23 March,2011 07:11 AM IST | | Sowmya Rajaram
What happens when smarties quit the beaten path to follow simple yet innovative ideas to their logical conclusion?
The Fresh Brew, a book about 25 IIM Lucknow graduates who gave up their cushy jobs to pursue their dreams, "tells stories of independence," says co-author and alumnus Amit Haralalka. This entrepreneurial sprit is applauded by India's former president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in the book's foreword. Zeroing in on 25 entrepreneurs wasn't easy for authors Haralalka and Amitabh Thakur. "The alumni committee was close-knit, so we knew who was doing what, but we wanted all the stories to be as different as possible. They needed to appeal to everyone."
Mayank Shivam founded Gram Vaani Community Media to discuss
issues relevant to the community in their local language
The stories reflect that diversity. From Satyajit Sadanandan, a football junkie who dropped out of campus placements to follow his passion and become a FIFA consultant to the brains behind Ink Fruit, a website that crowdsourced designs for tees and sold themu00a0-- there are a wide range of ventures. The common thread running through these stories is an effort to improve existing conditions in various spheres.
community fm
For instance, Mayank Shivam gave up a lucrative career with McKinsey four years ago to found Gram Vaani Community Media and empower rural India via community radio. "Community Radio (CR) are short-range FM stations that have a 10 to 20 km radius. This makes the content localised, and deals with issues of relevance to a particular community in their language," he explains.
But growth has been slow. "The policy regarding community radio was out only in 2007, so there are regulatory hurdles. While African and South Asian countries have thousands of stations, India has barely 100. And it is hard to find talent."u00a0
But it's local content that makes the radio king. Shivam talks of an experiment by a station that regularly featured local folk music, to air covers of Bollywood songs sung by local musicians. "Immediately, they were inundated with calls from listeners complaining about the quality of programming. I had no idea of the loyal audience a community radio station commanded," he says.
jaya jha's pothi.com
Jaya Jha quit her "dream job at Google" to set up Pothi.com, a self-publishing platform when she realised that publishing her poems for her blog's readers was proving to be an uphill task. A gold medalist, Jha recalls, "There weren't any good self-publishing service providers in India, and none with a print-on-demand offering, where you didn't have to spend a fortune to print 500 copies."
Together with husband Abhaya, she created a unique technical platform for their venture. "We have a system that tracks copies sold to an author, and the earnings. Compare that to the traditional system where even after months, you are not sure of the copies sold."
The publishing process is free since the couple has been able to automate it to a large extent. Pothi lets you publish your books, giving you the requisite support. When a sale unfolds, the royalty is split 50-50 between Pothi and the author, but there is no charge for publishing, storing or listing/selling books.
The Fresh Brew:
Chronicles of Business and Freedom, is available at all leading bookstores for Rs 175. Proceeds from sales go to the Manjunath Fresh Brew Award for social entrepreneurship, that invites applications from entrepreneurs.
For details visit: https://freshbrewbook.com/the-manjunath-fresh-brew-award.
