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International Finance Corporation of The World Bank Group Invests in Mahindra Solar One in Rajasthan

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is providing $5 million in debt financing to Mahindra Solar One for a 5-megawatt solar power project in the Indian state of Rajasthan to expand access to clean energy in rural areas and address climate change. The new solar photovoltaic power plant will generate enough electricity to serve about 60,000 rural homes, and is expected to avoid some 8,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Mahindra Solar One, a joint venture between the Mahindra Group and Kiran Energy, planned the project as part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, a government initiative to expand solar production in India by 1,100 megawatts over the next two years. The Rajasthan plant is expected to generate about 9 million kilowatt-hours annually to help electrify rural parts of the country. By supporting this project, IFC recognizes the potential of large-scale solar-power generation to help meet India’s enormous energy needs, agreed both Vish Palekar, Mahindra Cleantech business head, and Ardeshir Contractor, managing director of Kiran Energy. “The project is aligned with our strategy of promoting clean growth in the region, and also complements our knowledge partnership with the government of Rajasthan,” said Anita George, IFC Director for Infrastructure in Asia. “IFC’s strategy in the solar sector is to increase energy access in emerging markets by investing in technology and scaling new business models, reducing costs so that more people use solar power.” Much of India receives high levels of direct sunlight throughout the year, making solar power economically and logistically viable. More than 13,500 square miles of the Thar Desert in northwestern India have been set aside for solar power projects, with much of the activity located in Rajasthan. Last year, IFC’s Advisory Services team hosted a conference, Rajasthan as a Solar Component Manufacturing Hub, to help investors and solar energy producers recognize Rajasthan’s potential as a hub for generating solar energy.

Tagged as: business, facebook, funding & deals, namrata-shah, popular-on-cloudstory-in, random-member, social & green news, story-in-rehan, yourstory-in

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Developing & Making your Applications Submission Ready for Windows Phone 7 Marketplace

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

Sidharth Sehgal had the unenvious task of engaging an audience post lunch at Windows Phone Camp held in Hyderabad on 28th January. He stated his objectives for the session early: Learn, see, experience . This session was a live demonstration for developing applications. The demonstration highlighted a few of Visual Studio’s special features, including panorama control, which allows seamless horizontal scrolling between application pages. Pivot control is similar to panorama control, but allows user to tab through pages Using ‘launchers,’ the presenter demonstrated a simple GPS application that launches an email application. The code was fed a launcher task, EmailComposeTask to email current geographical location to a specified address using only four lines of code. A ‘chooser’ is a set of tasks that launches an application and feeds information back to the application. An application can be configured to use the camera, for instance. Using a few lines of straight forward code, Sidharth created an app to capture images using a camera, retrieve it and then created a live tile for it on the start screen. “What are the advantages of developing apps for Windows Phone, over established devices like Android or iphone?” This was a recurring question through all the sessions, asked by the developers. Ujwal Kumar presented the benefits of Marketplace in the final session for the day. Some of the salient features of Marketplace were outlined. Developers can build an unlimited number of apps, with a restriction of 100 free apps per developer. The updated Marketplace allows soft key access to all apps, all games, all music or all podcasts It features a new Beta distribution service , a service that provides for a maximum of 100 beta test users to test the app and provide feedback. Another feature is the new Private Distribution service . A developer can use this service to restrict visibility and availability of an app to specified email addresses and organizations. Marketplace Test kit includes a comprehensive design guideline for making apps look better. Ujwal recommends following the Metro design philosophies to ensure consistency. Each app submitted to Marketplace is subject to test criteria pillars. They are checked for reliability, efficient use of resources, absence of malicious software, interference with phone functionality and Microsoft’s global content policies. The monetary incentive for developers is that they keep 70% of the revenue generated from purchased apps. If you are a mobile app developer waiting to explore Windows Phone 7, do then do click here

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Design Philosophies For Developing Windows Phone Applications

