Bhollu’s journey to becoming a master didgeridoo maker in a remote Himalayan village

There are a few things that always make me wonder. One of them is how incredibly mouldable we are. We are always a work in progress, always a story in completion. Every day, we are shaped by endless influences. And when we truly allow each colour to add onto us, what’s created is something special. This is the story of a boy who chose to follow signs, allowed life to lead him and became adept at creating a musical instrument that some say is the oldest in the world.

Named after the Shiva temple in the vicinity, Bhagsu is now a bustling tourist town in Himachal Pradesh. But look closer and you may still find some hints of a village hidden behind the cafes and the cars. From the tales we’ve heard, Bhagsu was once a gypsy town in the truest sense. Dusk to dawn, the village would see raggedy travellers gathering at random places, singing and dancing. Their instruments and their tunes were all the excuse that the villagers needed to celebrate. Much has changed today, but the legacy lives on through those who have seen the village in its vagrant avatar. One such person is Bhollu.

Bhollu is celebrated among travellers as a skilful didgeridoo maker. He’s 29 and has been creating smiles through his craftsmanship for the past seventeen years, having started when he was just twelve. Always experimenting with new materials and techniques, he is a perfect example of what happens when the creator falls in love with the created. When he’s not making a dig, he’s sitting somewhere playing one.

It intrigued me. How did fate conspire for a small boy in Himachal to discover an instrument from aboriginal Australia? So I finally asked him one day, and this is his story.

Instruments at the workshop

“When I was about nine years old, Bhagsu was visited by mostly European tourists. My family, like many others, ran a homestay for them. One day, a tourist came in with an unusually long and oddly shaped bamboo staff. Every morning, he carried it to the fields, saying he was going to meditate. This was enough to make us jump up and stealthily follow the stranger. We sat behind the rocks whispering softly, when the man suddenly put the staff to his mouth and made a pulsating, monotonic sound. We ran through the fields screaming and shouting!”

Bhollu laughed and continued, “But I was still curious and so, I followed him for a second time. I was smitten, how could a simple bamboo structure make such a sound!”

This traveller became the connecting point between Bhollu and an instrument from thousands of miles away. He carefully answered all the questions of a curious village boy and then bid him goodbye.

“The man left, but he sparked something inside me. A year after that, I had a passing thought that maybe I should try and make a digeridoo for myself. Why not, it would be fun! And that’s how it started. There was no internet back then, so it was a lot of trial and error. But I managed to make something close to what I had seen. Then one morning, a fakir passing by heard me play this instrument. He stopped and immediately asked if he could buy it. I had never sold one before but he willingly paid two hundred rupees for it. I was just twelve then, and you can imagine how exciting this was”.

“When I got to work a second time, my family noticed and asked me to focus on my studies, and I conceded. I had an active student life, actively participating in painting, yoga and playing the Indian flute. This went on for a few years. But life has a mystical mechanism for course-correction. When I was sixteen, my uncle got some bamboo shafts for repairing the roof of his home. I immediately felt like making a digeridoo again. It had been a few years now and it took some work. But it happened. This time again, a traveller passing by asked me if I wished to sell it and paid seven hundred rupees for it.”

“It was not a coincidence anymore. I knew that I could make a living through making and selling didgeridoos, but then again, it felt like much more than that. It was my calling, and to ignore it would be unwise and unnecessary. So I started planning my days, making sure I studied and spent time on improving my crafting techniques. Today, it’s been almost fourteen years,” he smiled and nodded gently.

We put our discussion to rest and sipped slowly on some tea. Along with didgeridoos, Bhollu now also makes Cajón – a percussion-based drum, originally from Peru. And there’s also another instrument he’s been quietly working on, but has requested not be mentioned just yet.

The cup of tea was over and so were the words. I bid goodbye, promising to share the details of his story, if and when it got published.

It is normal to meet people through places, but rarely do we meet places through people. And I can say, from personal experience, that the latter is far more fulfilling. I’ve met Bhagsu through Bhollu. And through him, I’ve met not just her today, but all of her yesterdays as well.

Bhollu's workshop where anyone can learn to make their own instrument

The process – from tree log to instrument

It depends on the wood. There are hard woods and soft woods. Bholu has experimented with didgeridoos made from cactus wood, eucalyptus and poplar. A didgeridoo can be made out of any wood. We start by getting a good piece of wood and then decide on the sound tone that the player wants. When you make one of hard wood, it’s cut into two parts along the centre and is carved from the inside based on the note. After carving, it is smoothened using sand paper and cleaned. This is followed by applying a coat of lacquer.

The next day, it is sanded on the outside. Another round wooden ring is added to the rear end of the did to avoid cracks. Then, bee wax is boiled and poured inside the didgeridoo. This helps in keeping the tones warm. Using too much lacquer gives it a plastic finish, which doesn’t look good and also disturbs the warmth of the tones. The instrument is then cut from the top and checked for tones.

If you use a soft wood, you heat an iron rod and use it to create a cavity in the wooden piece. Here, it need not be cut into two pieces and glued back together. The sound of the digi depends more on the channel for air flow. It is easy to create a dig out of bamboo as it naturally has a cavity running through the centre.

People often ask Bholly his favourite but he says, "For me, they are all special, and I cannot choose one over another. It’s special when people come and participate in making the instrument. Most of the people who come here ask me how to make it and work on their own instruments. That is always special, when you make your own."

Reference:https://yourstory.com/2016/10/bhollu-music-didgeridoo-bhagsu/

Young Indians should take risks, says Bhavin Turakhia

Bhavin Turakhia of the Turakhia brothers-fame is a self-confessed geek. The brothers recently made news when they sold their venture, Media.net, to a Chinese consortium for $900 million.

