#19 Building Companies, Writing Books and getting into Harvard Business School

Kaushal Reddy Ottem has accelerated through school and now he has just been accepted to Harvard Business School for postgraduate studies - even though he just turned 17 and he hasn't yet graduated high school!

In this podcast, Kaushal talks about why he chose to fast-track his schooling and how he learned to code - setting up two companies in the process. He has also written five books available on Amazon and has multiple publications on Google Scholar.

Kaushal talks us through how he got into Harvard, how he learned to code and his advice for other students to do the same.

• Click here to connect with Kaushal on LinkedIn
• Click here to see Kaushal's books on Amazon

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Host's Notes:
I remember seeing Kaushal's story a few years ago - he made headlines for his entrepreneurial efforts and for speeding through school. It was great to learn exactly why he chose this path and how he put himself in the position to get accepted to Harvard Business School. 

Transcript

Podcast Host  00:20

I'm your host, Alex Cork. And in today's episode, I chat with Kaushal Reddy Ottem. Kaushal started two companies in high school, has written five books, and has just been accepted to Harvard Business School at the age of 17. We talk about fast tracking, education, coding, business building and getting into habit. Let's chat with casual ready autumn. Hi, Kaushal, welcome to the top of the class podcast. fantastic to have you on the show. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Kaushal  00:48

Thanks, Alex, for inviting me here, it's a pleasure to share the stage with you. I'm Kaushal. And now I'm currently doing my post graduation and RMIT Masters in Business Administration, major technology and innovations. It's quite research based. And I'm in the final year recently, you know, I'm according to Harvard Business School, to do my strategy research over there. Think surely we can formation strategy, disruptive strategy, and basically with entrepreneurship and innovations.

Podcast Host  01:18

Okay, and you're how old? 

Kaushal  01:20

I'm 17.

Podcast Host  01:22

And you've already been accepted into Harvard Business School, what's the general age that people would usually be accepted into Harvard Business School?

Kaushal  01:30

either it's not like, I'm not like other countries. So you know, there's a lot of people from us from the states that have done it and engage, you know, somebody graduated, somebody did a post graduation and powered by 15. And, you know, I've heard a lot of stories of many people accelerating in our that are from the States. And generally speaking, if you wanted to post graduation at avid, you're doing the undergraduate degree, or you will be needing to prove that you know, some other experiences or some other, you know, extracurricular activities like you've undergone outside and you're supposed to file an application, but the chances of getting accepted are quite, quite high with Howard. And as you know, the acceptance rate is quite, you know, 5% or 6% or something. Yes.

Podcast Host  02:10

So, you're going to be probably one of the youngest students there, are you actually going to do your degree on campus?

Kaushal  02:17

My ones PG, and you know, it's like a cert, so what's going to happen is that if I want to if I want to continue the complete PG, the postgrad, after cert, you know, I'll explain the different stages, right stage one cert, if I want to be doing the old thing, yes, I do have to move to on campus, but proven that it's COVID time and, you know, international students and things like that. It's going online at the moment. But you never know. So, you know, if COVID just continues along, you know, I'll finish it online, and you know, COVID just ended and then you have to move so, you know, it's all it's all this kind of practices.

Podcast Host  02:51

are will take me to that moment where you knew that you had gained acceptance to Harvard Business School, that must have been a pretty like, impressive and important moment for you in your life.

Kaushal  03:00

Yes, it was quite that moment that okay, yes, I was quite relieved, it's Harvard. It has to your resume, and it adds weightage. And, you know, when you say that, you know, you're either graduated or you've been to other, it's just the feeling just changes around your, the circle, you know, the name itself has some, some kind of narrative that just comes from, from the older generations. So I was quite relieved. And, you know, I was quite, I was quite happy with it. But again, speaking of the nature, I was more happy because, you know, Harvard is something that, that has a lot of like minded students, or they create this mental atmosphere and space of thoughts and ideas, new ideas, new innovations, and US which is known as Silicon Valley. And, you know, something that, you know, adding to innovations and I thought it's such a such a good thing and it's such an honorable moment to attend such a prestigious university.

Podcast Host  03:49

Is that some of the reasons why that you applied because obviously, you've got your own business, which we're going to be talking about soon, but is that kind of prestige and network and having that you know, have a name next to your name now, for the rest of your life as you know, you'll be a graduate of a postgraduate student of how a business school is that one of the reasons why you applied and really wanted to get in?

Kaushal  04:12

Certainly not. The reason being that, you know, firstly, before doing RMIT, post grad, I was I was given a similar offer from University of Melbourne, you know, which which we all know that uni Melbourne is one of the top universities from Australia, but I've said I don't want to do uni Melbourne, I want to go into RMIT because I RMIT the program structure looked for me It looked better and looked like you know, it fits my life. And you know, something about avid, you know, definitely the prestigious name is always there. But definitely I would say the like mindedness of our you know, when they provide you such a, you know, when they have the experienced professors experienced teaching and experience to network, that is what I think that definitely plays a role. You know, if you're surrounded by people that are quite, quite ambitious, they're quite intellectual and are quite, you know, that are quite giving something in or something in terms of researcher in terms of productivity, then the old atmosphere and then the old feeling around new changes. And I just believe that not that that's the main reason you're the network, the professors and the ideas, thoughts, more than just having an hour with me, you know, these days, you know, you could you could just get a degree and immediate end of the day. So you know, it's important to just gain the knowledge.

