Blog :: All

Awesome video featuring Michael and Daler in Britain's got talent....

 

Neeraj Trivedi is an unlikely role model for the thousands of young teenagers who're preparing to take their Indian Institute of Management exams.

Search for "fresh management graduates + entrepreneurs" on Google and an Indian website for start-ups is likely to pop up as the first result.

The site, www.startups.in, profiles the likes of Trivedi, true, but it's unlikely to set the hearts of a few hundreds who've set their sights on corporate jobs, beating for him. Trivedi, an alumni of IIM-Lucknow, works for the non-government organisation Pratham.

Yet, Trivedi is no longer the exception among IIM graduates. Every year, as over 1,800 students pass out of the hallowed walls of India's premier management institutes, at least a few are choosing to stay away from the big bucks placement offers that their peers take for granted.

A few of those, as is evident from www.startups.in, are turning entrepreneurs, some like Trivedi are turning to NGOs because "desh ke liye kuch karna hain  (I have to do something for the country)", as he says.

When Trivedi passed out of his alma mater in 2007, his deliberate career choice - he says he is probably earning just 30 per cent of what his fellow-grads make - couldn't have left his family unhappier. "Sitamarhi [a small district on the Bihar-Nepal border]," he admits, "may not be the most exciting location, but at least it provides me with inner satisfaction."

Like him, Deepak Dhamija, a graduate from IIM-Calcutta, opted to stay away from summer placements to work for Basics, an organisation in Vidarbha engaged in providing micro-finance to farmers. In B-school parlance, they now call this phenomenon OOPS (out of placement season).

Once, a placement dropout might have been considered maverick, but today their number is swelling as Ankur Gattani and Aditya Kumar, both from IIM-Calcutta, Hemant Bansal from IIM-Lucknow, Ankit Mathur, Satvik Upadhyaya and Nirmal Kumar from IIM-Ahmedabad, Dhruv Bhushan and Anubhav Jain from IIM-Indore set their own course to go chasing their dreams.

What's egging these youngsters on? What's causing the burst of entrepreneurial spurt in the campuses of these red-bricked management schools as they've turned to alternate options within the social sector, on online portals, in manufacturing units, or in consulting arms?

Why have these youngsters spurned tempting offers from the corporate world (and earned parental disapproval) to either start their own ventures, or listen to the drumbeats of their hearts?

Inspired by the likes of Trivedi and Dhamija, Aditya Kumar, a first-year-student at IIM-Calcutta, will intern this summer at an NGO called Solace in Assam's Kamrup district. His motivation? "In Assam and other North-eastern states, insurgency, terrorism and violence are major problems, as a result of which other burning issues are neglected."

The consequence has been a lack of development in the region. "Solace is an initiative to look at neglected aspects such as rural distress, lack of education and child labour," Kumar explains.

While a few are committed to ironing out social disparities, several more are testing the unchartered waters of start-ups and entrepreneurship. "It makes more sense to start my own venture and apply the B-school management techniques I've learnt in my own company rather than follow someone else's orders," says Hemant Bansal. Bansal is planning a manufacturing unit in the national capital region that will employ 50-100 workers to begin with.

If entrepreneurship was once a dirty word that conjured up images of personal greed, for IIM-Ahmedabad's Nirmal Kumar it represents a personal opportunity. He could have been one among those young bright graduates to bag stunning offers from major corporate houses.

Instead, he chose to start his own outdoor advertising company. The idea struck when he observed the thousands of passengers who were forced to spend time at railway stations where such hoardings had the best chance of catching their attention.

"There is a lack of innovation in the outdoor media and most people are losing out on customers' attention because they are not willing to move away from traditional media," he explains. "By setting up innovative advertisement boards and devices, an advertiser can get the best reinforcement for his product."

It wasn't innovation but numbers that inspired Ankit Mathur and Satvik Upadhyaya of IIM-Ahmedabad, Neha Juneja of the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi, and a fourth partner to launch an online portal, www.aisapaisa.com, to provide simple access to credible and relevant information to retail investors on futures trading.

