Entrepreneurship Archives - CUTTING EDGE VISIONARIES

The Bulls Of the Bear Indian market

June 14, 2021June 14, 2021 by Aarushi Bhatiin ARYAVARTA, Business, Economics, Entrepreneurship, finance, GDPLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 7 minutes

It is not just the health of the masses that the coronavirus pandemic has hit, but almost all the aspects of normal life. Businesses, markets etc., are no different and have received a big blow. Profits plummeted, and most companies were pushed to run in losses making some companies bankrupt too. However, there were some businesses, startups that not only managed to stay afloat but thrived in these times of crisis. Innovation being a key to beat the covid blues. There was a myriad of opportunities for new-age startups and investors to tap into, given the rise in demand for a variety of services . A bull market is a term for the stock market when the securities rise, and a bear market is when securities fall for a sustained period. This blog focuses on those Indian based or originated startups, businesses, newly turned unicorns etc., who developed and flourished in this pandemic, when most of the economy was about to hit rock bottom, thus becoming bulls of the bear Indian market.

Healthcare

Healthcare was an industry that constantly had hopes hooked to it in the pandemic. Doctors, nurses, medical professionals were the need of the hour. From the business point of view, pharmaceutical companies, telemedicine, online medical consultations etc., had profits jumping many folds. The startups that prospered in the healthcare sector were:-

- Serum Institute of India:- With net sales of INR 5,446 crores amidst the COVID-18, Serum earned a net profit of INR 2,251 crore. Or a net margin of 41.3%. Serum Institute of India the vaccine manufacturer that has become pivotal to India’s recovery from this pandemic.
- Practo:- Practo reported a 500% spike in online medical consultation under lockdown.
- PharmEasy:- E-pharmacy is the most important e-commerce sector in this ongoing pandemic. Due to home confinement, people are finding it very inconvenient to get their prescriptions and over the counter (OTC) medicines, so instead, they switched to telemedicine like PharmEasy, Netmeds etc.

- Bioline:- Based in Indore, Bioline India was founded by Neeta Goel and her late husband Rajeev Goel in 2001 to manufacture and supply affordable medical equipment to the masses. During COVID-19, the demand skyrocketed for this once slow-moving product.
- Zyro care:- Kamayani Naresh, a retired Indian Navy officer, claims to have developed a long and sustainable solution to boost immunity — zyropathy. A Delhi-based company that provides food and herbal supplements.

Education

With schools shut down all across the globe, the education sector underwent quite a revolutionary state. The education system required expeditious reforms to avoid the education of thousands of students coming to a standstill. EdTech startups saw a boom in their market. Online classrooms and courses came to students’ rescue. The businesses that burgeoned in the education sector were.

- Unacademy:- Unacademy beat the pandemic to enter the prestigious list of unicorns in India. The EdTech firm raised around Rs 1,125 crore in a funding round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 and participation from existing investors, including Facebook.
- Byju’s:- Byju’s is one of the top e-learning startups of India, which is surpassing all its competitors and has become one of the few decacorns in Indian startup history after crossing $10.5 Billion valuations in the midst of this pandemic.
- Gradeazy in Surat:- After their first startup had a false start in 2018, Surat-based Dishant Gandhi and Alok Kumar found a new opportunity to satiate their hunger for entrepreneurship with EdTech when the lockdown started, and all the schools and education moved online. The duo launched Gradeazy in June 2020 to enable educational institutes to conduct online examinations for just Re 1 per exam.

Media and Entertainment

With the freedom to go out and carry our daily routines being curbed, it was evident that people were going to turn to TVs and other platforms to while away the extra time in hand. The media and entertainment industry in India put up a great show in 2020.

- Dailyhunt:- News and content aggregator Dailyhunt has become India’s first tech unicorn focused on vernacular content after raising $100 Mn funding from Google, Microsoft and Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation at a unicorn valuation.
- Khabri:- In one of the newest startups, which was launched in October 2017, Khabri is India’s first and the fastest growing digital audio platform. Khabri provides audio content in regional languages where anyone can create, listen or discover in the app. As a great initiative, Khabri has introduced the COVID-19 helpline for the visually impaired population of India as a massive outreach program.
- According to Inc42 Plus, the media and entertainment sector received a total funding of $877.8 Mn across 85 funding deals last year, compared to $561.27 Mn in 2019, led by online video startups like SimSim, Trell and other TikTok alternatives.

