Jagriti Yatra | Day 4
Bangalore. Silicon valley of India. It was time to visit the part I was most excited about. We de-boarded at Whitefield station in morning after breakfast. The buses took us to St Joseph college after a 2 hour long journey.
We had talks from 2 role models in morning session.
Talk 1 : Sairee Chahal, Sheros
- Non-believer of women empowerment movement, Sairee says that women are already empowered in India, they just need some time to adapt.
She identified the problem of gender disparity in India, and made Sheros to solve it. - She considers these 3 challenges to be the biggest ones in India:
- Meaningful employment
- Environment
- Equality - India has done exceptional in women only models :
For instances,
Amul: The community driven dairy group of India.
Seva : They have built in microfinance movement in South India, and are successful because women ran it in communities.Key here are the words 'women' and 'community'.
The women there have almost the same social and economic status and are partner in progress.
The 'community' aspect is important because in a community, one winner produces more winners. Flow of ideas, jobs, money, knowledge and experience is necessary to make a dynamic and advancing society. - To change people, you have to put extra efforts.
Musk made something that made us want to buy electrical cars, even though electric cars existed before Tesla.
You might be passionate about something, but the whole world is not. We have to be consumer-centric. People don’t care what you love to do, they want their life to be better off.
We need to design our own solutions. The age of copying from West will be over soon, because of cultural and economic differences. - Technology today is consumer enabler.
Cost of making mistake is less than it ever was. Take risks while you can, don’t go for stable life when young.
Things happen only when hands heart and mind come together.
Talk 2: Janarden Swahar, YCook India
- How much is the shelf life of the vegetables you buy from market? 2 days at most.
YCook has made simple packaging and processing innovations to extend it to upto one year! That too, without preservatives or refrigeration. - Their idea is to standardize and digitize food industry. They aim on increasing replicability of food dishes. Or to bring about revolution using process driven food and they want to do this without taking away the 'taste of one's hands' factor.
- Mr Swahar says our hotels are not process driven. Secret of Mcdonald’s success was a simple mantra :
Process — Control — Repeat.
You get exactly replicated food throughout the world.
- The business model of YCook is incredible. They've built individual relations with every farmer they work with, without using any technology. Old school mechanism of feedback and publicity is their secret sauce, Mr. Swahar says.
- Today, they supply to big brands and countries like Wow momos, and many big cafe chains. 70% of packaged sweet corn in Russia goes through them. They have been funded $5 million by Binny Bansal.
Jagriti Enterprise Mela
The talk was followed by a startup expo, with 47 great startups from various sectors showcasing their work. Many of them were ex-Yatris, and getting familiar with some of the best startups in India was a crazy experience.
Learnings
What I’ve realised so far is that a ingredient missing from our daily life is healthy discussion. We rarely see ourselves indulging in constructive debates and conversations. We, as the future of country, need to express selfless ideas and also heed to the views of others.
"Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events and Great minds discuss ideas”- Eleanor Roosevelt
Tomorrow we head to Madurai, the city that never sleeps. We will visit Dr Aravind’s, our role model. They provide affordable eyecare to everyone in need. Tomorrow, we see the potential of simple interventions, big ambitions and sheer determination. :-)
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