Elsewhere, Dhruv Bhushan and Anubhav Jain of IIM-Indore have already launched their online venture - a book building website called www.ourownbook.com. It's quite incredible, actually. The site provides its readers with a storyline that needs to be developed. Once the plot is complete, the story will be considered for print.

The site has already had 50,000 hits and 200 members have registered. Says Bhushan, "From completing a story, we plan to move into writing short stories, biographies and even films." So far, Bhushan and Jain have funded the venture through their own savings, but a massive expansion plan will require a fresh flow of funds.

Ankur Gattani, the only student from IIM-Calcutta's 2006-08 batch to opt out of the final placements, has initiated a portal called www.lifeinlines.com, and is the founder and CEO of Onelife Knowledge Services.

Currently in the test-run phase, the portal is being managed by Apex Division, an offshore software outsourcing company specialising in web design and development.

Is the money easy to find? Hardly. Even the confident Nirmal Kumar did not have it easy when it came to launching his outdoor advertising idea at Ahmedabad. Finance was his biggest constraint, and his humble background meant there was nothing to fall back on should he fail to find the initial capital.

Fortunately for him, an angel investor provided the push with Rs 20 lakh. "The response has been phenomenal and the venture will now be taken forward to four more stations in Gujarat, for which I am in talks with the Western Railways. I am also looking for a similar tie-up with the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation," he says.

For the promoters of aisapaisa.com, money was never a concern. They knew the venture did not require a huge amount of capital since the information would be sourced and analysed by them.  Pooling in the money earned from their summer internships and collecting some from their families, the four decided on a unique model.

"We do not want to confuse the visitor on our website so we will not be accepting advertisements, and are confident of earning revenues through the services we provide," says Juneja. The venture has already procured a tie-up with a news channel and the National Stock Exchange for information.

"Other than live news that trickles in from the news channel, we will also provide market forecasts, market data, analysis of the day's stock movements and other self-analysed data on a minute-to minute basis every day," she says.

Upadhyaya insists that opting out of the placements wasn't a big deal considering they now have a chance to do what they love doing - trade on futures and help other retail investors do the same. The entrepreneurs are looking to emulate the Facebook social networking model of functioning where equity is offered at the right time. On the anvil are new modules to help the retail investor and a website in Hindi.

At the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Sanjana Rao and Pradeep Machieni have collected investments worth $150,000 for their nanotechnology company and are looking at raising another $10 million over the next couple of years.

On the other hand, thanks to a booming family business, Hemant Bansal of IIM-Lucknow does not feel threatened by a lack of funds. "I am looking for a private/equity investor while I plan to put in 20-30 per cent of the money. Even if I don't, I am sure I can manage the initial investment," he hazards.

These stories aren't entirely new to India's premium management institutes. In previous years too, students have displayed their appetite for taking business risks. Last year, Sreeram Vaidya-nathan decided to set up an entertainment lounge in Bangalore called Brewhaha. And even as he battles attrition, the quintessential manager is already planning six more Brewhahas across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Four IIM-A students last year started their own online venture, tenaday.co.in, to provide coaching for the CAT examination, which is the gateway to the IIMs and other, similar institutions.

"Management lessons help you take risks and build confidence levels," says another student at IIM-Kozhikode whose breakaway career includes making a directorial debut and launching his own film company.

Brave words, especially when ma and pa back home fail to understand the compulsions that egg these placement dropouts on. The result is a lonely life, especially when one's peers seem to rise effortlessly up the corporate ladder. "Sometimes I am filled with doubts," confesses Nirmal Kumar.

"But when I think about the future, I'm sure no other job will match my professional growth." Perhaps he should paint these words like a slogan on his outdoor hoardings - for he's hoping that when it comes to summer internships for the next batch of students, they'll turn to him rather than the multinationals to catch some of his contagious entrepreneurial spirit.

The man who wants to create a McDonald's-style chain of Indian-Chinese food insists there's a subtle difference between improvising and massacring a cuisine.

A little over four years ago, when Ashish Kapur quit his job as an engineer with GE, packed his bags and came back home from America, his parents were appalled. "No one in my family had been an entrepreneur till then, not even working in the private sector, everyone had been in government service," he says.

