Dalit woman makes history in Rajasthan

From a stone cutter in Puharu village to a sarpanch of Rajasthan’s Harmada gram panchayat, Narouti has waged an unrelenting battle for empowering the marginalised.

Four kilometers from the famous village of Tilonia is Harmada. A land of freedom fighters, Harmada today has a dalit woman sarpanch -- Nauroti.

This plucky woman had earned a name in the region for her struggle against injustice long before she was elected to this post a few years back. As she walks towards you, bare foot and clad in a simple, inexpensive sari, Nauroti is a picture of humility but the moment you start talking to her you know that she is no ordinary woman and no ordinary sarpanch either.

GUTSY AND WISE: Nauroti believes in action.

Nauroti was born in an extremely poor dalit family in Kishangarh district of Rajasthan and had to work on a road construction site for a living as a stone cutter. But despite the toil, she and many fellow labourers were not paid full wages on the pretext that they had not performed work according to the wages. It was like putting salt on fresh wounds, she felt. Nauroti raised her voice against this injustice, mobilised labourers and became the voice of the agitation. Finally they got justice when their case was taken to a court by an NGO.

That was more than three decades ago. From then till now, Nauroti has continued her unrelenting battle for empowerment of the marginalised and her journey from a stone cutter in Puharu village to a sarpanch of gram Panchayat in Harmada is the story of unflinching courage and impeccable honesty in the face of every adversity.

It was in the early 1980s that she joined the barefoot college in Tilonia founded by Bunker Roy. What made her stand apart from other women was her boldness, her ability to learn fast and above all the leadership qualities she displayed when she mobilised the construction workers. She became a sathin for women’s empowerment and would travel to villages in the region and educate them about their rights. She also joined adult literacy classes and later learnt to work on computers. Later, she trained many other women who had never gone to school like her. She has also had the chance to go to the US and China.

Above everything else, it is working amongst the people that gives her real satisfaction, she says. Nauroti first became member of her gram panchyat – Harmada -- and about three year back was elected as its sarpanch with an overwhelming majority.

As sarpanch, she waged a battle against the daru (alcohol) mafia and stopped encroachment of the graveyard in Harmara. She has been working tirelessly to get approval for development projects in the region and has achieved a lot in the past two and a half years. Nauroti says that there are two things she can never tolerate -- injustice and dishonesty. When it came to her notice that a mate working for a project of the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was committing fraud, she immediately took action. Despite resistance from many quarters, she did not stop till the person was jailed.

It is the villagers who talk about what she has done for them and the development of the village, whether it is the construction of water bodies, hand pumps, toilets, houses for those below poverty line, but when you ask her, she speaks about her unfinished agenda. “There is a lot more to be done before my tenure is over”, she says and lists a number of projects that remain to be completed.

Birdly – A Unique Virtual Simulator That Lets You Fly Like a Bird

If you’ve always dreamed of soaring the skies like a bird, here’s your chance. You can’t fly for real, of course, but you can experience what it feels like thanks to a futuristic virtual simulator called Birdly.

According to the inventor, Swiss artist and software developer Max Rheiner, Birdly stimulates all the user’s senses to give the user a sense of flying, based on human dreams. “People who have dreams about flying, they can just fly without training and they have great feelings,” he said. “We tried to model this experience like those dreams.”

To use the machine, users are required to lie flat on their stomachs with their hands sprawled out. They also strap on special VR goggles that are programmed with real skylines and landscapes of American cities. Tilting the body up and down produces the effect of ascending or diving. The machine even blows wind with the appropriate force and recreates smells that relate to the landscape below. So users experience a salt-air aroma as they fly over the sea, and and industrial odors while gliding over cities.

Birdly started as a research project at the Zurich University of Arts, with Rheiner leading a small group of students. They began experimenting with the virtual reality setup last November, with a simple goal: to embody the experience of flying like a bird through a full-motion simulator. Their biggest challenge was starting with motion-control equipment built from scratch, and tuning it to intuitively match the human understanding of a bird’s flight.

