Coming up.. MoMo and Omcar

A couple of back to back conferences that I plan to attend in the coming two weeks.

Mobile Monday Delhi - 5 Jan 2008 ( Password : Android)
Agenda - Mobile VAS
Where : Perot Systems,Plot No.3, Sec 125,Near Amity University,
Greater Noida Expressway,Noida.Phone : 91-120-2432750-64

OM Careers - 12 Jan 2008
Agenda - Online marketing careers
Where : FIEO (also called Niryat Bhawan), Rao Tula Ram Marg
Opp Army Hospital Research & Referral, New Delhi – 110057, India

If you plan to attend either , leave your contact number and lets meet up!

India and clean technology

Clean tech has been the buzzword in the valley for a couple of years now. There is plenty of venture capital available to fund clean technologies. Clean tech business ventures are seen to combine the benefits of for-profit with the sustainability of non-profits. This includes using wind,solar,geothermal, biomass and other energy sources. However, it is not confined to generation of energy alone.

Where does India stand today with respect to clean technologies? And what is our government's views on pushing for cleaner technologies?

As a developing country, India's per capita fuel expenditure is very low compared to developed countries. This ultimately leads to lower per capita emission of GHG's or Greenhouse gases consisting of various oxides of Carbon,Sulphur and Nitrogen. This has been the focal point of argument that the developing countries put forward at Bali, where the 13th UN conference on climate change took place recently.

I think India and other developing countries are making a grave error by linking push for clean technology with per capita emissions. I would suggest use a new metric " per capita quality of life" or PCQOL. To start off, compare the quality of air and drinking water in top 50 Indian cities with that of top 50 cities in US. Then look at the kind of fuel used for public/private transportation, the emissions caused by industrial zones within cities, the energy efficiency of housing infrastructure and quality of water in the rivers that flow near/through the cities. I am pretty sure Indian cities would fare much worse.

The ultimate objective of addressing per capita emissions is to make quality of life better for the citizens. Does lower per capita emissions mean we wait to switch to clean energy until our per capita emission matches that of US? Can India ( or this earth) survive when per capita emissions of India and US are equal? US consumers have historically been the biggest embracers of innovation and this has been the single biggest factor why US companies are the most innovative. Clean tech is picking up momentum and while it is still not mainstream, I won't be surprised if US consumers manage to cut down emissions within 10 years. Honda already sells the largest number of Civic hybrid cars in the US. Where does that leave India? Do we want to go the path of US, and then come out of that ? Or should we address this now, when all that rapid economic growth is ahead of us ? Sustainable growth is not just a fancy buzzword.

It is a tremendous opportunity for India to carve out a future which is energy efficient and dependent on clean energy sources. The time to act is now.

The idea of idea

" Remember, Remember The fifth of November The gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason Why the gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot. But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know that in 1605 he attempted to blow up the houses of parliament, but who was he really? What was he like? We are told to remember the idea, not the man. Because a man can fail. He can be caught. He can be killed and forgotten. But four hundred years later an idea can still change the world. I've witnessed firsthand the power of ideas. I've seen people kill in the name of them; and die defending them. But you cannot touch an idea, cannot hold it or kiss it. An idea does not bleed, it cannot feel pain, and it does not love. And it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man. A man who made me remember the fifth of November. A man I will never forget. "

- From V for Vendetta

I love this movie for its inspiring quotes about rebellion. I guess first generation entrepreneurs with zero capital are not very different from rebels of yesteryears. Think Michael Dell and Dhirubhai Ambani. Or think Guy Fawkes and Vladimir Lenin. Aren't they all rebels in some way? It takes courage and conviction to take an idea to fruition. That's why , I guess , they say execution is the key. And the people are most important.

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All India Institute of Mad Sciences

AIIMS or All India Institute of Medical sciences is the premier medical institute in India. Premier hospitals in India refer special cases to AIIMS for expertise. AIIMS boasts of having conducted many rare surgeries and operations.

Ask any medical aspirant in India where he/she wants to study and this is the name you will most likely hear. It is statistically nearly impossible to predict if you will get in through the undergraduate entrance examination, no matter how hard you study. Why, because for tens of thousands of applicants AIIMS selects less than 50 ( this was the number few years ago) . Does it mean they produce medical geniuses?

Take a look here . What is at stake here ? Ego or lives of 10,000 people? Why are they putting so many poor and helpless people at risk? If I had the power, I would fire all of them. They do not deserve to be called doctors. Unfortunately, this is the scene all over India. Hospitals and medical facilities all over India look upto AIIMS as a role model and a leader. And thus, they strike at whim. All this in a country which has healthcare delivery and doctors to patients ratio comparable(maybe worse) to sub-Saharan Africa.

This is not the first time AIIMS docs have stopped work. They do it for anything and everything. Recently , they stopped work on the reservation issue. As an ex-student at IIT Delhi situated nearby, I have heard horror stories of dirty student politics at AIIMS. If you happen to go to AIIMS wards, you can easily overhear stuff like " mar gaya naa, dekh ke dawai deni thee" ( See , the patient died. You should have checked properly before giving medicine) from medical interns. Try going there without a referral from a politician or a burauecrat. So much for geniuses.

