Rishabh Kaul's Weblog

Data Collection: Now and Then

Rishabh — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:46:28 +0000

I was reading Suicide by Emile Durkheim (this is a link to a summary); a 450 page behemoth with numbers and inferences about suicides. Durkheim’s work has been seminal to the understanding of suicide from a sociological perspective. Durkheim admits in the introduction to the book that attempting such a task such as recording suicide can be quite a challenge given how many deaths can escape this categorization.

I would think that if Durkheim was born in this age, he would be thoroughly pissed. Perhaps, with the rising world population, with more urbanization kicking in and larger sociological factors which could lead to suicide, documenting these facts would be quite a challenge today. The relative detachment from religious institutions which recorded such a data in the past would also be a contributing factor in making it more difficult to assess the numbers. On the other hand, would the state, which has taken over that responsibility (have they?), be recording such data? Or are we left to the mercy of randomized control trials?

I was just thinking about how with rising populations some things would become tougher to assess, no matter how improved the technology is. Not because the technology is lacking, but because contributing factors to a variety of events are coalescing and perhaps our technologies and data gathering techniques are just not able to match up to the speed with which our society and populations are changing.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

A possible workout playlist?

Rishabh — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:43:11 +0000

Yesterday I was asked to make a workout playlist, which is supposed to charge up one’s senses and make them jog their heart out. Of course there were some considerations that had to be taken into account. Firstly, I don’t work out. So, at best, this list would be me indulging in wishful thinking. Secondly, I was given strict mandate that it should include various genres. But what it really means is that, it better have a fair amount of trance/dance stuff with a teeny weeny of other things. Thirdly, person summoning me is a woman.

With groggy eyes and little bit of reputation at stake, I embarked on the project. Here is the bastard child. Comments in brackets.

Modern Rock:

Joker and Thief – Wolfmother (Johnny Knoxville thinks its cool. So do I. But seriously speaking, right from the kick ass intro, the song is perfect for a morning jog)
Last Resort- Papa Roach (Old favorite from school days)

Classic Rock:

Start me up- Rolling Stone (It’s the frikkin Stones man)
Working Man- Rush

Hip Hop/Rap/Rap Rock:

American Boy- Kanye West
Ante Up- M.O.P (Probably one of the most thugged out songs ever, love the energy. Though, I will say this, this song is more likely to get you into a fight)
Remember the Name- Fort Minor (The NBA uses it, bitch!)
Numb/Encore – Jay Z/Linkin Park Low – Flo rida

Trance/Dance/Pop:

It ain’t gettin over- David Guetta, Fergie (If you ask me, this is really a token Guetta song, for they all sound the same to me)
What is Love- Haddaway (I remember this song playing in most bowling alleys and arcades during the early 90s)
Pump It- Black Eyed Peas (Because it reminds me of Pulp Fiction. It probably will give you more of a heist feel than a workout)
Baya Baya – Safri Duo (With that kind of percussion, of course!)
I got a pocketful of Sunshine- Natasha Bedingfield
Bad Romance- Lady Gaga
Tik Tok- Kesha (what to say)

Notes: The last three are definitely very catchy, though I am kinda embarrassed they made it to the list. I would have liked a few RATMs in that list.

(Image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jnforte/)

Where can I find all the works of MF Husain?

Rishabh — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:20:59 +0000

Art Appreciation (by Prof Anunaya Chaubey) is one of the courses that I am pursuing this term at the Young India Fellowship. One of the assignments is to visit the National Gallery of Modern Art, pick a painting and write about it, keeping in mind various criterion discussed in class.

I liked Satish Gujral’s Ecstasy, MF Husain’s Cyclonic Silence, an untitled work by SH Raza and a few other miniatures.

Upon returning to my hostel I thought these are big names, one could easily find their works online. Surely there must be scores of websites dedicated to their work.

How wrong I was.

Some of the foreign galleries have used technology and presented online viewers with a virtual tour of their paintings. Some other contemporary artists have their own websites showcasing their entire collection. The problem arises with artists, especially the Indian ones whose career span into decades. Websites are mostly maintained by fans, but there is again an inconsistency in the presentation, comprehensiveness or the regularity. And understandably so.

