Indian Student Entrepreneur Wins Intel Global Challenge: Neha Juneja

 

Neha Juneja, a Student social entrepreneur, her company Greenway Grameen Infra won the 2012 Intel Global Challenge at Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, receiving $50,000 on November 9 amongst more than 150,000 students from more than 50 countries.

The Intel Global Challenge is a joint project of Intel and the UC Berkeley Lester Center for Entrepreneurship. Started in 2005, it rewards student entrepreneurs a total of $100,000 for innovative ideas that can make a positive impact on society.

Founded in 2010, the firm’s biomass-based stove with single-burner uses 65 per cent less fuel and produces 80 per cent less smoke than traditional stoves. The company targets consumers in rural areas.

Juneja, 27, co-founder and chief executive officer who had also won the Businessworld Young Entrepreneur Award in 2011 said, "I was surprised because the other participants were very good.

 

 

All of them had unique ideas, so I was a little nervous. It's like getting a dream award. This award is very important. Very!"

Juneja came up with this idea after a visit to a village in Wardha, Maharashtra, where she saw a small home with a television, refrigerator, mobile phones, and motorbike. Yet the lady of the house was cooking on a mud stove.

To develop the product, Juneja travelled to 22 states in India, understanding cooking habits across the country for a year. In this one year, she tested nine different designs before finalizing the Greenway stove that costs $23 and consumes one-third of the fuel a mud stove consumes. Also, unlike mud stoves, it does not produce carbon monoxide in the smoke.

Juneja says she and her five member team never thought of this as a social venture. They always considered it a business opportunity.

Neha has been involved in executing climate change mitigation and adaptation projects across the country. She has organized community-led projects and need-analysis consulting in a wide array of areas including agro forestry, primary energy supply and water access. Beyond this, she has been internationally recognized for her excellence in product design. In addition to the numerous awards she has helped GGI secure, Neha was named 2010's Brightest Young Climate Leader by the Hindustan Times & British Council. She earned her MBA from FMS, Delhi and a B.E. in Production & Industrial Engineering, as well as undergoing training on climate change mitigation and adaption at the Swedish Meterological & Hydrological Institute. 

 

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CraftsVilla : The best online handicraft and natural products e-commerce portal from India

Craftsvilla.com is a marketplace to "Discover Unique Indian Products" including Handmade, Vintage, Ethnic, Organic and Natural products from India.

Here is an Interview from the founder of the company - Monica Gupta

Monica Gupta, Founder

1.      Please describe Craftsvilla.com and why you open this company?

Craftsvilla is an online platform where Indian artisans and craftsmen can directly with global consumers. It is basically an online store for handmade, handcrafted, organic and natural products.

The inspiration of Craftsvilla started after founder Monica Gupta’s road trip where she found many artisans and craftsmen who made wonderful creations yet were struggling to make ends meet.

The problem was that these artisans were selling their products to middlemen who paid them very low for their creations. These third parties then themselves sold the items at inflated rates in the market. Being from the rural areas, the artisans weren’t educated enough nor had the resources to market their products. Many of them were on the verge of quitting.

Monica believed that if the same scenario continued, a time would come when many of our artisans would have quit and we would have lost many of these ethnic crafts.

On returning from Kutch, Monica sat down with her husband Manoj Gupta and discussed about a platform where these artisans could directly with consumers. This was the genesis of Craftsvilla where artisans can open their own shop and showcase their creations.

2.      How you and your Craftsvilla try to attract customers about your services?

We greatly rely on word of mouth and repeat customers to spread the word. We believe that if you offer customers has received good service the first around in terms of shipment and product quality, he or she would not only be inclined to buy again but they will also spread the word about us and this is one of the most important cogs of our online marketing.

We also attract customers through other social mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc and through paid ads and through SEO. 

3.      Are customers really satisfied with your services?

Customers are satisfied with our services because we place a great emphasis on customer experience. We also send a small surprise gift to our customers along with the orders and generally when you receive something extra that you hadn’t ordered for, it doubles your happiness.

