K. BHASKARAN looks back to the time when Prof. P.V. Indiresan motivated him to patent his inventions.
The academic-industry-innovation eco-system has lost a great mentor in Prof. P. V. Indiresan, who passed away recently. One of the earliest events for encouraging innovative projects and exhibiting the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) labs and facilities for visitors was a two-day event, in 1982, the first ever The IIT Open House. It was conceptualised by Prof. Indiresan, the then director.
The director himself had to his credit national awards for his patented inventions, and was known for trying out several innovative projects, in the IIT eco-system. (He invented the automatic signalling system for Indian Railways , which received a national award.) The open house brought in a number of visitors from Chennai into the IIT-M during those two days. This helped in creating awareness about IIT as an institution.
Prof Indiresan always had many progressive ideas on innovations in science and engineering. One of the earliest student patents at the IIT-M, as far as I am aware of, was an invention designed by a student and prototyped in an IIT lab — the design of an ‘improved murukku making machine’. This happened to be my invention in my fourth year of B Tech Chemical Engineering. I patented it after a formal official permission from the IIT-M. This hand-held device was demonstrated during the Open House at the Mechanical Operations Laboratory in the Department of Chemical Engineering and it was the only student patentable invention at the event.
I can vividly recall the appreciation of Prof. Indiresan, on seeing the demo of the machine, and the director’s personal advice and follow-up later. It was on Prof. Indiresan’s advice that I applied for the patent, after getting due permission from the IC&SR (Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research). He was a forerunner for student innovation and entrepreneurship support, incubation and mentoring.
Though my efforts at early commercial exploitation of the patent did not take off, after several meetings and discussions with companies, I was successful. Prof. Indiresan was a direct catalyst in this endeavour.
Email:bhaskarank@gmail.com
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Education Plus> Colleges / April 01st, 2013
Kal Raman , Chief Operating Officer of Groupon./ The Hindu
Hailing from small-town Tamil Nadu, Groupon COO Kal Raman has taken many a risk in his dream career — all ‘for the learning and not the money’.
I am mad at Kal Raman — he’s kept me waiting for 45 minutes. I threaten to leave, but don’t because he has a great story to tell — a textbook rags-to-riches tale. When he finally arrives, I mention punctuality, but he is sufficiently, and smartly, contrite. He isn’t feeling too well, and so on.
In two minutes, I can see why the man who couldn’t “even say ‘My name is Kalyan Raman in English without shivering’” when he joined Anna University’s electrical engineering course in 1984, has today become the Chief Operating Officer of American company Groupon, with an annual billing of $5.5 billion.
Raman is disarming, can talk his way through tough spots and, in his dream career, has taken huge risks — but more for learning, he says, than money.
EARLY YEARS
The son of a tahsildar from a village in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, a 15-year-old Raman, his mother and four siblings were literally thrown out on the streets after his father died of a heart attack. “From a nice house, three servants and a jeep, we were on the road.”
With a pension of Rs 420, and the Rs 100 she earned through reading palms, his mother raised the five children with a single goal — they’d have the best of education. “She became an expert at pawning; pay the interest for a piece of jewellery or kodam (utensil) by pawning another.”
After high school, he qualified for both a medical course in Tirunelveli and an engineering course at Anna University, Chennai. He opted for the latter; “I took the first risk of my life because I didn’t want my life to begin and end in Tirunelveli, so I chose Madras.” He didn’t even know about the existence of Anna University — “a friend’s dad applied and picked my courses. There was nobody to help or guide.”
One of the toppers in his batch, Raman cruised into Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE). We now have the famous story of how he landed at 4 a.m. at Dadar East in Bombay, slept on the platform, and left his bag with a vegetable vendor from Tirunelveli. Reporting to the office in chappals, he got ticked off by his boss, who soon turned sympathetic after hearing his story and gave him a month’s advance… and shoes!
AC, NOT COMPUTERS, IMPORTANT!
After nine months at TCE, when Tata Consulting Services wanted staff, he volunteered, “because the computer guys worked in AC rooms”. At TCE, he had done very well, and was offered a jump from Rs 2,350 to Rs 3,600, but he turned it down, quit, and applied to TCS. “Maybe I was naïve, crazy or audacious, but I enjoyed the power of computers and wanted it as a full-time job.”
