Mr. Suhas Gopinath, now aged 24, a resident of Bangalore and hails from a middle class family, where his father was a defense scientist. At the age of 14 he was recognized as the worlds youngest certified Professional Web-developer through his project coolhindustan.com. Mr. Gopinath was very assertive to be an entrepreneur and wanted to encourage the youth, he setup Globals Inc, in the year 2000 at San Jose, California as the laws in India did not allow him to setup a company in the country as he was still minor. From then Globals has drastically grown as a Multi-national IT consulting company focussed on Web, e-Commerce and Mobile Solutions.
Category: Motivations
The Infosys Science Prize
The Infosys Prize – Securing India’s scientific future
The Infosys Prize endeavors to elevate the prestige of scientific research in India and inspire young Indians to choose a vocation in scientific research.
The Infosys Science Foundation, a not-for-profit trust, was set up in February 2009 by the management of Infosys. The Foundation instituted the Infosys Prize, an annual award, to honor outstanding achievements of researchers and scientists across five categories : Social Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering and Computer Sciences, Mathematical Sciences and Life Sciences, each carrying a prize of rupees 50 Lakh. The award intends to celebrate success in scientific research and stand as a marker of excellence in these fields.
A jury, comprising eminent leaders in each of these fields, evaluates the achievements of the nominees against the standards of international research, placing the winners on par with the finest researchers in the world.
Categories
The award will be presented annually in five categories:
Physical Sciences – Physics, Chemistry and Earth Science
Mathematical Sciences – Mathematics and Statistics
Engineering and Computer Science – All branches of Engineering
Life Sciences – Biology, Biotechnology, Medicine and Agriculture
Social Sciences* – Economics, History, Sociology, Anthropology and
Political Science
*Under the Social Science category, 2 subjects will be considered per Prize year. In 2010, work in the areas of Sociology and Anthropology will be considered.
Mother Earth
Mother Earth believes in satisfying it’s customers while nurturing the environment and building on the strengths of marginalised rural communities to include them in sustainable livelihoods and overall prosperity.
Mrs. Gita Ram, co-founder, craft activist, mentors the company, and has been its principal social investor providing it with loans of upto 150,000 USD without collateral, at less than market interest. She is the leading light in Industree’s quest to uphold a tradition of volunteerism. This is essential to keep the balance of this venture that hopes to benefit the economically under privileged, through a for profit enterprise where often the discrepancies of free market wages, between urban management and rural producers can be quite extreme.
Neelam Chhiber is co-founder Industree, a social enterprise that connects rural producers to urban markets. Industree has obtained investment from Future Group, India’s largest retail chain to build a retail brand called Mother Earth, which is part producer owned, 14%. Industree is converging backwards to create a complete solution to fair and equitable distribution of returns from consumer to producer.
Agricultural Innovator
GV RAMANJANEYULU
Agricultural Innovator
BY SOPAN JOSHII
In about 20 lakh acres of farms in 4,000 villages of Andhra Pradesh, farmers today manage crop pests without spraying pesticides.
GV Ramanjaneyulu, 37, took premature retirement from the Directorate of Oilseeds Research in Hyderabad. “I didn’t want to wait till my retirement to do the right thing,” he says.
Indo-US Joint Clean Energy R&D Center
Indo-US Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC) is proposed to be established under a joint initiative between the Government of India and the US Department of Energy. The center is envisaged to undertake collaborative R & D to advance clean energy technologies by teams of scientists, technologists and engineers from India and the United States, and related joint activities, needed to deploy clean energy technologies. To achieve this objective, the Indo-US JCERDC will support multi-institutional network project costs using public-private partnership model of funding support.
The initial priority areas under the Indo-US JCERDC are:
- Solar Energy (in collaboration with the National Council for Solar Growth)
- Second Generation Biofuels
- Energy Efficiency of Buildings
Letters of Intent to participate in the JCERDC are invited from Indian academia, research institutions and industry partners together in a consortia mode.
