For over ten years now, Khushroo Poacha has stood by the sole belief that to do good work you don’t need money. Poacha runs indianblooddonors.com (IBD), a site that lets blood donors and patients in need of blood connect with each other almost instantaneously. He also does not accept cash donations.

The site has been live for almost ten years and with over 50,000 donors in its database, IBD is perhaps a classic example of what the Internet is truly capable of. But more importantly, it is a reflection of a single human being’s desire to make a difference to this world.

It all started in the mid-’90s when Khushroo Poacha, an employee with the Indian Railways in Nagpur saw a doctor being beaten up because he couldn’t save a patient’s life. No one in the mob seemed to understand that it was the lack of blood that caused the death.

“A few years later, I witnessed the death of a welder because he couldn’t get blood. The two incidents really shook me up,” Poacha says, “And that was when I expressed to my wife my desire of doing something.”

Poacha, however, had no clue about how he could make a difference until one day, sitting in a cyber cafe with a 56 kbps connection, the idea came to him.

“I did not know head or toe of the Internet, let alone about domain names, but I knew this would be the tool that would make a difference,” he says, explaining the dotcom extension to the site.

Over the next few months, Poacha liquidated practically all his savings, purchased a domain name and started up indianblooddonors.com.

“During the time, there were no companies booking or hosting web domains in India. I was paying USD 300 every three months to keep the site live and running. Meanwhile, I had spent almost Rs 40,000 in developing the site and had gone practically bankrupt,” he says.

Poacha says he even went to a local newspaper to place an ad. “I needed visibility and that was the only way I thought I could reach out to the people. The day the ad appeared, I was expecting a flood of registrations,” he recollects. “No one registered.”

The silver lining to the dark cloud came when someone from the outskirts of his hometown Nagpur contacted him, expressing interest. “It was a saving grace,” Poacha says.

Meanwhile, the dotcom bubble had burst and Poacha was being told what a fool he had been. And then there were household expenses to be taken care of too.

“There were many occasions when unpaid phone bills would be lying in the house and there would be no money to pay them off,” Poacha recollects, adding that “things always have a way of sorting themselves out. And mysteriously during such times, a cheque would make its way into the mailbox.”

Poacha admits that his wife was quite apprehensive about his endeavour. “But she believed in me,” he says, “And that has made all the difference.”

Visibility, however, was still an issue. No publication was willing to write about him. No major hospital or blood bank was interested in taking his calls.

And then the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake happened. As visuals of the devastation flashed before his eyes on television, Poacha realised yet again he had to do something.

Only this time he knew just what.

“I called up (television channel) Zee News and requested them to flash the site’s name on the ticker and they agreed.”

Five minutes later, the ticker was live. Ten minutes later, the site crashed.

“I spoke to the people who were hosting the site (by now website hosting had started off in India) and explained to them the situation. They immediately put me on a fresh server and over the next three days or so I received some 3,500 odd registrations,” Poacha recollects.

Realising the difference he had made, the 42-year-old started working on getting visibility again.

Over the next few months, Poacha had contacted every major magazine and sure enough, a few responded. “Outlook (magazine) wrote about me, then (British newspaper) The Guardian followed suit and then came the BBC,” he says.

Along the way, IBD had also gone mobile. All you had to do was type out a message and send it to a short code and you’d have a list of blood donors in your inbox.

As luck would have it, the service became far too popular for Poacha’s pocket. “By then I had stopped taking cash donations and had to discontinue it,” he says.

Interestingly, IBD is not yet registered as an NGO. “We function as individuals. We don’t take donations and only accept bumper stickers (of IBD) and postage stamps to send out those stickers and create awareness,” he says, “I was asked to deliver a lecture at IIM during a social entrepreneurship seminar and was asked what my sustenance model was. I replied I didn’t have one. And I have been doing this for the last ten years.”

Today, the database of IBD is growing at the rate of 10-15 users every day and the requests have grown from 25 to 40 per day.

Poacha says he eats, drinks and breathes IBD. “The zeal I had ten years ago has not diminished and the site continuously sees innovation.” The latest, Poacha tells us, is the option of being an exclusive donor to one patient.

“During my journey, I realised there were some patients who required blood every month. So if you want, we can put you onto them so you can continue making a sustained difference to one person’s life.”

IBD is currently on an auto pilot mode and Poacha continues to keep his day job. He says, “Initially I would take the calls and personally connect the donor with the patient’s relative. But I know only three languages and I’d get calls from all over India,” he laughs.

Poacha recounts an incident that never left him: “A man from Chandigarh called me and told me he was desperately seeking A-ive blood for his 2-year-old. About five minutes after the call, he got the (difficult to find) blood group he needed. Soon after the surgery he called me up crying, thanking me for saving his child’s life. For me, it was just another day at work. But his whole world was at stake that day. I can never forget that call.”

Last year Poacha was invited to the Asian Social Entrepreneurs Summit 2008 in South Korea where venture capitalists argued that it wasn’t possible to sustain an endeavour without money. He says, “I pointed out that Mother Teresa had no revenue model when she started the Missionaries of Charity. If you want to do good work, you simply do it.”

For someone who has sustained his enterprise for a decade with just a few bumper stickers and postage stamps, Khushroo Poacha knows best.

http://getahead.rediff.com/report/2009/oct/20/this-man-saves-lives-one-click-at-a-time.htm

It’s not very often that you attach the title ‘Dr’ to the name of a 21-year-old youngster. Meet Dr Tathagat Avatar Tulsi, who is on top of the world today after joining an exclusive club of scientists with a doctorate at the age of 21.

Dr Tulsi is the youngest person in India to hold a doctorate and with this feat he has joined an eminent club of greats like Dr John Forbes Nash, an American mathematician who competed his PhD from Princeton University, US at the age of 21. His faculty at the Indian Institute of Science is truly inspired by his research on software for next generation and quantum computers. His research is not only unique because of his age, but also because his thesis was unusually short — it was completed within 33 pages.

Dubbed a whizkid, and a genius, Dr Tulsi says it was a dream when he picked up his certificate at the Department of Physics at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science. But he also says that the path to success is not an easy one. In this interview with rediff.com’s Vikash Nanjappa, the prodigy speaks about his passion, his success and what he has planned out for the future.

First of all, how does it feel to be addressed as ‘Dr Tulsi’ at the age of 21?

Top of the world, I must say. To be the youngest person in India to hold a doctorate at 21 is indeed a great feeling, one that words cannot describe.

How tough has it been for you to achieve all this?

It hasn’t been easy at all; the road has been very hard indeed. I had a passion to achieve and I realised that there were more hurdles than I had counted on. I had a very supportive family, but in due course I started to get a lot of negative publicity. This did not help my cause one bit. I strived to complete my research in three years, but it took six years thanks to all the negative publicity. However, that is in the past now and I have achieved what I wanted.

Tell us something about yourself and your family.

I always had the passion to study and that is exactly what I did. I finished my high school at the age of nine and my BSc at the age of 10. My MSc was completed at the age of 12 and due to this my name appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records.

