Sunil Jalihal's BLOG

How IDEAS, COMMUNITIES and empowered ACTION create a better world!

Jun 28, 2008

Finland: Mobile Phones, Salmon, Reindeer & Aurora Borealis

Finland - land of a thousand lakes (over 60,000 of them), 2850 miles of seashore and probably liveable only because of the "warm" Gulf Stream around it. The country that seems to fall off the world map, up there near the Arctic Circle, now better known as the land of Nokia, LINUX and Mika Hakkinen. A frozen country (a long time in the year in any case) with the hottest gizmo's and technologies. The country that created Nokia and the Billion $ ring-tone industry.
I first travelled to Finland in 1997, when Nokia had just launched their products in India, we had recently seen some mobile phones and when the Indian IT industry was still focused on the US. Finns were curious to know what India was doing in the IT industry and were glad to meet somebody who seemed to be knowledgeable!, knew some things about the world and who was friendly, unlike as they said "some people from parts of Europe south of their country" (a dig at some of our colleagues from other parts of Europe).
Most (un)wired country in the world
Can you think of any country where you can travel without any cash at all? Where its not even necessary to get a few $s worth of exchange when you step out of Helsinki's Vantaa airport? You could in Finland. Everyone from the taxi driver to buses and hotels accept credit cards or smart cards. Everybody carries the latest (Nokia) phones, GPS devices and Communicators. Kids carry the smaller and cheaper mobile phones and Finns are busy with their connected mobile devices - SMSing, WAPing, GPRSing, 3Ging, mobile chatting, WLANing and Bluetoothing! Linus Torvalds when asked why Finns are so techie and why they love their devices had said - "Come to Finland in the cold winter. You'll see that all you can do is s***w around or write code!" Many Finns proudly (re)quote this. Vesku Pannanen (inventor of ring-tone technology) while discussing the idea of a mobile applications platform, looked at me and said "we don't do generic platforms, we build lots of applications, launch them quickly, use them for six months, throw them away and build new games/applications"
Finns - A fun loving people
Most Finns (50%+) own boats, are obsessed with fishing, have saunas in their backyards (they invented them, though Swedes claim that too) are fun loving and love their communication gizmo's. Many of them also own summer homes, up north in Lapland where they go to in the summer and where you can see the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights). A country that has more women amongst them than men, is very techie-entrepreneurial with many young pony-tailed CEOs who have seen the world (on motor-cycles!). On one of my visits, when I was with some of my Finnish friends at a local bar, they pointed to a lady at a table nearby and asked me "Do you know who she is? - She is one of our ministers". Nordic/Scandinavian countries are perhaps, the only part of the world, where you could have a drink with the head of state at the next table at a local bar!

Finns seem to have a great liking for maroon and olive green jackets, almost their national colour as it were, and can be easily recognized at various world airports by these jackets and their men with their broad and (mostly) bald pates. Most Finns have long last names spelt with double consonants (Saukkonen, Pannanen, Hakkanen, Raikonnen) much like the Estonians, Hungarians with whom they share cultural similarities (St. Petersburg is nearby, a part of Estonia)

Restaurant hopping in a boat!!
The towns and countryside of Finland has many lakes (such as towns called Nokia and Fiskars) and is quite a maritime nation. In the summer, most Finns spend time on their boats. My friend Esa, took me along on his boat, showed me all its parts and how to steer it through the (choppy & cold) waters. We went "pub/restaurant hopping" in his boat, moving from place to place, anchoring at places close to restaurants and pubs along the shores that looked good.

