how to enable product startups - kapil khandelwal - a dose of it - dc 14 nov 2011-page 13

8/3/2019 How to Enable Product Startups - Kapil Khandelwal - A Dose of IT - DC 14 Nov 2011-Page 13

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Internet wars

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TECHNOMICS

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Acer founder Stan Shih warnsGoogle against concentration of

value in Android ecosystem

Sony Corp Chief Executive HowardStringer dismisses reports that hewill step down next year.

MONDAY 14 | NOVEMBER 2011BENGALURU

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HAM’O’WEEN

CBI JOINS FB, SEEKSHELP FROM NETIZENS

There was an interest-ing discussion atNASSCOM Product

Conclave 2011. The title of the discussion was — howdo we enable product start-ups?

As the conclave pro-gressed, some of the breakthrough ideas to emergewere ones conceived whileattacking health and educa-tion sectors and in solvingthe ` 100,000 crores -humancapital capacity opportuni-ty that I spoke of at theWorld Quality Congressearlier this year.

The discussion zeroeddown to two key humancapital issues to enablehigh-tech product start-ups  — the entrepreneurialteam and the businessangels (BAs). As a businessangel (BA), India is still tomature as the silicon valleyof the East! A level of clari-ty is emerging in the start-ups about the role of BAsand as to how they benefithigh tech start-ups.

BAs assist the start-ups infour key ways; assisting inbootstrapping and over-coming initial funding dif-ficulties and hiccups; pro-viding active and hands onpost-investment involve-ment in a start-up to scalefaster; leveraging theindustry network; and pro-viding leverage for the nextround of funding.

Although BAs are the old-est, largest and most impor-tant source of incubationfunding for high-growthstart-ups, collectively, BAsinvest between two and fivetimes more capital in start-

ups than formal venturecapitalists. But, the issue isabout the selection of thestart-ups to fund! Here is a10-factor framework that Ihave used to assess a start-

up to invest for from theperspective of a BA.

First, the start-up team’sexperience. For the productstart-ups to succeed, high-tech experience is a criticalsuccess factor. Second, co-mmitment. The start-upteam should have a passionand ability to execute aglobal ambition. Third,BA’s compatibility with thestart up. Forth, businessorientation of the start-upteam. It is important thatthe team cares about theproduct and customers.Also the team has to show aglobal awareness and sensi-tivity towards the needs of the customers. Fifth, lead-ership. It may sound clich-éd, but integrity, focus andstrategy are important fro-m my perspective. Manage-rial experience of the start-up team needs to be sharp.Second, guts and theendurance of the team. Theteam should be able to han-dle adversity and have thestamina to be a long runnerwhile working under pres-sure. Third, the team workbetween the founders.Start-ups breeds cama-raderie and the winningspirit if team membershave worked together intheir earlier avatars andhave some element of workunderstanding. Fourth,entrepreneurial experienceto scale the venture beyondthe idea and first few cus-tomers. Lastly, the teamshould know their weak-ness. For BAs the challangeis whether the team willtake advice or not; andwillingly step aside to

bring in others to handlethe situation if required.  Kapil Khandelwal is a

leading healthcare and ICT expert. Kapil@KapilKh-andelwal.com

A dose of IT

Kapil Khandelwal

Business angelsenable start-ups

The Central Bureau ofInvestigation has joinedsocial networking siteFacebook in a bid to gethelp from people in crackingcases. CBI sources said theidea of going online is first

being implemented by itsBhopal unit on experimentalbasis which will be furtherfollowed by all its wingsafter assessing people'sresponse.

APPLE RECALLSFIRST-GEN NANOApple hasunveiled aworldwidereplacementprogrammefor the first-generationiPod nanomusic playerdue to over-heating bat-tery issues,telling own-ers to stopusing theproduct andget itreplaced for free

iProblems

SONY’S ‘DIFFERENTKIND OF TV SET’The Japanese electronicsgiant is working on technol-ogy that Sony Chairman andCEO Sir Howard Stringer hasconfirmed his company isworking on ‘a new form oftelevision. Mr Stringer said“There’s a tremendousamount of R&D going into adifferent kind of TV set”

Tech plus

Phone Scan

GOOGLE RELEASES‘IRAN’ IMAGESSearch giant Google hasreleased satellite images offacilities at two Iranian citiesthat the UN claims may beused to develop nuclearweapons. Recent satelliteimages of Arak and Natanzshow changes to the facili-ties when compared withimages taken in late 2010.

