Vol 1 | Issue 1

InspIre > Involve > Transform

september 2011

A MonthLY newsLetter
Kalam Extols I Create

Charting out Careers

Starting with a sole entrepreneurship training centre in Kolkata, I Create has rolled out 10 centres that have honed 6,500 underprivileged youth and women to embark on their entrepreneurial journey. I Will Impact traces the journey of this social enterprise

It was a moment of pride and glory for I Create, when on 3rd August, 2011, Former President of India Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in his address at the National Seminar on Skill Development extolled I Create for its entrepreneurship training. He cited the example of an unemployed youth, a school drop-out from a village in Bengal, who today has established a Rs-10-crore business empire. Entrepreneurship incubation institutions need to be developed all over India and the developing world, Kalam had said in his speech. Chatterjee, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and the Founder and Chairman of The Chatterjee Group (TCG). Dr Chatterjee readily agreed to fund the novel social initiative and thus two I Create centres were unveiled in Kolkata and Jaipur in quick succession. Tutoring unemployed youth, urban poor to tribal, abused and helpless women, and school and college drop outs to kick start their own business is fraught with challenges. However, the three-to-five-day training program helps sail over such obstacles by simplifying the process of training. The training entails helping participants identify their areas of interest, screening business ideas, transforming ideas into profitable business ventures, along with follow-ups and continuous mentoring. In many cases, we have helped them get bank loans, informs Kamat.

n 15th August, this year, when India celebrated its 65th Independence Day, a non decrepit centre at Nehru Nagar in Delhi opened doors of economic empowerment for the youth. The day marked the beginning of Training of the Trainer (TOT) program for this centre, whereby 25 members of academic institute Samarth Shiksha Samiti were groomed to become Master Trainers (MTs), who would in turn impart entrepreneurship training to the youth. The MTs were honed by I Create, a partner in Nation Building Projects of Pan IIT Alumni. This was I Creates 10th training centre a stamp of its mounting popularity, 12 years after it was flagged off. Says Ulhas Kamat, CEO, I Create, So far, we have trained over 1,000 MTs, while 30,000 have gone through our entrepreneurship awareness program. Over 6,500 have participated in full entrepreneurship workshops and more than 1,400 have been successful in starting their entrepreneurial journey, whether it is in tailoring, catering, fast food joints, repair shops, beauty parlours or maid service.

A participant gives business plan presentation as part of Entrepreneurship Training Program

unemployment in the lower strata of society, US-based Harsh Bhargava and his wife Aruna decided to start an organization in India that would help create jobs through entrepreneurship training. As part of Harvard Business School Alumni outreach program, Harsh had volunteered to help Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and was convinced that the NFTE training would also help disadvantaged Indian youth to become entrepreneurs and acquire employability skills. He adopted the NFTE program for India to start I Create in 1999. While the plan was to initiate the first I Create centre in Jaipur, their home town, dearth of funds posed a hurdle. With the help of a friend, they reached out to Dr Purnendu

I Create has helped Widening Avenue Head-quartered in Bengaluru, I Create India more than 1,400 was registered as a trust only in 2009 and participants to since then it has proliferated rapidly, starting successfully start their entrepreneurial centres in Rajkot, Hubli, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai, in addition to centres in Kolkata, journey
ulhas Kamat
CEO, I Create Jaipur and Baroda. While the prime focus is to reach out to the underprivileged class, I Create also conducts entrepreneurship courses in schools and colleges. We want to

The Journey So Far

Distressed by the high level of

Continued on page 2

InspIre > Involve > Transform

Vol 1, Issue 1, September 2011

Consulting Editor Rita Dutta Editorial Advisory Board: Hari Padmanabhan, Satish Kini, Chand Das For feedback, participation, subscription and sponsorship, write to kini.satish@gmail.com To know more about individual projects, write to: Avanti Fellows Krishna Ramkumar Email: krishna@avantifellows.org Classle Knowledge Vaidya Nathan Email: vaidya.nathan@classle.co.in I Create India Ulhas Kamat Email: icreateindia@gmail.com Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) Vedula Krishna Email: Krishna_Vedula@uml.edu IITians For ITI Pradeep Kapse Email: pkkapse@eicher.in Pan IIT Alumni Reach for India (PARFI) Kalyan Chakroborty Email: kalyan.c@parfi.org Continued from page 1

Participants of Training of the Trainer Program

change the mindset of students - to enable them to think like job creators instead of job seekers and thus attain I Creates vision of a prosperous India spearheaded by small entrepreneurs as job creators, elucidates Ashok Kalbag, General Secretary, Pan IIT Alumni.