Finnish Food & Drink
Most tables at offices anywhere in Finland, have cookies, coffee, Finn-crisps, cheese always laid out, waiting to be served to visitors as soon as the conversation begins. Finnish banquets have huge spreads of different kinds of coarse grain breads, crisps, salmon, Baltic Herring, burbot roe (caviar equivalent) and many other kinds of sea-food. Kaalikaaryleet (cabbage rolls stuffed with vegetables, meat, breadcrumbs) is a popular, Finnish street food. Lappi Ravintola a Lapland Restaurant that we went to had a long list of items on its menu, but on closer examination, was just a list of various reindeer or salmon dishes, including their desserts! The log cabin style restaurant decor with back lit films of the northern lights, gave the restaurant much needed warmth in the cold winter. Finland is also know for its own brand of vodka - Finlandia and a bunch of wild berry based liqueurs (cloudberry, seabuckthorn, cranberry).
Winter or Summer - its always cold
I am not sure which place has worse weather, England, Seattle or Finland. It is cold and gloomy most of the year and is perhaps why its also known for high suicide rates much like Seattle. Everything freezes in winter, gets dark by 3 pm and for most people the Antarctic cant be any colder. Once on a cold winter night, sitting with my friends Esa and Peter at the Torni Bar, they asked me to guess what the temperature outside was. For the answer they asked me to turn around and see the temperature displayed on a large city-square LED board that displayed: -35 degrees Celcius! The summers are much better, especially with their 20 hour sunlight! and +10 degrees Celcius temperature.
eVector - the company with the Finnish inspiration
I once (Y 2000) co-founded a company called eVector - a product company (venture funded by Intel Capital, Reuters Greenhouse Fund, JP Morgan Chase) that built a mobile data services platform - a product that helped wireless carriers and corporates integrate and launch applications for mobile devices. An early inspiration for this product was our awareness of the mobility scene in Finland and our contacts with some Finnish companies including Hewlett-Packard, Finland and Nokia. When we launched our company at the Taj in Bangalore, I had invited a few of my Finnish friends and the Finnish press to the launch. In my speech, I acknowledged several people and Finland for being our inspiration. The Finnish press at the post launch press meet, wanted to know if we had stolen any intellectual property from Finland! I had to explain to them what I meant by "inspiration" and assure them that no code or technology had been stolen from Finland!
Those planning their next vacation, checkout Finland, the land of Nokia, most successful democracy and a place to see reindeer and the Aurora Borealis!

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Jun 16, 2008

IRCTC - Most successful eCommerce site in India!

Trust the Indian Railways to spring surprises! The largest rail network in the world by volume of traffic and literally the backbone of India. Business Standard reported today that, IRCTC was the most successful eCommerce site in India, generating 30% of India's eCommerce revenues.
The organization that first captured the imagination of Indians with a countrywide Information Technology system, the passenger ticket reservation system, has done it again, this time helping Indians book tickets online. Many years ago, while I was at CMC Ltd. (earlier a public sector company, now a part of TCS) the software, network and site maintenance activities for this humongous system (with a catchy name - IMPRESS), was a training ground for many CMC engineers to get trained on a world-class system. Built on a network of Digital's VAX computers, it was the flagship project of the company.

IRCTC, another public sector organization, under the Ministry of Railways first rolled out their e-Ticketing system on 2nd Aug, 2002. I have been using this site ever since and have seen them make improvements, add payment methods, ticket tracking, delivery mechanisms and travel history features over the years. Here's a list of the achievements of IRCTC's eCommerce site since it was first deployed 7 years ago.
  • Transactions increased from 220 tickets on the 1st day to 1.1 L/day now; 2.5 M tickets in a month
  • Participates in 14% of 800,000 daily seat/berth bookings of the Indian Railways
  • Last year 35.2 M passengers travelled on nearly 18.9 M tickets bought online
  • Ticketing revenues have gone from 27.16 Cr in 02-03 to 1800 Cr in 07-08
  • Revenues projected to be 3500 Cr in 08-09
  • Growth rates - 130% per year!!
  • Payments - 38% thru credit cards, 30% Cash Cards, 29% Net Banking and 2% thru Redeem PG and Rolling Deposit Scheme for frequent travellers and travel agents
  • A large percentage of tickets are booked online from the BIMARU states, especially UP, Bihar

IRCTC has shown that its not just a private sector company or a MNC that can roll out a world-class system. Get the best people together, give them the best resources, let them work without any political interference and the team delivers. CMC, CRIS, IRCTC have demonstrated that they too can roll out a great system, make it highly available, provide good customer service & delivery systems and increase revenues 130% yoy. IRCTC has also shown that eCommerce succeeds when a solid business and a product to sell already exist! Kudos to them and an inspiration for all sectors - public and private.

