Kate Valenti: Our business is about our people. When we think about all of the innovation that
has happened over the 30+ year lifespan of the firm, all of the solutions and the impact for
clients, and the millions and millions of learners that we've served, all of that has come from the minds and the hearts of our talent. That's why we do the Talent Spotlight: to showcase the people of Unicon and to help clients understand who they get to work with when they work with us. Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with Abhishek Parmar. Thank you so much for joining
me.
Can you start by telling us how you found your way to Unicon?
Abhishek Parmar: Thank you, Kate. I completed my master's degree at Arizona State University, and I worked under Professor Dr. Kevin Gary. Apparently, he used to work at Unicon.
Kate: Yes, he did.
Abhishek: I got to work with him, and if you know KG, he had a baseball bat in his hand most of the time. He taught me how to work in the industry, what kinds of projects I could expect, and what kind of work I could do. He suggested I interview at Unicon. I was a bit nervous because he referred me and I didn’t want to disappoint him; but, ultimately, all went well and I joined this beautiful company.
Kate: Excellent! So, we have KG to thank for you finding your way to Unicon!
Abhishek: Yes, he's still asking me about that referral bonus.
Kate: That sounds like KG. As you started your study at ASU and even prior to that, how did you get into software engineering? Where was the genesis of your interest to start your career there?
Abhishek: Before starting my master’s in software engineering at ASU, I was working in Tata Consultancy Services back in India, Mumbai. My focus was on SAP. It's an ERP software where I was maintaining the server, writing sales scripts, and those types of things. I always wanted to do my master’s, initially after my bachelor's, and I did not like to do codes because everybody was coding. I thought, I’ll try SAP. I spent three years there and I did not find any opportunity to grow in SAP.
I then decided to switch my career back to coding and I went for Software Engineering at ASU. Looking at the course and design, it was matching my expectations and luckily, I got to work with Dr. Kevin Gary and I got to explore and expand my understanding and knowledge about current industry and the coding styles.
Kate: As you know, Unicon has a vision to be the partner of choice anywhere innovation is occurring in our market. You are staffed right now in a very strategic and innovative project. What does being a partner of choice mean to you and how do you live that in your day to day work?
Abhishek: Yes, a partner of choice is not just a consultant, but a team member for the client. It is building trust, reliability, and adaptability. It's not just saying yes to every requirement or everything the client says, it is pushing them in the right direction, seeing the big picture and making sure that they understand if they do this, they will end up with this situation, but if they do something else, they will probably end up in a better situation. It’s all those things, but also making sure we are doing good quality work, good tested code, delivering what is best for the client and meeting the requirements they have.
They also see Unicon as a trusted partner that they can share their details with, they can trust us, and they allow us to work in their production environments. All this comes from giving good advice, being trustworthy, adapting to new technologies and new things. I think the curiosity part of our core values is playing a role here and it's a major role, as well as mastery. We have shown mastery over Java, AWS, now Python, AI. We are trying and exploring different areas, which help our clients. When we meet with them, we say - we have these tools, we can use these or if you have something new, we can also learn and use those for you. All those things I think are what partner of choice means.
Kate: I think you hit on most, if not all, of our core values. I think that's a really good way to think about what it means to be a partner. It means to be masterful, to be impactful for the client, and to be curious for the client.
You've also shared with me that part of your job is to be opinionated. When we get into a client situation, to make sure that we're not just asking what do you want us to do, but that we're bringing an opinion, an informed, educated opinion to that work. To say, like you mentioned above, if you do it that way, it'll be fine but if you did it this way, it'll be better, and to express that opinion as part of your core value to the client.
Abhishek: Exactly. That's what makes us a good partner because sometimes you also have to go above and beyond to prove your point. You have to write different code or different data POCs to show them this is what's going to happen. Ultimately, that will help us to collaborate with the client more frequently and they can think of us as team members.
Kate: It sounds like you have gotten a chance to learn new things through your client projects. Faced with new opportunities or new challenges, you've been able to jump in and learn new tools or learn new processes or new technology. Is there anything going on in edtech right now that you're particularly excited about?
Abhishek: I would say AI, interoperability standards, and data are quite exciting right now.
We all know about AI. AI is booming. In my current project, we have this AI tutor which is helping in a calculus course. It is not answering the question but is explaining to the student what the problem is and teaching them, basically.
There are LTI interoperability standards, LTI, caliper events, all those things. There is also data, which I'm quite interested in. Before, we used to collect the data in a warehouse, then we started analyzing it and felt like we were missing some more data, and that led to getting everything into a lake. Then after lake, there was too much data, and we couldn't process this or analyze it. Then we went to a lake house. So, seeing how the data storage to usage is shifted is what institutions are focusing on. It gives a very good sense of what is the retention rate of teachers in our institution, or how a student is performing over the years.
