Personality Development

Amit Srivastava
Director of Engineering, Innovium Inc. USA Alumnus of CMS Mahanagar

Amit Srivastava is an icon for aspiring young engineers. He lives and works in the United States which has become his ‘Karma Bhoomi’ but he nostalgically remembers his ‘Janma Bhoomi’, India and his school, CMS Mahanagar Campus. It was here that his character was shaped and he gained the knowledge which built up his career.

Deepak’s kindly eyes and gentle temperament belie the toughness and resolute determination that outlines his character. Having seen the dark side of life and experienced some of its sorrows, he has developed an understanding and a determination to do away with the poverty and adverse circumstances which have been a part of his early life. Deepak says, "I joined CMS during my foundation years of life and it inspired me to achieve and compete for greater heights. The quality of peers here is unmatched and the healthy competition always motivated me to work harder and harder."

Amit joined CMS Mahanagar Campus in pre-primary class in 1984 and passed Class XII ISC Board Examinations with flying colours in 1996. He is from a middle-class family. His father worked in Planning Division as ADO while his mother is a housewife.

In 1997, he cleared entrance exams of IIT-JEE, Roorkee, MLNR and chose to join Electrical Engg. (EE) department at IIT-Kanpur. In 2000, he was selected for summer internship at EPFL-Laussane and Sun Microsystems, USA. After internship, he joined MS program in EE at Stanford University, CA, US and got promoted twice at Sun Microsystems. In 20O5, he moved to AMD as a Principal Engineer where he worked there till 2012 and his last position was Manager of a GPU design group working on WiiU and Xbox system-on-chips (SOCs).In 2012, he changed his field from Microprocessor Design to Computer Networking when he joined Broadcom Inc as a Senior Principal Engineer. He left Broadcom after two years to join a startup Barefoot Networks in the field of Computer Networking. Later, he joined Innovium Inc where he is currently working as Director of Engineering.

Amit feels a sense of gratitude towards his alma mater, CMS. He says,” The motto of "Jai Jagat" and global citizenship has always guided my choices and decisions. I often volunteered for many organizations because of the values I learnt in school of helping everyone in the world.”

He still remembers his school days and teachers who moulded his character and made him a fine person with leadership qualities. “When I topped all branches in Maths Olympiad in Class VIII, my maths teacher, Mrs Kapoor, brought home cooked "Gajar Halwa" for me and asked me to come out of class to eat that in library. That token of encouragement and appreciation is still fresh in my mind and is the one which motivated me to work hard and rise from a mediocre student to merit holder in ICSE and ISC. His message for junior students is, “Everything is possible with hard-work and good guidance.” It is always good to have mentors early in your life who can guide you on the path you want to pursue in life.”

Anushka Pandey won the first prize, Best Costume award at Literati organized by Hoerner College.

Avnika Jain, Riddhima Nigam, Astha, Arna Shukla, Vartika Soni, Nandini, Anvesha Banerji, Gauri Bisht, Bhumika Singh, Nehal and Akshansh won prizes in different contests at Bal Utsav organized by the Search Foundation.

Vaidehi Vaish won many prizes at U.P. School Badminton Quest organized by SARA Foundation. Among her accolades were, runner up in U-13 girls doubles, semifinalist in U-17 girls doubles, semifinalist in U-15 girls doubles, selected for Major State Badminton tournament and selected for Noida State Badminton tournament.

Anwesha Banerjee

Nandini

At the inter campus Karate competition organized by CMS QAID, Shreyansh Singh of Class VII won the silver medal in Kata and bronze medal in Fight (Kumite) while Angel Singh of Class V won gold medals in Kumite as well as Kata.

Nandini, and Anwesha Banerjee won the first prizes in Inter-school Fancy Dress Competition of the Search Foundation.

Calendar Making Contest

Class IV students, Mustaba Ahmad and Divyansh Sharma respectively won the second and third prize in Calendar making contest organized by CMS QAID. Aditi Singh of same class won the second consolation prize.

National Sports Day celebration

U-14 ASISC Zonal Cricket tournament

The campus team won the final match of U-14 ASISC Zonal Cricket tournament held at LPS Sahara Estate defeating CMS Kanpur Campus by 8 wickets.

Second Central Zone Yoga Contest Winners

Insha Hussain, Sidra Fatima, Angel Anand, Mridul Kashyap, Reyan, Hridesh, Umme, Navita Bharti, Darsh and Samriddhi won prizes in the 2nd Central Zone Zonal Yoga Competition organized by U.P. Yoga Association at Kannauj.

Model United Nation

At the 13th State Taekwondo Championship held at Chowk Stadium, Mohd. Adnan Siddiqui and S. Wafa Sadiq won gold medals, Chitranshi Sahu won the silver medal and Divyanshi Kumar won the bronze medal.

What’s a gap year? It’s a sabbatical year normally taken before or after college. According to ‘The History of the Gap Year’, they started in the 1960s as cultural exchanges to create global awareness and understanding to prevent future world wars. Soon many travellers started looking for a richer spiritual life and young kids started coming to India.Today there are many organisations that run profitable businesses managing gap years, some of which are very fancy. But we are cheap parents and our kids are anyways the DIY type. Mihika spent nine months on a scholarship at Danceworx in Mumbai, dancing around eight hours a day, managing their Bandra studio and teaching school kids in Malad and Tardeo. She lived her dream. Mihika worked on her dance technique, managed people and taught young kids. She had planned on travelling after her scholarship, but enjoyed herself so much that she stayed on for the rest of the year.

Khashiff, focussed on getting as far away from his parents as he could—three months in Ladakh and seven months on Havelock Island, in the Andamans. In Ladakh he volunteered with 17000 Ft Foundation and for one of those three months he mapped schools in Kargil District, where he travelled between villages on foot or inside or on top of buses.

We did not hear from him for days at a stretch because he had no connectivity and often he had to climb a mountain to get a phone signal. At Barefoot Scuba he lived in a tiny hut on the beach with a mattress, a mosquito net, a light point and a fan and scuba dived every day. He also lived his dream. Fiona, in jest, worried that he was having such a blast that he would not want their gap years neared, both were ready to go to college.

Mihika and Khashiff talk about how much they matured during their gap year. They became more confident. They became more independent. They also had a better idea of what they wanted to pursue in college. And we saw the changes.

I’ve always said that we will live, on average, till we are at least 75. So, if you can afford to take a year off, what’s the hurry to start college or to start working? Both our kids secured their admission to college when they were in Class 12 and then deferred admission by a year. This way they knew where they were going to go a year later and did not have to spend time on college admissions during their gap years. We also encouraged them to do non-academic stuff in their gap year. What they chose to do was their decision and their choice was driven by their passion.

Many parents worry that their kids will find it tough to get back to studying after a year of not studying. Not true—our kids didn’t find it tough to go back to their books. Many parents feel that their kids will lose out if they start working later in life. Not true—I started at Citibank when I was 28, when most of my classmates were a few years senior to me at work; that gap disappeared very quickly. .

So, go ahead and let your kids take a gap year. It will help them gain a lot more from their college experience and have a load of memories and connections that will help them later in life.