ELIGIBLE GROUPS
- Awards will be made to a consortium with the knowledge and experience to undertake first-rate collaborative research programs. These consortia will leverage existing resources and physical infrastructure.
- The application should be jointly submitted by the U.S.-Indian researchers who would be members of the Consortia based on their mutual interests, priorities and strength.
On receiving the LOI, a prestakeholder meet will be organized, following which the final call for proposal will be made. Funding will be competitively awarded through a joint review process, solely on the basis of the merit and feasibility of the final proposal.
The program will be coordinated by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India and administered through the binational Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (lUSSTF).
Submission Deadline: 26 September 2010
For more details visit: www.indousstf.org
Eureka!2010, Asia’s largest business plan competition
The Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Bombay presents Eureka!2010, Asia’s largest business plan competition as certified by CNN. With a total prize money of Rs. 21 lakhs (50000 USD), free legal and financial consultancy, intensive mentoring and an online platform to provide solutions to participants’ queries, Eureka! 2010 is truly a road to enterprise.
To register, visit: www.ecell.in/eureka
The winners of Eureka! 2010 will get a chance to pitch their idea in front of a panel of investors and Venture Capitalists from Indian Angel Network and Mumbai Angels. All the participants will also get access to the Knowledge Library of the Mentor Square by registering for Eureka! 2010. IBM has associated with Eureka! 2010 and will provide IBM softwares to the qualified teams for development, testing & training purposes, through the worldwide Academic Initiatives program. The top 50 teams will be provided intensive mentoring for a period of more than 6 months with free Financial and Legal Consultancy by Firms like Nishith Desai Associates, Sand Hill Counsel and India Nivesh. The final winners will avail extensive mentorship program by Mentorsquare for 3 months.
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Team E-Cell
www.ecell.in
Pranav Mistry
Pranav (Sixth Sense) Mistry strikes again ! Truly inspiring
Part 1
Part 2
Call for R&D Proposals
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) proposes to strengthen the interface between industry, R&D Establishments and academic institutions and provide support for the journey from proof of concept to commercialization. Support could be 50% of eligible project cost or higher, if justified.
Last Date for submission of Applications is 30 September 2010
More information on their website www.dsir.gov.in
Small Business Innovation Research Initiative
Call for Proposals – 14th Batch
The Department of Biotechnology invites proposals frm Bio-tech Industries / Entrepreneurs for innovative early stage concepts for commercialization.
Last date for submission of proposals is 15th October 2010.
Visit their website at www.dbtindia.nic.in or www.sbiri.nic.in
Refrigerator without Electricity
Former President APJ Abdul Kalam called him a ‘true scientist’. Mitticool, a clay refrigerator that works without electricity had turned the world’s attention to its creator Mansukhbhai Prajapati, a craftsman based in Gujarat.
Presenting the national award to Mansukhbhai in 2009, President Pratibha Patil appreciated his work and asked him for a Mitticool. Scientists and journalists from across the world have visited his unit to see how he makes eco-friendly products at a low cost. A school drop-out, he has achieved a feat that many in the world envy today.
The simple and unassuming Mansukhbhai is not keen on money. His ambition is to make more low-cost and eco-friendly products for the masses. “A good majority of Indians cannot buy a fridge as it is expensive. Besides this, electricity bills and maintenance cost is also high. Mitticool is an eco-friendly product which has no maintenance costs. It also retains the original taste of vegetables, says Mansukhbhai who has sold 1500 units so far.
“I failed in the tenth standard. But I was not disappointed as I knew that I was capable of making something new,” says Mansukhbhai who holds a patent for Mitticool.
People who considered him as incapable, now look up to him. They say, “you are the pride of our community!” He has been popularising earthen products since 1988. The only drawback for him is the lack of stores to sell them. The products are mostly available in Gujarat and in some stores in Mumbai and Pune only. Besides, the low-cost fridge, he has developed a water filter, non-stick tava and a pressure cooker all made of clay. And he has many more innovative ideas.
Enterprisers.in 