Education & Academics of Sumith Kumar Puri - The Student
 
I was admitted for my Lower Kinder Garten (LKG) to the nearest school in my Neighbourhood, Saint George's English Medium School, Kochi. It was a relatively small school but right for me - as it was the least distance to travel for me. I was in this school upto my Standard 3. I was quite decent in my studies right from childhood and was mostly in the Top 5 of my class. Beyond this, I joined Seventh Day Adventist Higher Secondary School, Kochi. I studied here from Standard 4 to Standard 6. As my family had shifted the residence during this time, I left this school to study in another nearby school, Naval Public Schoo, Kochi. My Final Class Rank at the Time of Transfer was 3. During this time from LKG to Standard 6, I built some good foundations into Basic Math, English, Science and additionally had subjects related to Christianity like Bible, Moral science. Though there were not many Extra-Curicular and Co-Curicular activities organised by these schools, I did participate in the few that were organised. I also learnt to write, read and speak a third-language, Malayalam - even though English and Hindi were the Primary and Secondary Languages.
 
The most important school for me, in terms of which my entire life has shaped into its current form is Naval Public School, Kochi. I studied here from Standard 7 to Standard 12. The school had very nice campus with a Football Ground, a Cricket cum Hockey Ground and with multiple other facilities like a Basketball Court and a Volleyball Court. It was for the first time I studied in a Central Board of Secondary Education affiliated school. I was internally part of the Bose House. This school had more activities in all Spheres of Education; Co-Curricular, Extra-Curricular and even Semi-Curicular. The time spent here helped me develop into a Well-Rounded Person. I participated in many Individual and Team activities such as Elocution, Essay Writing, Dumb Charades, Quiz, Crafts and Arts. I also got into Sports such as Cricket, Table-Tennis, Badminton, Volleyball and Soccer. I won a few prizes in these activities, and they are mentioned elsewhere on this site. In terms of languages, I also got introduced to understanding, reading and writing Sanskrit. Though it does not reflect my true academic potential, I passed my Tenth Standard with 78.2% marks in June 1997 - scoring 90% in Math and 96% in Science. I was the Vice-captain of the School Cricket Team in the Eleventh Standard. I represented my School in Table-Tennis. I also represented my School in a Elocution Contest. During this period my studies took a further hit, because of my Interest in Cricket. I Captained my School Team in Twelfth Standard to the Runners-Up Trophy in the Inter School Refinian Cup Cricket Tournament. During the time from Standard 8 to Standard 12, I also had another passion - Computers and Programming. As you find elsewhere on this website, I was completely into Computer Programming and Software Development. I also took up the corresponding stream during Higher Secondary School - Computer Science, at this school. I passed my Twelth Standard with 74.8% marks in June 1999 - scoring 87% in Computer Science. At this juncture, my life was rightly set ahead for only one stream of engineering, Computer Science.

I wrote my IIT-JEE 1999, which I could not clear at my first attempt. I attempted the Kerala Common Entrance Examination 1999 and secured a rank of ~3000 and the Karnataka Common Entrance Test 1999 with a rank close to ~30,000. I got an Interview Call for the Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi with this rank - but for the Instrumentation Technology branch. This was in my domicile state, Kerala. But as I wanted admission only in Computer Science or a related field, I decided to choose Karnataka. I had to choose Bangalore, as it was known to be more of an Information Technology hub at that point in time. I took up the last available seat at Sri Revana Siddeshwara Institute of Technology, Bangalore for Information Science and Engineering. This college had just started out, and had a fairly small campus. Although a very new college, we had a relatively good batch of students in our stream. During the four years of engineering my education furthered and formalized in Computer Science. I was part of the College Cricket Team for all the four years of my Engineering. We participated in Inter-Collegiate and University Cricket Tournaments organized by MSRIT, Bangalore; GVIT, KGF and MVIT, Bangalore. I was also part of the Inter College Dumb Charade, Programming and Web Design teams; along with other students of my stream. We participated in cultural fests at SSIT, Tumkur; SJCIT, Chickballapur and MVIT, Bangalore. As my passion was Programming and Software Development, I continued the same practical approach during my Engineering. I scored highly, almost consistently ~95%+, in all my Programming Labs. I also completed the Oracle 9i Development and Visual Basic 6.0 Development courses at the Software Specialists Institute, Bangalore during my Final Year. I passed my Engineering with 75.4% aggregate of marks in July 2003 - securing 96% for my Final Year Project. My Final Year Project was at the National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore.

Infosys, Bangalore was the start of my career, right after my Engineering; through the Infosys test for freshers. I joined Infosys, Bangalore on the 14th of July, 2003.