- NeeStream:- A popular OTT platform in South India. With several new films being released on the platform, NeeStream has been witnessing a rise in subscriber numbers.

Finance and Technology(FinTech)

- Razorpay:- Bengaluru-based payments gateway Razorpay entered the unicorn club in October 2020 when it raised $100 Mn in its Series D round, led by GIC and Sequoia Capital India. The funding round also saw participation from the company’s existing investors, such as Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, Y Combinator and Matrix Partners.
- Pine Labs:- Noida-headquartered Pine Labs became the first unicorn for the year 2020, after its corporate round in January, led by New York-based financial services major Mastercard. Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, Pine Labs provided its services to over 100K merchants in 3700 cities and towns across India.
- Zerodha:- Bengaluru-based Zerodha was founded in 2010 by Nithin and Nikhil Kamath and offers stockbroking services. The company has claimed to have over a million active clients who trade and invest and is now valued at around 7000 crores or 1 billion approx.

E-commerce

A study showed that Indian e-commerce grew 84% in 4 years owing to the Covid-19 impact. When it was not possible to go out shopping, products were brought to individual doorsteps. A giant boom in local, national and international e-commerce startups is a testimonial to it.

- Flipkart:-Flipkart witnessed new user growth of close to 50 per cent soon after the lockdown.

- Bigbasket:-Bigbasket has had a huge inflow of orders as more and more consumers are preferring to order essentials and groceries online amid COVID-19. Bigbasket has added around 10,000 new workers to meet the massive influx of orders, which shows the shift to digital platforms in need of the millennium.
- Custkartin Bokaro:-Custkart has its own factory near Bokaro that produces merchandise, and all the workers come from the nearby villages.

Miscellaneous

- Nykaa:- Mumbai-based omnichannel lifestyle retailer Nykaa entered the unicorn club after raising around $13.6 Mn from its existing backer Steadview Capital. The funds were raised as part of Nykaa’s Series F funding round.
- Cars24:- Gurugram-based online used car marketplace Cars24 entered the unicorn club by raising $200 Mn in a Series E funding round led by DST Global.

- Rooter:- One of India’s biggest Sports community platforms, Rooter has raised $1.7 million (~ Rs 12.4 crore) in a pre-series A funding round at a time when almost all sporting activities have been seized across the globe. The Esports platform plans to capitalise on its upcoming Esports and gaming content and communities. Rooter engages its fans with user-generated live audio and video content.

Gaming

- Paytm First Games registered a 200% increase in user base.

- After the ban on the popular Chinese short-video app TikTok under 69A of the IT Act, its alternatives, including Trell, ShareChat, Chingari, Bolo Indya, Mitron, Roposo, Moj and Josh, among others, started gaining massive popularity and traction in the market.
- Games like FAU-G, Mask Gun and others emerged as alternatives for many users in India after PUBG Mobile’s ban.

Podcasting

- India is witnessing an unprecedented boom in podcasts, and it is a country with 22 modern Indian languages and around 720 recognized dialects. The linguistic diversity in India is increasing the demand for the information available on various platforms in vernacular languages. With a growth rate of 33 per cent, the vernacular internet ecosystem in the country is thriving.

The pandemic has an impact on economies and businesses throughout the world and will keep doing so for even some time in the future. It is no doubt now that opportunities can be squeezed even from the most diabolical of times. The pandemic has proved to be both an edge or stumbling block for establishments and enterprises across the globe. 2020 was a year of crisis, and crisis is where innovation thrives.

Keep Learning

Keep Hustling

Be the bear!!

THE DRAGON’S SCARE

April 26, 2020April 26, 2020 by Anushree Patilin Economy, Economics, Entrepreneurship, financeLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 2 minutesThe corona pandemic has claimed many lives across the world. It’s other side effects include the widespread rampage on all sectors of economy of the world. It has caused the closure of many small industries, businesses and enterprises and it continues to haunt the future of not only SMEs(Small and Medium Enterprises), MSMEs (Micro Small Medium Enterprises), Microfinance Institutions but also big companies.

In view of this, big Chinese banks, Private Equities and other multilateral instruments are investing heavily in such falling companies. These Chinese corporations work under the beneficial owner; the government of China. China’s recent increase in investment in HDFC bank has exceeded 1% which has poked the bear (RBI) into looking into this matter.

ATTRACTING INVESTORS IS GOOD, SO WHATS THE PROBLEM?

