Maker Mela - my first shot
Around her career, Kopal liked and explored designs. She shares her interest in building connections and acquiring knowledge. Currently, she is an intern at the International company Whirlpool, Gurugram along with her Masters. She is growing with her talent on a larger level. Kopal shares her Designer Career journey to inspire people to follow their passion.
I graduated with a B.Tech Mechanical Engineering from K J Somaiya College of Engineering in 2019. Presently, I’m a final year student of Masters in Product Design at NID Ahmedabad. At the beginning of my engineering, I realized that I’m excited about designing. While understanding designing, I knew that it needs practical attention with creativity. So, I engaged myself in building connections along with learning techniques.
It began with liking the graphic design and now it is working effectively. As it is said, “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you”. Now, doing it for my passion excites me every day.
Initial Iterations
In my first year, I got to know about Maker Mela, Asia’s Largest Platform for Makers. With my curiosity to learn about how large-scale events are organized and my interest in Graphic Design, I joined Maker Mela as a Team Member.
As a Team Member, I was involved in designing media content for social media, making marketing posters, even cold calling for maker registration and sponsors. Later, I worked as a Creative Head for Maker Mela 2017. My prime responsibilities were content creation and developing print materials.
So, this was a headstart!
Roadblocks
Every journey has roadblocks, mine was dealing with pressure.
- The Challenge: As Maker Mela is a huge platform and reaching more people is very vital. The engagement of more people can help to expand the event. I constantly tried to spread awareness of it by social media, interpersonal, even doing cold calls.
- The Problem: The main problem was working under the pressure of deadlines. Awareness was the start and engagement was the goal. Under pressure, getting work done on time was critical.
- Research: So, taking the challenge as an opportunity was my learning factor. While handling the problems, I worked on altering my strategies and had improvements.
- Made it happen: I changed my work approach by shifting my strategies according to needs. My work approach developed to be extremely methodical and result-oriented. Deadlines helped to prioritize the right things and delegate other tasks.
Shared Work and Fun!
Maker Mela has a work-oriented culture but with beautiful memories and friendships. I built great connections that are still with me to help, suggest and share my achievements.
A very special memory that I remember is,
“All of us used to meet up in the evenings at the canteen (where we used to work together) and then proceed to try some good food joints in Ghatkopar. Some of our team members also organized a treasure hunt as a team-building activity for us. That was fun.”
So, we organized a lot of ‘pre-events’ to spread the event. One of them was a Friendship Day event where we set up a board where people could express their love for their friends.
Learnings
- Practical Knowledge: Maker Mela became an opportunity to strengthen my knowledge. Dealing with situations, understanding result-oriented work builds specific techniques that become tools for my trade.
- Expertise Guidance: I met Nikunj Ladani, who is also an alumni of K J Somaiya College of Engineering and was working as a professional designer by that time, so I got to learn a lot from him. His experience helped me to understand designing well.
- Working under Pressure: As a part of a huge event, my stress about dealing with pressure got tackled. Now, working under deadlines is easy because my work approach developed to be extremely methodical and result-oriented.
Maker Mela was my first step in working for my passion. I have been associated with riidl [organizer of Maker Mela] since I worked as a Creative Head for Maker Mela 2017.
Exposure and Opportunities from Maker Mela ecosystem
Maker Mela was a perfect chance to meet talent and the learning community. I interacted with many creative makers while offering them hospitality. I had the opportunity to interact with great speakers including Sonam Wangchuk when they came for the talk session. It developed my confidence and engagement and helped me to learn a lot about innovation and creativity.
I am still connected with riidl as a Board of Studies student member in the Somaiya School of Design, Supported by riidl (Product Design) and I also got an opportunity to develop my prototypes at riidl when I applied to the M.Des Product Design at NID Ahmedabad.
With riidl’s continuous support, I secured an AIR 3 in NID’s exam. riidl has always encouraged students to do better and aim for the moon. I feel lucky to be associated with riidl and Gaurang sir.
I was just exploring design when I started working for Maker Mela. So. it definitely gave me a chance to put it up on a larger level. I grew more confident in my speaking skills and in building connections.
Retrospective
My career is still ongoing and my retrospective is based on my learnings.
- Give everything a Fair Chance: No one knows which opportunity can be a path changer. riidl became mine! So always give your best shot to whatever you are working on. If you feel you should do something, give it a try. It’s okay if you fail, failure is better than regret.
- Exposure is the Key: Showing your talents is a must and Maker Mela is a great platform for anyone looking to explore their talents, meet new people and develop leadership skills. It gives people the opportunity to be creative and gain exposure on a global level.
“Maker Mela was my first and best shot!”, Kopal said after the interview for this blog. This clearly shows how Maker Mela was the beginning of her design Career. She gave it her best shot trusting her abilities and got the best learning from it!
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