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Sonam Wangchuk- The stupid child from India who won the Rolex award!

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Wangchuk from Ladakh, India is among the five Rolex award recipients of 2016, chosen from 144 participating countries. Ironically, at the age of nine, when he first moved to Srinagar, Sonam Wangchuk was thought to be a stupid child!

The reason was he didn’t look like his peers and would not respond to their addressing as he would not understand their language. This was the darkest period of his life. Unable to bear the treatment, he escaped to Delhi. After pleading his case to the principal, he got admission in the Vishesh Kendriya Vidyalaya (Special Central School).

He then went to National Institute of Technology, a premier Engineering Institute in India (known as REC at that time), to pursue an Engineering degree. He financed his own education by teaching students of tenth grade during his summer vacation. This experience was enlightening for him and it was here that he decided to enhance the education system rather than adding one more engineer to the crowd.

With this in his mind he founded SECMOL, the Students Educational and Cultural Movement Of Ladakh. SECMOL later launched Operation New Hope in collaboration with government education department and village population, which led the rise of 10th grade exam results from 5% to 75%!  One more peculiarity of SECMOL is that it is powered by solar energy alone. And even in the numbing temperature of -30 degree Celsius, it is capable of keeping the students warm.

This was just the beginning of Sonam’s innovations.

sonam wangchuk
Image Credit: http://icestupa.org

Sonam Wangchuk- The real Fung Suk Wangdu

In January 2014, Scrutinizing the situation faced by farmers in the critical planting months of April and May, he launched a project called Ice Stupa (artificial glacier), to find a solution against water crisis.

Before Sonam, many change-makers tried to build artificial glaciers. The solution was indeed feasible but had its own limitations.

‘I saw the problems these people were facing. The artificial glaciers were built at a very high altitude and villagers or workers were reluctant to climb so high. I wondered why we couldn’t construct glaciers right there in the village. The temperature is low enough to keep the water frozen – we just needed a smart way to make these glaciers,’ says Wangchuk.

Within two months, Sonam Wangchuk and his team successfully built a two story prototype of ice stupa that could store around 150,000 liters of winter stream water which nobody wanted at time. The ice stupa was located at the height of 10,400 feet above the sea level, the lowest possible altitude and the warmest possible location. It was the most challenging location and if it could be build there, it could be built anywhere.

Another problem surfaced up when the complete project almost failed due to the low quality and spurious pipes supplied by unethical traders resulting in loss of 2.5 million Indian rupees and many days of hard work and labor put in by villagers and the team.

But Sonam Wangchuk, who is also said to be the inspiration behind the Rancho’s character in the superhit Bollywood movie 3 idiots (2009), is the last person who will quit his work after getting disheartened by a setback.

“We were cheated and disappointed and were staring at a failed project when thankfully Mr. Ajit Jain of Jain Irrigation stepped in to supply the correct pipes immediately and Commander B. Manikantham of the Indian Air Force volunteered to airlift the pipes to Phayang. That is how we were able to salvage the project,” says an optimistic Wangchuk.

In addition to a solution to the ultimate water crisis, Ice Stupas also reduces the threats caused by glacier lake outbursts floods or GLOF. The Himalayan states of  India- Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir are surrounded by about 300 potentially dangerous lakes formed by glacier melt. His efforts were appreciated worldwide and he received the honorable Rolex award in 2016.

With this endeavor, Wangchuk and his team intend to build up to 20 ice stupas, each 30 meters in height and capable of supplying millions of liters of water.

“The Rolex Award funds will support the project and promote ice stupas as a climate-change adaptation and desert-greening technique,” Mr Wangchuk said in a statement released by Rolex.

 

Pallav Nadhani-How this teenager’s extra pocket money effort is now a multi-million dollar company?

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What started as an attempt to suffice the monetary requirements of a teenager, is now a multi-million dollar company whose customer list includes Google, Facebook, Microsoft and the federal government of United States. When Nadhanis moved to Kolkata, Pallav Nadhani was admitted in the La Martiniere for Boys School.