Over six months, Rheiner and his team built and tested several prototypes before finally coming up with the Birdly system. It might go into production pretty soon, although the pricing has not yet been finalized. The makers hope it won’t be used only for entertainment, but during therapy for the disabled as well.

The flying experience Birldy offers is said to be so real that Carrie Fitzsimmons, executive director of Le Laboratoire Cambridge, where the device was on display earlier this month, suffered vertigo while using it. “It’s an immersive experience,” she later said, “and different from any other flight simulators that you would typically use with a joystick. You are actually fulfilling the dream of what it would feel like to be flying.”

The technology is currently touring cities in America, and the response from testers has so far been very positive. Over a 100 waited people stood in line to test the simulator in New York, and organizers actually had to book appointments to manage the crowd. “I’ve always wanted to fly,” said Kip Fenton, an excited tester. “It’s sort of one of those fantasy things where, if I could be an animal, I would be a bird.” His only complaint was that he couldn’t use the machine for long. “I might have been more adventurous if I had known it was going to be that quick. I would pay a hundred bucks to do this for a half-hour.”

“The simulation completely immersed me in the experience of flying, or what my mind believed flying like a bird would be like,” wrote Norman Chang of Tested magazine. “It was almost dream-like. Immersion is achieved through the combination of low-latency head tracking, full-motion feedback (the bed actually tilts on several axes).”

Let’s face it, we all dreamed of flying at least once in our lives, and even though it may never happen in real life, unless you know how to build a working Iron Man suit, at least we may soon have a slightly less pleasurable but still thrilling alternative, thanks to Birdly and virtual reality technology.

Reference:http://www.odditycentral.com/technology/birdly-a-unique-virtual-simulator-that-lets-you-fly-like-a-bird.html#more-49649

Bicimaquinas – The Amazingly Useful Low-Tech Bicycle Machines of Guatemala

Cheap, eco-friendly machines, made from discarded bicycle parts and powered by pedalling, are all the rage in rural Guatemala. They’re called ‘bicimaquinas’, and they are used for various purposes in the community – right from simple food processing to making shampoos and soaps.

The unique device is the brainchild of ‘Maya Pedal’, a locally-run non-profit in the rural town of San Adrés Itzapa. Founded in 1997 as a collaboration between Canadian organisation ‘Pedal’ and local mechanic Carlos Marroquín, the organisation is credited with the invention of several devices that make use of spare parts from bikes and harness the power of human energy.

Each bicimaquina (bike-machine) is handcrafted at the Maya Pedal workshop, using a combination of old bikes, concrete, wood, and metal. Their designs are 100 percent original, and are both functional and economical. Priced at about $40 apiece, the machines come in several variations for different purposes.

Photo: YouTube caption

The bicycle mill, for instance, is adapted to fit a hand powered grinding mill or a corn thresher, but is operated by pedaling. This bicimaquina has the capacity to mill 3 lbs. per minute of any type of grain, most commonly yellow maize, soybeans and coffee.

The bicycle blender, on the other hand, looks like a stationary bike with a blender attached above the front tire. But instead of an electric motor to spin the blade, it uses a rotor attached to the wheel. The faster you pedal, the faster the blade spins – it is capable of speeds of up to 6,400 RPM.

Photo: Maya Peda/Facebook

Other devices include a bicycle rope water pump, a mobile water pump, a bicycle nut sheller, coffee depulper, washing machines, generators, and water pumps. Most of the machines were built to meet the needs of communities of indigenous women, helping to take the load off labor-intensive tasks. Thanks to the machines, they are able to bring more products to the market, hence putting more food on the table.

“Each bicimaquina has its own distinct design. Its heart is the pedal, but each uses its own tools and propels itself differently,” explained Maya Pedal director Mario Juarez, in a documentary by Makeshift Magazine. “The designs come from experience, from making, failing, breaking, and doing it all again.”

