From Chemical Engineer to Catalyst for Change: Neeraj’s Courageous Path in Indian Education

Neeraj Doddamane is the Chief Strategy Officer at ShikshaLokam, an NGO dedicated to empowering leadership development in India’s K-12 education sector. At ShikshaLokam, Neeraj spearheads the organization’s growth strategies and manages its national programs and major strategic initiatives, coordinating across multiple teams. Under his leadership, over 570,000 leaders have launched upwards of 389,000 projects aimed at improving educational environments for students.

Neeraj is currently furthering his expertise by pursuing a postgraduate degree in Organizational Leadership at the Saïd Business School.

Before joining ShikshaLokam, Neeraj was a Teach For India fellow and provided strategic consultancy to various nascent non-profits. Since 2018, he has been an active member of the Global Shapers Community, where he leads educational initiatives at the Bengaluru Hub.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

Let’s stay in touch:

• Follow us on Instagram @crossroadsapologetics
• Email us at info@crossroadsapologetics.org
• Visit our website www.crossroadsapologetics.org

See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Intro:
Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out in courage and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now, your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson. 

Jeff Johnson:
Hey, everybody, this is Jeff. Welcome to the Courageous Crossroads podcast. Today, I’m thrilled to introduce a very special guest, my friend Niraj from India. He’s an esteemed educator with a wealth of knowledge and experience, and you’re really going to appreciate his backstory on experience and how he came to be the educator that he is, as well as his take on courage. And, you know, I met Neeraj during that transformative year last year at Oxford University, and I can personally attest to the richness that comes from being immersed in people that have diverse cultural backgrounds and bring different perspectives to all sorts of topics, but especially the topic of courage. So in today’s episode, we’re going to dive into what courage looks like from his unique perspective. And our discussion at Oxford was eye opening, for sure. 

Jeff Johnson:
I learned a lot about Niraj, about the challenges and triumphs of educational leadership india. So join us today as we uncover layers of bravery and resilience that define courage from around the globe. So here is Neeraj. Welcome, everybody, to the Courageous Crossroads. I’ve got my friend Neeraj with me, and he is located india. Is that true? Are you india right now? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Yes, Bangalore, India. 

Jeff Johnson:
And is that north, south, east, west? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
This is southern India. It’s part of a state called Karnataka, and Bengaluru is the capital of Karnataka, and it’s considered the Silicon Valley of India. 

Jeff Johnson:
And is that your industry? Are you involved in tech or what’s your tell me? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Not at all. In fact, I pursued chemical engineering as part of my bachelor’s program here after schooling. And then I immediately realized that it didn’t seem like engineering and everything around engineering didn’t make sense. And then I immediately jumped from, you know, that science and that whole core background to education. I like the idea of seeing how creative a school can get in a context like India, and I wanted to explore that. So immediately the last year of my engineering program, I jumped into public education in the country, so completely away from Silicon City. But there are certain elements of technology for scale, that I do right now. So in some, I’m a distant cousin to Bangalore’s Silicon Valley family. 

