Category: Personal

  • BarCamp MU 3

    I missed most of the morning show of BarCampMU3 because I had to rush to college to pay the exam fees that would allow me to sit for the exams for my sixth semester.

     The first session post-lunch was on Photovoltaic technology for cost reduction. This was presented by Gaurav Shah, who is about to register a start-up soon called Electrik Solutions, which is hoping to dabble in the photovoltaic (PV) technology markets. He tells us that while manufacturing costs are about to be lowered with the coming of the third generation of PV cells, India is still stuck in the first. So, Electrik will first concentrate on building the second generation PV cells in India. He’s looking for electric engineers who would like to dabble in PV technology.

    Amit Gogna gave the second talk on the first implemented pilot projects of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) programme in India. The Indian Government refused to backup the OLPC programme, when it was offered the deal that was also offered to other governments, thinking it might produce a less than $100 laptop in India. Reliance ADA is the one that is stimulating this pilot study in a village called Khairat, near Mumbai. The best part of the presentation was probably the photo-op session that the laptop got after the presentation. Everyone has heard of the laptop, no one has actually seen it. According to Amit, the laptop, if brought to India today would cost about $205 [≈ Low-end bicycle]. He also called for more help on developing the applications for the laptop based on the Indian scenario.

    The third talk in the afternoon was given by a Swiss travelling to Mumbai for one of his projects, Renaud Richardet. He gave a presentation on the community aspects of open source. He talked a lot about how to select mailing lists and on looking at the reward systems. He’s working on an CMS project called Apache Lenya. 

    The last presentation of the day was given by Rahul Gupta, an IIT-B alumni, working on a start-up – Vakow! The name is inspired from a R D Burman song. It is something you should check out yourself to see how it works. He probably put it best for the people who were around there, when he said – “Vakow is for SMSs what Flickr is for photos”.

    The last major announcement was about the BarCampMumbai and the first BlogCampMumbai being held in the IIT-B campus on 29th March 2008.

  • IdeaMine – Self Sufficient Co-operative Housing Societies

    Like in any other Indian city, Mumbai follows the co-operative housing society model for most residential needs of the middle-class families. The focus of today’s idea is a system that reduces the eco-footprint of this unit of Indian living.

    Let’s begin with electiricity. Although corridor and compound lighting does not consume too much electricity and may contribute only to a small percentile of the society’s consumption, it does make sense in installing solar panels and LED or CFL bulbs in their place to reduce their long term costs. It might also be worth checking out a model of a windmill on top of all those cell phone towers that we see springing on top of every new building today.

    Going up to water. The BMC recently announced on a system of water meter based taxing. Reducing the amount of water used by each housing society may thus come into focus. In a society, water is generally used for cleaning vehicles, compounds, staircases and for water gardens. For the water for this purpose, our eyes should go to the septic tanks for the waste water from the bathrooms, toilets and kitchen and wash basins. The water needs to be seperated out of the solid waste and delivered to a seperate tank. After treating this water appropriately, it might be used for all the above purposes. This may also be used to water balcony gardens.

    The systems needs to be divised in such a way that one person can manage most of the systems. Besides conserving water and electricity consumption of a housing society, it also provides an employment oppertunity for a person and perhaps shelter for a family.

    Commercial farming should be studied and implemented in housing societies, if possible.  This will probably be the income source which can be used to pay person’s salary and be partly used for maintainence and repair cost of the system.

    Implementing this system should work on reducing the energy and water cost per housing society.Multiply this with the number of housing societies in Mumbai and it might probably eliminate the need for new power and water projects for Mumbai. In the long run, hopefully, the beneficiary will be the citizen of Mumbai.

    Institutes that may research these systems:

    • engineering colleges: windmill + cell tower system, solar cell technologies, water filtration processes
    • management colleges – business models, project implementation, advertising and packaging
    • agricultural colleges – study of possibility of commercial farming in Mumbai

    (This is an idea shared under the Creative Commons License, like all content on this blog)

  • The Week of the Results

    I came to know about results yesterday. Posting them for public view was one way of making me feel bad without being able to do anything about. Has been removed now.

    I spent most of last night thinking on latest strategies to tackle the menace but soon realised that this will continue exam after exam, semester after semester. So, immediate reaction systems might tackle the current sentiment of anger but doesn’t really look at the long term disaster/concerns.

    After thinking all that philosophy babble, I’m going to settle down and complete all assignments/write-ups pending this week and won’t be concentrating on ’studying’ this week. Next week is the right time to think of something much more long term.

  • Passing Thoughts

    Adults are inhibited by their knowledge while students are driven by their ignorance.

    Don’t know how knowledge is power.

  • Education

    He boarded the train with the book in his hand. He opened the book to a page where there was a neatly written script in Marathi. Probably written by his teacher. He just said the words, “For my education”, in Marathi.

    Appeal in his voice and a trace of frustration in his face.

    He was able to reaffirm my respect for my education and thankful that I can afford one.

  • Notes 00

    There was an article in the recent ToI talking about the high attrition rate. Might mention it on my space blog soon. But,  this is just to remind me.

  • Hmm….What number is it? 3 or 4??

    the only people to disagree are millionaires    ??

    Affirmation, Savage Garden

  • Going to IAC…and SEDSIC

    I’ve been in a bit of a spot at home. So, going to IAC/SEDSIC was not discussed. Yesterday for the first time I had a talk about going there. Neither positive nor negative. But, a start.

    Asked my principal today about the same – some support from college in terms of attendance, not that I need it though – and he replied that I was either premature (I think he meant immature) or over-enthusiastic.

    Of course, I’m enthusiastic, it’s a chance to meet the people I’ve been having wonderful discussions online. I believe that it has contributed more to the way I look at my life than the people in the real world around me. Hmm…

  • My Story

    That storyline that was developing has nowhere else to go. The book tab on the top will remind you what I’m talking about. I cannot write 300 pages of pure romance. Would have to read too many other books to fill in the blanks. :)

    So, I’m going to re-write it all. There is a new story line on the drawing board. I’ll put it in here as soon as I get enough details to complete the picture realistically. That and more coming soon.

  • Quick Long Update

    I returned from Kerala on the 17th. And there has been no blog posts since then. So, that needs some explanation.

    Stuff that I did –

    • Changed the theme to Unsleepable by Ben Gray
    • Read all the emails
    • Read all the blog posts
    • Updated Orkut and Facebook. Still catching up on that front.
    • Trying to get back into SEDSAT2

    So, in between all that, I didn’t have time to update my blog. Sorry. Had tons to write about. Forgot all of it. Sorry :(.