Podcast Host  05:18

Yes, absolutely. Talk me through what you have actually finished. Have you finished school and your undergrad and another degree at RMIT? Or what exactly Have you already completed?

Kaushal  05:28

So I finished my Year 10 last year. And then, you know, I firstly enrolled into VCE at RMIT, RMIT, office VCE. And then what happened in March was that somebody told me that, you know, having the profile, adding new work experience and things like that, then they made me go into undergrad, and I undergrad like the four subjects finished them in June. I didn't have undergrad that was in it computer science.

Podcast Host  05:54

Okay, so you actually haven't yet graduated technically from high school?

Kaushal  05:59

Technically, no.

Podcast Host  06:00

Okay, so they accepted you into the undergrad program at RMIT. Because of your work experience, and because of your profile, and they're like, hey, yeah, you could go straight into undergrad, even without a official High School Certificate. And then after doing a couple of courses there, you were able to apply to Harvard Business School. So are you a graduate of RMIT, at this stage?

Kaushal  06:21

No, I'm still doing my RMIT post grad.

Podcast Host  06:24

Right.

Kaushal  06:25

I still have to finish. So you know, I'm, I'm like four subjects now. Okay, do the MBA program into the official program. So I still have to finish that one or two. And then with avid, you know, the acceptance is quite high with our The reason being that, as I said before, our does not look for, you know, degrees, or, you know, your previous experience with education. You know, we all know that Harvard has produced some of the greatest issue and, and the reason being that our actually looks for your experience in your class, in terms of what you've done, you know, programming and application, and you're taking it to millions of people that, you know, as you read the profile and and when our looks at those things more than you know, your profile or your scores in you know, yet well, or undergrad or things like that.

Podcast Host  07:08

So in terms of your overall profile or application to Harvard, can you talk me through that a little bit? Like what did that actually look like? What were you trying to present to Harvard, to make them say that you were a good fit for them.

Kaushal  07:22

So you know, if you if you went to the avid website, and you know, tried finding the strategies, or the entrepreneurship, and you know, you're catching up of courses for organizational factors under the PG organizational practices, you know, you've got such as to do with strategies, you've got something to do with marketing, you've got different different fields out there. And when you try picking the right one, what you've got to present to our with that, is that, you know, it's not about why you're a good fit to them, is that why do you need our in your life? And, you know, what can you do with it, in terms of them pushing you, um, you know, avid does not need to sense that, you know, that they can just make a name of firewood wants to push students are doing well. So I presented, you know, whatever the technology is that I developed, you know, the books that I have done, and then you know, if you, if you google with it, I've got some publications, so, you know, with the publications with the collaborations, and, you know, things like that, you know, more of the nature was from computer science background, but it was good enough, or it was, I don't know what they felt like, but, you know, they felt I could pull it off and, you know, migrates from RMIT, were relatively, if they were HDS. Moreover, in the PGS, and, and they were quite happy, you know, with getting over nine peace in RMIT, and things like that, and they were quite happy to take me, I just got an email to, you know, just fill up my profile. And that was it pretty much.

Podcast Host  08:37

Right. So it's kind of like you've been on this fast track for a little while now, where you're kind of not following the traditional, you know, finish high school that I take and go to university, that kind of thing. What was the original idea behind you fast tracking all of this, you know, you'd started your own company. And you thought, all right, I'm going to set the goal of going to university, getting my undergrad, my post grad, going to maybe Harvard was in your thinking back then. But what was the original motivation for you to push things ahead quite quickly,

Kaushal  09:10

to the motivation to push things quite quickly is that I do know what I wanted to see the point of adding High School, it's not teaching you like you know, from up until year 10. You experiment a lot with subjects, you know, you've got robotics, you've got this, you've got that little things like that. You experiment a lot to pick your favorite subjects. And all of this is to know that you know, what you're doing, or you know, what you want to do, such as, you know, what pathway you want to choose in life, whether you want to do a doctor, whether you want to do computer science, whether you want to do business management and things like that, but you already knew, I knew. So what I knew was, you know, being at this for what, seven years, like, you know, when I started to program at the age of 10, now at the age of nine, and you know, what I wanted to knew because it was a clear cut goal, you know, I've learned programming so I know that it was computer science, but and mixed, you know, some kind of business element. So at the time, when I Started maybe intended to Well, it was all about programming and you know, just doing it for the sake of doing it. But when I was 12-13, things are very serious. And, you know, I started to plan out, okay, if I wanted to develop something, what purpose does it have in other people's lives, and I started to think chronologically, rather than just developing blindly or developing some kind of a product that's been there, I started to in a way, you know, more of a focus on newer technologies, newer trends, like artificial intelligence, machine learning, or something along those newer lines. And when I started doing that, I knew that, you know, research would be a very good subject or, or matter of time, because, you know, I've been into this research, research technologies and things like that, you are there, you're 15 in an age of 16, and you know, that find your proper work experience covered up, you know, 30 plus hours a week, so, and definitely school I was balancing, you know, I was I wasn't, you know, sometimes I wasn't performing well, I was doing the exams, exams were like acing the exams, like when it came to 85-90% to do with English, maths, a couple of my favorite subjects, and definitely it is more. But other subjects when it came to chemistry, physics, biology, I was always I was always lacking in I was barely, like, you know, barely crossing over the line.

Podcast Host  11:10

It wasn't a focus for you, though, right? Like, it wasn't your main goal to do that. 