Jeff Johnson:
Okay, so you and I met in Oxford doing a class on organizational leadership in 2020. Three, which was wonderful. And we had 56. I think that’s the right number, 56 people in our cohort. So you and I didn’t get nearly enough time. So I want to learn a little bit more about you, Niraj. So could you tell us about your number one about your family and then a little bit more about your business? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Absolutely. So like I mentioned, Jeff, I am from Bangalore, India. My parents are again from Karnataka, the state that I talked to you about. So again, in a typical Indian household, it is a middle class setting. You know, a lot of struggle, especially from my father’s side, finding job, figuring education very early on. He’s 67 right now. Eventually he got into the defense sector in the country. So he started working for the government in a defense research lab that used to build the fighter aircraft for India. And then he was part of the accounts and the finance team in that organization. And that’s how we landed up in Bangalore. I did my early schooling in Bangalore, did all of my education here. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And because of that government background, I also got into a, a central government school here that was dedicated for everyone who’s coming from defense background research. Right. And first to K12. In fact, entire of my education was in this setting. So very diverse set of students. We had everyone from high ranking air force, army official, children from their families to, you know, children from the house health of these families as well. So it was economically, socially extremely diverse. At least the school setting I also lived in that defense colony, so we had a lot of community gatherings happening there. So all of my schooling was in that context. So a lot of, in fact all of my upbringing was in that defense government diversity focused background. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And eventually from there, like I mentioned, got into engineering because for the longest time india, it seemed like the only two logical career paths were either you become a doctor or you become an engineer. And engineering was a lot more accessible because you had more, you know, seats in colleges. You had more options to think about careers there. Dr. Also meant a lot of time, a lot of money being spent. So we, these are the only two options. So like anyone else, especially my 11th grade and 12th grade, spent a lot of time thinking about either getting initial thought obviously was to become a doctor, but soon enough realized that obviously didn’t have the money. Second, it didn’t logically seem like I could get into it. So I landed up in a, a local engineering college in Bengaluru doing chemical engineering. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
The only simple premise, because I love chemistry and I assume that chemistry and chemical Engineering will have some connect. Little did I know that they’re significantly far off in the way they connected. And eventually from there, again, like I mentioned, realize that maybe engineering is not my cup of tea. And school seemed to be an extremely creative space that I thought I should definitely get into. And last year of my engineering, I got into a fellowship program india called Teach for India, which again was a fellowship program. Very simply put, it would place young undergraduate students into public schools, government schools in the country, and place them there as a teacher for two years. And you would really carve apart path or to that whole nature. Right. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
So again, jumped into that immediately after engineering spent two years being a grade six and grade seven teacher, adolescent, bunch of 60, 70 kids. Wow. And then that’s how I got into education. And eventually from there I became part of a nonprofit called Shiksha Lokum. Literal translation, it’s a Sanskrit word, and when you translate it to English, it means the world of knowledge. And for the last five years, I’ve been with Shiksha Lokum. I currently work as the chief strategy officer here, overlooking the entire organization’s growth and strategy as a core function. And primarily the idea is to say, how do we transform the public schools in the country? India has 1.35 million schools, and out of which over a million of them are public schools. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wow. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And most of them are either understaffed, lack resources. You know, there exists significant development opportunities in the schools. So the whole idea has been to say, how do we transform these public schools to great centers of learning and the key lever being leadership itself. You know, how. For me, it was also that as a fit when I got into the program, saying as much as it’s about my organization, leadership skills, I’m also functioning and working on building more leaders who can do this for public schools. So at the core, I work on education leadership as a mission, public schools india, as a, as a lever of change. And it’s been seven years since I got into this immediately after engineering. 

Jeff Johnson:
What’s the. This is wonderful background, Neeraj. Thank you for that. What, what’s the breakdown of public schools versus private schools india? Is it significant? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Significant? Yes. I think even before that, if you look at India, two things really come at play. Right. One, obviously, the scale of how big a country like us is, and not just in terms of geographical landmass, but also in terms of population itself. And second, added to that is immense diversity. Every 3km, 4km you drive india, there’s a chance that the language changes. There’s a chance that cultural context, everything from food habits, social structures, they all evolve. And because of, you know, a nature like that, education becomes that much more complex. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah, I could see that. Right. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Because you cannot dictate one form of learning across because when you’re thinking of such, you know, indigenous form of learning, very connected form of learning, you have to really cater to such variety of people. Added to all of this obviously is a lot of migration within the country for jobs. So you might not necessarily have the same set of speaking people within the geography. Right. You might have a lot of migrant population who would have come settled there for a long period of time. So there are all of these complexities that come into how education gets catered to. And by nature of that, I think the way education, especially the K12 has been structured are in three formats. One is your government schools. And when I say government schools are public schools, which is over 1 million schools. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And by the nature that these are free, accessible, almost completely served by the government, they often become the place where the underprivileged and people with lesser economy really going to. 

