Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke
The Internet era today personifies this quote. A couple of decades back, it would be been considered magical that with a click of a mouse anyone could become a journalist, a photographer, a DJ or a film editor. As one blogger comments, “Encouraged by Web-enabled sales, 175,000 books were published and more than 30,000 music albums were released in the US last year. At the same time, 14 million blogs were launched worldwide. All these numbers are escalating. A simple extrapolation suggests that in the near future, everyone alive will (on average) write a song, author a book, make a video, craft a weblog, and code a program. This idea is less outrageous than the notion 150 years ago that someday everyone would write a letter or take a photograph.”
Since the dot com boom and the subsequent bust, in the last two years we have seen the re-emergence or rather the re-evolution of the Internet in a new form. There is no one word or phrase which optimally captures the essence of this next way of Internet. However, the buzz word that has caught fancy the most is Web 2.0. Though yet fuzzy in definition, for lack of better word, that’s what I shall refer to the recent evolution of Internet as – Web2.0 and it is a development which has set my mind ticking like nothing else has in recent times.
An article I recently read summarizes fairly this recent phenomenon. It states: “driven by ubiquitous broadband, cheap hardware, and open-source software, the Web is mutating into a radically different beast than it has been. And that is leading to the creation of entirely new kinds of companies, new business models, and oceans of new opportunity”.
It almost seems that the Internet revolution in the early nineties saw a deluge of software applications and websites all trying to somehow cater to the whole world at the same time based on their perception of user needs. The current revolution is more mature in its approach and at the very core has the concept of software as a service. It is more open, less controlling and very democratic in its approach. For this first time, the web as it has been in the last two years has truly been information for the people, by the people. It is a lesson well learnt and owed in no small part to the invaluable dot com experience of the nineties. It is almost as if after the dot com decade, there was the proverbial ‘alcoholics moment of clarity’ where it dawned upon all that user empowerment and socio-cultural focus should be the drivers of technology if it has to have an impact on the life of a common man. Web2.0 has triggered a social phenomenon embracing an approach to generating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use. It is exactly in these socio-techno roots wherein the power of this surge lies!
From a purely technical perspective, Web2.0 seems to be getting a little better defined, formalized and less ambiguous by the day. The concept really is of using the Web as a platform and data as the driver. Web 2.0 suggests a Web-centric source for just about everything: information, entertainment, news, weather, stocks, reference, pod casts, videos and streaming media. The surge and success stories are all around with the notable ones being Google, MySpace, YouTube, Digg and Skype among many others.
I think that being a technical person who has been awe of the whole Internet revolution from the very beginning, it would have been virtually impossible for this new revolution not to affect me. It excites me no end to see the Web2.0 consolidating and building upon what exists but revolutionizing the whole model to be much more user focused. I believe that great things happen in a truly democratic environment. It is a truly flat world when a kid in Fiji can voice his opinion and influence someone in a suburban part of a town in western India. It is a true social network when I can re-connect with a friend from second grade after not being in touch for 25 odd years. It is a powerful society when readers determine what news and articles they want to read and also comment on it via the same media for everyone to read. Web2.0 gives us all this and its just a start. The world suddenly is like a popcorn machine with different flavored ideas popping up from all diverse parts of the world and the well cooked corn is dished out. The world as a consumer then gets to savor whatever flavor they like. Pioneers and supporters of the Web2.0 have expressed this idea by saying Web2.0 is about glocalization. It is about making global information available to local social contexts and giving people the flexibility to find, organize, share and create information in a locally meaningful fashion that is globally accessible.
The idea also excites me on a much more personal level as it means opportunity for me as for anyone else. It means that my long term dreams are more realizable thanks to this new face Internet. It means that the Internet as it is evolving today is the first ever ubiquitous, omnipresent, omnipotent, leveled platform on which I could potentially build something which could have the power to reach out to the whole world. It means that great leaders and personalities from our future generations will have a much wider impact. Can we imagine what it would have been to grow up in a world when we could listen to a live podcast from Mahatma Gandhi? Or witness Nelson Mandela 27 years imprisonment verdict? Or maybe we could have gathered enough critical mass of world wide protests to have reversed the verdict?
We could have grown up in a world where everyone in the world could be fortunate enough to relish my moms world famous ‘sai bhaaji (an Indian spinach based curry)’ by reading its recipe off her blog.
I am glad our children and future generations will and much more.