He stayed at TCS for six months, his last stint in India. The highlight of it was his trip to Singapore as a “glorified courier” to deliver a software tape to IBM — but it crashed, robbing him of the opportunity to shop at Mustafa! After fixing the problem over two days, he whined to a senior about his bad luck. “He extended my trip, gave me an extra $1,000, and a car and driver. And I returned to India like a king, with a new suitcase, two gold chains for my mother and sister, shoes for my brother, TDK cassettes, Tiger Balm, etc.”
AUDACITY PAYS
TCS next sent him to work for a Scottish insurance company. It was launching five new policies, and Raman found the statistical fundamentals of one model flawed. When he pointed that out to his TCS boss in Bombay, he was asked to mind his business and stick to software writing! But when a director of the company, Chris Nicolty, stopped to chat with him, “I told him, ‘Please educate me, I am trying to understand how this will work.’ He listened and said ‘You might have a point’… but nothing more, and walked on.”
Two weeks later, the Scotsman came back to him and said, “Good job, I’m proud of you.” The project was stalled, Raman was given a bonus, and even offered a job at that company, hiking his salary from £500 to £2,500. “My life was made; in my mind I could see a house for my family, sister’s marriage, etc.”
But, interestingly, Nicolty advised him not to take the job because his biggest strength was the ability to take risks. In the UK he would soon hit a glass ceiling, so he should go to the US. “He said ‘don’t make your strength your weakness’.”
US CALLING
It was 1992. Fighting the urge to grab the opportunity, with his Scottish friend’s help, Raman soon had an offer for a contracting job with Walmart at an annual salary of $34,000. “But by the time they processed my visa, within a month the offer had gone up to $60,000,” he says.
By then he was married; he met his wife at TCS. “So with a Prestige cooker, two suitcases, and $100, we landed in Atlanta.” He joined as a Cobol programmer.
Raman’s dream run continued, with a helping hand from his ability to take risks. Walmart was making some of its contractors permanent employees, but the catch was reduced income — from $60,000 to $34,000. “Many others refused, but I took the job. By now my wife was also working, and we were comfortably sending $1,000 home every month,” he says.
FAIRYTALE RUN
Unbelievably, Raman says he got 18 promotions within just 18 months, and his salary jumped from $34,000 to $96,000.
Fascinated, I ask Raman how much more time he has for the interview. “I came late, so I don’t get to decide on the time; you do,” he says.
So, is he really good, or is it his gift of the gab that got him so far, I ask cheekily. Or does the US really recognise and reward talent? “I happened to be lucky; just like Forrest Gump, I was at the right place at the right time. God was disproportionately unkind to me when I was young, and disproportionately kind to me later.” He believes the US is “the most meritocracy country in the world… there is no question about it. You can take shots at America for so many things, but for honesty, work ethics and meritocracy, there is no country like it.”
So, was Nicolty right about the UK? “I think so… experience, tenure, that s**t works there. But in the US, I became a director so soon. At 24, I was negotiating $100 million deals with AT&T, without knowing the zeroes in one million.”
By 1993, he had shifted to retail, and when Walmart bought Pace Club the day before Thanksgiving, his challenge was to “integrate everything by Christmas — only six weeks. At this time, about 90 per cent of the people are on vacation. I wrote a bunch of codes and the system went live the day after Christmas.”
This is the day of heaviest returns, but everything worked without glitches. “So my boss introduced me to Rob Walton (the Chairman), saying, ‘he is the guy who did it’.”
Next, he moved to Walmart’s international division; “I moved away from technology to marketing and sales, and in the six years I spent in Walmart, I played every single role you can in retail business.” That laid the seed for his present role in Groupon.
So why did he leave?
“Because my boss, Doyle Graham, a father figure to me, died at 45 — just like my father. After he died, I lost the spark.” He next went to Blockbuster (a home movie rental provider) as a senior director running international technology for 26 countries. Here, too, he found the business model was flawed, and wrote a white paper detailing why it would go bust. But the Chief Executive Officer didn’t care for his views. So he left for Drugstore.com. “It was 1998 and the Internet was becoming big.” He joined as Chief Information Officer, became COO, and then CEO — all within two years.
Then the dotcom bust happened; everybody wrote the company off, but “I said the company would be profitable in two years. We got there a quarter earlier… and then I got bored.”
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was on the board of Drugstore; “and I made another weird call. I became CEO when I was 31, and when I left I was 34, I said I’ve got promotions too fast in my career, so for the next two years I won’t be CEO and will undo all the bad habits I’ve learnt.” Bezos “invited me to solve a complicated technology problem at Amazon. I said I’ll work for a couple of years, but I want to start my own company in education.”
