Bangalore entrepreneur bags Rolex award with device to detect hearing problems in infants

Neeti Kailas, a Bangalore-based entrepreneur who runs a project to increase the screening of new-born babies for hearing problems, has been awarded the Rolex Award for Enterprise with four others. They were selected from a global pool of over 1,800.

 

Kailas, a National Institute of Design alumna, runs the Sohun Innovation Lab in Bangalore with her husband Nitin Sisodia, an engineer. The couple is set to continue clinical trials of a device they have developed to measure the auditory brainstem response of new-borns.

 

The device is currently at the prototype phase, and they plan to start marketing it in 2017. They expect to price it at around a fifth of the rate for devices already on the market.

 

User-friendly

The device is portable, battery-operated and non-invasive — all factors Kailas hopes will increase awareness of the need for an auditory test, as well as access to it.

 

She is hopeful these features will see it used even in areas with limited health-care resources and skilled health-care workers. The device also has an inbuilt algorithm to filter out ambient noise to ensure it is effective even in noisy places.

 

Kailas points out that even today there is little focus on hearing problems, which affect four-six of every 1,000 births in India.

 

“We need to get the message out there that if we can provide timely treatment, your child can learn to speak and lead a normal life,” she said in London, where the awards were announced.

The project has received support from the Department of Biotechnology, the All India Institute for Medical Sciences, as well as the Centre for Innovation in Global Health in the US, and Canada’s Grand Challenge.

 

Kailas hopes the device will be used in around 2 per cent of births in its first year of use, and rolled out widely thereafter, beyond large tertiary hospitals.

 

Adoption challenge

Expansion will be one of the project’s challenges given that over 50 per cent of births in India take place outside hospitals or other healthcare institutions. But Kailas hopes to build a network of paediatricians, healthcare workers and maternity homes. Even entrepreneurs who rent out the device will increase its reach.

 

The Rolex awards, instituted in 1976, recognise projects in areas ranging from applied technology and the environment to science and health with an award of 50,000 Swiss francs. Among last year’s winners was Sumit Dagar, also from the National Institute of Design, who developed a Braille smart-phone.

 

Diebedo Francis Kere, one of five jurors for the awards, said Kailas’ project had appealed on an emotional and practical level, not least for its ability to be used in other resource-stretched healthcare systems.

 

“The screening system she is developing will have an impact across the world.”

Free incubation by Kozhikode IT collective for startups

 The Calicut Forum for Information Technology (CafIT), a unique collective of 40 small software companies based in Kozhikode, is offering free incubation to startup entrepreneurs.

“Each of our members will take in two young entrepreneurs, mentor them for six months and provide them access to our ecosystem so that they can prove themselves,” Charles Thomas, President of CafIT, said. “This is part of our objective of promoting Kozhikode as a sought-after IT destination and to provide guidance to startups.”

MT Ramakrishnan, CEO of CafIT, said the select would-be entrepreneurs would be hand-held by veterans, would have access to ‘100 man years of collective expertise’ for funding opportunities, guidance to business basics and opportunity to attend industry events. Desk space for six months would be free.

 

CafIT, born in 2008, is a rare form of cooperation and mutual help in the cut-throat world of IT. Back then, a few young entrepreneurs got together to share their ideas, exchange notes, seek collective guidance and comfort each other in times of failures and setbacks.

“It was not a club, not a trade union, not an association, but just a collective of young professionals ready to help each other,” said Thomas, who runs Ontash India Technologies. Nasscom views the collective as a role model.

 

Common space

Six years later, 12 member enterprises are moving into a common 30,000 square feet space called ‘CafIT Square.’ Each of these companies would have independent office space, but there would be a lot of common areas, facilities and amenities for fostering the cooperation of the entrepreneurs, professionals and staff. The number is expected to go up to 20 in a year. Initially, the 12 companies would host two young startup entrepreneurs selected by a screening committee.

Ramakrishnan notes that the collective has helped members to develop business, source markets, handle the ticklish issue of dealing with government agencies at various levels, find export orders and technical help. “If I get a work offer and my firm cannot execute it, I immediately put it on our group mail so that one of our members can lap it up,” Thomas said. “But, there is a strict no-no on poaching either of business or staff,” Ramakrishnan insists. But there is healthy competition, too.

CafIT organises events that benefit its own members as well as outside technology entrepreneurs. Recently it conducted a seminar on ‘Technology business opportunities in Malabar.’

 

Turning point

Thomas feels that the opening of CafIT Square, the dream collective space, will be a turning point in Kozhikode’s IT scene. There are around 100 software companies in the area — mostly doing under ₹5-crore business a year — who will all want to join the collective. Kozhikode is now home to a talent pool of IT professionals and thousands of them are working in Bangalore. The opening of the huge Uralunkal Cyber Park and a government IT park later is expected to woo many back from Bangalore.