Worse, Kapur was to meet his prospective in-laws, out-of-work, sans even the economic security that family money can provide. "My wife married me when I was jobless," he chuckles, clearly savouring his tale as much as the crispy pork spring rolls on our table. Within three months of that eventful day, however, Kapur was in business, quite literally.

The first Yo! China outlet was on its feet in Delhi, all bright and shiny and dare we say plastic-y (in a McDonald's sort of way, clearly an inspiration). And Kapur was well on his way to creating a pan-Indian brand that would aspire to parallel the Big Mac - only it would serve up the "aspirational" Indian-Chinese to the aam janta; manchurian, chilli chicken, cliches and cornflour, (but also the relatively unheard of dim sums, of which the company has gone on to sell more than 10 million pieces in its four years, I am told ) packaged as contemporary fast food for everyone from the average Joe at the BPO to the multiplex-goer to a small-towner in Patna, where a Yo! China "store" has just opened, making it the only branded food outlet in that city.

Spice Route, the superb restaurant at the Imperial, New Delhi, has not been the first choice for this lunch. Ashish Kapur has, as expected, suggested, that we meet at his flagship Yo! China store. He tells me (later) that he eats there four times a week, takes his wife and kid out to the same and conducts business such as this out of its premises, and that he "honestly" does not feel the need to go anywhere else for Chinese food.

The cuisine is clearly his favourite but when he asks, "What is the difference between Yo! China and this (Spice Route)?" quite rhetorically, as if the answer could be nothing but "no difference", I almost choke on the water I am sipping.

Then, he adds, "If you say, 'ambience', I would have no issue. But if you say, 'food', I don't buy that." I try to gently point out that there is a (huge) difference between what we'll be eating here and the Yo! China fare I've sampled earlier (and only once not regretted) and jump into a huge discussion on cuisines, their migration, authenticity, organised food retail in India ("350 million people multiplied by three meals a day equals an opportunity of a billion meals") and so on.

This is a discussion that will finally end in Kapur conceding that yes, consistency can be a problem in a chain operation the size of Yo! China, that yes, he's actively tackling it, and that yes, his menu needs revision "very soon" since Indians have developed more sophistication in these four years than chilli chicken dunked in huge amounts of "gravy" would suggest. He invites me to future food tastings and it is a conciliatory note that we manage to strike. But first, the order.

"Let's order chilli chicken?" Kapur says, quite dead-pan. And then seeing my grin says, "You'd be surprised at how many people would still order that even in restaurants such as these." I acknowledge the truth of the matter but the Spice Route, which does a fine act of balancing the creativity of its chef (the redoubtable Veena Arora) with populism, does not have declasse dishes such as the above.

Not to be outdone, Kapur asks the waiter, "So, what do you have that's closest to chilli chicken?" The waiter must have heard that one before because he's quick to point out Kai Phirk Thai Dum, Thai-style, stir-fried chicken that turns out to be quite excellent.

Digging into it, I ask Kapur whether he gets upset at all when people deride Indian-Chinese that he's so successfully peddling (40 outlets, 12 cities, ambitious plans of taking Yo! China global in a McDonald's like fashion since there are no truly "global Chinese food chains").

He philosophises, "There's a difference between improvising and massacring a cuisine." By his complicated logic, massacring would involve the likes of sending ketchup sachets with, say, take-away pizza (or spring rolls?).

"Some Indian chains did that in the beginning. But you would notice Pizza Hut never does that," he says. "We also have a responsibility of educating customers, after all." Improvising, on the other hand, could mean a "sambhar cooked in a north Indian home" that may taste nothing like the original but would still find takers.

That's the equivalent of manchurian, invented in India and American chopsuey as we know it, neither American nor Chinese. It's a thin divide and Kapur clearly sees himself on the right side.

Our main course has arrived - in a break from Chinese, this is minced chicken with basil (Thai) and coconut-flavoured fish (south Indian). Kapur, still in a ponderous mood, says "Coconut is one of those difficult flavours." The other is garlic. What he means is that there is less mass acceptance for such flavours in his line of work (local sensitivities mean that there is a Jain-Chinese Yo! China outlet in Ahmedabad) and thus dishes obviously need to be tailored accordingly.

