A Flop: Inter State Horticulture Fair 2010 Bangalore

It was Sunday morning and I was browsing internet for some events happening in Bangalore. Interestingly I came across an event called Inter State Horticulture Fair, It sounded a big event and big idea to me. It was happening in Lalbagh, largest garden in Bangalore. Suddenly few imaginary pictures came to my mind, I could see lots of people, lots of stalls, knowledge sharing and real life case studies of the exemplary innovations and ideas.

I quickly got up, took bath (uff so early), got ready, took my EOS DSLR 500D and started for Lalbagh. I reached Lalbagh with lots of expectations. I went inside, it was a pleasant weather and I started looking for the fair. There were lots of people in Lalbagh, probably a sign of a big fair inside. After roaming for half n hour, I got to see the fair. Guess what, I was totally shocked to see the scale of the fair.

There were not more than 25 shops, and it was more looking like a vegetable or fruit market than a fair, a total flop.

What I believe should have been there are following:

1. Knowledge Sharing (Cross Fertilization): As it is inter state, there should have been knowledge sharing sessions explaining the processes depending upon the climate conditions. Every state has their own strengths and lots of knowledge to share.

2. Case studies of some innovative examples: Case studies of the some of the innovative methods/ideas should have been there.

3. Promotion of Organically Grown Fruits / Vegetables: There should have been demonstrations of the benefits of organically grown fruits / vegetables and how to increase the scale of production via organic way.

Well my total trip was not flop, I took some pictures of the wonders, 20 million tree fossil (Have you seen anything that is 20 million years old!!) and 200 years old tree ( truly marvelous).

Amazing view of UB City
Inter State Fair !!!
Road to Heaven!!!
20 Million old tree fossil !!!
200 Year Old Tree, Sorry the 200 Year Old Big Tree

What's cooking in your life?

One of the oldest thing, as old as, human themselves is cooking. Ohh, probably, I made a wrong statement just now. Does any other animal cook like humans do, No!, that means cooking is as old as only the creativity of humans. Or I should say that creativity is just as old as cooking. You may ask what creativity is anyway. Creativity is act of creating something new, possibly from same resources. When someone consistently create something new, he/she become creative person. Creativity does not get limited to any particular field, it can be applied to any field of your life, including love!!!

Few years back, I was a bad cook. I still remember my failed experiments with cooking, a half cooked potatoes and overly crispy brinjals. Very recently, I have started loving cooking and yes started preparing some decent and tasty dishes. Cooking generally involves following as part of the process:

1. Goal: You have some end dish in mind, a very vague idea about how it should taste and how it should look.
2. Resources: You need to find ingradients around you. You also need to learn the chemistry among different ingredients.
3. Cooking: The later part remains to mix the ingradients in definite order, at right temperature and at the right time. This is how a chicken tikka masala differs from chicken butter masala.
4. Presentation: Finally the presentation matters. Presentation involves aesthetic, smell, temperature and ambiance.

Resources, Chemistry, Order, Temperature and Time really defines the formula of cooking. When I first started cooking, I used to have the right goal in mind but I was not really great in understanding the chemistry of different ingredients. I used to dump what ever I used to find at any time during the cooking, resulting into dishes where things were not mixed together in proper way. Now I am realizing the importance of all the four factors and how important are they in preparing a good dish.

So what's cooking in your life?

My bad day is a sign....

Two years ago I got a friend who always remained with me, and we became almost inseprable. This is my Samsung Omnia smart phone. I learnt photography with my smart phone, with its 5 MP camera I learnt to see things in different way and capture them in images, taking notes became fun because a picture is worth of thousands words. My passion of photography is increased day by day and very recently I got a Canon DSLR EOS camera, one of the best camera in the market for photography. So my smart phone became really a friend who taught me how to see things in a way that I have done never before.

One day, it was 11:10 PM in the night, I was returning from the office party. I generally walk from my office to home and I was doing the same that day. At one of the lonely place, I was trying to call my wife, Janu. Suddenly I realized a, hmzzzzzzhmmzzz, sound on my right and somebody snatched the phone from my right hand. I was shocked and still did not realized what the hell is happening. Then I realized somebody has snatched my phone, my 2 year friend, and I will never going to get it back. I felt a sudden fear and shock, I was still not believing that I will be never able to see again my friend. As I was realizing, they took a left turn, they were two youngsters on a bike. I started shouting and chasing them. I chased them but with no results. It was lonely road at that time, a typical of Bangalore, however I was really not prepared for this, I have never seen this before. Suddenly I left chasing them and sudden of trauma and guilt got into me, how I can be robbed like this !!

I reached home at around 11:25, I had no other spared phone, nor I remember exactly mobile no of my wife and friends. My whole neibhourhood was sleeping, I had no idea what I should do, I was totally devastated. Suddenly a certain courage got into me, I felt that I would not let aways these people like this and I decided to go to police station at around 11:45PM. I reached police station at 12:00 AM, probably it is the first time I was engaging with police. As I entered into police station, there was one gentleman, a police receptionist probably, was was sitting there just in the reception.

The police officer was looking more like an receptionist that a police officer. I told my story to him, I was expecting some emotional response from his side, but alas his response was "why have you come to us?". For sometime, I thought I had come to some drama company and this guy sitting there is a part of some B Grade Indian Movie. I again checked all around and outside, yea it was really a police station. So I continued to tell him my story but with more stress. Finally the officer agreed to write my complain and told me to write an complaint application.

