The ContraMinds Podcast

Roger Forsgren is a retired Chief Knowledge Officer of NASA. He was a director of Academy of Program, Project and Engineering Leadership at NASA. Roger is also an undergraduate with a liberal arts degree, a mechanical engineering degree and a masters in industrial engineering. Roger is also the author of two books and the most recent being “When Graduation is Over, Learning Begins - Lessons for STEM Students and Professionals”.

In this episode, Swami & Roger discuss the importance of having a liberal arts background for an engineer, foundational skills needed for successful engineers, how communication skills, decision-making skills, and working with people are as important as number crunching, and where empathy can help achieve efficiency in an imperfect world filled with vulnerable people.

This is Roger’s second episode with Swami & Contraminds. We had the privilege of playing host to Roger in episode 23, released on Jan 22, 2022 - Roger Forsgren on Knowledge Management Lessons from NASA.

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Watch the full video episode on YouTube

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Is it Your life is your responsibility or  Just keep going. No matter what or pay yourself first.  It does not matter how good the advice is if you have benefited from it!   

As Prof Annapurni says, Whatever the situation you are in be it a disadvantageous situation but identify the advantage of it and make use of it. 

 As Sunder Madakshira says, Winning the battle in one's mind before winning it in the marketplace is very important.   

As Chris Yeh says, Quantity has a Quality of its own, You should keep doing and trying, Keep trying and work hard! 

 Find out the Best Advice our guests Ever Received in this curated video. 

 Featured in the video are: 

 Roger Forsgren, Former Chief Knowledge Officer at NASA

Neil Hoyne, Chief Measurement Strategist at Google 

Sunder Madakshira, CEO of Rezolve

 Prof. Thales Teixeira, Co-Founder of Decoupling.co 

Prof. Yadati Narahari, Director of the Centre for Brain Research 

B Joseph Pine II, Author, Speaker and Management Advisor 

Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam, Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics

Amit Ranjan, Co-Founder of Slideshare 

Paul Zak, Neuroeconomist 

Chris Yeh, Author, Investor and Entrepreneur 

What advice would you give to an 18-year-old in university?   Is it Getting out of the bubble of your Majors? Developing communication skills or simply sticking to the basics?  

As Prof Annapurni says, work hard, be passionate, and find something that challenges you. If you feel comfortable and capable, you are no longer challenged.  

As Neil Hoyne says, in the future, you must learn subjects outside your core discipline and gain real-world experience! 

 As Chris Yeh says, Try and experience new things because there will be an easier time to try new things or meet remarkable people as all things are being served on a silver platter!  

Find out what advice our Guests would give to an 18-year-old at university in this curated video.

Featured in the video are:

Roger Forsgren, Former Chief Knowledge Officer at NASA

Neil Hoyne, Chief Measurement Strategist at Google

Sunder Madakshira, CEO of Rezolve

Prof. Thales Teixeira, Co-Founder of Decoupling.co

Prof. Yadati Narahari, Director of the Centre for Brain Research

B Joseph Pine II, Author, Speaker and Management Advisor

Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam, Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics

Amit Ranjan, Co-Founder of Slideshare

Paul Zak, Neuroeconomist

Chris Yeh, Author, Investor and Entrepreneur

What Does Success Mean To You? Is it about how much money you make for yourself, or is it in being able to give back to society? Is it a measure of happiness or in constantly striving to achieve your goals?  As Prof Annapurni says, the definition of success changes in every stage of career and life. When we start our career, we are hungry, we are curious. We want to learn, we want to create and we want to be recognised.  A few years later, it is about how much money we make, the kind of lifestyle we want, and the kind of material pleasures we consume. Once financially secure, as we reach the last couple of decades of our career, success lies in the reputation we’ve built, the goodwill we’ve earned and the lives we’ve touched along the way. At the end of the day, as Sunder Madakshira says, a good night’s sleep with a clear conscience is a measure of success in itself.   Watch this curated video on what success means to the guests we have spoken to this year.  

Featured in the video are:

Roger Forsgren, Former Chief Knowledge Officer at NASA 

Neil Hoyne, Chief Measurement Strategist at Google 

Sunder Madakshira, CEO of Rezolve 

Prof. Thales Teixeira, Co-Founder of Decoupling.co 

Prof. Yadati Narahari, Director of the Centre for Brain Research 

B Joseph Pine II, Author, Speaker and Management Advisor 

Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam, Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics  

Amit Ranjan, Co-Founder of Slideshare 

Paul Zak, Neuroeconomist 

Chris Yeh, Author, Investor and Entrepreneur

Rupal Patel is an ex-CIA agent turned entrepreneur, international speaker and business consultant. She helps founders and executives unlock their potential through a powerful new toolkit that reveals how techniques of the CIA can help anyone find their voice and thrive without conforming to stale stereotypes or dated “best practices”. Rupal is the author of the bestselling book “From CIA to CEO”.