Bhavin Turakhia

Bhavin, who is also the Co-founder of Directi Group, believes that technology is the biggest enabler in driving innovation. Founded in 1998, Directi today has 11 business units, four of which were sold to Endurance International Group in January 2014. At present, Directi’s business units include Ringo, Flock, Zeta, Radix, and Codechef.

In a free-wheeling chat with YourStory on the sidelines of TechSparks2016, Bhavin, 36, said it was love at first sight for him when he first laid eyes on a computer. “This was before the internet. Before even Windows, when there was only MS Dos and GW Basic and stuff. I was programming since then,” he said. According to him,

“We couldn’t afford a computer at home so I used to spend three hours everyday after school skipping the school bus and taking the regular bus home. I did this for three to four years. I love maths and physics so programming was a natural extension.”

How to inculcate a mindset for innovation

On the question of why Indians lack a mindset for innovation, Bhavin feels that it is not as if a person is inherently innovative or not. “It is the environment you are brought up in that makes you that way,” he added.

Giving the example of the Indian mindset, he said parents often want their children to take up a job with an established large corporation or a government service. It is like, ‘Mera beta will join a big company, marry and settle down.’ Bhavin said, “Yes, there are inherent high risks in entrepreneurship. But the rewards are equally high, and at the end of the day you are making an impact.” He added,

“I fundamentally live by the credo that it is our moral obligation to make an impact that is directly proportional to our potential.”

Besides parents and families holding back an individual to take the path less travelled, Bhavin feels the second problem is our education system. “It guides us towards this process of learning and acquiring skills but not towards building and entrepreneurship,” he said.

However, things are changing fast. He said,

“Acceptance will come when we and media celebrate victories and do not criticise losses or failure. Think about it as pivoting instead of failure. A person who has failed has tried. He/she has put a life’s efforts and persevered but did not succeed. Let’s celebrate that.”

Calling out to the media, he said the more the media will celebrate failure, the less it is going to be a taboo as a subject. Consequently, it will become easier for people to acknowledge and say, ‘yes, you know, this is what is acceptable and this is what I want to do.’

Parental support important

Recalling his own childhood spent in Mumbai, Bhavin said that his parents were very supportive. “Our parents were amazing. My dad read a lot, and that influenced me too. Between the ages of 10 and 14, I must have read loads of biographies like IBM, Intel, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and Xerox. My dad always said you can achieve anything you set your mind to,” Bhavin said.

He added that though his father did not always agree to the route he took – he switched from science to commerce and dropped out and started his own company – but he was supportive and said ‘you should make your own mistakes and we’ll support you no matter what.’

“Everything that I am today, 99 percent credit goes to him,” said Bhavin.

Reference : https://yourstory.com/2016/10/bhavin-turakhia-on-taking-risks/

A Chinese intern’s experience at a Bengaluru tech startup

On July 3, 2016, I found myself surrounded by people with Indian English accents, not very easy to understand for non-native English speakers. I had arrived in Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India, where for the next four months I would be working at Helpchat. However, I would not be working as a coder or product manager. Instead, my role would be in the capacity of a consultant — helping the Helpchat team know more about China and its staggering mobile internet industry, while learning more about the Indian mobile industry. The role really excited me — it was a great opportunity to understand the behaviour of 40 percent of the world’s population (Chinese & Indian!) Here’s a quick overview of my initial experiences.

Why India and Helpchat?

To begin with, most people would be curious to know why a Chinese biotechnology graduate ended up interning at an Indian startup. The answer to this is actually quite personal. I feel very inclined towards business and tech and felt that before pursuing higher studies, it would be great to get some international experience and understand the world better. What better place than India to do that? Accordingly, I started to search for an opportunity through AIESEC.

I wanted to be somewhere I would be surrounded by brilliant people and get to learn new things. In a sea of Indian startups, Helpchat, an all-in-one app similar to Baidu in China, grabbed my attention. Given the fact that it is smaller than the Indian giants ( Flipkart, Ola, etc.) but not too small either, I felt it was just the place for an intern. I would also get an opportunity to work closely with the product team.

This was both interesting and challenging. There is a saying in China that if you can survive in India, you can survive in pretty much any part of the world. Here I had the opportunity to work on an advanced product in a diverse country, and there was no way I was going to let go of it.

Resembling the Silicon Valley and the Chinese startup ecosystem at the same time

I have to admit that I was a bit sceptical before entering the Helpchat office for the first time. Imagine a room full of Indian people who speak a language you struggle with, most of them being tech guys who think differently, talk in fancy technical terms, and type code with their headphones on. All this was enough to intimidate a young Chinese woman like myself. However, this stereotype was cleared the moment I stepped in. Painted in bright colours, here was a neat office with inspiring slogans and young, energetic Helpchat employees brainstorming. It was all pretty Silicon Valley-style — open plan offices, friendly and relaxed. I can say that with authority as I had seen the same during my visit to offices of famous high-tech Silicon Valley corporations and startups before coming here.

Sam, the Helpchat mascot in the Helpchat office

As the only Chinese citizen in the office, it was like I became a Wikipedia page on all things related to the country. People kept approaching me, introducing themselves, discussing the way Chinese entrepreneurs have solved various problems, and what the differences or similarities between the Chinese and Indian startup ecosystems are.

The hierarchy is pretty flat here! Even the Helpchat CEO, Ankur Singla, came to my seat out of the blue and grabbed a chair to sit down. Since I hadn’t prepared for it, we had an impromptu but really nice and inspiring conversation about a lot of topics, including my expectations and future. He also has a lot of admiration and respect for Chinese entrepreneurs and asked me a lot of questions about innovative apps from China.