What they will not comprehend is that to me, it is nothing short of sheer magic. But then again, as the great Arthur Clarke noted, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic “
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Dr. Singh -- true visionary
Just some of my favorite excerpts from a speech by India's PM, Dr. Singh, at an award function organized by Economic Times:
" I recall what Robert Kennedy had to say about the shaping of history, "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." "
To all the successful entrepreneurs who have emerged from this process, my advice is to treat their wealth as a societal trust and manage it for the welfare of the nation at large. Lord Keynes, analysing the role of capitalists in 19th century Britain in his work The Economic Consequences of Peace said "If the rich had spent their new wealth on their own enjoyments, the world would long ago have found such a regime intolerable. But like bees they saved and accumulated, not less to the advantage of the whole community....(they) were allowed to call the best part of the cake theirs and were theoretically free to consume it, on the tacit underlying condition that they consumed very little of it in practice. The duty of "saving" became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion."
"I would like to draw your attention to is one of even greater concern for the long-term well being of the nation. Millions of our fellow citizens are still deprived of the benefits of a fast growing economy. While the belief in a market economy is certainly justified, it must be remembered that markets serve those who are part of it. They have no relevance to those who exist on the margins of subsistence and who have neither the physical nor the human resources to participate in them. Our growth processes, while generating wealth and prosperity across large sections of society, have not been able to generate employment opportunities on the same scale. Agriculture in the past few years has not exhibited the dynamism visible in the rest of the economy but continues to support 2/3rd of our population. "
"Agriculture and employment generation can be ignored at our own peril. They can put at risk all the benefits that have accrued so far from reforms. We need to expand the meaning of reforms to include the reform of our education and health care systems. We need massive investments in education; in creating new and marketable skills; in skill building and vocational education; in the quality of governance at all levels of Government. "
"There is an agenda of reform waiting to be taken up. In the financial system; in agriculture, in infrastructure, in manufacturing, in banking and finance, in our educational and vocational training system, in health care, in government – at all levels of government. In no area of social and economic development can we, as a nation, afford to adopt a `Chalta Hai' attitude. "
" These are difficult tasks. But it is not these mundane matters of getting things done, and done better, that really worries me. What worries me is the mindset that restrains us, that constrains us, that holds us back. Reform is, in the final analysis, about changing mindsets. We must have the courage to think out-of-the-box. We must have the courage to think anew. To question old beliefs. To seek new pathways. As an old Chinese saying goes – a road is made by walking. We must learn to walk in new directions and create new roads to progress. I sincerely hope that the people of our great nation share with me this urge to be creative, to walk down untrodden paths, to find new answers to old problems. India is a nation of young people. New generations of voters and investors have been born in the past 15 years. If we do not address their concerns, if we do not meet their aspirations they will not forgive us. The road ahead has to be defined by their aspirations, and those of coming generations. The challenge before the political leadership in India today is to meet the aspirations of an energetic new India, and, at the same time, take care of the concerns of a less endowed, less privileged sections of our society, who are no less energetic. "
" We must all work together to build a new India of our dreams – a prosperous India of more equity and greater equality. An India of more creativity and greater enterprise. The two can go together. And they must go together. No pyramid of achievement and progress can shine at the top for long, if its base is weak and crumbling. We have to build a stronger base. A more energetic and capable social and economic base for sustained and sustainable economic growth. You, ladies and gentlemen, are the beneficiaries of a more open economy and an open society. You have benefited from what our country has been able to give all of us. It is time you contributed, in your own way, to building a new India. And as I said long ago quoting Victor Hugo that "no power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come ... and the emergence of India is one such idea." We have come far and this idea – which was an idea then – is now an accepted axiom. Working together, working creatively, working wisely, I am confident we can realise our collective destiny as a great nation"
" I recall what Robert Kennedy had to say about the shaping of history, "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." "
To all the successful entrepreneurs who have emerged from this process, my advice is to treat their wealth as a societal trust and manage it for the welfare of the nation at large. Lord Keynes, analysing the role of capitalists in 19th century Britain in his work The Economic Consequences of Peace said "If the rich had spent their new wealth on their own enjoyments, the world would long ago have found such a regime intolerable. But like bees they saved and accumulated, not less to the advantage of the whole community....(they) were allowed to call the best part of the cake theirs and were theoretically free to consume it, on the tacit underlying condition that they consumed very little of it in practice. The duty of "saving" became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion."
