Dr. Sunil Deshpande
Professional Soft Skills Development Academy (Founder)
Q1. Please share your inspirational journey with us?
After Engineering (Graduation), I have opted teaching as a career and joined in my town Wardha as Lecturer in Production Engg. at College of Engineering, Sewagram in 1983. Due to interest in management education, I have completed Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management (P.G.D.B.M.) in 1985. After passing MPSC Examination, I have appointed as Workshop Superintendent at one of the biggest diploma level institution, Govt. Polytechnic Pune, in 1986. The post carries duties of teaching as well as store administration.
Fascinated by Management Education field and also for requirement of my job responsibilities (At Pune I was supervising around 50+ staff in one of the biggest workshop in any Polytechnic in Maharashtra), I have completed Master’s Degree in Management Science (M.M.S.) from Symbolsys Institute of Business Management, Pune, in 1989. I have received few interview calls from industries, but my passion for teaching retains me in teaching.
First time, in 1994, Under World Bank Assistance Project, the Tech Education Department of Maharashtra Govt. established 3 regional offices of Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education (MSBTE), Mumbai, respectively at Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur and I was transferred at Nagpur regional office as a Assistant Secretary (Tech). As the office itself was new in the state, it was a total new experience for me. Moreover post carries pure administrative responsibilities for Nagpur region. Our area spread was from Buldhana to Gondiya. Work responsibilities encircles the different duties like, The academic inspection, monitoring, Enrollment and examination of students of around 300 affiliated institutions offering MSBTE Diploma courses. Curriculum, Development, Implementation, teacher training was the main areas of operation under my supervision.
During this period also with due permission, I was enjoying my passion for teaching and I was visiting faculty in MBA college and Hotel Management institute. In 1999, I was deputed by Maharashtra Govt. for completing M. Tech. At National Institute of Technical Teachers Training & Research (NITTTR), Bhopal, after completing M. Tech (with specialization in Curriculum Development), I resumed my duties at regional office. In 2004, I was transferred to Packaging Technology as senior faculty at Nagpur. The Packaging Technology was the unique diploma course, only available at Nagpur. New diploma posed some challenges but, I have enjoyed learning and imparting the new knowledge.
During this period, I was also expert counselors for distance mode MBA program of YCMOU, Nasik. During 2005 to 2008, I have also completed my Ph. D. Business Management & Administration. The dissertation title is “Critical Study of Practical Skills Development in Engineering Diploma Program offered through Distance Mode of Learning”. Perhaps it is the Ph. D. In core Skills Development Area. I have studied 2 major distance mode organization Yeshwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU), Nasik & Government Polytechnic for. Distance Learning, (GOD), Pune
In 2008, I was transferred to Govt. Polytechnic Gadchiroli as officiating head of Deptt in Mech Engg. and I have served their for 6 years and also completed election duties in naxalite area. Finally in 2014, once again I was transferred to MSBTE head office, Mumbai. At MSBTE it was state level administration. I have been made In-charge for Curriculum Development of around 50 diploma program for entire state. Another major task assigned was Academic Monitoring of around 1000 state level affiliated institutions. Finally I retired in April, 2018, but only from Service not from active life.
After retirement, I have started imparting training in the area of Outcome Base Education (OBE) for many colleges. Last year I have developed Module on ‘Orientation to Startup” and conducted training. For MBA students of Amravati University, Maharashtra and VELS University Chennai
In late 2019, I have started Soft Skills Academy; however, now it is in infant stage, I use to go to institutions for imparting Soft skills training. Recently couple of months back, I have designed “Skill Oriented Teacher Training exclusively for School Teachers and many schools have shown their interest.
During this entire journey some of the distinctive achievement are briefly listed
- During completion of Ph. D, I have Developed my own model,”Deshpande -Ashtikar model for practical skill development for distance mode institution students.
- Developed,” SGD- model for imparting entrepreneurship education in Technical Institutes”.
- Completed 4 short term programs from online web portal of RMIT University Australia, IIT Kharagpur, SWAYAM Portal and Leeds University, U. K,
- My paper publication inventory comprises of 10 papers at International Conferences, 26 papers at National Conferences and 25 monographs in news paper like Times of India, Pune Sakal and Hitwad.
- Pune Sakal news paper has published my series of articles on Entrepreneurship in Marathi.
- I was nominated as Associate faculty in MCED.
- I am recognized trainer at State Irrigation Deptt Training College at Nagpur.
- Motivational Speaker for EDP programs of DIC, MSME, MCED , MITCON and NGOs too.
- Trained women of Manila Bachat Gat (SHG) Gadchiroli in a Marketing of their products
- Worked as expert on DIC panel of Prime Minister Employment program for S.S.I. at Gadchiroli.
- Gadchiroli, being zero industry area, I have completed the project in collaboration with DIC with the help of final year diploma students. The project document is presently being used by DIC, Gadchiroli as a guideline document for new budding entrepreneur who wants to start his venture at Gadchiroli.
- Motivational speaker for Career Selection programs of MSBTE and Times of India, Mumbai for 10 and 12th students in the interiors villages.
- I have developed my own modules on SWOT Analysis and Brainstorming and conducted over 500 hours of training for teachers and students of Schools and professional colleges.
