| May 06, 2009 Search Expert System Engine based on computational knowledge theory, a web site known as Wolfram Alpha, will be available by end of this month. preview: computational knowledge based search engine AIR BIKE WITHOUT GAS: May 01, 2009 Indian engineering college students built a motor bike which runs by air pressure. It is completely pollution free. TieCON 2009 - World's largest Entrepreneur Gathering@Santa Clara Convention Center March 08, 2009 Looks to me that this year convention will be more fun and good learning experience. I was attending this for last 8 years. This became a family to me. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn Chairman & CEO is already confirmed key note speaker at TieCON 2009. This event is scheduled from May 15 - 16, 2009. Please see the details below. MIT spotlight on Indian innovation Em-Tech, MIT’s first-ever emerging technologies conference in Delhi. Jason Pontin, editor-inchief of MIT’s Technology Review which organises Em-Tech, says there is a “rising sense of opportunity and innovation” and this is why the meet will “spotlight innovations from large multinationals as well as emerging companies based in India.” It all adds up. According to a report by Dow Jones VentureSource, $874 million was invested in 80 deals in India in 2008. It was a thumbs-up for the Indian entrepreneurial and innovative spirit. Tarun Anand, whose three-yearold startup Perfect Future aims to make primary education less boring, says, “While investors have withdrawn their funds in startups globally, they haven’t touched their funds in India.” Anand, who studied at IIT Kanpur and worked at Microsoft, returned to India to launch his own start-up. It provides a host of services, such as online student assessment tools and interactive question-answer exams on the web and mobiles. Today, it’s being used by 80,000 Indians. The West, agrees Anand, is looking at India with growing interest. So are Indians abroad. Entrepreneur Sanjay Swamy describes being struck by the widespread use of the mobile in India on a visit home from Silicon Valley. He asked an autorickshaw driver the time. The driver consulted his mobile phone. “That’s when I was struck by how widespread and ubiquitous the mobile phone had become in India and how it could be leveraged for versatile applications such as mobile payments which are used on prepaid connections,” recalls Swamy. His startup, mCheck, has two million users today. It would never have happened had he stayed on in the US, he says, where there is no need for prepaid mobile connections. “It’s the challenges that are present here which force you to think of ways to innovate and that can be done only if one is living here.” Some do it from afar. Vikram Kumar lives in the US but his start-up, Doctor Kares, offers Indians less invasive alternatives to surgery. He says the best ideas are born outside billiondollar laboratories and classrooms. “We need academic environments that allow students to dabble in fields outside their specialization, government funding that’s visionary and hassle-free, early stage private investors, and inspirational stories about how innovation can change lives,” says Kumar. But how best to take technology to the common man? Pontin says that “technology holds the promise to help us work more efficiently, improve our health, and restore our environment. (But) none of that is possible unless the technologies make their way out of labs and corporate settings and into our everyday lives.” But can India make a habit of producing world-class technology? Not really, says Harish Mehta, chairman of Onward Technologies Ltd. “In a country where doing business is so difficult, how can we expect innovations to flourish?” Mehta, who’s also a member of Indian Angel Network, a group of investors keen to invest in early stage businesses, adds that many ideas come up but there haven’t been “any breakthrough innovations.” But many believe Mehta is unnecessarily pessimistic. Anand says, “First, we should have technology which is Indiaclass before it becomes worldclass.” Swamy says we have to re-define ‘breakthrough’. A solar-powered lantern produced in India could be a breakthrough innovation for other developing parts of the world, he points out, adding “India is the perfect test lab for the world.” CHANGING LIVES A sample of some technological innovations which are listed by MIT’s Technology Review 2009 which may change our lives HAN CAO | $100 Genome This chip will make it possible for an entire human genome to be read within eight hours for $100 STUART PARKIN | Racetrack Memory. A memory chip with the huge storage capacity of a magnetic hard drive, the durability of electronic flash memory, and speeds superior to both VIVEK PAI | HashCache A cache which will help internet users store frequentlyaccessed web content on a local hard drive. Saves the trouble of using up low bandwidth ADAM CHEYER | Intelligent software assistant. It’s like a virtual assistant and would help complete tasks, rather than just finding information DONALD SADOWAY | Liquid battery. This simple battery made with active liquid material will store solar power; is cheaper than today’s batteries --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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