Kaushal  11:13

It wasn't a focus for me in the school year. And then I went to a private school, and the school knew that and the school said, you know, what you want to do? Well, you know, you, you know, what you're going through, and I said, if you don't want to do science, please try it for the sake of doing it. But you know, we're not really going to be very, very concerned about, you know, you're doing fine. So unless and until if you want to go and pick it up in the future. Right. And, you know, I got that support. And you know, and I knew that the tradition of the, you know, Australian education system, it's not like compared to some other countries where you have to pass every single subject, I had this, you know, kind of nature, and then I was doing well, and then I've taken this covered the experience and, you know, relatively, you know, in my free time I used to the coding cover the experiences develop the technologies marketed as the network and expertise. And they came a point at 16 and 17 are fast tracking options. And, you know, in terms of fast tracking, I've got offers from first offer was from union sake, that was in business side of things, majored in entrepreneurship and innovations, right? And the reason of this innovations, you know, people ask me, why aren't you doing computer science or anything like that? Because you've been a programmer, and I said, Sure, the basic lines of it, and they expect you to learn, or they expect you to progress using that. And that's what people have been doing. So I said, Man, I've already I've already done this before. Now, the program has already developed many applications. And what's the point of me redoing this? Can you reason I haven't picked computer science, because I knew the first two or three subjects that are five was also boring,

Podcast Host  12:35

Because it was like covering things you'd already learnt yourself.

Kaushal  12:37

Yes. And even in the third year, I've tried one subject from the third year, and, you know, it wasn't much of a progressive, it wasn't like machine learning artificial intelligence that I that I didn't know of.

Podcast Host  12:46

Harvard Business School is probably the place to be in that case. 

Kaushal  12:49

Yeah. And the reason why I would probably say, HBS, for the strategies is that, you know, they help you in terms of, you know, diversified strategies, and you know, COVID, under the cabinet, right, well, things have changed, you know, business's operations have changed the way of expertise in, in a couple of things have changed. So, it does give us a pleasure to look into things when it comes to us, when it comes to, you know, transformation strategies, you know, how do we go on about this? How do we do the future, you know, people have been saying work from home, people have been saying, you know, differently, you know, this kind of thing, you know, they want this kind of lifestyle, people have been moving to, you know, work from home, they've been moving to regional places. So, you know, there's so much of happening with lifestyles, and you know, and our business, which is quite, which is far into that research, which is quite into the future thinking. And, you know, I do, I do believe, you know, he just gives us fat to show that slight advantage of looking into things and, you know, grasping over the market very quickly and rapidly.

Podcast Host  13:43

It must have been a fairly brave decision, though, to fast track everything, because I think a lot of people who are in your situation, who do know what they want to do, who are academically very advanced, they would probably argue that socially, they would prefer to stick with people who are 16-17 years old, and not necessarily go to a place where people are like, 19, 20-21 years old, what's it been, like, from a social standpoint, making that transition,

Kaushal  14:11

immediately this year, you know, most of my batchmates at RMIT are in a different various, you know, they're in 282-9 with people in 33-34 people have, you know, 15 years, 20 years of work experience that are just doing their own graduation. And, you know, people returning to study after two years to do their research work and, you know, go on to do their PhDs. You know, we've got a lot of people are at different stages of life and, you know, socially, socially, it's challenging, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. You know, the reason being that you cannot always be in your comfort zone, you know, you've got to step out of your comfort zone. And when you do that, you start losing days, you know, you start either losing your family time losing, you know, other aspects of your life, you know, things to do with your school friends, things to do with, but that's the, that's the beauty about, you know, shaping you up into a new person or into a person that's going to achieve something much bigger than this.

Podcast Host  14:59

You Yeah, I think it's that getting out of your comfort zone. But that must have been a fairly hectic first couple of weeks didn't how you came to be so clear cut, because a lot of students who are 1415 1617, they might have a particular interest or passion, but they also don't want to take a risk and commit to that path, because that might cut them off from other opportunities that they might enjoy. So how is it that you are so definite and clear cut about what you want to do?

Kaushal  15:30

I'll plug this analytically at 14 or 15. The reason being that because you know, I've been programming since little and you know, machine learning, artificial intelligence was definitely tough, you know, to always take it on. But you know, being in that for four years, and you know, doing that it's not always you cannot say no, I'm done with this, I'd rather go into an easy field, you're in that field. And you're it's a continuous process of doing stuff. And I've seen many people, even when it comes to Australia that ended up needing to WWDC in a worldwide developer conferences, Apple scholarships, definitely, you know, there are people younger than me that are very clear cut on this, and you've got a very clear cut. But this is what I want to do things like that, when you mentioned that people are confused on what they want to do there, those people that have been following the traditional pathway, you know, from 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, that are dependent, that are highly dependent on schools, schools to give you the motivation, the choice in the interest to find your passion, but they're not the sole reasons, you know, they only tell you like, you know, one or two lines, and you've got to make use that two lines to continue the process.

Podcast Host  16:35

I think that's one thing that you've obviously done very well, is that ability to learn outside of school, and from your age of 9, 10 years old, picking up coding and starting to program code, that type of thing. What was that? Like? And I don't know if you remember that long ago, I guess eight years ago. Now? What was your first kind of introduction to programming and coding? Was it your parents and introduced you? Was it a friend?