Photo: Maya Peda/Facebook

Bicimaquinas are highly useful in Guatemalan villages where there are no paved roads, underground pipes or electricity lines. “It was necessary to find a path and an alternative that would meet the needs of the locals and we researched and invested all that we could to do so,” Marroquín explained.

“At the start, Maya Pedal’s biggest challenge was getting people to accept the bicimaquina a tool,’ Juarez explained. “The communities rejected us. They said, ‘Hey, bring us something electric or something with more powerful with a diesel motor.’ We said no, here’s a tool with the appropriate technology. Technology that’s adapted to your needs.”

Photo: Maya Peda/Facebook

“This first hurdle was really hard for us,” Juarez added. But slowly, as people began to see the various benefits that the machines offered, the began to get interested. Now, the machines are selling quite well in the community.

“We have people coming in all the time to ask about the blenders,” said Maya Pedal coordinator Johanna Mesa Montuba. “They are one of the most popular machines. Women buy these machines to start a business. They can take them out to the soccer game, or set them up in the plaza, and sell fresh juice anywhere.”

Reference:http://www.odditycentral.com/technology/bicimaquinas-the-amazingly-useful-low-tech-bicycle-machines-of-guatemala.html#more-4515

This High-Tech Travel Suitcase Follows You Around Like a Puppy

Thanks to this new hands free suitcase, carrying around heavy luggage may soon become a thing of the past. Designed by Israeli company NUA Robotics, this ‘smart’ suitcase is the technological equivalent of Mary’s little lamb – it’ll follow you everywhere you go.

The carry-on suitcase, currently a prototype, connects to a smartphone app via bluetooth. It has a built-in camera sensor that can ‘see’ you and follow you around on flat surfaces like airport floors. It comes with an anti-theft alarm to prevent someone snatching it away when you’re not looking, and, for the icing on the cake, it has a backup battery that you can use to charge all your devices.

NUA Robotics

“It can follow and carry things for people around while communicating with their smartphone, and avoiding obstacles,” explained Alex Libman, founder of NUA Robotics. “We’re combining sensor network, computer vision, and robotics. So if you download our app, press the ‘follow me’ button, the luggage recognizes the specific user and knows to follow and communicate.”

NUA Robotics

NUA is still testing the device and trying improve features like speed and customization, but they hope to make the suitcase available to customers in a year’s time. If it proves successful, they want to use the Bluetooth pairing technology to automate lots of other devices, like shopping carts at the supermarket. These devices are especially meant to be useful to the physically disabled and elderly. “Any object can be smart and robotic,” Libman told Mashable. “We want to bring robots into everyday life.”

Mashable

The Israeli tech company made it clear that the smart suitcase they recently unveiled is just a prototype, and that the finished product will look just like a regular suitcase. They’re planning to partner with a carry-on luggage maker, since the device that makes it ‘smart’ weighs just 2.5 pounds and can be fitted on old-fashion luggage.

Reference:http://www.odditycentral.com/technology/this-high-tech-travel-suitcase-follows-you-around-like-a-puppy.html#more-49994

The World’s Longest-Running Experiment Started in 1879 and Will End in 2100

Since the late 19th century, botanists at the Michigan State University have been collaborating on a single seed-germination experiment. Now in its 137th year, it is turning out to be the world’s longest recurrently monitored scientific study. It will end in the year 2100, which means most of us won’t even be around for the final result.

The world’s longest-running experiment started out in the fall of 1879, when Dr. William James Beal, a botanist, set-out to find a conclusive answer to the one question that farmers have been asking for centuries: How many times do you have to pull out weeds before they entirely stop growing back? Beal realised that to answer the question, he needed to work it out for real – by finding out exactly how long seeds could remain dormant in soil while still remaining viable.