If the Indian Railways were to be inspired by IRCTC, improve their train services, passenger amenities, timeliness and the travel experience, it would go a long way to bring middle-class passengers back to the rail system and decrease the chaos and pollution on India's roads.

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Jun 15, 2008

Biomimetics - Natural Inspirations

Velcro - the ubiquitous, quick fastening strip used in shoes, jackets, bags and almost anything that needs to be fastened. Did you know that Velcro, which was invented in 1948 by Swiss chemist George de Mestral, by copying the way cockleburs (has seeds with spines) clung to his dog's coat. Cockleburs have millions of hooked spines that can grip any woolly surface. George, mimicked this by producing a strip with hundreds of "hooked hair" that could grip woolly surfaces. These two strips together came to be known as Velcro and has been the most utilitarian of inventions along with the Zipper.

The April 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine covers several research projects in "Biomimetics - science of mimicking nature" - projects that study animal and plant behaviour and mimic them:
  • Mechanical Thorny Devils- devices that mimic thorny devils - hardy lizards that live in the Australian outback and have the ability to suck out water from moist soil, dewdrops, etc.
  • Mercedes-Benz's bionic concept car that mimics the aerodynamics of the boxfish which helps boost its gas mileage to 70 miles per gallon
  • Lotus Effect Paints - wall paints inspired by the structure of the lotus leaf that creates a self-cleaning, water repellent surface through its nano-structures that cause water to "bead and roll away"
  • Whale Flipper wind mills - Windmills that mimic the scalloped edges of a whale's flipper that help generate more power at lower speeds and with less noise.
Many more examples of bio-mimetic projects are covered in this National Geographic article...

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Jun 11, 2008

Jalyatra - Managing Water!

A few of us friends have been working on creating a community that participates in sustainable development near Pune. The project has been put together by Sohrab Chinoy of ABC Farms who "finds river irrigated farming not challenging enough anymore and wants to now green a desert". Situated about 1200 ft. above Pune, on a hill slope overlooking the 4400 ft high Purandar fort, in a rain-shadow area (20-30 cm annual rainfall) on the Saswad plateau, our community will green a barren hill-slope by harvesting rainwater and stretch its usage through the year, build houses that are a maximum of 800 sq. ft on a 1 acre plot, use Laurie Baker's techniques of sustainable architecture and use alternative power sources such as Solar, Wind and Latrine Tank based Gas.
We have just started tree planting and water harvesting activities and I have been reading up on Rain Water Harvesting techniques. Came across a book called Jalyatra, a recent book authored by Nitya Jacob. An interesting book that chronicles traditional, decentralized, locally relevant water harvesting, storage and distribution techniques from Rajasthan to the North East and Uttaranchal to Tamilnadu.

Water conservation systems have been my interest for sometime now. First started with work I did while helping restore a lake in Bangalore in 2004 where I learnt of the system of interconnected tanks and lakes that existed in the areas of Bangalore and other parts of South Karnataka. Also observed, interesting water management systems in Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh during our recent travels. Ladakh, has an age old tradition of "responsible" water usage. The Indus river and several melting glaciers, are the source of water in the cold deserts of Ladakh. Every village of typically 10-20 houses, has "traditional rules" of water usage, where water in the main stream is not touched by the villagers. They have created and maintained "channels" from the main stream that are brought into the fields and the village. All water is drawn from these channels for use in the fields and in the house. Villagers with fields at the top of the slope, divert the main channel into their barley fields and then "call out" to their downstream neighbours when they are done with watering their fields. Water is then allowed to flow downstream to the next farm. In winter, when the melting glaciers are pretty much frozen and reduced to a trickle, they access water from underground streams for drinking water. All these channels are maintained and managed by local villagers and work without pumps, using gravity to manage flows to every field in the village.