The problem is that by investing heavily they are buying shares of these companies at “THROWAWAY PRICES”. The impact of this, is that they will be majority stakeholders of these companies or aim to attempt buying them eventually (“HOSTILE TAKEOVER”). This will give them power to control these businesses and help them direct profit money to China.

China currently invests around $4 billion in Indian startups.18 out of 30 Indian unicorns (startups having more than $1 billion market capitalization) have Chinese funding.Big investors from China -Alibaba, Tencent , ByteDance have made huge investments in Paytm, Byju’s , OYO, Ola, Big Basket, Swiggy, Zomato. China dominates Indian markets in pharmaceutical APIs(Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients), mobile phone markets, automobiles and electronic and project imports.

HOW IS THE DRAGON’S MARKET INVASION BEING STOPPED?

The Government of India and RBI (Reserve Bank of India) lost no time in rectifying it’s policies.The government has decided to screen Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) from countries sharing a land border with India or where the beneficial owner of an investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country. The capital market regulator of India ,SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) is also digging deeper into Foreign Portfolio Investors(FPI) composition from China, by seeking beneficiary details from jurisdictions like Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh , Afghanistan and Yemen.

SO WHAT’S NEXT?

These policy changes have put an end to such hostile takeovers yet other measures need to be taken in order to mitigate China’s sway over the market.

Journey of an Entrepreneur

March 17, 2019March 17, 2019 by Aman Gondaliyain Entrepreneurship, ManagementLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Hi Guys, What’s up?

I have been thinking to become rich since I was a child. Who doesn’t wish to be as rich as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or even Mukesh Ambani Right? So Which job gives lots of money? Wait Wait! Did I just said job? Doing Job can never be a solution if you wish your Income Vs. Year graph to be exponential Instead of making it linear.

Hope the above paragraph would trigger the word “Startup” or “Entrepreneurship” in your mind. In this blog, I will give you a basic idea about how the journey of an Entrepreneurship would be.

I am inspired to write this blog from the workshop I have attended on start-up to VC by Jay Krishnan at IIM Ahmedabad.

The first step:

The very first step for a startup is to decide what will be the most suitable idea for our startup. For the selection of the startup idea, we need to ask few questions to ourselves:

What does the world need?
What do we love?
What we are good at?
What we can be paid for?

Let’s defined few words using the above questions.

Passion: If we love something to do and we are good at doing it, it is called our passion.
Profession: If we are good at something and we can get paid for it, it is called our profession.
Vocation: If we can get paid for what the world needs, it is called our vocation.
Mission: If we love to do something that the world needs, it is called our mission.

Dunning-Kruger Effect:

The Dunning Kruger effect, first coined by David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999, is a cognitive bias that influences everyone’s perception of their own abilities. Simply put, people are unreliable resources for evaluating their own skills and shortcomings.

Example:

Suppose you are a manager at a software development company. You have hired one software developer. Suppose his name is Rahul. He is exceptionally good at developing code but lacks a few critical programming skills. You have recognized it before hiring him and set up training sessions for this reason.

But When you mention Rahul’s programming skill gap to him, his reaction baffles you: “What are you talking about? I am exceptionally skilled at programming. I don’t need training. In fact, I am one of the best programmers in your company.

Here, not only Rahul is unable to recognize his weakness, but he overestimates his skill in comparison to others. His lack of knowledge on the subject makes him unable to see his own errors.

The Physicists Formula:

Albert-Laszlo Barabasi’s formula for success is as follows:

S=QR

Where S is success,

Q is a person’s ability to execute and

R is the potential value of a random idea.

What does this mean for strivers?

The math proves that the more ideas you have, the more times you plug the value of R. So greater will be the chances of success.
You can be successful at any age. All that matters is that you continue producing the same quantities of ideas.
The Q-factor in the above equation will remain unchanged.

Self-awareness before confidence:

Q-factor is for success. You either have it or you don’t.
There is an upside in accepting you are naturally lousy at some things and that, no matter how hard you try, you will never be good enough at that to generate massive success. Face that reality and avoid wasting your energy chasing a fruitless dream. Instead, you can pursue other opportunities you are better suitable for.

Strategic foresight:

By definition an entrepreneur’s job is to create change, whether it is just locally or internationally, an entrepreneur is trying to change the world in whatever way possible.
As an entrepreneur, your job is to bring the world to a future that only you can see.
Strategic foresight is about looking into the past for recurring trends that apply to the future. Taking in all the information available at present and actively implement strategies to shape and inform the world you want.
In other words, Strategic foresight is essentially the ability to make informed and educated guesses. However, it is more than just trying to predict the next market trend.
While it is impossible to predict the future, what you can do is learn how to employ tools like the strategic foresight.

