Savouring Tech and Spice: A Dive into Indian Cuisine and Tech Mastery with Microsoft MVPs Rachit Garg

Today's guest is from Australia . He's a principal technical architect . His first award is MVP in 2023 . He loves solving complex business problems for enterprise customers and he loves to share his learnings with the Microsoft Dynamics community via blogs and speaking of various community events .

You can find links to his bio and social media in the show notes for this episode . Welcome to the show , Rachit .

So I grew up eating that food and it was like my daily staple diet all hot and spicy stuff . So food means a lot to me and there is so much variety of food we eat . We grew up eating , so food is definitely something I look forward to and , to be honest , in Melbourne I really find a rich variety of Indian food options available .

So in that terms , melbourne is really good from cultural blend perspective . So , yeah , I moved to Melbourne almost 10 years back . It's my second home , live here with my wife and eight year old daughter and yeah , there's something new to explore in Melbourne , like , even after living for 10 years , there are places I go for the first time .

So it's quite big and a lot of things to explore in Melbourne .

So some dishes may have more of chili , some dishes may have more of another spice . So it basically just depends on the type of dish we are preparing . The thing with Indian food is the taste changes every 200 kilometer you travel . So you eat a food in a city and you travel another 400 kilometer . You eat the same dish .

It may taste different because the ratio of spices are different , the base of the curry is different . So that is one thing . But yeah , it's basically different type of chilies as well not always red chili or green chili that you can find yellow chilies and different flavors of them . So yeah , that's one thing which drives the hotness .

And also , I think people like to explore because they have so many options . The spice box is like full of 15 or 20 different spices . So once you explore something , experiment , it becomes your unique selling point , and there are a lot of unique food chains in India who have their secret formula which makes them famous . So yeah , that's where it is .

My chilies that I've eaten in my life have always been dare based . In other words , I dare you eat a whole chili . If you eat one , I'll eat a whole chili type thing . And I've done that a lot . I've done that a lot .

The last time I did it I was in London when I did it and I regretted it because I was with a girl and I challenged her and she just picked up the chili and munched it straight away and then that left me having to eat a whole chili . So you know raw . So it was tough going seeds and all .

So that's why I asked because , yeah , just understand , you know the type of chilies that you grow , apart from the color . Is there any particular names associated with those chilies ?

But I thought to explore it because I read ERP in my college and I was a bit interested to explore how to build these enterprise grade applications using some unique programming languages .

So I joined a company called Euro info system which was in India , and they came to know they were actually a reseller who were working with Damguard even before Microsoft acquired except so they had some good , good knowledge base in that company and people with whom we can learn and grow .

So , yeah , I mean , the journey started in 2005 and then the way this platform evolved over a period of time kept me , kept me engaged with it . So it was not a monotonous or repetitive work which we were doing because it had to . It had so much to offer and so much to explore .

Every time we solve a problem we face , we were given a new problem to solve and even now , after , like , spending 17 , 18 years in this field , I still , you know , get new problems to solve on this platform . So it always kept me engaged , kept me excited about what's happening , and Microsoft had their good focus on this product .

So it kept evolving with time . So when it was Originally launched , it was like a two tier and three tier application with its own database server and UI layer separate . But With time it got more matured and Microsoft brought its compiler into dotnet and now it's cloud based .

We write code in visual studio , so so the the tools and frameworks Microsoft brought in this ecosystem actually kept everyone engaged and kept us up to date with latest technology trend . We do not Feel that we are being left out . So that was one of the reason for me to like stay in this technology and grow with it .

And once , once I started and got some deep understanding of the frameworks , then then you Start exploring more , because once you understand a level of detail , then you get an idea of okay , this is how it works in real life .

So yeah , and one another good thing was I was based in India , so I got to travel around the world for different customers to implement the product . So I got to travel to US , netherlands , uk , and then I also traveled to Australia for a few assignments in 2008 .

That's when I felt this is a great country to where you can actually live with the family and Explore more opportunities . So , yeah , in 2013 we moved here and since then I'm here and , yeah , loving living in Melbourne . It's a bit far from India , like the flight is a bit long almost 14 hours but yeah , still it's good to be here .

And , yeah , you of course , miss family . Nothing can replace that and but , as I said , there is a lot of good Indian culture presence in Melbourne , so it keeps me connected to my roots . I can visit temples , I can go to social gatherings where festivals are celebrated and , yeah , so that's where I am .

When there was a skill shortage , I was able to tap into some great minds , you know , and Out of India and bring them into Australia . Now that , of course , is all pre-pandemic . That was all around 2015 , 16 , 17 . What some ? Is that still happening ? Is there in your community and connections ?

Are you still seeing a lot of people immigrating from India in the tech sector to Australia ? I know the visas were changed , but are you seeing that ?

So initially it used to be valid for four years , but now I think it's valid for two years and then you have to renew it for another two years , but it still is a pathway .