With Ankur Singla, Helpchat Founder and CEO

I witnessed not only how people here worked hard, learnt eagerly, and discussed seriously, but also how people celebrated achievements, a colleague’s birthday, or simply shared food in the office. Mind you, this is not an office with just 10 or 20 people where it would be easy to collaborate, but one where over 150 people sit and work together. There is definitely some magic going on here.

The Helpchat team celebrating during an off-site

Chinese startups work endlessly because the competition in China is fierce and the development of the internet industry is fast. It is increasingly the same in India. For example, Helpchat strives to be the fastest tech company in India as Vishal (CTO, Helpchat) explainedhere. While the company officially works five days a week, a lot of folks are in the office on Saturdays and Sundays as well.

Although India is the next big market after China, I feel the country is yet to see the kind of aggressive competition between startups (barring a few like Ola vs Uber or Flipkart vs Amazon) I have encountered at home. The truth is that while the Indian market is evolving fast, it is probably still three to four years behind China.

My work here

I was surprised to see how curious the people at Helpchat are about mobile internet development in China. My job here is to make the company understand more about Chinese customers, its culture, various apps, and the things that are going on in the Chinese tech industry. Why? Because no one can deny how great some of the Chinese tech giants like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent have been in coming up with localised solutions targeted for Chinese users. By learning how the Chinese understand their people and localise apps, Helpchat would be able to accelerate its development towards building solutions for a billion Indians. The first assignment I got from Avinash (CPO, Helpchat) was to make the product team understand the Chinese news-reading behaviours and pop apps features so that their own news feature could benefit from them. Avinash asked me tons of questions while we were trying to understand the Chinese pop news reading customer behaviours and patterns. We dived deep into various apps that served this use case and discussed the reasons behind the differences and the logic behind the "weird" features. I was impressed by his sharp observations during our conversation.

Explaining Chinese apps’ UX to the UX designers at Helpchat

Bundling in India

Besides the Chinese news user behaviour and app analysis, I did the same for coupons, food, and public transportation with others from the product team. Every time, the first question I got was: "What do you use for x in China?" or "Do you have any app for y in China?"

The first app I always talked about was WeChat, followed by apps from Baidu and Alibaba Group, ending with standalone elegant apps with signature features. It was then that I realised how lucky I was to have grown up in a place with such a high performing mobile internet environment. As a millennial who has literally grown side by side with rapid developments in tech, unlocking my phone to get things done online is my first instinct. Since the BAT( Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) in China are bundling daily services into their apps, I can basically do everything from a single app like WeChat or Baidu maps or Meituan. Helpchat is trying to do the same thing in India; with most users having phones with less space and memory, a bundled app makes a lot of sense for a market like India.

Some interesting things I learnt

I am from Guangzhou, the paradise of food and one of the biggest cities in China. Since most of the people in India do not eat pork and cows are considered holy, I was quite concerned about how I would survive in a country dominated by vegetarian people. After a few days of having non-vegetarian meals, I decided to give a vegetarian meal a try, albeit with a little persuasion from an Indian friend. The food here is quite spicy for me, but I think I am already in love with the flavours of Indian cuisine. With thousands of varieties of food and sweets, India has increased my appetite. I think I may turn vegetarian after this experience!

The first Indian meal I tried

I also had a really interesting discussion with an Indian friend on why a lot of Indians are not interested in pork and beef. I was surprised to know that besides the religious reasons, Indians actually believe that vegetarian food keeps a person's mind sharp while meat makes people lazy. In China, vegetarian dishes are only a part of our food as a vitamin source, while meat is the main dish for energy. If people in China heard someone only ate vegetarian food, their first question would be: what happened to you that led to such a behavioural change?

Transportation is another thing I should talk about. I knew beforehand that Indian traffic was going to be crazy, but the first experience was still frightening — the noisy and unnecessary honking of cars, the dust and pollution created by the vehicles, autos rushing through the traffic, and everyone following a zig-zag lane. The traffic jams in Bengaluru were way beyond my expectations, too. Imagine: it can take you more than two hours to cover a 10 km journey. This is something which had never happened in my life, even in the most crowded city in China. Though I am frustrated with the traffic here, I am happy to see the Karnataka government building the metro. Roads, for a city, are like blood vessels for human beings. To develop a city, we need to build wide and proper roads first, something that is definitely missing in Bengaluru.

I live in an international intern house with people from all over the world. There is a map in my room on which all the previous inhabitants have pinned their pictures on the countries they belong to. Surprisingly, I am the only one from China and there have been only two people from Asia so far including me. Most of the others were from South America and Europe. With people from all over the world staying at the house, we often discuss things about India that surprise us. We discussed how Indians shake their heads when they mean to say both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and how they wave their hands to stop the traffic when they need to cross the road. While there are trivial things to crib about, everyone staying in the intern house loves India and no one wants to leave after just six months or a year. I know for sure that I’m going to miss this diverse and united country when I go back.

Image of the map with pictures of people who have lived in our intern house

In the past two years, I have travelled a lot and experienced a diverse world, from Kenya to Thailand to the USA and now India. It is both interesting and inspiring to see how different people think and make use of the emerging technologies, especially mobile tech. I am surprised to see how smartphones have changed Chinese social behaviours and living styles in less than five years. With a large young population and culture as diverse as China, India can also use the power of the internet to regain its earlier glory.

Let's wait and see magic happen in India or be the ones to make it happen at Helpchat India!

