Connecting With the Past—A Tech Talk by Tanay Pratap

A curious bunch of thirty-odd students interested in the various aspects of technology convened in the illustrious MIT KEF Research and Development Centre on 11th March. Tanay Pratap, an alumnus of MIT now working as a web developer in Microsoft gave a seminar in the form of an interactive question-answer session. The talk, organised by IOSD, was conducted over a video call in one of the rooms as Tanay took time off his busy schedule to provide hands-on pragmatic advice to the budding protégés.

A mic was passed around to those who had questions and Tanay addressed the answers to the entire audience. He explained that he foresees a lot of potential in his area of expertise and reassured the listeners that he is just another engineer working at Microsoft. He then went on to speak about the clear-cut definition and development of the term ‘Internet of Things’, and advocated the importance of learning the business facet of jobs as well. Tanay resonated with the audience’s struggles and counselled them on what to do and what not to do.

Tanay followed this up with an explanation on how he arrived at a job in Microsoft, stating that one must go deeper into their area of interest after testing the waters on all the options available. He backed this up with recommendations to participate in technical events and quizzes, talk to the professors and seniors, and digest material that isn’t taught in class. He answered questions based on various spheres of job opportunities such as game development, data science artificial intelligence, and cloud computing, stating the current scope in the market for each and shedding light on the pros and cons.

Tanay was successfully able to grasp the audience’s attention throughout the talk owing to his ease in explanation and several years of experience. He conversed with each student in a congenial manner and related to fellow engineers using their lingo. His unique and charming idiosyncrasy made the talk both informative and amusing at the same time. “I have never done web development before and I was still able to grasp the basics. It was nice to talk to someone who had been through the same things as we did. His advice made me think about my career a lot ”, explained Nihal Dias, one of the listeners. At the end of the talk, the audience left the room with a lot more knowledge than they came in with.

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