So he devised an experiment that would, in centuries, provide the answer he was looking for. He put together a collection of seeds of 23 different plant types and decided to leave them dormant for years, before checking if they would still germinate. He placed 50 seeds of each variety in each of 20 narrow-necked glass bottles filled with moist sand, and buried them in a secret spot on the university campus.

Kurt Stepnitz/Michigan State University

According to Beal’s own writings, each bottle was “left uncorked and placed with the mouth slanting downward so that water could not accumulate about the seeds.” He also wrote that “these bottles were buried on a sandy knoll in a row running east and west.” His plan was to take out one bottle every five years and see which seeds would grow.

Beal managed to open six bottles before he retired, passing on the experiment to a younger colleague, Henry Darlington, who then passed it on to other scientists including Robert Bandurski and Jan Zeevaart. It is currently being managed by Frank Telewski, who is also the curator of the university’s botanical garden named after Dr. WJ Beal.

Dr. William James Beal/Photo: Internet Archive

Under Beal’s original plan, the experiment should have been completed in 100 years, in 1979. But a decade after his retirement, in 1920, his successor realised that the experiment seemed to be stabilizing, with the same seeds sprouting each time. So he decided to wait a decade between excavations, and his successor extended that to two decades. The latest bottle was opened by Telewski in the spring of 2000, at night, trying not to draw attention to the spot that to this day, remains a secret.

“We don’t advertise where they’re buried because we don’t want anybody poking around and digging up souvenirs,” Telewski said, speaking to Atlas Obscura. “I’m always a little nervous when there’s construction on campus. You know: ‘Don’t put a building up there!’ ‘Why not?’ ‘I can’t tell you, just don’t!’”

Dr. Telewski/ Photo: Frank Telewski

From the bottle that Telewski unearthed, only two plant species out of 23 sprouted successfully. And out of the 15 bottles removed so far, the winning species has been Verbascum blattaria, or moth mullein, a common weed in the US. 23 of its 50 seeds from Telewski’s bottle germinated, which he considers a “phenomenal” result. The other plant – Malva rotundifolia, was nowhere close, with only one sprouted seed.

While the experiment was definitely relevant in Beal’s time, when farmers didn’t have herbicides and had to resort to manual weeding, the results may not be commercially ground-breaking any more, given that modern farmers have access to several anti-weed tools. But conservationists are still interested in what the experiment has to reveal. “Many species of plants that are locally extinct may actually still be viable in the soils of those particular environments that have been disturbed,” Telewski explained. So these sleeping seeds could indeed restart populations that have been extinct for decades.

Verbascum blattaria/Photo: Arria Belli

If everything goes according to plan, the last bottle will be unearthed in 2100, but Telewski thinks it might be stretched even further. “We don’t want to lose continuity where people might forget about the study,” he said. “There’s that living memory thing that’s really important.” For now, he’s gearing up for the next excavation in 2020, only four years away, which might be the year that nothing germinates. Or, something that hasn’t germinated in the past 30 or 40 years could sprout all of a sudden. Either way, he’s excited about the possibilities.

“In 1980, I was a graduate student in plant physiology, and we learned about the experiment,” he said. “I had absolutely no idea that I would ever be the person to dig up the next bottle. And lo and behold, 20 years later, there I was… I have this wonderful opportunity to continue this historically important and significant experiment.” Meanwhile, he’s also picked out the person who could potentially inherit the experiment from him when he retires. “There’s one particular person I’ve been speaking with, and I think she’s going to be very excited to pick it up,” he told National Public Radio.

Dr. William James Beal/Photo: Michigan State University

Telewski often thinks of Beal, and other great scientists who have inspired him – Charles Darwin, Asa Gray, and even the Native American corn hybridizers. “All of us basically stand on the shoulders of giants,” he said. “It is kind of neat to be a part of that history.”

“Isn’t it wonderful that somebody, somewhere, thought forward enough to say, ‘Let’s hold onto this, let’s keep this experiment going, let’s design this experiment to go on and see where it takes us.”