My father T N Prasad is an advocate and my mother Chandhal Devi is a teacher. I have two brothers. One is interested in joining the administrative services and the other wants to become a lawyer.

You certainly have a unique record. However I must ask, did you feel different when you were in the IISC? I am sure all your fellow classmates were a lot older than you?

Yes, of course I felt different. I was the youngest and hence I always knew that I was different when compared to the rest. The IISC campus was not accustomed to such young people and this at times created more problems for me. I really don’t wish to go into the problems as of now, since it is a thing of the past. However, I must add here that the negative publicity did affect me a great deal, especially psychologically.

What about friends your own age? Did you have any and if so, what was your relationship with them like?

Yes of course, I did have friends. However, I am not in touch with them. I would not say that it was normal, the relationship with my friends. I chose to study a lot and achieve my goals as I was always fascinated by studies. In fact, very recently, when I saw that my friends were studying for their examinations, I was sad because I wanted to study along with them too.

Don’t you miss having had a normal childhood?

Not at all. I really was not the conventional child who used to play like the others. I loved to study and I did that all through my childhood. So there isn’t really anything that I have missed out on.

You have stated in the past that it was not easy to get admission to various institutions due to your young age. How did you manage that?

Yes, that was tough — my age was always a deterrent. I had to rely on special permission, although I must say that none of the educational institutions granted me this. We had to battle it out in the courts to obtain special permission. Fortunately we managed to win the case and I got special permission.

How does it feel to be called a whiz kid? And when did your parents realise that you were one?

It feels good. But I must add that there has been a lot of hard work that has gone into this. I would like to narrate an incident from when I was three years old. My intention was to save on the battery of our calculator and hence I decided to work out all my calculations without one. This was when my parents realised that there was something different about me.

Although it’s fairly obvious, could you tell us how your parents reacted to your achievement?

Yes, they were thrilled and I am happy that I have made them so proud. When I ended up taking six years to complete my doctorate instead of the three years that I had in mind, they were worried. But today they are relaxed and happy that I did not let down those who stuck by my side through both the good and bad times.

I am sure that the journey does not end here for you. Tell us about your future plans.

I have a fellowship offer from the Institute of Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo, Canada. I have a lot of plans though. I would like to set up a computer laboratory to develop software for new generation computers. I am also looking for a professorship from the Indian Institute of Technology. I want to work on my ideas after that.

 http://getahead.rediff.com/report/2009/aug/31/meet-dr-tathaghar-avtar-tulsi-he-is-21.htm

‘A clear aim, knowledge, hard work and perseverance spells success’

A vibrant octogenarian — that’s what describes Dr Kalam best. For a man of 80 summers, Dr Kalam is extraordinarily full of life even at 8.15 pm when we sat down for a freewheeling chat, nay an experience. We ask him about his famous ‘thinking hut’ at Rashtrapati Bhawan.

“It is a great place,” he says. “Two books came out of there. Here, I don’t have sufficient area — but everywhere I capture thoughts.” His infectious enthusiasm overpowers us all as we hear him talk about how to live a life to its fullest possible potential. Here are the excerpts of his interaction with Team Careers360.

Q. Sir, you always say that we must dream big and follow our dreams. What makes one follow one’s own dreams? Parents, access or commitment?

A. Dreams are finally nothing but goals or mission in life. In my case I had great teachers in various phases of life. And also my parents, my father and mother were very useful teachers to me throughout their lives. I was the only fellow in the family studying, and their commitment to me was absolute. The spiritual environment at home shaped me.

You should convert your goals and mission to success in spite of problems. That is my lifelong commitment.

Q. Sir, what is more important, the ability to handle failure or the ability to respond to failures?

A. Of course, I have myself gone through many successes and a few failures. And I have also met a number of successful people throughout the world wherever I have gone, and when I discuss with them, they reveal how many problems they have encountered, what kind of failures they have had.

So, I have come to the conclusion that great success has some element of failure also

. I still remember Prof. Satish Dhawan, he gave me a project in 1973, were you born then?

Q. I was born in ‘73.

A. (A burst of laughter) He gave me the SLV project in 1973, and named me the project director. I found that there were a lot of senior people above me, you know, experienced people, they should support me and there were a number of youngsters with high technical knowledge. So, I had to bring them all together to succeed. At that time I was in my thirties, 39 or 40. So, I was frightened, whether I can do it. It’s a great job, how can I do it for the first time, how to build a rocket, to make a satellite, and it’s a big vision and how can I do it?

Q. And the nation’s expectations were on you?

A. A lot of expectation. So then Prof.Satish Dhawan, the chairman saw my hesitation. He called me and gave me some advice, famous advice. He said, “Kalam, if you don’t do any work, you don’t experience any problem.” Even in media, if you don’t report there is no problem. If you report, problem starts. (He laughs heartily at this). So,

Prof. Dhawan said major programmes are always coupled with major problems. But don’t allow problems to become your captain, you should become the captain of the problem. Defeat the problem and succeed

. This advice he gave me in 1973, even now it’s true. It is true for politicians, educationists, media people, it’s true in every area. So, the message I’m giving is we should take control of the problems, okay?

Q. Sir, why do we find 2/3 of India’s engineering graduates unemployable? What do you think is the underlying problem?

A. During my recent visit to CanadaI visited a university called Waterloo. For an engineering degree students are taught in the classroom for one year, the next year they go to the industry. So two out of four years they spend in the industry. And in the industry they learn to work within the system, it may be the software system or the hardware system, machine system, electronic system, or chemical system. But they learn to apply what they studied at the university. So when they graduate there is good demand for them. They can hit the ground running.

Q. So, it is lack of integration between real-life work and academia that is the problem?

A. I want to share with you my own experience. In 1957 I studied aeronautical engineering in Madras Institute of Technology. It was a difficult discipline to get into and we were only nine students. Now, Prof. Srinivasan gave us a six months project in our final year. The project was to design low-level (low altitude, he clarifies) attack fighter aircraft. So, having studied, aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, control, etc., here we have to put them together into a workable aircraft system design. I was the project leader for that. I was the ninth, so eight other people are there, someone would give propulsion, some other aerodynamics etc. So, after four and-a-half-months of study, I was there in my laboratory. The teacher, my guide comes. At that time we did not have computers, I was using the design board for drawing the design of the aircraft and my friends were all around me. So, he comes and sees and says, “I’m completely disappointed with your work; I am going to stop your scholarship if you don’t complete the design in two weeks time.” (Dr Kalam laughs.) It was a very costly education, if my scholarship stopped, I had to return home. I talked all kinds of things, gave him excuses, told him we had worked so hard, all of us are suffering etc. But to no avail. And so, finally all of us joined together day and night, Saturdays, Sundays; we didn’t even go to our hostels. And we designed the fighter aircraft.

On a Sunday evening Prof. Srinivasan came, exactly one day before the deadline. He saw the design, he was very happy. Then, he gave us Madras coffee in his house. (Dr. Kalam laughs again as he remembers). It taught me the value of planning, of teamwork, of time. But what we learned most out of that is that in the education system, while we study mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering etc. we should also have a clear understanding of how it all fits into a larger system, a productive system. So students must also be taught system design, system integration, system management, since that is what the industry wants. Our educational system should promote that.

