Checking In with @waterkeepermark and Swim Drink Fish Ambassador Madhu Nagaraja
Mark is Checking In with Swim Drink Fish Ambassadors about living with social distancing. Here, Madhu Nagaraja answers Mark’s questions.
Madhu Nagaraja is a technology leader, entrepreneur, and adventurer. He is an experienced corporate leader and marathon swimmer who has taken on some of the greatest open water challenges in the world, including the English Channel, Lake Ontario and the ice mile. In 2017, Madhu became the first Canadian and first Indian to swim the Straits of Magellan. Madhu and Loren King are the founding members of Great Lakes Open Water (GLOW).
MM: How are you doing?
MN: I am doing well and most important we are all safe and hunkered down in our house.
MM: Where are you living and what are your daily routines?
MN: We live in Oakville, only 800 meters from the lake (seems far away these days). We have a busy house with a teenage son in grade 10 and a daughter in grade 5. My wife is currently the Director of Sylvan Learning and we both are not new to working from home.
We have figured out a way to juggle the kids’ needs and making sure they are fed on time and engaged. My work has always been set up to operate from anywhere and our team is distributed all over the world. At times I have a late night or early morning conference calls and the kids have gotten used to that and have learned to ignore me. I have also made it a point to take advantage of this lockdown to recover from my several athletic injuries (a wrecked shoulder, a chipped bone in my knee, etc.).
MM: What are you looking forward to most?
MN: I have a couple of MRIs scheduled and I’m looking forward to getting a proper assessment of my injuries and getting back to my training (this time it’ll be a 100-mile race in the Rockies). Most of all, I’m looking forward to hanging out with my friends in the lake just before sunrise and a post-swim coffee at our friend’s coffee place ‘Bean There’ in Oakville.
MM: Do you believe the Covid-19 crisis will leave lasting scars on our world? If so, how?
MN: Yes. It has exposed the shallow outlook of our economies, policies, leaders, etc. We need a lot more work on regulations, environmental policies, science, and technology-based decisions. Personally, I have been evaluating my own strengths and weaknesses in crisis management, dealing with uncertainty, and leadership.
MM: If you were a marine animal, what would it be?
MN: In the open water swimming world, I am referred to as ’The Great Brown Shark’ (a title earned at South End Rowing Club in San Francisco). Although, for this question, I would like to be ‘Humu humu nuku nuku apua'a’ (maybe because I’m always thinking about my swims in Hawaii).
MM: Are you currently involved in any citizen science engagement in your community? Swim Guide? Gassy? Monitoring Hub? iNaturalist? Other?
MN: I’m currently with PointChain, a start-up company involved in two breakthrough technologies. One on the regulatory side of the financial industry and the second product is involved in redefining the supply chain in waste management, recycling, and extended product recovery. Through our second product, I’m closely involved with The McGill Sustainability and Systems Initiative (MSSI). This, in turn, has given us an opportunity to collaborate with Swim Drink Fish on some critical AI work.
And, most importantly, I along with my kids have been feeding Gassy. I encourage everybody reading this to participate and help us out. Every picture you upload will help train the software.
Read more from the Checking In with @waterkeepermark series:
Tanis Rideout
Jennifer Baichwal
Joseph Boyden
Dave Bidini
Denise Donlon
Wade Davis
Loren King
Connect with us on Twitter, @LOWaterkeeper and @waterkeepermark.