Also unlike other ecommerce sites, we aren’t competing with the brand phenomenon because we don’t have those on our site. What we are selling are unique creations which are tough to find either online or even offline. So we are offering customers something different from the usual ecommerce space.

Customers who shop at Craftsvilla end up invariably shopping 4-5 times a year with us.

4.      Tell me some interesting feedback which you got from your customers? Any two.

There was one of these customers of her from the US who had never heard of Warli Art but so enamored was she by one of the Warli paintings, that she bought it. She says that if it wasn’t for Craftsvilla, she wouldn’t have discovered such a beautiful art form. Making more people aware of our rich culture is an extremely important part of our business and we really believe that we managed to convert this customer into an Indian art lover.

Also many of our customers feel happy when they receive the handwritten note by the founder because it really adds a real personal touch to the entire experience which we always try to do.

5.      Craftsvilla provide online payment or cash on delivery services ?

We do have cash in advance and cash on delivery services. Customers can also pay through their credit or debit card or via net banking. One can also pay for their products through Paypal services. Most of our international customers opt for this service.

6.      As you know Cyber Crime is growing day by day, so how you protect Craftsvilla from malicious hackers?

"We use encryption and secure authentication protocols in protecting our database and code. All our transactions are supported by sophisticated authentication protocols which ensure no data theft while transaction data is moving between our server and customer's PC. Also we use firewalls to protect from malicious attacks like denial of service."

7. What is your target and vision regarding Craftsvilla?

Our vision with Craftsvilla is to create a global brand for Indian arts and crafts. For years now, India has been one of the biggest exporters of handicrafts but are artisans live under pitiable conditions.

Ours is a platform where we are making an effort to accommodate all kind of Indian handicrafts under one roof and make them a global brand and we believe we would be able to do so the way we are on course to do so.

Founder and Co-Founder - Mr. Manoj and Mrs Monica Gupta 

Visit their Official Site : click here

Visit their facebook fan page : click here

Visit their Twitter page : click here 

See what Tech Crunch says about Craftsvilla

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How Microsoft, IBM are mentoring Indian startups...

It was a meeting with a clutch of about 16 startups in the Silicon Valley Bay Area that led Microsoft to make their product, Windows Azure infrastructure as a service, compatible with open source software such as Linux.

From sourcing ideas to influencing direction of new product development, startups are becoming critical for large technology giants IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm who are plugging into this ecosystem to fine tune their future strategies.

"The office joke is that it was during the break when we went from the conference room to rest room that we decided Linux support is critical," says S Somasegar, corporate vice-president of the developer division at Microsoft.

Somasegar, who is just two levels down from CEO Steve Ballmer at the world's largest software maker took a trip to Silicon Valley along with his team to get these insights. Last week he was in Bangalore, to launch Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure, a cloud computing platform.

Microsoft accelerator
Out of 200 business ideas, Microsoft has chosen eleven early stage technology startups to be incubated at its new centre in Bangalore. The batch will be put through a four-month mentoring program led by senior executives from Microsoft, top entrepreneurs and investors.

"They will receive all the tools needed to create the most successful businesses from India," says Amit Chatterjee, managing director, Microsoft India (R&D). Among the 11 incubated startups is Sparsha Learning Technologies started by two IITians Debabrata Bagchi and Kapil Kaushik.

The firm, which counts Pune University and MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology among its customers, builds simulation based learning methodologies that help students learn-by-practicing.

"The association with Microsoft has given us broad visibility and credibility. Venture capitalists have started approaching us and lot of people from top institutions are applying for jobs," says Debabrata Bagchi, co-founder of Sparsha. While Sparsha is focused on education, Amplyfy.me, a social media platform, aims to engage TV viewers and enable them to discover programmes and provide direct feedback to the media houses.