Q. Why, sir, is entrepreneurship and skill development very important to you?

A. We add seven million people every year at 10+2 level and three million graduates every year. So, we inject ten million people into the society every year as employment seekers. This is because entrepreneurship is not taught, either in the secondary school education or in higher education or university education. Entrepreneurship is not part of the curriculum, neither is acquisition of usable skills. That’s why I’m saying if 30 per cent people have to procure their skills, that training should be started during the period of education itself.

Q. Sir, what would be three qualities which you think one requires for success in life?

A. I will say four qualities, okay.

Number one, a clear aim in life, without it you will be going in all directions. Second, you should acquire the knowledge. You acquire knowledge in multiple ways. Great books should be your friend, great teachers should be a friend, and even home environment and parents can help you gain knowledge. The third aspect is hard work with devotion. I am saying since your work is towards your mission, it should be permeated with the devotion to that mission you have in mind. And the fourth one is perseverance. Persevere continuously. You do these four things and you can become anything. All these four things you have, work for it, you will achieve anything.

Q. Sir, would you then say, that it finally boils down to focusing on one mission in life?

A. No, it is finally that the goal should be in front of you. That is my experience.

We are always tempted to do many things simultaneously. But if you start doing one thing, have one goal and put all your efforts into that, then definitely you will succeed. Of course, you have to win! A problem always appears here and there but you have to face the problem and defeat the problem.

Q. Sir, how do we, at Careers360 add better value for our readers?

A. You should not become just like any other magazine. You see 700 million people are living in the rural area, you are reporting about 300 million people. So you should report the success story of a fisherman, an agrofood processor, a farmer, a craftsman. The message is become the magazine of a billion people population.

Q Sir, one last word to our readers.

A. They must think in a big way. I remember 2000 years back, there is a famous saying in Thirukural by Saint Poet Thiruvalluvar — Vellathanaythu Malar Neetam Mandartham Ullathanaytu Uyarvu. It means that, just like the height of the water in a pond determines the height to which a lily would grow, it is the heights of thoughts that determines the heights to which you could aspire for. So as human beings they should have great thoughts, great aims, and when thoughts become transformed into actions performed with perseverance and devotion, success has to follow. Thank you very much sir.

http://getahead.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/jun/22/slide-show-4-dr-apj-abdul-kalam-on-sucess-and-entrepreneurship.htm

Irish ForeFathers

The Ford family had its roots in Ireland though they had traces of English and Scottish blood in them. Its main occupation was agriculture.

In 1862, a young couple moved a house located at some distance to the south of the other Ford families. They were William and Mary Ford. ‘Grandma’ Holmes, was directing affairs and it was with her help, that this male child was born into the household. The infant was named Henry after his uncle. Henry was one of the eight children.

The Eternal Habit

The first few years of Henry’s boyhood were spent at home under his mother’s watchful eye. When he commenced school for the first time, he was eight years old. The Little Red Brick school in the Scot Settlement was a mile and a half away from the farm. Pretty Miss Emilie Nardin, the nineteen years old teacher, punished the young boy many times. He had to stand up in the corner for misbehaving, or to sit with a girl as punishment for whispering or passing comments during school. Ford attended a one-room school for eight years, when he was not helping his father with the harvest. Henry was naturally fast at figures and one of his teachers, F. R. Ward made him do sums in his head instead of on the blackboard. Thanks to him, Ford in later years, seldom had to put pencil to paper when working out a problem.

Mechanical Bent of Mind

Science, physics and chemistry – those were subjects too remote for the rural scholar. Mechanical knowledge had to be gleaned from experience, which was where young Henry got his. His first experiment was water – wheel, connected with an old coffee mill, which had been made fast to a nearby fence. A rake handle was the shaft and power was obtained by blocking the country ditch. Another early experiment was the operation of a turbine from a boiler. From a very early age, engines fascinated him. He often rode on his father’s wagon to the carding mill at Plymouth, hauling loads of wool, or he made a daylong trip to Detroit with loads of hay and grain. On such one trip, he met a traction engine chugging along the road. While the other men drew up to quiet the horses and chat, Henry studied the mechanism. It was his first glimpse of a self-propelled vehicle; it took him into automotive transportation later on. Many years later,

In Search of Fortune

After his mother’s death at a very young age of 37, Henry’s preference for engines and machinery instead of the endless round of chores and farm work continued to grow, and finally at the age of sixteen, he decided to leave home and seek his fortune in the city. He went to Detroit and got a job in a machine shop. After three years, during which he came in contact with the internal-combustion engine for the first time, he returned home, and worked part-time for the Westinghouse Engine. In spare moments, he did experiments in a little machine shop, which he had set up. Eventually, he built a small ‘farm locomotive’, a tractor that used an old moving machine for its chassis and a homemade steam engine for power.

Back To Detroit

Henry moved back to Detroit again nine years later as a married man. His wife, Clara Bryant, had grown up on a farm not far from Ford’s. Nineteen years old Henry met the dark, attractive girl, Clara, one New Year Eve, and fell in love, that eventually led to their marriage. Clara followed her husband’s experiments with deep interest on his farm locomotive and with a steam road carriage. Her poise, her modesty, and her unassuming friendliness were her characteristics, which made her the right partner for Ford.

One day, as Clara played with the piano keys. She asked “What did you see in Detroit today, Henry ?”. In answer, he launched into a description of a new kind of engine, which was so compact and didn’t need steam to move pistons – no boiler.

Henry drew a diagram of it on a piece of paper so that his wife might understand its operation. Then he revealed the secret of his heart. “I’ve been on a wrong track,” he admitted honestly. “What I would like to do is an engine that will run by petrol, and have it do the work of a horse.”

He concluded, “but I can’t do it out here on the farm, I need other tools and money to pay for things. It would mean moving into Detroit.” The announcement was implicit. Clara made up her mind to leave the comfortable home and independent country life for the crowded quarters and the unknown hazards of the city, with only one intention to support and encourage her husband’s ambitious dream.

Foray Into Automobile Industry

During the next seven years he had various backers, some of whom formed the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899, which was later named as The Henry Ford Company. But all eventually left him in exasperation, because they all wanted a passenger car to introduce in the market, while Ford insisted always on improvement of model, saying, ‘it was not ready for customers’.

During these years, he also built several racing cars, including the ‘999’ racer driven by Barney Oldfield, which set several new speed records. In 1902, he left The Henry Ford Company, which later on was re-organized as The Cadillac Motor Car Company. After a year, he incorporated ‘The Ford Motor Company’, at that time with a mere $ 28,000 in cash put up by ordinary citizens, for Ford had, in his previous dealings with backers, antagonized the wealthiest men in Detroit. Ford was not a licensed manufacturer. He had been denied a license by the ‘Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers’, which threatened him to put him out of business. Ford fought back by the gathering the evidence and the court hearings took six years. He lost the original case in 1909, which he appealed and won in 1911. His victory had wide implications for the automobile industry, and the long fight made him an ‘American Hero.