“I DON’T WORK FOR MONEY”
In 2007, he started Global Scholar to “help teachers give differentiated education to kids using technology. It was a fantastic experience. I raised $50 million in the toughest economy since the Depression. In 30 months, I gave four times returns to my investors and then sold the company in 2010-11.” On why he did so, he quips, “The moment you start a company, it is for sale… at the right price. You can’t have emotions…”
Also, by then he must have made enough money, I prompt. “I don’t work for money; every penny I make in Groupon, I’ve pledged to charities…”
To my sceptical look and arched eyebrows he responds: “I don’t need money; I work hard because I want to work hard. Why do I need money? My daughter (studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon) says she won’t take a penny from me. My son, too, is the same, and my wife is cool with it. I still take care of my siblings… I play cricket, watch Tamil movies, read books, that’s it.”
No fancy yachts? “I can’t even swim. I have the same car, a Lexus, since 2001.”
Groupon’s Chief Financial Officer, Jason Child, a colleague in Amazon, got him on the board of the company, which has 14,000 people and 500 offices in 46 countries.
But isn’t Groupon doing badly?
“It is under pressure, true, but not doing badly. That is a distorted reality. I like it this way, though. I want everybody to think we are doing badly, so that all of a sudden you guys will call me a magician. We’re not going to do anything different, but will look like winners.”
On the speculation that he might be named Groupon CEO, he says, “Why should anybody care? Let’s get the stuff going in the right direction.”
During his last visit to India, Raman adopted 24,000 physically challenged kids in a village in Tenkasi — he’ll help with their education, healthcare, vocational training, and employment. “My goal is to give them both dignity and hope… and the ultimate goal is to create one million jobs in Tirunelveli district.” And to own an IPL team!
On India’s future, he says nobody can stop the country from becoming a superpower — “We will work hard to mess it up, but India will prevail because of our intellectual talent and the average age of Indians.”
source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Home> Features> Weekend Life / by Rasheeda Bhagat rasheeda.bhagat@thehindu.co.in / 2013
Mitticool, a terracotta refrigerator./ Photo: S. Siva Saravanan / The Hindu
With more than 12 hours of power cut a day, consumers, including students, are looking at ways that will improve power availability.
Be it industries, students or the common man, many are coming up with new concepts and products that will reduce the dependence on conventional electricity, improve energy conservation and generation.
The State-level science expo organised in Coimbatore a couple of months ago by the Department of School Education saw a significant number of entries related to energy conservation and generation of power from alternative sources. This included off-shore wind mills and an improvised pedal-operated generator to power home appliances.
On the industrial front, two companies went in for bio-diesel production using non-edible vegetable seeds. Though awareness is high, production of bio-diesel is not viable in this region at present because of non-availability of seeds. If there is an assured supply of the seeds and support from the Government, production and use of bio-diesel can increase, says an industry source. The plants require nearly three kg of seeds to produce one litre of diesel and the total cost works out to Rs. 40 a litre. The cost varies according to the availability and price of the seeds. The diesel can be used to run generators and in industries.
Similarly, a product that has found a market here is terracotta refrigerator manufactured buy a Gujarat-based entrepreneur.
The 50 litre refrigerator does not require electricity to keep vegetables, fruits, milk and water cool. According to Mansukhbhai Prajapati, who makes “Mitticool” from 2004, he entered the Tamil Nadu market recently by appointing dealers. In Coimbatore and Erode Districts, over 50 have been sold in the last two months. Mr. Prajapati is now working on “Mitticool house”, which is an environment-friendly air-conditioner.
source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> News> Cities> Coimbatore /by M. Soundariya Preetha / Coimbatore, April 04th, 2013
The profit-making Trichy airport should be provided all it needs, to make it truly international, G K Chaukiyal, member (operations) of Airports Authority of India, said on Wednesday. Chaukiyal said the AAI was controlling around 125 airports in the country and only 10 or 12 are making profits. However, Chaukiyal denied the Trichy airport was one of the 11 airports listed for privatisation.
Chaukiyal was on a customary visit to the Trichy airport that was recently accorded the international status to inaugurate the new barracks for the CISF personnel that has been constructed at a cost of Rs 73 lakh and the first-of-its-kind sniffer dog kennel at a cost of Rs 39 lakh. In May, last year, another Member (Air Navigation Services) AAI, V Somasundaram inaugurated the automation system of Air Traffic Services (ATS).