The nascent startup has already developed an application that is available in Android market and has got around 500 downloads. "Besides mentors, we have got access to their investor network comprising Accel, Nexus, Sequoia and IDG," says Naresh Bhat, cofounder of Amplyfy.me. Bhat, who already runs a software services firm, joined hands with Prajwal BS and Rajesh Kumar, who had conceived the platform during a codefest event organised by technology companyYahoo, where they were both employees.

Breakout areas are provided at the accelerator for informal huddles and mentor sessions. The conference rooms are equipped with advanced communication technologies to facilitate discussions with mentors or other firms in Microsoft Accelerators in Beijing and Tel Aviv. The garage space will be used for community networking sessions and pizza dinners with industry luminaries. It is also equipped with gym, games room, pantry and facility to watch movies.

One of the mentors, Mukund Mohan, a serial entrepreneur, says it has become important for technology giants such as IBM, Microsoft and Qualcomm to aggressively chase startups. "Biggies know it very well that for every job created by a startup, about $500 goes to Microsoft, $100 goes to IBM and $50 goes to Qualcomm to buy their software and tools," says Mohan. According to him, startups have become very important to create jobs during the downturn.

Smart camps by IBM
Last week, five selected technology startups presented their new or improved company at IBM SmartCamp in Bangalore. Each startup got a few minutes on the stage to convince investors, executives and mentors sitting in the audience - expecting to get funding, potential customers and employees. IBM chose the business ideas out of 200 firms that had applied for the programme.

Among the five startups was Hyderabad-based Imaginate Software Labs founded by IIT Madras graduates, which has developed digital trial product for the retail industry. Here, shoppers can instantaneously try out a variety of apparel and jewellery by just standing in front of a digital display or an electronic mirror.

"At the SmartCamp, I met a few top executives from big retail and fashion industry, who gave me good feedback," says Pavan Kosaraju, cofounder at Imaginate. Finally, Yonyx, an IIT Delhi incubated technology startup, was named the IBM SmartCamp winner.

The firm will go on to the SmartCamp global finals in Beijing, where it will face-off with winners from other regions — America, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. "It is a win-win situation for both. Conducting such programmes enables them getting the mind share and exposure for us," says Sanjay Bajaj, co-founder of Yonyx Infomedia.

Yonyx enables organisations to publish their trouble-shooting and product support knowledge in an interactive self service for the benefit of customers.

"Working closely with the entrepreneurs helps us innovate better and help clients solve some of society's most pressing challenges," says Karthik Padmanabhan, country manager for ISV & developer relations at IBM India.

Qualcomm's chase
Startups such as Apalya Technologies, which enables telecom majors such as Vodafone andAirtel to stream mobile telivision video content to consumers has benefitted from Qualcomm, the largest maker of mobile phone semiconductors. "Qualcomm's network helped us tap business leads globally, especially in markets such as Africa and Indonesia," says B Vamshi Reddy, co-founder of Apalya.

It was able to do this when Qualcomm Ventures, the early-stage investment arm of the mobile technology major, invested funding in the Hyderabad-based firm. Apalaya has raised a total funding of $11 million from Qualcomm along with investors - IDG and IndoUS Venture Partners.

A few months back, Qualcomm Ventures also announced that it has increased the corpus for its Qprize competition to $1 million to fund top technology startups. From the pool of competing entries, it will select one first prize winner of the QPrize India competition, who will receive $100,000 funding. That winner then also be eligible to compete against other regional finalists in the grand finals competition for an additional $150,000 funding.

Funding startups
Qualcomm is not the only one who is funding startups. The SmartCamp is part of IBM Global Entrepreneur Program - a $150-million investment to fund and establish programmes that promote new business opportunities. Microsoft also is scaling up its another small and medium business platform - Bizspark programme .

Besides providing mentoring and free tools, Bizspark is helping entrepreneurs to get funded by connecting them venture capital funds and tap global markets. In April, Bizspark winner Freshdesk, a Chennai-based customer support software provider, raised about Rs 25 crore from international fund Tiger Global and existing investor Accel Partner this month. It had also received about Rs 5 crore in seed investment from Accel last year.