Kate: Great! Let's shift gears for just a second about our remote workforce. This isn't a question that I've asked others and so I just thought it would be interesting to get your perspective. We are now a fully remote organization and you are a social person. My observation of you when we were in an office was you loved to collaborate, to stop by somebody's cubicle and sit down and chat through challenges. How do you stay connected in the remote environment, both to your project teams and to your friends and your peers at Unicon that you might not work with on a day to day basis?
Abhishek: First of all, I like remote work because of its work life balance. Unicon is flexible in such a way that I have to do my eight hours, but sometimes there are doctor appointments, or some urgent errands that I have to attend, and the team is very supportive of that. Also, I feel like it has not impacted my productivity.
Going back to the question about how I connect to the people at work, if I have some L&D time or available time, I usually reach out to people who are in the domain that I'm learning. For example, if I'm learning about data, I will reach out to Rob Nield and meet for half an hour or hour. I had a cadence set up, so every two weeks I was meeting with Rob Nield for 15 minutes.
If I'm in a project, I usually talk with people on Rocket Chat, I’ll ping them. I usually ask for a meeting because when I talk and meet with someone, I feel like I'm doing the right thing: he's on the same page or she's on the same page. You cannot write everything on chat, but you can say some jokes on a call and it's easy to communicate. I’m not afraid to ask for help. If I have no task pending, I will still offer my help and talk with them mostly on Zoom.
We also now have a company gathering twice a year, which is great. I love to meet with people I haven't talked to in a long time. I wanted to talk with Gary Gilbert for a long time. Maybe I will set up a meeting as a Uni-Connection. All these things that Unicon is providing are helping me to connect with the people that I usually talk to.
Kate: You mentioned the mini-conference coming up. In a couple weeks, we're all gathering in Phoenix to learn from each other. The main topic is AI. Is there something that you're particularly excited about for the mini conference this year?
Abhishek: AI is something new for me. I haven't built my opinion around AI or any of the apps that are particularly working with AI. I would love to see what people have to say. I did learn AI from a Udemy course, how to use LLMs, and other things, but I would like to have a general knowledge about what people think and what they have done with AI. We have different players, like Alan is in content, and David is also in content, so they talk about AI from their perspective. We have John Martin who is working on AI to build this tutor. He has his perspective of using AI. I'm just very open to grab knowledge, whatever I can.
Kate: I think it's going to be a great opportunity for folks to share what they're doing, learn from each other and learn who's experimenting, who's innovating. I'm looking forward to it too. I have a personal question for you. Outside of work, I happen to know that you are a gardener with an amazing green thumb and also a foodie, somebody who loves to cook and eat. Tell me something about those passions.
Abhishek: Yes, I still do gardening even in the summer heat of 110 degrees. I secure my plants from that heat and try to make them as green as I can. I try different things in my garden. I usually try different plants with the weather because after doing this for four years, I understand that I cannot grow any plant in my garden at any time. I have to look at what I can grow in zone 9B, or something like that, and figure out what I can do in containers.
Food wise, I still cook almost every weekend. I ask my wife to please tell me what she wants to eat, but food is not her passion, so I usually figure out what I want to eat, cook it, and she enjoys it.
Kate: She's very, very lucky.
Abhishek: Yes, I know, people say that to her. I ask her to please give me some challenge to make something new. I started trying different ramen and all the different things that I haven't cooked before.
Kate: One of the things that makes you stand out, both as a member of the Unicon team and as a human being, is your willingness to cook for us at a gathering event each year. For our readers: during one of our yearly gatherings we raise money for a member of our team who needs medical expense support. Your willingness to come and share your food with us, and to do it in a way that raises funds for Adam is really impactful to the team. It’s something that I'm always grateful for, that you're willing to share that talent with us. Thank you for sharing your food with us.
Abhishek: Yes, the pleasure is all mine. I love to do that. When I talked with my wife, she agreed and we decided to ask HR about it. We were hesitant and then we decided what could go wrong. She could say no, because we know that Indian food can be very spicy for people and we wouldn’t have that kind of crowd. It could fail, but the last four years have been a massive success. I guess people are enjoying it, and I feel so satisfied and so good that people are enjoying it. We have been able to collect more money every year for Adam, which gives me a good night's sleep.
Kate: Yes, I think people have been able to get a chance to experiment with food that they might not otherwise eat. We have some people who are very into Indian food, but there are others who are just learning about it through you and that's amazing too.
Abhishek: Yeah, that's why I try to cook different things from different places.
Kate: That's great. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about today?
Abhishek: Yes, apart from gardening and food, I played drums in college, so I started learning drums again, and Tabla. My wife is into music quite a bit, so I started learning music and started reading books.
Kate: Alright, I have to ask, is there a book that you would recommend?
Abhishek: I'm reading a spiritual book, Yogi Kathamrut. Yogi Kathamrut is about Paramahansa Yogananda who has this self-realization fellowship organization. It's all about his master's experience. It’s led me to do more meditations nowadays.
Kate: Excellent, thank you for sharing. It's been a pleasure getting to know you a little bit more, but also getting to know your perspective on our work. We are so glad that you're on the team.
Abhishek: Thank you so much.
