IIT Bombay is organising techfest, where in it has invited some of the eminent people in technology to deliver lectures at the institute, including Nobel Laureate Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan.

Addressing students at IIT Bombay during the techfest Prof. Venki expressed his disappointment on really smart students including IITians joining finance and management and wasting their talent.

Prof.Venki said “One needs to be sufficiently smart to get into finance or management profession. One cannot be an idiot and be successful in finance or management. I agree with that. But one does not need to be in the top 0.1 percent, which is what you IITians are, You guys getting into finance or management is a total waste of your talent. Why is government spending all this money in IIT’s to create engineering and science graduates ? It is not for you to go and become an accountant for a multinational company.”

“So what you guys should do is THINK BIG ! Don’t settle for corporate jobs, yes at the outset you will be making lot of money but your life will end up being, you might live in south mumbai and your life will be from your apartment to your good car to your office , but it will be very boring, but if you aim high and say to yourself that you want to invent new technologies, new sources of energy or technologies that save lives, you will make fundamental discoveries for better tomorrow, this is what top people should aim for and not settle for mediocre corporate lives” Said Prof. Ramakrishnan.

Professor Ramakrishnan has earned many honours besides the Nobel prize. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society, EMBO, US National Academy of Sciences and Fellow of Trinity College. He was awarded The 2007 Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, he was also honoured with the 2nd highest civilian award The Padma Vibhushan by the Indian Government in 2010.