"Microsoft helped us to get funded quickly, as they brought visibility and credibility for our firm," says Girish Mathrubootham, CEO at Freshdesk, which is now providing its services to customers in 40 countries. "Startups here are important as they are always on the leading edge of technology adoption. Sooner, established players are going to do the same," says Microsoft's Somasegar. 


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Indian Multinational IT companies Wipro, Infosys are changing their hiring strategy

India's IT companies, which hired approximately 1.5 lakh students from campuses last year, will be hiring much less during this placement season starting August-September. 

Country's third-largest software exporter Wipro, which had planned to keep the ratio of on-campus and off-campus hiring at 90:10 in the beginning of the year, has now changed it to 70:30, a senior executive from the Bangalore-based company said. "We will hire in a measured way till we get more (demand) visibility and increase off-campus numbers," the executive added. 

In campus hires, companies have to make offers and wait for at least six months till the student finishes his degree. But it can hire off-campus as and when there is demand for more hands. Off-campus recruitments include freshers who had opted out of placements and some with very little work-experience and are picked by companies through hiring drives and job fairs. 

"Off-campus hiring is gaining traction, especially among large IT firms that are cautious and are not able to take long-term business decisions," says Nasscom President Som Mittal said. "It helps them to take hiring decisions based on their needs." 

Nasscom has cut IT-BPO industry's growth forecast to 11-14% this year, down from 16% last year. Some companies like Infosys have given a revised projection of 5%. IT companies are looking to calibrate hiring to the slowdown. 

Last month, country's second-largest IT exporter Infosys said it could delay the joining dates of over 25,000 freshers it had hired from campuses in the 2011 placement season. Its mid-tier rival iGate, too, has delayed joining dates of close to 1,000 fresh engineers by a month or two. 

TCS, India's largest IT firm which will hire 50,000 people this year, plans to maintain its campus hiring. 

Companies say that quality is not an issue in off-campus hiring - despite many of the applicants being rejects from previous placement processes - if one is prepared to search harder for the right hires. "If 3 out of 10 people are suitable on-campus, that ratio will be much lower off-campus. You have to drudge a lot more to get the right people," says Naveen Narayanan, Global Head -Talent Acquisition, HCL Technologies. 

HCL is willing to take the extra effort and will maintain its 70:30 ratio of on-campus to off-campus this year. It makes economic sense to spread hiring across all months, instead doing the bulk during placement season. 

Mid-tier firms are following suit, but to break the monopoly enjoyed by the IT mammoths during placements. "Off-campus increases our chance of finding the right talent," Parthasarathy NS, COO of MindTree, said. "Large companies often visit campuses and recruit 95% of the best students on day one. Smaller firms, which typically visit on day 3 and 4, are left with a very small number," he added. 

MindTree has therefore decided to increase its off-campus quota from 10% of total hires to 30% this year. This strategy is expected to give the Bangalore-based firm wider reach in tier-III and -IV colleges. 

"Given the uncertain economic scenario, I would assume that on-campus placement numbers are going to come down this year," says Bhaskar Chavli, Chief Delivery Officer at NIIT Technologies. "Companies may want to see how business turns out and then decide on hiring targets." 

Gurgoan-based start-up CoCubes.com - it connects companies and colleges through an online recruitment platform - has seen on-campus hiring over the past one year drop by 30-40%. The start-up, which works with companies like Capgemini and UST Global, had experienced a rush for off-campus demand in 2010. Back then Accenture placed urgent orders for 1,500 freshers off-campus in eight weeks and feels sudden demand will come their way again. 

"A similar trend seems to be coming back this year as more companies wait for the economic environment to stabilise and then finalise their hiring plans," says Harpreet Singh Grover, co-founder and CEO of CoCubes.com. 


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21 year old Samyak S Chakrabarty, opened a company at the age of 18 called EYM: Electronic youth media

Of the youth, by the youth, for the youth. That is how a start-up firm by a group of teenagers from Mumbai proudly describe their company.