‘Here I got the aspiration that I want to be like them. And for me to be like them, I really need to work hard. I need to be on top of the game in whatever I am working on,’ he says.

It wasn’t feasible for him to be like them with a measly pocket money of Rs. 1,000. He was reluctant to ask his father for extra pocket money. Thus emerged the necessity of finding a way to make some fortune of his own.

His first endeavor was in the field of writing. He came across Wrox Press’ website ASPtoday.com, which paid a generous amount for innovative articles. Pallav Nadhani made an impressive amount of $2,000 by writing two articles. The third article he wrote turned out to be a life changing milestone in his journey.

Nadhanis owned a computer, which was a luxury in those days(2001-02). His father owned a web design company where Pallav initially worked. His share of work included preparing charts on Microsoft Excel. He found those charts extremely dull and boring. Along with this, he was also working with Macromedia Flash player (Adobe Flash now) for making designs for senior Nadhani’s company. He began exploring ways in which he could combine both to create better charts. He wrote an article on this idea for ASPtoday and made $1,500 from the article, which was the primal investment for his entrepreneurial journey.pallav-11Image Credit: http://www.fusioncharts.com

Still in his school, Pallav, who calls himself an accidental entrepreneur, started his company Infosoft Global, based on the very idea of making interactive charts for business world. For the first three years, he did the work of designing, marketing, making and receiving calls, all by himself.

The company started growing and things were never the same again. The growth was so stupendous that in the year 2005, senior Nadhani, who according to Pallav is a sucker for growth and adventure, shut down his company and joined his son’s venture.  Currently, he holds the position of CFO in the company. They also hired 20 employees and acquired office space in Bangur, Kolkata.

But Pallav Nadhani isn’t someone whose thirst is quenched easily. Expanding his company’s profile, he moved to Bangalore in the year 2010. In Bangalore he set up a company which excelled not only in the quality of the product it delivered, but also in the management and organizational aspect. The next year FusionCharts earned a revenue of 4.5 million USD.

Unlike his father, whose business ventures ranged from selling bicycles to writing books and running a computer training center, Pallav believes in a focused approach. Even after being a millionaire, he is still stuck with the idea he believed in when he was just a teenager.

‘I wish I could be like him (senior Nadhani). Being multi-faceted helps you have a very nice perspective of life. But if you have to really excel at something, you need focus,’ he said in an interview with Forbes magazine. In the same interview he talks about his plan for the next ten years, ‘I know that for the next 10 years, I want to do just one thing. Build software products and build the software product industry in India.’

Today, FusionChart’s client list includes 50,000 clients spread over 118 countries. In 2010, US president Barack Obama selected FusionCharts to design digital dashboard for the federal administration, the Federal IT Dashboard. It became the first Indian start-up to gain the attention of the Obama administration.

 

Oracle Founder: A Collage Dropout Who Now Owns An Island

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Larry’s wife divorced him saying that he lacked ambition and was irresponsible. Three decades later, the same unambitious guy was amongst top ten richest men on the planet with a net worth of $48.6 Billion USD

‘Virtually everyone important in my life, my family, my teachers, (cis) my girlfriend wanted me to be a doctor. Over time, their dreams became my dreams. They convinced me I should be a doctor,’ said Larry Ellison, a billionaire, a philanthropist and a tech genius, in his USC commencement speech.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t do it. After a few unhappy years in the pre-medical school it became clear to him that he didn’t like the courses he was taking. His anatomy class appeared to him as a pointless form of psychological torture. He couldn’t study something that didn’t interest him. He even thought of himself as a person who lacked discipline or was selfish. But he was not able to make himself into a person he wasn’t.

Eventually, he stopped trying and at the age of 21, he dropped out of college. He drove from Chicago to California, a ride that was about to change the course of database managements systems forever.

“It (Berkeley) was the perfect place for an undisciplined, selfish, twenty-something to begin his search for himself, a righteous cause and a job that he loved”, Larry said. In Berkeley he wrote songs, became an environmentalist and worked as a river guide and a rock climbing instructor. Although he loved the jobs, they didn’t pay him much, so he started working as a computer programmer. He got a similar satisfaction from programming as he got from solving math problems or playing chess.