A Sustainable Model
So, how is I Create fuelling its rapidly growing footprints across India and providing free training in 10 centres with over 1,000 master trainers? In order to create more centres and to get local communities involved in the entrepreneurship development in a costeffective manner, we follow the Modified Business Format Franchising (MBFF) model. This means a centre is sponsored by an individual or an organization which has its mission congruent to that of I Create entrepreneurship development at grassroots level, explains Kamat.

participants would receive training at Bengaluru in October. While there is no target number of centres that I Create wants to commence, it is keen on foraying into to the North East. We are looking for sponsors there, concludes Kamat. n If you want to contribute to I Create, mail Ulhas Kamat at icreateindia@gmail.com

Piloting Seed Fund Projects in Ktaka & WB

While the master trainers ignite sparks of entrepreneurship and mentor enthusiastic students to identify lucrative business ideas, lack of seed capital to start the entrepreneurial venture is often a stumbling block. While there are ample Government schemes to support such entrepreneurial initiatives, red tapism in the banking sector often leads to dissipation of participants interest. To keep the entrepreneurial spark alive, I Create has started chipping in with a seed capital of a maximum of Rs 25,000 per participant for a span of 20 to 25 months. Once I Create is convinced about the viability of the business proposal and certain about the interest of the participant steering the project, it offers a seed capital, a fund that bridges the gap between idea generation and approval of loan. Interestingly, there is no collateral against the loan. The seed fund project has been piloted in West Bengal and Karnataka with remarkable success. Most participants have re-paid loan within a few months. We have observed that if we lend Rs one lakh to one centre, we can help up to seven participants, every year, says Kamat, enthusiastically. In order to replicate the program in other centres, I Create plans to commence an angel fund that would help expand the corpus of the seed fund.

I Will Impact (IWI) is a monthly newsletter of Pan IIT Alumni that is aimed at highlighting the pioneering nation-building initiatives undertaken by its various projects: Avanti Fellows, Classle Knowledge, I Create India, IUCEE, IITians For ITI, PARFI and SEED. IWI would also underscore determined efforts of social change and significant achievements of members, provide updates on conferences and be a platform to discuss and deliberate.

To get involved in Pan IITs nation-building mission, send the following details to

How I Can Impact?

coopaniit@gmail.com

250 Partnerships and Growing

I Create has successfully crafted partnerships with 250 NGOs and educational institutes, which provide infrastructure for training and allow their members to become faculty or MTs, while all necessary technical support, quality control and coordination for program implementation are provided by I Create. In the beginning of August, this year, I Create inked an MoU with Skills for Progress (SKIP), a pan India association of private technical/ vocational training institutions. The MoU entails I Create to conduct TOT for teachers of SKIP to become MTs. The first batch of 30

Name:_________________________________ Age:___________ Alumni of : _______ Yr: ___ Mob:__________________________________ E-mail id : ______________________________ Current Location:________________________ Current Occupation: _____________________ Interested in supporting project/s: _______________________________________ I would like to 1. Volunteer time & expertise 2. Contribute cash or kind 3. Join full time 4. Any other

InspIre > Involve > Transform

Hot Seat

My Focus is on Streamlining Processes

An alumnus of the 1975 batch of IIT Kanpur, Hari Padmanabhan is the current Chairman of Pan IIT Alumni India (PIAI). In the debut issue of I Will Impact, he discusses about his involvement with Pan IIT Nation Building Initiatives, ambitious plans implemented to scale up the organization and the road ahead. Excerpts:

Conference Watch

2011 PanIIT Global Conference

Date: September 30 to October 2, 2011 Venue: New York Hilton Hotel, New York
The 2011 Pan IIT Global Conference enables you to listen to views of recognized industry leaders, attend workshops to enhance your professional skills and explore career enhancement opportunities with leading corporates.