At the brain child of 21-year-old Samyak Chakrabarty, Electronic Youth Media (EYM) offers an array of personalised services. EYM launched a social networking portal in February 2008. A one-stop destination for the youth, this portal will also offer online advertising and research services. The idea is to offer companies with ideas and concepts to market their products. EYM has received a good response with an average of 1.5 million hits on the portal every week.


"One needs to think differently to succeed," said Chakrabarty, a first year mass communication student at Jai Hind College, Mumbai. One of India's youngest CEOs, he believes in the power of his strong business model and has successfully managed to enroll about 100 teenagers in the company. For him work is a passion, not a compulsion.


"Two years ago three of us, myself, Bhavyash Agarwaal(director, EYM) and Vatsal Thakkar (director, EYM) decided to start this venture," Chakrabarty sid. His mantra is not to mint money, but create value, great services and be known the world over. Money comes secondary for this off-beat, ambitious and cool CEO!


"I am not a topper. I don't believe in rote learning. What we learn from the textbooks for degrees is just for the resumes, I learn more from the newspapers. Most of our academic courses like BCom, HSC, SSC are all outdated," says Samyak Chakrabarty in an interview. So what is it like to become a teenager CEO? Read on. . .


Electronic Youth Media. How did it begin and what is the idea behind such a venture?
I always wanted to do something different, unconventional. There is no fun in following the conventional jobs. I believe that the media, Internet and the marketing industry is booming now and we hope to capitalise on this huge opportunity. Initially, I discussed my plans with two of my friends, Bhavyash Agarwaal and Vatsal Thakkar. Today, we have a strength of about 104 employees. All are on our payroll.



What services would Electronic Youth Media offer?
Electronic Youth Media will have a social networking site, www.youthportal.in. We are currently studying user's likes and dislikes and finding out newer and simpler methods to attract youngsters with exclusive features.We also have an online advertising and research agency, 'Concrea.' The idea is to offer companies with ideas and concepts to market their products. We have talked to people across the industry. We have got a good response. Since we are young, it is easier for us to understand the market needs better.
We will create advertising strategies and media plan for clients. We will be looking at brands whose customer base comprise 16 to 28-years-olds.

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Sundeep is a Founder of Youth Talent Auzzar, a passionate blogger, a programmer, a developer, CISE and these days he is pursuing his graduation in Engineering with Computer Science dept.

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India's youngest CEO and Co. President? PROUD ON INDIA'S GEN-NEXT

Meet Shravan Kumaran and his younger brother Sanjay Kumaran – two of the youngest promoters of a company. Aged only 12 and 10 respectively, Shravan is the Co-Founder and President of Go Dimensions while his brother is Co-Founder and CEO.

When most adults have trouble understanding Java code, these two kids have used the code to build mobile applications. The brothers have together developed four apps for the Apple Store, which have been downloaded more than 10,000 times from 20 countries.

Clad in grey suits and ties, these two highly-confident children demonstrated their apps to the media, on the iOS and Android platforms, for games, education and entertainment.

Students of Vaels Billabong High International School, both Shravan’s and Sanjay’s interest in computers started early at home when their father got them a desktop computer. Starting with Paint and games on the PC, the two started to make presentations at school and teachers encouraged them to do more. That’s how they turned into mobile app developers.

In the CatchMeCop game application, a convict escapes from prison and there is a nationwide hunt for the convict. The convict has to run through a desert, a beach and a maze to outsmart the cops. There are multiple levels of this application, which saw nearly 2,000 downloads in the first month of development. In fact, tech media Web site CNET has reviewed this application too.

The other three applications are Alphabet board, a learning app for the iPhone and iPad; Prayer Planet (for religious prayers of various communities) and Colour Palette, a learning app for kids to learn colours.

The apps are free for download, says Shravan. The company will make money on advertisements in their apps, he said.

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Sundeep is a Founder of Youth Talent Auzzar, a passionate blogger, a programmer, a developer, CISE and these days he is pursuing his graduation in Engineering with Computer Science dept.

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