Reference : https://yourstory.com/2016/10/helpchat-chinese-intern-experience/

From 6 to 96-year-olds- how Vidushi Daga’s venture is upgrading everyone’s digital knowledge

A 95-year-old bedridden great-grandmother in Mumbai burst into tears when she managed to see her great-grandchildren after 11 years and talk to them via skype. Just the click of a button made this exchange happen. It was a moment that had everyone in tears, including Vidushi Daga, who had made the exchange possible.

I clearly recall the shock on my maternal grandmother’s face when she and I skyped a few years ago. She could not believe that it was possible to see me in real time. While technology gets better and sleeker, not everyone has been able to keep pace with it. It is kahaani ghar ghar ki that parents, uncles, aunts and grandparents struggle to figure out the intricacies of technology, from apps, WhatsApp, email and Facebook to just their smartphone’s interface. Obtaining the gadget is not a problem, operating it is.

Vidushi’s venture Clone Futura, a company based out of Mumbai, solves this very problem. It provides onsite and customised technology training and support services through computers, iPads and smartphones to people of all age groups. “Technology is growing and people are getting handicapped due to complications with new ways and methods of dealing with each other in daily life. So, we invented new ways of training them in technology and doing so in a simple and fast manner, especially for kids and young adults, who spend as much as 700 hours on social media and games in a year,” says Vidushi.

Demystifying technology

On a break from work after the birth of her second child, Vidushi realised that people above 45 years of age were falling into the trap of the generation gap, and technology was making the divide feel wider. “I realised that this gap existed when I discovered that my aunt was struggling with her newly-purchased phone. Her frequent queries wouldn’t get solved even after repeatedly requesting her son.” Additionally, when she saw her own son spending hours on social media and games, she decided she wanted to use this institution for technology and channelise it better, making this exposure to technology productive.

She got started in 2012, but registered the company only in July 2013. At the beginning, the 37-year-old was helping three to four children in her apartment. To take this a step further, she approached the National Sports Club of India at Haji Ali and trained the 81 seniors members associated with it. The next big step was when the popular Lodha builders approached her and asked her to train 10,000 people as part of their CSR activity. Vidushi completed the project with just one trainer. It was from here that things took off, and she began to hire more trainers as demand increased.

From the Bombay Stock Exchange to entrepreneurship

Vidushi’s stint with entrepreneurship, though recent, has not been difficult. A natural hustler, she started early. By the age of 14, she was part of new multi-level marketing efforts like Amway and Oriflame. Studious, ambitious and driven, Vidhushi bought products from wholesalers and sold it at exhibitions to earn good profits.

The knack for making profits took her to the Bombay Stock Exchange at the age of 17. Initiated into it by her grandfather, Makhanlal Damani, she spent 14 years there as an arbitrageur. Named the ‘Queen of Arbitrage’ by those at the Bombay Stock Exchange, she possessed all the right qualities that the job demanded. “I was young, had good eyesight, a knowledge of computers, discipline and the instinct to learn.” She quit only to take a maternity break and dedicate time to her children.

Vidushi’s focus has been business strategy and development, while her husband has been supporting her by managing the backend operation.

Women, children and seniors

Clone Futura’s focus is on women, children and seniors. “We are training kids to be productive and innovative online, we are training women to start their own businesses and sell online, and we are training the seniors or elderly to bridge the digital divide and generation gap by empowering them with knowledge of the current tech scenario. We have customised training for principals, teachers and students as per their requirements in the comfort of their homes.”

Their differentiator is that they cater to a diverse age group, and especially to those who can’t travel or are bedridden. The team comprises of 12 core members and 300 freelance trainers.

The Uber of training

An automated system drives the entire process. “It’s almost like how Uber works. The trainers and the trainee get an SMS. The trainer knows in advance what he or she has to deliver. The trainees can also give feedback after the course. At any given point of time, I can track any trainer and know where they are and what course they are training.”

From general technology and digital training, the trainers also extend their teaching to topics like coding, digital marketing and cloud computing. They are paid a percentage of the fees for training. “Trainers are mostly in the age group of 18-24 and earn enough to even fund their MBAs abroad or buy a motorbike or MacBook,” says Vidushi. They also have online video manuals for their teachers, with automated assessment and certifications in place to ensure quality is not compromised on. The demand is mostly from the metros, though the Tier I and II cities are not far behind.

Road map

Given that Vidushi had started out with an investment of Rs 15,000 and the company is today clocking a revenue of Rs 1 crore, which they aim to push to 3 crore by next year, the rise of the company has been astounding. Funding will come in handy for quality trainers and marketing their initiatives such as JuniorWhiz, a competition that encourages kids to innovate. “Since the systems and processes are already in place, all we need is the funding to scale.”

Given the response the company has garnered in Mumbai, Vidushi has also initiated pilot projects across India. They are planning to expand and open home based centres across India by this year-end. Vidushi is also looking at expanding the team of trainers from 300 to between 4,000 and 6,000 in the next two years.

In the service sector, Cloud Futura has found a niche for itself, which it can tap to make money while doing good for those who feel digitally excluded. While private tutors and small institutes make up the bulk of their competition, they face global competition from the likes of Apptrainers.in, which trains people on how to use apps by nurturing a community of app trainers.

It is yet to be seen how quickly this model can be scaled.

Reference : https://yourstory.com/2016/10/vidushi-daga-clone-futura/

Meet this man in remote Uttarakhand who has dedicated his life to preserving seeds

India had more than 10,000 naturally growing varieties of rice at one point in time. And this isn’t only with rice; different regions with their different climatic conditions automatically led nature to provide us with different seeds. Our desire for standardisation and urge to make a better world led us to experiment with seeds and produce hybrid seeds. This is probably why so many of us eat only white polished rice.

