An interview with Ananth Aravamudan, Energy Sector Lead, Villgro Innovations Foundation and an alum of the Chevening Research Science and Innovation Leadership Programme (CRISP)
John Hoffmire: You’ve had an interesting journey from electrical engineer to being the energy sector lead for Villgro Innovations Foundation, India’s oldest and one of the world’s largest social enterprise incubators. Please tell me about that journey? Ananth: I started out as an electronics engineer by training. I spent 14 years in the IT/Tech sector at multi-national companies like Siemens, Lucent Technologies and MindTree, [...]
An interview with Dr. Beena Rai, Head – Physical Sciences at TCS Research, Tata Consultancy Services
John Hoffmire: I love your Twitter tag: “A scientist who makes serious research fun.” Tell me about your recent research and what is fun about it? Beena: First, to me what makes research fun is that one gets to follow one’s curiosity. As a scientist, I’ll take on a challenge and then use my curiosity and creatively to come up with and design a [...]
An interview with Dr. Manisha Acharya, CEO of Indigram Labs Foundation and member of the Expert Advisory Committee of i-STED, Programme of Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India
John Hoffmire: Let me ask you a fun question first. You have a PhD in Palaeobotany. How did you end up in the innovation, incubation and start-up management field? Manisha: It has been a long and interesting journey. The short answer is that early on in my career, I moved a lot to various parts of India due to the transferrable nature of my [...]
An interview with Dr. Abha Rishi, Chairperson for the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (CIED) and CEO of the Atal Incubation Centre at Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH)
John Hoffmire: Please tell me about the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (CIED) at Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH). Abha Rishi: John, the central mission of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (CIED) is to prepare men and women to lead, innovate, and think entrepreneurially in business, as well as in public and social service, to be job creators, [...]
An interview with Anthony Vipin Das, FRCS, Consultant Ophthalmologist and Associate Director at the L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India, and creator of eyeSmart EMR, an award winning Electronic Medical Record and Hospital Management System which is currently operational across the LVPEI network in India and globally
John Hoffmire: MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) named you among the Top 35 Innovators under 35 years of age in the world on the TR35 2012 list. Please tell us more about that? Vipin: As an ophthalmologist, I was keenly aware of how difficult it was for a doctor to access past information about a particular patient. Written records at [...]
An interview with Anjali Kaushik, Professor and Chair, Information Management, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India and Chief Investigator for creation and deployment of Cyber Security Framework for e-Governance services of the Government of India
John Hoffmire: As a professor of Information Management, how would you define your field? Anjali: Information management is an emerging field that is concerned with the infrastructure used to collect, manage, preserve, protect, store and deliver information. The guiding principle of this infrastructure allows information to be available to the right people at the right time and protects that information from getting into any wrong hands. As a [...]
Why Social Entrepreneurship Is Good For People And Business
When imagining a career devoted to serving the greater good, most envision charities or nonprofits. But over the last few decades, a new model has emerged—for-profit social enterprises. At first, it might sound counterintuitive. Many think that focusing on profitability could distract or pull funds from the organization’s primary mission. But as social entrepreneurs launch ventures that make money and drastically improve the lives [...]
An interview with Sashane Perera, Manager, Concept Creation, MAS Holdings, and Artistic Director, StageLight&Magic Inc.
John Hoffmire: When I met you in Oxford last year, I recognized that you where someone who followed their passion and worked in two very separate fields. Tell me more about that. Sashane: I do straddle two different industries. In my day job I work on innovation in the fashion industry as part of a team that seeks to create new apparel [...]
An interview with Daisy Agarwalla, Co-founder and Senior Manager at Integrated Digital Systems, Delhi, India and a Chevening (CRISP) and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Program for Women Entrepreneurs scholar
John Hoffmire: Tell me about the company you co-founded. Daisy: I started my career with the Gauhati Stock Exchange after completing my Bachelor’s degree in Statistics and an MBA. After a short stint I started my entrepreneurial journey when I cofounded Integrated Digital Systems along with my husband in 1992. Our company has been at the forefront of geographic information systems (GIS) [...]
Empowering Self-Advocacy Through TrueFootprint and the Covid-19 Care Monitoring Coalition
In a country where the Ebola crisis hit most forcefully, it was found that one half the doctors who were being paid for by donors did not exist. The money that was being donated to pay for these doctors was being siphoned off through corrupt practices by bad leaders. Here is the story of a group, TrueFootprint, and the way that they [...]
An interview with James TJ, founder & Director at Creativiti Council, and Project Director of Innovation Science Technology Enterprise Development (i-STED Project)
John Hoffmire: Tell me about Creativiti Council, the organization you founded. James: We are a non-profit organization addressing the needs of two marginalized sections of the society. Our first mission is to address elderly/bedridden/palliative care. With gradual deterioration of abilities, the aged population faces extreme difficulties to meet their daily needs. It has been noted that with loss of autonomy and freedom [...]
An interview with Dr. Mrinmayee Bhushan, founding Director of the start-up firm, Mindfarm Novatech Private Ltd; consultant for IP and innovation for a DSIR-approved, not-for-profit research organization, APT Research Foundation, and a Biosecurity Analyst.
John Hoffmire: Tell me about the product you developed. Mrinmayee: It all started because of the reluctance shown by a relative of mine to face the public after hair grew abnormally on her face during menopause. That prompted me to find a remedy for the problem. As a medical pharmacologist, I was trained to help solve issues where biology and human needs [...]
