My Experiments with Life - Nandu Muralidharan

Videographic: Asia's growing economic power

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:42:00 +0000

Checkout this interesting video from Economist about Asia's growing economic power and clout. Asia is regaining the economic dominance it enjoyed a millennium ago - but it still has some way to go

Check out my earlier blog about global power transfer from west to east. This video reinforces the same message.

Key stats on state of Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:09:00 +0000

Here's an interesting video on consolidated stats of internet usage!

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Crystal Ball - Global power transfer from West to East

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:38:00 +0000

For those who have not read my earlier post in this series check out 'Crystal Ball - Looking back at the first decade of this Millennium'.

One of the key mega trends that got started last decade is the global power transfer from West to East. This is a gradual and long drawn process expected to last though a good part of this century. It will play a key role in shaping the political and economic equations across the world in this century. This is a common phenomenon that has occurred several times over the course of history. Pre-industrial age India and China were the economic super powers and contributed a good chunk of world GDP. They attracted traders and merchants from far and wide. Sometime during the 17th Century the global power center got shifted from Asia to UK & Western Europe due to the advent of industrial age, colonization and increased trade with their global colonies. Towards the second half of 18th century America started developing rapidly and took over the mantle of global super power around middle of 19th century right after world war II.

America has been at the top of the world for the last 6+ decades. At the beginning of the last decade (Year 2000) America was the unquestionable super power. However during the decade the tide has started to shift and some of the major developments in the last decade - dot com crash, 911, Iraq/Afghan wars and lastly 2009 economic downturn etc have weakened America and is threatening its standing as a super power.While America was fighting some of these battles, China and India grew rapidly and have established themselves as global manufacturing & Knowledge Services hubs. Both these countries are currently on a multi-decade steep growth curve(>8%) and are starting to become global economic power houses. They have ramped up their military capabilities, are nuclear capable and currently locked in a space race similar to US/USSR in the 50's and 60's. The global stature of both the countries has increased over the past decade and China more specifically has started to assert itself in the global politics. China economy is expected to become the largest economy in the world by 2035 and India is expected to overtake US to become second largest economy by the middle of this century.

This global power shift is inevitable. While America may reinvent itself through innovation it can only delay the process. In any case I expect this power transfer to complete by the middle to later half of this century. I'm not suggesting that America is going to decline. America has been and will be a great country however India and China due to the sheer size of their population & the resultant human capital will grow past America. In the knowledge age global power is directly proportional to the economic power of a country. Unfortunately for America it is faced with multiple fires at this crucial time - Fixing unsustainable lifestyles and reducing its ecological footprint, Unstable financial systems, Reducing working age population coupled with increasing dependents, burgeoning debt(Expected to cross $20T by 2020), Imminent Social security & Healthcare crisis etc. How well America succeeds in fixing some of these critical issues and re-invents itself is going to determine when the power transfer would occur and how smooth it would be.

One of the key lessons from history is that these power shifts are typically accompanied by conflicts & tensions. Given the global warming, shortage of resources etc that are expected to impact human race in this century I expect this process to be rough. I hope west will recognize this imminent power shift and make this a smoother process. Anyways in time we will know the answer as we experience this power transfer in our lifetimes.

I look forward to your comments and views on the above post. Thank you!

Crystal Ball - Looking back at the first decade of this Millenium

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:15:00 +0000

Few weeks back we ended the first decade of this Millennium. I wanted to take some time to reflect on the last decade and look at some of the macro trends that shaped the world. This post has been pending for more than a month now, I finally managed to take some time off to pen my thoughts.

Last decade was a fast paced, action packed one that brought about fundamental changes in the way the world operates, transformed global power equations and created ripples across the entire spectrum(Individuals, corporations, industries, countries etc) on a global scale. I feel that last decade was one of the defining moments of history. Some of the macro trends that started in last decade will continue for a good portion of this century and will shape the direction the world and the human race is headed in this century.

Without much ado here are some of the key trends that shaped the last decade. This is not a comprehensive list. I've tried to generalize and look at a very high level across multiple dimensions.

Global power transfer from West to East
Sustainability/Go Green gathers momentum
Terrorism takes the center stage
Internet goes mainstream
World goes Mobile
Virtual is the new normal
The field of Medicine is at the cusp of transformation

This the first of a series of crystal ball posts. Over the next few weeks I plan to dive into each of the above topics at length and discuss my thoughts/views in separate posts.

