ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: Interview with Mr. Vaidehi Sharan Paliya (Mechanical final year student)-winner of European Space Agency Award

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We are pleased to publish interview with Mr. Vaidehi Sharan Paliya, our final year Mechanical Engineering student (Mechanical 2010), who won the competition of European Space Agency (ESA).

It is to be noted that he was runner-up in the University Undergraduate category and only person in that category from India. The competition was named as “Be An INTEGRAL Astronomer.” It asked participants “to examine INTEGRAL observations of variable X-ray sources in the Galactic Bulge, to interpret the data, to search for evidence of variability, and to report on their research.”

Yogesh K. Upadhyaya from Chronicle talks to Vaidehi Sharan Paliya about his successful research work in the field of astronomy.

(Vaidehi Sharan Paliya)

Q-1: Welcome, Vaidehi. Please tell us about yourself

Thank you Sir. I am from Ayodhya. I completed my school education from Maharaja Inter College (U.P. Board) Ayodhya, which was the only college for science stream at that time. Apart from studies, I also played state-level cricket for college cricket team. My father is a retired health inspector and mother is house wife.

Q-2: What prompted you to enter the competition at European Space Agency?

I am always interested in the world above all of us since my childhood. Due to poor power condition in Ayodhya, we spent much of time watching sky full of diamonds. Officially Dr. B. N. Dwivedi (Professor & Head, Applied Physics Dept., IT-BHU) introduced me to the astronomy. He suggested me to update myself with latest advent of astronomy. So simply I GOOGLED to explore the things. I searched persons, research institutions working in this field and made communications with them, time to time for guidance.

I have subscribed news service of NASA, ESA & some leading astronomy journals to update myself. I received the information of this competition through a news mail of ESA in last year April. Then I’ve started the research work during summer training with TATA Motors Ltd. Lucknow along with training work. Seeing my intense interest in astronomy, my mentor allowed me to perform the related analysis work on their computer. I completed all tasks in the first week of August and submitted a report to the officials. I don’t have any formal background of astronomy till date but personally I think if you really want to learn then it doesn’t matter. Biggest thing is a desire to learn.

Q-3: Please tell us about the competition and how you solved the problem.

There were four tasks in the contest. Organizers provided us the X-ray data of INTEGRAL satellite. Overall idea of the contest was to understand the causes of variability in some X-ray binaries. These objects are situated in the galactic center, which is one of the oldest regions of our galaxy and is a region rich in bright, variable high-energy X-ray and gamma-ray sources.  One more aspect of the contest is to learn the morphology of galaxies. From student point of view, this was an opportunity to understand how scientist works at ESA.

Out of four, first three tasks did not require any knowledge of astronomy but some knowledge about statistics. In the last one, where we have to find the causes of variability in an object, I went through several research papers on the topic & consulted with a book “Hands-on-Astrophysics” published by AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) to understand the physical meaning of data. I plotted the related data to see the variation and used some mathematical tools to find out possible periodicities. I used MS-Excel for analysis and GNU Plot for plotting light curves.

I received several things in prize: A Celestron Sky Scout (a kind of telescope), a music player, M-band pen-drive, a book “Eyes on the skies”, a diary in which calculator is inbuilt, and a certificate. 

Q-4: What advise will you give to our students to enter and win such competitions?

First of all I would like to suggest our juniors or anyone to choose a field of their ‘genuine’ interest. Then start searching the related things and career possibilities on Google which is an ocean of information. Never hesitate to ask help. Try to communicate with leading professionals (of IITs or even of Harvard, MIT etc.) regarding career and topic of interest. This will help you in taking right decisions regarding career. Sometime those people may offer you some opportunities in the form of internships or projects.

Try to be update in your field of interest by subscribing news services of related organizations. Visiting the websites of such institutions regularly is a good idea to explore the opportunities in the form of contests or summer schools etc. Try to learn the useful software of your subject because it will improve problem handling and solving skill. Always keep your eyes OPEN because such international competitions are not regularly organized. Once you have a problem, consult with your friends, teachers and sometime internet also provides better help. To know how to present your work, you may take a look on previous works. Reading research papers is a very efficient idea to understand the style of writing.

Q-5: Please tell us about your personal life.

