Factory girl turned Apple supplier is China’s richest woman

Zhou Qunfei, the chairwoman of a Chinese touchscreen glass supplier firm that has clients like Apple and Samsung, has been crowned China’s richest woman, with a fortune of nearly US$ 8 billion.

Dubbed as the “Queen of Mobile Phone Glass”, the 25-year-old has ousted Chan Laiwa, founder of Beijing Red Sandalwood Cultural Foundation, who was previously named China’s richest woman with total assets of US$ 6.1 billion according to a global billionaire list by Forbes released last month.

Zhaou’s firm Lens Technology’s share value surged to 78.08 yuan per share yesterday, jumping by the daily limit for 10 straight days since it debuted on the Growth Enterprise Market board in Shenzhen on March 18, with an offering price of 22.99 yuan per share.

This morning, Lens Technology, a major Apple Inc supplier, saw its share value surge by the daily limit for the 11th day at 85.89 yuan per share, extending the glory of the country’s richest woman, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.

Lens Technology makes glass covers for various consumer electronic products such as smartphones, computers and cameras.

Its sales revenue to Apple and Samsung reached nine billion yuan in 2014, accounting for more than 70 per cent of the company’s total revenue.

Zhou’s life is a classic rags to riches story.

Born in 1970 in a small village in central China’s Hunan Province, she started working as a factory girl making glass for watches in China’s southern city of Shenzhen.

In 2003, she founded her own company. Headquartered in her hometown Hunan, the company has now grown to include 10 subsidiary companies with locations all over China, and employs 60,000 people.

She once told the press that she contributed her success to “hard work” and “persistence“.

Despite of the company’s good performance in the stock market, analysts have also expressed some concern on the company’s ability to sustain profitability.

After posting a net profit of 2 billion yuan in 2012, Lens technology saw net profit drop to 1.17 billion yuan in 2014.

Lens Technology is highly reliant on major clients such as Apple and Samsung. Between 2012 and 2014, the combined sales to the two industry giants took up more than 70 per cent of the company’s entire sales revenue.

 

Nevertheless, the company has announced recently that it provides glass for Apple’s newly launched Apple Watch.

Gujarat start-up’s clean energy line-up for rural India

Greenway Grameen Infra, whose high-efficiency smokeless biomass stove is making waves, plans to launch a stove that generates power like an inverter, and a water chiller in the country’s rural areas where electricity is a problem.

The startup, launched five years ago, has reached Mexico with its smokeless stoves and expects to quadruple its export of about 2,000 units a month in the next couple of years, its co-founder said.

“Our new prototype of a power-run water chiller, which can also run on solar energy, is being tested now. The other new product, a stove that generates electricity, the poor man’s inverter, should be launched later this year,” Neha Juneja, Co-Founder, Greenway, told BusinessLine on Tuesday. Taking an unconventional route to make cleaner and smarter stoves for nearly 15 crore Indian households surviving below the poverty line (BPL), Neha Juneja and Ankit Mathur, both MBA graduates, set up India’s largest biomass cook stove factory at Vadodara, Gujarat, in 2010.With a capacity to make eight lakh “chulhas” (stoves), that use wood and agro-waste as fuel, it has already sold over 2.60 lakh stoves across India, mainly in the southern states, since 2012.

“We now plan to tie up with public sector banks and micro-finance companies to penetrate rural markets more deeply, particularly in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana,” she said.

The Mumbai-headquartered company has already tied up with microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. “This assured repayment of loans and helped us reach out to more villagers. In Kerala, for instance, we sold over 70,000 stoves through MFIs, with most buyers paying only Rs. 65 per week.”

Greenway Grameen Infra, a start-up of the IIM-Ahmadabad’s technology business incubator, the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), evolved as a profitable product design and distribution start-up, aiming to serve rural India through quality-of-life-enhancing home-appliances. With its biomass cook stove, it aims to replace use of traditional mud stoves (chulhas), that adversely affect health and environment and achieve greater scale.

“Our flagship product, the Greenway Smart Stove, is a high-efficiency cook stove that burns all biomass fuels (wood, cow dung, etc.) while reducing smoke by 70 per cent, fuel use by 65 per cent and GHG emissions by 1.5 tonnes per annum,” she said.

Currently, the firm markets two stoves of different sizes, priced at Rs. 1,399 and Rs. 2,499. The idea of Greenway Cook Stoves was born when Mathur and Juneja, fresh from IIM-Ahmadabad and FMS Delhi, were traveling through rural areas to undertake energy projects. The stoves are also certified by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Resources and some subsidy made available in tribal areas.

