precedence was now sorted out; he couldn’t go away his household in India and the household was not able to relocate at that juncture.
So, Aloknath was nearly prepared to say no the supply however his future, nevertheless, had different plans. The very subsequent day after this interview, he obtained a name from Samsung HQ. “They have been prepared to interview me once more to create a place particularly for me if I solely needed to work in India.”
That is how Aloknath grew to become the primary CTO of the Indian unit of the conglomerate together with his base in Bangalore. His mantra, once more, was easy—he didn’t need to work on one thing that was going effectively. He needed one thing that was aspirational, however they couldn’t appear to make it work.
At Samsung, he needed to create an innovation layer onto the flagship merchandise by constructing new mental properties (IPs) with out jeopardising base engineering deliveries. Within the first fifteen years of Samsung’s journey in India, it had about 2000 patents, which elevated to 7500+ patents below his management by their silver jubilee celebrations time.
He grew to become the Company VP for Samsung Electronics, Korea and contributed to the web of issues (IoT) on SmartThings platform. Regardless of these accomplishments, he felt like one thing was lacking. The sooner-missed alternative to hitch the workforce in Korea saved gnawing at him. He requested them if he may be a part of them in HQ and the workforce in Korea fortunately agreed. He received an IoT lab to work in Korea the place he spent 7-8 days each month for thirty months or so. This made him a really efficient world chief.
The info platform that Aloknath in-built Korea is now connecting 200 million residence home equipment and mobility gadgets globally. Together with his world function and experience in AI and Blockchain, he has constructed an impactful AIoT Centre-of-Excellence in India. Now, with this background and expertise behind him, he has set a private mission of researching and nurturing actions round Cyber-Bodily Techniques.
Some Unknown Details about Dr Aloknath De
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Discovering love, health objectives, and his mission
Whereas the accomplishments of Aloknath are innumerable, his story of discovering his love is sort of a romantic movie. Aloknath and his spouse knew one another since lengthy, however by no means knew that they’d be cojoined by future in an eternal bond.
They received married in the direction of the tip of Aloknath’s PhD, that’s, six months earlier than he would graduate. His spouse needed to keep again in Kolkata for a while. “She needed to go to a neighbour’s place to name me and needed to request them to exit,” he laughs. She quickly joined him in Canada, the place she additionally pursued a postgraduate diploma at Concordia College.
Upon returning to India, she has been working as a Math trainer. She is a giant health junkie.
“She can also be my private coach. I used to be by no means into health that a lot, however because the pandemic, I began caring for my physique. And would it not not be a waste if I didn’t utilise my alternative regardless of having a coach at residence!” he says with a smile.
The couple has a son who was born in Canada, studied in India, and went on to pursue Economics and Physics on the College of Chicago. After his stint at an funding financial institution, he at the moment works with a world new-gen ride-sharing firm.
Aloknath’s love for music remains to be intact, because of his mom who continues to follow music until date. She is the inspiration behind his love for classical music.
In December 2021, Aloknath took superannuation from Samsung formally. Nevertheless, he’s nonetheless related to them as an Government Consulting Director and needs to proceed so long as it is smart for each. He calls it his Company House.
Aloknath has elevated his efforts to mentor deep-tech startups and has additionally develop into an angel investor. He’s now an Adjunct Professor with IISc (ECE) and IIT Jodhpur (CS). Aloknath additionally has a enterprise of his personal within the works.
Speaking of his future plans, Aloknath says, “Throughout India’s seventy fifth Independence Day celebration, it’s solemn for me to rededicate to the service of the nation. R&D serves as an impetus for enterprise development. If we will hone India’s expertise for R&D and might excite enterprise to spend larger on R&D and innovation, we will do wonders as a rustic.”
The truth is, he revealed that the disclosing of his singular mission may occur quickly; however he’s in no hurry. As a result of if there’s something he has learnt, it’s to make ‘the remainder of his life, one of the best of his life!’
