Serendipity and Learning

Namma Yatri - is a cab hailing app in Bangalore that ensures that 100% of the money goes to the driver. Based on the ONDC platform, it is quite remarkable - that it took time for this idea to be created. It does look like the app has reached critical mass.  But what is a cab hailing app? It is a system. A system of trust.  The same system can be implemented in any city - but the only city where it fully works in India is in Mumbai.  Metered prices. Drivers can choose to go or not. No surge pricing (or sometimes it exists). All the money goes to driver. Trust that the driver will not cheat - and it works for the most part. Nearly 99%. In other cities since this 'honour' system does not exist or someone always tries to break the system, an app is needed and like the proverbial monkey with the two cats, the apps take a chunk as commission. And that led to multiple levels of mistrust - between the app and the driver, sometimes between the passenger and the driver (since drive...

 Sure, I am late for this story - but it so happened that the nephews were playing a tiny match somewhere in a small ground in a small suburb and he shared me a link to see the scores. And I was blown away and thats how I stumbled onto cricheroes.  Servicing a niche community via an app is nothing new - indeed almost every app serves a specific niche, but this one enables cricketers.  In their own words. " Today any team taking part in any cricket game anywhere in the world can score their games on the CricHeroes app. In any kind of match — school, community, corporate, with leather, tennis or any other kind of ball, from 24 Parganas to Zurich." [ Article here ] So imagine you are playing this obscure cricket match - you can share it with anyone and feel like a big player (among other things). A perfect way of understanding a tiny slice of the world and making something that all users (the entire ecosystem) loves.  

The other day I posted a tweet about the Metro work on Outer Ring Road Bangalore and tagged a few infra handles. That tweet got 250 plus likes. Whoever thought infra was s*xy? But it is and if you go to youtube you will find channels who report on the amazing levels of infra building happening in India.  The legion of amateur weathermen in India is impressive. Or for that matter musicians. Or chefs. The amount of acting, singing, art talent in India is visible on instagram where I often found myself wandering into rabbit holes.  And this is India. For every country you will find such rabbit holes of excellence, fun, dedication to craft, practice and learning on the internet. Of course, you will find trash, but well, thats par for the course. But you will also begin to see magic, so to say. Thoughts as I work on sharpening my video skills in preparation for the launch of the worlds first Sanskrit Game - Devabhaasha.  

The internet is a great barrier reducing machine. It removes hurdles from the path of most types of creativity.  Some years ago when blogging was at its peak, it almost threatened to disrupt normal courses of reading. Normal courses were books, magazines - both of which were highly restrictive and had fairly high walls. So, the more connected ones got opportunities regardless of talent. When the talented ones did get opportunities and they mostly returned the favour by making the walls higher. In those days getting published in a newspaper was a big thing. Once blogging came about, anybody could become a writer. It also changed the way people consumed information by breaking down barriers and making the consumption of information a two way process. From blogs to twitter it was a short hop. If it was not for the incessant blogging, there is no way I would have written daily and managed to eventually write my first book. If you are an aspiring writer, the time to start writing is now...

 2021: Day 1 of school. Teacher asks the kids, "If you could invite a celebrity or two to your house who would that be?" Pause for a moment. If your mind thought, sportspersons, actors, artists - anybody who is conventionally well known - yes, anybody - were the answers the children gave - no. Apparently all the celebrities were YouTubers - rather, famous on YouTube. They were artists, diy-ers, singers, dancers, people who teach various things from workouts to yoga to making things - and almost all of them were non Indian.  The generation of today has a different meaning of celebrities. For them, the celebrities are not the ones covered on TV/newspapers - most of them don't watch TV as TV anyway. For celebrities are internet celebrities. And many of these are not celebrities in the conventional sense - some of them are conventional celebrities in other countries possibly, but mostly they are just someone with a YouTube channel - but of course, someone who has poured their...

Kids learn by themselves. Especially when there is youtube. Earlier, we used to learn a board games instructions by reading through the instruction manual, playing and by trial and error. It was a little difficult and took us quite a few tries. Nowadays, the kids teach us the rules. They watch youtube where a gamer duly takes us through the rules and often addresses "between the lines" doubts. And what is surprising is that this is a way faster process. Welcome to the age of the autodidact... Recent skills learnt - Coding in python, decoupage, Arduino, Making slime etc etc. Earlier posts on Autodidacts: Here , here and here . 

Some days ago, the fellow stumbled upon Morse code. And from then on it has been a flurry of investigation on Morse code and finally he found a Morse code keyboard on the phone. Whoever? Whyever? But it is fascinating how the internet can set you off on such serendipitious paths - some interesting, some positively not (like a few weeks back when he wanted to memorise the first 100 digits of pi and insisted on reciting it to unsuspecting listeners). The Morse code is an interesting path. The Lego puzzle box another interesting one - that led to multiple smaller inventions in the fray - some of which saw light of day some that did not. 

This is why the internet is great. Suddenly, sometimes, one gets to learn something new. And if you are on the right sites (really content pipeline), you get to learning something new everyday. Such it was that I bumped into reading about the Dunning Kruger effect , thanks to Seth Godin . I smiled reading about it, mapping my own journey and I can say that this resonates with me...Does it resonate with you!

Give the kids the internet and they will click on anything that is not connected to education. That in a nutshell is how kids are. Games are good, but puzzle games? No. Math game? No. Something that remotely resembles education? No. Ditto when it comes to videos. Mr Bean? Yes. Random junk cartoon? Yes.  Mindless advertisement? Yes. You get the picture? So when the little one was given a link to Ted Ed, I was not very optimistic. He had not liked Khan academy, so I was sure this will go the same route. Somehow, Ted Ed caught his fascination. And for now, he has junked youtube and random games. Even if his interest dies down in the interim, it is good that he has this at the back of his mind and he will switch to it (as he often switches to his favourite people on youtube who have taught him, among other things, origami, lego and other experiments. 

