Thursday, January 29, 2009

Getogether in Bangalore

Here are some enthu reactions to last nights meet in Bangalore.

Hi,
One always has to look to the East for good things in life and apparently they come in small packages.The advantage of this venue was that we hardly bumped into any outsider.
Three Cheers to the Honourable Sebastian Chandy for organising this meet where old stories were indeep swapped. Look forward to more such efforts from you, Saji!!! It would of course be easier for him if people who confirmed didn't drop out without notice. Many must have had a genuine reason. But that is what cell phones and SMS are for.
The numbers are a major headache for any organiser.
Warm regards
Gayatri



Hi All,
Gayatri, I couldn't agree with you more!
The effort from Sebastian was very good, and another 10 more people turning up would have made it a lot more worthwhile. Good interaction, some interesting thoughts thrown up for future meetings, a good venue, no parking issues, and a very short commute for us folks.
George Olapally


Good job Saji.
Good venue, good arrangements, and good food. I may be rationalising but the total turnout is not important for these dos. The important thing is for each person to be able to connect/reconnect with a few people in a meaningful way.
Thanks much for the initiative. Thanks to David for organising the venue.
We would encourage others from different areas in Bangalore, like Indra Nagar, Koramangala, Jayanagar to organise similar local event in their areas. You can contact me or anyone else on the committee for any kind of assistance that you may require, including arranging a venue.
Kuru


Smaller local meets to beat the traffic, so we can meet more often and interact in smaller batches throughout the year seems to be a good idea. Hope more people take the initiative to organise these little do's around town across the metro's where distance seems to be a major deterrent to meeting more often.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Bay Area Winter Alumni Potluck

For some reason, this report slipped though the cracks.

Alumni in the Bay area met for a Potluck on the 27th of December at Tipu (IR 96)'s home.

Here is Tipu's write up on the meet:

Warm & sunny new year greetings to all US XLers from the Bay Area. We had a well-attended potluck last Saturday. 30 XLers & their spouses attended, many with kids in tow (list below). Much beer was drunk (imported only, like the XLers) & anecdotes & emails exchanged. Everyone brought wonderful food which magically worked well together, with the piece-de-resistance for me being the chocolate fountain that Kieran Gonsalves so carefully set up. This was the first alumni get together for some of the folks since leaving XL. That & the look of happy surprise on faces of batchmates meeting after many years (like the final reels of a familiar Manmohan Desai saga), was well-worth the time to organize this. Shailley & Sheela took some photos, which are available here and at http://shailleysingh.posterous.com/. Feel free to leave comments. I have also been asked to put a disclaimer that due to the image cropping & similar technical constraints some people may look wider than they actually are. Unfortunately, camera batteries drained out & so not everyone who attended had their pictures taken. But that is a good reason to have another one of these & count everyone in for a group photo. We had a summer picnic & a winter potluck last year & hope to continue the tradition this year too.

Name

Batch

Name

Batch

Aashish Bhargava

BM89

KP Naidu

IR81

Amita Shekhar

XP05

Mahesh Singh

BM86

Indu Unnamatla (Chachra)

IR96

Pal Luthra

BME72

Kieran Gonsalves

BM87

Pooja Arora

IR01

Name

Batch

Name

Batch

Purnima Srivastava

IR96

Shailley

IR98

Ravi Narayanan

BM86

Sheela Sukumaran

IR95

Reema Vijay

IR97

Tipu Purkayastha

IR96

Sandeep Harpalani

BM92

Vivek

BM86

Best regards,

Tipu Purkayastha, SPHR

IR96

Saratoga, CA

PS: Post-millenials, please show enthu – we would love to have more of you. We know you are out there somewhere…

XL Happy Hours Wed, 28th Jan - Bangalore

Hi all,

It’s that time of the year to meet and share stories of yester years. XL Happy Hours!!! Calling all Xlers for a great evening with good food, music and catching up.

Venue : The ITC Club Hall on Coles Road (Some of you had difficulty locating the venue. Please find attached the map of the location. The red spot indicates the ITC Club, Coles Road)

Date : Wed, 28th Jan 1900 to 2230 hrs

Food/Snacks/Beverages will be available at the club and will be charged at Rs 150/- per head.

Booze will be available across the counter for nominal rates.

Also please confirm your attendance at the earliest. (Do inform your friends who have not yet subscribed to the Yahoogroups as well. )

It would really help us a lot with the logistics. As mentioned in the previous mail, do let me know if any of you require cabs for the journey back.

Looking forward to meet you all tomorrow.

