8th Semester Entrepreneurs

The story of dotCORD IT Solutions. Full story here.

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He trains India's poorest students for the IIT

From Rediff.com: Read full article here. His father, a post office clerk in Bihar, couldn't afford private schooling for his children. So, Anand Kumar studied at a Hindi medium government school where, at an early age, he fell in love with mathematics. During graduation, he submitted papers on Numbers Theory that were published in UK's Mathematical Spectrum and The Mathematical Gazette.... (Read full article here.)

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Process of transformation.

Image Credit: CareerDevelopmentPlan.net

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Launching LinkedIn From a Living Room

The founder of Linkedin opens up in an interview here. From 350 personal invites to 4500 within one month, and 50 million users today, this is a story to read! Click here.

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"How do you manage business objectives and social objectives?"

HEC Social Business Conference: Our Decision Today, Our Impact Tomorrow
Keynote speaker: Emmanuel Faber, Co-Chief Operating Officer, DANONE.

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Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of 'SixthSense' technology

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A 'green' entrepreneur's success story

It has been 25 years of entrepreneurship for Pramod Chaudhari. A successful entrepreneur, he describes his experience as an exciting journey full of ups and downs. Read the complete story here.

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Engineering with a Cause – Chewang Norphel, Ladakh

Meet Chaweng Norphel – better known as the Glacier Man of India, who has developed a simple technique to harvest water into an “Artificial Glacier” using simplest of locally found materials and pipes. Norphel has made seven such glaciers. One artificial glacier costs just $7,000, compared to $34,000 for a cement water reservoir! Read on..

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CleanTech Flight - First Flight Takes Off on Kerosene from Natural Gas

A Qatar Airways flight from London to Qatar has become the first passenger plane to be powered by cleaner-burning natural gas that was converted to kerosene. Click here.

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Google on What is a Browser

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Reasons Why Change Fails

This is a 2007 article from 'Be Excellent ® ' blog. Link for the original article: here. I suggest you visit the 'Be Excellent® - The Official Six Disciplines® Blog', and see some superb articles on strategy.

Quoting the 'Be Excellent ® ' blog:

Reasons Why Change Fails

It isn't inadequate processes, strategy or technology that lead so many organizational change programs to run into the sand.

The main reasons for failed change are all about people. 

Management-Issues reports that a study from Deloitte Consulting suggests that change programs need to tackle issues in an integrated and focused way and, in particular, look at the people issues facing the business before, during and after the program.

The research has come as a conference of 165 HR directors organized by PricewaterhouseCoopers has separately predicted that a growing focus on people issues means there will be a chief of human resources on the board of most organizations by 2015.

According to the research, there are eight key people-related areas companies need to be addressing:

1. People risk and impact management
2. Leadership alignment and stakeholder engagement
3. Communications
4. Culture
5. Organizational design and governance
6. Talent requirements and HR programs
7. Workforce transition
8. Learning and capability transfer

BOTTOMLINE: "Companies don't transform themselves just for fun, but to stay competitive, innovative, and operationally effective."

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Action or Omission: Triumph of the entrepreneurial spirit

You really cannot judge events in life till quite some time has flown by, and you realize what has been achieved compared to how much could-have been. In a recent reading of the "LESSONS FROM THE POOR: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit", (edited by Alvaro Vargas Llosa and foreword by James D. Gwartney), I could see the mind boggling story of how extreme poverty can be mutated into abundance by the entrepreneurial efforts of the people of Nigeria. To quote the book,

Half the people in the world live on two dollars or less per day and roughly 600 million live on no more than one dollar per day. With thousands of international relief organizations, strategic government programs, and billions of dollars in foreign aid, why do so many underdeveloped countries remain unable to grow their economies beyond mere survival?

Many a times, you may have heard the phrase, 'change is unavoidable'. But, I feel, progress is something that is in our hands. Change and progress differ in the direction they lead us. And in this context, it is important to remember the mantra, that 'entrepreneurial spirit is the best catalyst for progress (not just change)'.

Folks, mostly women, have used their entrepreneurial efforts in creating wealth, without no governmental wealth. Why I titled this post as 'Action or Omission..' is primarily because of the attitude of the government towards these workers and they have proved that in either case, an entrepreneur can succeed. In stead of helping, the policies of the government have at times been road-blocks to their progress, but it seems these measures have failed to deter anyone in the long run.

Indigo dyeing has been an old industry and more of a culture amongst the residents than a source of earning.

How many cultural aspects can you think which can become commercial venture, able enough to wipe-out poverty and create wealth as an alternative to redistributing wealth? Have a read.. 'Lessons from the Poor'.

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Paul Graham at Startup School '08

Paul Graham, founder of YCombinator, speaks at Startup School 08 about how to create a successful startup.

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BS - Indian Slums - a Research

Unlike the general impression, slums in major Indian cities not only represent complex political and social issues, but also generate a lot of local economic activities, a latest research by the prestigious Stanford Graduate School of Business has said.

"Indian slums are incredibly productive.. (Read Full Article on Business Standard).

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WSJ - Why Companies See Bright Prospects in Rural India

In late May, when India's GDP numbers were released, many were happily surprised. In the fourth quarter of the fiscal year (January-March 2009), the economy grew 5.8% against expectations of less than 5%. For the year, growth was 6.7%, less than the 9% recorded in 2007-2008, but still very (Read Full Article).

