NIT Trichy – Startup Weekend

I wanted to share my experiences on a recent event that i attended at NIT Trichy named "Startup Weekend" which i'll cherish forever!

Date: 15-17 September, 2017

Venue: LH09, NIT Trichy

The event was organized by the Entrepreneurship cell of NIT Trichy. It was a 54 hours event which involved “NO TALK ALL ACTION” Concept. In just 54 hours we experienced the highs, lows, fun and pressure that made up life at startup. We learnt how to create a real company, we met the best mentors, investors, co-founders, and sponsors who were ready to help us get started. 

Day 1 – 15 September, 2017

From TSM, myself (Jeyapriya K, Jeyalakshmi, Meenakshi and Surya kumar) went for the startup event. We reached the venue by 5:45PM when the event had been half way through. We were given certain words, teams were formed and were given any 2 words from the board with which we need to develop a business idea and present. My team got “AI and Engines”. We came up with the idea of “Self-healing machines using AI”. The concept was, there are too many derailments and accidents happening, so as a cure we proposed the idea of self-healing machines which heals itself when a mishap occurs. After the pitching this idea for 60 seconds which were a mock pitching we then proceeded to the live 60 Seconds pitch for the day. There were 100 participants out of which 60 people pitched their business ideas and 11 ideas were selected via a sticky note voting idea. We then formed teams to our favorite idea and then started working on the business model canvas which we were asked to submit before the next day 8AM. And we worked on this idea for the next 2 days. We were allotted guest houses which were too comfortable (AC rooms which looked similar to 5 star hotels) and the level of security they provided in taking us to guest houses using cab accompanied by a senior was too good, which showed the level of care they showed for the guests. 

Day 2 – 16 September, 2017

The day started at 8:15AM where we had our breakfasts and started building our business plan. We had 7 Mentors from various fields like Marketing, IOT s/w h/w animation DVD manufacturing auctioning, person who had innovation Centre, sales person, person proficient in product management and person who run snack business. We spoke to Dorai, Arul, Natasha and Seyed Ahmed Kabeer who gave us various inputs on the topic Homemakers which we planned to work on. We did financial calculations, analyzed marketing strategies and did presentation to be presented for the next day.

Day 3 – 17 September, 2017

The day started at 8:30AM, we geared ourselves up for the final presentation that evening. We had mock presentation in the order of lots picked by us. We were the 4th team to present; they gave a suggestion that we had no clear business model. We had only half hour time to submit our presentation, it was 2:30PM then, we motivated ourselves and worked faster on the flowchart and completed the presentation. We then presented around 5:45PM as 4th team. The presentation was done by Sashvat and Adithya who did an extraordinarily a good job. We were questioned about how we are going to work on both cooking and tutoring which are both diverse fields and was advised to take care of any one field. We finally won the second place and were given the certificate of excellence. We were said that we would receive funds if we wanted to implement the idea immediately.

And finally, Memories die hard!

Waive Off of Agricultural Loans to Farmers

Currently i'm pursuing MBA at Thiagarajar School of Management, Madurai. The very first task given by my Dean Mr. Shailesh Rastogi when i joined college was to write an article on any topic that concerned us and i wrote about "Waive off of Agricultural Loans to Farmers" which are as follows.

Firstly, there are several issues concerning farmers in almost every state but the sole reason of getting compounded in TN is mainly because of the indifferent attitude that the Central Government has been showing us. The severity of the issue increased after an unprecedented drought for over 140 years in Tamil Nadu and Government's relief package of only 2000 Crores. The primary reason farmers put forward to waive off agricultural loans is the lack of productivity of crops due to insufficient water resources. Farmers pleaded Central Government to resolve Cauvery issue, but Karnataka government was not ready to share the water resources. Also, Central Government was not ready to take immediate decisions even after Supreme court ordered to create a committee to resolve the issue because of then Karnataka's elections. TN's former Chief Minister O. Paneerselvam was considered to be inefficient to handle situations and represent farmers woes, so the protest took place at Jantar Mantar in the capital city of India.

Over 100 farmers from TN carried skulls of people who committed suicide staging protest for 41 days in April demanding drought relief package and loan waiver for peasants from the state. It has been one horrific and bizarre event in the history of India which I personally felt was not resolved immediately. Farmers protested half naked carrying begging bowls, eating mice, wearing Gandhi mask presenting the tragic face of protest, wearing tree leaves presenting the destitution to passersby, climbing trees, and protesting outside Prime Minister's residence which was no ordinary protest to be precise. 

I strongly agree to the fact that waiving off loan to TN would demand other states the same justice for which the central government has been backing off which is also impossible and too much of a pressure to handle from the perspective of Central Government. But what I would strongly oppose is the lack of equipment from Government to keep farmers adaptable to any adverse situations. There must be one massive step to overcome the obstacles of farmers whose productivity of crops is solely based upon monsoon rains. Though waiving off loans have been done to TN already twice once in 2008 by congress and another when Madras High court ordered waiving off of loans of all farmers in cooperative banks owing to 5 acres of land, farmers have never been able to overcome the adversities. Even if loan waiver happens I'm pretty sure we are again going to face some consequences in the form of indirect taxes. Now, farmers have resumed their protest at Jantar Mantar who says that they feel cheated by state and central government. 

To overcome problems of Indian agriculture which has become highly unorganized today with economically unfeasible farms, high indebtedness and exorbitant interest rates needs immediate solutions. Personally, I felt state government making effective ways for multiple crops, special agricultural zone, modernization, proper education to farmers, meaningful crop insurance policies and better water management along with alternative income to farmers and national weather risk management system would be helpful. We know that our farmers are fighting for us, let us keep supporting them. To be precise, Let our innovation begin with farmers!

A message from the deep

Recently, i was interested with the thought of earning money with what i'm good at - Writing!. So i signed up into a steemit account in the name of "Jonsnow9120" and started posting contents that fancied me. I was not able to make promotions for the contents that i posted hence was weak in capturing likes of co-steemians, as a result my source of income was too poor. (Note - Steemit pays you based on the likes that you get. To get the maximum reach you need to do some promotions.)

"A message from deep" is one such article that i posted that i wanted to share with the rest of you.

I have been in shock ever since i read an article about the level of oceans being polluted recently in a Facebook post. Is it really a matter of concern? - Depends upon your perspective towards how you see life be it animals or humans.

Studies say, around eight million metric tons of our plastic waste enter the oceans from land each year. Where this plastic ends up and what form it takes is a mystery. Most of our waste consists of everyday items such as bottles, wrappers, straws or bags. To be precise, Marine life is dying!

The video that i watched in Facebook literally made me feel ashamed of being a part of pollution in some way or the other. The primary reason for concern is because our household rubbish is polluting every single part of our oceans, at every possible depth. And it is killing our marine life. I heard about self help groups showing active participation in cleaning water bodies and raising awareness against poaching. Kudos to the team! Something not every individual does those people do.

I have been surfing to find ways to eradicate marine pollution. For me the solution seemed to be bringing better and easier recycling methods and supermarkets though have started the initiative of reducing plastic bags, much awareness must be brought among the world on a large scale. Because i personally believe there is no use in crying over a spilt milk.

Have a look at this video which provides us a way to beat ocean plastic!

Even if we don't participate in the cleaning campaigns, let us make an initiative 
to reduce the level of plastics we use in our daily life. Because they can never 
communicate their pains like we do and it really hurts seeing them die because of us. 
Hope there comes greater changes in near future forever. Have a good day!