A search for a plumber on Just Dial gives an exhaustive list of more than 10-pages of contact details for plumbers. For a task as mundane as finding the right handymen, the hundreds of ‘unfamiliar’ choices seems to be a promethean task.
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The Right to Education (RTE) Act may have been passed but more than 95 per cent schools are still not compliant with the infrastructure standard prescribed in the RTE Act, says a 2012 civil society survey.
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India is evolving and so are the ambitions of Indians. It has become a start-up hotspot and has attracted investors from across the world. Despite the open and free culture in start-up offices work can get competitive and demanding from employees. To stay ahead from competition some organizations tend to have long and stressful working hours, and at times employees tend to take the stress back home. Add to that the Indian scenario where family is a big part of life, not spending enough time with them adds to the strain that employees feel. Family members start to feel excluded and the friction at home has a tendency to increase.Employees with young kids at home start feeling the guilt leading to lack of focus and concentration at work. The support of family gives significant leverage in terms of reducing work tensions and can make all the difference. Companies have starting involving families in functions and other occasions to make them feel more involved in their organizations. Initiatives that engage with family members of the employees can go a long way in keeping the work force happy and satisfied.Involvement and satisfaction of family members plays an important role in retention of talent. Some initiatives that companies can take to build a relationship with family members are:Thank you letters while hiring - Small gestures like sending welcome letters to the employee's family makes them feel like a part of the extended family of the organization. Small tokens like flowers and cakes to their home address helps the family feel more connected to the company.Celebrating work anniversaries - Celebrating every employee's work anniversary by inviting the spouse & kids or parents and bringing them to office where they meet up with MD and the team members help the members of the family more connected to the job that their spouse does. Small office tours and special dinners makes the employees and the family feel special and warm towards the organization. Gifting small personalized items to the kids will delight the kids and everyone else as well. Employee events that involves families- Involve family members in certain events that are held at work. Having a special bring your family to work day or inclusion in celebrations like annual days go a long way with families. Participation in organizing the event and spending some time with the employees to ensure its success helps families feel like a part of the company. Such gestures initiate trust and respect amongst the family and its employees.Family involvement is extremely important in the professional success of an employee. Small initiatives can help reduce family stress due to work and make family members feel attached to the organization. Understanding of the work and the environment that the spouse works in helps kins feel comfortable and relaxed. Regards and respect for companies is higher by families if they feel like a part of the organization. This interaction also helps in building credibility for the organization by the family and the employees.The author, Pradeep Malhotra, is VP & Managing Director of Blue Jeans India
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Coursera says that it plans to use the funds to source new content and expand its global reach. Simar Singh reportsIn the first closing of its Series C funding, online open learning giant, Coursera, has raised $49.5 million and expects the figure to swell to $60 million by the second closing. The round was lead by venture capital firm, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the company’s original investors. Joining in among other investors was Bennett and Coleman’s (BCCL) subsidiary, Times Internet, as a first time investor. Apart from the investment angle, Times Internet and Coursera announced a strategic partnership in which the former will provide marketing, advertising, and strategic support to create awareness about the platform in India. Satyan Gajwani, CEO of Times Internet, said, "Coursera is the gold standard for the emerging wave of education technology companies. We are excited to bring Times Internet's growth capabilities behind such a strong product, and bring high quality, affordable digital education to millions of Indians." Coursera says that it plans to use the funds to source new content and expand its global reach. The company currently has ambitious plans for international expansion, with a focus on emerging economic regions like India, China and Latin America, where there is a demand for accessible, high quality learning.
