Gimme $2, need to buy BEAR.....the Economics of $1 or $2

what is the value of $1 or $2 ?
$2 can buy you a BSC stock. (more on this later..)
$2 does not for sure buy you a gallon of gas in US. It is really exciting to monitor how the financial market has been unfolding this year. Google is down to 420 after hitting the roof at around $600. Bear Stearns reduced to 10% of its value in a matter of 4-5 days..and wow!..a stock of BSC for $2 ?? :-)

I paid nearly $30 per year to get a year's of engineering education at Delhi College of Engineering, now ranked the #2 engineering school after IITs in India, which means $2.5 per month for my education!...is that's cheap..

Billions of people earn $1 per day and have to pay for their food, clothing and shelter..

It takes $2 for me to take a T from Central Square to Kendall square..It takes $1 to buy a month's food for a starving child in certain poor countries.
It takes $1.25 to buy coke from a soda machine.

Think global!.. :-)..think the global value of your $...and see how a $ can change someone's life...!

Life is a journey...

3 years back, i was in new delhi airport, travelling from boston to delhi, and was excited to be pichked up at the airport by my father(papa), my elder brother. papa had rented a car and it zipped zoomed through the city traffic to reach our home in sarita vihar, where my mom was waiting for me. after many years, i had eatten food cooked by my mother, and that too in our home in india.
today, i am here again, same airport, the look and feel of which has not changed much. it is still under construction, and i see plans of the new airport all around the airport waiting area. india is changing.

My brother and sister are arriving shortly by another flight, via amsterdam. Today again, someone might be there to pick us up...but this time, I know my father will not be there to greet us... he died on February 3rd 2008 in Patna, his home city, the place where he lived for years, he went to high school, and the place where he even constructed a house. He is waiting for us to perform the last rituals, and wish him farewell for the heavenly trip..

I have spent 23 years of my life living very closely with my parents. My father was a role model for all of us, a brilliant man, with a degree in engineering, law and management, he worked as a General Manager of a public sector engineering company. Thanks to the engineering interest in the family, my brother and I opted for engineering careers as well. My father always wanted me to go for a masters degree, and it would have been a proud moment for him to see his son graduate.
I begin a new journey in life, but this time the hand that was there to hold me, and not let me fall, is not there...

Innovation and Building an Enterprise

Building a successful new enterprise requires understanding of innovations, and how to strategize the launch of the new product/service. There are 2 kinds of innovations - "sustainable" and "disruptive" innovations. Sustainable innovations deal with creating products that are targeted towards a profitable market already tapped by a competitor. As mentioned by Christensen, a new company very rarely ventures into a sustainable market. If it does, then it faces fierce competition by the incumbents and is either bought over or is wiped out, because it is not able to sustain the competition. "Disruptive" innovation on the other hand, could be targeted towards "low-end" market or "new-market" where there is scope for new consumption, or in my own words, unchartered territory.

The case to be discussed tomorrow seems to be a simple, yet aligned towards innovation strategy, and should help in formalizing the base, already established as part of Irving's class.

Business at Bottom of the pyramid

Based on the per capita income, there are 3 layers of consumers in the market. BBOP deals with business strategies, and marketing of products to consumers who earn less than $5 a day. Interestingly the course covers case studies based on success/failure stories of companies in India, China, Mexico, Nigeria...The course is being taught by Kasturi Rangan and Michael Chu. The course started with a brief introduction of the course, and then a case about Elecktra, which dealt with selling consumer electronics to developing countries. A few interesting facts about Elecktra, the consumer credit was made at a 45% p.a. rate, and the Return on Equity(ROE) was about 20%..With an ROE of 20+%, it can be safely stated that the venture is profitable..but wait..how about the social value ?? and yes, the company did created tremendous social value by selling products that paved the path of competition, and improvement of the lives of the natives of the community they targetted. Now, is that a social enterprise..? :-)...keep tuned in , and you will hear more about Business at the Base of Pyramid.

A jalebi day...

After an early morning train ride from NY Penn Station to South station, Boston, I spent time walking around deserted MIT campus, followed by a refreshing walk around Charles river. I guess today, this was not enough, and I decided to walk up to Harvard Square. Bombay Club's lunch buffet offered great choices for me, and I relished the dosa and sambhar, chicken curry, rice and how can I forget - jalebis. If you do not know what jalebis are, check this out - jalebi. Wow that was lot of food after almost 2 hours of walk, and off I was back to home...! It looks like tonight and tomorrow morning, boston is going to receive about 8-10 inches of snow..that's makes this a really snowy winter..and till now I am still enjoying it..let's see for how long.! Almost want to hit the NH mountains, with someone who can teach me how to ski..or if not, atleast I can do tubing.

24.....36.......48...time is precious

SDM January session is on, and it is one of the most interesting phases of the program. Design Challenge 1 is on, and teams are busy designing their robots, and programming them to do some dancing, movement and race. Look forward to the January 11th finale. For th entire new SDM cohort, sleep becomes a privilege, as they churn the design challenge and look at it top to bottom, in an attempt to come up with their best response.

Today, I was put to shame by someone who does 36hrs of continuous work without an ounce of sleep :-), and does it once a week !...and yet today when I met him, he was bubbling!...So what's the secret of pressing on the gas, and running full steam ?!..

Reflections on Year 2007 - #1 - Innovation

It was a year full of events, happenings that I will remember for the rest of my life. There were some moments to cherish, and some forgettable, eventful enough, that it has given me food for thought and experience to deal with similar situations, should they arise in the future. I have listed a few categories worth mentioning here..

Innovation
I was blowing full steam in Fall 2007, with a heavy course load and a bunch of activities outside of my class/assignment/project time. My team URHealth successfully submitted executive summary documents for MIT-1K, and couple of submissions were made for certain other events. MIT, as remarked and known by many, is the hallmark of key innovation in various sectors. As a result of this, and also as a result of misconstrued interpretation of "innovation", when people hear about certain ideas, they expect those ideas to be inventions or new innovations...a usual comment is, hasn't it been done before ? This question truly means, that people harbor the notion, and run their thoughts around creating a market by going for brand new ideas. Ideas/Products with certain twist in the realm of strategy, market, needs or the architecture itself can be form classic cases of successful innovation attempt. My goal for year 2008, is to emphasize more on strategy and driving forces which would result in successful implementations of the innovative ideas/solutions I have with me.

I surely liked Technology Based Business Transformation (taught by Prof. Irving Wladawsky Berger), which was liked by invariably everyone who had opted for the class.