Kaushal  16:59

Do you remember, it was my parents because my mom comes from a computer science background, she was lecturing in India, like, Professor, that's helpful, that's definitely helpful. Because you know, she's got the book sellers, the first introduction when I started reading them, and I found it relatively something that I wanted to be can pounce upon coding. And it's something that most people want to do at a young age, because you know, you don't really have any other options, you know, you cannot, cannot really learn anything outside. You can do sports, but apart from sports, if you think about other subjects, like, you know, music or arts, if you remove them, when you're trying to learn something else, like educational categories, yes, you cannot learn business, you know, business is definitely something different, you know, so something about self learning is coding is such a good subject to start. And it's not something that everybody needs.

Podcast Host  17:49

It's pretty, like black and white, right? Like you're saying business or that kind of philosophical stuff. When you're nine and 10 years old, a lot of that stuff goes over your head. But when it comes to coding, it's kind of like these, the numbers that you have to plug in, this is the code that you have to put into the formula. And then you can kind of go from there. So it's pretty easy or not easy, but I guess it's more well suited to younger students, if they're wanting to learn something. And it's not some kind of like, sport music type of thing. Definitely, in

Kaushal  18:17

coding something at a young age, you can easily learn coding until the intermediate level. And that's when after the intermediate level is when the art thing starts. You know, that's when you need other aspects, such as you know, you need research skills, you need business skills, you need other skills, you know, to take your idea or to take that knowledge and apply it into an application or weddings or whatever that you want to eat.

Podcast Host  18:39

Okay, and that's something that you have done with your businesses. So can you talk to me a little bit about what your businesses are? Firstly,

Kaushal  18:47

I put two, he said, so one is kind technologies. The other one is, you know, push out innovations. The other one, the two stardom innovations is only there just to procure my innovations, like, you know, you need a company just to, you know, just add the innovations name under rather than money. Yes, well, is the entity and the other one kind of technologies,

Podcast Host  19:06

Kite technologies? And what do you do through that?

Kaushal  19:08

through that, you know, we, we develop things, you know, we develop, you know, group of other games. So, either when it comes to, you know, technology, such as web applications and things like that, we come up with our own ideas, and something like, you know, for example, let's say you come up with an idea of, you know, deploying a game, and, you know, we've done, we do the game, and you know, we give it to the publishers, and in collaboration, we publish the games, because you need the publishers in terms of finances, or in terms of the things so that's what we've been doing. So, you know, we don't really call ourselves, you know, a company, we call ourselves an organization. And the reason being that, you know, we don't always do developing side of things, you know, we don't provide services like other companies do, because we will rather come up with our own own set of ideology, own set of innovations. So, you know, we're into that organizational space. But yes, you know, we want to expand or we want to, you know, we want to look into other things such as, you know, consultations or consulting into new techniques. Newer algorithms and things like that. But that's far away, you know? Because, you know, we need to consider other basics and other structures.

Podcast Host  20:06

Yeah, absolutely. So who's part of the company? There's you? And is your dad part of it as well? I saw somewhere that he was,

Kaushal  20:13

yes, you don't quite basically, you know, we've got our family being part of it. You know, we've got contractors, definitely when it comes to the developing nature that we outsource for different things such as, you know, UI design, UX designs, and when it comes to definitely you need marketing to be done on some applications, you know, some applications, the contractor would do the services, or the publishers would do the maintenance or the other marketing, sometimes you got to end up doing your own own strategy, tragical marketing or psychological things in case 

Podcast Host  20:42

You set your company up when you were how old 14-15?

Kaushal  20:47

I was 15. So so the company was there for like, somebody operated on a different company name? So and I was there for four years. And they we just ended up canceling the name because that was pretty much it when I was say 15 or 16.

Podcast Host  20:59

What was it like to be balancing school and a company and you know, you've got your parents helping you out and you're subcontracting. And I know that you had you were doing some innovations, then at the time, and I've read that you were creating like a watch for women who might be in danger, and they can immediately call emergency services. And you're working on some other things as well. What was that whole balancing act? Like? How are you managing your time during that crazy period?

Kaushal  21:26

See, balancing has always been the key. Because you know, right now, it's, it gives me that so much of ample space, because you know, you've got your PC running, you know, your postcard running on, it's one of things, and you've got time to work. And you know, that's the good thing about fast tracking. That's the good thing about these aspects. But definitely, if you take me three, two years back, and you know, there was school happening, there was this there was that it was always, you know, you're not in that right environment to innovate. You know, there's always things coming at you like assignments. And there's always that feel, you know, what happens if the school doesn't pass me What happens if I don't pass this play, and you know, I better I better, you know, do something about this, you know, these things in life or these aspects in life that you think about when you're in that environment of school, but right now, it's different. But it's not about balancing, it's always about getting the structure or the strategy right in the first place itself.

Podcast Host  22:15

Yeah, that must have been a bit of a steep learning curve for you, what advice would you give to other students who are looking to go through that starting up a business phase, because that must have been like, must have been a bit of an interesting phase for you.