Greenway was one of the two Indian companies to have won the Ashden Clean Energy for Women and Girls Award at the International Ashden Awards 2014. It received seed funding of Rs. 20 lakh from CIIE and another Rs. 40 lakh from an angel investor. In addition, the Clinton Global Initiative’s Global Alliance for Cook Stoves, headed by Hillary Clinton, also contributed Rs. 1 crore.

Gift A Pension: a unique initiative to add financial cushion to the lives of helpers around us

My driver Des Raj is more than 70 years of age. He joined me nearly two decades back and has continued to work for me ever since. His long stint with us and congeniality makes him a part of the family, not just an employee.

At an age when he should be sitting at home and enjoying the winter of his life after having worked hard all his life, he has to report to a job day after day. The word ‘retirement’ does not exist for him!

When I once mentioned the idea of retiring to him, he laughed it away.

“You must be kidding. I must continue to work till the day I die. How do you think I’m going to eat if I stop working?”

We are all hugely dependent upon people like Des Raj and others like him around us, so much so that life goes topsy-turvy if any of them does not turn up unexpectedly.

We do pay them for their services, of course. But are we doing enough?

Don’t they deserve a pension when they grow old for having made our lives so much more easy while in their prime?

Gift A Pension: a MPF project to help people with tiny or no savings at all

Old age financial insecurity is a challenging problem for India at large, and the concept of retirement and pension evades most of the working population, especially those in the low income workforce.

At present, 90% of India’s 487 million strong workforce is employed in the informal sector and has no social security. They are employed as domestic helps, nannies, gardeners, cooks, drivers, guards, etc.  Add to it your raddi-wala, dabba-wala, dhobi, watchman, the doodh-wala and so many more. Sadly, almost none of them have any cushion for their old age.

The Micro Pension Foundation, which was set up to use technology to design innovative models to deliver a social security solution to this segment, found out that there are 40 million domestic workers in the country. Sensing that some of these people want to save but are limited by awareness and access, they came up with the unique Gift A Pension initiative.

Gift A Pension is a web-based platform that enables employers to enrol their domestic help for pension benefits. By enrolling their domestic workers under this plan, employers can assist their helpers draw a respectable pension by the time they decide to quit their job.

The enrolees under this plan will be supported by the government to the tune of Rs 1,000 every year for the first few years (under the Government of India National Pension Scheme), in addition to which they will get a Rs. 30,000 pure term life insurance cover from SBI Life, and a simple, secure and convenient payment solution with VISA. After their enrolment, the platform directly communicates with the domestic worker for regular savings and ongoing services.

“Gift a Pension brings together digital and financial inclusion in a unique way. Individual employers across the country can enroll their domestic help for the national pension product online, and the platform takes responsibility for ongoing servicing of these domestic workers. We can empower 1 million domestic workers in just one week using this platform,” explains Parul Khanna, Associate Director, Micro Pension Foundation.

Though the concept unveiled and launched by the parent company MPF in September 2014 is unique and laudable, it has not been as big a hit as it should have been. Inspite of drawing appreciation from all quarters for their path-breaking effort in trying to provide financial security for those not managing to save enough, the problem lies in getting the domestic workers to enroll!

Convincing them about the need for saving, and that their savings will be in safe hands has not been easy, as any of the 450 employers who have finally managed to enroll their helpers with GiftAPension will endorse.

Atul Vaidya, a banker from Bengaluru who wanted to reward his loyal maid of three years after learning about this plan, could not have agreed more on that! Keen to help the girl who had helped his working wife and him raise a kid while they would leave for their respective offices every day, he had to call the 20-year-old girl’s mom and dad to his place a couple of times to make them understand the need to save for a rainy day. Talking about a pension, he now recalls, came much later!

“Though they were thrilled with the idea of getting a regular stream of funds even after they cease to work, they were obviously not happy with the idea of not being able to use a small part of it every month for now,” says Atul.

Besides a wee bit of cajoling from Atul and his wife Aparna, the simpletons hailing from a remote village in Bihar had to be shown the interactive demos videos on the Gift A Pension site to assure them that the money would be accessible to them no matter where they went (even after they changed their employer or chose to go back to their village) and that they could choose to skip an installment in times of need.

“She now puts in Rs 300 from her side while Aparna and I are happy to co-contribute Rs 200 each month for this wonderful girl. At less than the price of a pizza, I can help her save for her old age. And, believe me, it’s a great feeling,” says a proud Atul.

The 20-year-old girl will be able to draw a pension of nearly Rs 7,600 every month if she continues to save at this rate. Fair enough for someone who earns Rs 6,000 a month now!

The role of the employer is limited to the process of enrolment for which they are also charged a onetime fee of Rs 300. The workers can then go on to save their micro savings from time to time using the Micro Pension prepaid card which they are given along with the welcome kit or using their bank account, if they do have one.