He admits that Chinese chefs whom he hires from the Mainland or centres such as Hong Kong are shocked by such tailoring required to suit Indian palates. "On the other hand, the world of food is increasingly getting globalised," he points out, "I was at a restaurant in Hong Kong, for instance, where they were serving naan with authentic Chinese food!"

Besides, Indian-Chinese is clearly the flavour of the moment. "We may deride it but the world over, people are consciously looking for its flavours." His dream of growing a McDonald's style chain in the next few years clearly has potential.

What's more, with Matrix India having recently invested in the company, the growth plan to take the brand "everywhere, anytime"- to airports, leisure complexes, home delivery (the fastest growing segment in food retail) - is well underway.

But such ambition can be punishing. Kapur sighs at the 14-18 hour days he needs to put in, says that his wife has banned all newspapers from his house on Sundays, and he certainly misses his days in America when his time was indeed his own.

"I didn't even have my boss' mobile phone number. People respected your leisure time and if something was to be discussed, it would be in office." In India, obviously, things don't work the same way and the biggest myth, Kapur says, is the fact that labour is cheap here because "for every one person who is supposed to work, you need to hire two more to ensure that!"

Our lunch is almost at an end now. The forks have been pushed away. Kapur, ever the gentleman, offers to pay. When I decline, he says, "Oh! But would you mind if I packed (the leftovers) and took this?" That's to give to the beggars on Delhi's roads and traffic stops. I nod.

As we step out, our guest touchingly confides a stray thought. "Once I gave some Thai red curry to a man on the street but wonder later whether he liked the flavour." We don't know if he did. On the other hand, the promised new flavours at Yo! China may find larger approval.

 

Anoothi Vishal | May 06, 2008

http://www.rediff.com/

 

The day comes flying with dreams…
No, I don’t wanna dream tonight…
I just wanna scream in flight…
Just wanna look deep below the light…

Am I still dreaming?
No, I don’t wanna be illusive in daylight…
I just wanna beam ahead with light…
Just wanna spree around with time…

If I was lost in a dream…
If I was boss of my every seam…
If I was to emboss every spin of my wheel…
If I was to toss every brim of spiel…

I could have rested in peace…
I could have shattered that scream…
I could have stopped the era traverse…
I could have pattered with the verse…

Hopes are high…
No, I don’t wanna dream & fly…
I just wanna brace my hopes & ply…
Just wanna let my dreams apply…

Am I still dreaming?
No, I don’t wanna be illusive in daylight…
I just wanna beam ahead with light…
Just wanna spree around with time…

Yet another blog set by me to fly today...

As each year passes by, more than 2 lakh students in India take engineering entrance exams and most of them take admissions. Barring a few institutions, I sometimes think that is doing engineering worth the pains people take to get admission.

I myself being an engineering student, is today pushed to think that the kind of study we do in engineering could very well be done by a student of class XI, many might not agree on this but still the kind of preparation students do to take admission is far rigorous than the kind of learning that takes place in most engineering institutions.

There is a term common among the engineering students 'ONE NIGHT STAND'........ almost the same as you might have had with that hot chick in the bar, the difference being, with engineering students in India its with the books n notes a night before the exam.

Practical training, industrial exposure and projects are almost next to nil. Teaching methodology is limited to telling the facts but not how to apply them, practical teaching is just limited to the lab work and that too without students being asked to perform something out of the so called practical syllabus.

IIT's which are a class apart are just because they follow or at least in most ways have signs of THE US education system. With grade point average being used the competitive spirit never dies, pushing students towards doing projects leads them to discover many things which only theory can never teach us.

The difference is also in the amount of money these big institutions reserve for the research work and other projects. While, in other colleges researchers are nowhere to be found forget about the research. Government proudly lists down the opening of new state universities, paying least attention to the fact that the amount of money they are spending on these universities doesnt even match what a single engineering college should be given in order to support the money spent on the research and other academic activities.

In the end I would like to conclude that just opening 100's of engineering colleges each yr. would improve the condition or should our government try to open only a few but give them loads of money in order to support research work and let students undertake projects without the fear of failure?

 

Welcome to edutogether.