Entrepreneur’s journey (My perception):

According to me, There will be 4 zones after being an Entrepreneur.

Death Zone
WTF Zone
Fun Zone
Sock it Zone

Let’s have look at the graph of this journey with respect to the above zones and try to understand it briefly.

When we start our journey as an entrepreneur, we will fall in the death zone within a short time period. Startups never go on track initially or never goes as one expects. You will feel many times to quit in between starting to death zone. If you have patience and your startup has enough potential, you can reach WTF zone.

From the death zone to WTF zone, you won’t understand what is actually going on. You will get to know things which one can apply to change or modify for the betterment of the startup. You will come across lots of new ideas to modify your startup. If effective ideas are implemented properly, you will reach to fun zone.

Obviously, you will have fun here! Your startup will get stabilized here and you will have a good amount of profit too.

In the end, there is a sock it zone. Last three zones are very common. Every entrepreneur passes through it. To fall in the sock it zone, you require lots of experience and talent as it is the zone in which you will expand your startup to a higher level or you can say at the national or global level.

This graph explains the same thing in a different way. It is actually the same thing explaining in general perspective.

EXAMPLES:

i will give two real-world examples.

1. We know in India, there is a problem of water supply in many rural areas. Women usually carry water over their head or shoulder and walk for some kilometers to bring it to their house.

Cynthia Koenig, an entrepreneur who studied at the University of Michigan found the solution to this problem as waterwheel.

This startup idea is simple, it is not costly, it is effective and easy to use.

2. In India, tea and Coffee are the most popular drinks. There are many café and stores selling good coffee and tea. In most of the stores, you will find a latte machine for making a coffee. Poor people selling coffee or tea at the roadside, can not afford to buy a latte machine.

The guy shown in the picture below made an idea to make his own latte machine with some “JUGADS”. This too can be a very good startup idea as it is very cheap, effective and useful for the people who can’t afford costly latte machine.

Conclusion:

At the end, we can say that Entrepreneurship and startup are the subjects that don’t have a well-defined syllabus. But have some few critical aspects/rule that you need to be creative, passionate and observing to get that one spark in your mind which can change the world for better.

Certainly, the field of startups is not at all a plain-sailing and also subject to great risks and failure but these are basic grooming cradles of large companies which later turn out to be a multinational. History has been the greatest proof so will be the future. So, if you have the courage to keep high stakes at your professional life, if you believe yourself more than anyone else can, and if you have the fire in you change the world for good than startup is best fit for you!

Talent Management: Use of Technology and Analytics

February 25, 2019February 25, 2019 by Vineet Bhatin Entrepreneurship, ManagementLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 5 minutesIntroduction

Technology and Analytics play a vital role in talent management, acquiring manpower, maximising every stage of the hiring process. In this era of transformative cognitive technologies like AI and machine learning, the complexities of talent acquisition and talent management have accelerated into high gear, driven by longer life spans, cultural and ethnic diversity and a highly-competitive global recruitment landscape. Without the proper utilisation of technology and analytics, talent management can become an operation bottleneck that will suppress the growth of operation. The technology source used by companies are social media, job portals, out bound hiring, social networking, e-mails, messages, tele-calling etc. are commonly used for targeting the prospective employee. In today’s fast-paced business world, it’s become obvious that people, practices, and systems must become nimbler too. Within this landscape, forward-thinking companies are using technologies and data segmentation to analyse smaller and smaller segments of their workforce as they develop strategic human capital plans, target job candidates and tailor employee benefits to match individual values, personality and behavior.

Technology driven Talent Management

Technology also allows for more in-depth analysis and reporting which provides managers more and better information to make the best decisions for getting the best out of the employees under their supervision. Using analysis tools and metrics, top performing employees can be groomed for leadership roles instead of the company having to depend on outside candidates. In a global market that continues to generate increased competition for the best talent, a company that fails to develop from within risks the loss of continued growth and market dominance by failing to retain their best assets as well as attracting top new talent.

Managing talent effectively places considerable demands on any organization. The sheer scope of the task means that a successful strategy becomes much likelier when technology is utilized. For each talent management function, most companies have traditionally used various standalone applications. Storing these applications and the data generated on each user’s personal computer or network servers at the firm is normal practice in these circumstances.