Bloody spoilt brats!

Why should I be so upset, you may ask. Well , every tax payer should be. The research for which AIIMS is so famous is subsidized by my money. And yours. For what?

What can you do about it?

This is a post I had written more than a year ago, when I was working with a Bangalore based organization called Janaagraha.

What can you do about it?

Life sometimes changes its direction in unexpected ways, through an event which seems to be of little importance at the time. It happens to almost everyone and at most times the change is not so much in what we do but rather in how we think about doing things. My life changed the day I decided to skip a movie one pretty Saturday evening and landed up at Janaagraha's office . More about Janaagraha later.I have been associated with this organization for over four months now , in different programs ranging from public disclosure of BMP's finances to writing articles for their monthly publication. Across the board , a common trend is the lack of enough young people in community related activities. Almost all the people under the age of 35 are college or school students and very few of those are actually working at the local community level. But I live in Bangalore , so I must have missed counting a key segment of the population under 35. Ahaa , the young professional.Everyone , including John Kerry and a certain George W Bush, knows about the young professional in Bangalore. Highly skilled , well educated , motivated , with a well paying steady (sometimes not so steady) job, unmarried or just married , spotted often at Garuda or Forum or MG Road/Brigade road especially on weekends. Perfect! Only , sometimes I wish Kerry knew a little bit about this professional's city as well.Bangalore sucks! The awful roads , the flooded drains , the incomplete flyovers , the one ways , the smoke , the rising temperature , the electricity and water supply , the this and the that . This list is endless. Often this topic becomes a reason to engage in feel good afternoon banter about the role of a former Prime Minister. But more often than not , the young professional says , "I am unattached, I do not belong here. I abide by law and pay my taxes. I am calm and never get excited(except the one time when I watched Rang De Basanti)". Cynicism , then.Where does this cynicism come from ? How does it become so all pervasive? Is it part of our genetics or something that I imbibed along the way? To know the answer , I , the young professional need to step back in time , when I was at school. For all the history and civics and other social sciences I crammed up as a kid , was there a single moment I felt that I had a responsibility beyond my house or my school ? A responsibility not to spit my chewing gum on the street , or to keep my neighborhood park clean or to ask my mom not to empty her dustbin in the drain. No , never. If childhood is when I could have learnt to become responsible outside my house and school and my teachers and parents could not teach me such a basic thing , then maybe it is a collective failure. A lost opportunity which may not present itself again. See , it is so easy to be cynical , to blame "the system" . There is a popular phrase for such a thought process : "conventional wisdom" e.g. "the system" is corrupt , "the government" is inefficient, our "cultural values" are different and so on. John Kenneth Galbraith , the renowned American economist , defined conventional wisdom as associating truth with convenience , with what is aligned with our self interest and personal well being or promises best to avoid awkward effort or unwelcome dislocation of life. No wonder , we accept it so comfortably without understanding much about what the "government" or the "system" actually is.I do not claim to know or understand any of the problems that afflict my city , let alone the solutions. Heck , I don't even claim to know who or what a typical young professional is. But , at a personal level, I have asked this question to myself over and over again in the past few weeks. Should I leave the future of this city in the hands of "the system" and wash my hands off it? With my education , my skills, my ability to reason , my youth and my energy whether all I can do is twiddle my thumbs while the active citizenry comprising of mostly old and retired and some not so fortunate people slug it out in public meetings to solve my day to day problems , go through the budget of the ward works to make sure the drainage is working and ,in general, engage with the government to make Bangalore a better city to live in. I find it very offensive , and downright insulting , when a newly returned Indian (or NRI for the pun inclined) rattles off the list of ills that plague Bangalore and how there is no hope. It definitely helps to know that America took more than 200 years to get where it is today, and NRI's did not have any role to play in that process until the recent past.In the end , then, the debate rests on a very fine line between whether I just care about this issue and wash it down with regular pepsi at INOX or I am willing to take the extra step and let it agitate the hell out of me. What I eventually do and whether I want to shoot down a defence minister or talk to my ward sabha representative about a flooded drain is a matter of finer and minor detail which , if you believe me , can definitely be sorted out.I am sure each one of us has brilliant ideas and I invite you to generously comment on what I have written and what you think can or should be done about the issue as a whole .Remember , though , if it helps at all , that a doctor treats the disease not just the symptoms. Remember , as well , that this blog is just an effort to let a collective thought process evolve , so what YOU think is most important.

Number portability is here!

Mobile Number portability will be launched early next year starting in four metros. It will allow subscribers to switch service providers while keeping the same number. Full number portability, including that for fixed lines, will be introduced gradually thereafter.

Number Portability(NP) should have a huge impact on competition in telecom space. I said "should" and not "will" because its success will depend upon how easy/smooth the process of changing a service provider is. If the process is a long and winding one, I don't expect many to line up for the hassles ( like residence verification etc).

Historically, the introduction of NP has led to as many as 50% of subscribers changing their service providers in other countries. This implies a big premium now needs to be places on customer loyalty and controlling the churn rate. This also implies there could be differentiation of customer segments with different tariffs applicable for different sets of customers ( losing a customer who uses 600 minutes in a month is 6 times more expensive than one who uses only 100 minutes).