I did not succeed in entering second round of ET Power of Ideas

My name did not appear in ET Power of Ideas, second list where 254 out of 1000 were selected. The sad part was that I knew it about it as soon as my qualifying telephonic interview with Ranjeet Shastri of IAN completed.
Reason - Over confidence. I did not do any mock before the disucssion and was very casual.

I also could see a patter where I easily cross initial hurdels and then loose interest and become careless in most of the deals.

Any way, this was a good lesson learned hard way. So my commitment is to be serious and remain serious and won over 90% of deals

Discussion on Cleantech @ TiE

On Friday May 15,2009 I attended a two hours discussion at Mr Swarup's residence (TiE Charter Member) at Vasant Vihar.

Geetika of TiE modertaed it and Ashok Das (Sun Moksha, Banglore) was the key speaked. he already has a SIG at TiE, Banglore and head a company on solar technology. He shared about his views on govt policies, future of cleantech and wide meaning of clean tech.

Other participents that I met included Anil Garg(AGM Marketing) Hero Electricals. He shared how poor govt policies has resulted in poor sales of Electrical Bikes in India where only 2L bikes has been sold till date again china which has electrical bikes in millions becuase of Govt Support Policies.

I also met Dolly Bhasic of SPH Consultancy and Services. She knew a lot about BEE and lot of information about Govt Tenders.

Bharat Shrama Technical Director of Vin Industies (also a landmark graduate) talked about his vision of using Cowdung to produce power at villages. He has roots in Rajasthan where his ancestors had large herds of cows and he plan to use Go-shala as source of cow-dung and set up small electrical stations.

Rilka from Austraila who head Indian office of Beyond Business Connections, Anil Srivastava of Global Economic Advantage Pvt Ltd, Pranet Gupta of Booz&Co, Shiv Walia of Mauryan Capital Advisors are few more persons that I met.

I made a presentation on FICCI Seminar

On April 27th, I made a presentation at FICCI seminar on IPR and INNOVATION - A Way forward for SME.

Presentation focussed on my experience  about making progress using innovative ideas and how IPR can help protect innovations and result in sustained profits.

Just for records I have files three patents and applied for trade mark "Joy-n-Freedom"

CII-DIPP seminar on World Intellectual Property Day on April 26,2009

I attended half day seminar at Le-Meridian, New Delhi on April 26,2009. It was worth getting up early on sunday morning. Drive was easy as there was not much traffic on the road and morning tea and lunch were added benfits.

This was organised by DIPP and CII and talked about what showcasing India's IPR initiatives, achievements & its importance in shaping the Nation's future.

The key focus was simple. IPR are going to be here and  profits and growth  need  protection of your IPR.  

CII also felicitated following individuals/companies in different area. 

• Hindustan Unilever got award for getting over 300 patents granted last year (over 300).
• Reliance Industry got award for getting maximum brand names registerd.
• Bill Clair, Pune got award for innovative packaging for pharma industry
  
• Venkat Reddy of Andhra Pradesh got award for grassroot development for patenting novel method of improving soil fertility and getting this patented in multiple countries.

Speakers included following persons

• Ramesh Adiage - Chairman CII Task Force on IP Policy and ED Ranbaxy Lab
  
• NN Prasad - Jt Secretary DIPP
• JM Khanna - Ex Director Jubilant Organosys Ltd
• Dr T Ramasami - Secretary,DST
• R Saha - Member CII National Committee of IP Owners, TIFAC
• Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul - Delhi High Court  

I interacted with some persons and learned few new things.

Anjan Das (senior Director CII and Head - Technology, Innovation, IPR and Life Sciences) who talked about GITA which can help individual innovators. He invited me to learn about it and even visit CII to meet him.

Dr Nitin Deshpande (Patent Attorney - Registered Patent Agent, Unilever Research Banglore). He takes care of patents by Unilever group.

Ridhima Dhar from Evalueserve.com. She said that she works for Business Development for her company.  Her company takes care of patent drafting and other  IPR related service.

Dr Monika Shukla(consultant)  and Mr D.N.Verma(Vice President-Legal) from Sanshadow Consultants Pvt Ltd)

Siddharth Kumar (Journalist with PTI) . I shared with him about my innovation on traffic lights. He promised that he will be doing a story on this.

Somanth Chowdhury (Consultant). He was tech editor with EFY 2 years back and published my articles on Vending Machine. (See my visual CV for article). I also discussed with him about suggesting some one who can work with me on profit sharing basis for embedded development.

Srikanta K Panigrahi (Director General Carbon Minis India, ex Director -Planning Commission).

"Creativity and Innovation Workshop" organised by FICCI and Economic Times

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. 
- Michelangelo

ET and FICCI organised a seminar on Creativity and Innovation called "IDEA CLOCK". The faculty was Pravin Rajpal  (Author, Coach and Thought Leader).  He has written two excellent books "ACHIEVING BUSINESS EXCELLENCE" and "5  THINKINGS TO WIN"

The workshop started with a 2 minute video clip of JAN GAN MAN tune and it set the tone of the program. That 2 minute clip changed the mood, there was excitement and I just kept all pending issues on back of the the mind and focussed on the presentations and discussed.