As the passion for my Subject was (is) Undying, to get ahead into Master's was a natural choice. I chose USA as the destination, as it has the Best Universities for Computer Science. Also, I chose to specialise in Software Security. I got a GRE score of 1260/1600 (5/6) and a TOEFL score of 280/300 (6/6). In Fall 2006, I got admission for the Master of Science [Computer Science and Engineering] program in the following universities - State University of New York, Buffalo; University of Texas, Dallas; Polytechnic University, New York; University of Central Florida, Florida and Alabama University, Huntsville. Some of them had given me funding and financial aid as well. I chose SUNY, Buffalo out of all of these; due to a higher ranking worldwide and countrywide. Also, it has good research facilities and alumni in Computer Science. Later, I was unable to join this program due to certain personal issues in my life. During August to December 2006, I completed a Proficience [Cryptography & Network Security] course from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. In Spring 2008, I had got admit to the (Distance) Master of Science in Information Technology (Software Engineering) program at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. I could not join this, again, due to certain personal reasons. In July 2012, I was ranked fourth in the Master of Science (Library and Information Science) entrance test, conducted by the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore. Also, In December 2012, I was shortlisted for the Doctor of Philosophy (Computer Science and Engineering) interview at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. I was either recommended more relevant programs / did not participate in these interviews due to certain personal reasons. During January to June 2014, I completed a Proficience [Intelligent Agents] course from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. During August to December 2016, I also completed the Proficience [Innovative Product Design and Development] from the same institute. In 2016, I completed my Executive Programme, Data Mining and Analytics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. This is the culmination of my Undying Desire for a MS/PhD or a MTech/PhD in my own Field of Specialization/Engineering, Computer/Information Science. In 2017,  I also completed my Executive Certificate Programme, Entrepreneurship from the Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur. This also is the Terminal Education for all forms of Executive/Full-Time Education in Leadership, Business, Management or Entrepreneurial Studies, such as MBA/PhD (Management) or EPGP/FPM (Management).

Now, at age 40, In October 2022, I have 17.5 years of experience as an Engineering Leader, Architect, Developer, Scientist and Entrepreneur. I will ideally fit into the role of a Director of Engineering. I am a Java/Java EE/Microservices Expert and can Mentor/Manage/Lead Engineering Teams. I am also open for the roles of Principal Architect, VP (Engineering) or Chief Technology Officer. I am open only for Full-Time Permanent Positions in Bengaluru Only. My overall experience of 17 Years 06 Months is aligned ~77% to Product Development and 23% to IT Consultancy/Services. I continuously build my abilities into Engineering Leadership, Software Architecture, Microservices, Java (v10-v20), J2EE (v7-v9), Cloud, Containerization, Agile, Spring (Boot/Cloud/Data/Security), Data Science (AI/ML/DM), Performance, Stability and Scalability.

Please do take some time to visit my Google Scholar Profile. Please also take time to visit my Technical Blog at http://www.techilashots.blogspot.com My Blog is recgonized under the DZone Most Valuable Blogger program and under the Java Code Geek Program. I also contribute to the Ulitzer Java Subsite. Also, In the Year 2017-2018, I was promoted / elevated to the Senior Member Status in IEEE / IEEE-Computer Society and then as Senior Member* in ACM / ACM India*.

 
What (am I reading now and) have I read in the last five years?
Docker: Up and Running, Matthias & Kane; Spring Boot In Action*; Craig Walls; Microservices Patterns*, Chris Richardson; Building Microservices*, Sam Newman; SQL Tuning*, Dan Tow; Java EE 7 Performance Tuning and Optimization*, Oransa, Osama;

What reading is permanently abandoned?
Graphics Under C, Yashvant Kanetkar; Writing TSRs through C, Yashvant Kanetkar; Writing Windows Drivers in C, Yashvant Kanetkar; Artificial Intelligence: Structures & Strategies for Complex Problem Solving, George F Luger;  The Art of Computer Programming - Vol I & II, Donald E Knuth;  Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques [3rd Edition], Jiawei Han, Micheline Kamber, and Jian Pei;
 
What do I plan to read next? [1-2 years]
The Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley;  Creating Breakthrough Products, Jonathan Cagan; Mongo DB for Java Developers, Marchioni Francesco; NoSQL Distilled, Pramod J. Sadalage; Introduction to Data Mining, Pang-Ning Tan;

What else I plan to read (new) in the near future? [2-4 years]
Machine Learning in Java, Kaluza Bostjan;   Fundamentals of Neural Networks, Laurene V. Fausett;  Artificial Intelligence, Rusell Norvig;   

What else I plan to read (incremental) in the near future? [5 years]
Introduction to Algorithms, Thomas H. Cormen;  Java EE 7: The Big Picture, Danny Coward;  Instant Weka How-To, Kaluza Bostjan; Begining EE 7, Antonio Goncalves; Oracle SQL Tuning with Oracle SQLTXPLAIN, Charalambides; Java Puzzlers, Joshua Bloch; Advanced Data Structures, Prof .Peter Brass;

Is Life all About Programming, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Java/JEE? :-) [1-2 years]
If God Was A Banker, Ravi Subramanian; The Mahabharata Secret, Christopher C Doyle; Life is What You Make It, Preeti Shenoy; Making India Awesome, Chetan Bhagat;  Swami and Friends, RK Narayan; Hindutva, Veer Savarkar; Nationalism, Rabindranath Tagore; Alexander the Great, Jacob Abbott;


That is it, in short about me as a student, primarily of Computer and Information Science.