Kaushal  22:29

It's different for each person, it's different for each individuality and personality matters a lot depends on you know, whether you come from migrant family, whether you come from an established family out here, you've got a family business happening, there's so many other factors to consider, I know that, you know, a couple of my friends that are my age that are doing exceptionally well, you know, they've got established family businesses, and you know, they've taken that business to a whole new level with new ideas, and, you know, so they haven't started their own entity, but they've already had this established family business. And, you know, they've just taken that, you know, ended up escalating that into a new level. And it quite matters on what you want to do. The only thing I would probably advise is just to be prepared to make sacrifices. But in terms of you know, entrepreneurship innovations, you know, things change, you know, things change day to day, you know, something that I would say today will not be the same in one month time. Um, you know, things have been changing weekly, strategies have been changing weekly, in advisors have been changing Lincoln. So the only thing is not just people that make sacrifices and you know, things will fall in place.

Podcast Host  23:26

What are the advantages or disadvantages of starting a company versus say, for instance, like, you could have been doing a lot of this stuff just on your own right, like, you would have just been coding or you would have been innovating things, but you decided to set it up as a company and create, you know, Secretary rows and managerial roles. What are the advantages or disadvantages of doing that?

Kaushal  23:49

We did it for the legal sake of things. And I did it because, you know, for example, let's say I've done a publication or a research strategy based with your avatar, you know, we have been working on so what I'll do, what I want to be doing is that I want to secure that research into a company, I just want to be doing this because it matters in the long run, you know, if you add it on a company name, or entity name, what happens is the fight that you carry on becomes easier because I've been cheated two or three times, I had my coat stolen, you know, I had, you know, my ideas stolen and things like that. Even and, you know, some cases that I've lost in India too, you know, because it was too hard. You know, it was too hard to go and fight a case and things like that. But having that on a company makes a lot easier for the court or for the for the highest sake of things that you know, okay, this is registering your company saying that a belongs to a company belongs to an organization and you've got roles within the organization. So you've got multiple people that can wipe out multiple people that can fight compared to one person. Right. Okay, that's the entity side of things because we are into innovations, you know, because we're into innovations. That's what we've done. But again, if you want to be service based, you know, I could always say that, you know, I want to be a freelancer. I want to be, you know, normal contract. developing applications. And you know, I'm not doing that, you know, I'm not doing that because, you know, I'm into the newest side of things, Ai, and things like that. But if I was in that field of you're just developing an application for the sake of developing an application for others, then definitely I would have done it on my

Podcast Host  25:15

own. Yeah, it was for the legal application mainly, and the ability to if you do create anything that you want to keep it closer to, I guess, home, and not have the ability for people to steal it, can you talk us through that, you know, having your code stolen? And what that was like? And did you ever think someone would do that too,

Kaushal  25:35

as a young kid, politically, you don't know that you know, about the world. So pretty much no, you're quite inexperienced with the world or what's happening around you what's happening with things around you. So you know, I, I've ended up developing one of an application, that's an operating system. So I developed a Linux based operating system that can be used for as a widest thing, you know, you've got the penetration tools and things like that, I was about to get that registered on my name, but and it started, you know, a cyber attack on my server, or things like that. And, you know, it just ended up taking off, I was deployed somewhere else. And, um, you know, all of these things do happen in today's world, you know, there's so much of, you know, horrible things happening, I would probably say, wherever that you're innovating, wherever you're researching, there's always some stupid things going on. So it's important that you're quiet, you know, you're quite brave enough for that. And you're quite brave enough that you know, you do something like me, or you do something like, you're not what some people have done. Yes. So you can have it under the company's name. And you know, when you think you're good enough, and you think you've got the technology, when you think you can deploy it, it becomes a easy structure. And as you said, it's very important that I will complete in our world and you know, look into things such as you know, going into Silicon Valley. Yes. And that's when when you go to Silicon Valley, you do work for others, but again, your technologies that you develop in the company, see, and you know, you can always take that company out to Silicon Valley, or, you know, to other other places, and deploy the technology. So, you know, give it to other people that came and said to all you level

Podcast Host  26:55

that, yeah, no good advice for students out there who are interested in doing this kind of thing that they need to have a serious thought about taking their skills to the next level. And potentially putting it under a company name is one of the ways that they can protect what they're making.

Kaushal  27:09

A lot lot of people don't know about this, that you know, that they ask, you know, why the company? Why the company, if you aren't working and things like that, are your business going to say? No, it's for the legal side of things, or it's for the registration of research projects, publications, or applications or procurement of technologies. That's pretty much it. But you know, apart from that, you know, we could do this on our own, you know, if the world was at peace, you know, everything was going well, we would just be doing it on on, you know, we could make things very easy.

Podcast Host  27:36

But the world's not that kind. So it's probably

Kaushal  27:40

not gonna take that time. But I'm gonna say that you know, that we don't have things going in our way. Nobody so much of other things. So that studies in your legal side of things, it's important to be not safe, safe zone.

Podcast Host  27:50

What are some of your main interests in the areas that you work in? So you do programming developing in terms of the many different directions that that skill set could take you in? What are some of your main areas of interest at this point,

Kaushal  28:06

we're trying to focus on transformational design, or conformational design structures that has to do with getting in technology procuring technology in terms of designing it, changing it into an organization leaps, but it's on transformational design.

Podcast Host  28:20

Okay, transformational design. And that's something that you see is like Silicon Valley is the place that you want to go to eventually to really amp that up.

