From a Rickshaw puller to an entrepreneur

Story Of Dharamveer Singh Kamboj: How A Rickshaw-Puller Became A Successful Entrepreneur With Turnover Of Rs. 40 Lakhs

Born in 1963, Dharamveer is the youngest among five siblings. Always inquisitive by nature, his mother also inculcated in him a love for nature. He learnt about herbs by a holy man who visited their village, and while working as a rickshaw-puller in Delhi, where he used to ferry passengers dealing in herbs.

Genesis of the Multi-Purpose Machine

In 2004, Dharamveer got the opportunity to visit Aloe Vera and Amla processing units in Rajasthan, along with a group of farmers, through the Department of Horticulture, Government of Haryana. He got interested in the business. Deterred by the exorbitant cost of machinery, he decided to develop his own machine. In April 2006, Dharamveer was ready with the first prototype of the machine, which was used mainly for extraction of Aloe Vera juice.

Multi-Purpose Processing Machine

The multi-purpose processing machine is a portable machine, which works on a single phase motor and is useful in the processing of various fruits, herbs and seeds. It has features like temperature control and condensation mechanism which helps in the extraction of essence and extracts from flowers and medicinal plants. The machine is a cylindrical container made of food grade stainless steel having an opening (with lid) at the top to feed the herbs, and an outlet at the bottom to collect residue. It is powered by an electric motor whose power depends on the capacity of the machine. It is also equipped with an oil jacket outside the main chamber to prevent direct heating of the herbs.This machine is unique as it has the capacity to process a wide variety of products without damaging the seed of the fruit or vegetable.

It can be used for processing Mango, Amla, Aloe Vera, Tulsi, Aswagandha and flowers like Rose, Chameli, Lavender.

Innovation Diffusion
Dharamveer is supported by NIF-India and GIAN North for value addition and business development. A patent application has been filed in his name for the multi-purpose machine. NIF-India has also engaged a designer to improve the usability and aesthetics of the machine. Relying primarily on word-of-mouth, Dharamveer has sold his machine in many states of the country and also exported one to Kenya. He has given employment to over 2 dozen women in the village who engage in producing and selling processed amla and aloe vera products made by using the multi-purpose machine.

Dharamveer is one among 5 members who have been selected for the inaugural “Innovator in Residence” program of the President office launched by the Honorable President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee on his birthday on December 11, 2013. 

The Cheaper Bamboo Wind mill

Meet the Two Brothers Who Invented A Bamboo Windmill That Is 10 Times Cheaper Than Any Other Windmill!

Brothers Mohammad Methar Hussain and Mushtaq Ahmad from Darrang district in Assam wanted power for irrigation and they developed a low cost windmill made out of bamboo. Now, there are more than 25 such windmills running in Gujarat. 

The brothers grew paddy in Darrang district in Assam during the winter season. But, irrigation involved a lot of manual effort and using diesel sets for pumping water was a huge drain on the resources. To tackle this issue, Mehtra thought that if they could run a large wheel on wind power, and connect the wheel to the hand pump, that would serve their purpose quite efficiently.
So, both of them started working on making a windmill unit from locally sourced materials such as bamboo wood, strips of old tyres, pieces of iron, etc. With the help of a carpenter, the first prototype was ready in four days. Since the supporting framework was composed of bamboo, the final product costed Rs. 4500, vis-a-vis the commercially available wind mills which cost over Rs. 60,000.

Innovation Diffusion: Assam to Gujarat

With the mission to improve lives of salt farmers, Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network – West (GIAN W) along with National Innovation Foundation (NIF-India) took the lead in diffusing the innovation in salt farming areas.

Based on the feedback received from salt farmers, GIAN W improved the design and developed a multi-dimensional model which was installed at LRK in 2008. Understanding the diverse needs of farmers to increase the efficiency of windmills, GIAN W joined hands with Alstom foundation for design modification and improvement.
As of 2012, 25 of these windmills have been installed in Kathivadar and Kadiali villages in Amreli district.

Benefits of the Windmill Pump
Thanks to the windmill pump, now salt farmers don’t have to slog for hours with the water pump. The windmill pump saves about Rs.50,000 worth of diesel in six months. It has decreased salt farmers’ reliance on manual labour resulting in savings of about Rs. 28,000 per season per person. Farmers can now easily recover their investments within the harvesting season.

The innovation would also result in the reduction of five tonnes of carbon emissions for every 100 tonnes of salt produced. Every rupee saved and milligram of carbon emission reduced is a glaring testimony of how rural innovations impact the community, society and the world at large.

The salt farmers of Gujarat are indebted to Mehtar and Mustaq for making their lives more efficient and their occupation, profitable.