Highlights of the conference are:

n Entrepreneurship Workshop presented with the help of experts from Babson College of Entrepreneurship & TiE. n Dr Nicholas Negroponte, Founder of MIT Media Lab, will elaborate on his vision of future technologies. n John Sexton, President of New York University and Nitin Nohria, Dean of Harvard Business School will deliberate on topics like economic turmoil in the world economic markets, business opportunities to increase bi-lateral trade between the US and India, etc. n Energy and Clean tech panel discussions by industry experts and much more. For general inquiries, comments, suggestions or feedback, please send an email to contact@iit2011.org.

Q. How and when did your journey A. The seeds of the Pan IIT Nation Building
Initiatives were sown during the global annual conclave of Pan IIT Alumni held in Mumbai in December 2006. The key note speaker of the conference and then President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam during his inspirational address urged IITians to be job creators rather than job seekers. This truly was a call for action. Soon, a group of active and involved IIT alumni collectively decided to create Pan IIT Nation Building Initiatives a platform with the objective of creating employability among the underprivileged, enhancing the quality of engineering education and training and fostering entrepreneurship. At that time, I had sold my company INSYST technologies to 3i Infotech in 2001 and was their Deputy MD. With another inspired associate, Kalyan Chakravarty (IIT Madras alumnus), who quit his job to devote his full time to this, and Ashank Desai, then Chairman of PIAI, we founded Pan IIT Alumni Reach for India (PARFI) in 2007 to impart vocational training and create employability for people at the bottom of the pyramid.

with Pan IIT Nation Building Initiatives commence?

an established brand, both nationally and globally, expectations from it were colossal. I saw the immense potential that lay in leveraging well-networked IIT alumni, which is over two lakh in number, spanning over Government, corporate and social sectors. However, there were serious challenges in the path to achieving sustainability and scalability of our initiatives. PIAI lacked a permanent, functioning organization structure that could pro-actively enable our project initiatives. This resulted in little on-going engagement between Pan IIT and the projects and infrequent and insufficient communication to the alumni about PIAIs initiatives, resulting in a large section of the alumni turning sceptical and cynical about PIAI. It was time to make lasting changes.

Q. Please list the initiatives taken A. I am focusing on streamlining the organization and chalking out a sound organisational structure. We now have well appointed offices in IIT Madras and IIT Delhi. I am first putting in place a permanent full-time organization with passionate professionals alumni who have been there and done that and others who have the right experience in our areas of endeavor. Their mandate is to pro-actively engage with our various projects to enable them to grow and scale, produce measurable results and make them financially self-sustainable. We are delighted to have Satish Kini, an alumnus of IIT Bombay, joining us as our COO, and Anil Vij, an alumnus of IIT Delhi, as the Head, Government Projects. In Chennai, we have Shanmuga Sundaram, who comes with many years of experience in the social sector to run the admin and support projects on the ground.
by PIAI after you took charge.

We want more and more IIT alumni involved, by first registering themselves on www.paniitalumni.org and making a nominal subscription of Rs1,000 to obtain the Pan IIT Alumni Card. The objective is to have a minimum of 10,000 to 20,000 subscriptions and thus raise Rs one crore to two crore annually from alumni to meet organizational expenses.

Q. When did you become a part of

That happened last year. Due to my active engagement with PARFI as its founding patron, the PIAI board elected me to take on this onerous role.

A.

PIAI board?

Q. What is in the pipeline? A. Top priority is to have an updated and

extensive database to be able to communicate effectively to all alumni. We are engaging with the various IIT alumni associations to get our message across through their activities, meets and want to be present in each IIT Alumni event, immaterial of who is organizing it. The key objective to get every alumnus involved, giving their time, the benefit of their experience and expertise, and when and where possible, to contribute monetarily, but more importantly to participate and engage and be an I in Indias nation building. n

Q. What was your assessment

A.

of PIAI and its functioning, after you took on the mantle of chairmanship?
I realised with Pan IIT Alumni being

InspIre > Involve > Transform

event UPdate
At a Glance

A Delectable Tour in Toronto

2011 IUCEE Summit Paves the Road to the Future

Besides reviewing past programs and drawing the blueprint for next years programs, the 2011 IUCEE Summit led to the forging of an MoU between IUCEE and Classle
The think tank : Krishna Vedula, Satish Kini, Ashank Desai, Ashok Kalbag and SN Zindal in an engaging discussion

