Creating Shared Values
14th May 2018' Bangalore. The R&D Center Managers and Masters community decided to do something different for their quarterly offsite last week. Instead of spending the day in a conference room, the team headed out to Shri Pillappa College of Engineering (SPCE) for a day of “giving back”. The team leveraged their technical expertise and applied that to the needs of the students and faculty. The partnership with SPCE was driven by several factors – the college strives to provide educational excellence to socio-economically underprivileged children, is based in a rural neighbourhood (where corporate funding is limited) and has an impressive 60:40 ratio of female to male students.
For HP folks the day started with a 40-km bus ride to the college. After a short opening ceremony, the managers and masters (M&M) hosted several breakout sessions - Tech Talks (3D printing, IoT, Graphics/Image processing, Machine Learning and AI), a design thinking workshop, motivational talks for first year students, career planning and mock interviews, project exhibition reviews, etc. Our leadership team engaged with the faculty in a ‘Train the Trainer’ session to converse on how to bridge the gap between industry and academics. Beyound this, we also provided infrastructural support including tree plantation and wall painting for beautification around the campus. And finally, to add a fun, physical activity to the day, we also participated in a cricket match vs. the students (and to quote the HP cricket captain – “At the end of the day, Cricket was the winner!” – no prizes for guessing who the losing team was ????).
At the closing ceremony students and HP folks shared their day’s experience, gift certificates for the winners of the project exhibitions were handed out, and Ashok Waran presented the college with HP-sponsored AR/VR workstation & headset, along with a HP multi-function printer. While it was a packed day, the expressive faces of students, faculty and HP employees indicated that it was a day well-spent – one packed with learning and sharing, opportunity and engagement. We are very proud of our Managers and Masters for coming together and showcasing the depth of knowledge and value we can lend to our community.