Jeff Johnson:
Right. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And so obviously it’s hundreds of millions of children who go into government schools. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Second, for the longest time, because of how the government schools were functioning, a lot of affordable private schools started to emerge saying that, you know, we’re not the high end, extremely rich, aspirational schools, but still better than a government school. So these are schools that might have significant but doable amount of money to PS fees heavily relied on the fact that India had a huge inclination to teach English. So they went on full front saying that, you know, we are a school which can teach your children how to learn and speak and, you know, better at English because obviously that became such a job focused opportunity there. So the second section is all of these affordable private schools which again is a big population of children going into them. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And third, obviously are your higher end, you know, very great, you know, brilliant schools, international schools, you know, schools that the elite, the upper middle class that could really go into and that again caters to a certain population of children fairly well done, fairly well in terms of infrastructure, instructions, teachers. So that’s the typical, you know. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
How education here is it a. 

Jeff Johnson:
Is it an expectation that all children go to school india? I mean, is that an understood thing? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Yes, because I think all of our challenges obviously have come because of our colonial experience. I think. Yeah, by the nature of we’ve had it. There’s this whole History of how India was one of the most aspirational education centers in the country, in the world, in fact, you know, thousands of years ago, even just before the British had come, we had a very famous institute called Nalanda, which was supposed to be thousands of years old. Everyone across the world came to learn in a center like this. So that is how amazing education india really was. And our colonial experience obviously destroyed a lot of it. So we had to reimagine the entire education in the last 80 years. But what has also happened significantly, well, is because of policy mandates, because of the way Constitution talks about education. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
It is a requirement that everyone studies. It is a basic right that everyone studies. And therefore the government also has a responsibility offering quality education completely, no cost. 

Jeff Johnson:
So everybody’s going, well, there. Okay, there’s a couple of things, Neeraj. Number one is just for calibration sake, this is what I found so interesting about navigating the Oxford program. It was the different cultures and the backgrounds and where everybody was from because it really opened up your mind about how different people see things, similar topics in a different way. And anyway, it was just exceptional. But you talk about diversity. You’re using the word diversity quite a bit. And here, where I’m from, at least this is how I interpret it. Mainly it’s gender and race. That’s it. But when you talk about diversity india, you’re talking about these cultural societal differences that are like you’ve mentioned, 4km apart. You travel down the road and you’ve got a different language and you got a different background and different, that sort of thing. 

Jeff Johnson:
So how many, I mean, how many different cultures, ethnicities, societal differences are there? And I mean, is it really diverse? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
I keep, I think this is a very controversial statement that I would do. But it’s, it’s surprising how India functions as one country. The reason why I say that is again, going back in history, if you would see, were never one nation. We were multiple kingdoms that engaged together in a larger idea called India. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And that eventually kind of came together. So again, we are, I think, perhaps the most diverse geography context in the world. Registered languages, as per the government rules, are 20 plus. 

Jeff Johnson:
But 20 plus languages. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Yeah. But if you go across and really go back and see, you might have at least 500 to 600 languages in the country. 

Jeff Johnson:
Oh my. Do you speak more than one language? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
I can speak two here. I can speak Canada in Hindi. I can understand a few other languages. Tamil, Malayalam, parts of Marathi, parts of Telugu. These are all languages that we have when again right. One obviously are the state recognized languages but were also, and we still are home to multiple tribes and indigenous communities who all speak their own context. And, and language is just one layer of that. It is the most visible form of cultural difference. But the minute you go below that you’re thinking about how people think about food, how people think about idea of education, you know, the relationship in nature as a construct, their ability to think about whether it’s patriarchal, whether it’s matriarchal society. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
A lot of these differences come at play when the minute you start peeling off the leaves or saying that obviously there is language diversity but beneath that is so many of this socio economic construct that comes at play and it’s a combination of all this. 

Jeff Johnson:
When I, I drive a pickup truck, when I drive my pickup truck to the gas station and I’m going to fill it up on the screen, one of the first prompts that I have is do I want this language in English or Espanol or Spanish? I mean I’ve got those two questions here and that’s changed dramatically. I mean that didn’t used to be the case 30 years ago. You know, now we’ve got all of this kind of stuff going on. Well, just the one language, I shouldn’t say all this stuff I can’t imagine india where you’ve got 20 different ones and that would be a really difficult thing to, or challenging thing to consider in education where you’ve got so many different students with so many different backgrounds, let alone languages, to be able to teach them the same curriculum. Yeah, that’s interesting Niraj. 