Birth of ‘T‘ Model

“I will build a motor car for the great multitude”, he announced at the birth of Model ‘T’ in October 1908. In 19 years, he sold 15,500,000 cars in the United States, almost 1,000,000 more in Canada, and 250,000 in Great Britain, a total production amounting to half of the auto output of the world ! The motor age had arrived, thanks to Ford’s vision of the car, it was now an ordinary man’s utility, rather than a the rich man’s luxury.

Sharing Profits & Benefits

Ford Motor Company announced that it would pay eligible workers a minimum wage of $ 5 a day compared to an average of $ 2.34 paid to the other industrial workers. The year was 1914. Ford reduced the working day-hours from nine hours to eight, and implemented three-shift schedule. Ford became a worldwide celebrity overnight. People admired him as a great humanitarian; while some others criticized him as a mad socialist.

On the other hand, he continuously reduced the price of Model ‘T’, which used to cost $ 950 in 1908 to $ 290 in 1927. Such innovations changed the very structure of the society as a whole

Blossoming of a Dream

During its first five years, The Ford Company produced eight different models. By 1908 its output was 100 cars a day. The stockholders were ecstatic, but Ford was not satisfied and looked toward turning out 1,000 cars a day. The stockholders seriously considered court action to stop him from using profits for the expansion. The court said in 1919, “while Ford’s sentiments about his employees and customers are nice, a business is for the profit of its stockholders.” Ford, irate that a court and a few shareholders, whom he likened to parasites, could interfere with the management of his company, determined to buy out all the shareholders. He resigned from the post in December 1918 in favor of his son, Edsel Ford.

In March 1919, he announced a plan to organize a new company to write new chapters in the history of the industry.When asked what would become of the Ford Motor Company ? He said, “Why I don’t know exactly what will become of that, the portion of it that does not belong to me cannot be sold to me, that I know.” After that, he planned a huge new plant at Rouge river in Michigan. At the height of its success, the company’s holding stretched from the iron mines of northern Michigan to the jungles of Brazil, and it operated in 33 countries across the globe. Most remarkably, not one cent had been borrowed to pay for any of it. It was built out of profits from the ‘miracle’ Model ‘T’.

A Strict Controller

A similar pattern of authoritarian control and stubbornness marked Ford’s attitude towards his employees. The $ 5 a day that brought him so much attention in 1914, was no guarantee for the future, when in 1929 Ford increased the wages to $7 a day, and suddenly after three years, as a part of fiscal stringency imposed by falling sales and the great depression in the industry, it was cut to just $4 a day, below even to prevailing industry wages.

Ford freely employed company police, labor spies, and violence in a protracted efforts to prevent unionization and continued to do so even after General Motors and Chrysler had come to terms with UAW [United Automobile Workers].When UAW finally succeeded in organizing Ford workers in 1941, Ford once considered even shutting down everything before he was persuaded to sign a union contract.

An American ‘Hero’ Depart

After the death of his only son, Edsel, Henry resumed the presidency of the company. In spite of old age and infirmity, he held it until 1945, when he retired in favor of his grandson, Henry Ford II. At the time of his retirement his estimated wealth amounted to $ 700 million.

Ford died at his home ‘Paradise’ on April 7, 1947, exactly 100 years after his father had left Ireland for Michigan. His holdings in Ford stock went to the Ford Foundation.

http://www.worldofbiography.com/0081-Henry%20Ford/

On January 8, 1942, Stephen Hawking was born to Frank and Isobel Hawking in Oxford, England. Frank was a researcher specializing in tropical diseases. He later became the Head of the Division of Parasitology at The National Institute of Medical Research. it was at this research center that the two met and got together for a meaningful future. She had got in to odd jobs before she ended up as a secretary at the institute.

Isobel returned to London with the two-week old Stephen, who later began schooling at Highgate where they resided. In 1950, Frank Hawking joined the Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill. The Hawking family left for St. Albans from where Mill Hill was easily accessible. His school there was St. Albans High School for Girls, which admitted boys too! Later, he shifted to St. Albans School for Boys. His father wanted him to study at the prestigious Westminster Public School, to give him exposure of the status–conscious society of England. But he fell ill at the time of the scholarship examination and had to continue in St. Albans School, an abbey school with rigorous academics and high intellectual standard. Stephen himself has no regrets, “I got an education there that was as good as, if not better than, that I would have had at Westminster. I have never found that my lack of social graces has been a hindrance.”

At school, Stephen did not cut an impressive figure. Awkward and skinny Stephen spoke with a lisp called Hawkingese by his classmates. He had few friends, and highbrow tastes. He preferred classical music to Jazz, Rock’ n Roll and Pop. Bertrand Russell was his hero, and he loved to read Kingsley Amis, Aldous Huxley and William Golding. His favorite pastime was to cycle around the countryside, along with his friends, and to create complex board games. One such game that he invented Dynasty, had a set of complicated rules and took days to finish one game. It was perhaps Stephen’s desire to play God, the feeling of having created the world and the laws that govern it, which comes through right from childhood. But his brilliance was evident even then. After dabbling in aeromodelling, mysticism and the occult, Stephen’s interest finally turned to physics and mathematics. His father objected to his appearing for his A-Level examination with these subjects.

He wanted Stephen to study medicine, as it was the subject of his vocation. Another reason for the opposition was the absence of Mathematics Fellow at the University College, Oxford, where Frank had studied earlier and wanted Stephen to go. As a compromise, chemistry was selected along with mathematics and physics. During the final years of school, Stephen and his friends developed and built a computer – LUCE – the Logical Uniselector Computing Engine.

In March 1959, Stephen took the scholarship examination and cleared about 12 hours of theory papers and three interviews and was finally awarded the scholarship at Oxford. He studied physics there, where his intuitive understanding, rather than hard work helped him master the subject. He won the University Physics Prize in the second year. But slightly bored with what he considered an easy curriculum, he joined the Rowing Club and acquired a taste for alcohol and rowdy pranks. He barely put up 1,000 hours of work during his three years stay at Oxford and just scraped through with a first-class BA (Hon.) degree in 1962. Two things seem to have worked against him in this. The first was that the final examination of Oxford required a lot of factual knowledge, for which Stephen was not really prepared. So he attempted only the theoretical questions and had to face a personal interview because of his below par
performance.

Stephen went to Cambridge University to begin his doctorate in general relativity and cosmology. He hoped to do his research under Fred Hoyle, but was assigned to a tutor; a theorist named Dennis Sciama instead. He was aware of the abilities as well as the physical sufferings that Stephen was undergoing at that time.

But the great man in the making did have a bad phase : bouts of depression

It all started during his final days at Oxford. Stephen noticed that he was becoming ‘clumsy’. He bumped into things, fell for no apparent reason and his speech was at times slurred. He was never well coordinated as a child, and avoided sport or any physical activity. His handwriting was a cause for concern to his teachers. During Christmas of ’62, his parents noticed something queer in him, and in the beginning of 1963, Stephen had to spend two weeks at the hospital undergoing various tests.