Pls share your thoughts on the above and feel free to suggest any macro trends that i might have missed out. I look forward to your comments.

Stanford Technology Ventures: Classroom experiments in Entrepreneurship

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:56:00 +0000

Check out this brilliant video! Excellent example of out of the box thinking. The winning team's solution is truly genius!!

Description:
If you had five dollars and two hours, what would you do to make as much money as possible? In this clip, STVP Executive Director Tina Seelig recalls a classroom exercise in creative thinking and entrepreneurship that posed this quandry to student teams. The results were manifold and varied, often taking advantage of locally needed services, niche markets, and valuable time. These in-class experiments contain many valuable lessons on creative thinking in the start-up realm, including skills, ideas, and innovation as assets that always lend value.

Google Wave: My First Impressions

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:28:00 +0000

Google wave has been one of the hottest topics in net for the last few weeks. Earlier this month when Google opened up Wave for demo most people in the tech world were anxious to check out this cool tool. Lucky me - one of my friends @kuppurao sent me an invite few days back and I finally got the glimpse of the much hyped Wave. Overall it's a cool & geeky tool with a lot of great features. However it's too geeky for common man. When I first looked at the Wave I had no clue on how to use it. I rarely go through a manual to learn a product, I mostly play around and learn the tool. This is one of the very few tools and in fact the first Google product where i had to go through help files, demo videos etc to use this!!! After around 2-3 days(7-8hrs of hands on time) of playing around/learning I am finally beginning to understand Wave and appreciate it.

Here's are some of the things I learnt from using Wave:

Each Wave is equivalent of an email. Only difference, it's dynamic and real-time where multiple people can collaborate with each other(Its a marriage between IM and Mail with few productivity apps thrown in the mix).

Similar to emails each conversation will be a separate Wave thread. You can tag the Waves(similar to tagging in Gmail) and organize them into directories for easy reference.

In traditional email you only include people or distributions lists in the recipient list. In Wave you can include Bots(robots used for automation) as well in the recipient list. Its essentially an automated program added as participant in Wave. Example of bots: if you enter any address it will automatically show it on a map, enter stock ticker and it will fetch stock price and display etc. Btw any bots that you are using will have to be part of your contact list. You need to first add them to contact list and then include it as wave user for using it.

You can embed/include gadgets into the Wave. Example: Video conference, White board, Maps, Polls etc. All the people in the Wave can utilize and collaborate with these gadgets.You need to install the gadgets in Wave first before using it.

You can only communicate with other people that have Google Wave account. If you have only few friends in your contact list you will not be able to use it effectively. As you get more and more of your friends/colleagues in Wave and start using this as a replacement for email and IM, you will start realizing the true power & benefits of Wave. This is very similar to Telephone - When it was invented and only few people had access it wasn't of much use. When world wide connections were established and millions of users were added it enabled real-time communication and its power was unleashed. It led to exponential increase in productivity.

Here are my thoughts on Wave:

This tool is few years ahead of its time. I expect it to take around 3-5yrs before this becomes mainstream.

From an end user perspective this is one of the most complex Google products i have seen to date. Still trying to come to grips with the fact that i had to learn to use a Google product!! Google has to simplify this and make it more easy for common man to understand in order to get them to use it.

This would be a great tool in an enterprise where teams can use this to collaborate amongst themselves (Ex: Creation a document/proposal, Working on presentations, brainstorming ideas etc.). I expect adoption to be led by enterprises than consumers.

Google needs to include a standard set of bots, gadgets etc that can be used from get go. In addition to this they should have an app directory/store (Similar to Apple. I heard its coming down the line) where users can browse and install whatever apps/bots they need.

Google needs to automatically identify your friends/connections thru social networks and suggest to add them to your contact list. It should focus on getting more people into your contact list without much effort from you.

Adoption of Google wave is going to be gradual until it reaches a certain threshold(no of active users) when it will take off and you will see massive adoption. Also lot of the features in Wave will be replicated in competitor products and as people become more familiar with them the usage will grow rapidly.

Overall to sum up while I was initially not very impressed with Wave, once I got hang of it I am beginning to appreciate it. I am impressed and awed with the foresight and vision of its creators to have thought out and developed such a complex product. This is a disruptive innovation from Google that will eventually kill our email system in its current form. Google has once again proved that its one of the very few companies in the world that has made creation of disruptive technologies/products a habit!