The card can then be recharged just like a prepaid mobile phone-online by any employer, and/ or they can load it themselves at multiple outlets located across the country.

“You can reward someone who has been good to you in four simple and very easy steps,” explains Parul.

“The initial enrolment is done online entirely. Within four days of enrolling, you get a courier delivered at your mentioned address. You then have to get the signatures of your helper. After that, the courier gets picked up again from your doorstep, to make it super convenient,” she adds.

Having succeeded in creating a buzz about their plan within six months of their launch, the Gift A Pension website now gets nearly 500 to 1,000 hits every day.

The conversion rate has not been very encouraging so far but 1,400 employers have registered already, and 450 enrolments have been completed.

“We are very excited about the uptake in Bangalore and Mumbai, but are also keen to get more traction in Delhi/ NCR, which is home to most of us,” mentions one of the team members.

Not a bad beginning for an organization which is trying to find takers for an idea which has been marred due to a lack of demand for it!

Out of the people who have come forward to enroll so far, 55% of the enrollees have been women. 63% of these enrolments were completed using an Aadhaar card while 11% of the employers have set up an auto debit instruction on their credit card.

“We are thrilled to be able to gift the promise of an independent old age to Nirmala (their full time help). It is also nice to see her develop a habit of saving, which is a real win for us,” says the retired Kasbekar couple from Mumbai, both of whose sons are settled in the US and for whom life without their daily helper, the ever smiling 26 year old, would be unimaginable.

The small Gift a Pension team, working from a tiny cell in Delhi, inspite of having made a humble beginning, is upbeat.

“Our first goal is to reach out to more individuals and enable more low income workers to save for a dignified old age using the platform. Using this platform, we can enable a million lives this week alone. Over time, we also plan to introduce other products, including health insurance,” they add when asked about their future plans.

Though the thought of not being able to help Des Raj with a pension is upsetting, everyone in the family is thrilled with the fact that his 20-year-old grandson Monu, who started working as a helper at a Xerox shop recently, will be enrolling this weekend.

Children oriented startups cashing in on parents who're short on time

Double income families, that are strapped for time, have become big spenders on children's products and services, which is proving to be a lucrative market for startups. Companies like Experifun, Magic Crate and Kidology are cashing in on this trend and have business models designed entirely to cater to children.

Bengaluru-based Funfinity Learning Solutions that runs Magiccrate.in, an online subscription service for 4-8 year olds, has designed theme-based activity boxes for children where the outcome is a toy or an artefact. Viswanathan Ramakrishnan, CEO, Funfinity Learning Solutions, said: "In this age bracket, they spend a lot of time at home and most of it is in front of the television. We are trying to break this." The company has seen traction from both retail and institutional buyers since launching in January this year.

"Over the past two-three decades, few companies have made products or services specifically for children. 15% of India's population is below 10 years. Changing lifestyles, where both parents are working, has improved affordability, but the guilt level has also gone up as parents are not able to spend enough time with children and there is a larger audience spending more money," said Saloni Nangia, president, Technopak Advisors, a market research firm.

Similarly, Experifun too has tapped into the educational space. The company designs and develops curriculum-based affordable and exploratory science gadgets and products for grades 6 to 10 to help children from low-income or affordable learning schools learn concepts with objects and exercises in real time.

"Most companies in this sector cater to mid-high end schools that comprise only 3-4% of India's schools. Our objective was to develop something that we can take to smaller cities and schools in electricity-deficient places, where usage will be rough, and teacher's quality or motivation level may not be up to mark," said Rakesh Kumar, co-founder, Experifun. Currently, it sells its products to 80 schools (including six in Manila) across 10 states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, and Haryana. It's close to signing on another 50 by March end and works on a one-time sales model charging 60,000 per pack containing 80 products.

"We realised that children are taught concepts in classroom in high-end schools. They don't have separate rooms for concept learning and teachers use a chalk and cheese method where students don't get to learn much. Then there is the interest aspect and how children absorb concepts," added Kumar. "There is lot of activity in the space of holistic grooming of children, be it coaching, music or extra curriculum," Nangia said.

Opportunity is not limited to education alone and fashion too has become an emerging opportunity for startups like Delhi-based Kidology launched in 2010, a brand of designer kids wear."There is a paucity of occasion wear in the market. The segment is filled with casual wear and foreign brands because of high repeat value but people don't have an option for clothes for festivals and occasions" said Ankur Mittal, co-founder Kidology.