 

CafIT, which is a non-profit organisation, would be moving closer to its objective of ‘building a conducive ecosystem for technology entrepreneurship in Malabar’ with the free startup incubation programme.

Mindtree launches cloud-based technology platform for waste pickers

Mindtree a global technology services company, has launched ‘I Got Garbage' (IGG), a cloud -based platform aimed to simplify waste management and transform every waste picker in Bangalore into an entrepreneur through a structured and governed waste management framework.

India’s garbage is mixed waste and the lack of segregation makes it difficult for efficient recycling. Fragmented communities of waste pickers manage waste by working in hazardous and inhuman conditions. Today, waste pickers go to the garbage heaps, segregate it and sell it to the waste collectors for recycling. The unhealthy working conditions led to waste pickers lead a life with an average life expectancy of 39 years with 1 in 3 infant mortality. To add to this, waste pickers do not have access to the mainstream supply chain of waste thereby reducing their daily income to less than a dollar.

IGG partners with social businesses to transform waste management into an organised sector and provide dignified living and working conditions for the waste pickers. It enables waste pickers to offer waste management services by organising themselves into franchises and participate in online marketplaces where waste generators (households, apartments, offices) can procure waste management services. It also engages urban communities in solving the solid waste issues, and facilitates access to social security schemes for the waste pickers.

I Got Garbage offers capabilities such as an ERP for waste pickers, social engagement platform for citizens, marketplace for waste management services, and a waste picker benefits tracker. The initiative is a result of collaboration between Mindtree, Hasiru Dala, Waste Wise Trust and seven other social businesses.

Nalini Shekar, Co-Founder, Hasiru Dala, a member-based organisation of waste pickers, said, “Mindtree is helping us build structure and processes into our model which enables us to scale and provide more dignified employment to waste pickers. Over the last six months, we have been using the platform and are seeing the positive impact of technology.”

Prashant Mehra, Chief Architect of Social Inclusion, Mindtree, said, “Our aim is to collectively dignify the livelihood of waste pickers by helping them setup micro-businesses and ensure less landfills for all. With the rollout of I Got Garbage, we are building a single window for Bangalore citizens to explore specific solutions to the issue of waste management.”

The first poster boy of Indian IT industry

Narendra Patni was a pioneer who inspired a whole generation of entrepreneurs to plunge into the software services business, say captains of the IT industry.

 

For those who knew him, Naren was an intense man who valued the depth of his relationship with clients.

 

The co-founder and former CEO of the erstwhile Patni Computer Systems (PCS) passed away following a cardiac arrest in the US recently. He was 71.

 

“He was a doyen of the industry in the true sense… when we started Mastek in 1982, the Patni story was a beacon light for us,” said Ashank Desai, Founder and Chairman of Mastek.

 

Naren went to the US in 1964 on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology fellowship and he had made the country his base ever since.

 

“I had known Naren since 1964. He was as humble as he was bright. He was at the forefront of the software revolution, not only in India but also in the US,” said Lalit Kanodia, Chairman of Datamatics Global Services, and himself a pioneer of the IT offshoring model.

Naren and his wife took the first steps towards the offshoring business when they started operations from their US apartment in 1972.

 

In 1978, Naren started PCS along with brothers Ashok and Gajendra as a reseller of Data General’s mini-computers.

 

It then got into writing software solutions for Data General customers. Naren picked up NR Narayana Murthy to head the software division in August 1977.

 

Murthy, in turn, built a software team of six people who went on to become the founders of Infosys.

 

Trust factor

Naren was well known for his clout with customers.

 

“I have seen Naren interact with customers and the trust factor was extremely high. That was because of the value he attached to his word,” said Abhay Havaldar, General Atlantic’s Advisory Director.

Havaldar was on the board of PCS between 2002 and 2011 as GA had a stake in the IT company. “It was not so much about the contract, but it was more about what Naren had committed to the client,” said Havaldar.

 

Atul Nishar, Chairman of Hexaware Technologies, said Naren was not only a pioneer of the IT sector, but also one of the finest persons in the industry.

 

The Indian IT industry went through a complete change in 1999-2000 and companies such as Infosys and TCS focussed on two major opportunity cycles: the Y2K bug and the ERP implementation wave. However, Patni did not capitalise on these prospects and was compelled to play catch up.

 

What also slowed Patni’s growth were disagreements between the promoters. While Gajendra and Ashok wanted to cash out, Naren wanted to stay put.

 

Finally in 2011, the brothers reached a common ground and agreed to sell out to Nasdaq-listed iGate which went on to acquire PCS.

 

“Patni was a company that Naren truly loved. He told me he would have preferred to be on the buy side and not the sell side (of the Patni-iGate transaction), but circumstances did not permit him,” said Phaneesh Murthy, who was then CEO of iGate.