A model college for entrepreneurs - The Hindu

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  A view of Model Engineering College campus at Thrikkakara in Kochi. Photo: K.K. Mustafah 
  They chose not just to dream big; but also walked the extra mile to ensure that their dreams turned true.

  When they graduated from Model Engineering College (MEC) under the Institute of Human Resources Development (IHRD) in Thrikkakara here, they had made up their minds they would rather be job providers than job seekers. Life at MEC had emboldened the spirits of a few youngsters to take the road less travelled.

  Leaving the comfort and security offered by a nine-to-five job, they put to the test innovative ideas, risking the chances of failures. And today, they have become part of the expanding ‘start-up’ culture in the country.

  Rs. 500 and an idea

  Midhun V. Sankar, chief executive officer and co-founder of Verbicio Tech, only had Rs. 500 in his bank account and an idea when he met Bibin George Varghese, his junior at MEC.

  “We had little idea about how a company worked. We were also clueless on share allotment or fund procurement necessary to develop an idea. Despite these hiccups, we knew that our idea was worth giving a shot,” said Midhun, who went on to create www.examvoice.com, a free online tutorial site for students.

  Launched on October 9, 2012 as part of the Start-up Village in Kochi, the portal can be accessed on computers and mobile phones linked to the Internet. The site offers tutorials in science and engineering, besides access to previous years’ solved question papers. Verbicio now has 10 employees and is looking forward to expand across the country and abroad.

  Picture perfect

  For Amarnath Vannarath, the face behind Zoomdeck – a web and mobile platform that lets people upload or bookmark photos from anywhere on the web and have great conversations around each of them — success was always about building a brand used by millions around the world. “That’s what we have embarked upon with Zoomdeck, a product that’s going to change the way people interact with and consume photos,” he said.

  Amarnath said MEC helped him interact with people who had quit their jobs to build something they were passionate about.

  “Deepak Prakash, co-founder of Zoomdeck and my batchmate from MEC, was the one who came up with the idea. We had a few seniors who had gone on to become entrepreneurs in life. I could always see the happiness in their eyes when they spoke about things they were doing in life, which one would never get working for a multi-national company,” he said.

  Recipe for success

  Cherian Thomas and Arun Prabhakar of MEC came up with the portal, www.cucumbertown.com, in October last year. “We have on board a few people from MEC. Arun was my junior at college. Cucumbertown was the outcome of my passion for cooking. Today, the initiative involves six people, with offices in Bangalore and California,” said Cherian.

  “Building a company is the biggest emotional roller coaster ride you could ever have. Nothing is predictable and nothing works according to the plan. But at the end of the day, you are changing something in the system,” he said.

  Recalling the role of MEC in their careers, Arun said the college nurtured students of high calibre with tenacity and intelligence to attempt new things.

  Arun Thomas K. B, whom Cherian refers to as the one who inspired him to think differently, left his job in an MNC to start the popular portal www.bikes4sale.in. They also run www.mobiles4sale.in. Remya Sebastian, his wife and former student of MEC, is his partner at Karot Technologies, a registered company that operates both the portals.

  “At Bikes4Sale, we have a huge customer database. About one lakh bikes have been registered on our website till date. I got the idea when I was able to sell easily my brother’s bike in 2007 through the intranet facility in my friend’s company,” said Arun. Ruby Peethambaran and Jikku Jolly, who founded 4 Ambit, an academic and professional networking site along with Shyam B. Menon, recalled that MEC instilled a holistic outlook among its students.

  “We were always encouraged to pursue various interests and the campus enjoyed a rich and egalitarian culture,” Ruby said.

  They served corporate companies for over a decade after getting campus placements until they decided they wanted to create something on their own.

  Attributing the growing entrepreneurial culture among the students to the varied opportunities on the campus, MEC Principal V. P. Devassia said initiatives like E-Cell (entrepreneurship cell), technopreneur, Yi-Net and sociopreneur played a key role in encouraging students. “We also have the advantage of getting the cream of students from across the State every year. They have exceptional drive and attitude and the passion to work on new ideas,” he said.

   

Are you sure? - The Hindu

Skills should play an important role while choosing your career.

Engineering is just not a professional degree; it is an ambitious study for our technological development. I asked my Std XII neighbour, “What do you plan to do after your boards?”

“I want to get a seat in any one of the engineering college,” he replied without batting an eyelid. “Why do you aspire to be become an engineer,” was my next question.