In this episode, Rupal talks to Swaminathan Sivaraman on

• the fundamental values that shaped her life, as the child of immigrant parents in America
• the importance of curiosity in career-building
• understanding your personal mission and corporate mission
• how it was working at the CIA
• how to have difficult conversations as a leader
• talking the truth to power
• how the CIA taught her to handle failure
• her philosophy of absolute v relative life
• learning, gathering and debriefing data about yourself

and many other strategies and unique methods to reset your mindset and aim for success.

Listen to the full podcast on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Full Video Episode available on YouTube.

B. Joseph Pine II is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups alike. He is the cofounder of Strategic Horizons LLP, a thinking studio dedicated to helping businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings.

Pine consults with numerous companies around the world, helping them embrace the ideas and frameworks he writes about, develop concepts for creating more economic value, and see those concepts become reality.

His books (author / co-author) include Mass Customization, The Experience Economy, Infinite Possibility and Authenticity.

In this episode with Swami & Vignesh, Joe talks about the need for experiences beyond just Goods & Services. He touches upon his famous presentation on “The Progression of Economic Value”, and goes on to elucidate with very specific examples on how traditional organizations can become experience organizations. How do companies like Apple & Amazon determine what is an extraordinary standard for experiences? What is the concept behind Six Looking Glasses? What is the correlation between authenticity and experience? An amazing episode awaits you.

Listen in on the podcast. You can also catch the full video episode on YouTube.

Prasad Mangipudi is one of the top sports development and marketing minds in India. Prasad is the Managing Director of Sportzlive - a company primarily focused on investing and creating Sports IPRs in the Indian sub-continent market, and is a Mentor Director with the Hyderabad Hydras, a premier esports & lifestyle organisation.

Prasad is one of the brains behind the Premier Badminton League, making India's official badminton league the world's #1 badminton league in just 5 years.

After 26 years of rich experience of across sectors - advertising, hospitality, marketing, tourism, sports events, and healthcare - with organisations like Lowe Lintas, Sterling Holiday Resorts, Greyhound Marketing, LifeCell International, Aurobindo Pharma and Mylan Labs, Prasad finally found his calling card in the field of sports.

In this episode, Prasad talks to Swami about why India has to look beyond its favorite sport, cricket, in its ambition to become a sports superpower. Prasad stresses on the fact that sports builds character and why we must make our youngsters play, play and play. Prasad also talks about his experience building a world-class academy with Pullela Gopichand, India’s biggest badminton star, touches upon how to groom high-class coaches and the need to support players who do not reach the peak of their game.

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Paul Zak is an American neuroeconomist. He is the co-founder of Immersion Neuroscience, which creates technologies that enable human flourishing. His specialities include neuroeconomics, neuromarketing and neuromanagement.

Paul is also a professor at Claremont Graduate University (for over 27 years), where he currently is the Director at the Centre of Neuroeconomics Studies.

In this episode with Swami and Vignesh, Paul discusses the role of Oxytocin and Dopamine, how the human brain responds to trust, the risk of AI in interpreting human emotion, the concepts of neuroeconomics and neuromanagement, hybrid experience as the future of brand interactions and gives us a glimpse into his upcoming book “Immersion: The science of the extraordinary and the source of happiness”.

Connor Joyce is a behavioral science evangelist who writes extensively about the future of work, helping establish the field of behavioral science.

In this episode on The ContraMinds Podcast, Connor speaks to Swami and Vignesh about the importance of behavioral science and its four pillars of Choice Architecture, Biases & Heuristics, Habit Formation and Social Norms. A deep-dive discussion into the world of human-centred research, Connor gives specific examples with Tesla, Uber, Lyft and Snap. He also talks about the Apple Watch and how the idea of Libertarian Paternalism is driving the Apple Watch’s features for better user outcomes.

Shyam Sekhar is the Ideator and Founder of ithought Financial Consulting LLP.

He is an active and renowned value investor with over 30 years of experience in financial markets.

His focus as an investor has been on identifying investment opportunities in emerging companies through a sound research driven process.

In this episode, Shyam talks to us about his investment process, managing finances as an entrepreneur, and thinking about capital and funding from first principles.

Sunder Madakshira currently serves as the CEO of Rezolve in India.

He has held leadership roles for over 26 years in Sales and Marketing with companies such as Adobe, Hindustan Unilever, VISA, SAP, WIPRO and Infosys.