But I get a feeling that this must be the case with art in general. It is much easier to present music or text online. Paintings become a tough endeavor. The galleries don’t allow photography, and even if they are put up online, I am assuming the tagging done is so badly that it is virtually impossible to locate some of the earlier and relatively lesser known works online.

This however, might also be a worthy investment for a project. Perhaps by some like Soros’ Open Society Institute or perhaps Google itself. There should also be some crowdsourced medium where folks can upload the works of some of the great artists (to start with), so that there exist places, which aim to become the exhaustive catalog of these artists. And I think this is crucial especially from an Indian context.

Passing Opinions

Rishabh — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:40:12 +0000

Censure comes from Latin and means to pass an opinion or assess.

Film censorship becomes necessary because a film motivates thought and action and assures a high degree of attention and retention as compared to the printed word. The combination of act and speech, sight and sound in semi darkness of the theatre with elimination of all distracting ideas will have a strong impact on the minds of the viewers and can affect emotions. Therefore, it has as much potential for evil as it has for good and has an equal potential to instill or cultivate violent or good behaviour. It cannot be equated with other modes of communication. Censorship by prior restraint is, therefore, not only desirable but also necessary

Supreme Court of India

Why do you think we have so much vulgarity, songs, dances, pelvic thrusts, bathtub fantasies and dream sequences – because you won’t allow a simple kiss

Film maker Vijay Anand in an interview with India Today, 2002

I am currently reading The Republic by Plato, I am reminded of the noble lie that Socrates devises up to educate the republicans.

Do other countries have Mosquitoes like they do here in Ghana?

Rishabh — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 23:42:35 +0000

Term 2 has Media, Culture and Globalization being taught by Prof Radha Hegde. This obviously means that there’s a lot of reading to be done. There’s also a lot of watching that has to be done. This is the first course I have been a part of which showed an R Kelly video (Snake). The video was used to portray Orientalism. But I digress.

One of the course particulars includes us watching this video from Ghana where ~~I suspect some NGOs~~ Anya Kandel, founder of Momentus International (more about it here) and a graduate student at NYU, went around asking the kids about the questions they had for “The Man”. Here’s a video for your viewing pleasure:

Some questions are simple, such as why don’t the Heads of State fight wars themselves like duels of the past, as was the case during Aristocracy or why do Western nations come and work in Africa but make it tough for Africans to work there. Those are the hardest to answer. Then there were those which asked, why was it that in Africa they cane people. The answer to that I suppose could be because developed nations seem to have found an expensive alternative: suing.

One simple enough question on which I indeed had an opinion was when one boy asks whether there were mosquitoes in other countries, because here in Ghana, they bit them like crazy.

A simple check would tell you that Canada and US has anywhere between 400-2000 (?!) cases of Malaria each year, most of them attributed to immigrants from Asia and Sub saharan region. (Source). This is hardly surprising given the temperate regions that these nations lie in.

Jeffrey Sachs in End of Poverty and Commonwealth highlights how with the onset of rising temperatures, there are higher chances of US and other temperate regions facing a rise of malaria apart from a myriad of other diseases they’d have never experienced. As I have always maintained, while climate change will affect all of us (Remember in the long term, we’re all dead ), in the short term it will create winners and losers. Of course, with the rising temperatures, that’s going to be the least of their worries.

Update: After watching the video, we had a skype call with Anya to discuss her work and learning in Africa. Some interesting take aways from that:

1. The schools in South Ghana that Anya met had Muslim and Christian associations. Yet, when Anya asked them about a communal rift, they seemed puzzled. Anya shared that there was absolutely no communal issue, at least at the school level there.

2. The children were puzzled by the amount of waste that was being dumped into Africa by the developing nations. Having read a little about it earlier, I am aware that Africa is one of the largest dumping ground of electronic waste in the world.

3. Western nations have a intricate and violent history and there’s no escaping that. Any development work that takes place there needs to keep that in mind. At the same time, it’s also important to understand that Africa isn’t a homogeneous continent. Some nations have stable governments, some don’t. Some have done well for themselves as far as governance and economy goes (Rwanda for example under the leadership of Paul Kagame), some have well…not done so well.

It was nice chatting with Anya. She was quite patient with our questions and told us that she too was facing similar questions (Academia vs Corporate world/ notions of development/ impact vs approach ). Sort of tells us, despite the cultural differences, twenty somethings (or people in general) around the world have multiple strands connecting them.