I started writing the application with the statement, "I was robbed ...", he quickly reacted and told me to change it to "mobile is lost". I argued a lot but he keep on insiting to write that mobile was lost. What an Irony of Indian Police? I left police station with more stressed and trauma.

That was bad day for me. However the event has raised a lot of questions in my mind. I told story to all of my friends and relatives and found out that I am not alone and these incidents are increasing day by day. The problem here is the divide, Employed vs Unemployed. Employment is giving Indian citizens power to purchase expensive gadgets, we all are buying more powerful gadgets and the gadgets are mostly small and mobile entities. We use them while we walk, eat and travel. On the other hand unemployed people are deprived of more purchasing power. So the best way for them is to snatch what they do not have.

This problem is going to be worst in future. Probably this is just the sign and we need to act fast. My bad day can change future in couple of ways:

1. Business:

- Gadget location tracker services.

- Emergency and Rapid Action Teams on your fingertips. Just like call a no to get help any time and any where.

- Intelligent devices, just like intelligent pet dogs who know their owners.

- Insurance cover.

- Backup solutions.

- Self Destructive devices.

2. Government

- Need to improve eduction and employment. (They have dauting task at hand. India have more young power than anywhere in the world.)

- As I have written in my last post, government need to run like an modern corporates and not as beurocrates.

- Rapid action forces that act rapidly.

I hope that this problem, if not reduced, does not get worst in future.

Is it time up for Indian Villages?

Manohar Lal, an indian villager, stays in one of the remote villages of Uttar Pradesh, India. Manohar's main source of income is farming and poultry. He has around 4 acres of land inherited from his father, who had around 20 acres of land. His father divided 20 acres of land among his 5 sons. Manoher also has four children, 2 sons and 2 daughters. All 4 children go to school. It seems to be a very happy tale, however there are some concerns.

Are these people well aware of growing prices, growing standard of education, gorwing standard of living in urban parts of India? Manohar is not as lucky as his father in terms of size of land, so his next generation would not be able to depend on farming for their source of living. The worst part is that neither Manohar nor his children are aware of future growing competition in terms of making their living, forget about making impact on the world.

Well, I am not saying that people like Manohar will not grow. There are many forces that can drive their growth like migration to cities, food price rise, individual struggle and brilliance. However there is not enough proactive effort in this area by the government, as a result we may have to wait probably for next to next generation before Manohar's grandchildren will be in upper/middle classes, with the assumption that Manohar's children will be able to provide sufficient resources and education to their children.

About 70% of the Indian population is still in villages, and the story of many of them is not different from Manoher's own story. Does it mean that it is a timebomb waiting to exlode? Can we still act fast and diffuse the timebomb? Can we bring million people like Manahar on the path of progress?

Well, I do not know but I have hope, a strong hope that 'Yes' it can be done.

In my opinion, a couple of things can be game changer that can drastically change the standard of Indian villages and bring smile on the face of Manoher and millions like Manoher. Here they are

1. Innovation: We need to more innovative ideas on how to connect Indian Villages into the main stream and progress path, and also how to execute those innovative ideas.

2. Entrepreneurship: We need more and more entrepreneurs pouring their energy, time and money into the Indian Villages. We need more business models focusing on quality but economical education, sanitation, food and creating jobs.

3. Young Leadership: We need more and more young leadership in politics

4. Government as a Corporate: Well I just love the way the corporates work. Their transparency, their way to bring innovation, their way to execute can bring a lot of good in the country. Note that I have not intentionally said "Government as a Business".

Finally I hope that we will be on the right track.

Cowdsourcing, a future big employer

Amit is one of the 50000 students getting degree the year 2010 from medium size city Gwalior. Today, Amit does not have sparkle in his eyes, that onced used to be when he got into a engineering college in my local town, Gwalior. Today Amit wear tea shirts with message "No Job, No Gilrfriend". Why? Is it because he does not have a girl friend, well, you said, a girlfriend!!, frankly who cares. Amit probably worries about "a Job". This is not only the story of single Amit but probably a million amit in India and many more in the next coming years.

The basic question is "Do we have enough jobs for all these, so called, educated people in India?". US is reluctant to outsource because of umemployment in their country. UK and Australia are other few examples who thinks in the same lines as US. Does this mean that we have less work and more resources? Well my personal feeling says that, probably no. What we have is lack of management and uneven distribution of work.

Very recently uTest, a crowdsorcing testing company in US, has secured around 30 million USD. Their business model is to outsource testing assignments to any one on this planet who can reliably test a software. So this US company is utilizing more and more smart people, not only in US, but in each of the country on this earth as workforce to carry out testing of their client's softwares.

Well this sounds interesting!!! This means Amit can get a job in uTest. Not only Amit, many more people can get job in uTest. Does this mean that "crowdsourcing" is the next future business model and paymaster?

Crowdsourcing can be applied to varied areas of problems

1. Design Problems
2. Decision Problems
3. Testing Problems
4. Implementation Problems
5. Generating Ideas
6. Selection Problems
7. and so on ...

Some of the basic things requirements that lead to crowdsourced work are:

1. Online Work
2. Arbitration
3. Tolerance for errors and rough people
4. Compliance
5. Work Decomposition
6. Filtering and Aggregation mechanisms

It will be encouraging to see how this amazing model will turn out to be in the future.