I am Vinay Singh and I am a GNU/Linux enthusiast and a computer science teacher by profession. My hobbies include reading (mostly computer related stuff) and photography.

These days I work for two organizations viz- at Saint John’s Academy (SJA)as a ‘Computer Science Teacher’ for classes nine to twelfth. I was born in Allahabad on the first of March in the year 1979. I did my early schooling from Bal Bharti Nursery School which was later on renamed to Munshi Prem Chandra Memorial School. Later on I was admitted to Boys’ High School & College in the year 1984, I passed from B.H.S. in 1997. In the same year that is 1997, I lost my father due to which I was forced to continue my further studies through Indira Gandhi National Open University. The sudden demise of my father had a profound effect on my life —both psychologically and financially, as he was the sole earning member of the family. The exuberance of youth and dreams of future were suddenly overshadowed by responsibilities. But every cloud has a silver lining — the incident gave me practical knowledge of crises management and also showed me true colours of people around me.

I started my career at Shuchita Web Developers in 1999 as a Web developer and around the same time I also got myself enrolled for a one and a half year certificate course at MLNREC. These two concurrent roles of a developer and a student gave me a deep insight about the pace at which things move in the world of information technology. At given point of time there are a lot of competing technologies in any domain at different level of maturities; over a period of time only few of these manage to survive and by the time the academic world adapts to the change the cycle restarts.

I worked at Boys’ High School & College (BHS) as Computer Teacher from the year 2000 to 2011. It’s really difficult to express in words the experience of teaching at a place where you have studied for thirteen years — especially in those classes where I used to study when I was the student. I always tried to deliver whatever I felt I missed as a student. I have numerous fond memories of students preparing for contests and winning prizes at various events.

I used to study in class fifth when Computer Science was introduced as a subject in Boys’ High School & College (BHS). The computer at that time were quiet different from what we see today—no graphical user interface, no colour. The speed of the computer in those time was very slow compared with those we get now a days — in fact it used to be much slower than todays smart phones! But I consider myself lucky that I was introduced to this magnificent world of computers when they were so slow. It’s easier to appreciate the need to program in the correct way if one sees the incentives of properly managing the resources.

The first computer which I bought and on which I essentially learned programming was a 400 MHz, 32 MB RAM system—it’s something which my six year son Vijjwal does not want to use even for watching cartoons. These days students say what’s the point in saving a few MBs when GBs are available at out disposal—why optimize the procedures when a computer can perform them before one has a chance to blink.

Other than computer and related stuff, I like photography and going on long drives.

I would consider myself successful as teacher – If 10 years from now, when my students are doing something quick and dirty, they suddenly visualize that I am looking over their shoulders and say to themselves “Vinay Sir would not have liked this”, well, that would be enough immortality for me.

-Vinay Singh