During next six hours, we got present to ways to be creative and innovative.

At 11k+ taxes this was pretty expensive but end result was worth the price.

During the workshop I met following persons

• Dr Arun Kumar - Reader, M Com, D Phil at Motilal Nehru Institute of Research & Business Administration, University of Allahabad.
  
• Saurabh Srivastava, Dy Manager Engineering, Research and Development, Maruti Suzuki Limited, 
  
• Prashant Bammi GM Manufacuring GROZ ENGINERRING TOOLS (P) LTD
  
• Rohit Rajpal, Sr Executive, Karnal Agricultural Industries Limited
  
• Sunil Chandra, Director, Pentagon Impex International

All the participants also got a software program called IDEA CLOCK. This is a clock with lot of innovative ideas.

I filed my third patent on April 18,2009

I filed my third patent on Cable TV Network Management on April 18,2009. This patent was drafted by Pooja Bhatia (pooja.bhatia@sanshadow.com) a qualified team member of sanshadow. This company has created technical documents for SUKAM, IIT Roorkee, IIT Delhi and recently over 50 patents for Amity.

Samsung Vs An engineer from Madurai in Patent Case

An engineer from Madurai filed a patent for DUAL SIM CARD long time back. He was granted the patent last year. This year he filed a case that resulted in all imports of dual sim card phones getting held at airport.

Chennai High Court has rejected the SAMSUNG petition.  Engineer from Madurai has demanded a royalty of Rs 35/- per piece from importers.

I am not sure what will be the outcome, yet it shows that Indians are getting aware of IP rights and taking actions to protect it.

See the complete articles in Economic Times March 23,2009

and Livemint March 13,2009

Why India is still a poor country and what can you do about it

Here is what I think about why India is a third world country -

Do not protect our knowledge and skills - Last year total of 28940 patents were filed. Out of this 23626 (82%)  were foreign applicant and 5314 (18%) were Indian applicant.  So you can fairly guess who is going to make money by launching  innovative products. (data from annual report of Indian patent office as picked up from their offical website  http://www.patentoffice.nic.in)

2. Do not spend time and money on learning  if you go to buy a magazine from local market, you will find at least 5 magazines on astrology, multiple magazines on Films, few magazines on current events, few soft porn magazines. Ask for science magazine and he will say that Indian edition of "Scientific American" will be available only on order.  Times of India stopped publishing "Science Today" long time back. "Scientific American" started Indian as well as few more edition.  "Science Reporter" published by CSIR, Govt Deptt is still available at few and very limited books shops. "Down to Earth" published by CSE (famous for their report for Pesticide in Cola's) is also available rarely on local books shops.

  

3. Do not have Govt that support innovation  USA has 1200 Technology Incubators, China has 600. India has 44 Technology incubators. Almost all US States has "Association of Business Incubators" as each state has multiple business incubators. India has only one "Business Incubator Association".

4. Do not take risk - Most of us still believe in "Getting a job" and not in "Generating a job"

So, get ready and do some thing today and evert day to make your country progress. Every thing start by declaration. Make a declaration today. 

Best Wishes.

Second patent and application for grant under TePP

On Jan 6th, I filed for my second patent on "TRAFFIC SIGNAL FAULT MONITORING AND REPORTING".

This was done online, ie created documents, digitally signed using class III digital signatures procured from TCS and paid thru SBI net banking.

Idea for this patent came when I saw a news article on Dec 12th in Times of India and saw a good potential of converting my skills and knowledge into a commercial product. I am also in process of applying for grant from Ministry of Science and Technology which provide grant of upto 60L for entrepreneur under TePP scheme. Dr A S Rao heads this deptt. He also maintains a blog.

Delay at Airport

Hi All,

let me share one more incident where I used 90/10 principle and got results.

In last week of April 08, my customer asked me to go to lucknow and attend to a serious problem in one of the elevator installed at NABARD building. I am called at the last moment when situation is about to explode or already exploded and every one is looking for magic solution. 

I reached Delhi airport at 6 AM as flight was scheduled to leave  at 8 AM. There was unusually heave rush at Indian(now Air India) counter. I stood in queue number 23 with around 15 people in front of me. Minutes passed by and queue moved very slowly. It appears that computer systems were very slow and this was causing delay and hence long queue. To top it up, most of the passengers were arguing with The After over one hour, my turn came. Standing in the queue for one hour, I was tired and under pressure thinking about problem at lucknow.

Well when I handed over my ticket  to the lady at the counter, I smiled, wished her a good morning and gave her my ticket printout. The worst happened and their was total breakdown of the system. Nothing happened for next five minutes. The gentleman at next counter started complaining about the delay at his counter. The lady must have said something and then more arguments and hot words started between the lady at the counter and the passenger.

I told the lady at my queue counter that her job is really tough and she is really wonderful to remain cool and calm in such an atmosphere. Finally I got my boarding pass after waiting for 15 minutes. I left after thanking her and appreciating at her patience. The man standing behind me commented that How can I thank her 10 times even while waiting for such a long time.  I smiled and moved for security check.

I do not know about others, but I was cool, calm and relaxed even after standing in queue for one hour. After all what happens in my life is controlled by me and not be computer system of air india.