The company has its own flagship store in Delhi and also sells through 11 fashion boutiques in nine cities. Last year it launched its online site that's witnessing huge traction from non-resident Indians in US, California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. It sells 800-1,000 pieces a month with an average price point of Rs 5,000.

"Indian wear does well, as there s a higher shortage of supply in market and mostly NRIs buy this. We get maximum orders from Bengaluru and Chennai, in addition to tier 2 and 3 cities like Raipur, Varanasi, and Darjeeling" Mittal said.

Mapmygenome raises Rs 7 Cr from a clutch of women investors & Google India chief

Men dominate venture capital and angel investment industries, but a handful of women tech entrepreneurs in India are taking steps to change that notion.

Tech entrepreneurs and investors Aarti Grover, Meera Kaul and Sarah Dhar have teamed up with Google India managing director Rajan Anandan and other angel investors to invest about Rs 7 crore in genetic-testing startup Mapmygenome.

The Hyderabad-based startup does gene mapping for Indians to discover their propensity for various illnesses, similar to the service provided Googlebacked DNA analysis company, 23andMe, in the United States. Founded by Anu Acharya, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Mapmygenome will use the funding to scale up its service, hire talent and for research and development.

"We partnered with several major hospitals and are looking forward to making these tests available through our genetic consultants, who have advanced degrees like PhD in genetics," said Acharya."The funding will help us first scale in India and then Asia," said Acharya, who has also tied up with online retailers Amazon and Snapdeal to provide the service.

Most of her customers come from metros right now but a growing number from smaller towns such as Vijaywada, Coimbatore, Kharagpur and Jalandhar are turning to the startup to test for diseases like cardiovascular-related problems, diabetes, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and male pattern baldness. "There is a tremendous future for this sector in our country and Mapmygenome is a pioneer in this space," said Aarti Grover, MD at CMS Computers.

Silicon Valley-based investor and entrepreneur Meera Kaul said while her investment was largely based on opportunity analysis, a huge part of the decision was because of the entrepreneur. "I like entrepreneurs that have their skin in the game and Anu (Acharya) is one hell of an investment," said Kaul.

Another investor, Satveer Singh Thakral, chief executive of Singapore Angel Network, is of the view that as India's economy develops, preventive healthcare will form a rising share of the household budget."We are backing this experienced team to scale and make this technology commercially available to people from all walks of life," he said.

Genomic assessment companies can assess even traits such as alcoholism, athletic ability and lactose intolerance as well as specific responses to certain drugs by testing a person's saliva or blood sample using gene-mapping equipment. Next-generation genomics is one of 12 disruptive technologies with potential to deliver economic value of up to $33 trillion a year worldwide by 2025, according to McKinsey Global Institute

Why Everyone From Beethoven, Goethe, Dickens, Darwin To Steve Jobs Took Long Walks and Why You Should Too

One day, when Marc Andreessen, the money man behind such tech giants as Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga, was out driving around his home in Palo Alto, California, he nearly hit a crazy old man crossing the street.

Looking back at the fool he had nearly run over he noticed the trademark blue jeans and black turtle neck. “Oh my god! I almost hit Steve Jobs!” he thought to himself.
It was Jobs that day, out on one of his many walks around the Palo Alto area, where Apple are based. Steve Jobs was famous in the area for his long walks, which he used for exercise, contemplation, problem solving, and even meetings. And Jobs was not alone. Through history the best minds have found that walking, whether a quick five minute jaunt, or a long four hour trek, has helped them compose, write, paint, and create.


Here are five reasons that walking is one of the best ways you can spend your time, and how it can help you think better, get more done, relate better, and live longer.

01. It will help make you more creative

Though most people have always thought that their best ideas came when the were on the move, now there is scientific evidence to back them up. A 2014 study from Stanford University in the US has shown that people are much more creative when they are walking around as opposed to when they are sitting still. Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwartz, who both authored the paper, studied 176 college students as they completed certain creative thinking tasks.

In this study, the authors used an experiment known as Guilford’s Alternative Uses Task. As part of this, they participants were asked to list as many alternative uses for a common object as they can. For instance, a knife could be used to spread butter, to cut bread, to stab someone, or to flick peas. The answers were then scored on originality, number of ideas and detail.
In their study, Oppezzo and Schwartz got the students to perform this task in a few different variations. Either sitting indoors or sitting outdoors, or walking on a treadmill indoors, or walking outside.


They found that when people were walking, either on the treadmill or outdoors, they were 60% more creative than when sitting around.

To add to this, 81% of the participants saw an increase in creativity when they were walking.

What’s more, when the participants took a second test after walking, they were still more creative, showing the positive effects of walking continued even after they sat down again.