Reference:http://www.odditycentral.com/news/the-worlds-longest-running-experiment-started-in-1879-and-will-end-in-2100.html#more-50564

Thrill-Seekers Could Soon Ride the Clouds with This New Sky Surfing Board

‘Wingboarding’ is a new type of adventure sport that will soon be made available to thrill-mongers around the world. Developed by Wyp Aviation, a startup company trying to “take aviation to the next level”, the WingBoard provides riders with a stable platform that flies through the air rather than falling towards the ground.

It’s sort of a cross between skysurfing and wakeboarding and involves surfing through the sky on a board while being towed by a plane. The daredevil stunt is meant to emulate the comic book superhero Silver Surfer, who can travel through space on his surfboard-shaped craft. “The WingBoard is like a wakeboard, but instead of slicing through waves behind a boat, you’re being towed by a plane, carving through clouds,” said founder and lead engineer Aaron Wypyszynski.

31-year-old Aaron, a flight test engineer by profession, has been passionate about aviation since he started building lego aeroplanes at the age of four. He spends all his spare time in his workshop, trying to make all his aviation dreams come true and says that his inspiration to develop the WingBoard came from Talespin, a cartoon he used to watch as a kid. In the series, an animated bear named Kit Cloudkicker would jump out of his airborne plane and ride through the clouds.

For now, Aaron has built a scale model of the WingBoard, which “combines the ability of a wakeboard or a snowboard and brings it to three dimensions.” It works with a system of cables that allow it to be towed behind an aircraft, while remaining stable enough to withstand the weight of one person. Wheels at the bottom of the board will help it get airborne, and the rider would need a parachute to get back safely to the ground. The board will contain a separate parachute as well, to help it hit the Earth gently.

The mock-up version has successfully performed barrel rolls behind an aircraft in the test run, and Aaron is currently trying to raise funds ($275,000) to make the first prototype. If everything goes according to plan, he believes that Wingboarding may become a popular spectator sport in the future. “There has been no way to truly fly behind an aircraft,” he said. “You can strap on a snowboard to your feet and go surfing, but really what you are doing is falling.”

Reference:http://www.odditycentral.com/technology/thrill-seekers-could-soon-ride-the-clouds-with-this-new-sky-surfing-board.html#more-50113

Close to million downloads with Zitrr and a big partnership; the story of Rootwork’s early success

IITs and NITs are premier engineering colleges in India. A breeding ground for a lot of technology startups nowadays, one can expect to hear a lot more from them. One such story is brewing up at NIT Allahabad where six youngsters from various parts of India found a synergy together and started up Rootwork. They did give corporate life a chance but soon realised that their heart lay somewhere else.

A good mix of technology enthusiasts and photography lovers, they were fiddling with the ideas combining these two domains and landed on a rough idea for an app early in 2012 while still in college. They worked on various technologies but recognised mobile software as their space and started out by building apps on Android, iOS and Windows 8. “We also have a product studio (Zitrr) through which we publish our own app ideas, and market them under our banners (Rootwork and Zitrr), says Piyush Rawat, one of the six co-founders: Pratik Bhadkoliya, Ratnesh Neema,Nirmal Prasad, Mohit Nigam, Bharat Chudasama. Rootwork is currently a team of 15 based out of Bangalore and Baroda.

Success with Zitrr

Zitrr Camera is a photo editing app on the which got them huge success first up. “We decided to go with iOS as we knew the channel had a higher chance of monetization. We experimented with keeping it paid and making it free intermittently but once we were featured on some of the popular app platforms, we saw a flurry of downloads,” says Piyush. Zitrr Camera has crossed 800,000 downloads and will go beyond a million very soon at the current rate. Almost 65% of these downloads have been paid. The other apps in their portfolio include Slypy and BhakSala.

