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Our guest today is a living example to never give up. His patience and determination got him through the tough period of fruitless job-search to the bold endeavour of starting his own business.

Girish Kedar was born and brought up in Mumbai, India. For his higher studies he moved to Sweden in 2009 and since then he studied and worked in different European countries like Sweden, Germany, and The Netherlands. He holds pharmacist degree from India and PhD in Neuroscience from Vrije University, Amsterdam. After a big struggle in finding the right job in the pharma industry, Girish came up with a plan B – he started his own business and founded The GLOVERK Consultancy, which is based in Amsterdam and provides services to the pharmaceutical and medical device industry in Europe and India. Girish is also a student ambassador in Vrije University and an independent Career Coach for PhD and Post-Doctorate candidates.

In this episode, Girish contemplates about mistakes he made that complicated his job search and shares advice on how to avoid them.  He also describes how the personal strengths he developed during his PhD helped him in the hard task of starting his own business.

Throughout PhD career, everyone thinks only about two options: either academia or industry. But I believe, PhD is way beyond that – PhD prepares you for an even harder and better journey, where you can build up your own empire

– Dr. Girish Kedar, PhD in Neuroscience, Entrepreneur, Career Coach

Continue reading “#063: Girish Kedar Story” →

Podcast: Play in new window

The career path of the guest of our today’s episode is anything but conventional. Dr. Andrew Quitmeyer studied Engineering and Film Making during his master’s degree. The trip to Galapagos deviated his direction and led him to pursue a tailor-made PhD degree at the intersection between Digital Media and Field Biology.

Today Dr. Quitmeyer describes himself as a hacker and adventurer, studying intersections between wild animals and computational devices. His academic research in “Digital Naturalism” at the National University of Singapore blends biological fieldwork and DIY digital crafting.

He runs “Hiking Hacks” around the world where participants build technology entirely in the wild for interacting with nature. His research also inspired a spin-off television series for Discovery Networks called “Hacking the Wild”.

The Digital Naturalism Conference is his largest initiative so far, and is leading him to start his own permanent Art-Science Field Station Fab Lab.

I worked on a little manifesto of what exactly my PhD would be like and tried to set as many boundaries and anticipate as many pitfalls or things that I didn’t want to do in my PhD before I set out to actually doing this.

– Dr. Andrew Quitmeyer, Assistant Professor National University of Singapore

Continue reading “#062: Andrew Quitmeyer Story” →