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

From Windows Phone Camp held in Hyderabad Amit Sehgal opened this session with the statement, “I love Windows phone.” He called the design, “Beautiful.” What makes it so special? One word – ‘Metro.’  The word is synonymous with modern, clean, fast, in-motion, with a strong focus on content and typography. A few years back, Microsoft decided to rewrite its design language. The design team brainstormed mobile experience, traveled for new inspiration and finally found it in transportation graphics. Signage is important and also its placement. In an airport, you want the closest, easiest exit. The windows phone operating system works on a  similar principle. A mobile device is a companion device, an integral part of daily lives. We need the right information, at the right place, at the right time. The Metro design of the new Windows phone (Mango) provides users with relevant information without distraction. What should you keep in mind when designing applications? Amit’s tips to keep in mind while designing applications for Mango: Keep the apps light, simple and efficient. Focus on primary tasks. Celebrate Typography: Be sensitive towards typography. Content, not chrome: Just as an airport flight schedule board, keep it ‘no-nonsense.’ Don’t focus on the aesthetics. Honest: Be aware of mobile device constraints. Your application may not look the same as on a PC or may not mimic real life application. Motion: Allow cross platform between devices. Distinguish yourself from other apps. Building a great windows phone app, according to Amit, requires a focus on building ready-to-use experiences. The focus is on the end user. For the target audience in the USA, the design team boiled down user profiles to two generic personality types: Anna (part time professional and busy mom) and Miles (growing his own architectural business). Amit suggests visualizing the end users, “research your target market and filter the information to a personality type. Give him or her a name and imagine this person before you start designing applications. Use principles that guide experiences, make applications that are personal, relevant and connected.” In closing, Amit advised the room of developers, “Build delightful experience: Be inspired by metro, but look for balance between the Metro principles and your own style.” If you are interested in developing apps for Windows Phone, then do click here for further information

Tagged as: business, disclaimer, facebook, forbes-india, indian, paas, popular-on-cloudstory-in, random-member, story-in-rehan, yourstory-in

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Basic App Development for the Windows Phone

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

Ujwal Kumar, a partner consultant with Microsoft, demonstrated a basic-level application development for the Windows Phone at the Phone camp organized in Hyderabad on 28th January. Using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Ujwal created a simple application, titled, “Hello World,” in a few minutes. A beginner developer would find the design aspect of Windows Phone 7.1 (Mango) quite simple. The Windows phone provides tool kit templates for silverlight and xna. Additional silverlight toolkit for Windows is available for free download. It supports two languages, C sharp and dot net. A panoramic view for applications on the screen shows  the design view and code at the same time. Ujwal noted, “Games are the top selling applications on any phone device. It’s very simple to design 2D and 3D games using xna and silverlight on Mango.” A game designed using xna can be used on other platforms. Ujwal then built a game application on xna, using silverlight UI controls. He demonstrated the smooth rendering in xna, with no lag time. A key criteria for building applications is the time taken to load the phone emulator, ideally less than 5 seconds. Silverlight, with minimal graphics controls, loads the Windows Phone Emulator quickly. When the user wants to start designing the game, they can add content. Real time editing and debugging on visual studio, with the phone emulator open is available on the Visual Studio program available for free with Mango.   A developer has to first unlock the Windows phone and  register on marketplace. More information is available here .

Tagged as: 2up2down, business, cloud, facebook, indian, mobile news, mobivi-popular, paas, story-in-rehan, yourstory-in

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iAccelerator launches 11 Startups into the world