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Ashish Dhawan, founder and CEO, Central Square Foundation, feels the centre can play a pivotal role in solving India's primary education problems. Arshad Khan reportsThe Indian education system has not changed much since the time of Independence. However, since the Union Government wants to bring about reformations in the sector by launching flagship schemes like Skill India, entrepreneurs in the education sector feel that time is ripe to promote privatisation in the sector and that government should assume a more monitoring role. Ashish Dhawan, founder and CEO, Central Square Foundation says, “The need of the hour is to re-asses the role of the government. The primary role of the government should be more about setting standards and not implementing policies. The central government should assess whether states are following the blueprint and it has to incentivise states to follow the best practices.” Dhawan also believes that the centre can play a pivotal role in solving India's primary education problems, even though it is a state subject. He adds that states should be encouraged and that particular states should be identified; those that lag in adhering to the set pattern. Dhawan is currently working on creating a country-wide database for India on 'Know My School' portal which will be aimed at providing information on all primary schools in the country. This will be based on 200 parameters including board examination results which he feels will help regulatory bodies implement policies decisively. Opining on a regulatory body for private institutes, he said, “The reason why private schools flourished in India is mainly because governments could not deliver. Currently, around 43 per cent children are enrolled in private schools and it is estimated to breach the 60 per cent mark by 2025. As the private sector has grown manifold, there is an urgent need for a regulatory body which will monitor both the private and public educational institutions.” Although private colleges extract an exorbitant amount as the tuition fees, the return on investment (ROI) is actually not very promising. Dhawan observed, “Colleges need to publish ROI on the expenditure made by the customers (parents) which will be made on the basis of their placement data.”
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Technology companies are great acquisition targets provided they scale up their customer base, Vishal Krishna reports Legacy talent platforms have always had tons of CVs uploaded on them. These platforms were neither intelligent nor productive for organisations that used them. Organisations spent upwards of $2,000 per hire to close the right candidate in mid-level positions. This is an expensive proposition. All that is going to be history now. There are several startups that have cropped up to help organisations with intelligence-based lateral hiring. With the growth of small businesses, especially those that have raised money and are trying to scale up operations, the need to employ experienced individuals has also increased. Myparichay, Hiree, ZenRadius and Talview are some of these new talent hiring platforms that are making hiring intelligent and measurable. They also intend to help HR departments to reduce the time, cost and effort in finding the right person for the available roles. At any given point of time there are a million people scouting for new jobs. About 50 per cent of them are dormant seekers and the rest are active. Hiree, founded by Manjunath Talwar and Abhijith Khasnis, former Yahoo employees, has built a platform that can recognise the needs of the employer and potential employee. Its back-end engine matches the job profiles with the right connects. For example a developer who knows five computer languages would want to work in a company that is investing in its digital strategy. The process is quick and simple on the Hiree app. The engine of Hiree also scouts the entire social profile of the employing company and the employee to match both their needs. IDG Ventures has put in $3 million. The company has scaled up to close to 200,000 users and there are several startups already hiring through their platform. Business Model The business model is based on paying an annual license fee for the data base. The company does not take a cut on the salary at which the employer offers to the candidate. "We are a technology platform that solves hiring and this can scale up faster than other legacy hiring models because they do not match skills," says Talwar. Similarly MyParichay too is using technology to connect with potential hires. This platform links to social networks and uses the connections of an individual to find people of similar profiles. The company has raised $1 million and has been funded by HT Media. Talview, another Bangalore-based startup, is using video technology to help employers, is scouting for funds. Their proposition is to get lateral hires on to a video platform with the employer. Tests and interviews are conducted on a device. Talview offers a login to the employee and they get on to a video platform with the employer at an instant. Talview was founded by Sanjoe Jose, Subramanian K, Jobin Jose and Tom Jose. "We charge for the technology used and it is a license model. They can interview as many employees as they like," says Jose. The central part of all three hiring startups is that they are using technology to disrupt hiring. But they are also building data analytics engines to sieve through the portfolio of registered hires and engage them on a long term basis. There will be 300 million Indians seeking jobs in 2030, even if these startups can cater to 50 million job seekers then these are potential $500 million businesses. Does that mean these companies are early to the party? Like in all such internet businesses, ones with the deepest pocket will survive. "Technology is the differentiator today and that is the theme of all investments today," says Venkatesh Peddi, Vice President at IDG Ventures. He adds that it is the only way to connect to the growing middle class and their changing methods of consumption with smart phones. However, this industry has seen its ups and downs. A Helion Ventures funded startup called Talentpad shut shop because it was not able to scale up in acquiring employees. Such is the nature of the business. Although there are 6 million graduates passing out in the country only 700,000 or 15 per cent are employable. This is also the core audience on the smart phone. According to Kronos, the human capital management product company, there are only 20 million white collar workers. It is large enough. The bet for these hiring platforms will be to raise more money and become the leaders in their industry to survive. Unless a large pool of workers in India start to actively use smartphones and enter the white-collar market, these hiring platforms will not become standalone companies. They will become acquisition targets, for their technology and team, to platforms with deeper pockets.