The talent management is critical to the firm’s well‐being and an integrated solution can positively impact on performance, employee loyalty and business strength. The advent of cloud computing has provided companies with a feasible alternative. Many of the headaches associated with the conventional approach can be eliminated using a solution that offers:

• Cost effectiveness: There is no requirement for a company to regularly invest in hardware, software and in‐house IT support services. Corporate servers are removed from the equation as applications and data are hosted by the provider’s own network.

• Flexibility: The dynamic nature of the technology provides real‐time access, upgrades when required and the capacity to swiftly adapt the application’s configuration and processes as user needs evolve.

• Integration: It becomes simpler to merge the various talent management processes currently handled in different parts of the firm. Better integration with other HR functions is likewise attainable.

• Wider application of training and development programs: The problems associated with conventional technology systems invariably meant that talent management activities were confined to high performers. Because cloud computing allows all employees appropriate levels of access to the system, scope exists for an organization to maximize the potential of its entire workforce.

How Data and Predictive Analytics play a crucial role?

From talent acquisition to performance management, HR departments are trusted with some of the most vital functions in an organization. When it comes to HR decision making, organizations want to make sure that there is no guesswork involved and are increasingly turning to predictive analytics to make data-backed decisions about the future. When it comes to setting key organizational priorities, items like big-name client wins, product launches, and high-profile partnerships must be secondary to the happiness of your people. Engaged, high-performing talent is a prerequisite to achieving any other business aim. The problem are the HR leaders and managers typically rely on guesswork to assess employee happiness. Lacking data-driven insights, such surface-level prognoses are often inaccurate, resulting in high attrition rates and higher turnover costs. The good news is that AI tools and predictive analytics are available to help HR leaders and managers identify the peaks and pitfalls of performance on individual, team, and corporate-wide scales, and reward employees accordingly.

AI and predictive analytics give business leaders the ability to benchmark compensation, identify flight-risk employees, and determine compensation boosts by deriving data that they would previously have had to ascertain through gut instinct. To understand its employees and how to keep them highly engaged, companies need data about what makes employees stay, what makes them successful and what can be done to build business strengths like leadership, innovation and customer service into the workforce. This will come from strong people analytics. People analytics looks at highly relevant data about people to solve specific business problems such as sales productivity, customer satisfaction and employee experience. The goal of predictive analytics is to provide structure, consistency, greater insight, and improved accuracy to the talent-management strategy.

To make the most of an integrated talent management solution, these following components should be considered: –

A cloud-based SaaS solution, which enables scalability, flexibility and cost efficiencies.
Mobile device optimization and mobile apps that facilitate real-time talent management across borders and in remote locations.
Integrated social media applications to harness the power of the world’s social networking sites for finding and attracting new talent.
Integrated HR analytics and Big Data applications for predictive workforce planning.
A solution that is reflective of regional needs to ensure localized compliance, adequate flexibility and cultural adaptation.
A simple and engaging platform that supports speed and reliability with cultural characteristics built into the user experience.
A support model that provides both high- and low-touch assistance through direct and partner channels, as well as regional support that caters to local languages and time zones.

Conclusion

Human resources are in the midst of a transformation. Consumerization of the workplace, changing workforce dynamics, and an increasingly competitive talent landscape have raised employee expectations from their workplace to new heights. The result is that talent management is being redefined with the use of technology and analytics in new and innovative ways, to meet the dynamic business shifts. Once an organization understands the enabling and empowering role of emerging technologies, it can develop tactical solutions for HR function and long-term strategic plan on organizational design. The trend toward automating hiring has companies developing software to take bias and discrimination out of the processes, as well as reduce costs and speed the time to hire.

The long-term talent strategy and plan inform what training and development that an organization needs. Along with this virtual cycle that is both top-down and bottom-up, emerging technologies play critical roles shaping business models, employee behavioral and aspirations, as well as technology enabled programs and tools that an organization can should adopt to ensure that it is prepared for adapting its talent management to the rapidly-changing market and becomes more competitive every day.

AUTHOR

Sanidhya Somani,

Btech II,ECED.

‘Apun ka business’ vs. ‘Ek secure life’

August 3, 2018September 30, 2018 by Rushiin Entrepreneurship, philosphy3 Comments

Reading Time: 3 minutesIs working for a startup better for me or should I join a large MNC? Is it better to be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond? We all have had these questions come to our mind at one time or the other. Let’s examine both the options and see if we can bring an end to this debate.