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

CIIE, IIM A run iAccelerator in Ahmedabad presented 11 internet and mobile domain startups on its Demo Day on 28 th January, 2011. The select 11 startups that were unveiled on Demo Day were- (in chronological order): AlmaConnect Colored.by Croak.it Framebench Ideophone Innovese Makehappy.in mangoReader Mobiotics Votodo Zuuvu The iAccelerator program is specifically targeted towards entrepreneurs in the internet and mobile domain, to equip the startups to establish well run, technically excellent and profitable companies. This was the 3 rd batch of iAccelerator programme consisting of 11 startups that stayed on the campus and worked together in a constructive environment from 1 st November 2011. The startups where provided with working space, IT Infrastructure, seed capital, mentoring from a team of industry experts, inorder to showcase their final prototype in front of the world on the DemoDay. The programme was ably supported by Tata Communications.  Speaking on the Demo Day, Harjit Singh VP , Tata Communications said, “Innovation is imperative to economic regeneration which is the need of the hour today. Tata Communications partnership with iAccelerator is an initiative that reflects our emphasis on innovations and entrepreneurship”. The Demo Day also saw some of the leading VC’s and angel investors supporting the startups and giving critical inputs on their products/services, business plan, etc. We will bring to you the story of these budding entrepreneurs shortly.

Tagged as: cloud, disclaimer, forbes-india, news, paas, pallav-nadhani, partners, popular-on-cloudstory-in, random-group, random-member, storage-gateway, yourstory-in

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6 Startup Leadership Lessons From a Gym

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

Rajiv Jayaraman ( right ) with his trainer Startup leaders are primarily in the business of cheerleading: energizing people inside and outside the organization. In order to be an effective cheerleader, a start-up leader needs to exude positive energy, be in great spirits and above all, be in great physical shape to sustain the energy. This year, I decided to hit the gym with the help of a trainer to become a better “cheer leader”.  I signed up for a 1-year membership, promptly evoking a stifled laugh from my friends and colleagues, hinting that I am being overly optimistic. I told myself that I would be just fine since I have the propensity of putting myself in challenging situations and enduring pain (why else would I become an entrepreneur?). As I started my gym sessions early this year, I realized that a gym is a perfect training ground to learn great startup leadership lessons and very soon, my trainer became my management guru, unbeknownst to him. The following are some key lessons from the gym that a startup leader can use while managing the team. Lesson 1: Know your purpose The very first question that my trainer asked me was ‘What do you want to achieve by joining the gym?’. Your motivation to join the gym drives your exercise routine and helps the trainer help you reach your goals. In the startup context, it is important for the leader to ask the all-important question to a prospective team mate, ‘What do you want to achieve by joining us?’. Similarly, it is important for the leader to talk about the raison-d’etre of the startup so that the employee is clear on what the company wants to achieve. Lesson 2: Start from the heart The first thing my trainer focused on was my cardio vascular health. He put me through a battery of cardio exercises that tested and pushed the envelope on the efficiency of my heart. He explained to me that only when the heart performs efficiently, blood flows through all the veins of the body and consequently, the body and the mind get warmed up for the uphill journey.  In a startup as well, it is important for the leader to start from the hearts of the team mates, appeal to their passion, get them to see the big picture and prepare them for the uphill journey. A teammate with his heart in the business tends to be relentless and strives for excellence even during hard times (which tend to crop up much too often in a startup) Lesson 3: The importance of discipline Very early on, the trainer instilled in me the importance of being disciplined about managing time and maintaining a routine that works. He also emphasized the value of meticulously following the agreed plan. Needless to say, in a startup as well, where timelines are extremely short and the team members don multiple hats, it is imperative that the startup leader reinforces the importance of time management and sticking to the plan. Without financial and operational discipline, the startup can very quickly burn its resources and find itself in a tight spot. Lesson 4: Set Stretch Goals On my first day when I was huffing and puffing on the treadmill, my trainer calmly walked up to the machine and bumped up the speed, much to my chagrin. He constantly pushed the limits and tested my mettle. By setting stretch goals, he made me go out of my comfort zone and stretch my capabilities. As Mark Cuban would put it, employees in a startup have to learn to punch above their weight class. This is possible only when the leaders set stretch goals for the team and constantly challenge and motivate the team. Lesson 5: Know your limits, Stick to the thread When the trainer saw me getting carried away with early successes in my routine and trying much harder exercises that were not part of the plan, he was quick to advise caution. This situation is akin to startup leaders getting carried away with initial successes and squandering away precious resources in activities that make them lose focus. I am reminded of an advice that Sanjay Anandram of JumpStart had given me –“For startups, focus is spelled as ‘NO’”. Lesson 6: Persist by Dealing with Negativity One fine morning, the trainer walked up to me and said, “Today you will do 600 calories”. The maximum I had done in my life before this was 250 calories. The first thought that came to my mind was, “This is impossible”, and when the trainer bumped up the intensity when I was struggling, I thought “Boy, can this person be any more cruel?”. As I toiled hard, I started experiencing an intense tussle between the mind and the matter. The mind comes up with amazing reasons for quitting the drill. What worked for me eventually is the age old saying, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”. I told myself, what could possibly happen if I actually pushed myself all the way?  The thought was truly liberating. I am sure a lot of startup leaders have dealt with this emotion at some point in the life of their startups. Startups operate in highly uncertain and often daunting situations but what carries a team forward is the ability to reframe the situation, look at things in a positive light and keep pushing ahead. There are plenty of real life situations that offer valuable startup leadership lessons. What are your sources of startup leadership lessons from real life?