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Pune-based AgroStar, a direct-to-farmer m-commerce firm launched in 2012, has raised close to $4 million from venture capital investors IDG Ventures India and existing investor Aavishkaar Venture Management. This is in its second round of funding for the startup that was founded by Sitanshu Sheth and Shardul Sheth in an attempt to transform the agri-business for farmers in rural India. It is understood that the firm has raised the current round of capital to enhance its technology and leadership teams and expand its operations across India. Headquartered in Pune, AgroStar currently operates in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. It is looking to foray into an additional 3-4 states over the next 12 months, as per a statement issued by Consultancy firm o3 Capital acted as the sole advisor to AgroStar on the transaction. AgroStar has developed a direct to farmer m-commerce platform where farmers can buy an entire range of agri inputs like seeds, crop nutrition, crop protection and hardware products by simply giving a missed call on the Company’s 1800 number. The Company is aiming to address the challenges of demand and supply mis-match, adulteration, poor quality products, unavailability of key products etc. Faced by Indian farmers while purchasing agri inputs. IDG Ventures India is a leading India-focused technology venture capital fund. The fund is part of IDG Ventures, a global network of technology venture funds which has more than $ 4 billion under management. Aavishkaar, on the other hand, is an early stage, India focused venture fund with over $155 million under management. It primarily invests in agriculture, dairy, education, energy, handicrafts, among others. The current investment signals a strong vote of confidence among investors in the new breed of India's entrepreneurs. In the first half of the current calendar year, as many as 363 venture capital deals were sealed, three times more than the number of private equity deals, which stood at 99, as per data available with Grant Thornton.
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In 2010, while he was in second year at IIT, Kedar Kulkarni, CEO and co-founder, HyperVerge, co-founded his first company, Lema Labs, which has become a leading robotics education company in South India. In IIT-Madras, he represented India at the International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) in 2009 and 2010.In 2014, he teamed up with four other IITians (IIT-Madras) Vignesh Krishnakumar (CTO), Kishore Natarajan (User Growth), Saivenkatesh Ashokkumar (Engineering) and Praveen Kumar (Product) to develop artificial intelligence which deals with teaching computers to mimic the behaviour of the human brain. The Seed FundingHyperVerge, a deep-learning startup by IIT-Madras graduates, announced that it has raised $1 million in seed funding from several US venture capital firms, including NEA, Milliways Ventures and Naya Ventures.In 2014, HyperVerge went to US to do a Kickstarter campaign, where people made them realized the prominence of their product. "We didn't visit US for seed funding, our intention was to do a kickstarter campaign in the US. We were hoping to raise about $50,000 through crowd-funding. We thought it will be just enough to build a basic app. Through conversations with mentors from IIT Madras Alumni community, we realised that the technology developed by the team was a lot more valuable than we earlier thought. It also became very clear that HyperVerge will need backing of strong and supportive VCs for us to be a serious contender in the space of deep-learning". The AppSilver, the first smartphone application developed by the company helps users automatically organise their photos, eliminate poor quality photos and duplicates, and share their best photos. Optimized self-learning algorithms produce results that are real-time and highly accurate to ensure users find the photos(s) they are looking for within just a few seconds. Kittu Kolluri, General Partner at NEA, said, “They have strong ambitions and the potential to achieve them—the technology developed by the company can span out as useful applications for consumers, enterprises and developers. We are thrilled to partner with HyperVerge to bring innovative deep-learning solutions to users and prospective partners.” "Working with a budget of under six lakh, we were able to create classifiers for identification of people, scenes, events and unique patterns in images", said Kedar Kulkarni, CEO and co-founder of HyperVerge. "We believe that our image recognition technology can be the foundation for several breakthrough consumer applications in the near future".poonam@businessworld.in(Poonam Kumar)
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