Gandhi, Modernity, modernization

Rishabh — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 00:59:51 +0000

The 2nd semester at the YIF has a course called Gandhi’s critique of Modernity.

This obviously means that there is tons of reading to be done. I thought of sharing some of the articles on this blog for benefit of others.

“Gandhi After Gandhi After Gandhi” by Ashis Nandy. In the essay, Nandy speaks about how he can distinctly carve out four different Gandhis and how each Gandhi has his followers. While distinguishing them might not always seem the most obvious thing to us, it does however helps us realize that we are always at a risk of oversimplifying this complex man and his ideas. Merely tagging something with the word Gandhian, then, does little to put things into the right context.

http://www.littlemag.com/nandy.htm

Anand Giridhardas in a conversation with Eric Li, a chinese VC and nationalist thinker, discusses about Eric’s views on modernity (which he claims echoes China’s views of the same). The discussion brings to light how according to Eric, Modernity as an idea has evolved from the western civilizations and its main pillars of liberal democracy, capitalism and the individual as a basic unity of society might be debated in other parts of the world. He distinguishes this from modernization, which he refers to the material advancements and desires. (not part of course curriculum)

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/14/step-aside-american-dream-heres-chinas/

Of course no course involving Gandhi can be completed without My Experiments with Truth, which takes us deeper inside them man’s life (till about mid 1930′s). This is coupled with Attenborough’s Gandhi and if time permits, Jinnah.

Before jumping into Gandhi, we spent a considerable time on understanding how history is written and presented to us. For this, the class is advised to read the Introduction to Bernard Cohn’s Colonialism and Its form of Knowledge. This is a really good crash course in understanding the various modalities of history.

The sessions are being taken by Prof Vivek Bhandari.

Initial thoughts on Anish Kapoor’s Flesh

Rishabh — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 11:34:15 +0000

I had written a tiny piece for my writing class last week. The assignment was to take an art object and describe how we felt when we first saw it. To begin with I wrote about an Air Conditioner. After further discussions, I decided to write about another art object, this one more mainstream as far as recognizing it as an art piece is concerned. So here is my attempt at recreating the moment when I first saw Anish Kapoor’s “Flesh” last year at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Next step is to take an idea from this and write another essay. But that is for later.

Core

View more documents from Rishabh Kaul.

As always, feedback welcome in the comments section or directly to me at rishabhkaul at gmail dot com

Will all your base are belong to us?

Rishabh — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:28:15 +0000

A few days ago I wrote an essay as part of the writing class at the Young India Fellowship. The essay demanded that we take the central idea from one of the essays discussed in class, and use that to write about a personal experience referencing 2 other essays (including the one from which the central idea was taken).

I present to you the result. It’s titled “Will all your base belong to us?” and is about the nature of communication under the influence of the internet’s various subcultures.

http://bit.ly/lOMXRO

Feedback, roses and tomatoes welcome either in the comments section or at rishabhkaul at gmail dot com.

kthxbai.

An audio mode for Youtube?

Rishabh — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:51:26 +0000

Why doesn’t Youtube have an audio mode?

The wi-fi connection that we seemed to have in our hostel is not very reliable with speeds. And I have this habit of treating Youtube like a media player where I let the songs in my playlist go on. Possibly because Youtube is by far the largest repository of multimedia data.

The reasons for this could possibly be:

Advertising:

An audio mode promotes usage in the background, so google’s text ads would be of little value here. And audio ads, would deter people away from the site. Personally, I wouldn’t mind the audio ads, as long as they are limited to 10-15 seconds. But despite this, there would be the issue of efficacy of the ads.

Image

Youtube, at the end of the day is a video focused site and would probably not want to dilute their brand by having an audio focused feature especially when there already enough players in the audio field. But then, I doubt if any of the audio streaming players have as much data as Youtube.

People all across the web have been asking Youtube to incorporate such a feature since 2008. Youtube doesn’t seem to budge. Hacks anyone?

Please.

3 days with Sanjeev Aga

Rishabh — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:50:34 +0000

As part of the Young India Fellowship program, we spent the weekend in Sanjeev Aga’s company who recently stepped down as the MD of Idea Cellular (complete bio here).