He is considered a pioneer in Data Driven Operating Models (DDOM) in B2B Marketing in India.

In this episode, Swami and Vignesh speak to Sunder about the changing landscape in Marketing, his ideal Marketing curriculum, and how his interest in music influenced his life.

Adrian Gropper, MD, is the CTO of Patient Privacy Rights, an organisation representing 10.3 million patients and is among the foremost open data advocates in the United States.

Adrian’s work focuses on solving critical problems of patient matching, cybersecurity, transparency, access, and delegation to family caregivers.

We had a wide-ranging conversation with Adrian where he spoke to us about Patient Privacy, Data Platforms, and the chasm between Science and the Law.

Prof. Yadati Narahari's research work focuses on game theory, mechanism design, and artificial intelligence techniques to research problems at the intersection of computer science and economics.

From 2014 to 2021, he served as Dean of the Division of Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.

At IISc, he teaches two courses:  Game Theory and Artificial Intelligence for Social Good.

We had a wide ranging discussion with Prof. Narahari. We spoke about the work and influence of John von Neumann, the convergence of AI, Economics, and Game Theory, and the Principles that form the foundation of a Good Incentive.

Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam serves as the Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore.

Her research work focuses on Star Clusters, Stellar Evolution and Population in Galaxies and Magellanic Clouds.

In this episode, Dr. Annapurni speaks to us about her childhood fascination with the night sky, her thoughts on a long-term vision for Scientific Research in India, and balancing leadership and contributor roles in projects with grace and humility.

Neil Hoyne serves as the Chief Measurement Strategist at Google and is a Senior Fellow at The Wharton School.

He is most recently the author of Converted: The Data-driven Way to Win Customers’ Hearts. 

The book focuses on how companies can build trust at the most fundamental level in the the age of Big Data, Analytics, and Machine Learning.

In this episode, Neil speaks to Swami and Vignesh about:

1. Why a Wealth of Data creates a Poverty of Real Human Relationships
2. The Use and Abuse of Metrics in Corporations
3. What it takes to be a Well-Rounded Individual in the 21st century

Roger Forsgren served as the Chief Knowledge Office (CKO) of NASA from 2013 to 2021. As CKO, he led NASA’s Knowledge Management efforts, ensuring that the agency’s workforce had access to the critical knowledge needed for mission success. 

He also served as Director of the NASA Academy of Program/Project & Engineering Leadership, internally known as APPEL, the agency’s education and training program in the fields of Project Management, Systems Engineering, Engineering, and Leadership Development.  

Roger most recently is the author of the book, “Lean Knowledge Management: How NASA Implemented a Practical KM Program” where he lays out the principles, tactics, and strategies he implemented at NASA during his tenure as the Chief Knowledge Officer.

In this conversation, Roger talks to Swami and Vignesh about his career at NASA, the foundational ideas that underlie the practice of Knowledge Management, and why being at the intersection of history and engineering is a unique competitive advantage.

Amit Ranjan is best known as the co-founder of Slideshare, the world's largest community for sharing professional content including presentations, infographics, documents, and videos. In 2012, Slideshare was acquired by LinkedIn and as of 2020, it has been acquired by Scribd.

Amit is also an Angel Investor and Advisor to several early stage startups in India, Singapore and the United States such as Open, Tracxn and Khatabook, among many others.

Amit is currently the Architect of two projects under the Digital India Mission at the National eGov Division, Ministry of Information Technology. These are:

1. Digital Locker: A national ecosystem for paperless governance by digitizing citizen records & enabling digital usage of these records.
2. Open Forge: An open source initiative aimed at building a national source code sharing platform for collaborative development of egov applications.

In this episode, Amit speaks to Swami and Vignesh about crossing the startup-government chasm, what it takes to build a digital nation project at scale and why technology alone isn’t enough to build a great product company.

Col. Vijay Chadda served in the Indian Armed Forces for more than two decades, following which, in 1992, he transitioned to the Private Sector. After holding leadership positions in various large multinationals in the logistics, travel and tourism space, he became the CEO of the Bharti Foundation in 2008.   

Today, he serves as the CEO of the Air Pollution Action Group, a Foundation set up to assist the Central and State Governments in India’s fight against Air Pollution.  

In this episode, Col. Chadda speaks to Swami and Vignesh about his time at the National Defence Academy, how Leadership Principles do not change whether one is on the Battlefield or in the Boardroom, and his thoughts on what ails the Primary School System in India.

Allison Hartsoe is a three-time entrepreneur and is currently the CEO of Ambition Data.