I think that everyone has an objective of life and he/she should fulfill it. Many times peoples do not know why they are living. Personally I want to know about some very basic issues of life such as: why we are here, and what will be our ultimate fate? What was before ‘Big Bang’ and ultimately who is controlling all these things? As I found astronomy very close to it, I am just trying to learn it. Also, learning is a tool which makes you to live life in a far better way. Apart from studies, I like playing cricket, photography, reading fairytale books, computer games, listening to soft music and talking to peoples.

We are three brothers and one sister. I am highly influenced by my mother and my late brother who taught me to not to lose heart from circumstances and to struggle to achieve the best.

Vaidehi, it was nice talking to you.

At the last I would again like to say that learning is an endless procedure, no matter in whatever field. So always try to learn from everything surrounding you. Einstein, Newton and other legends had the same philosophy of their life. Who can forget the ‘apple’ of Newton, which resulted in a law which governs the whole Universe?

Thank you very much.

Vaidehi Sharan Paliya can be contacted at: vaidehis.paliya.mec06@itbhu.ac.in

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 Additional Link:

* Abstract from ESA website:

http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Education/SEMSIHXRA0G_0.html

Be an Integral astronomer – competition winners announced

 8 October 2009

Students from India and South Africa have been selected as the winners of the European Space Agency’s ‘Be an Integral astronomer’ competition.

 To celebrate the International Year of Astronomy 2009, ESA organised a competition in which students were presented with data from the European Integral space observatory and asked to study the Galactic Bulge, one of the most active regions at the heart of our Galaxy. Entrants were required to perform research tasks using Integral data of variable X-ray sources. The tasks included interpreting the data, searching for evidence of variability and then writing a report on their research. The competition entries were judged by an expert panel comprising ESA scientists.

Secondary school category

In the secondary school students’ category, the winner was Shyamal Patel of of Baroda High School, Alkapuri, Vadodara, India. 18 year-old Shyamal is a keen amateur astronomer who has participated in several activities to promote and increase awareness of astronomy, including a workshop for school students conducted by AAAV during the total solar eclipse of 22 July 2009. He was previously the winner of a ASI and ISRO sponsored student competition to attend the 2007 International Astronautical Congress.

“My interest in the field of astronomy always keeps me excited to explore our Universe,” said Shyamal. “(The) ‘Be an Integral Astronomer’ competition gave me an opportunity and motivation to work, explore and understand the high energy Universe.”

The runners-up in this category were:

• Cristina Cirstoiu, Colegiul Naţional "Vlaicu Vodǎ", Curtea de Argeş, Romania.
• Lauriane Fillot, Lycee Louis-le-Grand, Paris, France.
• Stanislav Fořt, Gymnázium Pierra de Coubertina, Tábor, Czech Republic.
• James Wills, Winchester College, UK .

University undergraduates category

The winner in the category for university undergraduates was Michelle Knights, from Rhodes University, South Africa. Michelle has been an avid amateur astronomer since she was about six years old. She loved Physics at school and decided to study it at Rhodes University, where she is currently in her third year, majoring in Maths and Physics.

“I was very excited when I heard about the INTEGRAL Astronomer competition,” she said. “The prizes sounded fantastic of course but I really wanted to try my hand at some ‘real’ astronomy. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring ways of finding information about objects from natural data and I felt a bit like a detective trying to solve a puzzle.”

The runners-up in this category were:

• Phyllis Tzu-Ching Yen, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.
• Francisco J. Hernández, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain.
• Vaidehi Sharan Paliya, Banaras Hindu University, India.
• Jacopo Diamanti, Sapienza - Università di Roma, Italy.

First prize for the two winners includes a trip to the European Space Astronomy Centre in Spain, plus an 'Astronomer's starter kit', comprising a Celestron SkyScout, a Media Player and the IYA 2009 book ‘Eyes on the Skies’.

The INTEGRAL competition was run as part of the ‘International Year of Astronomy 100 Hours of Astronomy’ cornerstone project, in which people around the world were given access to leading astronomical observatories.

ESA’s INTEGRAL gamma ray observatory has been making groundbreaking observations of the most energetic objects in the Universe since its launch in October 2002.
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* Details about Integral Astronomer competition:

* About Integral Satellite

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120374_index_0_m.html

Status
In operation

 Objective
Tracking violent events across the Universe, Integral is ESA's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory. It is studying explosions, radiation, formation of elements, black holes and other exotic objects.