Edualert: A software to helpyou track your child’s careerThiruvananthapuram, Nov.13: It can identify the rightcareer for your child, tell youwhen he’s mischievously miss-ing from the class and messageyou his test scores as soon as he’sbeen handed the answer sheet. Asoftware developed by three ITprofessionals promises to changethe teacher, students, parentsdynamics.

Called Edualert, the softwarehas been developed by US-basedKeralites Akbar Narendran andSanjay Nair, and RajivViswanath who is based in India.

“Edualert can give suggestionsto a student and his parents as towhich career suits him bestbased on his academic perfor-mance,” 33-year-old Narendransaid during a visit to Kerala topromote the software.

The modus operandi goes some-thing like this. Details of a child’sentire academic history, hisinterests and extra curricularactivities right from the firstgrade is fed into the software.“Through an analysis, it wouldreveal which is the best careeroption for the student,”Narendran said.

Edualert operations managerRamakrishnan said the thinkingof parents in the state for longhas been that there are only twogood professions — engineeringand medicine.

“We have observed that manychildren for fear of earning thewrath of their parents unwilling-ly opt for either of the two mostsought after professions,” saidRamakrishnan.

The basic version of Edualert isfree for schools. Around 10schools in the state have alreadygiven the nod to this uniqueproduct.

“In January, we will comeagain because we have gotnumerous enquiries fromschools in some metros and TierII cities. We will first do a demon-stration of our product in front of teachers and parents,” saidNarendran.

The software with add-ons ver-sion comes fairly cheap and itwill cost 10 percent of the annualfee of a student, said Narendran.

“It includes a centralisedprocess of taking attendancewhich takes only a few minutes.When done, an SMS will be sentto the parents of all those stu-dents who are absent. Likewise,the moment corrected answerpapers are distributed, parentswill get an SMS about how theirchild has performed,” said

Narendran. Another interestingfeature is that the moment thechild enters the school bus, hewill be monitored and in casethere is a traffic jam, an SMSalert will go to the parents.

“It took us two years to fullydevelop it as we did it in ourspare time. We are now workingon some other add-ons,” saidNarendran.

Krishnamurthy Iyer, principalof the A.R.R. Public School, pre-dicts the “revolutionary” soft-ware to be a huge hit in the edu-cation sector. “We installed it just two weeks back and from thefirst look, it’s something unique.It is certainly going to improvethe quality of students, parentsand teachers. All the informationon children and their progress

would be available at a click of amouse,” said Iyer. However, aClass 12 student had differentviews on the subject.

“In many homes, the relationbetween parents and children isfriendly. The software wouldn’tbother those kids. But overall,parents would always like toknow what their ward is doingwhich is a little scary,” said thestudent, before saying that sincehis schooling was almost over, hehad escaped.

However, a mother of a Class 10student said: “Children need notbe worried because this is a toolfor their own betterment and fortheir good future. Just look intothe positives and not the nega-tive aspect that it will track chil-dren,” she said. —   IANS 

New York, Nov. 13:Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare3  racked up more than$400 million in sales onits first day in stores inNorth America, Asia andthe United Kingdom, set-

ting a video game indus-try record.

Activision’s biggest hol-iday title sold 6.5 millionunits in a single day aftergoing on sale early thisweek, surpassing lastyear’s record of 5.6 mil-lion units or $360 millionin sales. The version of the game released lastyear, called Call of Duty:   Black Ops, went on torake in $1 billion in lessthan two months.

Chief Executive BobbyKotick revealed in aninterview on Friday the

company will be able toexpand the Call of Dutyfranchise by offering fansnew game content eachmonth over the Internet,and having them pay forit with annual subscrip-tions.

Along with the consolegame, Activision isreleasing Call of Duty Elite, a subscription ser-vice that costs $50 annu-ally and offers extraonline content, includingapps for mobile devices.

“What you’re likely tosee is a shift over time inthe whole economicmodel for these kinds of games. It looks more likeWorld of Warcraft  thananything else,” he saidreferring to the compa-ny’s other big franchise.

 —  Reuters

Twitter can become alifesaver soon: Study Washington, Nov. 13:Twitter could become anew mode of saving livesby providing vital infor-mation about health-relat-ed matters to its growingnumber of users.

Researchers who studiedtweets on cardiac arrestsuggest that Twitter repre-sents a unique, promisingavenue to respond toqueries from the publicand disseminate informa-tion about this leadingkiller.