Though there is no further research into how exactly walking makes you more creative, it is likely that it helps to increase blood flow all around your body, including to the brain to stimulate creativity.
Another interesting finding from the study was that there was no difference between walking on a boring treadmill indoors, and being outside among the birds and the bees. This shows that it is not the environment or sensation that is making walkers more creative, but just the act of walking alone.
It wasn’t all good news for walking in the study though. The researchers also found that if you had to do focused thinking while walking, answering questions that required a single correct answer, the results were no better than when sitting.


This study should give you some evidence if you want to build walking into your daily and business life. A simple walk outside can aid your creative brain if you find yourself stuck at a desk and unable to elicit the next bright spark. Instead of sitting, waiting for inspiration to strike, head outside for five minutes and see if the extra blood flow can get the creative juices flowing.

02. It will help you stay healthy

In a TED talk two years ago, Nilofer Merchant, a business innovator that pounds the same Silicon Valley streets as Andreessen does and Jobs did, advocated the virtues of meetings on the move. She had trouble fitting exercise into an already hectic day so started taking her meetings standing up.

In her TED talk she produced a startling statistic – we are on our butts for almost 10 hours of the day on average.

For many it will be many more as they sit at their desks for the working day and then head home to slump in front of the TV or computer. This is not good for us. Not only are our flabby behinds not built for sitting, but neither are our hearts.
Physical inactivity can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and a large number of cancers. It just doesn’t do us any good to sit around all day. Merchant describes sitting as the new smoking – something which we all do now that is slowly killing us, and that in 10, 20, 50 years time people will look back on as crazy.


In fact, walking is as close to a magic pill that we have. Just 30 minutes of walking each day is enough to dramatically reduce your risk of heart disease, colon cancer, breast cancer and dementia.
Though a good 30 minute walk each day would be best, if you do not have time then you can consider breaking it down into more manageable chunks. 10 minutes in the morning, at noon, and in the evening each will add up and help get your body used to a bit of exercise and like help your heart and brain out as well.

03. It will help you be more productive

If you’ve ever watched the TV show The West Wing you will have heard of the phrase “walk and talk”. In every single episode, the busy staffers of the presidential office were “just too busy, goddammit” to sit around and have meetings, so they would always be discussing, conniving, and gossiping on the move. Though this has become a cliché, something the cast now send up, it’s actually a brilliant idea.


Meetings on the move or walking meetings are very “in vogue” at the moment, particularly in Silicon Valley. The idea being that there is no reason really to hold a meeting over a big piece of wood, so why not take it outside and get some exercise at the same time. Nilofer Merchant says that walking meetings now account for 70% of her exercise during the week, and that they are far more productive than other types of meetings.


For one, there is little distraction. People leave their blackberry’s and smartphones in their pockets when out of a walking meeting, and obviously do not have one eye on their computer screen as can happen when you meet with someone in their office. Plus, you know that you are not going to be disturbed if you are out and about. Of course, this leads to problems for some people.

iPhone Separation Anxiety is real, and people do not like the idea about being away from their desks and electronic contact for any length of time.

Also, people do not know how to act or conduct themselves in such meetings. How do you take notes on the move, for instance? (hint: the same way you do when sitting down – with a pen and paper). Merchant says that, though people can feel awkward about such meetings, they soon see the benefits and are happy to go for walk and talks if you give them a heads up. They then can dress appropriately in sneakers instead of high heels.


Of course, the previously mentioned health and creativity benefits also make walking meetings far better than their sit-down cousins.


If you want to start having your meetings on the move, the best idea is to start with a colleague that also wants to get out and about. Arrange a walking meeting each week where you can discuss work issues together and brainstorm ideas. Then you can reach out to others to gauge interest. As Merchant says, give people warning that you are going mobile and you will probably not have any complaints, and probably a lot more ideas.

04. It’s a great way to communicate

Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg both like first meetings with people to be on the move. This is because a walking conversation is so much more natural and distraction-free than most other types of meetings.


Part of this is because these type of meetings are not so great in that there are more than two people. Though you can get a group of people together for a mass walk and talk, it makes more sense for these meetings to be a one-on-one. The job interview for my first job in science was a walking meeting, as me and my soon-to-be boss walked through the streets of Lausanne, Switzerland discussing where we wanted neuroscience to be in 20 years time.

The naturalness of two people walking along in deep discussion and thought is definitely why these walking meetings are catching on.

You might find that if you are having difficulty communicating an idea to a colleague, then you both heading outside and taking the idea for a few laps around the local park helps immensely.
Again, it is likely that the increased blood flow helps you to come up with not only more creative ideas and solutions to problems, but also helps you express those ideas more fluently and helps you communicate with co-workers.