Water management systems in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh which we saw recently were created by the erstwhile Rajas of the area and are based on a network of channels and streams that have been created from offshoots of melting glaciers and rivers. These channels still irrigate lands 100 kms downstream from the glaciers and river sources.

Returning to Nitya Jacob's book, here are some of the salient points from his book, an interesting read:
  • Of all the countries in the world, India gets the highest rainfall per square unit of land area. If we walled the country and didn't let any water escape into the sea, we would have about 1 metre of water over our land-mass, enough to meet our needs and more!
  • Most of the rain falls over 100 hours and needs to be used over 8000+ hours in the year.
  • Many extremely well planned water management systems existed in India over millenia and were used to create everything from an abundance of food, the cooling systems of the Rajasthani palaces, the fountain systems of the Mughal gardens and the Taj Mahal.
  • All the water management systems were mapped to the local conditions of geography and social practices and were based on decentralization, responsibility, accountability and judicial wisdom.
  • Some areas of the dry ravines of the Chambal (M.P.) and Rajasthan have created wonders with their ability to stretch the availability of water through till summer.
  • A wonderful, gravity controlled, bamboo channels based drip irrigation system in the Garo Hills in Meghalaya, where drops of water supply to each tree is controlled through the use of varying sizes of bamboo helps stretch the water of the monsoons through till the next one.
  • All "water keepers" in the villages are local people from the community that everybody "listens to".
  • In the Chambal, reformed dacoits are now changing villages with their passion for greening their villages through water management.
  • Large dams, projects, centralized planning and irrigation departments are created by politicians and businesses to make money. Small, but socially accountable systems are of no interest due to obvious reasons.
  • Indians (and the world) have moved from local communities getting together and taking care of their surroundings to depending on the government to do everything for them, including providing for and taking care of water! Not very decentralized or efficient and has taken "accountability" away from citizens.
  • Good news - Many parts of India have started reviving these water management systems with the involvement of local people, farmers, NGOs and government agencies.
  • One big negative point of the book - no diagrams, sketches, photos, maps to show how all these systems work. Like most Indians, lengthy prose without taking the trouble to make it easy for readers to quickly understand and use - no pictures!!
Time for decentralized water management
There has been considerable debate on the the mismanagement of the world's water resources. We have moved from surplus to scarcity (which is not only because of population increase) and the world and India in particular has moved to "outsourcing" of a community's responsibility to governments. Reflect over our (low) levels of participation in the needs of a housing society or a gated community and its maintenance and we'll all know that the apathy is just not in the villages.

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Jun 4, 2008

Arrogance of Technology

Technology has been the biggest catalyst of human development, democracy and economic empowerment in the last two centuries. From the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 1800s to the Internet Revolution in the 1990s it has given the world the fastest social and economic growth, and has, to quote Friedman, "created a Flat World". Technology has quickly brought many luxuries that were once afforded only by the rich, within easy reach of the masses.

Whilst, technologies have changed the face of the earth (some of them in a few years and others in a decade or two), the expectation that it "solves everything in a jiffy", has been gaining ground and CXOs have forgotten the "human factor" and the need to use technology effectively, patiently and appropriately. After all, technology is used by people, who still have the "failings" of human emotions and are creatures of habit. People at large have the inertia of an "earlier technology", need to compete and contend with human egos & powerful incumbents and await appropriate social change around them. Peter Drucker, famously explained, "The short term impact of a new technology are often OVER ESTIMATED and the long term effects are often UNDER ESTIMATED". At least in the short term, entrepreneurs, early adopters, investors and even the masses expect too much from a new technology.