Kaushal  28:28

Definitely, I just believe that Silicon Valley, as the network, you know, to do that Silicon Valley is an advantage the US because you look at Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, everything came from Silicon Valley, every single app, Apple came from Silicon Valley, you know, Microsoft came from Silicon Valley, Amazon came from Silicon Valley. So every every innovation that's actually been talked about came from Silicon Valley, it's because they have the expertise, the budget, and the thing. And I believe that, you know, we don't really have something Silicon Valley, or we don't even have something 5% close to Silicon Valley, which we won't be building upon you. That's one thing that we've been raising, you know, we've been constantly raising with the with the ministers or with the, with the MPs that, you know, they'll be we want this, you know, some students or not for the students, but for the sake of, you know, we want to have the name Australian written all over it.

Podcast Host  29:12

Right. Now, I want to get down to some nuts and bolts here casual talking about like the top tips from you, for students who want to kind of emulate a little bit about what you've done. So let's break it down a little bit and take it one by one. What would be some of your first tips for students who are interested in programming who are interested in computer science but might not know really where to start? Or you've got those students who have made a start but don't really know where to go to from their type of thing. So what would you give in terms of that computer science programming, developing advice for both those audiences, your students who haven't yet made a start but are interested or their students who have made a start but don't know where to go?

Kaushal  29:54

It's important to look into the first two aspects that the first two years that it's not going to be easy because You want to be learning and you know, just dedicate two years, I mean, I'd say two years, I would probably say, you're looking somewhere around easily 2500 to 4000 hours just to dedicate yourself to programming. It's important that you learn basics of all programming like Java, HTML, you know, c, c++, and you know, the five or six programs, it's important that after the first year, then the second year you x you major in one of them, like, you know, you might major in Python, or you might major in HTML, then, you know, there's so much technologies like, you know, Angular, React, native, hybrid cross platform applications, that it's just developed to all your levels. So you need a lot of time to consume. So it's important that you get aware of all technologies, learn, and then spend time learning the five to six basics, and then spend time majoring in one of them.

Podcast Host  30:47

Which one do you major in?

Kaushal  30:48

So the technologies I major in our flutter react, and then the basics that I know in C, c++, Java and HTML? Okay. So that's what I majored in with technologies and programming would be tightened. So it's very important that you, you know, after getting to know this, then after the first two years, then you know, once you know, this, it's important for the third year that you know, you're quiet work on developing practical skills, like you know, so you've learned, and it's time to apply what you've learned earlier, make sure that you try developing applications or you know, you'll find that and you slightly progress through. And that's going to be three years and one after three years, you're set. You know, once you can develop a full fledged application, then you know, you'll be developing apps like in no time, you'll be developing, you know, things within you know, your loved one every day, or you know, that you do one every week.

Podcast Host  31:36

So you can develop an app in a week.

Kaushal  31:38

Depends on how long you want to spend for it. Like, you know, when people want to say not only have 10 hours to spend for a week, that's fine. But let's say I work, you know, I did 25 hours in a week and 25 hours weekdays. So what I did, I did 40 hours. So you know, 40 hours, I had not been one enough week.

Podcast Host  31:54

So you were doing like a 40 Hour Workweek on top of your schoolwork.

Kaushal  31:59

Yeah, that's been the advantage for hashtag because, you know, I could explain what they mean, the full time work experience, right?

Podcast Host  32:05

You didn't like stuff around wasting time playing fortnight or those kinds of things too much.

Kaushal  32:09

I never played fortnight like I don't know how to play it. I sometimes I did play pub g because it was mobile gaming. I like a mobile gaming. But I did play a lot of cricket during the holidays like physical sport. Yep. I know. I'm a game developer. You know, I just didn't go to a lot of physical rather than, you know, most technological gaming.

Podcast Host  32:29

Fair enough. Okay, so you're that's really good advice for the programmers developers out there. Did you ever put apps on the App Store and that kind of thing?

Kaushal  32:37

I did. So I the the publishers did. For example, whatever I developed, I gave it to the publishers. Right. So you know, we've caught as I said, You know, I developed one of the cricket games in that as a 15 million downloads. Wow. So that was a bandage that I proved out or approved. I MIT, you know, this is what I can do.

Podcast Host  32:55

What's that game called? How can people find it?

Kaushal  32:57

So you could just Google real cricket?

Podcast Host  32:59

Real cricket?

Kaushal  33:00

Yeah. And you know, but you get the latest version, which I'm not part of, but I gave up the previous version. And, you know, I was I was only part of the game writing. But again, there's a lot of this was a project that has that has helped us because for this project, you needed designers, like you needed graphic designers, you needed editors, you need a desk, you know, you need unity creators, you needed, you know, the illustration of players. When I was working on this three years ago, what ended up happening is that collaborating with these many people or collaborating with such a big unit, when they did the design, get out that you know, it is not about computer science. It's also about business people, marketing people. It's all he calls it, it's all about different. So it's all about collaboration.

Podcast Host  33:42

Yeah. And so you got all these different people that you had to work with. And that was a, I guess, a really steep learning curve, when you're made to like, Oh, I forgot to do a group project. And you're like, well, I'm trying to create an app that I need to work with all these people as well. It's just part of part of life. Really. Yeah.

Kaushal  33:57

So but the advantage was that because you know, they had the other three or four previous editions established publishers. Advantage was that you know, what they did? You know, wasn't they designed it yet, and they ended up sending the designs, and we just have to quote for it. Very simple. But in other cases, you know, right now, I'm working on a project that, no, they wouldn't design, we just have to collaborate together to get that idea formed. So you know, things do vary. And on the note, I wanted to add something very quick for the programmers was that what I did, or what I found was that the first two or three weeks, it took me to build an application, find a building some solid application. And what happens is you can build something in a week, it's because you can end up getting that code and just changing it a bit to play around with an application. So you know, as long as it's your own code that you've written out. So you can always Copy that. And you could always paste that into a new form of application and then, you know, just just rework around that to fit that purpose.