If any of you are on Wave pls include me in your contact list and you can start using this as a mode of communication with me. I hope to use it actively. My Wave ID is Shogun1947. Pls share your thoughts and experiences with Google Wave. I would love to hear them!

Here are some useful links if you are trying to learn/use Wave:

Google Wave guide

Google wave extensions list

How a flu invades your body!

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:22:00 +0000

Check out the attached video. Its an very interesting visual representation of how a virus enters our body and spreads. All the stuff shown in the video happens in a split second!

Morgan Stanley Economy & Internet Trends

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Here's an excellent presentation from Morgan Stanley on economy and internet trends. One of the key trends predicted here is on mobile internet. Iphone has dramatically revolutionized mobile internet. You can see the steep increase in mobile internet adoption, usage and bandwidth consumption since the launch of Iphone. Going forward mobile is going to drive internet penetration into developing countries and the day is not far when mobile internet usage will be higher than desktop/laptop users..

Morgan Stanley Economy Internet Trends

Hawaii trip Fotos - Maui & Haleakala National Park

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:45:00 +0000

Hawaii trip Fotos - Big Island & Volcanoes National Park

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:42:00 +0000

Hawaii trip Fotos - Oahu

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:35:00 +0000

The Science of Motivation

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:53:00 +0000

Here's an excellent speech made by Dan Pink in TED regarding motivation. Motivation is a key aspect of our lives that keeps us going and egging us on to achieve greater heights. Dan talks about the shift that's happening in the motivation approach in corporate world from the carrot and stick approach of the industrial age to intrinsic motivation of the knowledge age. Intrinsic motivation taps on our inner desire to do things because - they matter to us, we like it, they are interesting and its part of something more important. The key building blocks of intrinsic motivation are:

Autonomy - Urge to direct our own lives
Mastery - The desire to get better and better at something that matters
Purpose - The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

I tend to fully agree with him based on my experience. While compensation is an important part and an employee needs to be adequately compensated to retain him, intrinsic motivation is a key aspect to keep them motivated and to enable them to perform effectively. In the corporate world this is achieved by setting clear goals, empowering and enabling individuals to perform at their best.

Pace of Life!!

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:28:00 +0000

I came across this excellent article in WSJ - Not so fast regarding the pace of life. This article is bang on target and really got me thinking. So here I am with this blog to air my views!

Technology has made phenomenal strides in the last century with the advent of phones, television, computers and finally the internet. These inventions have been very beneficial in connecting us, bringing us closer by shrinking distances & breaking down geographical barriers. Never in the human history have we been more connected, updated on global events and in touch amongst ourselves than in the last few decades. However one of the key unintended consequence of these inventions is, they have been shrinking time and increasing the pace of our lives. I am sure most of us would be feeling this in our day to day life. Each passing day and each new technology/gadget competes for a slice of our time. It invariably eats into our personal time earmarked for us, our family and friends.

One of the key shifts that occurred along the way is that the definition of Speed has changed from sense of urgency to efficiency/speed of doing things. This puts a lot of stress on individuals. We are constantly racing the clock with too many things to be completed (both personal and official) in too short a time. Add in the peer pressure, competition and distractions it takes stress to stratospheric levels and we are always out of time. We hardly get time to take a breather, relax and enjoy the simple things in life. By the time we look back and realize this, our life would have passed by on the fast track and you end up wondering what you did with your life. Infact the last decade of my life seems to have vanished before I knew!!

Most of the technologies today are very addictive. We cannot imagine a life without our cell phones, TV's and computers/internet. The addiction has reached levels where you become nervous/restless when you don't have these gadgets around. We are unsure of what to do or how to pass time. If you look back in the not too distant past(10-15yrs) most of us didn't have phones, computers, internet etc. We had a much more balanced and happier life, spending time with our family and friends and doing things that mattered most to us. While tech allows us to be more connected we seem to be losing the personal touch.

One of the biggest things that worries me is that our pace of life is increasing each day/year. Continuous improvement seems to be the order of the day - We are constantly required to do things faster, in lesser time, more efficiently. We seem to be caught in this vicious cycle and are constantly pressed for time and stressed out. Is this pace of life sustainable? Is it possible to stall or reduce the pace of life? What can we do to claim our life back and slow down the pace? Will it ever be possible to be fully cut off from this reality - No Phones, TV, Internet, newspapers etc and not having to worry about doing this or that on-time(Not retirement ofcourse!)?