IIT Alumnus who became teacher

Meet Arvind Gupta: The IIT Kanpur Engineer Who Quit His Job At Telco And Began Teaching Science To The Children Of India

When Arvind Gupta quit his job, his mother came to his defence stating ‘good, now he will do something noble with his life’. A prophetic statement from a woman who never had a day of formal education in her life but ensured that her four children excelled academically.

For almost 30 years now, Arvind Gupta has been taking his love for science and learning to the young minds of your country. Gupta has travelled to over 3000 schools, demonstrating captivating science experiments to wide eyed children. What sparks their imagination further is that Gupta uses only everyday garbage as the building blocks of these experiments.

“All teaching aids we use are hand-made. It‘s important for children to see that you don‘t need fancy materials. Science can also help you look critically at materials that are often considered trash, there is a lot of learning in that itself”

An empowering lesson for his pupils who are of limited means. They watch him as he explains phenomenon like light and its laws of convergence & divergence with only used up ball-point pen refills, rubber slippers or empty tetra packs! He also distributes CD’s packed with massive collections of e-books and videos to the schools he visits. Often, these are the only teaching aids they have ever received or used. The keenest minds of our country might be hidden away in a broken down municipality school, in a town we have never heard of. A tryst with Arvind Gupta could open their eyes to endless possibilities and give them the chance to dream, despite their limiting environment.

Gupta’s dedication, perseverance and brilliance have not gone unnoticed. He has been recognized by organisations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, International Toy Research Association, Boston Science Centre, Walt Disney Imagineering and Research.

He has received a special award given by the National Association for the Blind for designing teaching aids for pre-school blind children and the Ruchi Ram Sahni Award for science popularization, among others.

“I have an enduring passion for my work because it allows me to reinvent myself. Every child has a dream in their eyes, and each of them instills a hope in me about the future”, he shares.

Thus, not every day do we come across good Samaritans like Gupta who would give their all for the betterment of the society!

The man who bravely fought his own case and won

Meet Rajesh Sakre: The Tea Vendor Who Fought And Won His Own Case Against One Of The India's Large Banks.

Rajesh has merely studied till Class five and runs a tea shop in Shabri Nagar in Bhopal. But single-handedly had to challenge the one of the India's biggest bank back in 2011 when a sum of Rs. 9,200 disappeared from his bank account. Mr. Sakre had Rs.20,000 in his account, from which he withdrew a sum of Rs.10,800. However, on his next ATM visit he realized his account had been wiped clean.

When Mr Sakre reached out to the officers at Bank, they cast the matter aside and blamed him for the mishap. He then made an appeal to the bank's Mumbai headquarters, but was of no use. As a last resort, he filed a case in the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum.

Since he could not afford a lawyer, he went head to head with every bank lawyer in the city to fight his own case in court. The bank was convinced that it was Mr Sakre who had withdrawn the amount in question. But they could not produce any evidence like CCTV footage to back their claim.

The Victory:

Thus, after about a dozen hearings, Mr Sakre won the battle on June 16. The consumer court helped him gain justice and ordered the bank to return Rs.9,200 along with 6% interest within two months.

In addition to this, the bank also has to shell out Rs.10,000 for the anguish they caused their consumer and another sum of Rs.2,000 for his legal expenses.

Thus, the story of Rajesh Sakre is truly inspiring as he rose to the challenge and stopped at nothing until he got justice!

The story of true value computers

The Story Of A Team That Created More Than 10,000 Affordable Computers From Scrap! 

Mukund BS, the 33-year old young entrepreneur was an electronic engineer earlier and an IIM graduate. When he was traveling with his uncle once, an idea of selling affordable computers struck his mind. That is when Renew It came into picture with his cousin Raghav Boggaram as co-founder. Renew It has now grown to a team of seven technicians and sales persons. They collects scrap computers from corporates and sells them at affordable rates to the needy people after the required repair and maintenance.

How it works?

The business model is very simple. They tie up with the corporates and take all their scrap computers. The team of technicians work on it to convert the scrap into a working machine. The process of buying the computers from these corporates is often a long procedure and can take as long as six months. After getting the scrap, the team of technicians start working on it and convert it into a working machine. The process takes around 2-3 weeks depending on the efforts required to fix the old machine.
The organization has sold 10,000 computers so far in a span of five years.

The challenge

Mukund elaborates on this aspect:

“The biggest challenge or should I say fear is that I don’t know what will be the way forward, say, 5 years later as technology is completely evolving”

When he first started working on the idea of Renew IT, computers held an important place in the society as the Smartphones weren’t there. “Now when I see people doing most of their work on their phones I don’t know how useful computers will be in future,” Mukund says.