The session was a narrative. A rather long one. And that was the best part. I missed Day 1, but was keenly paying attention to every word he was saying on the 2 days that I was present.

The weight of the gyan he pass around was immense and putting it all here is beyond scope of the author. So I’m sharing 3 nuggets for I believe they are extremely important for any business. Be it a start-up or a large company.

Look at numbers closely

Nearly a decade, Idea was No.7 nationally (no. of customers) and all around there was free advice being passed around from “experts” who suggested Idea to close shop. Aga, who was completely aware of their market position, was surprisingly optimistic. Telecom licenses are allotted circle wise (Why? Well, we are like that only) and each market is unique. Aga noticed that while overall Idea was at the 7th position, it wasn’t doing that badly in most of the circles taken individually (top 2-3). He also noticed that while Idea’s market share was dropping, their numbers were increasing at a brisk pace. Of course he admits that, looking back, its easier to connect the dots now, but back then this data just gave a hunch that maybe it’s not over till its over. And he carried on, not heeding the advice of the experts.

This is interesting, because we put so much faith in numbers that sometimes, we tend to ignore their true meaning. As Nissim Taleb says, averages don’t mean much if they aren’t put in context. Actually, I think he hates averages. He’d much rather look at each case independently and then take a decision.

Barriers to Entry: Hard to Soft (Okay, so that probably doesn’t sound right)

Know how of practices, which I would term as soft IP, is a serious barrier to entry in telecom sector today. One can have the money to set up towers, but where will one get the experience from? (unless one poaches folks from competitors). In India’s context this is particularly crucial because, and I repeat from the last paragraph, in India is a unique country. Every market is different. Soft IP, as I learnt last year at Sarvajal too, is worth more than gold.

Compete yet collaborate when necessary

In what can be termed as a radical change in mindset, as Mr Aga calls it, Bharti, Idea and Vodafone entered into a JV to start Indus Towers, to have common infrastructure. This reminded of Saras Sarasvathy‘s talk on effectual entrepreneurship where she speaks of the co-sharing practices employed by seasoned entrepreneurs. Aga says that JV seldom work and this is a perfect example where the three giants have worked together.

Books corner on my Blog

Rishabh — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:38:34 +0000

I have always wanted to maintain a list of books I have finished reading. I have used Shelfari, Goodreads and some of the other portals (even 43 things long back) but realized that what I need is something rather elementary. So, Google Docs it is. Every time I finish reading a book, I enter it along with the date into the sheet. This will help me track what I am reading, as well as when I am procrastinating.

So now look at the top of the page to the menu bar, do you see a “Books and Articles” tab there? Yes, that’s the one. Click it. The list should be considered meticulously updated, post 2006, that is once I entered college. Prior to that, while I had read a lot, I just don’t have the energy to put it all down in the form. The page also has my delicious link, which can help you track my bookmarks.

Also, I hope to write reviews of some of the books that I have read.

With the onset of the Young India Fellowship, I am hoping for the reading spike to become steeper than what it already is.

If any of you have a book recommendation to make, please do mail me at rishabhkaul at gmail dot com. I am always looking out for suggestions on what to read.

From one college to another: The Young India Fellowship

Rishabh — Sat, 21 May 2011 10:29:20 +0000

In a couple of weeks I will be closing an important chapter in my life. I will be graduating from college; a wonderful 5 years that have changed my life for the better in ways I could only dream of. In many ways I’d say that I graduated from college last year since for the past one year I have been interning in Delhi and now Bangalore as part of the mandatory college Practice School program, away from carefree shield that the college environment provided.

With college ending I was once again at the crossroads and had to make a decision about where to go from here. For a multitude of reasons, I decided against sitting for campus placements and thought, lets see what the future has in store.

As it turns out, the future had another college of sorts in store. This “college” provides no degrees (and I couldn’t care less), however, I am compelled to believe that the next one year is going to be an exciting learning experience and will widen my thought process. The program is called the Young India Fellowship and is based in Delhi. It’s an experiment to create the finest liberal arts program in the country by bringing in some terrific students together, empowering them with easily the best faculty one can come across and providing them with mentoring that anyone would kill for.(The entire list of mentors, faculty and Founders is HERE). The main academic partner of this course is the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, UPenn.