“Twitter is an incredibleresource for connectingand mobilising people, andit offers users a way toreceive instant feedbackand information. Thepotential applications of social media for cardiacarrest are vast,” said

Raina Merchant who ledthe study on this particu-lar topic.

“Twitter might even beharnessed to save lives inan emergency, by allowingbystanders who respond tocardiac arrests in publicplaces to seek informationabout the location of theclosest AED (automatedexternal defibrillator),”said Merchant, assistantprofessor of EmergencyMedicine at PennUniversity.

The varsity’s PerelmanSchool of Medicine evalu-

ated cardiac arrest andresuscitation relatedtweets during a month-long period in early 2011,according to a statement.

They discovered thatusers frequently shareinformation about car-diopulmonary resuscita-tion (CPR) and AEDs.

CPR is an emergencyprocedure to manuallypreserve brain function-ing until further measuresare taken to restore spon-taneous blood circulation

and breathing during acardiac arrest.

AED is a portable devicethat treats life-threateningcardiac conditions withelectrical therapy whichstops the arrhythmiaallowing the organ to re-establish an effectiverhythm.

In one of the new studies,the researchers identified15,324 tweets involvingcardiac arrest specificinformation.

 —  IANS 

Mumbai, Nov. 13: The Election Commission is plan-ning to take the help of social networking sites likeFacebook and Twitter to impart electoral messages toyoung voters, Chief Election Commissioner S YQuraishi said.

“The Commission is now seriously looking at thesocial media as the hubs to impart electoral educa-tion,” Quraishi said delivering the Maulana AzadMemorial Lecture 2011 titled ‘Education forDeepening Democracy’.

“Like Maulana Azad, Ibelieve that an educatedand aware citizen is thebest guarantee for deepen-ing both democracy anddevelopment,” Quraishisaid.

The CEC said he had

recently held talks with pol-icy makers of Educationand Youth ministries to integrate citizenship andvoter education as a part of the curriculum of theirvarious courses.

“We have established the India InternationalInstitute of Democracy and Election Management (IIDEM) making voter education a core area of empha-sis in it,” Quraishi said.

Regretting that many voters in the age group of 18-35years do not exercise their voting rights for whateverreason, the CEC said the Commission has put votereducation and awareness programme on fast track toimprove the situation. In a strategic initiative calledYUVA (Youth Unite for Voter Awareness), theCommission has planned to rope in the new andyoung voters, he said. —   PTI 

EC TO EDUCATE VOTERS THROUGH FB

The technology of fun: Four things to keep you going through the week

Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City lead industry to 1% sales growth last month as revenues reach $1.08 billion. Xbox 360 maintains its lead position in the console market.

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Shaun White, American professional snow-boarder and skateboarder, talks about howRed Bull Project X came into reality.“I have all these tricks in mind I have wantedto try. I just needed a place to figure themout,” says Shaun. “Project X was born”

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battles withmagnificent3D graphics!Hone yourblade andfight online inthe arenawhere heroesare born!War of Titanstakes place invarious are-

nas scattered across the provinces of theancient Roman Empire. Players must unlockaccess to new provinces by gaining experi-ence through battle. New players start theirgladiatorial careers in the city of ForumCornelii in the province of Italia Superior. PvPplays an important role in WoT, players canattack one another even in the very first arena!

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San Francisco, Nov.13: US judge has orderedTwitter to disclose infor-mation about threeaccount holders to USofficials conducting aprobe into WikiLeaks.

In a 60-page opinionissued Thursday, USDistrict Court JudgeLiam O’Grady upheld aruling by a US magis-trate judge concerningthe Twitter accounts of Birgitta Jonsdottir, amember of the Icelandicparliament, US comput-er researcher JacobAppelbaum and RopGonggrijp, a Dutch vol-unteer for WikiLeaks.

Magistrate Judge The-resa Buchanan orderedthe San Francisco-basedTwitter in March tohand over informationabout the three users of the service, rejectingarguments that themove violated freedomof speech and privacy.The ruling came afterthe US Justice Depa-rtment obtained a courtorder seeking informa-tion from the Twitteraccounts as it considersaction against Wiki-Leaks, which has rele-ased a trove of secret USdiplomatic and militarydocuments. —  AFP 

ORDER TO DISCLOSE PROBE INFO

‘Call of Duty’ setsfirst-day record

MODERN WARFARE 3