Cheers,

Sebastian Chandy

IR ‘07

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Update on XLer NGO's

here we have an XL students ("NGO") team (actually a business venture - a partnership firm) the 8 selected out of 2300 entries in one of the Asia's biggest entrepreneurship competition - Eureka at IIT Mumbai
Clean tech contestants vie for $50,000 at Eureka! 08
(and if they win these, this will meet part of their funding requirements - Eureka is $50,000)

and is among the 16 selected in an international competition ("NGO" Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition - Foster School of Business, Univ of Washington, Seattle)
(dont know the prize money)

I am also happy to share that the institute's is providing for their travel expenses to US to participate in the GSEC
and that XLRI Social Entrepreneurship Trust provided them the first incubation funding (we did to two others student ventures too - Swavalamban and http://www.dream4others.com/ and will continue to do so, if we get the funding from Xlers or other sources...
two of these ventures funded by the Trust also sweeped the Kalpavriksha event:
an institute's "brand" (and worth) is built by the investments in building a robust product.
help out if you can by connecting to:
ciao
madhukar
ps: for those who came in late:

Professor Hayagreeva Rao (IR 80)'s new Book

Thanks Tipu for this info.

Market rebels and radical innovation
(Article and video)

In this adaptation from his book released this week, Market Rebels: How Activists Make or Break Radical Innovations, Professor Hayagreeva Rao of Stanford Universityʼs Graduate School of Business explains the role of activists in making or breaking new markets, products, and services. Rao also offers, in a brief video interview, several examples of activist communities at work in the consumer and business context.

Read the article at McKinsey Quarterly

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

XL get together being Planned in Feb in Chennai

We are planning one (long awaited!!) on 20th Feb, Friday at 700 PM.

Venue and costs will be communicated soon.

I request a confirmation of attendance by mail so that we can plan well

Need volunteers and also sponsors

This time we hope to have a larger participation.

P N Subramanian(PNS)

XL Alumni- Chennai Chapter

Inteview with Jishnu Dasgupta (06) in Time Out Mumbai

Swarathma is making waves all over India. Here is an interview with band member Jishnu Dasgupta, an Xler from the 06 batch in the latest issue of Time Out, Mumbai.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Bangalore East Happy Hours! - 28 Jan

In an effort to make it easier to meet up, even if it means smaller groups, Alumni groups are getting together in smaller areas. These meets aren't restrictive, alumni from all over are welcome, but this makes it easier for groups in a restricted area to meet up more easily.

Bangalore is the first in this effort and I think this is a move that has a lot of potential in cities like Delhi and Bombay too.
Kim

Hi all,

Happy New Year to all!

It’s that time of the year to meet up and share them stories of yester years. The Bangalore East Happy Hours!!!

Calling all Xlers from Bangalore East (Frazer Town, Richards Town, Cooke Town, Benson Town, etc) for an evening a good music, drinks and catching up.

Venue : The ITC Club Hall on Coles Road

Date : Wed, 28th Jan, 1900 to 2230 hrs

Food/Snacks/Beverages will be available at the club and will be charged at Rs 150/- per head.

Booze will be available for nominal rates.

Smaller the Better? Well, small it is and closer to home! It should definitely help us get to know each other a lot better.

Do let us know if you need cabs for the night, considering that all of us are bound to be in high ‘spirits’. It would really help us in the logistics, if you could confirm your attendance for the evening by mail.

So hope to see you all soon.

Cheers,

Sebastian Chandy


Edited to add Kuru's response:

Hi,

There were some questions raised about hosting a local program within the city. Given the limited turnout we have for the monthly meetings, having local meeting may make sense to many people, especially given the time, traffic, and logistical issues that we face on a daily basis.

XLBang has always had a tradition of trying new things and this is no exception. My experience in organising alumni events has taught me that each program we organise appeals to a specific audience and only the Annual Dinner appeals to the majority of alumni. We hope this local event appeals to the people who live/work in this locality.

We invite all of the alumni to come forward with more ideas and the initiative to organise non-commercial events that are relevant to the XLBang alumni.

Regards,
Kuru
(BM-96)

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Jeevan Joshi (93 IR) new company - Gravitus provides Learning & Knowledge Solutions

I thought I would write a quick email to let you about Gravitus (www.gravitus.com.au) and to seek your support. We commenced operations about 6 months ago and provide technology enabled Learning and Knowledge tools. Most of these solutions are provided as a service i.e it is available as a hosted and supported web service for a yearly fee.

Gravitus focuses on
* e-Learning or Online Learning - Develop Online course for induction, compliance etc and deploy them on a Learning Management System which tracks and reports training.
* Business Process Improvement - Online business process mapping with the a focus on simplicity.
* Collaboration and Knowledge Tools such as wikis, podcasts etc

More specifically the solutions include
* Hosted and supported Learning Management System which can cater for Employee, Suppliers, Contractors, Customers etc.
* Online courses - Custom built course or off the shelf courses for Induction, Compliance etc
* Web Meeting and Classroom platform - Gravitus is the gold partner for DimDim the leading wen meeting solution.
* Tools to develop online course - i.e allow end users to develop interactive components such as quizzes, flow charts etc.
* Business Process Mapping and Improvement - This is an online tool used by companies such as HBOS, Telstra etc which allows easy access to business processes and encourages process ownership and improvement
* Provision of Wikis, Podcasts etc
* Software development with a focus on Learning and Training.

