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He Argues, We Enjoy ...

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Are we born with talent? We all have talent, but how can we identify it. A skill is a learned competence and with enough training, almost anyone can be taught a particular skill. Talent, however, is much rarer. I think a talented person will show some symptoms during his childhood. I wish to share my experience regarding this.

One of my classmates Prahlad, who was an above average student, is a living example to prove my above mentioned statement. While at school, in almost all the classes especially in Mathematics class, teachers used to come well prepared since Prahlad was in the class and they would be scared of his questions and doubts. Every time he raised a question or a doubt, teachers would end up arguing with him and we would be happy because we would be free to play or discuss other matters during the same period.

Today, Prahlad is Dr. Prahlad Vadakkepat. He is an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore and is the founder secretary of the Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA) and currently its General Secretary. He is also the founder director and chief mentor to an entrepreneurial start-up “Robhatah Robotic Solutions” at Singapore [www.robhatah.com]. His initiative among others includes an international conference on Computational Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CIRAS) which is being held successfully since 2001. He was the general chair to the FIRA RoboWorld Cup and Congress Singapore 2005. He is an associate editor of the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics. His Humanoid robot and robot soccer teams have consistently won several international prizes. He has been elected as the Secretary to the IEEE Singapore Section for the year 2005.

He has served as Technical Activity Coordinator to the IEEE Region 10 (Asia-Pacific) in 2001-2002. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineers (IETE), India. He is also actively involved in various technical forums including conferences, symposia and robotic competitions. He has been featured in several prominent newspapers and TV shows in India, Singapore, USA, Korea, Spain and France.

Dr. Prahlad Vadakkepat received his M.Tech and Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, in 1989 and 1996 respectively. He was a Lecturer at the Regional Engineering College Calicut, from 1991 to 1996. While pursuing Post-Doctoral studies at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), he was awarded the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) fellowship.

Besides, let me remind you that Dr. Prahlad Vadakkepat studied from 1st to 10th std in our village school at Palghat, Kerala.

So dear friend you decide,

Talent is what - Inborn or Acquired?