The prognosis was not good. He was diagnosed as having Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (ALA), also known as Motor Neuron Disease or Lou Gehrig’s Syndrome. An incurable disease, ALA affects the nerve cells and the body is slowly wasted away. The mind is not affected at all, and there is no physical pain, but the despair of seeing the body wasting away breaks the strongest will. He was not expected to live long enough to complete his doctorate and achieve his dream.

A feeling of despair and depression was but natural. However, Stephen took matters in his own hands. Whenever he felt sorry for himself, he thought of a little boy he had met in the hospital who died of leukemia soon afterwards. Perhaps the main driving force behind his will to live was his meeting with and love for Jane Wilde. They were soon engaged and Stephen realized that he had to complete his Ph.D. before he could get a job and marry Jane. Things began to improve. He met Roger Penrose at King’s College in London. Penrose, a mathematician at Birkbeek College in London had developed the idea of space-time singularity in a black hole. Stephen decided to apply the singularity theory to the universe, and was awarded a Ph.D. on the strength of this one brilliant stroke of genius.

Stephen and Jane married soon after he got the fellowship at Caius. Theoretical Physics the subject of his study, was one area where his physical condition was not a major handicap. He acknowledges the fact that “… I was fortunate that my scientific reputation increased, at the same time that my disability got worse. This meant that people were prepared to offer me a sequence of positions in which I only had to do research, without having to lecture.”
Jane was still an undergraduate at Westfield College in London. She had to go to London every week. Hence, they had to find a place where Stephen could manage things on his own.

After looking around for some time, living in temporary accommodations, they finally rented a house about a 100 yards from the college, which they ultimately bought. They lived there for some years, until Stephen found it difficult to walk up the stairs. The college then offered them a ground floor flat with large rooms and wide doors, close to the University department, also enabling Stephen to commute in his electric wheel chair. By now he was father of two children.

Until 1974, Jane had managed to help Stephen and look after the house and bring up the children, without any outside help. But now it was getting a little difficult to do so. They decided to have one of the research students to come and live with them in return for free accommodation and special attention. Together, they helped Stephen in his daily routine as the disease was rearing its ugly head, paralyzing him completely. Five or six years later, they had to hire regular nurses, who came for an hour or two in the mornings and evenings. But after 1985, when Stephen caught pneumonia and had to have a tracheotomy operation, he needed 24 hours nursing care. All this was made possible only due to grants from several foundations in appreciation of his wealth of knowledge and as a tribute to his singular efforts in the field of Cosmic Research.

Stephen was in Geneva when he caught pneumonia and had to be kept on life support systems. Doctors felt that he would not survive and they advised Jane to remove his life support systems, as it was not worth it. Jane did not allow them to do so. Stephen was flown back to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where Roger Grey, a surgeon carried out the tracheotomy. He saved Stephen, but the operation took away his voice. Even before the operation, Stephen’s speech was slurred and few could decipher. He could communicate, dictate his scientific papers to his secretary and conduct seminars through an interpreter who would repeat Stephen’s words more clearly. But the operation changed all that. For quite some time, Stephen could communicate only by spelling a word – letter by letter raising his eyebrows when someone pointed to the correct letter. He faced difficulty communicating, and writing a scientific paper was out of question.

When Walt Woltosz, a computer expert in California, heard about Stephen’s plight, he sent a computer program, Equalizer. This program allowed a person to select words from a series of menus on the screen, controlled by a switch, which could be operated either by hand or by eye movement.

After the sentence or the paragraph is completed, it could be sent to a speech synthesizer for printing. Initially, Stephen ran this program on his desktop computer. Later, David Mason of Cambridge Adaptive Communication fitted a small portable computer and speech synthesizer to Stephen’s wheel chair, giving him a voice, with an American accent no doubt, but a voice, nonetheless.

Communication became much easier as Stephen could either speak what he wanted to say, or save it on a disk for later use – to print or to recall sentence by sentence. This system has allowed him not only to write books and scientific papers, but also to take part in scientific and popular talks and seminars. His bestseller book A Brief History of Time was revised after he had found his electronic voice.

Stephen Hawking has received and continues to receive many honors and awards. In 1974, he was elected Fellow of The Royal Society, one of the youngest to be honored. He received the CBE in 1982 and was made a Companion of Honor in 1989. Amongst the many international and foreign awards and prizes is the Membership of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. His marriage ended after 25 years over his affair with Elaine Mason, one of his nurses and the wife of the man who designed his voice synthesizer.

He has subsequently married her. Stephen Hawking remains active even today. While most physicists naturally use paper and pencil for their calculations, Hawking has the capacity to do them in his mind. Kip Thorne, a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech recalls, “As Stephen gradually lost the use of his hands, he had to start developing geometrical arguments that he could do pictorially in his head. He developed a very powerful set of tools that nobody else really had…..” His memory, like his genius, is legendary. Dependent on prostheses – wheelchair, customized computer, voice synthesizer, Stephen has reached brilliant heights, not letting his handicap push him down the hill. Along with his research, he travels a lot to give public lectures.
Hawking has an obsession to remain in control, and it is perhaps this need which drives him to conduct cosmic research. He once said, “My aim was always to build working model that I could control. I didn’t care what they looked like. I think it was the same drive that led me to invent a series of very complicated games… I think these games… came from an urge to know how things worked and to control them. Since I began my Ph.D., this need has been met by my research into cosmology. If you understand how the universe operates, you control it in a way.”

http://www.worldofbiography.com/9132-Stephen%20Hawking/life3.htm

AS A CHILD

Wilbur Wright, the eldest of the ‘Wright Brothers’ was born on April 6, 1867 on a small farm near Millville, Indiana. In 1871, four years later, Orville was born in Dayton, Ohio. His father’s name was Bishop Milton Wright. He was a minister and later became a bishop of the Church, in United Brethren. He was a distinguished bishop. Bishop Milton and his wife Susan Catherine had four sons – Reuchlin, Lorin, Wilbur and Orville, and one daughter Katherine.

The Wright household was a stimulating place for the children. They grew up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests, to investigate whatever aroused curiosity. The house of Wright family had two libraries. One was Bishop’s study library, where books on theology were kept, and the downstairs library had a large and diverse collection. Wilbur and Orville’s father was a firm disciplinarian. Both the parents were loving-natured and the family was a close one.

First Interest in Flying

Wilbur was the third son of the Wright family and Orville was the fourth one. When the boys were 11 and seven, their father brought a toy ‘Helicopter’ for them, which sparked their interest in flying. Though their ‘helicopter’ was fragile and did not survive due to their rough play, it ignited an interest in them for the hidden world of aviation, and ultimately put the man flying in the sky.

Over the next several years, the boys tried to build these themselves. They called them “bats”. But the larger they got, the lesser they could fly. The innocent boys didn’t know that a machine with only twice the linear dimensions required eight times as much power. Both brothers were discouraged for the time being and diverted their attention to kite-flying.

The Wright family moved from Richmond, Indiana back to Dayton in June 1884. Wilbur was to have graduated from high school. But he left Richmond without receiving his diploma. He was an excellent student. After returning to Dayton, he rejoined Central High School the next year for further studies in Greek and trigonometry.

