Meet Like-Minded People Online: Connecting with an Alumna

By Debesh Choudhury | Writing and Life | 17 Dec 2025

Connect with like-minded people on LinkedIn.

Connecting with people online is now common among many of us.

Whether it is LinkedIn or Facebook, people with common interests like to connect and follow their content nd activities online.

When I first joined LinkedIn in 2008, I didn't take an interest in using the connecting feature. It took a few years to start connecting with people.
First, I received connection invites, which I accepted with some hesitation.
Gradually, I started sending connection invites to like-minded people, i.e., with a common academic field of study, research, and profession.

I strongly recommend connecting with like-minded people on LinkedIn and elsewhere on cyberspace.

You can realize the positive effect after experiencing the connection.

Even reconnecting with a longtime friend on LinkedIn can make a huge impact on your current work and life

I often invite offline friends to join LinkedIn.

It is also a good option to invite people to join LinkedIn from other spaces of the networking platforms.

Some people find it awkward to join particular networking platforms. They have their reasons for not joining specific platforms.

People may have a preference for some platforms.
We can spread awareness about LinkedIn to our acquaintances and inform them of the networking power of LinkedIn.

I could bring some people from Facebook and the cryptocurrency-based content publishing platforms, such as Odysee, ReadCash, and Publish0x to LinkedIn.

Sometimes, I also meet some of my offline friends on LinkedIn

In this article, I will briefly narrate the story of how I was fortunate to reconnect with one of my offline friends online on LinkedIn after almost 20 years.

Dr. Saswatee Banerjee

I found Dr. Saswatee Banerjee, an alumna of our university, i.e., University of Calcutta, Department of Applied Physics (now Department of Applied Optics and Photonics), on LinkedIn.
In May 2025, I invited Saswatee to appear on my podcast, Learning Times Podcast, on LinkedIn. And, she kindly agreed.
Saswatee was featured on my podcast on the special inaugural section, OSI Members Speak, in May 2025.

OSI Members Speak: Dr. Sawatee Banerjee speaking to Dr. Debesh Choudhury.

It was nostalgic after chatting with a friend whom I last saw almost 20 years ago at a conference in Delhi.
I vividly remember meeting Saswatee in the winter of 2003 at the dinner evening of an international conference held on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
She came to attend the conference from Japan, where she was pursuing her second PhD under a Japanese Government Scholarship. We met there after a gap of seven years.
Now, we connected and spoke virtually after a gap of more than 20 years!

There was almost no interaction between May 2025 and the present, until she wrote me a message in December 2025.

Saswatee and I are now collaborating to host an online workshop on "Computational Photonics."

Saswatee wrote me a brief message that she and Prof. James B. Cole are willing to exercise the podcast activity once again.
I agreed immediately, and we had a rather detailed chat via Signal.
We planned to host an online mini-workshop on "Computation Photonics," a subject Prof. James B. Cole and Dr. Saswatee Banerjee are deep experts in.

The first two episodes of the online mini-workshop on "Computational Photonics" by Prof. James B. Cole and Dr. Saswatee Banerjee were live-streamed simultaneously to LinkedIn and YouTube on Dec 6 & 13, 2025, respectively.

Watch the uncut versions of the podcast episodes on YouTube or LinkedIn.

Part III of the mini-workshop on "Computational Photonics" is upcoming on LinkedIn and YouTube.

Watch out for the announcement of Part III of the workshop, which I will schedule late evening today or tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, you are invited to watch the REPLAY of other podcast episodes on my podcast, Learning Times Podcast , on the Live section of my YouTube channel.

Watch the REPLAY of all episodes on my LinkedIn event page.

<> Already posted in my LinkedIn blog.

<> Join 'The Unfluencers' LinkedIn Group.

<> Join my new LinkedIn Group, "Learning Times Education."

Sponsor this article

If you'd like to sponsor this article, please send me a direct message!

Your LinkedIn profile image and link will be displayed here and in the short post.

If you wish, the QR Code link to your profile or business may also be displayed.

------------

About me

I am a researcher who contributes to the overlapping areas of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). I am an active user and promoter of GNU/Linux, a free and open-source operating system. I also develop cybersecurity and information security solutions, especially graphical authentication security.

SUPPORT MY WRITING: If my writings inspired you, made you think, or rekindled the values of life, consider buying me a coffee. Your small gesture will help me grind more with writing.

Cheers!

Debesh Choudhury

Join me at

YouTube, Twitch, CashRain, Odysee, LinkedIn, Twitter, Publish0x, ReadCash, and Facebook.

Earn passive income by sharing unused Internet bandwidth with Grass and Honeygain.

Cover Media: A screenshot from my podcast episode with Dr. Saswatee Banerjee, overlayed with my audio.

All other images are either drawn, created, or screenshots by me or credited to the respective artists or sources.

Disclaimer: All texts are mine and original. Any similarity or resemblance to any other content is purely accidental. The article is not advice for life, career, business, or investment. Please conduct thorough research before adopting any options.

Unite and Empower Humanity.

#podcast #optics #photonics #profession #communicate #selfdevelopment #entrepreneurship #unfluence #learningtimes #debeshchoudhury

Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Podcast Webinar Photonics computational Optics

How do you rate this article?