Having the next ‘big thing’ is the new cool. We all have fantasized about having our own billion dollar company at one time or the other with our friends. Startups are considered fun and are known for their employee-centric work cultures. An important thing that differentiates a startup from a regular business is the fact that a startup is built to grow, to adapt to fast change.

Let’s have a look at some of the skills that one requires for being a successful entrepreneur.

Public speaking:

Public speaking comes in handy when marketing your product to the masses. Steve Jobs is a perfect example of how the charisma of one’s personality can help form the image of the company.

Financial skills:

How much should I give away 15% in my company for ? Is buying this company worth it ? These are some of the few questions which one can answer when one is well versed in the jargons of Wall Street.

Human relation skills:

Entrepreneurship is all about the people. You can’t expect to run a successful startup if you can’t make people work for you.

In the last couple of years, the startup ecosystem in India has been given an impetus by the recent policies of the Indian Government especially the likes of Startup India program, Make In India program and AIC (Atal Incubation Centres ).

A corporate job is commonly associated with security. It is often made to seem that there is no personal development for a person who decides to work for another company instead of building his own. But I think it is not true. We have, as examples, our very own Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai who depict the possibility of corporate success. A corporate scenario provides plenty of opportunities for one’s self-improvement. Skills like public speaking, marketing and finance prove really handy in AC corporate job as well.

Making it big in the startup world is a journey in itself. For becoming successful as an entrepreneur, one has to exercise a lot of self-awareness and know himself or herself deeply. In a startup, one has the tremendous job of building one’s own distribution network which is not the case in a job. A startup provides opportunities for great growth in a small period of time which is usually not available in case of a corporate job. Usually, growth in corporate life comes slowly.’Slow and steady wins the race’ aptly applies to the corporate scenario.

So, what should one go for ?

According to me, one must definitely go for a startup if he/she thinks that his/her idea can bring something new to the table.

But, as Rajat Khanna of TVF Pitchers (if you guys haven’t watched it yet, watch it, it’s brilliant ) says :

Startups, if done just as another option to improve one’s life prospect, there are more chances of it to fail. According to some statistics, as much as 75% of all venture-backed startups fail.

Sometimes an entrepreneur’s life becomes too monotonous. One has to sacrifice a lot of things that one can experience as a normal person. In this regard, a well-suited job may serve you better in helping you experience all the different joys that life has to offer you.

So, what do you think about entrepreneurship ? Is it overhyped and glorified ? Is a 9-to-5 job really adventureless or is it just another cliche ? Let’s talk !

Blog by:

Vineet Bhat

2nd Year, Electronics and Communication, SVNIT.

Self Driving Vehicles: Good idea or a bad idea?

October 28, 2017October 2, 2018 by Darshit Patelin Automobile, Comps, concerning, Electrical, Entrepreneurship, MechanicalLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 6 minutes

“Laziness is the father of innovations”, beautifully quoted by Mr Stephen Shapiro, an American keynote speaker and businessman.

Consider an example of a human going for running some errands some miles away. “Walking would wear me out, so let me go on a bicycle. Well a bicycle is faster but efforts are still high, let me drop the idea of a bicycle. How about a two wheeler? No! It is hot out there and I hate dirt. Yes! I should use a car.” This type of laziness and comfort level is generally acceptable, but a lazy and luxury-oriented mind does not stop here. This is what it thinks, “Oh god! I am sleepy right now, how good it would be if someone would steer for me? Why to even sit in a car, I should learn teleportation. If only could I travel across the world with a blink of an eye?”

Well right now the first of the extreme desires of a human is starting to get fulfilled. An automatic car! Want to take a nap while driving? No problem. That is what a self driving car is all about. Okay, that is what a high amount of people think. The main aim of introducing autonomous car concept is not laziness or desires, but is to increase the safety measures of a car.

Safety is now the primary consideration for every vehicle manufacturer. As a customer, I would first have to predict if I could survive driving that car or not. “A little care and accidents become rare”, this is a famous road safety quote and a very essential one. According to survey, around 137,000 people died in India due to accidents in 2013 alone. This is more than the number of people killed in all our wars put together. According to Delhi Traffic Police reports, the major reason for accidents is a driver’s fault.