At our farm in Himachal Pradesh, we were looking to plant some indigenous varieties but were surprised that all fingers pointed us to the agricultural shops that sell seeds. Traditionally, most of the villages in India depended on exchanging seeds and it led to a beautiful, self-sustaining seed bank. For instance, if my farm gave good tomatoes this year and your land gave good cabbages, we’ll exchange the seeds next year. Everyone in the village has a good access to high quality seeds this way and the quality of seeds automatically goes up every year.

Our hunt for people working with this ethos led us to the doorstep of Vijay Jardhari of Beej Bachao Andolan in remote rural Uttarakhand. In a village called Upli Nagli near Tehri district in Uttarakhand, we reach Vijay Jardhari’s house after a full day’s bus ride and a two-hour hike up the hill. Perched atop a beautiful hill, the house provides for a very modest life for Vijayji and his family, which is dedicated to the cause of preserving seeds.

Path to Vijay Jardhari's house

Vijay Jardhari with his wife and two daughters

One of the key figures during the epic Chipko movement (primarily a forest conservation movement started in 1973) Vijayji has dedicated his life to preserving seeds. His farm is a prime example of abundance of nature and his treasure of seeds leaves one in awe. He showed us some 20 varieties of rajma (kidney beans) and holding them in the hands feels like holding valuable gem stones. “What scientists are selling to us today has always been provided for by nature,” says Vijayji. Through Beej Bachao Andolan, he and his colleagues spread the knowledge of traditional farming practices and more people moving to these methods is their only motivation.

Different varieties of Rajmah

To talk in terms of numbers, Tulip Das presents a case for Beej Bachao Andolan on her blog:

In this region of Uttarakhand, farmers were growing a distinctive variety of red rice called chardhan. The rice was nutritious and suited to local requirements and conditions. Farmers also grew indigenous varieties likethapchini, jhumkiya, rikhwa and lalbasmati. Agriculture here was untouched by modern practices and good yields were obtained without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. What the farmers here were doing was avoiding monoculture in a method called baranaja (12 grains), which involves the multicropping of a number of cereals and legumes. This diversification is security against drought and crop failure. Different crops are harvested at different times of the year and ensure year-round supply of food. This also maintains soil fertility by replenishing nitrogen.

Now, Beej Bachao Andolan has about 150 varieties of paddy from which 100 different varieties can still be grown. BBA has also collected more than 200 varieties of rajma. Effective pest control is accomplished by using the leaves of the walnut and neem, and the application of the ash and cow’s urine. The use of traditional farming methods and seeds has resulted higher yields, improved health of humans and increased conservation of soil fertility and agro-biodiversity.

Bottles from nature (these dried vegetables are used to store seeds)

Different types of grains

This story is not a celebration of Beej Bachao Andolan or any individual, because recognition will not bring about any change. “My only wish to talk is so that more people can live this way of life. We are causing immense damage to the earth and more people in the cities need to wake up to these realities since the massive changes percolate from city to the village,” Vijayji explains. In the case of farming methods and seeds, the movement calls for more decentralised systems that can fend for themselves.

Globally, the likes of Monsanto control the seeds market and more companies are growing with this intention. Baer, the pharmaceutical giant bought out Monsanto for $56 billion and we are moving rapidly towards an unnerving monopoly. There is no good or bad judgement over this but as humans, is this what we are on earth for? A war against nature? Our ‘Slow Tech’ movement is an initiative to put focus on these discussions and do things that feel right in our own small ways.

Vijay Jardhari’s Beej Bachao Andolan has reach in the Gharwal regions of Uttarakhand and there are many more efforts happening across India. Navdanya in Dehradun (started by Vandana Shiva), Auroville in Pondicherry has many farms working on these philosophies (Solitude farm), many holistic learning centres like CFL and Mudra Farms in South India and the likes of Sikkim on a State level are thinking along these lines. The idea for this article is to put more momentum in this direction and bring voices like Vijay Jardhari to mainstream.

Reference : https://yourstory.com/2016/10/vijay-jardhari-uttarakhand-beej-bachao-andolan/

Surabhi Verma’s Sparsh has given wings to dreams of children with autism, dyslexia and learning disabilities

A multidisciplinary approach

At Sparsh, Surabhi functions as an Early Intervention Centre (EIS), as well as offers therapies and intervention techniques that range from special education, occupational therapy, play and study groups, speech and language therapy and psychological assessments and family counselling for differently-abled children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), learning difficulty/dyslexia, attention difficulties, speech and language difficulties, intellectual disability and social and emotional difficulties.

In other words, they provide an integrated and holistic service where different aspects of the therapy are planned in concurrence to enhance the child's capabilities, which otherwise may have remained untapped. Sparsh caters to children in the age group of 18 months to 20 years. The full-time and part-time employees include qualified special educators, occupational therapist, speech and language pathologist, and child psychologist. There are many volunteers who work with the organisation and provide help wherever required.

“The mantra is to start the interventions early to bridge the gap. We start therapies for children from the age of 1.5 years. Along with the children, their parents are considered as an integral part of the team and are equally involved for goal setting, planning and training the parents for achieving optimum results for their child. The goals and results are checked and updated on a regular basis to keep a check on the improvement graph of the child and also help in planning the next step.”