He smiled and said that nowadays most students prefer engineering and his parents would be proud to say that their son is an engineer. “There are more than 500 engineering colleges in Tami Nadu, so there are a lot of chances for getting a seat.” After hearing his answer, I was shocked about his career plan. I explained to him how getting an engineering degree was not enough in life. Engineering involves development of science and technology. It also includes many more theories, formulas, laws, programming codes, circuit diagrams, mathematical derivatives, logical solving problems, algorithms and case studies. And that one must understand all these procedures and make use of them.

These are a few things you must consider before choosing engineering as you career option.

• Does the college have good infrastructure, research and development laboratories?

•Does it have well trained and experienced faculty members?

• Do verify if the college you choose has a tie up with MNCs for placements.

Students should also be clearly told that passing semesters alone won’t suffice, They must implement their innovative ideas, technologies in their projects. They should aspire to become a budding scientist and a technological developer.

R. Dhivya, Final Year ECE, T.J.Institute Of Technology

The Hindu Centre invites applications for annual fellows, public policy scholars - The Hindu

The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy invites applications for the positions of Annual Fellows and Public Policy Scholars.

The Hindu Centre offers two or three annual fellowships to distinguished policy practitioners, scholars and public intellectuals of established reputation to undertake research on issues relating to political institutions, processes and specific aspects of the working of India's parliamentary democracy. The salience and relevance of the topics will be a top priority in the allocation of fellowships.

The Hindu Centre will also host on a rotational basis short-term public policy scholars to work on projects for a period of 12 to 16 weeks that will examine issues of immediacy on the national agenda. Public policy practitioners and bureaucrats would be strong candidates for such scholarships. Research proposals that have greater topicality and salience to the current public discourse will be accorded a higher priority in the selection process.

Details on the application process and application forms are available on the Centre’s website www.thehinducentre.com.

Adobe unveils ‘Creative Cloud’ in India with monthly fee - The Hindu

Umang Bedi, Managing Director-South Asia, Adobe Systems Inc, speaks at a press conference to announce the launch of new ‘Adobe Transformative Creative Cloud’ in New Delhi on Tuesday. Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

The Nasdaq-listed company launched the product with a promotional pricing of Rs 2,885 per month

Aiming to leverage cloud and mobility trends to expand revenues, IT firm Adobe Systems on Tuesday launched the ‘Creative Cloud’ in India that offers a membership-based service with access to products and services.

Creative Cloud provides users with unlimited access to download and install all creative suite desktop applications, photoshop lightroom, Adobe muse, Adobe edge and services, game developer tools and integration with touch applications.

The Nasdaq-listed company launched the product targeting teams and small and medium businesses (SMB) with a promotional pricing of Rs 2,885 per month. Once the promotional offer ends on April 30 this year, it will be priced at Rs 4,040 per user per month.

However, the service for teams and business in India is priced on the higher side at Rs 4,040 per month. It is priced at $ 69.99 per user per month (about Rs 3,800) in the US, Australia and South East Asia.

“Creative Cloud is a path-breaking service and globally its paid user base stood at 3.26 lakh by December last year.

That apart, since it was launched in May 2012, the total users crossed 1 million including free subscription users,” Adobe Managing Director (South Asia) Umang Bedi told reporters.

It was first launched in the US, Australia and South Asia, he added.

On the pricing, Mr. Bedi said local taxes, regulations, foreign exchange conversion percentages among others adds to the cost of the product.

In December last year, while presenting the Q4 and fiscal 2012 results, Adobe said Creative Cloud paid subscriptions grew to 326,000 as of the end of the year, with existing annualised recurring revenue of $ 153 million for the creative business.

For Q4 FY 2012, Adobe revenues stood at $1.15 billion and for the full fiscal it was $4.4 billion. The company follows December-November as the fiscal year.

Adobe added about 10,000 Creative Cloud subscriptions per week during the quarter against 8,000 subscriptions per week in the third quarter.

Through Creative Cloud, Adobe is moving away from selling-software-in-a-box to a complete subscription model.

Tiruchi students turn good samaritans and how - The Hindu

Students handing over the mony to Anbalayam Senthil in Tiruchi on Saturday. Photo: R.M. Rajarathinam

A group of students mobilises Rs.57,000 for Anbalayam through a Facebook campaign and door-to-door collections

How often have we heard that today’s youth are not quite broad-minded, bereft of humanness and what not?

But then, exceptions have always been the silver lining, as has been the case with a group of school and college students in Ordnance Factory Estate, Tiruchi, who sprung into action after learning that Anbalayam, a home for wandering mentally ill at nearby Gundur, was in dire need of funds for constructing a permanent building to house the over 70 inmates in relatively better safety and comfort.