A self driving car comes with sensors attached with the calls all around it. The sensors keep track of the objects around it, the distance of objects from the car, the speed with which they are approaching the vehicle etc and accordingly the vehicle decides the speed of car movement, the steering direction etc. This way the accidents can be prevented. This is what the computer aided vehicle (CAV) manufacturers claim.

In India, the road traffic regulations are not much strict. People feel free to break some laws due to lower restrictions compared to other nations like USA, Canada, Germany and many more. These traffic jam costs the government around Rs 60000 crore a year due to fuel wastage, time delay etc. If everyone uses fully autonomous cars, there would be no traffic rules violations, no illegal road crossing, no traffic lights jump etc, so there will be smooth traffic flow and much time and money would be saved.

Productive use of driving time: “Time is money”. According to a Times of India survey, an average Indian spends about 18 days in a year behind the steering wheel. That is a lot of time wasted in driving. If one could use this time, much productivity could come out. Self driving cars could provide that too.

Vehicle life and fuel efficiency: Human efficiency while driving is much less. Improper acceleration, deceleration, braking, gear shifts etc would wear out the car transmission parts. A computerized control would do a better task in these areas and hence a high vehicle life would result. This could also increase the fuel efficiency of the vehicle because of steady and identical aerodynamic effects on every car on the road.

Aid for elderly people and disables people: How many times have you wanted to go out in a car, but couldn’t due to lack of driving ability and no person to drive you there? There are no such problems if you have a self driving car. Self driving cars would facilitate the travel of elderly people and disabled people. With aging, reflexes and eyesight become weak. Self driving car would pose as a boon for them.

Unemployment: But this is India; there are more people than it can feed. According to statistics, around 18 million people are unemployed in India. According to a case study, around 17 Million people are employed in road transport sector. If all the vehicles are replaced by driverless vehicles, unemployment would rise up to double of its current value. Not only drivers, but traffic police would be jobless. This poses a huge problem for India. “How can we allow such self driving vehicles when we already have a huge amount of unemployed people?” this statement was given by our current minister of road transport and highways, Mr Nitin Gadkari.

Fault in technology: Well, whatever the advantages discussed are based on an ideal driverless vehicle. But there is a potential for technology to go wrong. Driverless cars are based on programming and machine learning. Those codes are to be written by humans. There are possibilities of codes to have some bugs or glitches. Even if the vehicle performs well at first, it may happen that there are some bugs in the update the company provides. So there is a possibility of technology going wrong.

Privacy concerns are major these days. Threats for crimes and safety are increasing due to privacy leak these days. People can track you through GPS and follow you; they can have a track where you are and where you are headed to. And if a software drives your car, it becomes easier for the car to get hacked. Though the company would provide high security but software is always vulnerable to hack despite of all securities.

Expensive: The most important aspect that would come in India’s way of self driving cars is cost. Software and hardware for self driving cars would cost a lot to the customer. The most sold car in India in July 2017 is Alto. It cost around Rs 2.8 lakh. This is what an average Indian wants to spend on cars. Most people want to have a car under Rs 8 lakh. Hence self driving car won’t have much market in its initial period.

Many more pros and cons can be listed in this subject, but the important ones that would affect the most are listed above. A self driving car has lots of pros and cons. To solve the unemployment problems, driverless technology can be used only as an aid to driver or an assistant to driver. But this won’t solve traffic problems. Hence if we try to eliminate one disadvantage, it would also eliminate one advantage too. So we cannot come to an absolute consensus with this topic of whether to have a driverless environment or to have the system as it is right now.

Interactive Session by SVNIT Alumni of Batch 1970

February 10, 2015December 17, 2015 by pratikin Electrical, Entrepreneurship, For 1st yearites, For 2nd yearites, Tronics, Uncategorized3 Comments

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The alumni of 1965-70, amongst the earliest batches of SVREC had a joyous reunion, remembering their youthful days of college, how they went ahead in life and made their efforts worth its weight in gold! Of the glorious gathering of around 25 alumni , we the current generation of SVNITians had the honour of knowing, hearing and connecting to them through a CEV Talk entitled “Interactive Session by SVNIT Alumni of Batch 1970” on 8^th February,2015.

cev team with alumni of '70 batch — cev team with alumni of ’70 batch

The first talk was delivered by Mr. S. Neelakantan (Retd Scientist ‘G’, Group Dir., Helicopter and Fighter Aircraft DRDO) entitled “Helicopters- Concepts and Development” wherein he discussed about the fundamental concepts & history of Indian Helicopter Technologies, development of indigenously built Advanced Light Helicopters- Dhruv, its design, development tests & certification. Prospects of future advanced warfare & tactical helicopters along with their robustness was also shared.