Every so often, life throws up very unexpected options in front of us. A friend of mine who got an admission into the finest business school programs in the country and also got through the fellowship, discussed with me as to which path to take. I suggested that either of the paths had their merits, however there was something about this course, how it didn’t fit in with conventional plans where things were laid out upfront, that made it exciting. The courses are extremely diverse (there’s a course called Listening). Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, by exposing yourself to a gamut of different fields, you are enabled to connect the dots faster and hopefully increase your output in whatever it was that you want to pursue next. And of course, it would help you interact and learn from people you might not generally encounter in your day to day life.

The strange part though is that, unlike the conventional approach to education, where one first does a liberal arts course and then dives into specialization, we’re doing the opposite. Lets see how this experiment turns out, though I am very hopeful.

So while yes, I would look at the course as another 1 year delay to step into the real world; I will also look at the program as an incubator. To learn (and hopefully unlearn quite a few) new things, try out different ideas and make relationships that will last.

And if the ideas click, you never know where it could lead…

Do your shit, but don’t forget the story

Rishabh — Fri, 20 May 2011 01:43:50 +0000

A friend of mine who runs a company walked into the doors of a VC firm. He had no business plan with him when he walked into the boardroom. All he had was a little video that his team mate had shot of his mother to demonstrate the problem they were tackling. A massive market size, a killer business idea and a video was all he had, all rolled into a nice narrative. He walked out of the office as a funded entrepreneur. And this is probably THE most influential VC firm on the planet.

The example above is of course not preaching discarding of business plans, neither is it undermining the effort my friend has put into his business (which is a lot from what I notice). It’s to say that, to really make it click, one must come up with a compelling story to link all the pieces together. That is the magic sauce. That is how you create believers.

Last week, Entrepreneur turned VC, Mark Suster wrote a brilliant piece on the power of narratives. I highly recommend reading it.

Acclaimed filmmaker Darren Aronofsky said this of his film making style (Source)

If you want to be a filmmaker the best thing you can bring to the world is your own story. There’s something that’s very personal to you and that you have your own singular connection to, that if it’s really important to you, there are people all over the planet that will relate to it. The mistakes happen when you try to figure out what everyone likes. Because the only thing you can be sure of is what you like. And the reality is what you like ends up being what a lot of people like, as we’re all going through a similar journey. That’s the magic of film.

That’s another important aspect. Keeping it personal. The problem that my friend was trying to solve was rather simple. The narrative he showed to the VCs portrayed this everyday problem people faced. The partner in the VC firm could immediately relate to it.

Could this help us fix one of the many things wrong with our education system?

Imagine if you could relive all your lectures in engineering school. But only this time, the teacher sat down and explained the subject in a narrative manner. Giving all these scientists a human form, discussing the conditions and environment in which they came up with whatever they did, rather than merely use their name because the equation or theorem was named after them. (And of course ensuring that the subject itself is taught in an engaging manner)

I think narratives are also exceptionally important when trying to connect two different sectors. How does one explain something technical to a group of artists? How do a group of artists explain art to the IT guys?

In fact, this is another reason why having deep knowledge sets in two or more subjects can be so powerful. Because helps you speak in multiple languages.

Why do we like TED so much. And even within TED, why do we like some TED talks much more than others? Is it really about the innovation? Okay, so if you are Pranav Mistry, then yes. But more often than not, its the narrative. It’s about not being cliched, about something personal and about weaving a tale.

For what?

To get people to invest in you.

Their time, their money, their enthusiasm, whatever it is that you’re seeking.

And this would be my tiny suggestion to the young entrepreneurs I see around me. Build that story. And more importantly, share it with your team first. I have been around a lot of really exciting startups, where it’s only the top management that knows the story. Let the janitor of the company know the story too. Or the maintenance guys. Especially the maintenance guys, in case they’re out in the field interacting with end users.

Build that story. And then share it with everyone.

My Acupressure debut

Rishabh — Sat, 14 May 2011 18:58:23 +0000

One of the numerous benefits of working at a small organization like NEN are the little surprises that I am not accustomed to. Such as a special Acupressure session in between work hours.

My surprise could be a result of my past work/study environments, which are:

1. A Multi-disciplinary healthcare think tank

2. A Government Economic think thank

3. A Social enterprise working at BoP

4. A small Civil Engineering company

5. BITS Pilani, a private engineering college 250 kilometers from the nearest KFC

So there I was in a dimly lit room. No, there was no Enigma soundtrack playing, no candles and no oriental beauties. Instead there was a short man who could at best be described as unassuming.