Recognition and awareness

Unlike the challenges other entrepreneurs face, Surabhi’s can get to be quiet frustrating. Finding quality professionals is a challenge but what’s more irksome is the lack of seriousness from parents and the perception of the society. “Erratic therapy schedule because of parents has an adverse effect on the child. Since each child and his/her needs are unique, innovative strategies have to be planned for each one of them. This also means that all children would not improve and progress with same speed and thus striking a balance between our expectations and the parents' expectations and helping the child move forward is the true challenge.” Finding institutions that can provide vocational training to these children after they reach a certain age and skill level poses a problem too.

Being sustainable

As a private setup, their revenue comes from the fees for therapy. The profit margins in this sector depend a lot on the fixed costs. “Since we are working with children with special needs, a lot of space is required to create the infrastructure for various therapies,” Surabhi points out. The overall profitability ranges between 12 and 25 percent, depending upon the fixed cost incurred and the pricing of the therapies.

“For parents and children belonging to economically-weaker sections, we also provide the services at a discounted rate as we believe that no child should be deprived from thetherapies that can help them overcome the difficulty,” she says.

Impact

One of the ways Surabhi measures impact is via the number of children her team has helped successfully integrate into mainstream schools and professional colleges. One such child is Amit (name changed), who joined Sparsh when he was 10 years old. He had trouble with thinking and remembering, attention span and learning ability. Over the years with therapy his understanding and other abilities improved. He went on to get a distinction in Class XII CBSE board and cleared hotel management exams and joined Bachelor's of Hotel Management with ITC Welcome Group at their institute in Manipal. He is now working with a five star hotel in Bengaluru.

These are the stories that keep Surabhi going. “I have never let what I do impact me negatively. So every time I look at a child and see what I can do to make things better and positive, and that helps me stay motivated and positive.”

What needs to change?

Operating in a niche area, sustainability is not a challenge for Surabhi. Driven as she is by larger goals of creating impact she has started reaching out to schools in Tier II and III cities to set up centres in the school for autism.

However, while Surabhi and Sparsh are there to help these children, a visible impact in this field will only be visible with a change in the perception of the society we inhabit. “The society should work towards providing equal opportunities to the children with special needs and should not discriminate against them. It is important to understand that these difficulties are not a form of disease and there is no cure. These are special and permanent emotional and psychological needs of such children.” And that is food for thought.

Are you a startup or a professional working in the IoT space and are already implementing IoT in different industries? This is the platform for you to network with experts in the IoT domain. If you are pro-developer/maker and have an idea in IoT, this event can give you directions to explore opportunities to develop solutions for IIoT use cases.Be there on October 6, Bangalore for the first meetup. Register now!

My search for data on the number of children suffering from autism and the disorder’s prevalence in India led to a huge disappointment. The website for National Centre of Autismin India, which should have provided all the details, simply shares the data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in April 2014 on the prevalence of autismin the USA. This speaks volumes about the lack of attention and importance autism has received in India and the scope of research and action that needs to be taken in India.

Children with special needs, learning disabilities and autism continue to be treated as pariah in the India society. In 2005, Surabhi Verma started Sparsh for Children, a multidisciplinary therapy centre located in South Delhi to help children with autism, dyslexia and other learning disorders and transform their lives.

According to the 36-year-old, across the globe one out of 56 kids has autism and five to six students in a class of 40 students are likely to have one or the other form of learning disability. “With better diagnosis and awareness, more cases are being identified, which were earlier passed on as weak students or someone who is not interested in studies,” she explains.

Surabhi started almost a decade ago with a team of three employees and five kids. Today, Sparsh caters to about 100 children with a dedicated team of 15 employees.

From passion to profession

During her graduation, Surabhi opted to study early childhood development. She was so fascinated by the topic that she decided to work with children with special needs and began training for the same. In 2000 she completed her graduation in Autism from University of Birmingham in UK and Masters in Child Development from MS University, Vadodara. Her stint with Max Hospital and a few schools and therapy centres made her realise the urgent need for a multidisciplinary approach and services under one roof to help children.

“It was a very disheartening situation; parents were running from one place to another looking for best therapies and there was no one to guide them correctly. A lot of their time was being spent in travelling, which was tiring for the parent as well as the child. The need for a therapy centre where all the services—early intervention setup, special education, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, play and study group therapy and psychological services—could be provided under one roof led to setting up Sparsh For Children.”

Reference : https://yourstory.com/2016/10/surabhi-verma-sparsh-for-children/

This adventure junkie from Gujarat made an eBicycle that gobbles up 100 km with just one charge

An active triathlete, marathon runner and long distance cyclist, for Ajeet Kumar, risk is sport, and winning at it involves a fool-proof algorithm of preparation and performance. Thus, when the government seemed to be preparing for the incoming e-vehicle wave by resolving to put seven million EVs on the roads yearly by 2020, Ajeet was ready to hold up his end of the deal, and put in a performance with the “Ride2Happiness,” which is his take on the eBicycle.

Ajjet Kumar, Creator and Founder of Ride2Happiness

Not a startup, but a mission

Kumar is an NIT Kurukshetra graduate in mechanical engineering. The 44-year-old grew up in a Gujarat village named Bihat – popularly known as mini Moscow in the 70s. His career’s first leg was a decade in manufacturing, mostly in the automotive sector. His leap was long in coming, but when the time came, it was also a story in itself – it was the day his younger daughter was born. “Looking back, it seems the timing was odd, as it’s on the top of my wife’s sin-list for me,” he jokes.

He first ventured into health snacks, which, he admits, was a bit ahead of its time. He also tried his hand at web and mobile application development, and eGrocery, miscalculating the timing once again.