IIT Alumni Canada meets Indian students visiting Canada under the MITACS Globalink Program
In the summer of 2011, close to 150 students from India went to Canada under the MITACS Globalink program. MITACS Globalink is a program funded by the Canadian federal government that facilitates a number of students from various universities in India (including the IITs) to undertake three-month summer internships at various Canadian universities. About 15 of the MITACS Globalink program students, including several of them from various IITs, attended a luncheon hosted by The IIT Alumni Canada on July 16, 2011 at the Payal Banquet hall in Mississauga. The luncheon was an occasion not only to felicitate the students, but also meet Prof SS Murthy from IIT-Delhi who is visiting Canada on a two-month sabbatical at Ryerson University and University of Waterloo. The luncheon was attended by several past presidents of IIT Alumni Canada Jogendra Singh, Mitali De, Ujjal Mondal, Surinder Sharma, and Chander Dhawan along with prominent IITians and IITAC board of directors. Also, present were Vasu Chanchlani, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, and Krish Krishnamurti, Vice President, Corporate Development & Technologies at SNC Lavalin. Vijay Aivalli coordinated the event, along with his family members. Said S Venkatesh, President, IIT Alumni Canada, The students briefed about the projects that each one of them had worked on while in Canada. It was exciting to listen to their enthusiastic descriptions of their projects that ranged from cyber security, medical imaging, astrophysics to and everything in-between.

Charting out a new path : Krishna Vedula and Vaidya Nathan seen signing a significant MoU

ver 40 members of the IUCEE College Consortium congregated at the 2011 IUCEE Summit on 1st August in Hyderabad to review the past years programs and to draw the blueprint for next years programs. The Summit was graced by leaders of Pan IIT and Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) India. From Pan IIT, Past Chairman Ashank Desai, COO Satish Kini and General Secretary Ashok Kalbag attended the program to provide guidance and assistance towards ensuring sustainability of IUCEE.

The Road Ahead

As the Summit drew to a close, several important decisions were taken that would define and impact the future programs. They were: n The need to continue the Faculty Leadership Institutes (FLIs) with modifications was taken, so that a consortium college may either host a US expert by itself or share costs with other colleges. n Allowing consortium colleges to invite US experts for conducting one-week or two-week workshops for students. n The need to select and publicize the webinars, so that faculty and students can accrue maximum benefit. n The possibility of conducting part or complete courses directly for students using the webinar approach, and restrict these to a few colleges willing to share costs. n Emphasis on building the PhD Co-guide program. n The need to facilitate consortium college leaders to attend international meetings, such as the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC) in Beijing in October, 2012, in order to share experiences with global leaders of engineering colleges. n
In rapt attention : Participants of the Summit

An Assessment of Past Programs

Formed in 2007 by leaders of engineering education and businesses from the US and India, the vision of IUCEE is to improve the quality and global relevance of engineering research and education in India by imbibing the best global practices from the US. During 2008 and 2009, over 36 professors from the US and 10 industry experts have conducted 46 workshops at Infosys campus in Mysore with 1,165 faculty members. The Indian faculty participants reciprocated by conducting more than 200 regional workshops with more than 6,000 other faculty members that impacted 1,00,000 students. During 2010, 22 Colleges hosted 37 workshops by 28 US experts and five industry experts for over 1,000 Indian faculty members. During 2011, 37 Indian colleges became members of the 2011 IUCEE College Consortium and 42 oneweek workshops were conducted across India. This year also witnessed more than 50 one-hour webinars, each attended by an average of 50 faculty and students, being conducted by the US faculty, and the development of long-term association between several consortium colleges and the US faculty, leading to a wide range of collaborations.

InspIre > Involve > Transform

FocUS

Pan IIT Alumni Reach for India:

The Unsung Mother Teresa of Pan IIT
After visiting PARFIs Gurukul in Alwar for Independence Day celebrations, anil K vij seeks more active support from IITians for PARFI, the nation-building arm of Pan IIT Alumni
n being invited by Pan IIT Alumni Reach for India (PARFI) Sevak, Kalyan Chakravarthy, on the eve of this Independence Day, I drove down to PARFI Gurukul at Alwar, Rajasthan. The centre is located off the busy NH-8, a mere threehour drive from New Delhi. I was simply not ready for what I was about to experience! The Gurukul campus provided only some basic amenities, yet it was complete in all respects. Located on a 500-square-yard plot, it is housed in a two-storeyed pucca building. It has a classroomcum-recreation room that has a carom board, a dining room, a dormitory and a kitchen. There is a TV and a DVD player, while Kalyan brought along some good DVDs and movies. This entire set-up is manned by a lean five-man team, essentially ex-servicemen.

