The first of the set was on 12th January, 2007 at Netaji Auditorium by Mr. Vinod Dham, who is well known as “The Father of Pentium”. Mr. Dham gave a brief account of the turning points of his life before the lecture was made open for questions. A few of the questions he answered are as follows:

Q1.Despite all the work you have done and the success you have attained, don’t you ever feel tired?
A. I don’t see the point of feeling tired. The idea of relaxing by watching a movie is foreign to me! You keep getting wiser as you age, and I see no reason to rest with all that knowledge.
Q2.If I have an idea and I want you to fund me, how can I be assured that you won’t steal the idea when I tell it to you?
A. You are absolutely right. There is a round-about way to go through this without telling me your idea. What you can do is talk to us and tell us everything about the idea without letting us know the key to it. After you have our attention, we can direct you to a lawyer in the technology field to whom you can reveal your idea. If he feels that you’ve got something worth funding, he will advise us to do so without telling us the idea himself.
Q3. Are you open to funding BTech student projects for students in the campus?
A.Yes, we are definitely open to the idea. In fact, starting this year we have decided to allocate a small part of our assets to funding the very kind of projects you are mentioning. You will get to know how to get in touch with us about this shortly.
The second lecture in the series was by Mr. Rohit Agarwal, CEO of techTribe. His talk was “How Innovators Connect” and was a real eye-opener in terms of making us rethink about our concepts on entrepreneurship. He emphasized the importance of building a sound team of individuals through networking as he believed that teams are built and not hired.
He shattered a lot of myths when he said that one doesn’t need a VC to fund a start-up justifying his statement by saying that acquiring large amounts of money will make you complacent and it is best to have money in small installments. He pointed out that humility is one of the best qualities in an entrepreneur. He believes that we are at a turning point in the history of our country when we can go forth and take risks for believing in ourselves and our ideas. In an institute like IIT, he pointed out that we already have a network of really capable, smart and like-minded individuals (if you can forget hall rivalry for a short while!). The most telling point of his lecture was “The only crime is not making a decision!” A few of the questions he answered are as follows:
Q. Why do entrepreneurs sell their companies to bigger brands? Don’t they have faith in their product?
A. For an entrepreneur, a start-up is like a child, and at one stage they feel it is necessary to let it go since it is best for its future. Because if you don’t sell out to the brand, then you are going to be competing with them. This will make life difficult for your employees and your brand. As far as having faith in your product goes, the very fact that the bigger brands thought that they should buy you out since you are giving them a better service or product than they thought of, is enough to tell you that your product is good.
Q. How does one make a brand in a non-IT sector?
A. There are lots of ways; one example could be, say, jewellery. Now in our country, only old women wear the old fashioned jewellery. But if you are targeting a younger set of women then you could use a simple technique. If you got male models to strut around wearing your jewellery, it will cause quite an uproar, so you have your publicity area covered. The shock value will ensure that the mothers won’t approve of the jewellery, which means that the daughters are sure to buy it!!
Mr. Agarwal shared his contact information with us so that any interested students could get in touch with him and techTribe.

1. The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
2. The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
4. The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

There are many other free software products that aren’t necessarily free of cost- Ubuntu Linux is only one of them. How do these other companies manage to make money?
Traditional software companies create something, package it, and sell it, the same way a vegetable vendor sells vegetables on the street- price per piece. Simple revenue model. How do I “sell” free software though? Certainly not like vegetables on the street, because everyone has the right to redistribute it. So who’s actually going to come to me and pay for it? Well, it turns out that there are many other creative ways to make money. Since the models tend to be complicated hybrids,

I’ll illustrate with examples:
SpikeSource is an example of a very successful company that follows a pure service model. They specialize in maintenance, certification, and integration of free software into large workstations. They capitalize on the fact that they have the power to study the source code (modifying it when necessary) and pinpoint exactly what went wrong during tech support. Free software typically comes with no warranty of any kind. SpikeSource fills this void for large corporations.