05. You will be following in the footsteps of giants

Steve Jobs’ penchant for walks was revealed in the recent Walter Isaacson biography of the man and the reason for walking’s recent renaissance within the tech elite, but he was hardly the first creative genius to discover that ideas flourish on the move.


Beethoven was an avid walker, taking short breaks to stretch his legs while working, and then spending his afternoons wandering around Vienna. He always took a pencil and paper with him to write down anything that struck him. You can see, or rather hear, the influence of these woodland walks in his symphonies, particularly his 6^th Symphony, known as his Pastoral Symphony for its country and woodland elements.


Beethoven’s love of walking rubbed off on another genius of the time, Goethe. The composer and the poet meet in the resort town of Teplice on the Czech-German border and went for a walk and talk through the town. Perhaps, though, this is not the best example of a great walking meeting as, though Beethoven originally idolized Goethe, this was very much a case of never meet your idols. The two disliked each other and never met again. Though I hope Goethe continued his walks.
Another of history’s walking enthusiasts was Charles Dickens. Whether in London or at his country house in Kent he always took long walks. And when I say long, I mean long. Dickens could rack up 30 miles a day, or rather night, walking. He would walk whenever the mood took him and whenever he had something to think about, continuing around the streets of London or the country lanes of Kent until the issue was resolved in his head.


This may be a case of the cure is worse than the disease – walking 30 miles each day is unlikely to be very good for you or your joints. If 30 minutes is the minimum you are supposed to walk, then 30 miles is probably nearing the maximum. But it worked for Dickens, as he created some of his most remarkable and memorable characters when out walking, either through thought or through observing the city and people around him.


Another Victorian heavyweight that enjoyed a ramble around Kent was another Charles, Charles Darwin. Darwin had a gravel path installed at his home, not unlike a race track, that he would walk around each day as he thought about problems. The number of laps he did depended on the difficultly of the problem at hand. He would stack stones at the start of his walk and the knock them down one by one as he went round, describing the difficulty of the problem as a three, four, or five-flint problem.

Jobs’ walks around Silicon Valley have led to this being a particularly common trait among young tech leaders.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, in particular is very fond of a walking meeting. If you are lucky enough to be being considered for a high up position at Facebook, don’t expect to be interviewed by Zuckerberg in his office. No, the man will take you on a tour of the campus, pointing out the different divisions and sounding you out about your experience and thoughts on the company. His piecè de résistance is to finish the walk and talk meeting on a promontory overlooking Silicon Valley and the other tech giants, telling you that he is bigger, better, and richer than all below, in true super-villain style. Presumably you get pushed off if you decline his offer.


Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and now heading up digital finance company Square, takes all new hires at Square for his ‘Gandhi walk’ on their first Friday. This is an epic walk through the streets of San Francisco to the Square offices while he espouses on the guiding principles behind Square.


If you are choosing to spend your afternoons rambling in the woods, or chose to take people out for a wander rather than meet in a stuffy office, you know you are in good company.

Take a walk today!

The conclusion is… walking is great. Not only will it make you more creative, it will help you get those ideas over to your colleagues better and allow you to fit more into your day. All while helping you not to die early. Fantastic.


So, why don’t we do it? Well, sometimes it’s cold outside, or raining, or we are feeling sluggish, or any other of a thousand reasons we have to not get up and out each day.
But if you start with just finding a few extra minutes each day for a walk, or try to move some part of your day, such as meetings outside, then you’ll find that walking is as natural as… walking. You’ll think more, do more, learn more, and live longer. Get walking!

Fruits & vegetable retail co Freshworld raises funding from IAN, Kris Gopalakrishnan

Retailworx Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates food and vegetable retailing startup Freshworld, has raised an undisclosed amount from IAN and Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of IT giant Infosys, the company said in a release.

The investment was led by IAN investor Nagaraja Prakasam who co-invested with Gopalakrishnan. As a part of the agreement, Prakasam joined the board of Freshworld.

Prakasam has over couple of decades experience and as an angel investor in agriculture space, he has invested in 10 startups and made three exits.

Freshworld was founded by Rajiv Rao who has over two decades of experience in the telecom industry.

“This investment will enable us in expanding the business and increasing the reach & scale of Freshworld’s retail network. We are looking to upgrade the current model of our carts, strengthen our technology piece and also plan to foray into an organised retail store format for the fresh category only. This would be based on the popular friendly neighbourhood retailer concept or what is known as a convenience store, closer to our consumer,” commented Rao.

Bangalore-based Freshworld ventured into a 'farm-to-home' concept by organising fruits and vegetables (F&V) retailing through a street vendor using battery-operated carts. Each cart uses a tablet, printer and communication technologies to provide receipt, track inventory and analyse data.