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It was here that he made real progress in his journey of self-discovery and he had also found a cause. He had jobs that he loved and one amongst them paid his bills. He was happy with his life. His wife wasn’t. She thought of him as a college drop-out who spent too much time doing stupid things. She wanted him to be a full time programmer. As a compromise, he took a job at UC Berkeley and started taking classes. One of the several classes he took was of sailing. After the class was over he was in love with the ocean and wanted to buy a sail boat.

According to his wife, this was the single stupidest thing she had heard in her entire life. She accused him of being irresponsible and lacking ambition. She kicked him out and divorced him.

His family was already mad at him for leaving the medical school. Once again, he wasn’t able to stand up to others’ expectations. He wasn’t disappointed with himself though. He enjoyed the company of nature around him. He had a job that he loved and made money which was more than he needed. For the first time he was certain that he was going to survive in this world. A huge burden of fear had been lifted.

Throughout his twenties he continued experimenting and kept changing jobs till he realized that most fulfilling programing jobs were found in a cluster of companies situated in Silicon Valley. He worked with various software start-ups and also with well-established companies but he never found a job that pleased him as much as sailing. Therefore, he created one.

He founded a company, Software Development Laboratories (SDL), later named Oracle, with an intention to create a satisfying job for himself. The initial investment was of $2000 USD of which $1200 USD was of Larry’s. He estimated that the company will employ no more than 50 employees.

Today, Oracle has employed more than 150 thousand people. He intended to establish the world’s first relational database. Everyone said it was a crazy idea. It turned out to be the craziest. And as his beloved friend, Steve Jobs, who was also the official wedding photographer in his fourth wedding, once said, ‘People who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.’

With this idea he became one of the richest man on the planet with a net worth of $48.6 Billion USD. He also loves flying and has two military jets at his disposal and is amongst 129 Billionaires to sign The Giving Pledge. In 2012 he bought an island called Lanai in Hawaii.

Oracle turned out to be one of the most successful software companies ever. In the year 2016, the annual revenue of Oracle was $37.04 Billion USD.

Dinesh Agarwal-From A Worker In Railways To Creating $2 billion Company

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Everyone looks up to the owner of IndiaMART as the Ideal Businessman from India owning the biggest B2B Marketplace having a revenue of $2 billion (Rs. 225 Crore). Do you know that Dinesh Agarwal whose company Indiamart wrapped Delhi Metro with its banners once worked with Indian Railways to oversee the computerized reservations system of the New Delhi Railway Station.

There has been ups and down, dot-com bust, market crash, but with a clear Goal in his mind, hard work and dedication, he succeeded in executing things in the right manner.

Never Give Up

IndiaMART was founded in 1996, a time when internet did not have many users. Many in India didn’t even have an internet connection at that time, and Dinesh Agarwal made a B2B Market place, even before the world’s largest b2b Market place, Alibaba got registered. He has been risk taker and visionary, a must trait for any entrepreneur.

During his early days he himself used to write the names and addresses of small businesses from his apartment in East Delhi. He himself went to the Post Office to deposit huge bundles of envelopes in order to get the contact details of business firms across India to list them on IndiaMART. He sent letters to at least half a million businesses.

His website did not have much traffic initially since having a computer and internet connection was a luxury. He made efforts to convince businessmen to get registered on his portal during those days when internet used to be pretty slow, mostly dial up with 56 Kbps. He used to stand up in front of Pragati Maidan in New Delhi for getting forms filled by everyone who came there and created their web pages on IndiaMart.

Dinesh Agarwal IndiaMART

He believed that internet was going to be the primary source of communication in the future and would connect the whole world and make life easy. He was in US when he first used the internet and was fascinated, as finding anything got easy with Internet. It is then he planned  about doing something related to software and internet in India.