She is, most recently, the author of the book, "The Age of Customer Equity: Data-driven Strategies to Build a Sustainable Company".

In this episode, Allison speaks to Swami and Vignesh about Data-driven Marketing, the difference between Brand Value and Customer Value, and her Favourite Books.

Click here to buy a copy of Allison's latest book: https://amzn.to/3FKVD43

Bipindra N.C. is the Founder and Editor of Defence.Capital, a publication which tracks the business and politics of India’s growing defence, homeland security, aerospace and maritime trade and market.

In this episode, Bipin speaks to Swami and Vignesh about the role of startups and entrepreneurship in Defence Tech, the structure of India’s Defence ecosystem, and the Knowledge and Skills Veterans bring to the Private Sector.

Suresh is the Co-Founder and CEO of Crayon Data, a Big Data and Artificial Intelligence company with a vision to simplify the world’s choices.

In this episode, Suresh speaks to Swami about spotting trends, limitations in being only a left-brained or a right-brained company, and the three types of personalities you need to have when building a company.

Narayan Parasuram is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of the Karadi Tales Company.

In this episode, Narayan speaks to Swami and Vignesh about his journey and the lessons learnt in setting up Karadi Tales, the challenges he has faced as an Independent Movie Producer, and why we need to rethink the value of Traditional Institutions in India.

Thomas Kolster is the Founder and Creative Director of Goodvertising Agency, one of the pioneers in turning environmental, societal and health risks into market opportunities where growing the bottom line goes hand in hand with creating better communities and a better planet.

In this episode, Thomas speaks to Swami about the new Unmarketing Movement, why Sustainability has a Storytelling Problem, and his latest book, "The Hero Trap".

Kumar is the Founder and CEO of GoFrugal, one of India’s leading Point-of-Sale solutions for Retail, Restaurant and Distribution businesses.

He is also a Co-Founder of Zoho Corporation, one of the world’s leading companies in the domain of Online Productivity Tools and SaaS Applications.

In this episode, Kumar speaks to Swami about what it takes to build a great Company Culture, the Importance of an Ownership Mindset, and what it means to be a 'Happiness-first' Company.

Karthik Srinivasan is one India’s leading Communications Strategy Consultants and an Expert in the field of Personal Branding. 

In this episode, Karthik speaks to Swami about how he discovered and fell in love with Advertising, his views on Best Practices related to building Personal Brands, and his latest book, “Be Social: Building Brand YOU Online”.

Dr. Ashwin Mahalingam is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Madras. He is also a co-founder of Okapi Advisory Services and serves as a Director on the Board.

He is the Editor of the Engineering Project Organization Journal (EPOJ) and has served on many National Committees.

In this episode, Ashwin speaks to Swami about Megaprojects, the multi-dimensional nature of Project Management, and Entrepreneurship at IIT Madras, among many other things.

Prof. Vidita Vaidya is the Head and Principal Investigator of the Vaidya Lab at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.

In this episode, Prof. Vaidya speaks to Swami about the Architecture of Stress, the impact of Life Experiences on the Neurocircuitry of the Brain, and how Psychological Stressors affect the growth of individuals from their childhood.

Karthik Sundaram is an Entrepreneur, Investor, and Advisor.

He is the President and CEO of Purplepatch Services, a leading B2B Digital Marketing firm based in Silicon Valley.

In this episode, Karthik speaks to Swami about stepping sideways to move ahead, connecting with people to learn from them as opposed to networking, and being comfortable with discomfort.

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Srikant Sastri.

Srikant is one of India's leading Founder-CEOs and Advisors.

He is a co-author of the book, The Ventilator Project: How the IIT Kanpur Consortium Built a World-class Product during India’s Covid-19 Lockdown, along with Dr. Amitabha Bandyopadhyay.

In this episode, Srikant speaks to Swami about his Entrepreneurial Journey, Innovation during a time of Crisis, and setting up Institutions to nurture High Growth Companies in India.

This episode features and in-depth conversation with Malaksingh Gill.

Malaksingh is a Mumbai-based architect practicing architecture inspired by local, alternative building materials, construction techniques, and crafts. 

In this episode, Malaksingh speaks to Swami about Learning and Unlearning Architecture under Laurie Baker, Understanding Architecture as a Meta-Discipline, and the Importance of Environment and Culture-Responsive Design.

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Ashwin Damera.

Ashwin is the Co-Founder and CEO of Eruditus, a worldwide leader in the $280 billion global professional education market.

In this episode, Ashwin speaks to Swami about building Eruditus, achieving Product Market Fit, pursuing the Art of Disciplined Entrepreneurship, and democratizing education for all.