At the age of 19, Wilbur Wright was hit in the face with a bat while playing an ice-skating game. The injury at first didn’t seem serious. A few weeks later, he began to be affected with nervous palpitations of the heart, which precluded the realization of the former idea of his parents of giving him a course in Yale College. For the next four years, Wilbur remained homebound. He suffered as much from depression as from his vaguely-defined heart disorder. He spent those years at home, caring for his mother suffering from tuberculosis.

The First Step in the Career

Wilbur and Orville’s mother Susan died. At that time they were just 22 and 18 respectively. Shocked by this event, Orville decided to quit school. He was an average student. He started a printing business with his elder brother. They published a four page weekly: ‘West Side News’. It was for the first time they introduced themselves as ‘The Wright Brothers’.

The business did not do well, so they diverted to retailing, repairing and manufacturing bike for next four years.

Later on, the brothers went deep into the business of bicycles. And so Orville invented a self-oiling wheel hub.

Back to ‘Flying’

In 1896, Orville suffered from typhoid. While taking care of him, Wilbur read about the death of Otto Lilienthal, a famous German glider pilot. He had made over 2,000 sustained and replicable glides. That was a turning point for the brothers, who got seriously interested in flight again. They read all the articles on aeronautics that they could get.

To get more details, Wilbur wrote to Smithsonian Institution, requesting to provide them published papers on flight. In the letter, he wrote: “My observations… have only convinced me more firmly that human flight is possible and practicable. It is only a question of knowledge and skill, just as in all aerobatic feats.

He requested for papers, saying that he was about to begin a systematic study of the subject in preparation for practical work.

Wilbur asked Octave Chanute, a civil engineer, who wrote about early aviation experiments, for his help in gathering still more information. At that time he had been afflicted with the belief that flight was impossible to man. He wrote: “My disease has increased in severity and I feel it will soon cost me an increased amount of money, if not my life.” In the letter Wilbur outlined his solution for the need to control a flying machine. He described a technique called ‘wing warping’ – which required twisting the surface of each wing to change its position in relation to the oncoming wind.

Chanute and Wrights kept up a regular correspondence during the brothers’ process of building a manned flying machine. Together with his brother Orville, a mechanical wizard, they became self-taught engineers.

HISTORY MAKERS

In the year 1900, the Wright Brothers began their first field experiment. They designed the glider to be flown as a kite with a man on board. But it did not have enough lift. So, they flew it as an unmanned kite operating the levers through cords from the ground. In the summer 1901, the Wright Brothers built a bigger version of their previous glider. But again its lift fell short of calculations. They built a wind tunnel to measure the lift data themselves. They built it in the winter of 1901. In the process, they discovered that the commonly accepted coefficient of lift was too high. They also identified a longer and narrower wing shape, that was for more efficient for flight.

Success At Last

The year 1902 was the golden year for the Wrights. In the fall, they successfully tested a new glider based on their own measurements. They made almost 1,000 gliding flights – some covering distances even more than 600 feet. In the next year, Wright Brothers made another breakthrough. Ship-building literature did not prove enough to provide the theory of propulsion for the propeller, which they needed on their aeroplane. They built the first efficient air propellers. They also built a four-cylinder engine that got the best power-to-weight ratio than anything around.

Made Aviation History

The Wrights had not even flown the Flyer yet, but they applied for a patent of their work. On December 17, 1903, at 10:35 a.m., the Wright Brothers made an aviation history. With a few jerky up-and-down movements, Orville flew the Flyer for 12 seconds. He covered just 120 feet. They made a total of four flights that day before a gust of wind damaged the Flyer. In 1905, the Wrights made the world’s first ‘practical’ aeroplane. It could stay airborne for more than half an hour. The next year, on May 22, they succeed in receiving their patent for the ‘Wright flying Machine’. Wilbur made record-breaking flights with their new improved machines near Le Mans, France. In five months of flight demonstrations, he made over 100 flights, that was airborne for total 25 hours. He ended with a record flight of 2 hours and 20 minutes at a stretch.

After winning a contract to produce Wright aeroplanes in Europe, Orville got the chance to shine in Fort Myer, Virginia, demonstrating the worthiness of the Wright Flying Machines for the U.S. Army. The Wright Brothers astonished the world with their exhibition flights in France, Italy, Germany and the United States. Wright Brother’s planes became the world’s first military aeroplanes to be used by U.S. army.

http://www.worldofbiography.com/0023-Wright%20Brothers/

His story is much more than a celluloid dream script. His is the proverbial rags-to-riches tale, made possible through hard work and determination. E. Sarathbabu’s story started in the slums of Madipakkam. Today, at 29, he is CEO of Foodking Catering Services, which has outlets in Chennai, Goa, Hyderabad and Rajasthan, and has a turnover of Rs. 7 crore.

Talking about his days of abject penury when he supplemented his mother’s income by selling idlis door-to-door and binding books, Sarathbabu says: “Poverty can never play spoilsport if an individual is determined to win.”

It pays to focus

With two sisters and two younger brothers around, not only food was less, there was no electricity either. “But, I never felt sad as there were no distractions while studying. You cannot achieve anything if you brood over what does not exist. Even when I was asked to stand outside the classroom for not paying the fees, I used to listen to the lessons being taught inside because I understood that nobody — my mother, me or my teacher — was at fault for the situation I was in,” he philosophises.

Sarathbabu’s willpower coupled with his mother’s desire to see her son speak English like the “upper-class” people do, took him to Kings Matriculation Higher Secondary School. While his classmates discussed the good food they ate and the new dresses they bought, Sarathbabu was driven by the desire to top the class. And, first he came, always, even scoring the highest marks in school in the Matriculation Board examination.

His score of over 1,100 in the Class XII examination made him dream big. He found himself in BITS, Pilani, and then at the country’s best B-school, the IIM-Ahmedabad.

“At Pilani, I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew. My poor spoken English aggravated that feeling. But, I did not give up; I started reading books and practising spoken English in front of the mirror. Today, I think I have made it,” he smiles.

“Whenever I feel dejected, I think of my mother. I always remember her drinking only water to make sure that her children ate whatever was available. As a child, I used to think she liked water a lot but only later did I realise that it was acute poverty that forced her to fill her stomach with water,” he says.

Turning entrepreneur

Sarathbabu worked for two years with Polaris and repaid the loans taken for higher education. When good jobs came knocking, he shocked all by rejecting them. For, he nurtured a different dream: “I know the pangs of hunger and always wanted to provide employment opportunities.” Today, he employs 250 people.

Sarathbabu launched Foodking in Ahmedabad with a paltry sum of Rs. 2,000. “It was a dream come true, when Infosys’ N.R. Narayanamurthy inaugurated my venture in 2006. I introduced my mother to the chief guest and her eyes filled with tears of happiness. It is one of the most memorable moments of my life,” he recalls.

His dream is a hunger-free world by creating more job opportunities. How does it feel to be a youth icon? “Positively happy.I believe God is giving me this fantastic opportunity to inspire youth so that they too can create more jobs, bridge the rural-urban divide and address social issues and make India shine globally.”

“I have risen from the bottom. If I can, why can’t you?” says Sarathbabu, who also plans to start a school for the downtrodden.