Jeff Johnson:
So is Shikshalokum, is that how many students are under the Shikshalokum purview? How many students do you touch? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Yeah, so I’ll give you one black and white answer and then give you context of why that doesn’t necessarily fit in this. Right, two. To date we believe that we would have reached over 40 million children. And the reason how I say this and this is where the grayness comes to this. 

Jeff Johnson:
Did you say 144404040 million. Okay. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Yeah. And the context is very simple. 

Jeff Johnson:
Right. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
When we, and here is maybe a bit of how we started thinking about education india and how to also think about scale and diversity as two key pillars. We eventually realized that as much as governments and top down approach functions for a lot of these things, context matters and contextual leaders matter more than anywhere else. Right. A school And a leader in a school is the best decision maker for the children that come to that place. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And I think early on, we realized the simple logic saying that no matter how much we think about having big policy shifts and having big, you know, programs run by the government, end of the day, it is about whether a school principal, a parent, or even, for that matter, a student in a school setting that might cater to 300 to 400 children take up the act of leading. And. And that’s where the crux of our work really began. Saying that if we are talking about 1 million such schools across the country, each of these schools will have two to three such adult educators. You know, it could obviously be a formal principal who might be designated to run that school. A lot of our government schools don’t have. There’s a huge vacancy issue. So a lot of these schools don’t even have a leader. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
But you obviously have a senior teacher who might have said, you know what? Apart from teaching, I will also ensure that the school performs well. Well, and in multiple places, you have community leaders, parents taking up this role. And we said, the true movement in education can happen if we are able to work with these leaders and build their capacity to change their context. And that became the mission when we started in 2017, saying that if we have to address the scale of India, the diversity of India, it is about enabling all these grassroots leaders in these schools to get better at the job. So our work since 2017 has been to say, imagine a pool of around 4 million such leaders in the country. A simple math. Saying. Every. Every school that you take, think of an average of three such. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Three such adult educators, or the aspiration that you will have three such adults who might be wanting to work on the school itself. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Can we work to ensure that they are improving that school on an everyday basis? That’s been the crux of the work. So we don’t work directly with children like a lot of nonprofits and foundations do. We said, can we work with governments? Can we work with a huge network of nonprofits that are grassroots in nature in this country, and through all of them, build leadership in schools. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And the simple wisdom saying that if we are able to work with leaders, they know what needs to be done in their school setting. We are no one to speak about this. 

Jeff Johnson:
So you’re touching. Right. So you’re touching all those students because of the work that you’re doing pouring into those leaders at the individual school. So that makes perfect sense. And 40 million is a wonderful number. Niraj. Congratulations on that. That’s wonderful. Okay, so the. The point of this podcast is to get down to the question, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? Before I ask you that, I just want to ask you a couple questions, just to calibrate you on the topic or calibrate you for our audience on the topic of courage. So here’s somebody growing up in the Silicon Valley of India who sees two paths, either a doctor, an engineer. Those are the two courses that I’ve got to go through. I go through the engineering course curriculum, and I realize that’s not for me. 

Jeff Johnson:
So I change that, and I take advantage of this Teach for India program and I move into the education sector. And now you’re doing what you’re doing, which is giving back to so many of these different leaders and via them, so many of these different students india. I already sense a whole lot of courage in. What do I want to say? Kind of bucking the system or charting your own path, that sort of thing. So when you think of and which must have taken a ton of courage. Neeraj. So when you think of the term courage, what comes to mind? How would you define that? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Very interesting. I think of two definitions, and I stick to the latter one. One, I think for the longest time, I. My image of courage was someone who can be rebellious, take that fashionable choice and make it out there evident in front of everyone, right? But the second, which I think has become much more of an understanding now, is the ability of having taken and accepting the smaller sacrifices that you would do consistently over a period of time while keeping a big mission in mind for a longer picture. Right? And when I say this, I. I reflect back on my own short but brief, short but impactful career trajectory itself. The fact that I’m aware of certain sacrifices, certain acceptance that I’ve made about how I. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
How I live, how I think about things, but all with a consistent vision in mind that I know where I might eventually head in the next few years. I think, I think for me, comes there. It is about that acceptance and that consistency. Consistency to be part of a big picture. And the reason why I realized this is at times I feel that it is easy to consistently take out their rebellious choices and assume that, you know, their acts of. Acts of change. But I think over the years, I’ve seen so many people the ability to stick through, the ability to be at it for a long period of time, the ability to have something aspirational and big in their mind consistently and somehow stick through all of these things for a duration of time is where I see courage. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
So it’s almost that old school definition of how people have done some great things. 