RedHat offers RHEL, or RedHat Enterprise Linux which they build by gluing together various free software components and charge for the service of maintaining it. They capitalize on the fact that they are familiar with exactly what they built.MySQL and Trolltech Qt follow a double-license model. Why would people choose the proprietary license? The proprietary license offers some additional rights over the software over and above the fundamental free software license rights. Yes, it works. The proprietary license is available at a price.
Many companies also tend to maintain two versions of their software: a free software “community” version that the community continually improves and a proprietary version that can be purchased at a cost. Zimbra, the email client, is one significant example. Their desktop edition is free software but their network edition for large enterprises comes at a cost. RHEL/ Fedora is another example- RedHat constantly use ideas and code from Fedora, the community edition, to maintain RHEL (No, RHEL isn’t proprietary, but either is it developed by the community).
Many free software projects are funded by companies interested in seeing the project come up. SuSe, for example, sponsors a project called OpenSync because they want to see certain features in it that they probably wouldn’t see otherwise. They additionally get some good publicity and a major say in any crucial  decision. Instead of creating their own synchronization solution for their operating system, why not sponsor an already ongoing project? It’s far cheaper and they get additional programmer passionate about the software to work on it for free (yes, I worked on it for a while too because I liked it). Just like Google pays Firefox (yes, firefox is free software) to get their homepage opened at startup by default, several companies might have interests in different popular free software. For example, if OpenSync becomes really popular and supports synchronization with Nokia and Sony phones, Motorola will immediately jump in and help OpenSync support their phones by funding the project. Zimbra did so well that it was acquired by Yahoo! in September 2007.

Ajitesh Shukla (B.Tech./1999/Energy Engg.)
KGPian : How did you come up with the idea?

Ajitesh Shukla : I had been working in startups all through out since I left IIT KGP. My first startup venture was IITian.com way back in the year 2000 (funded $100,000). After the last startup Cendura Software that I was working in, and that was bought by Computer Associates, I decided to pursue my idea of FunPiper.com. FunPiper.com, initially started as a portal to provide a place for users to let others know about all the fun they had in the weekend or planning for coming weekends. Ideas kept evolving and our vision got clear with time. As most of the fun happens on weekends when we get two days holidays (29% of our life), we chose to pursue this idea to make a fun-based weekend portal.
FunPiper.com is envisioned to be the weekend portal such that people start their weekend on FunPiper.com. We have chosen to innovate weekend planning in twitter style. As “How was your weekend?” forms the most heard question in any gallery conversation on Mondays in every office around the world. We wanted to take up this question on FunPiper.com and entice users to post about “How was their weekend?” With our coming up feature of “Planner”, users would also be answering yet another question, “What are you doing this weekend?” by creating weekend plans and sharing it with their friends and everybody out there.

I have always been fascinated by the story of Pied Piper of Hamelin. As users share their fun with everybody and in a way do their bits to spread the fun, I chose the name FunPiper.

KGPian : Tell us something about the planning part.

Ajitesh Shukla : As per our plan, we are working aggressively on engineering front to come up with value-added features on FunPiper.com. We are creating more channels for user interaction with FunPiper.com such as Mobile integration, and IVR (Integrated Voice Response). We have also started taking marketing intiatives to promote our portal in blogosphere. Very soon, we are planning to go for raising funds from various VCs in the country.

KGPian : What were your Growth sustaining strategies?

Ajitesh Shukla : We have strategies laid out on engineering, sales & marketing and team building front to grow at a faster rate. As soon as we get funds, we are planning to increase the team size for enhancing the portal development. We shall also be going for promoting our portal in media very soon.

KGPian : Are there any Collaboration Synergy etc.?

Ajitesh Shukla : We have plans of entering into key partnerships with vendors in various fun categories such as movies, music, TV etc. There are in all 30 fun categories on FunPiper.com. As time go by, and we build up our user base and traffic, we shall be entering into partnerships with various portals, vendors to provide great weekend services to our users.

KGPian : Is there any separate offer for the fellow Kgpians?

Ajitesh Shukla : We have plans for expansion very soon. I am not sure, if we would be taking any freshers currently but as we go along, and if have to hire freshers, I would always have an eye for IIT Kgpians.

KGPian : Anything else do you want to tell the new entrepreneurs?

Ajitesh Shukla : I and my team firmly believe in 5 mantras and they are Focus, Commitment, Strategy, Skill, and Speed. And, collective passion (of the team) is the key driver. If a person is thinking of starting his own company, he/she must check out his preparedness for starting up. Idea is only one thing. The most important thing is execution which could even make a B-grade idea click in no time.

Though popular articles may have you believe that Lehman Brothers went bankrupt overnight, it actually was a culmination of a series of events which started as 2002, the beginning of the US subprime mortgage crisis. There is no single cause of the mortgage crisis they range from poor scrutiny by lenders, lack of regulation even insider trading in credit derivatives (there has been considerable evidence to account for this possibility). This mortgage crisis led to the housing bubble burst in 2006 and triggered off the global financial crisis. Lehman was greatly affected by this credit crisis due to its large investment in BNC Mortgage, its subprime lender and also its investment in other low rated mortgage securities. Failure to raise further capital and its tumultuous losses, led to its bankruptcy on September 15th.

