“A good orator is pointed and impassioned.”
Marcus T. Cicero
(Photo credit Peggy Art) I don’t recall ever reading a book about Swami Vivekananda. Nor have I learned any of his teachings. The closest I have been to ‘him’ is to visit the Ramakrishna Math in Calcutta but that was as a tourist. So, its a bit of surprise that I now spend considerable time on YouTube listening to his talks and reading about his teachings. So, why this transformation? On March 27th, I’ve been invited by MGR University to give a keynote speech at a literary fest to...
While I speak at many events and conferences, there are a few that I truly look forward to. The India Leadership Summit 2012 is one such event. The line up of speakers is truly amazing. Dr.Kiran Bedi (Magsaysay Award Winner, Core Member of Anna Hazare Team), Dr.Satinath Sarangi (Leader fighting for Bhopal Gas Tragedy victims), Phanindra Sama (Founder, RedBus.in), Sharad Sharma (Director, Movico Technologies and Ex-CEO of Yahoo! R&D ) to name a few. Some of my good friends like Rashmi Bansal (Best-selling...
Here is the press release that IIT Madras is releasing for the BrainJam session I’m conducting on 29th Oct at 6:30 pm. BTW, its a free, open event and everyone is welcome to attend. IIT Madras Hosts BrainJam on Entrepreneurship C-TIDES, the Entrepreneurship cell of IIT Madras, is hosting an engaging UnConference on “IDEA: A Beginning of Entrepreneur’s Journey” by Mr. Kiruba Shankar, a serial entrepreneur, a columnist and an author. Being from an engineering background, Mr. Kiruba has initiated...
I’m not a fan of the Kindle. I have a 2nd generation Kindle lying somewhere in my home for over two years and I have barely used it. However, I’m a huge fan of Jeff Bezos. I have admired his ability to envision long term success while braving a short term hit. The Kindle is an outstanding example of just that. Amazon doesn’t want to make money off the devices but on the e-commerce that it enables. After all, that’s their core business. Anyways, this post isn’t about the Kindle. It...
There are a couple of reasons why I’m very excited to participate in today’s panel discussion. The first is the topic, ‘Past, Present and Future of Books‘ . It really caught my imagination. The second are my co-panelists who have been stalwarts in their field. Sivasankari has been a household name and have heard her name ever since I was a kid. Reading her bio below made me realize her prowess in writing. V.Sriram is a passionate historian and entrepreneur and his versatility amazes me. I...
Today at Proto.in, I’m hosting a special Innovation Jam where entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs will get an opportunity to build a start-up and raise funds all in under one hour. For those of you who don’t know, Proto.in is one of India’s leading entrepreneurship events that brings together key stakeholders in the startups space : the entrepreneurs, mentors, investors and media. Proto.in, over the years has showcased and inspired the Indian Startup community with some interesting...
The venue for the launch of my book, ‘Copy Right and Left : Understanding Creative Commons‘ has been decided. It’s at the Henry Maudslay Hall in Anna University, Chennai. There are a couple of reasons why I chose Anna University. 1) This is a university that I have been teaching in for over 10 years. There is a special bond that I’ve created. 2) Two of the three researchers who worked on the book, Sushmitha and Preethi, are from this University. What better way to commemorate their work...
I first started teaching as a visiting faculty at College of Engineering, Guindy at Anna University in 2001. That stint still continues. Today, the University approached me to conduct a 4 month course on ‘Entrepreneurship and Media Management‘ for the final year students of M.Sc Electronic Media from the Department of Media Studies. It’s the longest engagement that I had committed to the University. Never before have I taken a course for 4 months. Most of my previous engagements were guest...
When I received the invitation to speak at the Publishing-Next conference, the timings couldn’t have been better. I was wrapping up content for two books (CrowdsourcingTweet , CopyRight and Left ) that I was working on and had already started thinking about promotional ideas. Around the same time a few of my author friends who were cribbing that the book publishers were not promoting their books hard enough. I began to realize that no matter who publishes the book, it is in the authors’ own...
On June 17th, Friday, I’m moderating a panel discussion on Virtualization and Data management for a Dell event here in Chennai. This event is meant for CTOs and IT Heads of mid-range companies ( 100 to 500 employees). Virtualization and Cloud are hot topics these days and it would be interesting to get the complete low-down on them from the experts at Dell. I’ve started to research on good topics to speak on and here are a few talking points. Let me know if we can build on these to make...