Mission
 Integral is the first space observatory that can simultaneously observe objects in gamma rays, X-rays and visible light. Its principal targets are violent explosions known as gamma-ray bursts, powerful phenomena such as supernova explosions, and regions in the Universe thought to contain black holes.

Gamma rays are even more powerful and penetrating than the X-rays used in medical examinations. Fortunately, Earth's atmosphere acts as a shield to protect us from this dangerous cosmic radiation. This means that gamma rays from space can only be detected above Earth’s atmosphere. Integral is the most advanced gamma-ray observatory ever launched. It can detect radiation from events far away and from the processes that shape the Universe.

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*American Association of Variable Star Observers

http://www.aavso.org/

Students may like to visit following web address-

1-     www.hubblesite.org

2-     www.stsci.edu

3-     www.chandra.harvard.edu

4-     http://cxc.harvard.edu/

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ITBHUGlobal.org: The Chronicle: Interview with Mr. Abhishek Daga (Chemical 2007), Co-founder of Thrillophilia

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We are pleased to publish interview with Mr. Abhishek Daga (Chemical Engineering 2007 passout) who has co-founded travel and adventure company, Thrillophilia (http://www.thrillophilia.com).

Thrillophilia is a unique company offering a gamut of adventure activities in India which include: scuba diving, paragliding, trekking, mountain climbing, biking, skiing and many other adrenaline pumping adventure sports, etc. It covers many of the exotic and adventurous spots in India. It has built the largest adventure portal in India and conducting adventure trips across India.

Yogesh K. Upadhyaya from Chronicle talks to Abhishek Daga about his successful entrepreneurship and business adventures.

(Abhishek Daga)

 Q-1: Welcome, Abhishek. Please tell us about yourself

I was born in the Pink City (Jaipur) in 1983. I was a kid with exceptionally high levels of energy and adrenal rush. I used to be a parker, jumping from one roof to other and there was not a single day when I was not injured. All my life I had at least a part broken in my body. When my friends used to meet me they would ask what is that is broken right now. Apart from this my mom ensured that I top the school by cramming each and every word of history, civics and geography.

My father is a doctor and it was very much needed as injuries were integral part of my life. My mother is a research scholar on Jainism and she is workaholic and expected same from me. But I was not that geek kind of guy and as soon as she stopped teaching me I thought I am done in life. I need a break, I need to enjoy life. I can’t be a disciplined kid. I don’t want to top the school I simply hate it I would love to be at bottom. And then the journey started. I used to play cricket, tennis, go swimming and used to travel places with cousins, friends and family and explored almost entire India. Meantime, somehow I managed to clear IIT, landed in IT-BHU Chemical Engineering and still the journey continued. I was 5 point someone and the harder I tried to get pointers the lesser I got. But I realized three passions of my life here

* Reading books

* Travel

* Sports and fitness

Combining the three passions of my life where reading books especially autobiographies enhanced my thinking, and attitude towards life. I just wanted to do something big but didn’t know what it will be. Sports fitness became integral part of my life where I did many certifications of fitness and enhanced my knowledge about human body. Gym was my temple and I went to worship daily be it foggy mornings of Varanasi when everyone was asleep in hostel. Travel was something I enjoyed the most and was not able to stay away from it for more than two months. But then I got placed in Cisco from college and nothing much happened and continued my three passions even after I joined Cisco.

Q-2: What prompted you to start Thrillophilia?

The origin of Thrillophilia:

There are many things that we can do with our lives. Some things are done for satisfaction; some are done for money and some to gain power. And then there are some things which one wants to do only because one believes in them. I and my partners in Thrillophilia have always been excited by adventure activities and there is nothing better than doing what we love. We are on our way to provide everyone with the one thing that we have always loved. That is adventure and thrill and that is what we do at Thrillophilia.

The story of Thrillophilia starts with four best pals from childhood —Abhishek Daga, Chitra Gurnani, Vikram Arora and Abhishek Tripathi. All four of us were not like the normal 10-5 workers. We wanted to do something different, something big and something of our own. Other than this trait, the four of us also shared one freaking interest i.e. adventure activities. We used to go for weekend hikes, biking trips, wildlife safaris, paragliding, kayaking and rafting.