Meanwhile we are getting bigger and smaller on Clash Royale. There are good days when we win a ton of trophies. There are bad days when we get thrashed. We spend time discussing various battle strategies (and this is where I love how games make children think). There is a cheapo strategy - that seemed to work well, until we lost a few times. And then tweaked it. Then there is a attack from both sides strategy. Then there is a 'Prince' strategy. Then there is a 'Defense' strategy - worked beautifully once and then never thereafter. Then there is an 'All out offense' strategy - ditto. Then just for kicks, we tried out an aerial route only strategy - this one was an out and out disaster. Now the best part of it is that - there is very little that is useless in the battle deck. And that makes us all think (adult brain, child brain alike) about how we are going to do it. There is discussions on options, choices, priorities, limited gold or gems (both alw...

We have been fans for Clash for Clans for a while now. Clash of clans was and continues to remain an interesting game. But the truth was that many found it quite complex and too involved. And perhaps Supercell recognized that. And came up with Clash Royale. Having played both CoC and CR, I can say that the thought of Clash Royale has been incredible. This is not an easy path. There are quite a few who have tried. But following up on one success, retaining some elements of it and still making a playable game that is as engaging and does not cannibalize the earlier version (among other things) is not easy. But they have done it. From the earlier format of CoC, they have come up with a simpler format. This is easier to play. No elaborate building. No waiting for troops to get experience, but it is not instant. And with all this there is still an interesting element of gameplay strategy. Indeed, the gameplay strategy is so unique that I don't think I have seen anything like th...

At a recent school science exhibition - kids had done a great job with the models. There were models of rockets, telescopes, water harvesting systems, forests and so on. Like with any exhibition the children (and the parents) had put in a  lot of effort. What struck me here, though, apart from the fact that people had put in effort was in some explanations. Many of the charts, explanations - were saying the same thing. Indeed, many of them were from the same source - 'Google' - and specifically - 'Google First page' and 'Wikipedia'. So, for all the hard work, much of the information sources were common. Not that there is anything wrong in it  - after all it is the most common source of information today. But as one progresses, one needs to go beyond the 'first page' in anything. In a world where everyone has access to the same internet - information is democratic - everybody gets the same. Clicking something on google is not 'research'. ...

The topic of learning from the internet or learning in the internet era fascinates me. As mobile connectivity goes up, facts are on our fingertip - more and more. This is one aspect - so as we travel to say, historical places, our facts are on our fingertips. Recently, we had the opportunity to visit a few historical places. As we went from place to place, we had all the facts on our fingertip - including directions, history, names and so on. There is much more potential that can be exploited here I think. That is one aspect of it. The other aspect of it is the long tail of the internet. The fact that you have the internet, makes it easy for you to reach out to experts in almost anything - however obscure. And that is the power of the internet. Take for example - paper planes. When I grew up, I depended on cousins, friends and parents to learn about a design of paper planes. All in all, I knew about 5 designs. Until I stumbled upon a book in a friends place that had a few more....

I continue to be fascinated by the niches of the internet. It is like the long long Long Tail. If there is one place on earth that can bring people of interests together across the world, it is the internet. Whether is a specific cooking method or a baking bread or a dance form or art form or even something like making paper airplanes, the internet has it all. In that sense, never before has technology united humans in this fashion ever. At the same time, because of these niches, there are other areas which one never gets to see (well, that is the same in the real world - so this argument does not entirely wash). So, well, keep exploring...

It is indeed the age of the autodidact and the world is filled with Ekalavyas . It is fascinating to see how they learn - especially on the things that they are motivated about. There is new fad called the Rainbow Loom that has somewhat taken the kids by storm. This involves making things using special rubber bands which are I think specially manufactured for this purpose. (I say that, because the rubber bands are better in quality than the cheap ones we are used to and have some designs on it - among other things). There is an entire body of knowledge on the internet on the design of these bands. It has its own jargon - with names for the design. There are a million youtube videos from which they learn. The process is also fueled by somewhat of a social component. The kids talk and show each other the newest designs they have learnt to make and they come home and try out new stuff. All in all it fuels a vicious cycle of learning and creativity. This is the nature of learning ...

Recently, I read this piece on how Linkedin is eating up the recruitment market. In a nutshell, what that means is that candidates can be found by anyone on Linkedin – so why use third party services? And some time back, Linkedin had opened up to third party recruiters- and later on launched its own recruitment tool. So, eventually, nobody needs to use third party recruiters, because Linkedin has it all. How Linkedin is eating the recruitment industry .(Read it all, worth your time) Now let us think about training. There is an entire industry out there that service various companies, individuals and many other kinds needs in the training space. There are a slew of universities that offer tailored MBA programs, Executive education apart from various bodies offering certifications of various kinds. Now, the internet is busy disrupting this market. And it is only a stone’s throw away. The best courses from all over  the world are available on the internet. Course...

I am a superhero. Googleman. Without google, I am the ordinary human being. But with Google at my disposal, I become the superhero.  I also strongly suspect that between the age range of 3 and 8, children believe their parents are superheroes. Post this age, the power of the internet is available to kids and they discover googlesearches themselves. Parents the world over should be thankful to google for increasing their question answering by an exponential factor. Earlier there were a zillion questions that could go unanswered. But not any more. The internet gives parents the power to answer the most obscure of questions. I am not sure if this is good or bad, but it does seem like the fact that answers are available means that more questions can be asked. Sample this: Why do buses have bigger steering wheels? Why does Audi name their cars one way and BMW another way? Who invented soap (and this screaming from the bathroom)? Who invented shampoo? Who i...