Having come this far, this unassuming ‘crorepati’ continues to live in the Madipakkam slum with his wife Priya, mother Deeparamani and his younger brothers. But, he does plan to construct a house for his mother and also convert the ‘hut’ — from where he began his journey — into a memorial.

http://www.hindu.com/mp/2009/03/16/stories/2009031650670100.htm

Resul Pookutty hails from the nondescript village of Vilakkupaara at Anchal in Kollam district in Kerala.

Being the youngest of eight siblings, Resul did not have much ground to complain against deprivations. He used to walk 6 km to school daily. The Government school where he studied used to provide noon meal and that used to be the major attraction for Resul and many of his friends.

Electricity popped into his village when he left there to join the two-year pre-degree course in a college near his father’s ancestral house in nearby Alappuzha district.

Cinema was far from mind, and Pookutty tried his hands at many things before straying into the world of celluloid. He reared domestic animals, sold milk, later took tuitions to finance college.

For a brief while, he dreamt of becoming a doctor, but gave it up when he failed the medical entrance. After graduation in Physics, he joined the Law College, Thiruvananthapuram.

However, even then, say acquaintances, sounds seemed to hold a strong fascination. “During a recent reception at the village, Resul said the chirping of birds and gurgling of the rivulet had always evoked much curiosity in him,” said his brother Baiju.

Going to the cinema along with friends was the favorite pastime. It was only out of curiosity and peer pressure that he applied for the sound engineering course at the Pune Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). He failed the first time, returned to Thiruvananthapuram, and read up all the books he could find on sound engineering. In the next entrance examination and group discussion, Pookutty passed.

It was his love of physics that made him opt for sound at the Film Institute in Pune. Those were hard times. It was the scholarship at college that helped me sail through without much difficulty”, Resul said before he left for the Oscar award ceremony.

Out of college, he worked in Rajat Kapoor’s ‘Private Detective’. A string of films followed. The break came with Sanjay Leela Bansali’s ‘Black’, which was noted for its sound mixing.

While there has been no looking back, in home state Kerala, it is only recently that people came to know Pookutty, who has been living in Mumbai with his wife Shadiya and two children for the past decade. “Even the people of Vilakkupara learned about the feat of its son only recently,” said Baiju

Looking back, Resul believes even small things life stood out for sheer coincidence. His hostel room in Pune had the poster of Danny Boyle’s film, ‘Trainspotting’. And 12 years later when his phone rang, with Boyle wanting to sign him up for ‘Slumdog..’, the poster flashed in his mind.

Sound engineer Resul Pookutty became the third Indian to bring Oscar glory for India by winning the award for sound mixing in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.His regret is both parents are not alive to celebrate his Oscar nomination. He is married to Bebin Shadiya and they have two children-Ryan, three and a half years and Salna, one year.

The Indian contingent for the Isshinryu world karate championships in Pittsburgh, US on June 18, 19 and 20 will include Srimanth Bal of Gujarat. Nothing unusual one would think. Except that Srimanth was a spastic. He was born with quadriplegia a form of cerebral palsy where brain damage renders both arms and legs dysfunctional — he had to be tube-fed for three years. Doctors told them to pray but his parents, Srinivas Bal and his wife of Vapi, Gujarat, wouldn’t give up.

Surfing the net, Srinivas stumbled upon information that Chennai-based Shihan Hussaini, an 8th degree black belt in karate and social worker, was doing pioneering work with children of the Spastics Society of Tamil Nadu and that ‘karate therapy’ had worked wonders.

Shihan Hussaini was contacted and Srimanth, 11, arrived in Chennai in 2003. He was wheelchair-bound; he could barely stand on his own. Hussaini then summoned one of his students Hardik Joshi — a 5th degree black belt from Gujarat — and gave him the responsibility of training Srimanth. Teacher and pupil went back and began, step by step, the laborious training process.

It was six months before he could stand on his own. Then he started the basic blocks, hand attacks and kicks. Soon, Srimanth began running. He mastered complex katas of Isshinryu karate, leaving even experts spellbound.

After five years, when Srimanth came here for his black belt test, Shihan Hussaini was dumbstruck. “Initially I was apprehensive. The boy looked like a vegetable. But he was a keen observer and quick learner.” Srimanth ran the mandatory 24 km non-stop before doing 100 repetitions of the difficult endurance exercises. He also scored excellently in his basics, katas, weapons, sparring and self-defence. Now, he is in the Indian team for the Isshinryu world karate championships — the first such boy to do so.

 On Monday, Srimanth held a demonstration of his spectacular recovery and amazing talents at the Music Academy where Shihan Hussaini presented mementoes to the parents and the instructor.

“I just can’t believe it. It is a dream come true for me. Joshi sir stood by me like a rock. If not for him, I would not be here today. Perseverance pays, I am an example of this,” Srimanth told media persons. Asked whether he was confident of bringing home laurels from Pittsburgh, pat came the reply. “Yes. Why not? I am confident of returning with medals.”

Said a proud Srinivas: “I just thank God and Joshi and Hussaini for their efforts in getting Srimanth on his feet and giving him a new lease of life.’’

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOI/navigator.asp?Daily=TOICH&login=default&AW=1235309351140

Oprah Winfrey’s Commencement Address
Wellesley College. May 30, 1997

My hat’s off to you! My hat’s off to you!
[crowd cheers: Go Girl!]

You all have “gone” girls! I want to say thank you, Dr. Walsh and to the esteemed faculty, to those of you parents–what you have been through, God Bless you–and to the greatest class that has ever graduated from Wellesley. I must say–you are my heart, Dr. Walsh is right. I saw you walking in and I started to weep, and I don’t consider myself a weeper, but I guess I must be if I started to weep, because I know what it takes to get through here and I am so proud of all of you for getting through.

You all know this, that life is a journey and I want to share with you just for a few moments about five things (aren’t you glad they aren’t ten) five things that have made this journey for me exciting. Five lessons that I’ve learned that if I had gone to Wellesley I could have not made as many mistakes, but five lessons that I’ve learned that have helped me to make my life better.

First of all, life is a journey. I’ve learned to become more fully who you are and that is what I love about this institution, it allows women to come to the fullest extent of their possibilities who they really are and that’s what life does–teach you to be who you are. It took me a while to get that lesson, that it really is just about everyday experiences, teaching you, moment in, moment out, who you really are. That every experience is here to teach you more fully how to be who you really are. Because, for a long time I wanted to be somebody else. I mean growing up I didn’t have a lot of role models. I was born in l954. On TV there was only Buckwheat, and I was ten years old before I saw Diana Ross on “The Ed Sullivan Show” with the Supremes and said I want to be like that. It took me a long time to realize I was never going to have Diana Ross’ thighs, no matter how many diets I went on, and I was not going to have her hair neither unless I bought some. I came to the realization after being in television and having the news director trying to make me into something that I wasn’t and going to New York and allowing myself to be treated less than I should have been–going to a beauty salon, you all know there is a difference between Black hair and White hair. That is the one thing you learn the first week at Wellesley: how did you get your hair to do that? What I learned going to a beauty salon and asking them, after the news director told me that my hair was too thick and my eyes were too far apart and I needed a makeover, sitting in a French beauty salon, allowing them to put a French perm on my Black hair and having the perm burn through my cerebral cortex and not being the woman that I am now, so not having the courage to say, “this is burning me,” and coming out a week later bald and having to go on the air. You learn a lot about yourself when you are Black, and a woman and bald and trying to be an anchor woman. You learn you are not Diana Ross and that you are not Barbara Walters who I was trying to be at the time.