While working in Cisco I realized how technology is shaping our present and future. How it is entering every domain and how fast things are changing and with this, I also realized the problems and issues with travel business especially adventure business.

The safety is the primary concern of every traveler when it comes to adventure and sadly for most of the vendors in India it’s the last priority. I had realized this problem in various encounters with different vendors across India. The other problem which we faced while planning trips was lack of information about adventure places in India. 

At Cisco, I learnt how network will become the platform in future and affect our daily life. We were quick to notice a potential business opportunity – combine the pretty cluttered and unorganized adventure sports market of India with Web 2.0 and build a platform that meticulously places all adventure sports options in India under one umbrella. There started the journey of Thrillophilia. Now the folks are on their toes for internet marketing.

The idea of a one-stop destination for adventure sports manifested itself once Thrillophilia started taking shape. The sleepless nights, the endless discussions and continuous hard work have led us to what we only dreamt of when we started working on this idea. We, Thrillophiles (That’s what we call ourselves!) are all from different backgrounds like B.Tech engineers, computer science techies, MBA grads and Mariner.

This diversity helps us to come up with diverse thinking and quick solutions to problems. It's the teamwork which has led to the making of Thrillophilia. We believe that in our team we have people who complement each other with their expertise in different areas.

Bio:

Abhishek Tripathi (Co-founder Thrillophilia) – A mariner from M.E.R.I. Kolkata, has traveled half the globe and visited many countries. He is a hard core biker and loves going on bike trips with his biker’s gang. He has done long biking trips across various destinations in Rajasthan and Ladakh. He is in the traveling team at Thrillophilia.

Abhishek Daga (Co-founder Thrillophilia) – A B. Tech graduate from IT-BHU, Varanasi is a techie by profession and is working for the world’s biggest networking giant, Cisco. He works on technologies and products that will touch human lives few years down the line. He is also an adventure lover. He is very inclined towards trekking, camping and wildlife. He is P1 certified in paragliding and has also done courses on mountain climbing. Keenly interested into Search Engine Optimization, he drives the internet marketing department at Thrillophilia. Also, he is into business development.

Chitra Gurnani (Co-founder Thrillophilia) – A B.Tech in information communication technology from Dhirubhai Ambani Institute, Gandhinagar is also a techie by profession. She has worked with Infosys and then with SAP. She loves her work and also the technical field. Besides this, she also loves writing. She is deeply interested into travelling, trekking, camping and kayaking. She works on website development, content management and marketing at Thrillophilia.

Vikram Arora (Co-founder Thrillophilia) – A mechanical engineer and an MBA graduate in Supply Chain Management from Symbiosis. He is a very good writer and is also writing his own book “The Red Book of Philosophy”. He has a strong inclination towards traveling and is currently doing the offline marketing for Thrillophilia.

Q-3: Please tell us more about Thrillophilia.

What we do at Thrillophilia:

 Adventure and Eco Trips: Thrillophilia is one-stop solution to all adventure and ecotourism needs of the enthusiasts. We offer packages for diverse adventure sports across the country and we have also done mastery in designing any kind of adventure and eco trips for our customer. We provide more than 200 trips throughout the country covering most of the states. We have a broad selection of tours, safaris, treks and rafting options covering Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western parts of the country.

 1. Fixed day Departures: We have fixed day departures in most of the places according to budget and weather conditions. This helps you to make friends, meet fellow travelers and pull the cost down.

2. Customized Trips: Since every traveler's interests and requirements are inimitable, we provide custom service to our customers. We do not take any deposit for tour designing. This proficiency has been achieved because of our thorough research throughout the country.

3. Corporate offsite: Our teambuilding actions are exclusively designed to bring the best out of the corporate teams by pumping enthusiasm, vivacity and team spirit. We can lead in and develop the ideal Team Building involvement for your group, irrespective of where you want to conduct it.

4. Team Building, Leadership Student camps: We work to provide connote for recreational activities for youth to participate in and dedicate time on something constructive. It helps young achievers to develop self-worthiness.

5. Merchandise: We offer a vast catalogue of adventure goods of some of the Best European Brands for our customers.

6. Adventure Bible: ―Adventure Bible is a storehouse that powers more than 500 pages of information related to adventure activities and destinations across the country.