The Big Deal

Team Rootwork

Samsung Electronics Korea is building consumer apps on their platform Tizen and had invited a few select companies to develop these apps for them. Rootworks is probably the only Indian startup to have been selected and they are building two versions of Zitrr for Samsung. Rootworks will be getting $65,000 for the partnership and more projects down the line. This and other projects have enabled this young startup to setup their offices in Bangalore and Baroda.

“Most ITes companies would have a typical ‘give-and-take’ business model in the b2b space. We curated different models of engagement where we also work like associates with companies on consortium agreement, while entering into an association as a mobile technology partner with them,” says Piyush. They have around 4-5 collaboration going at the moment, with companies unrelated to mobile space.With the wind behind their back, the team is very positive about the prospects.

Talking about the drive and vision, Piyush says,

“When we started we had nothing in mind except the drive that we want to build a brand in mobile software space. A brand that people, and we ourselves, would like to work with. Like many other entrepreneurs, we’re not married to any of our ideas. We take pleasure in executing others’ ideas. We started bland, but over time, we got married to entrepreneur’s lifestyle. We like to see how our establishment is growing everyday, and the contentment we get everyday is already worth a million dollars. Everything else is on top of that.”

One of the promising new companies in the mobile software area, Rootwork has had a jump start on which they can propel themselves to push forward.

 

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2013/10/rootwork-zitrr-photography/

Startup enthusiasts, also a couple and now co-founders at Viral Curry

Garima Juneja and Gaurav Mishra are engineering graduates who got introduced to the startup world while in college. Garima had an inclination towards writing and marketing while Gaurav has been a part of a couple of technology product startups. “I was always interested in having my own business. I had been into commercial writing, SEO and SMO since I was in the third year of my college. Till I came to the fourth year, I had a team of freelance writers and 15+ clients from India and abroad,” says Garima. On the other hand, Gaurav had started up with his friends where a services wing helped to bring in the money while they worked on products.

Amidst the startup frenzy, Garima and Gaurav started dating each other. “Every time we were on a date, we used to talk about start-ups, ideas and what all can be done to create a dent in the universe. We were both in our own worlds and used to miss each other a lot during the weekdays. Once, while we were on a date and were really high, we decided to have a start-up as co-founders so that we could spend more time with each other. Hence, viralcurry (social media agency) was born,” says Garima.

Viral Curry has had a good start with companies like Cbazaar and Lenskart on their portfolio.“Cbazaar was our first gig. We made them viral on mother’s day on twitter. It was featured along with established brands as the ‘best 10 social campaigns on mother’s day‘,” says Garima. Getting off the mark with a couple of startups as clients, the word spread and they’ve had more than 15 clients till now. A team of five, as of now, Viral Curry works on a simple revenue model – retainer of minimum 3 months with a fixed monthly package.

Talking about their ideation process, Garima says, “We basically think about the brand’s present image and what we can relate it to while keeping the most important thing in mind – Things with which the audience can relate.” An interesting and growing area, Viral Curry is in a good space with an enthusiastic team behind it. We’re seeing more couples starting uptogether and the subject itself has been a topic of discussion for long. Co-founders married for 20 years have advised other couples: “Don’t try this at home” but the young duo at Viral Curry are up for the challenge.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2013/09/viral-curry-social-media-startup-couple/

Journey from IT to dairy farming: Santhosh D. Singh, Founder, Amrutha Dairy Farms

It is well past sunset, and the farm animals have begun their rest, except for a calf playing around. And, my guest for the evening telephonic interview, Santhosh D. Singh, is carrying on the conversation, even while attending to his agricultural duties. I can hear some ducks quacking, and it seems that the breeze from Haalenahalli in Doddaballapur is almost wafting through to Chennai. Well, you can be excused for getting into a fantasy land, when listening to Santhosh talk passionately about his journey from IT to dairy, from being an employee in multinational technology companies to founding Amrutha Dairy Farms.