Another challenge which Mukund faces is the unavailability of right type of scrap. Also, uninformed customers is yet another issue. “Some people in not so developed areas don’t know how a computer works. So sometimes they wouldn’t handle it properly which reduces the life of a machine,” he says.

Scaling Up

The company which started in Bangalore has now extended to Hyderabad and Mumbai. They also provide after-sale services to their clients for free for one year. Started with the initial capital of around Rs. 20 lakhs. They have grown to a capital of around Rs. 50-Rs.60 lakhs.

Thus, we applaud Mukesh and his team for their innovative endeavors in uplifting the less-privileged communities.

Mobiles can be good for health.....learn how

Meet Shelley Saxena: The Mastermind Of The Incredible Sevamob Which Cures Illnesses Through Mobile Technology!

The entrepreneur Shelley Saxena who was born in Lucknow came up with a novel idea of providing healthcare to low-income families by tapping mobile technology. Sevamob is headquartered in Atlanta, USA with a fully owned subsidiary in India and was started in 2011.

The Goal of Sevamob

Sevamob was developed to fundamentally transform the delivery of primary healthcare in the developing countries, particularly for the low-income segment that has limited access to primary healthcare and limited awareness about insurance.

How it works?

The delivery happens through a cloud based mobile platform. The monthly subscription based primary healthcare is delivered through mobile clinics staffed with doctors carrying Android tablets. Then at signup, the team captures patient demographics and medical record in the software and gives a subscriber card to the patient.

Once a month, basic primary care such as BP, Sugar, ECG, BMI, Dental, Vision, Diet plan etc), is delivered on-premise. This includes preventive care (prescriptions and medicines for common ailments. For advanced issues, prescription requests are created in software. These go to back-office specialists who either give a prescription or set up a no-charge appointment.

Where are they functioning?

Sevamob is currently successfully serving in Lucknow city, Kakori, Mohanlal Gunj, Barabanki and Unnao in Uttar Pradesh. In Liberia (Africa) too, this model has been replicated through a license.

Besides Village Capital, they have received recognition from several other organizations like Nasscom Foundation, mBillionth Awards, Mahindra Rise and Artha Venture Challenge.

The multi-faceted and well-integrated Sevamob team is supported by back-office specialists, a 24×7 call center and a network of 3rd party service providers like hospitals, clinics and pathologists. The field teams are equipped with Android tablets having mobile software which can operate without network even in the most remote areas.

While Sevamob is doing a fabulous job in its designated zones, the health venture is at a nascent stage and rearing to spread its wings across a wider territory. Their goal is to scale from 4000 subscribers in 2013 to 240,000 direct subscribers within 5 years in India. They also plan to replicate the model in additional geographies.

We hope Team Sevamob scales higher reaches and betters the health of several more people, cutting across social and economic boundaries.

Micro Liver

Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia: The Indian Origin Scientist Who Developed World’s First Human Micro Liver Won $250,000 Heinz Award 

As a 16-year old Bhatia was taken to the bio-engineering lab at MIT by her father and her encounter with the fascinating scientific experiments stirred her imagination and got her interested in Science. 

Her first intervention happened during her graduation at MIT. Dr. Bhatia was assigned the task of cultivating living liver cells in a petri dish, an endeavor that had been attempted unsuccessfully for many years. After three years of effort, a visit to a microfabrication facility—where students laid circuits out on silicon chips—inspired Dr. Bhatia to experiment with the process to see if it could be used to “print” tiny liver cells on plastic.The result was the first human “micro-liver”, a miniature model organ that makes it possible to test drug reactions efficiently and predictively, and could eventually lead to an artificial human liver.

Micro-livers are now used by dozens of bio-pharmaceutical companies and are being developed as a powerful laboratory tool for testing cures for malaria, specifically the testing of drugs that can eradicate the reservoir of parasites that remain in the liver even after a patient’s symptoms subside.

Owing to this incredible micro-liver discovery, Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia received the Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy and Employment category, for her seminal work in tissue engineering and disease detection, including the cultivation of functional liver cells outside of the human body, and for her passion in promoting the advancement of women in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.

Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia is currently Director of LMRT at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).

Bhatia has also been recognized as one of the “the nation’s most promising young professors in science and engineering” by the Packard Foundation. Forbes named her one of 18 Indian scientists – across all nations – who are “changing the world” and “one of the 100 most creative people in business” by Fast Company. In 2014, Dr. Bhatia was awarded the $ 500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize.

She and her over 150 trainees have contributed to more than 40 issued or pending patents and launched 10 biotechnology companies with 70+ commercial products at the intersection of medicine and miniaturization.

As a biotech engineer and medical researcher at MIT, Dr. Bhatia also works as an inventor, entrepreneur and is also a classical Indian dancer.

Thus, Indians such as Bhatia bring fame to our country no matter where they are!