I look forward to hearing from you if you or anyone you know has requirements. The team has quite a lot of experience in deploying these solutions for companies such as Coles, St George, AMP, Centrelink etc.

I will be happy to catch up for a cup of coffee to provide more details.

Let me know
--
Regards

Jeevan Joshi | Principal Consultant | Gravitus
Australia

Enabling Learning and Knowledge
www.gravitus.com.au

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

XLRI Social Entrepreneurship Conference

The 1st National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship will be held at XLRI, Jamshedpur on the 31st of January and 1st of February.

The two-day National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship is planned to be a confluence of eminent personalities in the development sector. Various events planned as part of the conference include,

Panel Discussions:

The discussions would explore the various social sectors for entrepreneurial opportunities and would focus on 6 themes, each highlighting a different dimension of 'providing access' viz,

• Access to Credit & Financial Services
• Access to Education
• Access to Healthcare & Hygiene
• Access to Livelihood Opportunities
• Access to Market, and
• Rural Access to Societal Resources

Entrepreneurs, academicians, corporates, government representatives and members from leading NGOs are expected to be part of the discussions on building access to various resources for building a social enterprise

Interactive Sessions:

Apart from the panel discussions, the conference would include interactive breakout sessions. These sessions, with little or no presentation, a lot of facilitated dialogue, group exercises and exploration of new ideas are aimed at developing model solutions for social issues relevant in today's context.

More information can be viewed on Madhukar's blog.

And here is the Prof himself giving an interview on the conference.

Part 1:


Part 2:

Music Video Response to Mumbai attacks by Prashanth Vadhyar (BM 99)

Prash as he is popularly known and his band have created a poignant song and music video in response to the terror attacks in Mumbai.

It has already been aired on Channel [v], MTV, CNN-IBN, Aaj-Tak, News 24, Zee-music, IBN-7, E-24

If you didn't catch it on TV, you can watch it here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ9LRrxMw-M



If you really like the video and the message that it conveys, you can join the fan group on Facebook

Credits for the ideo, include this information:
Dedicated to people of Mumbai.
Created by : www.ACTIVEillusions.com

Thanks much Channel [v], MTV, CNN-IBN, Aaj-Tak, News 24, Zee-music, IBN-7, E-24 and others to air it without second thoughts. Also the radio stations to consider this song in their programming. Laksh Media has also decided to play it across all their displays across the city. If you like the message, hopefully you'd forward this video-link to everyone. Also, if you want to know how this video came about, here is the story:

Attacks left us shocked and numb. Alcohol was one medicine during and after conversations that would usually revolve around hopelessness, vulnerability, frustration. Few evenings later, out of the blue, Manish Gupta & Rima Das made a call 'lets do something about it' to our musician and lyricist friends Prashant Vadhyar and Niren Bhatt.. that's how it all began.

They came up with a rough scratch by next day evening.. which we shared with filmmaking community and requested help which so easily poured in. So many of us came together.. camera rentals, post-production facilities were donated, professionals offered their services.. Mumbai's true spirit was in full bloom.. everything then fell in place very quickly, we did it without spending any money.

Directors : Manish Gupta, Ami Thanawala, Dipti Nangia, Pritisagar Singh, Rima Das
Music :Prashat Vadhyar, Vishal Singh
Lyrics:Niren Bhatt
Editor:Manish Gupta
PR: Pritisagar Singh, Reena Pujara
Post Production : Shriji Dristi

Special thanks to : Mehul Nisar (Rodium Group), Samir Sheikh, Birju Boricha, Narendra Mojidra, Partho Mukherjee, Niti Mathur, Anand Modhe, Adil Wassen, Aghay Tiwari, Narendra Pahade, Jayant Mishra, 1Take Media, Ashish Vyas, Ashutosh Singh
Category: Music

xlchennai : Trying for another cricket match

Dear guys,

We have let pass 2008 without a single cricket match being played and so want to start off 2009 on a positive note.

Subject to ground availability, we are trying to fix up a match with either IIM-A or IIM-C on Jan 26th, 2009 or the First Sunday in Feb 2009.

Do write to me your interest in signing...who knows some of the IPL franchisees may be scouting for fresh faces considering we were the 1st to launch the T-20 cricket matches way back in 2006 and 2007. This is your chance to make it big. So stretch out and get into shape in case you are out of touch with physical fitness for some time.

Also a belated Happy new Year to all u folks and families for 2009.

Cheers,
Murali (Class of 84)

Monday, January 5, 2009

Swarathma Album Launch Tour

The Swarathma Album is here!

