my journey
Nothing is Impossible “Nothing is impossible” if you dare to dream and take feasible extraordinary actions towards achieving your dreams. In 1981, I was shifted from our home town Bhiwani to Delhi after completing four years of schooling and enrolled in a public school in Kalkaji. The school was having infrastructure till 7th standard and was offering further education at other campus which was quite far. That made me to shift from this school to a government school in CR Park for my further education.
Ravinder Goyal Director IACM SmartLearn Ltd
I scored 73.3% in board exams and left with little option to choose second rank colleges or to go to South side for an engineering course. My family decided and opted for the first one, and I enrolled for BSc-Maths in Deshbandhu College, where I felt that it is just for the sake of a degree for which students are enrolled without any specific interest in studies. Partying and missing classes was not my cup of tea. So I didn’t appear for first year exams and dropped out.
In between, after my 12th exams were over, I was sitting with my father in his office, when one of his friends, Col RG Malhotra, owner of ICS, a computer training company, just dropped in. When he asked me what I was doing after 12th, I just said “nothing” and also that I was not happy with the college life. He just told my father that he was taking me and will get me enrolled at the main training center of ICS for a two years course. Without any further discussion, I just followed him and enrolled for a computer course. That’s was my first exposure to computers way back in 1989. Over a period of next five to six months, I felt that’s exactly what I was looking for. During these years, I kept running a small showroom of electronic goods, as my love for electronics was not completely over. During the last months of course with ICS, I decided to change from electronics to computer training and started ICT – ‘Institute of Computer Technology’ with just four PC XT 8088 machines with 640KN RAM. I remember my vendor’s words, he said “drive carefully, don’t jerk too much”. So I, with my brother, Rajesh Goyal, drove back home the PC like carrying a pregnant woman in the car. I would like to mention here that my borther and my father OP Goyal have been a source of constant moral support and have always stood by me in whatever decisions I have taken throughout my career. The first team at ICT was me, my brother, my friend from ICS, a teacher of my brother, who joined us on part time basis. That’s how I started my journey back in 1992 in a computer training era and still travelling. Apart from this I would like to sincerely mention here the names of Dr OP Sharam, Pradeep Chaturvedi and Dr Janardan Jha, who have been my mentors and have always extended their full guidance and support whenever it was needed. During first five years, I explored software development, computer sales and even planned to setup a manufacturing assembly line for which I visited Taiwan back in 1994. Due to little exposure and lack of resources, our growth was quite slow, but I started dreaming about having a nation-wide training company. My first task was to brand it. I closed down all the software development and sales business and remained idle for almost one year around my marriage in 1996. With a go getter attitude, I never allowed myself to drown in the lake of failures and closures. In the month of October 1997, two major events happened in my life. I became father and I had the name
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