But his next attempt wasn’t like the others. This one was a mission. To be precise, it was ‘the’ mission of his life. “Being an automotive guy, when I visited China, I was stunned to see that conventional bikes were completely banned from metros, and replaced by eBikes. But when I started digging deeper into the scenario here, everybody had a failure-story to share. This propelled me to take matters into my own hands,” says Ajeet.

E-Biking for the adventurous soul

An ongoing debate of great relevance has been whether eBikes must be considered for government subsidy. Currently, the government doesn’t provide subsidies for it, making it a non-starter for most. But Ajeet saw it this way - it was a cue to lay the foundation for a sustainable future.

“I aim to make R2H the preferred mode of local transportation for the masses. That meant it had to cover decent range (that is, the distance covered between recharges), at an affordable cost,” says Ajeet.

80 percent of the Indian population travel less than 40 km a day. So Ajeet created a prototype of an eBike that can cover a distance of 50 km - 100km per recharge. Moreover, today’s lifestyle diseases are one of major epidemics in the world. R2H lets you combine fitness with economics. “So say, on a nice pleasant morning, I will paddle an R2H to my office, and can use the motor during my return,” says Ajeet. He is gunning to make “cycling to work” a thing.

For starters, R2H resonates with users whose daily commuting patterns are less than 40 km, those who are more sensitised to environmental issues, students who cannot use conventional bikes before a certain age, and senior citizens, who are unable to use conventional bikes due to their heavy weight and high speed.

Stayed in India, Made in India

“Most eBikes are created through imports – in parts or as a whole. We decided to go ahead with 100 percent localisation. It will not only provide us very good control on pricing, but also on the quality of our product,” says Ajeet.

At this stage, two models have been engineered. R2H – Pluto can run a distance of 50 km with the juice of a single recharge, while R2H – Eryx can cover a distance of 100 km. The products are available in multiple frames and colours, packed in with various accessories like a disc brake, suspension fork and mud guard so the users need not spend money on having these extensions installed externally. This compares well to a market-peer Spero, India’s first “crowdsourced ecycle”, which travels about 30 km on a single charge. The more expensive models of the Spero, though, can run up to 60 km and 100 km on a single charge. And like the Ratan Tata-backed Ampere, R2H is also designed and manufactured from scratch locally.

The bike uses MTB, which is a high performance type of frame. It also employs a high performance Lithium Ion battery. Plans are underway for building the BLDC motor locally, as well, which will provide them better control and understanding of customer.

With the maximum speed on both Pluto and Eryx being 25 kmph, both variants go from 0-25 in ten seconds. Weighing 25 and 28 kg respectively, the former takes 6 hours to charge fully, whereas the latter takes a span of 10 hours to attain 100 percent charge. That is because the latter has a superior motor rating at 48 V/ 250 W, compared to Pluto's 36 V/ 250 W.

To ensure that eBicycles catch on as a full-fledged - and the most preferred - mode of local transport, Ajeet has priced the Pluto at Rs 24,500, whereas the Eryx is Rs 37,500, which is slightly lower than Spero’s bikes ranging from Rs 29,900 to Rs 50,000, but higher than Ampere, the prices of which range from Rs 20,000 to Rs. 30,000.

“You are here”

They are now in the process of establishing dealerships across India. “We prefer to route most of our sales through dealerships, as it will assure the customer better personal attention and support,” says Ajeet. R2H already has over six dealerships across NCR, and plans to set up at least 15 more across Delhi and Chennai by the end of the year.

Set to launch in a fortnight, R2H has a pipeline of over 100 customers who have pre-ordered their eBicycles, and they are targeting sales of 1,000 R2H bikes per month at this stage. They plan to maximise their reach to tier II and tier III cities across the country by 2018.

Sector overview

As per the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020, the potential for electric two-wheelers is around 3.5 to 4 million units of sales per year. The Government of India, however, trumped that projection by announcing its ambition of putting seven million electric and hybrid vehicles on the road every year by 2020.

Spero and Ampere are currently leading the charge, the latter now moving upwards of 200 bikes a month. But Ajeet points out that some flagship concepts by the government, like FAME to promote EVs, have been lobbied against, and no serious effort is being made to localise major products - like motors or batteries - because this is a low-margin segment. So, whether this technology finds more takers in what has so far been an unpopulated market remains to be seen.

Website

Are you a startup or a professional working in the IoT space and are already implementing IoT in different industries? This is the platform for you to network with experts in the IoT domain. If you are pro-developer/maker and have an idea in IoT, this event can give you directions to explore opportunities to develop solutions for IIoT use cases.Be there on October 6, Bangalore for the first meetup. Register now!

Reference:https://yourstory.com/2016/10/ajeet-kumar-ride2happiness/

How big companies can innovate and create lean models, the Amazon Way

“We live in a world of complete digital revolution. Everything is connected and digitised. If we move from the old world of less experimentation and higher collateral damage to a phase of lean innovation, you realise it is evolved over the years,” says Gaurav Arora, Head of Startup Ecosystem, APAC, Amazon Internet Services.

There are instances of how lean innovations have given industry giants a run for their money, with several examples to be seen in the realms of automobile manufacturing, hospitality and retail. The focus here is to reduce customer uncertainty and focus on delight and happiness. “Think of the use of tokens to reduce queues in a bank, it reduces clutter and customer uncertainty,” adds Gaurav.

The idea is to think big, start small and stay honest. Many think that small organisations have the agility to work on innovative models, and that it is more difficult for larger organisations. But it is important to retain your startup mindset as you scale the business. Explaining how this works at Amazon, Gaurav says:There are a lot of business segments at Amazon that are experimented with every time. Not all of them work, but it takes one successful experiment like Amazon Web Services (AWS) to get that working.

