Ovesh Ayub Patel

From learner to global achiever

When Ovesh was in Grade 7, Abhyudaya came into his life like a magical door full of opportunities. His single mother, who worked as a tailor, and his younger sister were his support at home.

“Even though I was good at my studies, I never really got into any extracurricular stuff. That all changed when I started hanging out with new people at Abhyudaya on weekends and joined sessions for things like art, chess, football, and music. Not only did I pick up these skills, but I also got trained to do well in scholarship exams and actually aced a few.“

But the game-changer for Ovesh was the mentorship programme. He talks to us about two amazing people, Sai Sunil and Abhimanyu Basu.

“Sai Sir was the one who told me about IIT Bombay and how I could be a good fit for engineering. He became like family, and we’re still in touch today. While the seed planted by Sai sir inspired me to be an engineer, the actual motivation was provided by Abhimanyu bhaiya.”

Ovesh did not get very good marks in 10th grade. He was sure he could not enrol in Science in Junior College. But Abhimanyu talked him into it, boosted his confidence, and changed his mind.

“I owe him big time because I ended up getting a Bachelor’s in Engineering IT with a rank of 4, won various national hackathons, and worked for 2.5 years at Tata Consultancy Services as a Systems Engineer.”

Currently, Ovesh is doing his Master’s in Engineering, specialising in automation using AI, at McMaster University in Canada and will be joining the Royal Bank of Canada as a Data Engineer. He still chats with Abhimanyu Bhaiya about his career and life choices.

“Abhyudaya played a huge part in all these achievements, and I want to give back and help current students in the future. They’ve been like a guiding light for me, and I’m grateful for that.”