Karthik Maddi
Posted: 3/31/2012 7:24:05 PM
Every one of us might be thinking aimlessly about various issues, concepts every day and some of them will catch us our attention to the full. We brood over them to give it a shape. After all this is not enough to make our crazy ideas real. We sleep over it, we talk, and make relations with various experts linked to idea, directly or indirectly this process finally makes the idea “the big thing”. To make this easy, Karolinska Institutet had built in “Innovation office” to help scientists and students of Karolinska to develop their ideas and take them to the stage of that the “ big thing” or may be into great business. Five players in the process, Innovation office, UBE (Unit for Bio-entrepreneurship), Karolinska Institutets Innovations AB, Karolinska Development AB and Karolinska Institutet’s Science park AB work together to advice you starting from improving the idea, predicting its future, market analysis, patenting issues and most importantly developing the contacts with various networks related to the idea. No need to mention the people who had exceled with this support, Virpi Saastamoinen who has been practicing as a nurse for 20 years and when she moved to KI in 2002 things changed. She went forward developing a novel cushion for breast-feeding complications and successfully turned in to a business.
As you might all know Stockholm is an excellent platform for entrepreneurship educational programs and also many business opportunities. Stockholm University has many programs related to entrepreneurship. Stockholm school of Entrepreneurship works along with KTH, Karolinska and etc to provide all the possibilities for students. Summer school, science to business at Karolinska Institutet gives one an excellent knowledge and source of contacts. So wake up guys..if you have got any crazy idea and if you believe the potential in it….here we go with the support from Karolinska….
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 3/3/2012 2:07:05 PM
Hey everyone
It’s been a time of hibernation from blogging since a few days; nevertheless I am back again to share my experiences. Currently I am still in Heidelberg doing my Master thesis project. This semester isn’t a formal Erasmus exchange to University of Heidelberg rather it is a case of doing masters project elsewhere and defending at Karolinska Institutet. Karolinska was lenient enough allowing the students to collect the data for their Master thesis and defend at Karolinska to get the degree. In case of some others and me, Karolinska was more flexible to allow us to do last two semesters out of Karolinska. It’s kind of them to provide us Biomedical Communication III, which is a mandatory course of the Masters in Biomedicine program on distance mode.
Last month was official end for all the Universities in Germany so as University of Heidelberg. After all I have successfully finished my courses at University of Heidelberg. When I was about to collect my transcripts, it was surprising to see the grading system in Germany. On the contrary to other grading systems, here in Germany the highest grade A is assigned with lowest grade points i.e 1-1.5 that means if you scored excellent you will be given grade A and corresponding grade point will be 1-1.5. Similarly if you fail you will be given F or Fx and grade points lie within 4.1-5.0. All the other systems I have known are in reverse order. If you get grade A you will be given highest grade point either 4 (in case of USA system) or 10 (in case of some Indian Universities). Germany as I see is known for many crazy things one can ever think off. To quote an example I have seen people biking (bicyckle) for 10-20 days to travel to various parts in Europe. Working in office with a beer in the hand is the most awesome thing I found in Germany.
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 11/27/2011 8:25:25 PM
My Exchange program at University of Heidelberg had put the Migration board in big confusion where they refused to grant me an extension to my Swedish visa. Like every one I had to wait for my Swedish visa for several months. I applied for the visa extension in June and have been waiting for visa in September. Some time in mid September I got a letter from the Migration board asking for an explanation for bulk transactions I made in my Swedish bank account which I showed for Visa extension. I had to do the bulk transactions to deal with two visa’s one is German and other one is Swedish. At this point of time I have submitted my explanation to the board explaining clearly that I will be going to Germany for exchange studies for 6 months and the bulk transactions were made for German visa. With this, the migration board came to a conclusion that I am not a student of Sweden anymore and I need not be given a Swedish visa extension. So finally I got my letter of visa rejection to Swedish embassy in Berlin in October. I got an adrenaline rush in to my nerves as soon as I saw it. I was not aware of the reason for the rejection. I didnot get it with the e-mail I got from Berlin as they can only post it to my address. I started the process of fixing this problem and called the migration board for exact reasons and I am thank full to the female with whom I spoke, she gave complete information about the rejection and also immediately sent an e mail with the reasons of rejection. There I found the exact reason, the board doesn't see me as student of Sweden of anymore because I am doing my studies in Germany at the moment. They failed to realize that the exchange program, which I do here, is part of the master studies in Sweden.
I have contacted the International coordinator and all people at Karolinska Institutet who can handle this issue . I should say that this is one of best helps I got from Karolinska Institutet. We were able to track the case officer who handled my case and discussed clearly about the scenario. I was asked to appeal against the decision with all the supporting documents stating clearly that I am still a registered student of Karolinska and my Germany program gives me credits to accredit at Karolinska. Along with this I was resubmitting the bank funding documents to make sure everything is correct. Finally I appealed to the board and not within two days I got my Swedish visa….It was a moment of relief and cheer as soon as I heard it. During this process, we came to know that all the students from Sweden who are going abroad for the exchange studies are facing the same problem and the migration board is in the process of making a policy with regards to this issue.