I seem to have more questions than answers. I would like to hear your thoughts/experience and any answers you might have for some of the questions I have raised above. Thank you for taking time to read thru this and look forward to your comments.

Gartner Hype Cycle 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:54:00 +0000

Analyst Firm Gartner has released its latest Hype cycle (2009) detailing out some of the latest technology trends for 2009 and beyond. Pls check out the same.

Source of the above images: Gartner, RWW

You could click on the images to get a better resolution version. When i upload these images it gets a little blurry in blogger.

For more details pls refer the following links:

Gartner Hype Cycle 2009: Web 2.0 Trending Up, Twitter Down

Gartner's 2009 Hype Cycle Special Report Evaluates Maturity of 1,650 Technologies

Circle of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Whew! At last am back blogging after a couple of months break. Last couple of months has been crazy with lots of travel & work. Finally i managed to take some time away to blog.

I would like to cover a very interesting concept called circle of life in this post. This came up during a discussion i had with a colleague few weeks back. Given the hectic lifestyles we are in we were discussing on a variety of topics on time management, priorities in life, work-life balance etc. He drew out this very interesting picture which i have elaborated below.

Our life can be pictured a set of concentric circles where we as an individual are at the center with the other aspects of of life like family, work, community etc encompassing the core. For us to be successful in the outer circles we need to ensure that we have the inner circles in order and are taken care. If we dont take care of the inner circles the outer circles will eventually breakdown. The order of priority in life reduces as we go from inner to outer circles. Lets do a deep dive into each of the circles of life.

At the core of our life is us as an individual. For us to be happy and successful in life we need to first and foremost take care of our-self. There are two parts of an individual - Mind and Body. For us to lead a happy life we need to ensure fitness of both mind and Body. To keep our body fit we need to spent some time on exercise, yoga etc. Meditation is a good exercise for the mind. It helps with relieving stress and helps you focus better. Only if we are healthy and happy can we lead a good family life and professional life. So taking care of self should be the top priority.

The Second layer after self is family. We need to ensure that we are spending adequate time with our family and are taking care of them. The family can be both your immediate family(Spouse, kids) and extended family like parents, siblings etc. These are the folks that stay with us thru the ups and downs in our life. In some cases your close friends may also come in this layer. This layer is key bcos they provide us the emotional support and provide meaning to our life. Only if you have a good personal life can you have a good professional/external life. This should be the second order of priority for an individual.

The Third layer after self and family is work. For us to be able to sustain ourself and our family we need to work. Work provides a means for our livelihood. For us to be successful at work we need to ensure that our inner circles of self and family are taken care. If the inner circles are not in order or we have issues in inner circle it will automatically impact our performance at work. While you may not see the impact immdly it will definitely catch up. At the same time if we don't take care of this layer it will affect our sustenance and will impact all other aspects of life. So this should be our third order of priority.

The outermost circle of life is the community. It basically means how are we contributing to improvement of the community? For us to be successful and happy in life and live in harmony with our society we need to give back to the community/society that nurtured us. We have a moral obligation to help/contribute to the society. Here again for us to be able to effectively contribute to the community our inner circles - self, family and work needs to be in order. For example if you are having personal problems or you are out of job you cannot effectively contribute to the society. This should be our fourth order of priority.

For us to be successful and happy in life we need to ensure that we balance our life across all these four circles and we allocate time for each of these circles in the order of priority mentioned above. While we may have short term pressures preventing us from balancing our life we need to ensure that we get back to equilibrium as soon as possible to prevent long term disruption/issues in any of circles.

Pls let me know your thoughts on the same.

TED Talk: Nandan Nilekani's ideas for India's future

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sun, 17 May 2009 04:42:00 +0000

Brilliant speech by Nandan Nilekani in Ted about imagining India. Nandan is the visionary CEO of Infosys and the author of the book 'Imagining India'. As part of this speech Nandan explains four brands of ideas that will determine whether India can continue its recent breakneck progress.

Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:33:00 +0000

'Collapse' is an excellent read. In this book Jared Diamond tries to analyze what caused some of the major civilizations of the past to collapse and what can we learn from their failures. The book is divided into three major sections. In the first two sections Jared does an in depth analysis on several past and modern societies and the factors that led to their success/failure. In the final part of the book he tries to come up with some practical lessons that we can learn from the failure of past societies and how do they apply in today's context. Overall the key message from the book is that environmental destruction and unsustainable development are key reasons for failure of successful societies.