In one of the most interactive sessions, Mr. Sailesh Lakdawala , Energy Consultant , Duke Energy, USA gave insights on power generation, working and reliability of Nuclear Power. He discussed the current scenario of Nuclear Power Generation in USA, India and rest of the world. This interesting talk also discussed about Fukushima Daiichi Reactor failure, Chernobyl Disaster, Thorium Reactors, Breeder vessels, Small Modular Reactors, Pressurised Water Reactor & Boiling Water Reactors.

In yet another captivating talk, Mr. Harsh Thakkar , Senior Consultant, National Grid USA emphasised the importance of System Protection and also gave us the optimism of honing entrepreneurship skills by giving an example of Green Light Planet , a Forbes 30 under 30 (2012) start-up founded by his son Mr. Anish Thakkar. In end we had an overview of current Elevator Technology by Mr. Satish Mandirwala, Eskay Elevators.

It was heart rendering to interact with alumni who had such diverse backgrounds such as US Navy Weapon Systems, Indian Army, Super Alloy Project, Mining Industry etc.

We thank all the alumni for sharing valuable lessons and ethics important for all to succeed in life. We also extend gratitude to Dr. PD Porey, Director, SVNIT, Mr. Utpal Mistry President & Mr. Kamal Parekh Hon. Secretary of SVNIT Alumni Association for extending their help in making this event a grand success. We also thank all CEVians for working hard to put together a successful informative session and the wide spectrum of audience that came to listen the golden words of wisdom of their alumni.

– Pratik Chatrath (Founder, CEV ) & Harshit Kapadia (Co-Founder, CEV )

ENTREPRENEURSHIP: FROM BEING TO BECOMING..

February 21, 2014February 21, 2014 by Yash Shahin EntrepreneurshipLeave a Comment

Reading Time: 3 minutesEntrepreneurs are generally perceived as insane risk-takers; a surreal combination of Wolverine and Batman; aggressive yet calm, intuitive yet rational and reckless yet brave. Entrepreneurs are generally perceived as those riding lions: fast-paced and those diving off an airplane without a parachute: courageous. But the question is, if only five per cent entrepreneurs end up working on their original idea, only two per cent end up providing value, and only 0.5% end up having monetary success; how should this dream be pursued?

Jump without a rope!
In ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, Batman learns that you can go into full throttle only when there is no back up. Entrepreneurship teaches you to put all your eggs, fruits, hair-dryer, mobile-phone and everything else in one basket. If you have a backup, it’s you who have failed and not your startup. In any case, unless you took unreasonable risks while pursuing your startup, dealing with its failure will be an unpleasant and a ridiculously boring affair. It’s more like a step along the journey.

It’s about the journey and not the destination
As a startup, people will ask you, “Where do you see yourself after five years from now?” while you are still figuring out which client will be paying for your next lunch. In a startup, you learn. You learn to react to insulting situations, uncomforting questions and demeaning feedbacks. In a startup, you build, modify, test, rinse and repeat. It’s an incremental and an agile perspective towards life. You will never want it to end. It’s certainly addictive.

The outcome is not binary
Chances are that you might not become a billionaire but also, chances are that you might not end up on the street begging. There are millions of shades of grey between black and white, there are infinite rational numbers between 0 and 1 and there are millions of outcomes possible when you have a startup. It’s scary, yes! But it’s even more exciting. That fear of uncertainty, that feeling of not knowing the outcome, that thought-process when you are not in control of everything; there are very few things which can trigger such emotions. They are so rare, the English dictionary has no words for it!

Businesses die, entrepreneurs don’t
A misleading element in the perception of success rate is that you only have one shot at it, so you better make it. Startups never sink or swim. They give you a swing of directions. You give up your corporate job, you put in all the savings, your company fails and you can’t get back to your original career. There, you have another direction all together. And mind well, if a startup fails, a negligible amount of people can go back to their jobs. You are addicted; ruined. You will flock with the most like-minded, risk taking, lean, suave and convincing SOBs around. And you will start another one! Entrepreneurship is a career. So long as you don’t hit yourself in the face with the bat, you can keep taking swing after swing after swing.

Yash Shah

SVNIT Alumni

CEO & Founder Gridle