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Clean Tech - SSB Aug 09

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My post on the Headstart Network Blog

The August edition of Startup Saturday showcased two of the finest efforts in the domain of clean tech. While the term clean tech is in a lot of discussion, these days, there are a number of concepts that need clarifications, and when it comes to start-ups in clean tech, SSB is always at the forefront with its showcase! In fact, we had rush not just in nominations, but also amongst speakers and the demos in Lightning Pitches - we had more than we could accomodate and till the last minute, this kept us on our toes! So finally, NextGen PMS and AutoBoxx Automation were the ones that comprised the main demos and we had a number of speakers that made us decide about having a panel discussion. The concept of a panel discussion during an SS event was one of the two 'firsts' that we had  - the second one being mentioned next.

One of the newest feather in our cap was the concept of live streaming of the event, thanks to mobisy.com. The idea sprung up from the fact that we needed online videos of the event for archiving and streaming over the Net. In fact, our media partners have always been interested in having a copy of the part they have sponsored and live streaming really served this purpose.

Since this was an experimental effort this time, we have further efforts to improve the quality, lighting, timing and other related aspects of the video. View videos

­The way the volunteers have been supported by the people who attend SSB events was so clear when we faced a hitch in the mobile camera used for live streaming (it's battery went off!) and immediately, one of the members of the audience offered his phone's battery to continue the recording. Thanks to this spirit that SSB events have been so successful in Bangalore.

         

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­ NextGen PMS are involved in the entire green chain, and are involved in estimating carbon waste footprints, and providing energy and emission efficiency measures and implementation plan. It was really a crisp presentation and Abhishek, who is the co-founder of the startup, interacted very well with the audience. He seemed to present a number of complicated topics in a very simplified manner to the group.

Think about managing energy in offices and houses and you got to talk to Ramandeep from Autoboxx Automation. They are not just into this but also in monitoring and tracking of company personnel, outsourced vendors as wel as customers. Their clientele includes banks retailers and telecom companies.

InOutAds was the first one to come up for the Lightning Pitches and went to showcase their approach towards connecting the folks who have places to advertise with the folks who have things to advertise. This was followed by Narahari from Presiding Tech India (They are primarily into Carbon credit and related activities), and Freeman who talked about the iAccelerator program at IIMA. Alleway Info talked about grooming the students entering the job market, and how they are not a placement agency but a source of well qualified and more than normal freshers in to the industry. Daniel from Daniel Power Systems was on stage with his wife and 3 month old kid and showcased his efforts at minimizing power thefts from the supply lines (not from homes) and at optimizing smart grids (without the hassles of having expensive smart switches at home/grids). MASH from IIMB presented the Marketing club efforts by the students and how they are coming up with innovative methods to reach more relevant people. They also mentioned briefly about the upcoming events at IIMB during the networking sessions.

The panel discussion was a very warm one with biggies like Vasudev Avdhani from the Tata Group,  Karthee Madaswamy from Qualcomm Ventures, Elmar Stroomer and Pradeep from Enviu, and Shashidhara K from Blueray Solar joining together with the audience to understand deeper aspects of opportunities in Clean Tech in India, and part of the discussion involved topics such as solar power, rechargeable dance floor, and hybrid autorickshaw project in India.

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­ We had a new concept of categorized business card collection and folks dropped their cards in to boxes with different labels such as web services, product based startups and so on. We also had a graffitti board up during the networking session for people to put in their thoughts about Startup Saturday events! Bangalore Mirror and StartupNews.in were present amongst the audience and did an excellent job of interacting with the audience. The audience enthu was brimming, and was visible during the networking session!

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India's smallest satellite - TOI

Brief from TOI: BANGALORE: These engineering students are in no hurry to have fun after classes. They linger in the labs instead of accepting campus placements. They are on a mission possible: they are busy building the smallest satellite for their country at the Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Bangalore. Full Story

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10 Technologies Transforming Sports - Discovery Channel

By Amy Grossman (Click here for full story)

Brief: Nowadays, it's hard to tell the jocks from the geeks. Athletes capitalize on advances from engineering, material science, biomechanics, communication and information technologies to maximize training and performance. And brainiacs develop technologies... (Click here for full story)

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Andy Bruce - The Golden Rules of Innovation

Full Article Here

Brief: Like any other core business process there are some 'rules' of innovation management which will maximise the probability of success. These come under what we call "The 6 Ps":

PLANNING - Innovation must be linked to strategy

• Successful leaders link core business processes to their strategic goals and annual business planning targets, and innovation is no exception. Use a product-market matrix to clarify the extent and direction of your innovation. Without a strategic direction you run the risk of coming up with innovations that run counter to your businesses best interests! (Read more..)
  

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Nothing But Zero: Nissan Electric Car

Text from Nissan's official site:

Zero emissions isn't a future endeavor. It isn't hype. It's happening.
Right now Nissan is doing everything it takes to make electric driving a daily reality. Starting with a pure electric car. Not a hybrid, not even a plug-in hybrid. But a zero-emission electric vehicle made for the real world of highways, morning commutes and everyday living.

USA Today's Review: Click Here

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