Meet Govind
I have lived in Foothill-De Anza district for 28 years. Cupertino has been our hometown for the past 27 years.
My wife and I have raised our two daughters here. Both my daughters studied at Cupertino schools. As a family, we have been engaged with local schools and with our community. We volunteered at school events and my wife served on PTA. Everyone in my family has leveraged the Foothill-De Anza district classes to fulfill some of our educational and personal learning goals. We have attended events at Flint Center.
As an active member of my undergrad alumni organization, I helped organize large alumni events and served on the National Board.
My early life
I was born in Jharia, a coal mining town in eastern India, the fifth of six siblings. I grew up in mining towns in eastern and central India. My parents encouraged us to pursue education as the means to a better livelihood.
Education turned out to be the key enabler for me. After high school, I passed a highly competitive exam and was admitted to the baccalaureate degree program in Electrical Engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. To fund my college education, I got a grant scholarship (equivalent to a Pell grant) and my aunt paid for the rest of my expenses since my father had passed away. Years later while working as an Engineer, I self-funded and got my Master’s degree in Computer Science from the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
I came twice to Milpitas in 1986 and 1987 as a CAD engineer for high-speed logic design. I came to Sunnyvale (1990) and Cupertino (1992) for software design and implementation project work.
I have lived in Cupertino ever since and became a US citizen by naturalization. My wife and I have raised our two daughters who are now pursuing higher education. I am passionate about education and have tried to instill the value of education in my kids as the means to a better life.
Community activities
Over a decade ago, a spate of development projects nearby (within a mile or so) – Apple Park, Main Street, and four more – piqued my interest in community and city planning issues. I started to dig into municipal code and state laws. For over six years now, as a grassroots community activist, I engaged with, discussed, and educated many City residents about the impact of these intense developments on services and resources of the city and school districts and related quality of life concerns.
My local involvement grew into regional concerns as I realized we must all work together to address these problems. I connected with other active community members and elected council members in nearby cities and the Peninsula region, attended and spoke at the Cities Association of Santa Clara County, and the Association of Bay Area Governments meetings. I participated in the start of West Bay Citizens’ Coalition to advocate balanced regional planning. In April 2019, I organized a successful forum on regional housing issues at Cupertino that was attended by residents from at least seven cities along the west bay from Monte Sereno to Palo Alto. The panel comprised of elected council members from Cupertino, Palo Alto, Pleasanton, and Sunnyvale and founder of livable California, Susan Kirsch.
My experience working with and bringing people together from different cities and the key role our community colleges play in fulfilling the educational, professional, and personal learning needs of people of all ages and all backgrounds have led me to become involved in our Foothill De-Anza community college district’s present and future direction.
Goals
Student success
- Review and improve student outcomes
- Measure effectiveness to improve the delivery of education
- Build a remote tutoring network and enable greater interaction
- Improve services to address pandemic specific issues
Transparency & Accountability
- Stream and provide online access to video archive of public meetings
- Rotate the location of board meetings to give the public more opportunity to engage
- Maximize ROI for the recently approved $898M bond
- Align district resources to the mission of student success; enhance community engagement
Match programs & Industry needs
- Match programs and courses to the evolving needs of the industry
- Build partnerships to reduce the cost of new programs and courses
- Work with employers on program content and job training
- Improve industry liaison
Build community support
- Allow community access to facilities in a safe manner
- Provide a community-centered performing arts facility
- Increase community engagement using Community days at both campuses
- Budget and enrollment roadshows
- Engage with and represent the needs of our diverse community
“Govind has the technical, engineering, and problem-solving skills that we desperately need for our colleges to deliver the best education possible now and into the future”.
Danessa Techmanski
Endorsements
Your endorsement is very important to me and critical to the undecided voters…
I am running as a grassroots candidate to represent you on the Foothill De-Anza community college district Board. The main point of my campaign is to make community college education work for high school students and students of all ages to help them with their educational, professional, and personal learning goals.