First of all I would like to thank all the people from Karolinska Institutet who helped me resolve this issue especially International coordinator of my program who had put all her effort in making this positive. It has been grateful effort from them in trying all possible sources to actually discuss the issue and many times to contact the migration board whenever it is necessary. Karolinska, once again proved that it could be the best in taking care of students problems.
Thanks a lot my KI !!
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 11/27/2011 6:05:16 PM
As I promised to share my Christmas market experiences in the following blogs, here I go…
Heidelberg Christmas market is my third chirtmas market to visit in my one-year of stay in Europe. Last year, twenty of our friends from Biomedicine masters program went on a cruise trip to Riga, though it was a small Christmas market in Riga its nice to enjoy it in a historical place like Riga. After waiting for a long time, finally the Christmas market was opened in Heidelberg on last Wednesday. It runs from morning 11 am to 9 pm in the night till December 22nd. Its pretty big and the markets were arranged in different places Bismarckplatz, Anatomiegarten, University Square, Kornmarkt and Market Square. All the people in my lab had planned to visit it on the first day. First most important thing to do as we enter the market is having “GluhWein” and we did it ;) The market was so much populated, as it was the first day. It’s nice to see lot of crowd. The market has wide range of shops including various jewelery items, special wool based shops from Heidelberg village side, crystal shops, crazy roller coasters and many more. Food shops are simply super. Special christmas cake known as "Christstollen" and ginger bread makes the market unique. Many steak places and bratwurst places to quench your hunger. Bratwurst is authentic German sausage pork made of meat, garlic, cumin. Apart from these, there are many different wine shops which sell home made wines.
Apart from Gluhwein, another interesting drink I have tasted is “Feuerzangenbowle”. It’s a traditional German alcoholic drink where a rum soaked sugarloaf is set on fire and dripped in to mulled wine. I should say this is simply awesome. It is generally made during Christmas period in Germany. It is also a tradition to watch the movie "Die Feuerzangenbowle" while having the drink during Christmas. The movie basically describes the significance of the drink. I have already been invited to take part in German Christmas celebrations by some of my German friends where we make the drink “Feuerzangenbowle” and watch the movie.
Unfortunately we didnot explore the market in other parts of the old town. May be we can find more interesting stuff. Keep reading the blogs for more…. :)
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 11/20/2011 6:15:27 PM
As you might have heard about the most famous Indian festival “Diwali” celebrated every year for 1-2 days on the occasion of being successful in evading the evil forces by Lord Krishna. Interestingly, since four years my Diwali celebrations have been celebrated in four different countries in different ways. Last year it was in Stockholm and this year in Heidelberg. Heidelberg being the most student populated city, one can find many Indians among including post-docs, PhD students and few master students. It’s nice to know that they have an association named “HISA” (Heidelberg Indian Student Association) connecting different groups of Indians in to one community. The organization helps the prospective students with information and other essential things to know before starting in Heidelberg. The other main function is to preserve the Indian cultural heritage despite of being away from the country. They organize many festival celebrations especially Diwali, Holi and etc. This year the fest was organized pretty late delaying one month after the actual date due to venue reasons. It was organized at “dkfz” casino and almost 200 people attended it. It is quiet common to expect Bollywood dances and performances in this fest. Not to forget our spicy food but unfortunately most of the Indians who are in the fest didn't like the food as it barely spicy and funny part is that some Non-Indians who came for fest especially for spicy food had to return home with disappointment. But I loved the mango lassi, it was so refreshing….
