Aakash Tablet – More Than Just the $35 Price Tag

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It was a revelation for me to read the background story about Aakash ($35 tablet) in this FastCompany write-up.

Firstly, its impressive to know that the design for this potential-commercial-success is coming from an academic campus (IIT). The design is then sold to a commercial manufacturer (DataWind) with a challenging price target to meet. The challenge for the manufacturer is sweetened with access to a large protected market (subsidized purchases by the government).  This sounds like a good example of the value chain making the best of the strengths of the individual players (IIT / design – DataWind / commercial manufacturing – Indian government / distribution with a cause). The understanding of this definitely increases the credibility of the project for me.

Secondly, the fact that the IIT students (& professors) are getting involved in a live product development experience is amazing. And that too a ground breaking product (price point) of a worthy impact (distribution across government schools). Kudos to the people involved.

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Photo: Man & Peace

Man & Peace

The UN building in Geneva is a huge tourist attraction. The buildings, lawns & commemorative structures apart, this painting on the outer wall of the building is an eye-catcher. This picture is a small portion of a much bigger painting. My inspiration for this capture is a Ken Rockwell post on composition (specifically the Example: SEX and Balance section) that I had read a long time ago.

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Top Ideas From 2011’s Best Employers

BestCompaniesToWorkFor2011

Going through Fortune’s 25 Best Global Companies to Work For feature, some practices of these organization caught my attention. Below is a collation of some of these that might be useful for anyone.

  • Catch Them Doing The Right Stuff   Top executives spend 3 hours each week making personal calls to thank employees for specific positive behaviour. 
  • Horizontal Growth If your employee has doubts about having made a wrong career choice, let them try out jobs in different areas of the company through formal job rotation.
  • Work – Life Balance To help maintain work – life balance, make a rule that senior executives cannot call meetings before 9:30 in the morning and cannot hold a meeting after 5:00 in the afternoon. 
  • Transparency  Hold Know Your Compensation (KYC) sessions, where employees learn where their compensation is compared to their colleagues & also the salary ranges in their organization.
  • Diversity  Maintain a healthy male to female ratio at the executive/senior management level with as much as 50% the positions filled by women.
  • Positive Networking  Allow promoted employees to name colleagues who helped them along the way; those colleagues are reached out to with personal thank-you emails from company leaders. 
  • Societal Contribution  Allow employees to contribute to a social cause of their liking at the company’s cost to address both the individual & organizations’ social responsibilities.
  • Networked Organization  Senior leaders spend a large amount of time with employees via skip level meetings, birthday get-together, personal thank-you sessions, coffee with high performers, etc.

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Photo Feature – Fall in Geneva

While fall is a grim reminder of the impending winter for some & the inevitability of death to others, it is a fantastic opportunity to get your creative juices flowing if you are interested in photography. Geneva provided the backdrop when I capture some images of the season recently.

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

– Steve Jobs

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The lawns & gardens that surround the United Nations building in Geneva is a beautiful place to walk around & enjoy a beautiful day.

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The early morning sun & shadows cast by the tree made for a wonderful photo opportunity.

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Zooming into the details of this wonderful place was a breeze with my nifty-fifty (Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens).

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One could spend hours with a camera here. Unfortunately, I had but a few minutes at the location.

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