Podcast Host  34:53

You don't need to rewrite it every single time.

Kaushal  34:55

Yeah, then things become very easy.

Podcast Host  34:57

That's a good tip. So you've covered the The programming development side of things. Give me a few tips on the writing side of things because you're a multiple published author on Google Scholar as well as Amazon. Why did you see that as something that you really wanted to do when things were so busy?

Kaushal  35:14

publications have to be done? Because publications have to be done through university like you need to do the publication's definitely do

Podcast Host  35:20

the Google Scholar stuff.

Kaushal  35:22

Yeah. So that's a cool book. And and some of the publications that I've done is something that I've taken the university publication to a new level, collaborating with other individuals from a different research background from different universities, like uni, Melbourne, or boutiques, and then just end up collaborating to take that into a new level to do an event publication. Right, something that I enjoyed, but again, the advantage of the books is that, you know, they provide you with, you know, it's not like a tips book, it's not about an how to become a millionaire or things like that, but the books are based upon a clear cut profound strategy. So you know, it's very important that a lot of people do think that, you know, other EU degrees and nonsense that you don't need university that you can just do computer science, learn outside and just go out and, you know, be baffled upon the world. It's not true in the sense is that, you know, there's a lot of TV's organizational practices that that to teach you in the university is just that you cannot depend on them, you've got to take that out. And you've got to explore on that. So when you do that, on your own, what happens is that you clean atmosphere and you create thoughts, you create diversity, and, and that's when you're all the writing just happens on its own.

Podcast Host  36:28

And you were a self published author, or is it a books,

Kaushal  36:31

it's ebooks, so you could just download an Amazon. So what I had to do to get the books written, and then I had to send it to Amazon, and then Amazon aiders, they would approve it. So once they would approve it, for example, Google does not because Google's a self publishing author, yes. But Amazon, because it has to be on Amazon, what Amazon does, is when you, when you send the book to them, like the ad copy in the E book, both of them, they quickly approve it, making sure that there's no plagiarism, there's nothing that you know that you're quite unique, and they will publish it.

Podcast Host  36:59

Okay? And is there any kind of benefit for you from that? Is it just kind of like the personal experience and being a published author?

Kaushal  37:08

See, there is always a benefit when you write books, because it's very easy that, you know, I can I can walk up to a university, and then as you said, aavid, or anything like that, you could always send them your books, and you know, they'll just, they'll have a peek through, and you know, just start reading it, you know, the structure, or the capability of this person, say, No, if you read my book, you will know that I know, this author, you know, this author has a writing style is it's not about writing style, but he's got he's got concepts, he's got design, he's got context in it. Yes. And the other aspect is that, you know, you apply this practices in place, so that, you know, even you people can read it. So I post on Instagram, and some people go through Instagram to buy it, and you'll get feedback such as, hey, you know, this practice has helped me with my organization. So the last book that I've written is completely, you know, it's completely problems, but a through a character that's based in India, like, you know, the problems that they're having with education system and things like that. Mm hmm. And, you know, somebody read it, and somebody read it, and they contacted me and said, I really appreciate your writing this book, because, you know, this has helped me to, you know, this is me to put in practice for my kid, that, you know, we cannot depend on this education system that, you know, I have to do something such as outside something outside the school have things in place, and, you know, just letting you know, off guard from traditional base, you know, do what he likes, right? It's not like, you know, just do it for the sake of published author, you know, it doesn't really help you.

Podcast Host  38:24

Yeah, exactly, it kind of has to be out of your own passion and interest. But that's awesome, that you're contributing in that way. And I think that's a really interesting way for other high schoolers to do something like that, and probably have less barriers to getting published, then what they might think, right, they might think that they got to need to, you know, hire an editor, or they need to pay heaps of money to get published,

Kaushal  38:44

ah, the books didn't, because even they ended up costing me around four to 5000 USD, for each book, The reason being that, it's because you know, the artwork that I have to get done, I have to make sure that it's unique, I have no copyright issues in the future show, what some people do is that they end up getting a stock image, and then they just change it a bit. But it's very important that when you do when you write a book, it's very important that you know, even you spend like 500 to 600 USD, because you know, you're supposed to have that frame, even inside the book, you don't use features that are copyright. So you have to design a new set of digital designer. So all of the books ended up, you know, costing me somewhere around, you know, some some 1000, 2,000 the other one day three to 4000 because the technology budget 4000 for me, because I had to get so much of designs in there, there are no copyright. So it's important that you have no copyright issues. That's that's where the cost This is the copyright part. And then the designing part, you know, it's not, it's not very expensive, like 20 or $30,000.

Podcast Host  39:40

Yeah, exactly. And I will put that in the show notes, actually, the links to your books, which I found on line there. And then the last thing to chat about is in the Harvard Business School, I know you've given some recommendations and tips already in terms of letting Harvard know how Harvard can help you become a better person or a better student. But is there any other tips that you would give for students who are going through the application process or who might want to go through the application process.