The only massage that I have received so far has been by my barber, who spends a good 15 minutes, smashing my head with his knuckles and then asks me to sod off.

So you can imagine, what a world of difference it would have felt to have my feet, arms, back, neck massaged by this gentleman. I think I felt asleep in between.

And then he goes on and on about my routine (which is rather hard to guess, I thought). Each point of his hitting the bullseye. He could correctly determine how many hours I slept, what posture I slept in, how my chair was positioned.

I think I have found a new guru.

BitTorrent Inc: Lousy monetization works well when you have more users than Twitter

Rishabh — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:46:51 +0000

I was always curious about how BitTorrent made it’s money. With nearly 40 million USD in investment (source Crunchbase) what exactly were they saying to the VCs? I have never paid a single rupee to Bittorrent, neither did I notice any form of advertising. So what was it?

One look at the site might bring you closer to the answer. Licensing. They license their technology & brand to corporates. But still, it didn’t make complete sense. Is that all? And how much money is there in that?

And then came Quora to the rescue. (Quora has been increasingly coming to the rescue, since it’s in it’s early stages when the coolness is intact). I posted “What is BitTorrent’s business model? What are the company executives telling VCs to attract millions of dollars in funding? How are they going to return all that cash?”

And out came the answer. (Actually, anon, redirected me to the answer). Bram Cohen himself (he’s the chief scientist/co-founder):

Our main source of revenue is off the toolbars we push out, which isn’t a great source of monetization, but it’s something. You can do the math on how many installs we have and what the monetization of toolbars is, and subtract out the costs of having 50 employees, and you’ll get a reasonable ballpark of how profitable we are, although the short answer is very. Even lousy monetization works well when you have more users than Twitter.

Even lousy monetization works well when you have more users than Twitter.

Word.

But again, perhaps because the product is so good, people don’t mind the spam. That being said, I hate it when suddenly my homepage gets changed to Ask.

Notes from the Kiruba Incident

Rishabh — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 22:22:12 +0000

One of the interesting (and obvious) things about the internet is unless you make the necessary arrangements, everything is out in the open for people to see.

We might have personal beliefs or practices that we consider appropriate, however, divulging it out to the public might result in a backlash, irrespective of your reputation.

Something similar happened when Kiruba Shankar, a well known blogger tweeted about letting his 9 year old kid drive (the kid was sitting on his lap) one third of a rather long journey on a highway. The reaction was exponential with #Kiruba momentarily trending on twitter.

What was also interesting was the nature of the tweets. Most of the tweets were targeted towards Kiruba’s view on “involvement learning“; a term he used to defend his actions. However, a decent number of tweets were just plainly targeting Kiruba, calling him all sorts of things, a lot of which weren’t related to the incident at all. I found this interesting because, it showed that quite a lot of people probably had animosity towards him and used this as an opportunity to vent it out which showed these people in rather poor light. I was also glad that Kiruba is in India and not in the US, where someone might’ve redirected 4chan towards this. With most of his personal info online, I shudder to think what it might have resulted in given the dark history of 4chan users.

On way of looking at it is: It’s his kid and his ways of doing things. Mind your own business.

Another way is of looking at it is the age factor: The kid was 9

Yet another way is the safety hazard: How does one tie the seat belt with a kid on your lap? Does it distract your vision etc.

It really comes down to this. A lot of us may do things which are #notlegalbutsafe (another hashtag which was born out of this fiasco), but should we tweet it out to the whole world?

I am curious how the digital tools impact the leaders of this new age. Our future Prime Minister will probably have his life as an open book. Much more open that he’d (or his party) like him to have. A journal narrating his exploits right from his childhood. How will this affect the way people perceive him (and the fodder the media to feed on)?

My friend Gaurav Mishra blogged a little while ago about how the boundaries between one’s professional and personal life are slowly diminishing. One can’t distinguish work from play so easily (at least for a lot of folks who are online).

The whole thing almost seems like gangsta rap, where the whole aim of the music is to “keep it real”.

Do our online activities have to follow the same path? And if so, are we prepared for the consequences?