At a Glance

under the spiralling cycle of debt. Some of them had also witnessed suicides in their villages due to poverty and debt. Barely class eight pass, none of them had driven an automotive vehicle before. Their knowledge about their country and its people was abysmal. They had no idea about who Gandhiji was, had never ever heard of Sachin Tendulkar or Shah Ruh Khan. They had not seen a TV set in their life. Yet, their heart was brimming with the hope of a better living for their family. We gave the trainees confidence-building advice in the most simplistic and rustic way. Like with one stroke of their joining the Gurukul, their journey of progress in life had begun and that there would be no dearth of jobs for them if they were hard working and honest.

IIT Kharagpur has entered into a joint venture with Mani Bhaumik Educational Foundation to start a Rs-1,000-crore research institute in Kolkata. The institute, to be located near Ruby Hospital on the EM Bypass, will be a research wing of the IIT, where students can pursue masters and doctoral programs. The Kolkata-based Mani Bhaumik Educational Foundation provides full financial support for university education of over one hundred meritorious but underprivileged students from rural Bengal. Physicist Dr Mani Bhaumik, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and Managing Trustee, Mani Bhaumik Educational Foundation, recently met chief minister Mamata Banerjee to discuss the project. A land measuring 15 acres has already been acquired for the project. -------------------------------------------On 13th August, IIT Delhi Alumni Association (IITDAA) felicitated five distinguished alumni, who have attained excellence in their respective fields, with IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumni Award for the year 2011. The awardees were: Prof DP Agrawal, MTech (1972) and PhD (1978), IIT Delhi and now Chairman, UPSC; Ashok Belani, BTech, Electrical (1980-IIT Delhi), and President, Reservoir Characterization Group Schlumberger Ltd; Patanjali Keswani, BTech Electrical (1981IIT Delhi), and now CMD, Lemon Tree Hotels; Anant Jhingran, B Tech, Electrical (IIT Delhi), is the Vice President and CTO, IBM Corporation; Dr Dinesh Manocha, BTech,CSE (1987- IIT Delhi), is with Phi Delta/ Mathew Mason as a Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina. While delivering a message to the awardees, Anil K Vij, Executive Committee, IITDAA and Head Government Projects Pan IIT, said, This award is a testimony to your extraordinary achievements and excellence in your chosen domains and your perseverance in rising above the challenges faced by you. IIT Students, IITD, IITDAA and PANIIT decidedly deserve to be guided by you in our respective endeavours.

IIT Kharagpur Collaborates To Set up Rs-1,000-Cr Research Institute

IIT Delhi Alumni Association Felicitates Alumni

Anil Vij in a motivational session with the trainees

Anil Vij with trainees on the occasion of Independence Day at PARFIs Gurukul in Alwar

The Trainees: Naive Yet Optimistic

The centre is imparting driving training to 25-odd youth, who receive training on an adjoining driving track with two Qualis. The trainees displayed great enthusiasm about their new profession. After the brief introductions, I found them sneaking out, exploring the features of our Innova car and in earnest discussions with our driver. The trainees, all Dalits, had come from diverse locations-- from Banswara in Rajasthan to Nagpur in Maharashtra. They had barely one or no other earning member in their family. Their families either possessed non-agricultural land or were landless. They had either nil income or anyway less than Rs 2,000 per month; many were deeply entrenched

Low on Cost, High on Enthusiasm

PARFI Gurukul model is a low cost, fit-for-purpose training with the cost of training benchmarked with one-months post-training salary. The Gurukul charges Rs7,500 for a full time, residential and 45day driving training with Rs 6,500 assured job at the end of it with 100 per cent micro- financing. This makes it one of the lowest cost models in the country, enabled through the people behind the project who are always high on enthusiasm, delivery and hope and bring their ex-servicemen patriotic passion to the forefront. Hats off to seven full-time young IITians team at PARFI for providing the only ray of hope in the lives of these youth and their families, integrating them with the mainstream and making definite and permanent changes in their lives! Is it too much for us IITians to provide more active support to such a noble project? I would most certainly request all IITians, whether visiting or staying in Delhi, to witness this transformation that has left an indelible impact on me. n Anil Vij is Head, Government Project, PAN IIT

My Appeal
We must provide hope to these PARFI folks to sustain the hope they are bringing in the otherwise dark and hopeless lives of our underprivileged brothers and sisters. We Pan IITians proudly strive to match Bill Gates in the professional world. Yet, why do feel shy to match the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation? What is our contribution and support? To contribute to the project, write to Anil Vij at anil.vij@gmail.com

InspIre > Involve > Transform

acHieverS
Heart-Felt
On the occasion of Janmashtami, Mumbai-based Gautam Saha, an alumnus of IIT Bombay, has penned this devotional poem

What Can I Give You in Return, O Krsna?