Jared picks an diverse set of societies from different geographies, time periods and cultures for this analysis. He has come up a 5 point framework for analyzing each of the societies. The key factors of the framework include environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners and society's response to environmental problems.

The book starts off with a detailed analysis of modern day Montana - considered to be one of the most natural and pristine states in US and analyzes some of the problems faced in Montana society due to mining, logging, non-native species etc. In the next few chapters he analyzes some of the past societies starting with Easter island where the natives had deforested the complete island while competing with each other to build more and bigger statues. He then briefly covers the collapse of Pitcairn/Henderson societies, Anasazi's of American southwest and Maya civilizations. This is followed by analysis of some successful societies like New Guinea, Tikopia and medieval Japan(Tokugawa era). He wraps up this section with detailed analysis of Vikings and Norse Greenland society which had failed after surviving for more than four centuries. Jared concludes that the Norse society failed due to its inability to adapt to the harsh Greenland environment, clinging on to unsustainable European lifestyle and last but not the least - not mingling and learning from the Inuits(locals).

The second section of of book covers about the challenges faced by some of the current societies and their outcomes. Jared starts off with the Rwandan Genocide and the factors leading to it. He then talks about Hispaniola and contrasts how the two countries of this island(Dominican Republic and Haiti) with the same history and environments had responded to their challenges differently leading to different outcomes - Dominican Republic is thriving whereas Haiti is on the verge of collapse. He goes on to analyze how the rapid growth and industrialization of China is impacting its environment and affects the quality of life if its people. Finally he wraps up the section with an analysis of some of the challenges faced by Australia and their response to it.

Based on the detailed analysis Jared reasons that past societies had made their disastrous decisions due to - Failure to anticipate, Failure to perceive, Rational bad behavior, Disastrous values and unsuccessful solutions. He sums up the current day scenario and details some of the actions taken by governments and corporates to protect the environment. He concludes the book on a positive note stating that the awareness of environmental issues is increasing and that governments and corporates are taking it seriously and acting on it. He is fairly optimistic about the success of our society.

Overall it was a very interesting read. Jared has done an excellent job by providing indepth details and doing a thorough analysis using a logical framework. The only comment i have is that most of the past societies he has taken are fairly small(except Mayas) and have fragile environments. However his point that environment destruction is a key factor leading to failures is valid and true. It would have been good if he had analyzed the failure of any major civilizations. Anyways this book has spurned my interest in studying the demise of major historic societies like Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Indus Valley and Chinese civilizations. If you have any pointers to these pls let me know!

Are we entering an era of pandemics?

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Swine flu has been on top of news for the last couple of weeks. It has been spreading across the globe really fast and on last count around 21 countries have confirmed cases of Swine flu and another 20 more countries had suspected cases. The speed at which this pandemic has spread across the globe has been mind-boggling. The first reported case of Swine flu was in Mexico on April 2nd 2009 and the virulent strain of the swine flu was discovered on April 16th only. Within a short span of 3-4 weeks this has spread to 40 countries across 5 continents putting millions of people at risk!

This is not the first time the world has seen pandemics. The biggest one in the not too distant past was the 1918 Spanish flu. This pandemic claimed an estimated 50 million plus lives across the globe. Some of the other significant pandemics that caused large scale impact include 1958 Asian flu,1968 Hong Kong flu etc. The more recent pandemics in this decade include SARS, Avian flu etc. Never before in the history of humans has the risk of being affected in a pandemic of a global scale that too within a short span of time been higher. The pace of spread of these pandemics gives us very less time to respond/find cures.

Some interesting patterns that i see based on these are:

a) These pandemics seems to be occuring more and more often (3 significant ones so far in this decade)

b) Most of these virulent strains are resistant to known anti-biotics and drugs and are increasing harder to cure using our current medicines

c) The speed with they spread across the globe is rapidly increasing with each outbreak

Increasing trade and travel between countries has been acting as a catalyst speeding up the proliferation of these pandemics. As global population is getting aggregated into ever-growing cities, more and more people are crammed into smaller places/close proximity. In lot of 3rd world countries the living conditions & hygene in these cities are really bad. This exponentially increases the risk of both creating a pandemic and being exposed to a pandemic. If you notice another interesting trend, more than 60% of all infectious diseases are caused by 'zoonoses' - pathogenic viruses that originate in animals and jump to humans. Some of the classic examples of zoonoses include SARS, bird flu, HIV/AIDS, West nile virus, Ebola etc. A lot of these are very lethal and we still dont have a cure yet. Zooneses are caused due to increasing human/animal interactions & clashes due to declining habitat.