"I would like to draw your attention to is one of even greater concern for the long-term well being of the nation. Millions of our fellow citizens are still deprived of the benefits of a fast growing economy. While the belief in a market economy is certainly justified, it must be remembered that markets serve those who are part of it. They have no relevance to those who exist on the margins of subsistence and who have neither the physical nor the human resources to participate in them. Our growth processes, while generating wealth and prosperity across large sections of society, have not been able to generate employment opportunities on the same scale. Agriculture in the past few years has not exhibited the dynamism visible in the rest of the economy but continues to support 2/3rd of our population. "
"Agriculture and employment generation can be ignored at our own peril. They can put at risk all the benefits that have accrued so far from reforms. We need to expand the meaning of reforms to include the reform of our education and health care systems. We need massive investments in education; in creating new and marketable skills; in skill building and vocational education; in the quality of governance at all levels of Government. "
"There is an agenda of reform waiting to be taken up. In the financial system; in agriculture, in infrastructure, in manufacturing, in banking and finance, in our educational and vocational training system, in health care, in government – at all levels of government. In no area of social and economic development can we, as a nation, afford to adopt a `Chalta Hai' attitude. "
" These are difficult tasks. But it is not these mundane matters of getting things done, and done better, that really worries me. What worries me is the mindset that restrains us, that constrains us, that holds us back. Reform is, in the final analysis, about changing mindsets. We must have the courage to think out-of-the-box. We must have the courage to think anew. To question old beliefs. To seek new pathways. As an old Chinese saying goes – a road is made by walking. We must learn to walk in new directions and create new roads to progress. I sincerely hope that the people of our great nation share with me this urge to be creative, to walk down untrodden paths, to find new answers to old problems. India is a nation of young people. New generations of voters and investors have been born in the past 15 years. If we do not address their concerns, if we do not meet their aspirations they will not forgive us. The road ahead has to be defined by their aspirations, and those of coming generations. The challenge before the political leadership in India today is to meet the aspirations of an energetic new India, and, at the same time, take care of the concerns of a less endowed, less privileged sections of our society, who are no less energetic. "
" We must all work together to build a new India of our dreams – a prosperous India of more equity and greater equality. An India of more creativity and greater enterprise. The two can go together. And they must go together. No pyramid of achievement and progress can shine at the top for long, if its base is weak and crumbling. We have to build a stronger base. A more energetic and capable social and economic base for sustained and sustainable economic growth. You, ladies and gentlemen, are the beneficiaries of a more open economy and an open society. You have benefited from what our country has been able to give all of us. It is time you contributed, in your own way, to building a new India. And as I said long ago quoting Victor Hugo that "no power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come ... and the emergence of India is one such idea." We have come far and this idea – which was an idea then – is now an accepted axiom. Working together, working creatively, working wisely, I am confident we can realise our collective destiny as a great nation"
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Seasickness, Woeful first impressions and parking tickets
Hi, Just ending an eventful day. (Eventful is my optimism speaking. For Realists read 'rough' :-) ). Started badly -- why? As I had to get up early thats why. Had a new hire orientation with the CEO of the company I just moved to in San francisco. The CEO was the last speaker and by the time she arrived I somehow had to get up right from under her nose in the first row as I had a dept offsite where we were going Sailing in the sea -- the San Franciso marina. I got to the pier late, running and panting (trust me, i dont lose those extra pounds soon, one of these days i am dying of a cardiac arrest :-) ). Well got there and guess who was I teamed up with to go into our sailboat. None other than our CTO. WoW..here is my chance to make amendments to the edgy first impression i must have given to the CEO. We started fine. The captain on the ship asking me to untie and shove the ship and climb on it as it moved -- luckily i did well there. Then came the tough part -- various nautical terms fend off, portside, jibbying etc later we were in mid sea-- one side of the sail boat almost in water, the whole jibby and mast majestically up in the air -- beautiful. And then just like that I felt this Knot in my stomach and started fallling seasick. Bad got to worse and I had to get off at a nearby pier while the rest of the team sailed on. There goes my first impression with the CTO too. Finally took a cab and got to work to pick up my car -- and realized there was a parking ticket to give my company for my drive back home....! So there you have it --Seasickness, woeful 1st impressions and parking tickets -- all in a day in San francisco. Attached is a short and informative link on seasickness. Good read if you suffer from it too. http://www.hmlanding.com/maldemar.htm
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
time has never been better for starting a business....need to get cracking.....y is tat u usually get a good idea, u hatch eggs on it, slack, procrastrinate and then feel like rot wen the time passes u by....:-)....guess tats life as long as u live n u learn...neeways article attached is a good read on entrepreneurship....
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/startups/index.html
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/startups/index.html
Saturday, May 06, 2006
gold is GOLD!
Gold seems to be unanimously the safest investment bet over the next couple of years. An interesting article:
http://www.ameinfo.com/72750.html
and a couple of great info sites:
http://www.galmarley.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_as_an_investment
http://www.ameinfo.com/72750.html
and a couple of great info sites:
http://www.galmarley.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_as_an_investment
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