Techies of Odisha

A challenge to the Cliche

Sitting in the waiting area for my call and there she goes, “Sagar Hota”, the HR girl screamed like my mum. Even if I was overconfident of cracking this round, my steps were a bit slow to the closed glass door till I reach the unknown power sitting inside. while stepping in I first noticed two Himalaya water bottles on the table and a pair of laptops showing off the bitten apples of steve jobs on Macs.

“Good afternoon Mr. Sagar, my name is this. How are you?” asked one lady sitting right at the corner of the room, pointing out to the name tag kept right in front of her. with a confused gaze at her name, I said,” I’m great, How about you Jose”?she smiled and said, its “H-o-z-e” not J-o-s-e. before I realized I just tripped on my interviewer’s name at the very beginning of the interview and I begged pardon, she just said pls go ahead and let us know about some of your coolest memories as a student.

I gathered my senses and replied that and many other questions of her and other panelists. then at the end came a rather disturbing question? somebody asked why do you think your state Odisha doesn’t stand eligible for you to start your career? I replied there with rather a diplomacy and came up praising south Indian infrastructure, lifestyle, and blah blah. There I finished my interview and fortunately got the job offer. But I can never forget the 10 minutes walk that I had after coming out of that office to a bus stop. From that day till the time I’m writing this blog, I regret that answer. inside I was pumping to answer to the pride of my state but I couldn’t. Before that interview in the waiting area, I had made friends with certain other candidates and 3 out of 5 were Odias and believe me they were good at their profiles but what we lacked was this ” Hoze ” thingy. and the wowish gaze to those Mac books show off stereotypes and simply self-evaluating in the lower side for our small-town lifestyles and educational training. Yes, we simply lack this.

Infrastructure matters: Be it personality development or public speaking or cracking interviews like a pro and many more. we have to create a world of our own, understanding the flaws to be corrected, the potholes to be repaired. Many Odia techies are waiting to be found by their hometown. I don’t know when and who’ll change the cliche of taking a train/flight to Bangalore/Hyderabad and other parts of the country to find a job and getting technical coaching as soon as one finishes his/her college. I don’t know who’ll hold the baton later but it’s me who wants to be a whistleblower, it’s we who can light up the fire. we have the tech genes, we are growing as an education hub. we cannot just wait, sit back and relax until some Big fishes show their pity and bless our state to hire slaves, not talent.

we have to entertain the problems lying at the root. we have to realize what we have isn’t sufficient for the enormous talent count in our state.

Technology isn’t just a job opportunity, it’s a right to have.

Comment your opinions below, lets discuss !

Sagar Hota

Co-founder & CEO, 11x INFISOL

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