Kaushal  40:08

Um, there's nothing like you know, any tips or tricks, but one thing is definitely is that if you're applying for a prestigious university or a university that that's like well known upon, hmm, they know this stuff, they look for iron Academy breaks one thing, but they also look for extra curricular activities like, you know, whether you're into programming, whether you have internships, whether you have your research projects, whether you have any publications in adipose fat level, and it's very important that you're quite active in your undergrad, which is quite active, that you're quite active in life, that you have all these publications or books or that, you know, technologies or that outside the box, rather than getting only 1990s 1990s each and every time.

Podcast Host  40:46

Yeah, you need to show that you're special beyond your academic grades, like just being a very smart student doesn't necessarily mean that they're, you're going to get into a top university, that's for sure. And that's something that having worked at Crimson for a couple of years, I know very much about,

Kaushal  41:01

I get a lot of stories for aldiko. Because, you know, a lot of people from India, you know, even the rich kids that cry outward, that can 1990s 1990s we know the Indian education is one of the toughest isn't that doesn't produce any grades, but it's one of the toughest for some reason. And when it's really, really tough, people get 1990s 90s. And then they get ejected out with one simple reason is that they can produce anything outside school. So that that's an important thing to keep in mind.

Podcast Host  41:28

Fantastic. Is there any final tips that you would give to students on an academic front, like study tips, or how to kind of get yourself ready to do four or five hours of coding after a day of school, like, what kind of study tips or, or time management tips would you give to students

Kaushal  41:45

can management would be would be, it's going to be one of the worst tips from my side. Because the reason why I would say that, you know, don't spend time if you don't like anything, but again, that doesn't go well with a lot of parents so that a lot of students and then talk to the school, it's very important that you know, in Australia, you can be very open with the right school, you can be open with the coordinator, you can go to the talk coordinator and talk to them. They know this is what I want to do. This is my passion. This is what I've been doing outside school and just tell them your situation, you will definitely find out and you know, if you don't, if you cannot find out what I've done, I've changed one of the schools because they weren't supportive, right at the admission level, you know, this is me, this is what I'm doing. And this is what I need. And they said, we'll definitely support you. So that's one thing that you could do just have to have the self confidence.

Podcast Host  42:28

Yeah. And it's also I guess, having that support network around you, like, you know, you had your mom who was obviously I'm going to guess fairly integral to helping you find a love for computer programming and developing and finding other people around you who are going to support you and what you want to do, whether that be the school or your family or friends.

Kaushal  42:47

That be a part of it.

Podcast Host  42:49

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Casual Is there any way that people can get in touch with you and follow along with your your journey,

Kaushal  42:55

I will probably say just the social handles that that's pretty much it. So it's just Facebook page, Instagram or LinkedIn, LinkedIn. Right? I just post a lot of things to do with you know, as I said, design thinking or, you know, entrepreneurship approaches. Gosh, it's

Podcast Host  43:10

been awesome chatting, man, like I you know, massive congratulations on the Harvard ambition. Massive congratulations on the business ideas. And, you know, we look forward to seeing those innovations come to life. You know, I think they're kind of things that you're working on a real world problems. And it's awesome that, you know, at a young age, you feel that you are the right person to be doing this. I think a lot of students kind of say, Oh, well, I'm, you know, I've got this idea, but I'm only 15 or I'm only 16. There's probably someone else working on it, who's probably a lot older and a lot more professional. So why should I put that pressure on myself? But it's awesome that you've said, No, I'm 15-16, I've got the skill set. Why wouldn't I, right?

Kaushal  43:47

I wouldn't say this, because the reason why change is a lot like, you know, the your network, it depends on your network, your expertise, like, you know, if you asked me to come come and be or as an educational consultant out like something like Crimson Education? Hmm, I don't think about like, you know, something that you guys know, something that you guys have the network in terms of, I've only dealt with one university, but you deal with multiple universities, right? Yes. So that's, again, the network like, you know, you know, most of the students do come to you. And for example, if I finished my hour of my graduation, now, I might come to Clemson again and say, Alex, I want to apply for Cambridge, I'm gonna apply for something else, can you help me with bribery? These are the things that you cannot take it out. And I'll probably say that, you know, are to collaborate with a data analyst write an ad to collaborate with some kind of, you know, some kind of a doctor to do medical innovation. So, you know, there's so much of things that led to the collaboration of two minds. So you can always say that, you know, you have the skills you're better if you do that, you know, you still lack the teamwork. You know, there's a lot of teamwork.

Podcast Host  44:45

Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like, looking around you seeing what your network can provide you and seeing what ideas you have and then putting the two together, right. It's kind of like if I've got the idea who in my network and helped me turn this into reality.

Kaushal  45:00

Yeah, collaborating is such an odd thing that you know, you put so much of, you know, this time factor. There's other things life lights going on other side life stop for you. So it's there's so much of things. It's important that you know, whatever the school teacher says, you know, the collaboration group projects that you have to do, because it happens in life. Very important. Yeah.

Podcast Host  45:19

Exactly. Exactly. So do your group work is the moral of the story. Do your group work.

Kaushal  45:25

Just that, you know, you need to do your group work. Make sure that you know, you know, this is just like you just goes on?

Podcast Host  45:31

Yeah, exactly. Because it always comes up and you can never be even though you have like great skill sets on your own. You're always going to be collaborating with people. It's just a fact of life. But awesome chatting, Kaushal, all the best for you know, your journey to Harvard it. I'm sure it's going to be a really exciting one for you. And I'm sure some of our listeners will be keen to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Kaushal  45:49

Thanks, Alex.