"Freshworld is in line with my vision of supporting sustainable technologies in solving problems. I feel this is the next-level disruption in the F&V industry and we expect to see a lot of growth in coming years. I hope to see more ‘green carts’ dotting Bangalore and many more cities soon," said Gopalakrishnan.

In July 2013, Freshworld received an undisclosed amount in its first round of angel funding from family and friends.

350-550 million Indians to join mobile internet in four years: McKinsey

Digital India in the next 10 years will have a $550 billion to $1 trillion impact on the GDP resulting from the use of intelligent applications of technology. This is 20-30 per cent of India’s incremental GDP growth and 3-6 times the current economic contribution of the industry itself, according to Noshir Kaka, Managing Director, India, McKinsey & Company.

In the next four years, there will be a dramatic change in technology in India with the largest migration in mankind’s history after the invention of the Internet taking place with humans attaching themselves to the internet. It is expected that 350-550 million people will join the mobile internet in the next four years.

This is a huge shift, and that’s why the Centre is putting Digital India as the centrepiece, he said at the inaugural session of the annual convention of the Madras Management Association on the theme India 2015 – The Year of Resurgence.

The scale of opportunity will come mainly from sectors like financial services, which will be the largest, followed by education, healthcare, agriculture, food, energy, infrastructure and government services.

“This is the opportunity for all of us if we use technology intelligently. It is not about using complex technology for algorithms but use of simple technology for India today,” he said.

“We cannot solve problems of India today without aggressively leveraging technology. We have the technology and the capability, and need to leverage what we do with it for the rest of the world, for India. My belief is that resurgence should never lie only with the government, which is only an enabler. We will see people will be retrained and new technology will emerge for India, and from India. We will see a huge theme around innovation that will lead to huge growth,” he said.

The impact technologies are going to have on the industries like manufacturing, financial services, government, energy and agriculture is expected to be between $16 trillion and $39 trillion in the next 10 years.

Kaka said about 30 per cent of the work done by knowledge workers today is not likely to be done by humans anymore. In other words, in the next 10 years machines will do 30 per cent of the work that humans do today, he said.

The Indian IT services in the first 20 years of its existence added one person for every dollar added. It is now down to 0.5 and for the next $100 billion that this industry is going to add, “we are going to take one-third of the people that we historically needed”, he said.

“In India, we will have an opportunity because as technology takes away jobs, it also creates new jobs of 14-28 million that did not exist in the past mainly from non-farm sectors,” he said.

IIT Delhi alumnus starts INVOXEL to innovate around smart interaction

Technological innovation is indeed important for economic growth and the enhancement of human possibilities. Driven by extremely young, diverse and inclusive entrepreneurs, the Indian startup ecosystem is rapidly evolving. One such innovation driven technological startup is Invoxel.

Who says every entrepreneur story starts with the dream of making money? Some might even start with the humble thought of making life simpler; as it did for IIT Delhi alumnus Sachidanand Swami.

It was at a tea table discussion with a friend on SCI FI products that Swami came up with the idea of smart surface, but there was still a long way to go. During his tenure at Denmark Technical University, he started connecting with various resources and made up his mind that he would come up with a prototype. He turned to India and turned up at the doorstep of an IIT Delhi professor. The professor agreed to keep him as a summer intern.

Swami’s startup Invoxel is an amalgamation of hardware and software technology to design and develop a multi user smart surface. Team Invoxel includes Chirag Gupta from the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata, and Mukesh Kumar from the Department of Computer Science, IIT Delhi. The three are avid travellers and shutterbugs.

Their very first achievement was winning the first prize at the Open house at IIT Delhi and TechFest IIT Bombay. This was followed by Grant from DST and then the laurels followed. They also won the Power of Idea (Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, IIM Ahmedabad -2012) and the AGM Innovation Award (IIT Delhi – 2012) in India; abroad they walked away with the Innovators Award (Russian Union of Youth, Chita, Russia-July 2014) and the Top 100 Innovators Award (Open Innovation Forum, Moscow, Russia – Oct 2014). The latest feather in their cap is the Top 6 Innovators Award (Alumni Day IIT Delhi, 2014).

Team Invoxel receiving Top 6 Innovators Award at Alumni Day IIT Delhi, 2014

Now they have started being noticed

Invoxel brought home the prestigious grant of Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in 2013. This propelled the prototyping and shaping of as an innovating product. The first product sale worked as an investment and provided for mentoring. It then sold its first stage beta products and paved the path to various segments and clients like Oil India, Petronet LNG and Protiviti.