IIT Delhi Alumnus Receives IEEE Graham Bell Medal

r Arogyaswami Paulraj, an dramatically increases the IIT Delhi alumnus, has been performance of broadband awarded the Institute of Electrical wireless systems, and now and Electronics Engineers forms the core technology in (IEEE) Alexander Graham Bell latest WiFi and WIMAX systems. Medal - the organizations Dr Paulraj joined the Indian Navy most prestigious honor. He is at 15 years through the National r arogyaswamI currently emeritus professor of Defence Academy, Kharakvalsa paulraj Electrical Engineering at Stanford and served the Navy for 30 University. years. In India till 1991, he was Dr Paulraj has been bestowed with known for pioneering the development this prestigious technical award for his of military sonars. He also served as the pioneering contributions to the application founding director for three major labs of multi-antenna technology to wireless in India - Center for Artificial Intelligence communications systems. He is credited and Robotics, Center for Development of with pioneering Multiple In Multiple Out Advanced Computing and CRL Central (MIMO), a wireless technology that Research Labs of Bharat Electronics. n

O Krsna, what is Your heavenly pastime? In Vaikuntha, how do You perform activities sublime? When do You work, when do You enjoy leisure? When do You rest or enact activities of pleasure? To provide every creature his daily food, You never forget O Vishnu, You ensure that everyones material needs are fully met Be it an ant, a whale, or any other being of material creation Each and every one is looked after by Your grace and disposition Whereas every creature has assumed a material body due to past karma Your body is spiritual, O Narayan, because you are beyond kaal and karma Kaal and karma are both under the supreme control of Your holy writ You are the master and last refuge of both matter and spirit You had descended to earth, O Krsna, O supreme Lord and Master By Your own internal potencies, of the various devtas the only Controller Though at such times, You occasionally assume a human form To give Your devotees pleasure, wonderful pastimes You do perform Wherever and whenever there is a decline in religiosity, O Lord You descend to earth, to deliver the pious, O supreme God To annihilate the miscreants, the sudarshan chakra You do empower To bless and protect Your devotees, You carry a conch and a lotus flower Me and my measly activity are all under the spell of material nature Where do I stand in comparison with even one of your heavenly feature? Whereas everyday, you care for the trillions of creatures in this macrocosm How many do I care for, even if, beside myself, I do think of any other living form Please let me offer you a small and simple bit of food So that in this world of sin and discord, I can do my bit of good This little service can never equal Yours in love or generosity Nor in any way come close to Your eternal spiritual potency Please let me wash away my mediocre thoughts and inanity By connecting with You, O Krishna, in love and service, with humility In proximity to Your Holy Name and timeless opulence So that, in this life, I can rise above my inane presence

IIT KGP Alumnus Wins Magsaysay Award

arish Hande, an alumnus Hande, who has completed his of IIT Kharagpur, has BTech(Hons) Energy Engineering been recently bestowed with in 1990 at IIT, Kharagpur, has a the prestigious Magsaysay PhD in energy engineering from Award. The 44-year-old Hande the University of Massachusetts. is renowned for bringing Interaction with American solar lights to India, where environmentalists and visits to the harIsh hande half of the households do Dominican Republic, a leader in not have electricity. He has energy initiatives in the Caribbean, been recognized for his efforts to make and Sri Lanka inspired him to establish a solar power technology accessible and small scale solar installation in India.He affordable to the poor. With the help thus founded SELCO in Bengaluru. Besides of a social enterprise, Solar Electric affordable renewable energy services to Light Company India (SELCO) that he poor villagers, SELCO also offers doorstep established in 1995, he has lit up over financing and services. n 1,25,000 households.

Picture of The Month

on a mission: IITians showing solidarity with Anna Hazares fight for a strong Jan Lokpal Bill at Delhis Ramlila Ground