More youth in north turn to innovative startups

March 22nd, 2021|

More youth from the Northern Province are turning to innovative startups under the initiative of Yarl IT Hub (YIT), originally set up in 2013. They are made competitive via the Yarl Geek Challenge Accelerator which runs for six months for a selected cohort of early-stage startups twice a year. During these six months, the startups will be offered training, mentoring, seed funding, and networking opportunities. In doing so, the accelerator aims to help its entrepreneurs generate revenue, acquire the skills needed to build a startup, expand their networks, and to be investor-ready. When initial applications were called, the Yarl IT

An interview with Nidhi Nagabhatla, Director of Water Without Borders, and Programme Officer, United Nations University

March 19th, 2021|

John Hoffmire: I just finished watching the documentary ‘Our Planet’ with David Attenborough. It has deepened my respect for anyone who has devoted their work to preserving our planet’s natural resources and making this world more equitable. That certainly includes you. Please tell me how you became a sustainability science expert and a trans-disciplinary research scholar. Nidhi: I started out with a graduate degree from the Honors School, Punjab University. After completing a master’s degree from the Indian Council of Agriculture Research University, I joined the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), a research institute connected to the Indian Institute of

An interview with Ananth Aravamudan, Energy Sector Lead, Villgro Innovations Foundation and an alum of the Chevening Research Science and Innovation Leadership Programme (CRISP)

March 11th, 2021|

John Hoffmire: You’ve had an interesting journey from electrical engineer to being the energy sector lead for Villgro Innovations Foundation, India's oldest and one of the world's largest social enterprise incubators. Please tell me about that journey? Ananth: I started out as an electronics engineer by training. I spent 14 years in the IT/Tech sector at multi-national companies like Siemens, Lucent Technologies and MindTree, and then six years with SELCO Foundation, a social enterprise in the renewable energy sector. In 2015, I was selected as a Fellow of the Chevening Research Science and Innovation Leadership program (CRISP), which enabled me

An interview with Dr. Beena Rai, Head – Physical Sciences at TCS Research, Tata Consultancy Services

March 5th, 2021|

John Hoffmire: I love your Twitter tag: “A scientist who makes serious research fun.” Tell me about your recent research and what is fun about it? Beena: First, to me what makes research fun is that one gets to follow one’s curiosity. As a scientist, I’ll take on a challenge and then use my curiosity and creatively to come up with and design a solution. What could be more fun than that. There is a lot more creativity involved in scientific research than most people realize. To give you an example, one of the current projects that my team is

An interview with Dr. Manisha Acharya, CEO of Indigram Labs Foundation and member of the Expert Advisory Committee of i-STED, Programme of Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India

March 3rd, 2021|

John Hoffmire: Let me ask you a fun question first. You have a PhD in Palaeobotany. How did you end up in the innovation, incubation and start-up management field? Manisha: It has been a long and interesting journey. The short answer is that early on in my career, I moved a lot to various parts of India due to the transferrable nature of my husband’s job. During that time, I took a voluntary sabbatical of about seven years to see through the raising of my son and created for myself the opportunity to work from home. This was the ideal

An interview with Dr. Abha Rishi, Chairperson for the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (CIED) and CEO of the Atal Incubation Centre at Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH)

February 18th, 2021|

John Hoffmire: Please tell me about the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (CIED) at Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH). Abha Rishi: John, the central mission of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (CIED) is to prepare men and women to lead, innovate, and think entrepreneurially in business, as well as in public and social service, to be job creators, and role models. Whether it is the individual entrepreneur, or an ‘intrapreneurial’ professional employee who provides the innovative ideas needed to grow an existing company, or someone in governmental leadership, it is the ability to envision a future,

An interview with Anthony Vipin Das, FRCS, Consultant Ophthalmologist and Associate Director at the L V Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India, and creator of eyeSmart EMR, an award winning Electronic Medical Record and Hospital Management System which is currently operational across the LVPEI network in India and globally