He came from a traditional business family and knew that small and medium enterprises have a significant market share in all terms from generating employment to manufacturing goods. Hence he thought of connecting them in an online business directory. IndiaMart started as a listing site and then evolved into a business supply store. During 1997-1998, he succeeded in getting 100 paying clients on board.

Surviving Market Downturn

His company was among one of the few survivors that survived market downturns. After the 9/11 attacks, the global market was going through a bad phase but Dinesh did not fire any employee, he instead took steps like cost cutting and delaying salary hikes till things back to normal.

Tolexo and ABCPaymemts

Dinesh Agarwal did not stop at IndiaMart; he started an online Payment Gateway named ABCPayments.com in 2004 and Tolexo.com, an eCommerce website for industry equipment in 2014.

His company IndiaMART is targeting a revenue of 20 billion by 2020. Today the company has more than 100,000 paying customers and 2.2 million suppliers on its platform with 55 offices and more than 2400 employees scattered across 100 cities.

All this would not have been possible if he hadn’t taken the first step, he implemented his ideas and never lost focus, believing that it will happen without worrying how it’s going to, since then he never looked back.

 

 

Alexis Ohanian’s journey from a waiter at Pizza hut to running Reddit

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Alexis Ohanian is a popular name in the entrepreneurial world as he co-founded one of the biggest content sharing sites, Reddit. Ohanian was born in the year 1983 in New York and had his schooling in Maryland. He completed his graduation in Commerce and History from the University of Virginia in 2005. Although he had no formal education in technical field and was not much aware of the business world that time yet the desire to achieve something big in life kept enlightening his hopes. And his persistent efforts and hard work to get what he wanted turned out to be fruitful. His journey to success had not been a cakewalk. He considered every failure as a stepping stone in his path and accepted the challenges to secure the desired aim.

Ohanian’s first job as a waiter at Pizza Hut played an important role in making him a successful entrepreneur. He has set a very inspiring example for all those who wish t o reach at the pedestal of success that no job is big or small in itself and every task has its own importance. Waiting at the tables for customers gave him much experience to deal in customer service which is a crucial part of every business.

While Alexis Ohanian was studying in the University of Virginia, he shared his room with Steve Huffman who was a student of Computer Science. The beginning of the journey towards the business world could be traced from the room they lived in. It is after befriending Huffman that Alexis got some idea of programming and technology. Steve Huffman discussed his dream idea of opening a food app with Alexis and got positive response from him. This encouraged Steve’s spirit and he insisted Alexis to take the idea further and discuss it with the programming expert Paul Graham.

Although Graham rejected the idea of food app but the talent and spark in the duo made him welcome both Alexis and Steve to work with him and their working together gave birth to the idea of Reddit. Surprisingly the site took only 3 months to be built and from then on Alexis Ohanian and his partners never looked back. Movement is the basic mantra of life, all you have to keep yourself away from is stagnation.

Image Credit: Wikiepedia
Image Credit: Wikipedia

The world fell in the awe of Reddit
The foundation of Reddit in June 2005 created a storm in the techno world as it was one of the earliest websites that offered social news, discussion and web content rating. Alexis Ohanian managed to get the initial funding from Y Combinator. However, later in the year 2006 when the website gained much of popularity, Conde Naste proposed to acquire the company while Ohanian still being one of the members of Reddit’s Boards of Directors.

Alexis Ohanian’s exit from Reddit
After serving the company for about four years, Alexis Ohanian took an exit from the company in 2009. After leaving the company Alexis didn’t just simply sit back at his home rather he looked out for opportunities wherever he found better prospects.

After deciding to leave Reddit, Alexis worked as a fellow in a micro finance company for three months where he gained more knowledge about technology, marketing and business.

Never ending quest for stability
Ohanian’s journey with technology and computers began with Reddit and such was its seduction upon him that he clung to it even after. In the mid of 2010 he established another company aiming to deal with startups, consulting and advising. The company he named as Das Kapital Capital focused on helping the new youths who wish to turn stones in the entrepreneurial field but possess less knowledge and experience. He also opened many other websites like Hipmunk and Breadpig to keep himself constantly in touch with the techno world.

