Taking Pride in One's work

When I was in ISRO, I thought making satellites was greatest thing and no one in India was doing as great work as I was. When moved away of ISRO, came to know there was whole lot of world out there, doing small or big -- contributing to the country and taking pride in that achievement. I was humbled.

I was elated to see the picture of earth from Satellite camera, whose electronics I had designed (apparently after 3-4 years of work). Eventhough I take pride to see the output of my first work at ISRO -- it is more of souvenir now. When I look back the work/process, I feel -- o sh**, it could have been done so smartly, without spending so much money and effort and more importantly could have done better end product considering the whole eco system in place.

The Camera I designed had resolution of 1km (for Geosyn. sat) and was done to beat then existing camera with 2km resolution (designed by another group), where as end user had capacity to handle only 8 km resolution !!! It was just a dry pride and hardly used on ground even today.

After coming out of ISRO, I learnt importance of creating a piece of product making a better eco system, rather than a standalone great piece. Somewhere we Indian (not just folks in govt labs) lack that attitude