The mortgage crisis set in motion a series of damaging events that would engulf the world in a recession unlike any other since the Great Depression. The $3500 bn US money market fund, used by banks and companies for their short term financing was locked. Many Hedge funds that used Lehman as their prime broker suddenly found their collaterals frozen due the complicated structure that Lehman used for its bankruptcy filing application.

A week before Lehman filed for bankruptcy, the Federal government announced takeover (or placing into conservatorship) of two of its biggest government sector enterprises, Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan mortgage corporation) and Fannie Mae( Federal National Mortgage Association). Two companies considered to be “too big to fail” failed, ringing warning bells all across Wall Street.

A day after the Lehman filed for bankruptcy, Federal Bank announced $85 billion rescue package for AIG, the world’s biggest insurer. If AIG had failed, it was said that an average citizen’s savings and checking accounts could be in jeopardy. To gauge the magnitude of the issue, just try to imagine a situation where, you are not sure if your money is safe in a bank!

Since Merill Lynch was bought over by Bank of America to save it from going bankrupt , the next victim of the financial crisis became Washington mutual, the largest US savings and loans association. The bank’s home loan department took a big hit, a hit big enough to affect the $307 billion bank. Within 10 days customers pulled out $16.7 bn, increasing the urgency for a rescue act. This was the first case of direct government intervention, where the Federal Reserve put pressure on WaMu to find a buyer and even held a secret auction where JP Morgan was announced as the highest bidder.

The next step by the US government was the much publicised $700 bn bailout a.k.a the Paulson plan. Most of the $700 billion will be used by the Federal Reserve and Treasury to buy out liquid mortgage backed securities. This is done to increase the liquidity in the market.

Let us stop here for a moment. Within two weeks two of the five largest investment banks, two of the biggest GSE’s (govt. sector enterprises) seized to exist and the biggest insurer was saved by last minute government intervention. This is excluding all the activities going on with Wachovia, Britain and Iceland.

There is no doubt that the catalyst for the sudden crisis is the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Unlike Bear Stearns which got a lifeline about six months ago from the Federal Reserve, Lehman got no such lifeline. “I never once considered it appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line in resolving Lehman Brothers”, Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, said the day after Lehman’s demise.A statement he would probably reconsider. Of course arguably, things could have been a lot better were Lehman Brothers still present. I personally think that the financial crisis is too overwhelming to be stopped by the rescue of Lehman Brothers.

There has been quite some criticism that the government intervention came a little too late. There is also another sect of people who are against Hank Paulson assuming the role of god, (a role the US assumes very often when it comes to foreign affairs) with tax payer’s money. Only time will tell if Paulson’s plan is indeed sufficient to avert a bigger disaster, which indications in the financial market from the last few days seem to suggest.

If not head to: P2 Power

Nominate a start-up or vote for your favourite.

So start your Photoshop and …….well what else DESIGN!

So, without further ado

Presenting

PORTFOLIO of IIT Kharagpur

COMPANIES formed under TIETS Funding

Minekey Minekey’s current product is a recommendations widget makes use of advanced online discovery technology to personalize content for each user, based on what they’ve read before what what’s most relevant to them. Minekey was showcased at the Always on Stanford Summit 2007, as one of the top 50 participants at the Stanford University campus. Minekey was also showcased as one of the top 25 start-ups in Asia at proto.in. Minekey has closed a $ 3 Million Series a Round of financing with NEA IndoUS Ventures.

Ants Ceramics Pvt. Ltd. Ants Ceramics develops unique ceramic processes to create abrasion resistant components Novel shaping technologies in advanced ceramics catering to Industrial and defense related high temperature and abrasion resistant applications Team of IIT engineers guided by IIT and IIM Ahmedabad Professors, supported by reputed industrial and business consultants from ceramic industries in India and Abroad. Vision- Ants Ceramics aims offer products of uncompromising quality and become a Global Player in the area of advanced ceramics by constantly evolving technologies and products through market driven research. For this financial year the projected turnover of ANTS is Rs. 30 Lakhs and target till October end another 8 Lakhs. The products portfolio will include DT/TGA crucibles, Nozzles, Lab- Ware, Jewelry Crucibles, Pressed Components and Investment Casting Ceramic Cores.

Azure Software Pvt. Ltd The prime objective of Azure Software Pvt. Ltd is to manufacture multi-factor medical measurement instruments, capable of (a) measuring multiple medical signals in one unit, (b) storing the information for future use and (c) transmitting the data over an appropriate transmission medium (computer, internet or cell phones) as and when required, while being (d) low cost. This report outlines the progress made by Azure Software during the period April, 2007 to September, 2007 (6 months) for development of the product HeartThrob under the incubation program in TIETS, IIT Kharagpur. The technical improvement is going on.