7. Travelogues: Customers can share their experiences in the travelogues section in our website and discuss over various issues on the blog.

 8. Eco trips: Taking you really close to nature where you relax and we take care of all your worries.

 I. By organizing all possible Indian adventure related information meticulously under one umbrella, we become the one-stop destination for adventure enthusiasts. Our customers need not go to different websites to gather information, then book trips, then buy merchandize etc. We have it all at one place.

 II. To add to this, we specialize in professional customer dealing and ensure customer delight in every possible way. We even help people planning their trips and guiding them to the destination which will fill their requirements.

 III. Thrillophilia focuses on contributing to the people of the lands they visit, respecting their culture and preserving the integrity of the environment.

IV. By our very user-friendly website and online payment gateways, we make it very easy for our customers to book their trips in the comforts of their homes or offices at the click of a mouse.

 Cost usually becomes a deciding factor, but for an adventure trip the deciding factor should be the level of confidence and trust you have on your operator.

Safety is the most important thing when we plan an adventure trip. When you are with Thrillophilia, you need not worry about the safety part. Our association with the best and most experienced partners in the industry has made us proficient in designing trips anywhere in the country. After a thorough analysis of their background, track record, government approvals, quality of services and equipment, we have associated with them. Each of our partners is government approved and is technically and professionally equipped. The Government of India has some basic minimum standards for adventure tourism activities. Thrillophilia and its partners are compliant to standards much higher than these.

The company has two branches right now: one is at Bangalore and other one is at Jaipur. The head office is in Bangalore and Jaipur office is more of sales office. Thrillophilia has currently 4 permanent employees and 14 individual contributors working as free lancers for the company.

Q-4: What problems do you face for your start-up company?

The major problem was lack of experience. We all were around 24-26 and not having any kind of experience to run a startup so every single thing took lot of time to get in shape. The marketing was simply not working because whatever we tried did not work according to our expectations and could not reach enough audience. We did not had the budget to use newspapers, radio or TV; but what we learnt the hard way is that Rome was not built in a day. We realized that instead of getting worried, we need to work on constant improvement in every field. The operating costs were really very high and finances troubled us many times as this organization was boot-strapped but with time, things were in place.

Q-5: What is your plan for future?

The plan for the future is to have fixed departure trips across India. The fixed departure trips bring down the cost drastically for the customer as the number of people travelling increases. This will be combined with home stays and backpacking trips across the country. With this, we are also partnering with many corporate to cater their outings and team building activities.

Q-6: Please tell us about your personal life.

Well, coming to personal life, I think I am lucky enough to have a fiancé, who is too sweet to complain despite my hectic work schedules. I have lots of good friends who are always by my side 24*7. I work 15 hours a day which I never realize and always complain that why there are only 24 hrs in a day. There are no weekends in my life and everyday is a weekend. Only best part about Sundays is I get to meet my friends. Reading, technology, travel, paragliding, and adventure interest me. I should not forget my first love for cricket.

I was once browsing internet and stumbled upon Simon Trotter’s website. After reading his philosophy we felt this is what I do, what I live for.

Do what you love. Love what you do. Take less. Give more. Never quit. Never follow. Be passionate. Be bold. Be honest. Respect people. Respect the environment. Always bring out the best in your family and friends. Change is the only constant. Fear is an illusion. Attitude is everything. Stand tall, Live tall and Walk tall.

Abhishek, it was nice talking to you.

All I want to say is that’s it’s a wonderful feeling to start your own venture. It’s much more adventurous then any of the adrenal pumping sports. It’s a learning experience which no book or MBA College can teach you. You need to keep your eyes open, don’t repeat the same mistakes again and dive deep. I simply love each and every part of it and entrepreneurship is what I breathe now.

Thrillophilia Team

Abhishek Daga

Chitra Gurnani

Abhishek Tripathi

Vikram Arora

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 Additional Link:

* Thrillophilia website

http://www.thrillophilia.com/

www.thrillophilia.com/blog

* Thrillophiles and Entrepreneurship

http://www.yourstory.in/entrepreneurs/non-tech-entrepreneurs/2523-abhishek-daga-chitra-gurnani-abhishek-tripathi-sanket-tondare-and-vikram-arora-founders-a-thrillophiles-thrillophilia-adventure-tours-pvt-ltd

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