Tagged as: 2up2down, cloud, namrata-shah, pallav-nadhani, popular-on-cloudstory-in, rajiv jayaraman, random-group, random-member, storage-gateway, unsexy-startups, yourstory-in

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Rachel Chan, Co-creator, MaD Asia and Founder, Service Design Consultancy Innofoco

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

From January 6 th to 8 th , I attended the Make a Difference (MaD) Forum in Hong Kong. Organized by Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture and co-created by service design consultancy Innofoco, MaD is the biggest event of its kind bringing almost 1,200 young changemakers from all across Asia together. I caught up with Rachel Chan, who as the cofounder of Innofoco is one of the key people behind the event to learn more about MaD Forum. After spending 15 years of her career working with the public sector, first with Hong Kong government and then the trade body called Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Rachel decided not spend the next half of her career in a public sector organization but had no idea what she wants to do. So she took a break to study at London Business School for one year. While in London, she was introduced to service design. Back in HK working with the trade council, design was always limited to products, fashion, architecture, and manufacturing but never services. “When I was in London I met a lot of amazing service designers. Basically service design combines a design company with strategy-consulting, providing innovative solutions to service delivery, from strategy, process to touch points. You need to combine different skill sets and work with people across various disciplines. When I came back to HK, I realized that despite being an economy which is very service oriented similar to India, we hardly had anyone doing service design. It was an alien concept in this part of Asia” says Rachel. “I decided that I should create a market for this, create a new paradigm on designing for services. This is how Innofoco was born.” When she set up Innofoco, she set out with a very clear vision – She wanted to promote creativity and innovation as she thought they were key to her business and society at large. 4 yrs ago, at a dinner meeting sitting next to creative education guru Sir Ken Robinson who happened to speak at HK design education forum, Rachel was talking to him about the lack of an innovation centric culture in Hong Kong and he advised her to pursue what she was doing as there was definitely a need, since no one was doing what she was doing. “He said if you want to promote creativity and innovation, you should start with young people as these people won’t have any baggage and will be receptive. This idea sort of stuck with me. I have always been following TED talks and have been inspired by them. But it is not easy to be part of TED conferences. I thought maybe we could also have a platform to promote creative and interdisciplinary learning in HK for young people. I was looking for partners and we partnered with HKICC and we got sponsorship from HK government through Create HK” adds Rachel on how MaD was born. MaD is a novel collaboration – public, private and non-profit sectors coming together. It has been growing each year with more cities being represented. In the coming years they hope to have more young Indian and South Asian changemakers taking part. “Going into the future, we need more people to realize their dreams, to take action. We want to facilitate collaboration by providing a platform for various people to interact and work with each other. This is our major opportunity and challenge” adds Rachel. Other than co-organizing MaD, Innofoco provides consultancy services related to design, innovation and branding. They are also a think tank and do research for the government and public sector. “We are very interested in collaborating with likeminded people outside HK. The future is in Asia and we need to work together. We want to encourage people from various Asian countries to take part in the MAD forum. We get support from the govt because they see MAD as a channel to showcase HK as a destination for young, creative, entrepreneurs and we want to use MaD as a platform to showcase that” adds Rachel as parting message. Click here to find out more about MaD and click here to visit Innofoco website.