P2Power Solutions Pvt. Ltd P2Power incorporates Statcom based technology for power quality in Industrial scenarios. Power quality enhancement, superior technology at cheaper rate, latest technology of FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems) The first major breakthrough is an order for installation of three units of P2-STAT of 100 kVA each at the printing presses of Dainik Jagaran, the most renowned Hindi newspaper of India. In 2006 they got incubated under TIETS, IIT Kharagpur for the proper growth of the startup. After getting incubated they were given the necessary seed loan from IIT to develop the prototypes of the technology and install them commercially. In 2007 they got our first major breakthrough with Dainik Jagran as our client. The company successfully installed their first here prototypes at Dainik Jagran site. After successful commercialization of the technology they got further orders from IIT Kharagpur, Vidya Prakashan etc. The company has crossed sales orders worth 60 lakhs in a period of 4 months.

Data Resolve Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The Company has a product based on advanced data leakage prevention and detection technologies to stop Data Leakage in a corporate network. Being the only company having this technology in our country, it is expecting to capture a market estimated at 11 Billion USD for 2008-09. The company was founded by five IIT, Kharagpur graduates and is currently based at IIT, Kharagpur. Company has already been incubated by IIT, Kharagpur. In order to scale up its operation and R & D the company is looking after first round of investment. This will help the company meet its expected sales target of around 9 crores by 2010 and at the same time solve the problem of cyber crime, data thefts and information assurance in the country and abroad.

iViZ Techno Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Penetration testing based internet Security Company, funded by Singapore and Canadian venture partners for $2 Million. The total sales in current quarter is 0.5 Crore. The company has been selected among Top 2 Security Startups in Asia and Top 6 in the world by London Business School, Homeland Security and Pentagon. Also it has been selected among world’s top 8 innovative startups by Intel and UC Berkeley.
Entice Pvt. Ltd. They worked out the marketing and technical possibilities of the proposed software but, it was felt personally that it wouldn’t be a very promising one. They have decided to hold the project for the time being. 

Accuflex Biolab This company is based for setting up of the recombinant antibody based immunodiagnostic research and development. The prototype is based on the diagnostic tests on the emerging infectious diseases that keep pace with the rate of evolution and their timely detection.

Aero-Xtremes The company is based on Reconfigurable Autonomous Air vehicles. Prototype contains the autonomous reconfigurable air vehicle which can autonomously navigate a given terrain once fed with commands and is able to reconfigure the control in the case of failures to make it fly safe to complete the mission or return back home safely. The product boasts of being unique in reconfiguration feature in the world which will make it less accident prone which till now hinders their wide acceptance.

Intinno Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The firm is committed to Hi-tech Research and Development in Education/Learning technologies, web2.0, Data Mining, Information Retrieval and software development; the first three fields being latest. The company also has a long-term initiative to improve the quality of education through its endeavor. The company is currently providing an collaborative E-Learning Platform to its clients (Educational Service Providers like Universities, colleges, schools, distance learning programs) as a web service. This helps its clients to effectively perform knowledge dissemination and reach the benefactors of clients’ service i.e. the student, in an efficient manner. It also helps the students maximize the use of educational resources in a time and resource efficient manner. Currently, the company’s first client, IIT Kharagpur, has given a very positive response to former’s service (E-learning platform). The company is incubated under TIETS, IIT Kharagpur and has received a seed loan of amount Rs. 10 Lacs.

Powersys Pvt. Ltd. Deployment of the national grid requires software based optimization for efficient performance. Derivative software will also be developed for dynamic power management with respect to grid constants. The company gets approval from TIETS based on the proposal to form a Pvt. Ltd. company on June 22, 2007.

Xaneda Technolgies India Private Limited Xaneda has a big business potential since it addresses a burning problem in a fast growing domain like Analog and Mixed-Signal IC design. At present Analog IC segment is growing at more than 10% per annum compared to the overall Semiconductor industry which is growing at a mere 3.2%. Analog IP market is growing much faster (around 39% p.a.). Moreover, Xaneda’s EDA product will enable a whole new business in Analog Mixed Signal Design Service area in India which is limited till date due to lack of man-power.

Design and Development of Micro-cooler for the Electronic Components The company aims to develop innovative and efficient electronic cooling technology for better thermal management. This Micro-cooler company has been promised a seed loan applicable to their noble innovation from the TIDE centre.

Capillary Technologies

Started by Aneesh Reddy and K.K.Mehra, Capillary Technologies Private Limited is a new venture by alumni of IIT Kharagpur and has operations in the space of mobile value added services for the retail sector.

*P2P and INTINNO were the winners of Concipio. The winner of Concipio 2006, ROBOKIT didn’t opt for funding.