February 16th, 2021|

John Hoffmire: MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) named you among the Top 35 Innovators under 35 years of age in the world on the TR35 2012 list. Please tell us more about that? Vipin: As an ophthalmologist, I was keenly aware of how difficult it was for a doctor to access past information about a particular patient. Written records at a single center are not only difficult for a doctor to access, but also cumbersome for a patient to carry to each visit. So I designed a paperless system that spans the entire patient database at LV Prasad

An interview with Anjali Kaushik, Professor and Chair, Information Management, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, India and Chief Investigator for creation and deployment of Cyber Security Framework for e-Governance services of the Government of India

February 15th, 2021|

John Hoffmire: As a professor of Information Management, how would you define your field? Anjali: Information management is an emerging field that is concerned with the infrastructure used to collect, manage, preserve, protect, store and deliver information. The guiding principle of this infrastructure allows information to be available to the right people at the right time and protects that information from getting into any wrong hands. As a professor I am involved with research, training, and consulting related to information systems, e-Governance, cyber security, privacy, data protection, as well as business continuity in general. I also served as Chief Investigator for the project on Creation and

An interview with Sashane Perera, Manager, Concept Creation, MAS Holdings, and Artistic Director, StageLight&Magic Inc.

February 8th, 2021|

John Hoffmire: When I met you in Oxford last year, I recognized that you where someone who followed their passion and worked in two very separate fields. Tell me more about that. Sashane: I do straddle two different industries. In my day job I work on innovation in the fashion industry as part of a team that seeks to create new apparel for the fast changing market place. Specifically, I manage new product development for MAS holdings, South Asia’s largest manufacturer of intimate apparel, sportswear, performance wear and swimwear. I lead new product development for one of the up-and-coming technology platforms for

An interview with Daisy Agarwalla, Co-founder and Senior Manager at Integrated Digital Systems, Delhi, India and a Chevening (CRISP) and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Program for Women Entrepreneurs scholar

February 1st, 2021|

John Hoffmire: Tell me about the company you co-founded. Daisy:  I started my career with the Gauhati Stock Exchange after completing my Bachelor’s degree in Statistics and an MBA. After a short stint I started my entrepreneurial journey when I cofounded Integrated Digital Systems along with my husband in 1992. Our company has been at the forefront of geographic information systems (GIS) technology in India for nearly three decades now, with offices in Kolkata and Delhi. We, at IDS, recognized the fact that the application of geographic information systems opens up exciting possibilities in raising management and date analytics technologies

The Hackathon COVID Couldn’t Stop: Season 9 of the Yarl Geek Challenge

January 11th, 2021|

A staple event of the Sri Lankan tech calendar, Season 9 Finale of the Yarl Geek Challenge (YGC) has come to an end. A competition organized annually by the Yarl IT Hub, the YGC is known to attract the best in entrepreneurship and technology from the Northern part of the country. Over the years, many of the ideas at the Yarl Geek Challenge have become successful startups. Today, the YGC alumnus consists of over 25+ successful companies in a variety of industries. The Yarl Geek Challenge is one of many initiatives conducted by the Yarl IT Hub. A community-based volunteer

An interview with Dr. Mrinmayee Bhushan, founding Director of the start-up firm, Mindfarm Novatech Private Ltd; consultant for IP and innovation for a DSIR-approved, not-for-profit research organization, APT Research Foundation, and a biosecurity analyst.

January 9th, 2021|

John Hoffmire: Tell me about the product you developed. Mrinmayee: It all started because of the reluctance shown by a relative of mine to face the public after hair grew abnormally on her face during menopause. That prompted me to find a remedy for the problem. As a medical pharmacologist, I was trained to help solve issues where biology and human needs meet. I developed a technology platform of multiple active ingredients for long-term hair reduction. With a grant from Government of India, I also developed one plant-derived cosmetic product with hair-follicle-targeted sustained release delivery mechanism with IIT Bombay. This