During the performances, a German professor from South Asian Institute of Heidelberg University had spoke to public in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and Bangla so fluently that every one was caught with an amaze. Another important aspect of the fest is that some of the American students played flute on various Indian songs and also some songs of Beatles. There was hardly an actual custom they maintained on behalf of Diwali, as there were no firecrackers, which is the first most part of Diwali celebrations. This is due to administrative reasons though. Finally there was an “Indian DJ” with a dance floor and different Indian songs played for couple of hours. Don't miss this Dj in future if you happened to attend any Indian festival. It is lot of fun especially “Punjabi balle balle” ;)
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 11/20/2011 1:47:36 PM
Hej Alla
Hope it’s not time yet to freeze your selves in Stockholm. After a long gap with my blogs, I brought some thing new for you about my Heidelberg experiences. Every year in November there will be an International film festival in Heidelberg/Mannheim region. I have no idea if other parts of the Germany have this trend, but I was lucky to see Manheim-Heidelberg film festival in Heidelberg. Almost 50 movies of various languages will be screened from 3 p. m to 12 a.m. at 3 different places in Heidelberg and Manheim. Foreign movies (other than German) are played only with German subtitles and some with both German and English subtitles. Picking one of those movies, my friends and me had been to the movie named “Chineese zum Mitnehmen” which is German name for the movie. The movie was screened at Heidelberg castle. It is a Spanish movie about a Chinese guy traveling to Argentina to find his uncle and the plot moves around the Chinese guy meeting an Argentinian and how he gets along with the Argentinean guy despite of language problems and finally finding his uncle. The movie was simply funny and hilarious especially the dialogue between the Argentinian and the Chinese guy. As a general trend of film festivals, various members of the movie crew will attend the movie when it is screened in the festival. We have seen the lead Chinese actor of the movie at the film festival after the movie had ended. For more information about film festival- http://iffmh.de/en
Though the movie started at 10: 30 p. m, we were lucky as it was not very cold that night. As we know most of the European countries serve hot wine during the time of Christmas around November and December. I have tried German hot wine named “Gluhwein” which is similar to “Gluck” which is served in Sweden. Gluhwein is equally good as Gluck except for addition of some spices in Gluck, which makes it rich in taste. I was unfortunate to catch the last bus to get home. I had to walk from castle to my place in midnight for almost 35 min. There I felt the need for a bike. Most of students in Heidelberg have a bike. That would be very convenient, especially for late night parties and movies. Besides this, every one was waiting for the famous Heidelberg Christmas market to open and finally here we can see it on Wednesday of next week. My lab members have already made a plan to visit the market next Wednesday. So be tuned for my next blog on Christmas market experiences.
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 10/29/2011 12:15:24 PM
Hej all, I know this blog is gonna be heavy for some readers but I felt worth sharing this insight…
“The longer the childhood, longer the creativity”…Babies for me are the most brilliant butterflies. They can be considered as R&D of the humanity. People think babies are not conscious at all of what they do but I believe they are the most conscious creatures in this nature. They push the limits of a certain concept or an issue by focusing on many things and can bring out maximum creativity out of nothingness. I think its nice part of learning and knowing many things to expand the awareness. Babies and children experiment when they play. They come up with numerous hypothesis for a given problem in few minutes when compared to adults who need hours, even days and that too not without 4-5 espresso’s a day ;) If you remember the Crow story of how crow quenching its thirst by filling the beaker with stones to bring out little water left at the bottom of the beaker. This is definitely creative when compared to other birds. This can be reasoned by the fact that crow’s have longer childhood than any other bird. Being adults, we focus our consciousness or attention to one single thing omitting the seemingly unnecessary things which might actually matter when one look things as a whole. On the contrary, babies cannot restrict their attention to one single thing which we think is not good, but their minds are always focusing on various things going around to learn as much as they can. During our growth, depending on our environment’s we limit our focus as per limitations put on us by parents and other people around us in the form of their opinions. This forms a belief system in us, which makes it difficult to accept many other beliefs other than our own beliefs. It’s difficult to accept the change, poping up in front of us every minute of our lives. Adults get less conscious as they grow and let there lives run by the subconscious believes and thoughts. If you can recollect in a day, we find we might have done many things without awareness. Taking an example from our daily life, while we travel in a bus how many of us is actually aware of wat’s going on around. Very rarely our focus shifts towards the conversation of the person sitting beside us. When we look at babies and small children, they focus on everything that is happening around them, they are like “an alimentary canal with no ends” wandering and being conscious every minute they are in that present moment. We the adults are always busy connecting the past and deciphering the unpredictable future completely loosing the present moment and the sad thing is that we are addicted to this neural circuit…I don know what I might have thought subconsciously while writing this blog to make you read blunders in my blog ;)
Hope you don’t need an espresso now to re read my blog ;)
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 10/25/2011 2:13:12 PM
To continue with my previous blog on Heidelberg experiences, I would like start with my Heidelberg castle experiences, with a student card one can enter inside only for 3 euro. Expecting that all explanations inside the castle would be in German, we bought an English audio guide to help ourselves to identify different sculptures and parts of the castle. The castle contain 700 yr old amphitheater, which was used for training the soldiers and also for entertainment purposes. Most interesting part I liked in the castle is the panoramic view of the old city in Heidelberg. The view including the Old Bridge is simply beautiful. The big garden in the castle is a nice place to relax and stunning for barbeques during the summer ;). The big barrel inside it is the heart of the castle. It’s believed to be biggest in the Europe. Library built during those times is still interesting to visit. Another interesting part of the castle is German Pharmacy museum, which includes all the laboratory equipment used 300 yrs ago and a collection of almost millions of the various herbal medicine used few hundred years back made me travel in time ;). Development had taken its roots since 1800’s starting with lab experiments to isolate the compounds effective towards particular disorder or disease. Bayer, the biggest pharmaceutical company has its origin in Germany. The display of various out breaking drugs like Aspirin, which had been marketed during the time of its release are amazing to watch. I feel Germany has its Excellency in the field of Pharmacy and also University of Heidelberg Medical School is rated as one of the best in world. Germany is creating an IV league system of Universities like USA where University of Heidelberg is top one among them and is fortunate enough to get all funding in different areas of research like Physics and Life sciences.