Alexis Ohanian is also a wonderful speaker and internet activist. He stood against Congress’s protests against online piracy and spoke so confidently that he is known as one of the best speakers in the field of internet and technology. In October 2012, Ohanian worked in collaboration with Erik Martin, the General Manager of Reddit to support the open internet during the debates of President and Vice President.

Alexis was mentioned as important figure in the technology industry by Forbes magazine in 2012. In 2015, Alexis was accused to have played an important role in the firing of Reddit’s communications director Victoria Taylor. Ohanian is supposed to be in a relationship with Serena Williams.

How an IIT dropout became the ‘Bad Boy’ of Indian Startups

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Every idea is not meant to be successful in long run but what matters is your intention and focus. The story of the founder of Housing.com, Rahul Yadav speaks the same. Like most of the youngsters who belong to a middle class family, Yadav too had a target to settle down with a decent college and then a good job. But life had different plans for Yadav and this is why even after joining IIT Bombay in the year 2007 he could not fit in there.

Love for Programming

Although Yadav enrolled himself to study metallurgy but he figured out that this department was not his final destination. He carried on with his thirst for the right place unless he found the well of computers and programming to quench it. While in college he built an online question bank with the name Exambaba.com, for the students of engineering which provided them with the old question papers of IIT Bombay. His interest towards computers led him to drop his college and enter into the world of entrepreneurship. Life changing ideas always involve sincere effort, risk and out of the box thinking and Rahul Yadav was all game for it.

Rahul Yadav
Image Credit: Wikipedia

Foundation of Housing.com

The biggest problem faced by anyone  coming to a metropolitan city is of finding a proper accommodation. Rahul Yadav after coming to Bombay dealt with the same issue and this left a deep imprint on his mind. Therefore, after dropping out from college to start a venture the first and foremost thought that came to his mind was of creating an online market from where people can easily look out for houses to rent or buy. This startup was founded by Yadav with 11 of his classmates and was launched in 2012 with Yadav holding the responsibility of CEO of the company. The company started off well and acquired much attention both from the investors and the public. Many renowned and well-known investors like Haresh Chawla, Nexus Venture Partners, Softbank Cpital and Qualcomm Ventures came forward to invest in the company. Housing.com amassed the funding more than $150 million in the year 2014 and set itself as one of the established firm in the market.

Falling off the position

The first 2 years of the company turned out to be splendid ones with a good amount of funding as well as popularity among the mass. With the great success of the company more and more members began adding up to maintain the pace of company’s progress. Everything seemed to be at its place and it seemed as if the graph of their success would continue to grow. But the wheel of time never waits for anyone to turn its direction.

Right from the beginning of 2015 things turned out to grow worse in the business and within no time the company’s graph faced a steep downfall. It is believed that this was the outcome of Yadav’s rash and impulsive actions. His indulgence in controversies seemed to be more than his focus on the business. He was very vocal  against his competitors than taking his own company and plans forward. And as a result of his consistent involvement in controversies he was fired from the company in June 2015.

Rahul Yadav came into the spotlight for a number of controversial statements he made against his competitors including the founder of Zomato, the CEO of Infosys and the founder of Ola. Also his bold announcement of distributing his company shares worth $30 million among the employees created a tumult in the business world. He also sent some controversial mails to the company’s investors which resulted in further soaring his relationship with the board.

With all these controversies, the board of directors of the Housing.com made a unanimous decision of firing Rahul Yadav for he was too straightforward to do the business.

His New Venture: The return of Rahul Yadav

Yadav was never among those who would be thrashed by a failure or a defeat. He had much experience in standing again on his legs even after falling down 100 times. In about 2 and half months, Yadav again made a sensational entry in the market with his new venture, Intelligent Interfaces in September 2015. This start-up is all about data analysis and visualization in e-commerce. The company reportedly was said to have acquired funding from Paytm, YouWeCan, Flipkart and Micromax. However, so far there is no news of of his new venture except rumors of its failure and shutting down in months. It seems that Industry has to wait for “the return of Rahul Yadav”.