Airport director S Dharmaraj said the airport was making a profit to the tune of Rs 3 to 4 crore annually and it was increasing at a rate of five to 10 per cent. However, regional executive director, southern region D Devaraj, said that “This year the profit was touch-and-go.” Devaraj said the passenger traffic was increasing at a rate of 13% and the AAI had singled out five airports – Trichy, Coimbatore, Mangalore, Benaras, and Lucknow – for infrastructure development.
Chaukiyal said it was remarkable that Trichy airport was making profit and hence it should not be neglected and every possible help must be extended to make it grow. The infrastructure development includes the automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADSB) considered to be the next generation surveillance technology for tracking aircraft.
But Trichy airport has been plagued by many navigation ills on the infrastructure front and the single largest ill is the shorter runway that at present measures up to 8,136 feet and this does not enable larger aircraft to land. It serves as a great impediment to large-scale exports from this region even though there is admittedly unprecedented potential for products like banana and other textile items from the region. All efforts to expand it to at least 12,000 feet has met with a lot of hurdles including land acquisition for the project.
When asked about the inordinate delaying in the expansion process of the airport, Devaraj told TOI, “Land is always the problem. Let the state government give us the land, we will start the expansion work at once.”
The house at Azhagiya Singar street in Erode where Srinivasa Ramanujan was born. / Photo: M. Govarthan / The Hindu
The Erode Corporation on Wednesday expressed its desire to convert into a mathematics museum the house where Srinivasa Ramanujan was born. The Corporation passed a resolution to this effect, moved by Mayor Mallika Paramasivam. A proposal to convert the house on Azhagiya Singar Street into a museum will be submitted to the State government.
Though it was known that Erode was the birthplace of the maths genius, the house where he was born remained untraceable until recently. It was located following the efforts made by Susumu Sakurai, professor and head, Department of Math, Tokyo University of Science and Technology, and Professor and President of Tamil Nadu Science Forum N. Mani.
“We had the information that Ramanujan was born in a house that was situated exactly between a Siva temple and its water tank. After extensive search, we found it and confirmed that Ramanujan was born in the house that had the door number 18 in Azhagiya Singar Street,” Mr. Mani said.
The house will be a huge inspiration to children if it is converted into a museum. “It should not be neglected. We should celebrate the math genius by making his birthplace a museum. We already adopted a resolution demanding the State government to convert the house into a museum. It is good to know that the civic body has now come forward to convert it into museum,” Mr. Mani told The Hindu.
source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> News> National> TamilNadu / by Staff Reporter / Erode, March 28th, 2013
To keep abreast of latest technologies that enhance teaching, the visually challenged teachers under the banner of Blind Teachers Association (BTA), Madurai Branch, arranged a special technical session for their members. More than 300 visually challenged teachers are members of the branch that has jurisdiction from Karur to Kanyakumari districts and 90 of them from Madurai and nearby districts participated in the workshop held on Saturday.
Pune-based innovation company, Persion Technologies, announced during the event that it will come out with an interactive whiteboard for blind teachers by next month. Kiran Deshpande, director of the innovation and applications wing at the company, said the whiteboards will display whatever one keys into a laptop. The company will be also offering the device at comparatively cheaper prices, he informed.
V Elangovan, BTA chairman, observed that the teaching technology is changing fast and the education department too adopts lot of such technologies into teaching. “We feel that we should be adequately prepared for the technologies in the market. The response from our teachers was very enthusiastic,” he said.
At the worshop, teaching-aids developed by the Pune firm were demonstrated. An input-cum display device helps to feed all standard shapes, charts, scientific and mathematical symbols in any standard application. A Braille embosser for printing ordinary books into the Braille and a scanner device that reads out the printed sheets were also found useful for blind teachers.
“The general challenge we face during the class room is the control of students because we can’t see the activities of the students in a class. Using such modern equipment will help to increase the involvement of students,” said M Kalidoss, a history teacher in Kodukkampatti High School in Madurai.
Nicholas Francis, director of Helen Keller Talking Library, who inaugurated the workshop, remarked that the visually challenged are the pioneers in utilising modern technologies among the differently abled community. “The visually challenged teachers should not be left behind with technological advancements and should strive hard to learn these scientific tools,” he said.
Elangovan said that the association is planning to hold similar workshops in Tirunelveli in the coming days for the benefit of blind teachers from Tirunelveli and Kanyakumari districts.
The third indigenously built locomotive for Nilgiri Mountain Railway arrives at Mettupalayam. —DC
Ooty:
The third indigenous steam locomotive designed for the Nilgiris Mountain Railway (NMR) and manufactured at Goldenrock in Tiruchy arrived at the Mettupalyam railway station at the foothills of the Nilgiris Friday afternoon.