Bangalore MIT Enterprising Forum’s Inaugural Discussion on the Grand Challenge of Education

Rishabh — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:36:45 +0000

Yesterday I attended the inaugural session of MIT’s Enterprise Forum. The Bangalore chapter is the first such chapter in India and focuses on the intersection of India, technology and entrepreneurship.

The Enterprise Forum has identified 5 great challenges: Education, Healthcare, Financial Inclusion, Agriculture, Infra/Energy. Kickstarting with Education, which they will focus on for next 3-4 meets and then move over to other challenges. Through my conversations with the organizers I found out that their aim was to have start-ups coming out of this forum as well as help the existing ones. As an intern in an organization which has been promoting entrepreneurship for nearly a decade I am always on the lookout for different entrepreneur communities and learn from their execution. The Enterprise Forum will get down to the nitty gritty and in this regard is really more of a special interest group.

I was taking notes and here’s what I learnt in the first meeting:

First on was Anand Ramanathan, who consults for KPMG and has been tracking the education space for a while . He made the following points (my comments in italics):

With a sector that is serving at least 450 million people, the education sector will require about 100 Billion USD investment by 2014. (!!) Of course I suppose a majority of that spending is going to come from the government. However, private players’ role in areas where the government isn’t able to deliver will be crucial.
Education in terms of building schools and colleges has a higher payback period and is also heavily linked to the brand. In this regard, there is tremendous opportunity in the vocational and skill development sector where the paybacks are a lot quicker. This also happens to be the most overlooked sector.
The Foreign Education Bill which got the nod of the government sometime last year is another factor which might bring credible foreign institutions into the nation. And also help the government with the curbing the outgo of forex.
There is a lot of scope in PPP models. Something which the private sector should seriously think about. In this regard, previous PPPs in infrastructure can serve as a good learning for businesses.
There is a tremendous incentive in training teachers at every level since quality teachers are going to be in heavy demand.

Next up was Shankar Venkatagiri, Professor at IIM B, who has amongst other things hosted education shows on the tube. And what a rockstar he was, screaming into the microphone (and making a tremendous amount of sense). He started off with a cheeky response to Evronn’s massive tie up with the National Skill Development Corp and the company’s claim that they will be generating 15 million jobs and 14,000 crore revenue in the next 12 years. His talk was focused around critical adaptations for the e-Learning industry:

Motivation is the single most important thing which begins the process for learning. In this regard, e-learning software must be used in context. Meaning, a cookery e-learning course must be seen in a kitchen.
Technology is just the tool. Keep reminding yourself that.
Cohort is another important factor for any learning to work. Few can learn on their own. Cohorts establish the emotional connect to learning, which is essential.
With the help of Bloom’s Taxonomy, we see that for learning to achieve its motive we need to establish higher order thinking skills (analyze, create, evaluate). The role of instructional designers is crucial. Invest in that.
Course should be mutable. The should be e-equivalents of scribbling notes in your classnotes and provisions to easily share them. This is very important to encourage people to think on their own (and not blindly follow their tutor’s viewpoints)
Finally, Open Source it. This is the only chance for it to survive. People will modify it to their needs and give it a life of it’s own. Don’t worry about your business dying, you are merely expanding the size of the pie and lessening your burden.

And finally there was Anand Daniel of Accel (who blogged about the event here) speaking on the investments taking place in the education sector. Anand was very practical with his remarks and brought forward some very interesting points especially useful to startups looking for funding from VCs. He was however questioned a bit on ~~Accel’s~~ VC’s ethical stand when it came to investing in the education space by an academician from a leading private education group. The academician’s contention was that education is meant for social benefit and hence the investments need to be more targeted towards ventures that promote the spirit of learning. Few members from the audience said that it’s wrong to point fingers at the VCs, the entrepreneurs need to be more ethical when it comes setting up their ventures. Anand’s points are summarized below:

Key parameters to look for when setting up an education business:
- Scalability
- Competition
- Specific Total Addressable Market
- Stakeholder Perspective (parents/educators)
- Capital Requirement (VCs prefer models that aren’t capital intensive, co sharing works good)
In formal sectors, Extracurricular, Activity based learning has a lot of scope, citing the example of Edusports
Informal sector had a lot of opportunities in remote delivery, vocational education, personal devices.
NSDC supporting entrepreneurs with funding.