Tagged as: facebook, forbes-india, hong kong, hong kong startup series, indian, mobivi-popular, namrata-shah, partners, random-group, storage-gateway, yourstory-in

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Muckati Aims To Make Design Alive and Devices Living!

by Paul Joseph January 30, 2012 Featured

Anjan’s decision to take up a career in art and creativity was probably in the 2nd or 3rd grade. Add to this, a passion for technology, be it electronics or automobiles, and he had a winning combination. From creating and distributing comics and flip books in primary school to assembling pocket transistor radios during cricket season in high school, he had an entrepreneurial streak in him. Branded as extremely creative by everyone he interacted with, he started his career in animation while still in college. His career growth was very quick and by the age of 26, he was heading a team of more than 2000 artists and animators and went on to direct two animated feature films that qualified for Oscar nominations. He also bagged many other prestigious awards during his career span. Reaching a pinnacle and not seeing the kind of growth that he desired, he decided to quit his job and started his company Muckati. Being an early adapter, he made good use of technology to create innovative and interactive content, the latest being a (patent pending) GPS system for off-roaders and a support website to display these recorded trails. Muckati Sentient Design and Devices was started with a vision to use creativity without boundaries. Currently their work spans across Interactive, Design and Screen. Muckati is an amalgamation of art and technology. They develop pioneering concepts and ideas that include intellectual property such as media content, design and inventions. They have contributed so far to media (original animation, game and other interactive content), automobiles (life-saving active safety systems and proprietary web enabled GPS systems), computers and packaging industries. In the three years of its existence, Muckati has seven patent pending products to its credit. As a business model, Muckati focuses on leveraging these IP through licensing. The biggest challenge that Anjan Cariappa faced on the interactive front is from mediocre work that comes out of some organizations that end up portraying all Indian work as sub-standard, he notes. “Add to this, organizations that fail to deliver client projects up to standard and in time and we have a grim scenario.” Muckati strives to change this perspective by trying to be an example of high standard and creativity. “Muckati targets niche markets in which we personally have a passion.” says Anjan “While I was climbing the ladder of success in animation, my passion for automobiles which was latent for long, surfaced. We developed an Active Safety System for automobiles called PACA-brake, which broadly is a driver to driver interactive system. Very simple and innovative, PACA-brake when implemented can save millions of lives on the road. The system was showcased at the prestigious “International Transport Forum” held last year at Leipzig, Germany, to an overwhelming response. We are currently in talks with safety organizations and automobile OE manufacturers around the world to bring this system into the mainstream.” Seeing the simple yet very effective concept of PACA, they were approached by the director of European Rail to design a customized safety system to monitor rail lines and level crossings. This led them to invent a revolutionary safety system dubbed “3rd i”, which currently is being prototyped. Being an ardent off-road enthusiast, Anjan founded the first and only Jeep and off-road club in India, “Jeep Thrills”. Driving his World War II Jeep to work, he noticed that there was immense interest in people to know more about Jeeps and Jeep owners themselves did not know the true potential of their vehicles. This made him start Jeep Thrills initially as an online group to give enthusiasts a common platform to interact. This in turn created a revolution in automobile sports in the country. The club which is six years old now has more than 800 members. Jeep Thrills now boasts of chapters all over the country and conducts off-road events on a regular basis. Seeing great potential in this niche market, Anjan developed a first in the world concept, Incline Data GPS or ID-GPS for short. Regular GPS devices display flat maps that don’t help off-roaders much. Their patent pending ID-GPS on the other hand records each and every climb, descend and banking that an off-road vehicle tackles and this data can be uploaded to a dedicated support portal for off-roaders. The trail is displayed on the world map. Currently, ID-GPS is offered as a free app for the iPhone and iPad as “Trail Ranger”. Trail Ranger crossed 1500 downloads in the first few weeks of its launch. Revenue generation would be through advertisements, in-game sales on the device and the web portal.  They are also working on developing a dedicated device to be fitted on off-road vehicles. Other projects in the pipeline include games and applications targeted at specific user groups. “I have not restricted my creativity to any particular field and have 6 more patent pending products that range from active safety systems for automobiles to innovative packaging techniques.” Anjan Cariappa was the finalist of British Council’s Young Interactive Entrepreneur Awards, 2011. To know more about the Young Interactive Entrepreneur Awards, click here . Follow the Young Creative Entrepreneur Awards (YCE) on Facebook