The students did all they could, right from initiating a Facebook campaign to carrying out door-to-door collections in the OFT township and neighbouring localities to mobilise Rs.57,000, as their contribution. They felt motivated by the request made by film director Prabu Solomon who himself contributed Rs.50,000 for the project , during the 23 anniversary celebrations of Anbalayam early this year.

On Saturday, when the student group represented by R.M.Cibi, a class X student of Kendriya Vidhyalaya-1, handed over the amount to Anbalayam founder T.K.S.Senthil Kumar, his joy knew no bounds.

“There is something very unique about the contribution made by the students with a desire to enrol themselves as Anbalayam’s volunteers,” said an elated Mr.Senthil Kumar. With the students’ contribution, Anbalayam has so far mobilised close to Rs.10 lakh for the Rs.40 lakh project.

The community in OFT and neighbouring Heavy Alloy Penetrator Factory have all along been very supportive to Anbalayam. They have sponsored food, donated furniture, and provisions, said Mr.Senthil Kumar, adding that a good number of employees have been strengthening their bond with Anbalayam by celebrating anniversary events with the inmates.

For the students, the experience of mobilising the money from the community was a rejuvenating experience.

The donors contributed amounts ranging from Rs.100 to Rs.5,000, and had also evinced interest in sustaining their support to the organisation. According to Cibi, the collective participation of youth in the exercise with the lofty thought of serving the deprived sections of society was significant.

Health, schools to remain focus points - The Hindu

Today’s Corporation budget will include proposals to improve facilities

THE HINDU This year, a number of slum residents are likely to be rehabilitated to other parts of the city. This may lead to a dip in numbers in Chennai Schools — File Photo

The Chennai Corporation is likely to continue its focus on health and education in the 2013-2014 budget session on Monday.

Last year too, a number of schemes on health and education were announced by Mayor Saidai Duraisamy. Proposals to improve infrastructure in schools run by the civic body are likely to be part of the announcements this year too.

Models from European countries that are found suitable for Chennai conditions are likely to be adopted to improve quality of education in Chennai Schools where a majority of children from slums are enrolled.

Announcements pertaining to 30 new English-medium primary and middle schools were made in the 2012-2013 budget. While some schools are functional, work is in progress on the others.

The civic body is likely to undertake special outreach programmes with pamphlets, interactions and advertisements during the admission season.

Announcements to tackle the decline in the number of students in Chennai Schools are likely.

Last year, spoken English classes were announced for classes VI, VII and VIII and refresher courses in spoken English were organised for students of classes IX, X and XII. This year, a number of slum residents are likely to be rehabilitated to other parts of the city. This may lead to a dip in numbers at Chennai Schools in many areas.

The civic body, in the last budget, announced construction of 64 additional buildings on existing school campuses to make space for more classrooms. Career guidance centres and libraries were proposed to be set up in all high and higher secondary schools. Preliminary work is under way.

Health is likely to be another major focus of the civic body’s budget. Optimum use of facilities at the new Communicable Diseases Hospital in Tondiarpet may be stressed upon. However, there is little progress on last year’s announcements pertaining to a hospital in Madambakkam. The announcement was expected to help people in the southern parts of the city.

As many as 27 announcements on public health and family welfare, and 29 on education were made in the previous budget. A similar set of announcements is likely this year too.

Indian schoolgirl in U.K. has IQ higher than Einstein’s - The Hindu

A 12-year-old Indian-origin girl in the U.K. has stunned everyone after she scored an incredible 162 in her IQ test — a score even higher than that of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

Neha Ramu, daughter of an Indian doctor couple, achieved a score of 162 on a Mensa IQ test — the highest score possible for her age.

The score puts the teen in the top 1 per cent of the brightest people in the U.K. and means that she is more intelligent than physicist Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and scientist Einstein, who are all thought to have an IQ of 160.

“Neha scored 162 on the Cattell IIIB test, putting her within the top 1 per cent of people in the country,” a spokesman for British Mensa said.

Neha’s parents lived in India before moving to Britain when their daughter was seven, The Telegraph reported.

She took the test for Mensa, a society for people with high IQs, and achieved a perfect score of 280/280 — the maximum possible score for someone under the age of 18.

“I am so proud of her. Although she’s been doing well at these kinds of tests for sometime now, this is just marvellous. I can’t express the feeling,” her mother Jayashree said.

“I’m really, really happy because I found the test quite hard and I wasn’t really holding out much hope that I’d be a member of Mensa,” Neha said.