Thing that shocked me:

Sequoia’s 15 million investment in AP’s Gautami Institution. I understand that these coaching institutes have tremendous scope in sending students to IITs/BITS, however more investment would mean added pressure on these coaching institutes to go after the students necks. Being a product of one such institute I can say with certainty that they kill creativity. And I use the word kill very judiciously. That being said, a lot of students would probably not make it to these premier institutes without the coaching institutes.

Punjab based group setting up 25000 education institutions: Nuff said. Demand is surely there. But quality? And could this also be an opportunity for teacher training schools?

Thing that should have shocked me:

Employability of India’s educated population coming out every year: ~15%-35%: There was this bit where Anand (KPMG) mentioned these numbers that we often see in the papers and moved on. Fritz, an audience member from Singapore stopped him and said “15%? Really? That’a EPIC FAIL. EPIC FAIL!”. Now the funny part was that, we probably needed a non-native to point out the seriousness of this issue. A desi bringing this up would probably be met with rolled eyes and at best might be ignored as an idealist or being too preachy.

The next event will happen in a few months time (4 if I am not mistaken). Unfortunately I won’t be in Bangalore then, but those of you who are going to be there, do turn up for it.

Free Advice

Rishabh — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:43:11 +0000

A few days ago I stumbled upon a blog Unlost. It’s a nice easy to read blog about finding direction in life. The publisher, Therese Schwenkler is a really friendly 20 something who provides food for the soul to (mostly) young adults, though I am sure anyone can use free advice.

I signed up for the newsletter and I will get one every Monday Morning, erm… evening, due to the time zone differences I suppose. Do have a look at the site and in case you like what you see, I suggest you sign up for the newsletter.

And no I wasn’t paid to endorse this, it’s straight from the heart.

***

Therese also pointed me towards Study Hacks, a nice jugaadu blog (oh,its much more than that actually) by Cal Newport; a MIT PhD who is now an young academic who maintains a deep interest in the student life and beyond. While most of the blog revolves around as Cal puts it : “At the core of the Study Hacks student philosophy is to do less, but do what you do better” It’s surely much more than that. Advice on life beyond college, how to tackle college stress, test taking and suchlike. While there are many people who talk about such things, they are seldom student oriented. In that context, this is a great find.

People who enjoy Ramit Sethi and Ben Casnocha will surely enjoy him as well.

Quest for Interesting Panel Discussion Formats & Enhancements

Rishabh — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:03:18 +0000

Ever attended a conference that has great speakers who are on a panel? And 10 minutes into the Panel did you feel that you could have spent your time elsewhere doing something more fun or interesting?

Because the Panel was such a drag.

Or that the conversation taking place was not very participatory.

Or that the panelists were saying plain BS.

I often feel this way at large and small conferences alike and I was thinking of tapping into the wisdom of the crowds to compile a list of interest panel discussion formats which maximizes the learnings for everyone present.

It could be projecting a live twitter stream in front of the audience and panelists to keep them on their toes. It could something which makes everyone into a panelist (like the Fishbowl) Your suggestions no matter how tiny they maybe, are valuable.

The list when finished will be shared for free (duh).

Please either leave your thoughts in the comment section or fill out the form here (it has just 1 question). I recommend filling the form because that way I can mail you the list once it’s finished.

Also, it would be wonderful if you could mention other folks who I can approach for the same.

I would really appreciate the help.

Thanks!

3 day business weeks

Rishabh — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:20:28 +0000

Globalization can affect local cultures and practices.

Or even universal practices, as is evident by the change in sleep cycles of millions of people who work in the omnipresent BPO units.

An interesting piece in an Arab newspaper informs me that businessmen in Saudi are ticked off by the Thursday-Friday weekend that KSA follows. We lose up to 4 business days as a result of this, they complain. Their plea is to shift to the Friday-Saturday cycle so that the loss can be minimized.

The new millennium saw most of the MENA region shift to a Friday-Saturday weekend. Saudi doesn’t seem to have accepted this norm due to what else? Religious reasons.

Since the beginning of time, it was the exchange of goods and services that made the world go round, slicing 4 days off it makes for terrible economics.

I wonder the impact on India’s trade if the Hindu fundamentalists force our government into making Tuesday a holiday.