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Only 1% of Facebook Fans truly ‘engage’ with a Brand : Study

by Paul Joseph January 29, 2012 Featured

Facebook has emerged as a very important marketing medium owing to the huge number of people who access it and the amount of time people spend on it. Facebook advertising features prominently when firms outline their digital marketing strategy, with some brands advertising just their Facebook Page URL than their website in hoardings and TV commercials. But does an increase in the fan count or likes in your brand fanpage guarantee engagement? A study by Australia based marketing think-tank  Ehrenberg-Bass Institute suggests that only 1% of a brand’s followers on Facebook actually engage with the brand. The results are based on one of Facebook’s metrics ’People Talking About This’. This feature measures the interaction between followers and the fanpage in terms of likes, shares, tags, comments , mentions etc. The institute studied the top 200 brands on Facebook over a 6 week period and found the average ‘People Talking About This’ percentage to be 1.3%. If one removed the count of ‘likes’ which takes just a click and count only the more engaged forms of interaction, the percentage drops to 0.45%. This suggests that less than half a percent of a brand’s followers are creating content or engaging directly with the brand. Karen Nelson-Field, senior research associate for Ehrenberg-Bass Institute who describes herself as a “Facebook advocate” points out that this research does not conclude that Facebook as a medium is ineffective. ”People need to understand what it can do for a brand and what it can’t do. Facebook doesn’t really differ from mass media. It’s great to get decent reach, but to change the way people interact with a brand overnight is just unrealistic” she said in an interview to AdAge . Source: Ad Age

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Gay Tourism in India; a trumpet for the Pink Rupee?

by Paul Joseph January 29, 2012 Featured

LGBT Flag | Image Credit: Wikipedia The subject of homosexuality definitely raises an eyebrow or two in India and so would happen if one broaches the topic of gay tourism. But after the decriminalization of homosexuality by the Delhi High Court on 2 nd July 2009, the tolerance has grown to a certain extent. Numerous researches have tried to estimate the percentage of homosexual population in any given region and all these researches show that around 5 to 10% of any population is homosexual. Even if we consider other factors like pressure from the society and a wish for secrecy, there would be at least 2% of the population that is homosexual and for a gargantuan country like India, this number reaches 26 million. This leads one to an alluring business proposition- The Pink Rupee. Post 2009, quite a few services have cropped up catering to the needs of homosexuals. Indjapink and OutJourneys are two of the most notable services which act as travel agents to gays. These ventures arrange an entire trip for a gay couple or group looking for a holiday in India. Thailand and Malaysia are the hotspots for gay tourism but India can soon be at a level pegging with these countries looking at the kind of response it has been generating in the International market. The Pink Rupee holds immense value as most of the gay couples have a considerable amount of disposable income. Two working members with no kids is the usual scenario and a desire to live to the fullest allows the pink economy to flourish. There weren’t any gay tourism companies a few years ago but now the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) lists seven such travel agents in India and further down, one can certainly expect a flurry in this segment. Is the burgeoning gay tourism in India a pointer to more such services which would explore the power of the Pink Rupee? Let us know what you think.      – Jubin Mehta

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