During pandemic there was a bit of a pause and didn't did not see a lot of companies getting into sponsorship because , yeah , I mean it's tricky to get to that stage where you can actually sponsor an overseas skilled professional because you have to go through that layer of labor laws and a lot of declarations to be done at government side .

But I think now this year I have seen the market is opening up and a few of my known people network people have migrated , and not only from India . I've seen people migrating from Dubai , people migrating from Singapore , migrating from Saudi Arabia .

So , yeah , I think Australia being the way Australia managed its pandemic situation made it more preferred location for people to migrate . So I see a lot of interest in people who want to migrate to Australia and one of the key reason is the way we managed pandemic here . But , yeah , it is there . People are coming . I think it's opening up now .

It's a good time . The market is . It all depends like . The market is growing . Companies are finding more projects now so , yeah , the demand is also increasing .

People in personal , for their personal use , have started adopting it , so I think it is definitely something which will become like a core skill in few years down the line , even like it may get more interest when people are graduating or doing studies . It may become part of core , part of their curriculum .

I think I see it as a positive vibe that yes , there are some unique , complex problems which technology can solve , especially in areas of healthcare , the type of AI solutions which are coming and which can help people to recover from their illness in a more smooth way . I think it's going to be having good impact In terms of personal use .

I actually showed it to my daughter and she loves to play with Dalí and creating some crazy images and she comes up with some crazy ideas and says , hey , dad , let's try Dalí and let's try to create an image and she actually gave me some feedback that when I use some particular keywords , this is the type of image it created and it was not what I expected .

So the kids are like she gave me a feedback . If I give it a long sentence then it doesn't prepare give me the right image , but if I give a very crisp , precise instruction , it gives me what I asked for . So it was interesting to see how even kids are able to interpret the behavior and give a feedback .

I think the use cases are going to be too many . I think in Dynamics 365 , microsoft has started introducing AI embedded capabilities , especially using OpenAI in sales marketing , where the customers , the interaction can be analyzed and automatic email reply can be drafted .

Also , in terms of finance and operation , there is one capability which is using chat , gpd and OpenAI , which is around whenever a purchase order confirmation gets modified . What is the effect of this on other commitments and other purchase order and how it can impact your supply chain .

So there are some models which Microsoft is introducing in out of the box product . However , I think there are a lot of potential use cases which can be enabled . Ai has been part of finance and operation , like there are demand forecasting functionalities which were available in the product from many years .

There were planning , optimization , master planning , which uses all these machine learning AI algorithm , but I think this whole new OpenAI and chat GPD thing is also catching a lot of attention .

It looks like in AI it's a parallel word of AI where people don't like to talk much about machine learning and traditional AI regression algorithms , but they want to focus more on what chat GPD can do to solve their problem .

When I interacted with him I got a bit of inspired from the way he thinks about not only about a solution for a customer , but his talks were more focused on industry what can we do to revolutionize the problem for the industry ? That's where I came to know about MVP program and I started looking about it .

But then , due to my migration and a lot of things always happening , it was always in the back of my mind that , yes , I have to work towards it , Although I have been contributing to the community from last more than 10 years . I have a blog where I have all the collection of technical articles which go way back to 10 years .

But I think and that's one thing , what I hear a lot of MVP says that you keep giving back to the community and MVP comes along with it . But I feel you actually have to prepare and work towards it if you really want to be an MVP . You have to bring a structure to your contributions .

You have to sometimes go above what you normally do to meet that benchmark , Because I felt like first time I MVP award was rejected , which is fine , because there were a few things which were not in the right timing . So timing is all about what you have done in the last 12 months .

So what you have done in the last 10 years is not the criteria , but what you have done in the last 12 months is the criteria . So you might have written 50 blogs five years back , but that doesn't count now . So if someone is aiming to become an MVP , it's very important to understand the process and how you build that collection of your contributions .

That is very important and you have to need to have a plan , work towards it , identify what you are comfortable doing . You don't need to go to forums , write a blog , go to YouTube , go to seminars , do a podcast . Identify your core strength and what you are comfortable doing it and focus on that area .

So I realized okay , my focus is more towards doing sessions in the community that's where I focused and blogging . So I was mostly focused on blogging and doing sessions . So these were my two key areas . I did a bit of forum things and created YouTube videos , but that is something which I'm planning to maybe get more .

Give it more attention next year and this year I continue focusing on what I am doing . So , yeah , my advice to people who want to target MVP is plan in advance , focus and identify what your core area of engagement is , core way of engagement is , and work on that .

Have your backlog of last 12 months activities ready how you impacted the community , how you brought value to them and try to have a unique offering . Because what I feel sometimes I feel like , okay , let me go and create a video on how to write X++ code , but then when I go to YouTube , I see there are plenty of videos already out there .

So what my content is going to add value to , whom I'm going to add value to ? So identify what type of community members you want to target . That's also another important thing . Build your brand , yeah .

You work for it , you had a goal which you have achieved and that fuels your passion towards it , and now you can explore other areas and you get into that network of MVPs . You can take their help to connect and establish more , better brand in the market for yourself .