The maths of innovation

Innovation, Gaurav says, is a function of organisation into architecture raised to the power of mechanisms and culture. In terms of the organisation, the first thing you need to think of is how to divide the workforce into single threaded teams, which are cross functional and capable of delivering end-to-end solutions

Gaurav explains that the notion here is simple- if you are working late at night and someone orders in pizza, and if that isn’t enough for your team, then your team is too big. An oversized team results in you getting bogged down in details, at which point you need to break down your teams.

When you go to the Amazon website, more than 250 services are at play at the backend. And each of these services are managed by our teams, who are operating together in parallel. All of them are focused on customer services and their core metric and performance. This helps Amazon be more agile.

The cultural mechanisms

However, what is more important is the cultural mechanism. It is what defines the process and workings of an organisation. “One of Peter Thiel’s biggest pieces of advice is – Don’t mess up the culture.” In Amazon, there are several leadership principles, and that is what makes it unique. These aren’t the aspirational leadership principles; it, in fact, is what drives the behaviour of the team in every situation they work in.

“Always start from the customer and then move to the artworks. The mission of Amazon is to create the most customer-centric company. And in that, every single action matters. So this means, it just isn’t working along what is your job but across different things.”

Gaurav adds that when they have to come up with any new product idea, the first thing done is to come up with a mock press release to understand the customer perspective. This includes mock customer quotes, which are shared with the internal stakeholders. If nobody asks questions, then it means the team needs to look back strongly at every single line of code.

But if there are strong questions, we understand that the people are interested. It is then that the team takes it to the next level by building detailed FAQs, where all aspects of the customer are important. The project is then broken into several levels and each of the teams works on it and builds an end-to-end solution.

You need to think of everything – processes, people, culture and mechanisms – that aids and builds innovation.

Reference : https://yourstory.com/2016/10/gaurav-arora-techsparks/

Dental surgeon-turned-entrepreneur rides the mobile revolution with Queppelin

In 2013, on behalf of the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications, Cologne Institute for Economic Research conducted a study that revealed that India’s per capita GDP will grow by $51 per year between 2010 and 2020 due to, hold your breath, rising mobile phone subscriptions.

Pulkit Mathur

According to the study, mobile devices will contribute to economic growth with increased use. The report stated that mobile subscriptions’ contribution to India’s GDP per capita growth will be 11.4 percent (2010-2012), 4.9 percent (2012-2015) and 2.1 percent (2015-2020).

Sensing this growth graph there has been an influx of tech companies since 2010 in the domain of mobility, such as location-based services, mobile payments, internet messaging and social networks, among other categories.

Meanwhile, Pulkit Mathur, a practising dental surgeon who was heading the dental wing of a major private hospital in Jaipur, got bitten by the entrepreneurship bug.

It happened while he was involved in mobile healthcare implementation and soon found he was interested in mobile technologies.

In 2010, when the mobile technology market was preparing itself for the coming revolution, Pulkit, and his brother, Prafulla Mathur, and Vikas Saxena, an investor, decided to be the part of the coming mobile revolution.

In 2011, they launched Queppelin, an end-to-end mobile applications provider at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona. The company shot to fame with the development of multimedia streaming and compression platform, which was later used in apps like Gaana.com and Reliance BigFlix.

“Our technology capabilities have grown with time. We have developed multiple apps which have been among the top 10 apps in India for the last six years,” says 30-year-old Pulkit Mathur, CEO and Co-founder, Queppelin.

The journey

The Jaipur-based platform raised two rounds of angel investments in 2010 and 2011, which came up to around $150,000 back in 2010-11.

“We didn’t have to raise more capital as we have been very cash-flow positive ever since,” adds Pulkit.

The platform has served more than 200 clients till date, including large corporates and successful startups from India, US and Japan. The company’s mobile and web solutions have helped clients in verticals such as e-commerce, healthcare, travel, utility, real estate and education.

The client list of the platform includes Facebook, MakeMyTrip, Oxigen wallet, Gaana.com, Reliance Bigflix, The Times of India, Allgeier, Aon Hewitt, Nissan Micra, Nokia, Aircel and others.

Sharing his early journey, Pulkit says, “We received two unexpected calls in the first year of our business, which gave us significant impetus as a company. One was from Red Herring when we got selected amongst the best emerging startups in Asia (Snapdeal was also selected the same year) and the other call was from Facebook’s country head. He was keen to work with us for the brand’s backend mobile technology.”

On challenges, he says that the most important part is to be the first to develop and deliver a solution in the market and take the competition by surprise. This makes or breaks a product. We have been achieving this for our clients time and again, he adds.

The largest tech market

According to India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), India accounts for approximately 67 per cent of the $124-130 billion tech market, the world's largest sourcing destination for the information technology industry.

Experts say entrepreneurs are now starting app-first and sometimes app-only businesses. That itself talks about the market opportunity. From the smallest of startups to the largest corporates, they are all focussing on developing their apps.

Growth opportunity

Mobile and web tech is now being adopted by even the largest of organisations.

The process of product development has also evolved over time. Tech platforms are changing by the hour. They are using new-age tools like Basecamp for project management and Github for version control, providing full transparency and accountability.

“As an IT service company, the focus always has been on innovation and it's important for us to keep up with the times so we can suggest what is best for our clients. We are working on a unique mobile solution for one of the largest private banks that wants to combine the offline and online world through mobile. A new wave of Internet of Things is coming up enabled by mobiles. We are living in a world where even mobile-based fintech, e-commerce, travel is considered traditional mobility,” says Pulkit.

Reference : https://yourstory.com/2016/09/queppelin/