One of their first clients was AUDI India. The company was looking for smart surface installation for their Q3 Vendor Meet and team Invoxel made a prototype in two days and installed four units of the first stage product at a venue in Gurgaon. This gave them a burst of confidence and they took up Spark Minda Group project which is their first product installation.

Today, Invoxel is a pioneer in bridging digital communication gaps which it does by offering interactive solutions on digital multi-user smart surfaces technology. Its expertise is providing multi user interactive smart surfaces to groups of users. Invoxel Smart Surface is integration of hardware technologies and touch inputs through the smart glass surface. Multiple users can work simultaneously on smart surface table for intuitive interaction to make collaborative group communication. It has the capability to capture attention of users and they can ideate together. Invoxel’s digital landscaping is a tool for impressive corporate representation.

The team’s vision is to expand and provide technological sustenance to corporate houses, in the field of education, hospitality, the entertainment industry, tourism, infrastructure and real estate by using smart surfaces technologies.

Swami proudly shares, “It was indeed a challenging mile stone which we achieved when we completed our project with Spark Minda Group, an esteemed company in automobile component manufacturing. Team Invoxel was guided and led by Chairman Ashok Minda while support was provided by his management team to achieve the desired results. Team Invoxel took up this challenge with a lot of determination and worked towards this wonderful opportunity. This happens to be our stepping stone to such opportunities globally.”

Invoxel Product at Spark Minda, Ashok Minda Group, Gurgaon

Spark Minda Group is utilizing Invoxel’s multi user smart surface for interacting and showcasing business setups, branding and futuristic discussions with their stakeholders. Invoxel’s multi user smart surface contains Spark Minda Group’s company landscaping along with video representation of Ashok Minda, Group Chairman. Invoxel’s smart surface product is able to give the opportunity to groups of users to look into Minda Groups Company’s representation on global maps simultaneously and deep down into the information about their business with respect to customer’s base, size of operation, manufactured products, quality certificates and futuristic plans.

Swami adds, “Successful project implementation at Spark Minda Group gave strength, confidence and vision to entire team. Team Invoxel with their ‘never say die’ attitude has put up their best to take their startup ahead. Without support from team it would have been very difficult for Invoxel to achieve its first long interactive smart surface.”

Invoxel is open to technology product visionaries, advisories, investors and supporters to join the band wagon. Their belief is, “Innovation doesn’t come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect and grow into reality.

 

10 start-ups to pitch for on-spot funding at IIT-Bombay

Ten shortlisted start-up teams will get to present their entrepreneurship ideas in 10 minutes each to a panel of over 12 angel investors and get an opportunity to win on-the-spot funding up to Rs.10 lakh each at the two-day Entrepreneurship Summit organised by IIT Bombay which opened on Saturday

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The “10 Minute Million” event is one of the highlights of the summit, which each year brings together students, industry experts, business leaders, investors and entrepreneurs on the same platform. In its 10th edition now, the summit will feature this on-the-spot funding event for the first time on Sunday afternoon at the Lecture Hall Complex at IIT’s Powai campus.

The 10 selected start-up teams will get five minutes to pitch and explain their entrepreneurial idea, and five minutes to answer the questions raised by the investors on the durability of the concept, the revenue streams, the return on investment etc. “Only 10 start ups were shortlisted from over 250 applications were received,”said Sagar Sheth,

The panel of investors include Ajay Pandey, CEO and board member from the Tata Group, Ajeet Khurana, angel investor and CEO of IIT Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreurship (SINE), Bharat Banka, founder, Aditya Birla Private Equity, Ravi Gururaj, an investor who has funded five such start-ups in the past, Suneel Bandhu of Tata Teleservices among others.

An initiative by the Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Bombay, E-Summit is a confluence of visionary students, professionals or anyone who wishes to be one of those crazy rebels who will change the world, start his own business or fund a business and become a trend-setter.

Inaugurating the summit, H.S. Pandalai, Deputy Director, Finance & External Affairs, IIT Bombay said, “E-Summit has grown bigger and better over the years and has become the one-stop destination for all budding entrepreneurs. IIT Bombay offers host of facilities to nurture entrepreneurship among students and I hope this Summit will provide an opportunity for young enthusiasts to interact with best of the minds and learn from their experiences.”

The keynote speakers at the inaugural session were Mr. Anil Gupta, Michael Dingman Chair in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and Mr. Salil Donde, Executive Vice President, NASDAQ, who spoke on Entrepreneurial Indigeneity and Globalization.

“Entrepreneurs may need to take risks, big risks but do not take fatal risks...Focus on the business model and not the business plan; Opportunity comes at most unexpected times, so grab it. Data and analytics are vital, irrespective of the field you are in. And you learn more when you fail than when you succeed,” Mr. Donde told students sharing experiences from his journey.