Jeff Johnson:
So courage is absolutely related to endurance and perseverance in your mind, really staying with it when everything else have you do you have people in your life that embody that. Are there people that you respect and you look up to? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Yes. I mean obviously starting from home, my parents, my grandmom obviously are immediate reference point when I see how they’ve been at things, done great in the context that they have been, but definitely in the. I think one great aspect of having been in education sector india is the people itself. You know, you see so many incredible social entrepreneurs, philanthropists who have had an amazing journey and they’ve shown what it means to stick through things and I’ve learned only through them. I think more than anything else it’s been being around them, hearing them speak, asking them questions, co creating multiple ideas with them. And I’ve seen that especially in the sector because I think multiple people have come with this thought of saying that let’s do something big and many of them have achieved this. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
In fact again the foundation that I’m part of is again run and enabled by a philanthropist who in fact set up one of the biggest Indian tech firms called Infosys. And having seen his journey over the many decades, one obviously to set up Infosys and how an institution like that caters to lacks of employees today really work. But eventually also seeing the way he has thought about philanthropy, he has thought about systemic work. So, and there are many such people and like I mentioned, I think it’s been the greatest gift that the sector has given me are the people and their journeys because there’s so much to learn from it. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wow. How does faith play into courage, your understanding of courage? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Somewhere down the line I, I feel like they are the same. The simple like I mentioned that faith ultimately is whether do you believe in something and you stick through it no matter what might be at it. And again I, I do not want to claim that I have gone through a roller coaster in the maximum sense of that. Right. I, I feel like it’s been too brief to say that I have seen great and crazy hurdles, but I do believe in the power of having to believe in something. And somewhere down the line I feel like no matter what may come eventually in the years I, I may still steer through and get things going. So in some way I feel faith and courage are the same. It’s just about sticking through and ensuring that you move and thrive on an everyday basis. 

Jeff Johnson:
Yeah, I hear that loud and clear. I think that’s a great way to define it because something’s got to keep you on the path. You know, if you’ve got a vision and you can see that there’s something good here, something’s got to stick you to that path so that you don’t waver along the way when there’s a lot of opportunities to do that, I would imagine. That’s great. Well, Niraj, let’s come to the question. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Oh, actually two things. One obviously is that jump from engineering to this itself, Right. I think that is obviously the most apparent in my head. The fact that I chose to move from there and continue to move from there obviously is the first big courageous step. The second, I definitely think is having stuck through in the last seven or eight or years. Right. I mean, one is the movement. And obviously I feel like transitions are easy, but what happens post transition and the sustenance in that transition obviously is for me a big, I think in my head a big courageous act. And third, I think I am at a place where I have a, a role, I have an opportunity to shape how an organization functions. And I do believe it has come at a fairly, in my head, a fairly young age. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
And the, the ability to think about India as a scale and the possibility of saying that I can work and think about solving or contributing to an India scale challenge for me is a constant act of excitement. You know, there’s that more than courage. I’m, I think there’s a lot more, like I mentioned, a lot more excitement, a lot of aspiration of that. Right. I think where I am right now is I feel like this is a very courageous mission and in some capacity I’m leading it in some to an extent contributing to an extent. So for me it is those three big things, right? One is the transition, but that’s the smallest step. Sustaining obviously has been an act of courage. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
But having that laser sharp focus of saying it has to be something that matters at scale, it has to be something that is core. It has to be about leadership and it has to be about getting people together consistently no matter what. I think these are three things that I think are, I mean, for me at least I can associate them with the idea of culture. 