From the castle there are special trains to take you up into top of the hill, which is called “Konigsstuhl”. Standing on top of the hill and viewing the entire “Small Heidelberg city” is a super feeling. Don't miss the coffee at the restaurant located on the top of the hill. Many more to share but would like give a break to keep you waiting ;) catch you soon
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 10/16/2011 6:39:05 PM
After all I wanna write about my initial Heidelberg experiences I had till date. To start with my academic experiences, I have registered with the University as early as I got here. I got along with the University campus and learnt things like using library, registering in the courses, arranging learning agreements and obtaining transcripts and etc. In addition, the three-day orientation was very informative and fun ;) I should say that Germany is known for its paper work ;). Finally I got couple of courses like Seminar and journal club courses in cancer and molecular biology. Registering in the city was easy but extending my visa is really delaying. My temporary visa is till 29 of November and I got my appointment to extend my visa on 28of November. It sounds funny for such a long delay ;).
Besides, to share my experiences with people around in city, I heard that Germany could be bit grumpy at times if people are irritated than a certain limit. I didn experience it for some time during my initial days, but with time I found this is true. Especially with the Bus drivers, people are supposed to enter the front door of the bus after 8 pm in the night and show the ticket. But some times people make mistakes of entering through the back door, at those times bus drivers yell at passengers to enter through front door. It’s also true that Germans get bugged during the climate shifts. To cap it up, weather here was pretty unpredictable since 1 month. However it doesn’t make sense to generalize this, as its all how we look and percieve :)
Heidelberg being a biggest tourist spot of Germany, I see many tourists and also city is mostly dwelled by students. Entire city is kind of divided in to two parts, old city and new city with river separating both of them and also bridges connecting the both parts. Among those bridges, “Alte Brucke” which is considered as 2 oldest bridge in the Europe and biggest tourist spot in Heidelberg. Another major tourist spot in the city is “Heidelberg Schloss” which is Heidelberg castle. Last week I have been to the castle, which I felt nice, especially knowing the history of “German pharmacy museum” inside the castle. I will write about these experiences in my next blogs. Manheim is the nearest city to Heidelberg where they have Sweizgatan castle, which is also worth to visit. Heidelberg zoo is also a good one trying out. University main campus is located in the old city and also so many pubs, which are amazing to hang out. Most of the scientific research institutes are located in the new city. All the science courses will be handled in the new campus. My lab is also in the new campus and thanks to the Student network for allotting my room near to the lab so that I can wake up late and still go to lab on time ;) ok good bye now….catch u in my next blog :)
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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Posted: 10/12/2011 2:09:57 PM
Halo every one…being an Erasmus student at University of Heidelberg is more fun though the city being so small…one can plan entire week with party in different pubs, bars and excursions during the weekend. One of the most famous bar for students, especially for international students is Brass monkey. Any shot is just 1 Euro!!! All kinds of drinks are for lower prices and many more daily offers for students. We get to meet many international and German students from different parts of the world and also from diversified fields of study. Good part of this bar is bar attendants speak English which is quite rare in a German bar and also its because most of them are students who work inside it.
As it is known that Heidelberg has a very old bridge named “Alte Brucke”, one end of the old bridge, there is a statue of a monkey surrounded by mice. This monkey here believed to contain magical powers depending on where you rub or kiss the statue. The monkey holds a mirror and surrounded by mice. Apparently you may touch the mirror for wealth, or the outstretched fingers to ensure you return to Heidelberg, or the mice to ensure you have many children. To represent the place, may be they have established a bar around the same region in the old city of Heidelberg and named it as “Brass monkey”. Besides this, the old bridge is considered as 2nd oldest bridge in Germany.
Apart from this, old city of Heidelberg is spanned by many local bars which I found most of them had an antiquity ambience. Last week during the international mingle called “Pub Crawl”, we had a chance to try three different local pubs. The cocktails in these pubs have various crazy names named out of different places and etc. Its nice to try different flavoured beers like Cherry beer, banana beer, beer with coke (i know it sounds crazy). But they are not so bad :) People party till late nights and luckily we have night buses “moon liners” to take us home at those late times. Though the bus drivers are grumpy at those times but I would share my experiences about German people especially like bus drivers in my next blogs. For time being stay tuned :p
http://www.swedenintouch.se/Karthik-Maddi/
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