With all of your best wishes, we've done it. Eight songs, our best, on one album produced by Amit Kilam (Indian Ocean) releasing on Virgin Records, as part of RC Live. It's been a hard day's night, but every second has been worth it.

Swarathma Launch Tour will feature a live performance, and you can pick up the CD at a discounted rate. Really hope to see you there.

Bangalore :: Jan 5, 8.30pm
Opus: 4, 1st Cross Main, Off Palace Road, Bangalore ENTRY FREE!

Pune :: Jan 7, 8.30pm
Club One: 1 - Lounge ,Koregaoon park,Mundwa road opp Satelite Towers, Pune

Mumbai :: Jan 8, 8.30pm
Bonobo: 3rd flr, Kenilworth, Linking Road, Bandra (W), Mumbai ENTRY FREE!

New Delhi :: Jan 10, 8.30pm
Q-Bar: 42/43, Connaught Circus, Connaught Place, New Delhi

Keeping the faith, hoping for your best wishes and love, as always.

Peace

Jishnu Dasgupta

Sunday, January 4, 2009

83 batch reunion on campus

Message from an alumnus of the 83 batch:

I just got back this week from the 25th Year Reunion of my Batch of 1983 at XLRI. About 33 of us met at Jamshedpur, some of us after a full 25 years. Was great fun to re-connect and also see how much XL had grown in this period. The physical infrastructure alone is more than three times of what it used to be in our time. Another noteworthy development is the much more favourable boys to girls ratio!

Among other things we had a very good discussion with the Director and management of XLRI about starting a XLRI Endowment Fund (XEF) which can help the Alumni and others contribute to the growth and development of XL and its community. We presented a plan which was received enthusiastically and we hope it will take firm shape in the next few weeks. Will share more details once it is in existence.

Narinder Singh

National Social Entrepreneurship Conference @ XLRI (Jan 31 - Feb 1, 2009)

Folks!
I am happy to share that we are organising the 1st National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship at XLRI during January 31 - February 1, 2009.
I am pasting and enclosing the conference brochure + nomination form.
This event would be of interest for those involved in the development sector (social entreprenurs/NGOs/CBOs, Acedmics, CSR executives, etc.). Most welcome to register...
...and please also pass it on to others who you think will find this of interest.
thanks
madhukar
ps: we are also looking for sponsors - so any help on this front would be most welcome


The Purpose

· To showcase innovative social entrepreneurship ventures by individual entrepreneurs, NGOs, corporates, and government agencies

· To provide a common platform for sharing experiences, issues and concerns.

The Theme
One common theme that cuts across diverse social entrepreneurial ventures is their aim to create a more sustainable and equitable society. Social entrepreneurs achieve this by innovating solutions which make available the societal resources (education, energy, credit, healthcare, livelihood opportunities, market-linkages, etc.) to those who lack access to these. Correspondingly, proposed theme for the Conference is:

The Social Entrepreneurship Conference is designed across 6 sessions over two days, each dealing with the "access" issue, viz.:

· Access to Credit & Financial Services

· Access to Education

· Access to Healthcare & Hygiene

· Access to Livelihood Opportunities

· Access to Market, and

· Rural Access to Societal Resources

In addition, the Conference will also provide an interactive platform/workshop for the delegates to share their work, concerns and issue, and arrive at collaborative solutions.

Date

January 31 & February 1, 2009

Venue

XLRI, Jamshedpur

For Whom

Development sector professionals, i.e.,

· Social entrepreneurs,

· NGOs,

· Government officials operating in development space,

· CSR executievs,

· Academicians, and

· Interested students

Participation Fee*


Indian Delegates

Foreign Delegates


Residential

(twin-sharing)

Non-Residential

Residential

(twin-sharing)

Non-Residential

Social Entrepreneur/ NGO/ CBO

Rs. 3,000/-

Rs. 1,000/-

$200

$150

Funding Agency/ Support Organisation/ Govt Depts

Rs. 5,500/-

Rs. 4,000/-

$300

$250

Academic

Rs. 4,000/-

Rs. 2,500/-

$250

$200

Corporate

Rs. 6,500/-

Rs. 5,000/-

$400

$350

Student in a full-time course

Limited seats are available for student participants, at a participation fee of Rs. 750/-

* fee includes Participants’ Kit and all meals (residential) & lunch (non-residential)

** Last Date of Registration: January 19th, 2009

The Cheque/DD should be drawn in favour of XLRI Jamshedpur

Nominations, on enclosed Registration Form, should be sent to:
Prof Madhukar Shukla

Conference Coordinator

The 1st National Social Entrepreneurship Conference

XLRI

CH Area (East), Jamshedpur 831 001

Ph: 0657 – 398 3333 Fax: 0657 – 398 3200

Email: seconference@xlri.ac.in