Jeff Johnson:
See, this is a great answer to the question because you’re talking about the third thing you’re talking about, it’s going on right now. You’re right in the middle of it right now. And. And you defined courage and associated it very much with perseverance and endurance. And so you’re talking about the process that you’re going through right now. So which, yeah, I think that’s fantastic. The second thing that you mentioned, the transition and then the sustaining bit. You said that transitions are easy. It’s the. After the transition and sticking with it is the. Which is the hard part, which is again, consistent with your definition of courage. I think a lot of people would say that the transitions are difficult, that initial step to go, okay, I’m going to change direction. 

Jeff Johnson:
So I’m fascinated that you said that’s the easy thing, it’s the sticking with it. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that’s wonderful. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
I mean, one, I do think it’s contextual and subjective. But the reason why, at least in my personal experience, I realized the reason why I say that is in my mind, anyone who’s been working hard and has a sense of what needs to be done, opportunities do come in front of them. So grabbing opportunities is obviously one task which I feel is still an easy option. It’s just about choosing, which. I get it. But obviously, like I mentioned, that it is end of the day about meaning making in every single role that you are in. And that can get daunting and that can get exciting, and that can get challenging. So at least to what I mean. 

Jeff Johnson:
Making, meaning making in every single role that you’re in. That’s well put. Sorry, go ahead. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Yeah, I think that’s the point. And for me, I think that’s where your multiple parameters come into play. Right? The parameter of time, the parameter of patience, the parameter of a certain approach, and you align with a certain approach. All of these, you have multiple considerations to think about when to sustain as compared to when to transition. So at least in my mind, I feel like you have many things to keep in mind when you decide how to sustain, thrive, and make meaning out of things as compared to saying, you know, I will probably think of a transition. So it is a, it’s the complexity that makes it courageous in context of sticking through things. 

Jeff Johnson:
I get it. I totally get it. Okay, so you’re right in the middle of a courageous act. You talked about the third most courageous thing you’ve ever done is the thing that’s going on right now, the opportunity to shape an organization to go out and do good and create these wonderful leaders in the education world. So what does near edge look like in five years, 10 years down the road? How has this courage played itself out then? What is the, what’s the byproduct of courage from your perspective? 

Neeraj Doddamane:
I don’t think I thought this through. 

Jeff Johnson:
But that might be a tough question to ask, but I’m asking it. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
I’ll maybe split this into two parts. Right. One is from where, from what I do today. I hope that eventually, at least in the education space, the job of a leader gets the respect that it needs. I see public schools thriving, becoming great centers of excellence. And if I do see a generation after me coming, I have the utmost confidence to send them to public schools. I think that’s the litmus test to really say whether the work that I do with the mission has some value or not. Right. So that’s the tactical bit of it when I say, what do I see happening in the mission in the next five, ten years? Of sorts. Right. Personally, I do hope I. I become more wise. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
I have enough understanding of our country like India really works and what it can offer to the larger global context. I hope I become a better orchestrator of things. And when I say orchestrator, the ability to bring people together. So I hope that very specific skill set really gets trending and, you know, there’s a network that comes to, comes at play. When I think of what I would have done in the next few years and obviously have a lot of stories to tell. I think that’s something that I want to see myself doing five, ten years from now. 

Jeff Johnson:
That’s wonderful to have that kind of impact and as a result have a bunch of stories to tell. In your eyes. That’s fantastic. Well, I’m so grateful to have you on the program today. So grateful to hear your ideas and concepts around the topic of courage. And I’m a better man for knowing you near Ash. And I sure hope our paths cross again sometime in the future. Maybe we’ll have to meet up at Oxford sometime. Well, we got a graduation coming up in July, so we’ll get to meet there. 

Neeraj Doddamane:
Thank you so much. I think this was wonderful. And again, I think the idea of talking about courage and just having this conversation and reflecting back again, for me it’s also a space to reflect and think about how the last few years have been. So again, thank you for creating this space and considering me to be part of something. 

Outro:
Thank you for joining us today. On Courageous. If you’d like to hear more about the work and ministry being done at Crossroads Apologetics, please visit our home on the web at crossroadsapologetics.org Would you or someone you know like to be featured on Courageous? Send us an email at info@crossroadsapologetics.com or info@crossroadsapologetics.org telling us about the most courageous thing you’ve ever done.