Taking a step back, while we have made gaint strides in science and medicine in the last century our risk to getting exposed to these pandemics has only increased. The complexity of newer diseases has outpaced the growth of science and technology. Whether knowingly or unknowingly we may have contributed to this increased risk of pandemics thru pollution, decreasing quality of key natural resources - air/water/soil, deforestation, shinking habitats, unsustainable population levels, genetic engineering, wide spread use of harmful chemicals like pesticides/insecticides, dumping of radio-active wastes etc. These bring home a simple fact that nature is infinitely complex and sensitive, playing with it can affect us in ways beyond our comprehension. Pandemics is nature's way of re-establishing the equilibrium that was disturbed by humans. The sooner we start realizing this simple fact and start acting responsibly the better the chances of our future generations enjoying the quality of life that we enjoy today.

Here are some interesting links/articles on this topic:

Age of pandemics - Excellent article by Larry Brilliant in WSJ
Swine flu tracking map by Ushahidi.com

Pls let me know your thoughts and comments on the above!

Rapid growth in technology & innovation - What about sustainability?

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:41:00 +0000

I came across this excellent video on speed of Technology and innovation in YouTube. It really puts things in perspective of the progress we have made in the last several decades/century. 20th century has been the most event filled one in terms of technological progress, innovation & growth in the human history. Never before have we seen several disruptive innovations on a global scale (Ex: Airplane, Automobile, Television, Telephone/cell phone, Computers, Internet etc) within such a short span of time. We made huge progress in almost all fields, most notable amongst those include medicine and science. Technology and innovation has been instrumental in elevating our quality of life and life expectancy. It has shrunk time & distance and enabled us to communicate and express ourselves better. It has made the world one global village!

While there are many positives due to technology, there are also several negatives. We have developed several mass destruction weapons and biological weapons that has potential to destroy the entire life on this planet. We are our biggest enemy and our biggest risk today! In our enthusiasm to advance technology and improve our quality of life we have forgotten the whole concept of 'sustainability'. We have been abusing our planet and have been depleting its resources at a rapid pace. We have been polluting our environment, triggering off large scale environmental changes and global warming. While technology may seem to elevate our quality of life in the near term, if we don't reduce our impact on the environment and fix these issues immediately our future generations will have a drastically reduced quality of life and there is a possibility that their very survival will be threatened.

The need of the hour is to channel our knowledge and innovation to develop sustainable technologies that reduce our impact on this planet. While the last century had been focused on developing new technologies that improved our quality of life, this century should be focused on fixing these technologies, making them sustainable and reversing some of the damage we have done. In order to do that and ensure the survival of our future generations we need to drastically increase the pace of innovation of sustainable technologies.

A lot of political will and investments are required to trigger the next wave of disruptive innovation. In the last decade the awareness of our 'unsustainable development' has definitely increased. However our reaction to it has been somewhat muted and it is not coordinated. We need to shed our differences, geographical boundaries and unite as a single force. We need to act really fast and decisively for us to succeed. The next 2-3 decades will be critical and will determine the course of our future. It will be interesting to see if we can achieve this transformation in our lifetime!

Pls share your thoughts/comments on the above.

Believe in yourself!

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:00:00 +0000

One of the most widely reported and talked about story this week has been the appearance of Susan Boyle, a 47 year old singer on the show 'Britain's Got Talent'. This has been the most viral video ever with around 50 million views within 72 hours! As part of the show she attempts to sing 'l dreamed a dream' song from Les Miserables and it was a fabulous performance. The complete audience & judges were stunned and they gave her a standing ovation.

I found this video very inspirational. Here are some of the key learning's from this:

- Belief in self: In life you will always have people who would mock you and doubt your capabilities, having self-confidence and believing in yourself is very critical to success. Initially when Susan came on the stage, both judges and the complete audience were being very cynical and were mocking her. Susan did not let this affect her. She held her nerve and went on to give a fabulous performance. This was possible due to her self-confidence and belief in self.

- Appearances can be deceptive: Most of us typically tend to form opinions on a person based on looks, without interacting/making an effort to know them better. The same happened in Susan's case as well. Everyone including the judges were very skeptic about her and mocked her initially. However at the end of her performance they were stunned. Don't form opinions based on looks alone. Take time to know them better before forming opinions.

