Step2

So my trip to delhi has spoiled my amazingly awesome (D and S were so jealous) average of 1 blog entry a day. Today I felt like writing about step2.

Just copy pasting from here.

"Step2 is a community that tries to bridge the gap between academia and industry. The idea behind Step2 is simple. We recognize the power latent in the student community as amongst the most potent forces in the world, and yet, amongst the most neglected and misdirected.

Step2 aims at channelizing this pool of talent towards targeted industrial strength projects. Each project has a dedicated mentor to provide guidance and direction to the student group working in the project for the entire duration of the projects. Mentors also publish articles and Do-It-Yourself's they believe will help students ramp themselves up for participation in different projects."

Step2 was thought of by my very good friend J. Something like this had been missing when we were students ourself. I hope it takes off because I have posted a lot of Praja requirements here ;). Also this has given me 24 hour access to a wannabe drupal expert. Its so much fun when we brainstorm on stuff and I end up teaching him things. Never thought I would be happy when something like this would happen! ( Am I turning into a geek? :-/)

Anyways do check out Step2.

Center for Internet and Society

Heard about this one first time from Jace. Check them out at http://www.cis-india.org/

Quoting verbatim from their site

"The Centre for Internet and Society will critically engage with concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices, in the field of Internet and Society, with particular emphasis on South-South dialogues and exchange.

Through multidisciplinary research, intervention, and collaboration, we seek to explore, understand, and affect the shape and form of the internet, and its relationship with the political, cultural, and social milieu of our times."

In short, these guys do research and advocacy for using internet as a medium for social change. Today I meet its executive director Sunil Abraham. Tried to understand what these guys are upto and had discussions on what are the next possible ways to take Praja forward.

Its interesting how the world seems to be interconnected. He sits on the board of OSI which is a major funder for my latest love Ushahidi (2 years back I had never thought I would say that for a opensource framework ;) ).

Among other things he immediately agreed to fund a research paper on stuff related to Praja. So if you have any concept note. Now is the time you shoot it to me:)

The Mountain "Do"d

There is a friend who is a very intricate part of who I am in this crazy city.He had quit his high paying job to create a startup and failed and is stupid enough to try it all over again. He drives an 8 year old yamaha when most of his peers would be driving a honda city. He can identify almost any chick you can see in the western ghats (I mean the flying kinds!). He makes riding a bicycle look cool. Despite being Ds cousin he dances unabashedly on Hindi Songs. He has Kumar Sanu songs on his ipod. When he takes you on a trek he can point to a needle looking thing and tell you its a porcupine hair. He gets excited on holding a frog in his hand. He will write the code himself even when he knows he can find an application to do the exact same thing.

Today it dawned on me that soon he is getting married and moving to a land far far away.

To the coolest geek I came across......All the Best!


P.S. In case he reads this, I know you never liked the title. Finally I bury it :)

Tata Jagriti Yatra

Got to know of this initiative by Payal and Mayank of NGOPost. Check this out

"Tata Jagriti Yatra is an annual train journey that takes hundreds of India's highly motivated youth (with some participation of international students) between the ages of 20-25 on an eighteen day national odyssey, introducing them to unsung heroes of India. The aim is to awaken the spirit of entrepreneurship - both social and economic - within India's youth by exposing them to individuals and institutions that are developing unique solutions to India's challenges. Through this national event we have begun to inspire the youth of India to lead and develop institutions both nationally and within their communities.
The first Tata Jagriti Yatra successfully took place between December 24th 2008 to January 11th, 2009."

Finally I did what I had been procastinating for too long. Filled their application form today. If you are interested and have as bad writing skills as mine, I suggest you take out atleast 3 hours for this. Will submit it soon. The last date is 31 October.

Hope I get selected. Should be fun.

Working with Smart Vote Folks

Meet with Smartvote team this Sunday morning. Local BBMP elections are around the corner. These are happening after a gap of 4 years. For what these guys have been doing check out smartvote.in . They believe in voters making informed choices.

We are trying to create a vote block for these elections. Testing out the area of Koramangla and Indiranagar for now. Meet Major Kapoor from Koramangla along with Amar and D. Will post more details as and when they come. Looking forward to this. Should be fun.

Lets Start Again

D has been pushing me to maintain a blog for quite some time. Both of us feel that a lot of things have been happening lately and it makes sense to keep a track. The thing with starting a blog is that you can do it as many times as you want :) Hence I make another attempt at being a blogger.

When I was thinking about the name I had a defunct blog with the name "Time of My Life" . Instead of starting a new one I felt like reviving this because this is what I am doing right now. I am having a time of my life.

For those who dont know I am an Engineer by education. After getting thoroughly bored with working in an IT MNC for 2 years I started a Non- Profit along with a few of the people I have come to know while living in Bangalore. For more details check out http://praja.in.

In this blog I will mostly share my experiences about the people I am meeting and the work that I am doing. So read on...