The beginning

After completing my post-graduation from Bangalore, I spent the first decade of my work life in the information technology industry, working for IT majors like Dell, and America Online. Those were the heydays of IT in India, and I got an opportunity to travel the globe as part of work. These travels exposed me to various possibilities of making money while being engaged in an enterprise which would take me closer to nature not just on weekends but all through the week. Thus began my quest to venture into the dairy industry.

After getting my family on board about my decision to exit the corporate world, I immersed myself into conceptualising and giving shape to the dairy enterprise as it is today by leveraging my expertise around project management, process improvement, business intelligence, analytics, and resource management that i had accumulated over the years of professional life.

I decided to get into dairy farming, as this was a relatively stable and profitable business in the unpredictable world that is Indian agriculture sector. The switch from the confines of air-conditioned work spaces to the dairy farm exposed to the elements 24 X 7 has been a revealing and invigorating experience.

Since I had no background in farming, I enrolled for full term training at National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI). As part of my education, I stayed over in functioning dairy farms to get a first-hand feel of staying next to livestock and tending to them. These stays at farms and the training gave me the confidence that rearing cows was something I would love to do long term and is indeed a lucrative vocation.

Three cows, three acres

My dairy had its inception with the introduction of 3 cows into my three-acre farmland which was originally intended to serve as a weekend getaway from town. This was three years back. I commenced milk production and personally took care of feeding the cows, bathing them, milking and cleaning their sheds every day.

The original plan envisaged incrementally adding milch cows and stabilise at around 20 cows in the first year; with this in mind, I created an infrastructure for 20 cows. One of the NDRI trainers under whom I trained, on a visit to our farm, advised me to explore NABARD for technological support. My interaction with NABARD made me realise that, to fully leverage the resources being deployed, we need to scale up the operation to 100 heads of cattle; this would create a capacity for 1,500 lts of milk every day and was projected to have an annual turnover of over Rs 1 crore.

With the price of dairy products seeing year-on-year increase, over the past 5 years, the margins in the business are healthy. It was a great vote of confidence and an awesome confidence-booster when NABARD awarded Silver Medal for taking initiatives to get in to dairy farming. State Bank of Mysore came to fund this reworked project plan. With funding in place, I went full steam and installed the infrastructure to support 100 cows.

Drought, determination

Along the way, we had hiccups for which we had to find solutions. One of the unforeseen exigencies was the acute shortage of green fodder due to unseasonal rains leading to drought which lasted for 18 months; this led to an unprecedented, 10-fold raise, in the cost of green fodder. The impact was a significant dip in daily production, which in turn impacted our bottom line.

I had to exhaust my savings in order to tide over the disruption in cash flow and keep the operation going. In my quest to find the lasting solution I decided to set up arguably the first production unit of hydroponics which enables growing of 1 ton of green fodder / day in a controlled environment at significantly low cost in comparison to commercially procured green fodder

Thankfully, this year, rains have been bountiful, and coupled with hydroponics-produced fodder we are in a position to make up for lost ground by increasing the herd size and thereby upping the daily milk production. With the bank hesitating to extend further assistance, I am exploring other options to infuse rich capital to take my dairy enterprise to the next level.

Lessons that I learned could be a nice takeaway for new entrepreneurs. During the phase of drought (almost 18 months), many small-size dairy farms wound up operations by putting the blame on Mother Nature, and moved on with other interesting business ventures. But I was very determined to see and live the good times in dairy which were destined to happen, and I am happy today to see good rains all across the country. Staying focused with the objective always gives positive results.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2013/09/amrutha-dairy-farms-journey-it-to-dairy-farming-santhosh-d-singh/

Wajid Khan – the unsung artist who owns a patent and a Guinness record

Most kids love to make paper boats to play in rain water. But Wajid Khan dreamed bigger. He created a small ship that could float on water. At age 14, he invented the world’s smallest electric iron, which was later named in the Guinness Book of World Records. Today, this 34-year-old artist holds a patent in his name for (iron) nail art painting, has been named in five world record books and has 200 inventions to his credit.