- Talent & hard work triumphs: If you have the right talent and work hard you will surely succeed irrespective of the adversities faced. Inspite of all the odds against her Susan went on to score the highest rating in the show due to her talent and hard work.

Check out Susan's performance. Its 7 minutes spent well!

Grazie Susan Boyle! from seb fil on Vimeo.

Dream of flight in a high-tech wingsuit

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:50:00 +0000

This guy rocks!!! Wingsuit jumping is the leading edge of extreme sports -- an exhilarating feat of almost unbelievable daring, where skydivers soar through canyons at over 100MPH. Ueli Gegenschatz talks about how (and why) he does it, and shows jawdropping film.

Ueli Gegenschatz takes flight just about every way a human can: paragliding, skydiving, BASE jumping (from the Eiffel Tower), and most breathtakingly by donning a wingsuit and soaring.

Internet penetration: An analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:49:00 +0000

Came across this interesting presentation by Microsoft on Internet trends in Europe. Europe & North America are leading the pack in terms of internet penetration & usage. By 2010, Internet is expected to overtake television as the primary media as Europe. Europeans are expected to spend more time in Internet than on television! This is a significant milestone in the history of Internet. With this Internet has truly gone mainstream. The trend in North America is similar.

Europe Logs On

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Asia is lagging global Internet penetration by a sizable margin. In terms of absolute number of users Asia is the highest (Thanks to China), However in terms of % penetration we are still a good 5-10yrs behind NA/Europe. Current internet penetration in Asia is in the mid-teens. Internet penetration in most major developing countries in Asia ranges between low single digits to 20%, compare this with Europe/NA where the penetration is north of 70%.

Listed below are major stumbling blocks and some of steps that could help with improving the internet penetration in Asia:

PC Penetration: PC penetration rates in Asia are very low. Of the developing countries china leads the pack with around 22% penetration but rest of the populous countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia etc are lagging behind with single digit penetration rates. Making PC's more affordable(tax holidays etc.) and enabling easy availability of loans/low interest loans etc could help with improving the penetration.

Network Infrastructure: Internet bandwidth & Broadband penetration is very low. Per capita bandwidth availability is a fraction of what you see in developed countries. Also bandwidth charges are still high. Massive increase in bandwidth capacity coupled with drastic decrease in bandwidth rates is required to increase broadband adoption rates.

Regional language support & content: Currently a major portion of internet is in English/European languages. Most of current penetration is driven by urban users who are conversant in English. As more rural population/non tech population come online, serving localized content in regional languages is critical to increase penetration and make internet more relevant to these rural users.

Computer literacy & Internet awareness: Literacy rates in most of these countries are low. Computer literacy rate is even lower. Increasing computer literacy and internet awareness is very critical. This should be become a core part of the education system and should be mandated in all schools.

Utility apps: One of the most effective ways to improve internet penetration is by making it more useful to people for their day to day functions - online utility billing/payments , Online taxes, Online registration, online accounts(Banks, Brokerage etc), online shopping etc. Both Governments and corporates should aggressively invest in internet enabling key functions. Making things useful for people and enabling them to do all their tasks from the comfort of their home is a sure fire way of improving internet adoption.

Mobile internet: Globally in the next decade mobile internet users are expected to overtake PC users. Mobile penetration in Asian countries is fairly high. Enabling utility apps(mentioned above) through mobile internet would be a good way to increase penetration. This should also be complemented by lowering of mobile data rates.

By 2020, I expect Asian internet penetration to catch up with penetration levels in NA/Europe. I also expect global internet user base to exceed 5 Billion users (4-5x today's user base).

Future of War: Is Terminator/Matrix scenario going to be a reality?

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 04:35:00 +0000

I saw an interesting TED speech by P.W. Singer about the future of warfare. As part of his speech Singer shows how widespread use of robots in war is changing the realities of combat. He shows us scenarios straight out of science fiction -- that now may not be so fictitious.

A lot of these technologies are either operational or in prototype today. The day is not far when you will see battalions of robots/machines, and warfare would be fought from remote. One of the key aspect of this robotic warfare is that the profile of soldiers is changing. Soldiers of tomorrow will be techies/nerds that will be remotely operating the robots and directing the warfare from the safety of their desks. This is like an extension from some of the video games that we see today. Some of you techies out there watch out there is an interesting career option opening up for you :) On a positive note ,this is a great innovation and will result in lesser fatalities during war.