Here's a list of some technologies that have impacted mankind in the last couple of decades and how its impact has either been over estimated or its side-effects disregarded, making people and businesses fall prey to "Arrogance of Technology".
  • Security and Star Wars - 9/11 was an unpardonable (for the perpetrators) event in America. I remember a discussion on US TV, where the anchor asked an expert whether the US had disregarded the "human element" in all the billions of $s that had been spent on Star Wars, AWACs and other programs rolled out to protect America and dominate the world! The reader's answers are welcome!
  • eMail has been one of the big inventions to help the world communicate better, so much so that letter writing which had been reduced to a dying art was resurrected by eMail technology and its wide availability. However the expectation "email sent, work done" is so widespread that people have forgotten that they are communicating with fellow human beings who have an ego! and a talk on the phone or a face to face meeting are still required for a lot of transactions to be completed!
  • eCommerce - In the (two short) years of the Dot Com boom, the arrogance of technology was at its peak, where anyone with a simple idea and the money to put it on the web, thought that he had a successful business going. This arrogance of "the web-presence being the business", even if the fundamentals of need, market, differentiated products were not met, was very quickly punctured by a rapid boom to bust cycle.
  • WAP, 3G, vs SMS - In a product (mobile value added services platform) that we rolled out in the mobile space in 2000, we integrated a number of communication channels (WAP, WEB, Voice, SMS) and concepts such as annotations for mobile advertising, persistent connections and the rest. WAP and mobile broadband through 3G were touted to be the great technologies (@ $5B of PE investment went into mobile data technology worldwide, including $10M in ours) that would have mobile phone users "browsing the web". SMS, a "simple" technology that was designed into the GSM stack for limited use of sending test messages is the one that mobile users lapped up and paid for.
  • Food - Green Revolution - Hybrids, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, genetic engineering - technologies that were to be the panacea of the hungry world! Worked well for sometime, gave incredible increases in yields, colour, size and shape! Slowly the colour, size and shape of human beings consuming this food also began to change and there was a cry to return to "organic or slow food"
  • Transportation - The gasoline engine and cars, the "freedom vehicle". A technology that created a construction boom to build roads and had most of the world ignore the need for public transportation. We all know how its become the one fuel which determines pollution levels and inflationary trends in equal measure.
  • Medical Technologies - The medical fraternity's invention of vaccines has eradicated communicable diseases and epidemics, helping raise life expectancy, ensuring that young children and the youth do not perish due to "silly diseases" and mastered "mechanical" organs such as the heart, lungs, limbs, etc. Many of the "chemical" organs such as the liver, pancreas and kidneys are yet to evolve cost effective and sure cures. The arrogance that Allopathy and Surgery can cure anything, irrespective of one's diet, has given people a false sense of near immortality and helped doctors become richer!
  • Retail - Almost every retail chain worth its salt has efficient supply chains, bar codes, billing systems, aisle management and other technologies deployed. The retail sector expects that this should bring in customers, generate revenues and make profits. The human element of staff training, product knowledge and good customer service is often forgotten in this surfeit of technology. A customer still does not get answers to product related questions and is unable to find 20% of items in his shopping list on the supermarket shelves at any point of time.
Technology and Behavioural Science
Does this mean that technology needs to be discarded for age old manual systems? No, infact it needs to be "re-invented" often! It needs to be combined with a study of human factors, side effects, customer preferences and regular reviews of the "current" effectiveness of the deployed technology. A technology or IT plan needs to be blended in with a Customer Interaction Plan and Employee Training to cover the "human element" in the business. Employees need to be constantly reminded that technology is just an enabler, and is not the be all and end all of the business. Businesses need to regularly undertake "constructive destruction" of the technology used in deploying the business.

Remember, an email doesn't necessarily get things done, a great billing system does not make for great customer service and medicines do not replace preventive health care, a chemical free diet or a good nurse!

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