Wajid Khan with his stone portrait

Like most artists and inventors around the world, Wajid Khan too had humble beginnings. But unlike many of them, he has mostly remained ‘unsung’ in his own country. Born and brought up in a small village called Songiri—11 km away from Mandsaur district—Wajid spent most of his childhood feeling inferior due to his low school grades. Yet, he continued his unique experiments with whatever material he could lay his hands on. He left school at Class V and then, eventually his house too.

Experimenting with art

“One of the most decisive moments of my life was the time my mother gave me a sum of Rs 1,300 and challenged me to leave home to pursue my hobby. She was the only person who believed I was meant for something remarkable,” shares Wajid. His actual struggle began when he had to earn his living while also keeping experiments alive as a 16 year old. Back then, technical robots caught his fancy. It was a matter of chance that, aided by his friends, Wajid started working for NIF Institute of Ahmedabad.

Wajid Khan’s art work with autoparts

“In 1998, I picked up thermocol. Eventually I got into experimenting with making portraits using iron nails. I came to Indore in 2004 hoping to learn more and experiment. I now have a base in both Indore and Mumbai,” Wajid says.

In 2005, Wajid finally finished making an iron nail portrait of Mahatma Gandhi. This portrait was created after three years of consistent work with 1.25 lakh iron nails. It was also the same year Wajid created what was possibly the world’s first 3D painting, using acrylic colours on canvas. Yet, recognition came much later when his first portrait sold at Rs 20 lakh in 2010. “Despite the bid for Gandhiji’s portrait being Rs 50 lakh, I never sold it. It will always be closest to my heart,” he adds. He has so far made several iron nail portraits of noted people such as Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ, Dhirubhai Ambani, among others. He uses a special base (imported sheet) on which he draws a pencil outline just to mark the points of the start and the end of the portrait. “I never draw a portrait beforehand on the sheet. My mind already has the picture and I follow that instinct,” Wajid explains.

Wajid Khan’s bullet art work

But he hasn’t limited himself to just iron nails. Wajid has made exceptional landscape and portrait art from discarded auto parts, medical equipment and black quarry stones. He created an artifact of a young crying girl using medical equipment as part of the Save the Girl Child campaign. But his bullet art works, without a doubt, attract the most attention.

“Bullet is a sign of violence and Gandhjii taught us non-violence. There could not be a better way to give out a message of non-violence than making his portrait using bullets, to show contradiction,” Wajid says. Interestingly, all his portraits have black as a predominant colour since Wajid believes black is the strongest colour.

Using recognition for artist welfare

Wajid acquired a patent for his iron nail art in 2009. Apart from Guinness, he has been included in Golden Book of World Records, Limca Book of World Records, India Book of World Records and Asia Book of World Records. He is on the verge of applying for patents for his 140 inventions and art works. On March 8, 2015, Wajid was invited to deliver a lecture at IIM Indore, where he spoke on innovation in management.

Artist Wajid Khan

“But I know fame and money don’t last. The Holy Quran says: ‘Live for others, not yourself.’ So, I am trying to equip the physically disabled and the less privileged people with art. I am fortunate that my wife Maryam is equally art-inclined and both of us conduct workshops in schools in cities like Mumbai and Indore and rural areas to find artists and teach them,” he says.

Wajid Khan has been commissioned to design a unique sculpture for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, to be held in Qatar. “I want to use my fame to help struggling artists and inventors get recognition across the world. I don’t want to open an NGO. I prefer working quietly to help the artists and making them self-dependent,” he adds.

Wajid, whose art work may feature in an upcoming Hollywood venture, wishes to continue experimenting and teaching art. In 2016, he has plans of delivering a lecture at Oxford University, London.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/01/wajid-khan/