I had a lot of lessons. I remember going on the air many times and not reading my copy ahead of time. I was on the air one night and ran across the word “Barbados,” that may be Barbados to you but it was ” Barb-a-does” to me that night and telling the story as an anchor woman about a vote in absentia in California, I thought it was located near San Francisco. This is when I broke out of my Barbara shell, because I am sitting there, crossing my legs, trying to talk like Barbara, be like Barbara, and I was reading a story about someone with a “blaze” attitude which, if I had gone to Wellesley, I would have known it was blasé and I started to laugh at myself on the air and broke through my Barbara shell and had decided on that day that laughing was OK even though Barbara hadn’t at that time. It was through my series of mistakes that I learned I could be a better Oprah than I could be a better Barbara. I allowed Barbara to be the mentor for me, as she always has been, and I decided then to try to pursue the idea of being myself and I am just thrilled that I get paid so much every day for just being myself, but it was a lesson long in coming, recognizing that I had the instinct, that inner voice that told me that you need to try to find a way to answer to your own truth was the voice I needed to be still and listen to.

One of the other great lessons I learned taught to me by my friend and mentor, Maya Angelou and if you can get this, you can save yourself a lot of time. Wendy and I have had many discussions about this, particularly when it comes to men, although she has a very nice one right now. Remember this because this will happen many times in your life:

When people show you who they are, believe them, the first time. Not the 29th time! That is particularly good when it comes to men situations because when he doesn’t call back the first time, when you are mistreated the first time, when you see someone who shows you a lack of integrity or dishonesty the first time, know that that will be followed by many, many, many other times that will at some point in life come back to haunt or hurt you. When people show you who they are, believe them, the first time. Live your life from truth and you will survive everything, everything, I believe even death. You will survive everything if you can live your life from the point of view of truth. That took me a while to get, pretending to be something I wasn’t, wanting to be somebody I couldn’t, but understanding deep inside myself when I was willing to listen, that my own truth and only my own truth could set me free.

Turn your wounds into wisdom. You will be wounded many times in your life. You’ll make mistakes. Some people will call them failures but I have learned that failure is really God’s way of saying, “Excuse me, you’re moving in the wrong direction.” It’s just an experience, just an experience.

I remember being taken off the air in Baltimore, being told that I was no longer being fit for television and that I could not anchor the news because I used to go out on the stories and my own truth was, even though I am not a weeper, I would cry for the people in the stories, which really wasn’t very effective as a news reporter to be covering a fire and crying because the people lost their house [pretending to cry as she said this]. And it wasn’t until I was demoted as an on-air anchor woman and thrown into the talk show arena to get rid of me, that I allowed my own truth to come through. The first day I was on the air doing my first talk show back in l978, it felt like breathing, which is what your true passion should feel like. It should be so natural to you. And so, I took what had been a mistake, what had been perceived as a failure with my career as an anchor woman in the news business and turned it into a talk show career that’s done OK for me!

Be grateful. I have kept a journal since I was l5 years old and if you look back on my journal when I was l5, l6, it’s all filled with boy trouble, men trouble, my daddy wouldn’t let me go to Shoney’s with Anthony Otie, things like that. As I’ve grown older, I have learned to appreciate living in the moment and I ask that you do, too. I am asking this graduating class, those of you here, I’ve asked all of my viewers in America and across the world to do this one thing. Keep a grateful journal. Every night list five things that happened this day, in days to come that you are grateful for. What it will begin to do is to change your perspective of your day and your life. I believe that if you can learn to focus on what you have, you will always see that the universe is abundant and you will have more. If you concentrate and focus in your life on what you don’t have, you will never have enough. Be grateful. Keep a journal. You all are all over my journal tonight.

Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe. When I was little girl, Mississippi, growing up on the farm, only Buckwheat as a role model, watching my grandmother boil clothes in a big, iron pot through the screen door, because we didn’t have a washing machine and made everything we had. I watched her and realized somehow inside myself, in the spirit of myself, that although this was segregated Mississippi and I was “colored” and female, that my life could be bigger, greater than what I saw. I remember being four or five years old, I certainly couldn’t articulate it, but it was a feeling and a feeling that I allowed myself to follow. I allowed myself to follow it because if you were to ask me what is the secret to my success, it is because I understand that there is a power greater than myself, that rules my life and in life if you can be still long enough in all of your endeavors, the good times, the hard times, to connect yourself to the source, I call it God, you can call it whatever you want to, the force, nature, Allah, the power. If you can connect yourself to the source and allow the energy that is your personality, your life force to be connected to the greater force, anything is possible for you. I am proof of that. I think that my life, the fact that I was born where I was born, and the time that I was and have been able to do what I have done speaks to the possibility. Not that I am special, but that it could be done. Hold the highest, grandest vision for yourself.

Just recently we followed Tina Turner around the country because I wanted to be Tina. So I had me a nice little wig made and I followed Tina Turner because that is what I can do and one of the reasons I wanted to do that is Tina Turner is one of those women who have overcome great obstacles, was battered in her life, and like a phoenix rose out of that to have great legs and a great sense of herself. I wanted to honor other women who had overcome obstacles and to say that Tina’s life, although she is this great stage performer, Tina’s life is a mirror of your life because it proves that you can overcome.

Every life speaks to the power of what can be done. So I wanted to honor women all over the country and celebrate their dreams and Tina’s tour was called the Wildest Dreams Tour. I asked women to write me their wildest dreams and tell me what their wildest dreams were. Our intention was to fulfill their wildest dreams. We got 77,000 letters, 77,000. To our disappointment we found that the deeper the wound the smaller the dreams. So many women had such small visions, such small dreams for their lives that we had a diffcult time coming up with dreams to fulfill. So we did fulfill some. We paid off all the college debt, hmmm, for a young woman whose mother had died and she put her sisters and brothers through school. We paid off all the bills for a woman who had been battered and managed to put herself through college and her daughter through college. We sent a woman to Egypt who was dying of cancer and her lifetime dream was to sit on a camel and use a cell phone. We bought a house for another woman whose dream had always been to have her own home but because she was battered and had to flee with her children one night, had to leave the home seventeen years ago. And then we brought the other women who said we just wanted to see you, Oprah, and meet Tina. That was their dream! Imagine when we paid off the debt, gave the house, gave the trip to Egypt, the attitudes we got from the women who said, “I just want to see you.” And some of them afterwards were crying to me saying that “we didn’t know, we didn’t know, and this is unfair,” and I said, that is the lesson: you needed to dream a bigger dream for yourself. That is the lesson. Hold the highest vision possible for your life and it can come true.