- After retirement, I have started imparting training to teachers on OBE curriculum development
- I have modules on “One Day Workshop on Orientation to Startup and conducted training to the MBA students of S.G.B. Amravati University, Maharashtra and VELS University Chennai
- Recently developed module on, “Skill oriented Teacher Training” for school teachers and conducted few trainings also.
Q2. You had both academic and administrative experience in your long span of career. Which one do you like most and why?
I have around 21 years of teaching experience and 14 years of academic administrative experience at state level and regional level. Teaching being my passion, I enjoyed it much at degree and diploma Engineering and Management institutions.
Administrative experience is good, as I was part of policy maker and resource provider for improvement of Teaching learning process, Teacher Training, Curriculum Implementation and Academic Monitoring at state level. However during teaching career the face to face interaction with new faces of students every year makes me younger every year. Finally the joy of teaching is un-substitutable.
Q3. What kind of hurdles did you face in your journey?
Not much more but due to lack of resources and administrative constraints it was not possible to achieve much more as expected by me.
Q4. Which type of consultancy do you provide and how it is beneficial? Please share brief about your Professional Soft Skills Development Academy?
After retirement, being a teacher, I have started imparting soft-skills to the students, but soon I realized that some skills like Self examination, Creativity, Decision Making, Positive Attitude etc. are such skills, which are required by all, right from students, working personnel, industry executive, working women, house wife and even retired persons too.
Accordingly I have classified the various soft-skills as per the category. (Detail leaflet is available on my LinkedIn profile). In the beginning, I have started discussing and imparting some information to the senior citizen groups also. They were impressed to know the scientific explanation of few skills
(viz Decision Making skills, when people require to make important decision about selecting proper life partner for their daughter from among the available alternative. The scientific methodology for evaluating each alternative on the pre-set criterion designed by the Family itself, was liked by all.
Even for students(or even Sons & Daughter) while making wise selection of job from among the 2-3 offers from various companies, the scientific approach will help lot in making rational selection of job.)
So variety of skills sets are now prepared by me but my academy is in infant stage. Right now I am offering it in institutionS as per demand. In fact right now my efforts are not to offer it on fully commercial basis.
Q5. What kind of problems have you faced in your Industry/Domain and how will you remove it?
My experience is that local people near you, never project you. On the contrary the outside strange people showed faith in me and explore benefits by associating with me for many events.
Q6. What is SWOT Analysis and Brainstorming Techniques? Who can use these for beneficial?
This is very important question as in the era of cut throat competition, these skills are very essential for everybody from student of 10th standard to even retire people. These 2 skills are falls under category of Highly Essential Skills “. In fact all cross sections of society are in need of these skills.
The SWOT Analysis is basically tool to identify the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to your personality. It is important to know in advance the different Strong point and weak points of your personality as they are within you and you can improve upon it ( say for example; some identified weaknesses may be reduced by you after acquiring proper training, guidance from experts). Similarly the Opportunity and Threats are external to your personality and if you critically list them in advance, you will be able to design your course of action for encasing potential opportunities to your personality and at the same time equip yourself for combating from potential threats for your personality.
After identifying the no. of Opportunities and Threats, further analysis is also carried out by examining it on. Opportunity Matrix and Threat Matrix. The SWOT Analysis is exercise that everybody should conduct once in every six month. It will help you to keep ahead in present competition era.
Similarly the Brainstorming Technique is basically creative exercise fo boost your creativity. The scientific explanation with exercise will make participants ready to conduct this tool for generating large ideas right from home to workplace. Creativity is essential for everyone from Managing Director of MNCs to Housewife at our home.
Q7. How do you motivate yourself at every morning?
As a regular morning walker, I observe the creation of god in the form of trees, birds, sound of wind, and forget all my worries and problems. Every creature has its own problems in their fight of life, still they exhale their natural fragrance of life and make whole nature happy, then why not I? Why not everybody?
Q8. You had done Certificate Course in Entrepreneurship and Family Management from Australia. What was your that experience?
While supervising the activity of state level curriculum development, our board, on the advice of consultant, informed all the teachers that they should direct their students to complete 10% to 25% course by self study by referring online web sites, but under teacher’s guidance. Many teachers raised the problems about self study. Accordingly on the behalf of board we have supplied the information about some free web resources provided by many renowned institutes at national and international level. In this process, I have completed 2 short courses of my interest. First is “Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management” from “R.M.I.T. University, Australia” and second course from “SWAYAM Portal of IIT, Kharagpur” on “Education and Leadership”. Another reason for completing such courses is for analyzing the syllabus of such short term effective courses, their methods of assessment and evaluation.
Due to my passion of life long learning, recently, I have also completed one course on “Communications & Interpersonal Skills at Works” recently (5th May, 2020) from Leeds University U.K and Institute of Coding (Future Learn Web resources)
These are value addition courses and certainly helpful for everybody at their workplace
Q9. What is the meaning of success in your terms?
Being a teacher by profession, for me Success is the feedback given by my students and when they say that sir, we still remember your tips, which help them to excel in their area of field. Their continuous bonding with me on phone and email and social media are nothing but the various facets of success for me.