While these technologies are great and very progressive the flip side is, these robots/devices are prone to be/will be hacked. It opens up possibilities where terrorist groups consisting of few hackers can wire the devices to attack innocents or turn against the countries that own them. It reduces the entry barrier to terrorism and will enable a very small group of terrorists to cause great damage. Size, number of people they have, funding etc. will not matter any more. Total dependence on technology is the biggest risk in this electronic warfare.

Check out the below video:

This video has got me thinking and too many questions are floating in my head - Is the scenario portrayed in Martix, terminator etc going to be reality in the not too distant future? Is there a possibility we might see it in our lifetimes(next 4-5 decades)? This is a great innovation/achievement however given our long history of conflicts and wars is this a direction we should be taking? Finally what are the options available to mitigate some of the risks caused by robotic warfare?

Pls share your thoughts on the above.

Photo Credit: joberrr

90% Tax on bonus: Are we being fair?

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:02:00 +0000

AIG bonuses has been the top issue in the news for more than a week now. Almost everyone including media, politicians, public are emotionally charged up. There is so much bad blood and negativity out there. Is all this hype & knee jerk reactions justified? I don't think so. We all seem to be carried away by this hype created/fueled by media & politicians and are failing to look at this in a bipartisan and level headed manner.

I agree that careless decisions by some of the senior banking executives led us to this current situation. In reality most of these execs who were responsible for this crisis have already left or have been forced to leave the financial institutions. They have made their money and have got away scot-free. The folks that are remaining are the folks that were working in profitable units of the banks(not involved with crisis), or those that have been hired/charged with fixing this crisis and getting things back in control, or relatively junior folks that merely followed orders. These are the folks that are working hard today to keep the system running, These are the folks that are trying their best to help us recover from this crisis. Is it fair on our part to penalize them?

One of the things that is happening today is generalization, rather than picking out and punishing the folks that caused this crisis, we seem to be indicting the complete banking community and focusing our ire & hatred on them. The politicians that are pushing for the 90% tax on bonuses today are the same folks that legalized & encouraged complex risky instruments like CDS etc in the name of liberalization. Don't they have an equal or higher responsibility for this bubble? Implementing the 90% taxation of bonuses for all bankers is a gross violation of individual rights(failing to pay for the work done/wrongly appropriating the money) and discrimination of banking community. This is no different than racial or ethnic discrimination, in this case discrimination is based on industry. This is also gross misuse of powers by the politicians. I can understand this happening in a Tanzania or North Korea but not in the US. The majority of folks impacted by this law are innocents. I'm surprised that there isn't any level headed person in our political system, that can rise above these silly politics and come up with a bi-partisan, honest and just solution.

Lastly, we seem to be looking at just one side of the coin. Here's a letter by an AIG executive to the CEO highlighting other side of the coin. I hope some of the media personalities and politicians that are fueling this hatred get to read this and realize their mistake.

Pls let me know your thoughts on this issue.

Photo Credits: fintag, hanneorla

High Altitude Wind Energy

noreply@blogger.com (Nandu) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 04:13:00 +0000

Came across this interesting TED video on high-altitude wind energy. Its amazing that we are just scraping the surface of alternate energy. We are just getting started with wind power as an energy source and currently less than 1.5% of world's energy comes from wind. This is one of the most rapidly growing alternate energy source. Along with solar, wind represents the only renewable source of energy that is substantially larger than the world's current energy needs(72TW capacity vs 15TW global consumption today).Most of the wind energy we are harnessing today is in the lower atmosphere (ground level) where the efficiency is low. This video talks about harnessing wind power at higher altitudes. This is a green field technology with high potential.

High-altitude wind energy has the largest energy per square foot of all of the renewable energy technologies (wind, solar, tidal, hydroelectric, biomass, geothermal) and a very low cost. Capturing a small fraction of the global high-altitude wind energy flux could be sufficient to supply the current energy needs of the globe. This is achieved through the use of high altitude kites & Air-borne wind turbines. Technologies exist today to harvest this in a large scale and this has potential to change the energy landscape.

About this talk

In this brief talk, Saul Griffith unveils the invention his new company Makani Power has been working on: giant kite turbines that create surprising amounts of clean, renewable energy.

About Saul Griffith

Inventor Saul Griffith looks for elegant ways to make real things, from low-cost eyeglasses to a kite that tows boats. His latest projects include open-source inventions and elegant new ways…

Photo Credits: Ronnie44052