It will be subjected to trial runs on the NMR track before being commissioned for regular service. The railways decided to manufacture indigenous steam locomotives in 2010 for the NMR that has been accorded world heritage status on account of its long innings in the hills, to replace in a phased manner its four old steam locomotives that often developed technical snags and made the train journey up the mountain unreliable in the past.
The first indigenous locomotive manufactured at Goldenrock was inducted into the NMR in March 2011 and the second, in March 2012. While the first initially developed technical problems, the railways were able to resolve them.
The second in the series has been trouble-free so far.The third indigenous steam locomotive for the NMR , built at a cost of `4 crore, is oil-fired like the other two. It will be taken on a trial run in the racked NMR sector between Mettupalayam and Coonoor next week before being inducted.
K.Natarajan, president of the Heritage Steam Chariot Trust, an organisation of NMR aficionados, hailed the railways for making the effort to upgrade it and and hoped the new locomotives would help the NMR make more trips up the hill.
source: http://www.DeccanChronicle.com / Home> News> Current Affairs / DC / by B. Ravichandran / March 23rd, 2013
After working for three years at TCS as a software engineer, Ooty’s B. Krishnamurthy (26) is all excited to don the olive green uniform and join the 43rd medium regiment at Ajmer as a lieutenant next month.
Ready to pass out from the Officers’ Training Academy (OTA) on Saturday, Krishnamurthy spoke to DC about his experiences in the OTA, the difference between IT job and serving in the armed forces, the lack of awareness about army in TN and how it feels to be the first uniformed person in his family.
“I was attracted to the armed forces right from my childhood days as the Madras Regiment was stationed at Ooty. But as like all youth, I did computer science engineering and took up a job with TCS. But during recession time, I decided to move towards my first love. I cleared Service Selection Board examination in my first attempt and joined OTA. Wearing the olive green uniform gives me tremendous happiness. I want to reach the top in my desired profession and continue serving the country even after my retirement,” said Krishnamurthy, who excelled in running and general academics during the 11-months course at OTA.
“When I joined the course, I struggled physically because I was not used to physical activities. My IT job was more sedentary and we used to have snacks and tea at 4 pm in our office, while at OTA I was busy playing sports. But with rigorous training I was able to compete with even the NCC cadets in a span of three months,” reminiscenced Krishnamurthy, who noted that discipline and comradeship comes naturally to the cadets. “I used to wake up only after 8 am during my TCS days, but now even when I am at home, I am not able to sleep after 3.30 am,” he added.
Only child of K. Balachandran, who retired as section officer at Hindustan Photo Films, and schoolteacher Kalyani, Krishnamurthy wants more youth to join armed forces from Tamil Nadu.
“When I first met a few north Indians at OTA, they explained to me everything about the course. I was not even aware of the basics. It showed how much we lacked in knowledge about the army,” he added.
For one, who had not ventured out of the state except for a lone visit to Shirdi, Krishnamurthy got a mix of entire India at OTA and has now mastered Hindi too.
source: http://www.DeccanChronicle.com / Home> News> Current Affairs / DC / by S. Sujatha / March 16th, 2013
The relatives of 23-year-old Vaidyalingam were grieving his death. But his liver and kidneys that were donated at least saved three other patients who had organ failure.
Doctors at the Global Hospitals, where Vaidyalingam was brought from Salem, said they used the liver on one of their patients kept on the waitlist and almost simultaneously, another patient in the hospital underwent a kidney transplant. “Both of them are doing well,” a transplant surgeon said.
The other kidney was sent to the Kaliappa Hospital, the eyes were donated to the eye bank at the Sankara Nethralya and the heart valves were stored for future use.
A statement from the hospital said Vaidhyaligam met with an accident on February 27 in Salem and was taken to a private hospital with severe head injury. “He wasn’t wearing a helmet,” the statement said. Doctors at the private hospital referred him to Global Hospitals for treatment. Vaidhyalingam was brought to the Chennai hospital by an ambulance on Friday. The same day, doctors in the intensive care unit declared him brain dead.
When the grief counselor spoke to Vaidhyalingam’s parents about organ donation, they agreed. The hospital then contacted the state cadaver transplant registry for networking among hospitals and the organs were transplanted. The registry has recovered organs from more than 300 brain dead people in the last five years.
source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / March 03rd, 2013
