Both China and India largely used to be the nation of bicycle. Both countries are growing leaps and bounds. I just hope both countries can find a good balance between modernization and tradition to keep the pendulum from moving too far. Also, hopefully learn from what West is trying to do to encourage more eco-friendly environment.

Now at much of Europe you can rent a bicycle (and it is gaining prominence) to go around locally – particulalry when you are travelling in the heart of the city.

Here is a sampler – from Europe, China and India – all happily biking away.

I just wrapped up Fareed Zakaria’s book titled “Post American World“. It is a good read and attempts to provide macro view of the world; discusses trends and perspective on things to come/shape future in the next couple of decades. Here are the excerpts from the book covered on Newsweek.

Here is Fareed’s interview on BBC providing glimpse on the book and his thought process.

If you need a short synopsis and key takeaway – here is Fred Wilson, a popular VC, sharing his key take aways.

Key theme that I pick on in the rise of rest is how citizens of growing nations are showing passion; having hunger in the belly to grow; risk taking; willingness to change; sense of optimism on what they can do and countries evolving to become more democratic in their own ways. It speaks to a lot of what had helped fuel America in its growth due to similar entrepreneurial nature and what we need to keep doing to remain in the leading position.

I like the closing of Newsweek article (quote from the book) that lured me to read the book:-

“Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that by the turn of the 21st century, the United States had succeeded in its great, historical mission—globalizing the world. We don’t want them to write that along the way, we forgot to globalize ourselves.”

Let’s keep our innovation edge going and growing…As Steve Jobs once quoted in his commencement speech at Stanford “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish“.

I came to know about this initiative couple of year back from an article in Fortune. It was an interview with Nick Negroponte – founder of the OLPC initiative.

At the time the effort was in development stage. I remember discussion around the computer to be less than $100; some kind of hand crank process to charge the batteries given much of the developing world don’t have reliable electricity supply; building it rugged for longer life and low maintenance need. Also, there was controversy about laptop going out with an open source alternative (namely Sugar) as opposed to the popular Microsoft Windows.

It is good to see the effort maturing and the laptops made available to the kids in several countries. So as I stumbled on some articles on OLPC this weekend – it is interesting to observe changes/improvement including solar powered battery charger; mesh network to chain these laptops building collaborative infrastructure; and supporting Microsoft clients beside open source (Sugar) available on these machines.

Final price $188. Not bad.

And improving as the next phase gets in development touted XO 2.0 or XOXO with dual touch screen.

Here is a review of the laptop on Youtube.

Now comes the responsible (hard) part – ensuring right social behavior gets instilled as millions of kids gets connected and are now accessible to unrestrained information sources; reliable or otherwise. Hole in the wall experiment highlighted some of the accomplishments and challenges in this regard.

Also, I happen to stumble on an article from universities in India quoting to attempt to deliver a laptop for $10.

I happen to be in India on a weekend which coincided with “Holi” – a fun filled festival of color.

If you happen to see me with purple hair or pink nails – it is not that I developed some weired interest lately – but the colors from Holi were washing out. I just got carried away since I happen to play Holi after 20 years.

Enjoy!!

This weekend after almost 20 years I got to play cricket again at the local High School. It was a sheer coincidence that led me to the game this weekend. I must admit I need to brush off my rustic memory around all the Cricket rules, regulation and terms. At times, it took me while to recollect when I was asked to do the umpiring or when I was asked to field at a position – cover, mid-point, slip, etc. For those new to the Cricket here is a good introduction and comparision with baseball.

So this weekend I spend some time catching up on the Cricket world. Amazingly, last few weeks turn out to be shaping the future of Cricket in India. People who follow Cricket are probably aware of IPL, ICL and the auctioning of cricket players who are now fetching over million dollars. Overnight close to a $1B star-studded franchise took birth with these new leagues. This is something unheard of in the Indian cricket scene that remained largely controlled by the bureaucratic BCCI.

In some regard, these leagues are the epitome of growing Indian economy and a large middle class that has surplus cash to spend. Although in India, Cricket has always attracted most money of any sports but now it is achieving a scale of different proportion. It appears to be now playing at the NFL, NHL kind of leagues and influencing the world Cricket landscape.

The web is abuzz about the events here and how it is shaping up the future of Cricket including speculation of a super bowl like event between ICL and IPL. I just hope this wealth and stardom goes beyond cricket to help improve the infrastructure and elevate the stature of other sports in India. Quite some changes in the game of Cricket.

While browsing through “Sun & Wind Energy” – a magazine on Renewable Energy, I stumbled on an affordable renewable energy alternative article for the developing world. This has been near and dear to my heart for sometime. I suggested few of the requirement in an earlier post here.

So just like that – as I am browsing the magazine I come to know about Grameen Shakti. It is an organization in Bangladesh trying to provide electricity to the population that otherwise would spend their night around a kerosene lamp. This is another Grameen initiative from Mohammed Yunus and his team who started the concept of micro financing.

Here are some of the photographs:-  

This video on Grameen Shakti captures the mission of the organization well. I like the quote …[Grameen Shakti] not just lightning up the lives but expanding their ambition…

Having an affordable electricity source has such a deep impact on improving the lives of millions. It is a tremendous source of hope and possibilities as remote (and otherwise lost) part of the world connects to the modern infrastructure. This is a start to get everyone connected to the modern economy.

Here are some excerpt on Grameen Shakti’s accomplishment and its homepage.

Hope is alive that one day renewable energy will be able to power the world – including the ones that have yet to connect to the modern economy.

I happen to watch the tail end of 20/20 on ABC tonight. It reminded me of the affordable energy source alternatives that I blogged sometime back here and here. This discussion remains close to my heart. It has the propensity to come up on various social occasions – particularly when I am around my friends from India who have some-kind of association with rural India.

So following what other bloggers do – shamelessly promoting to know like minded individuals. Here I am looking for people who are already involved or have the knowhow to provide reliable alternative (read solar) energy at an affordable cost that can scale to meet large community needs.

One approach that gets suggested often is providing solar energy alternative at an affordable price point with some kind of co-operative model leveraging booming retail industry’s supply chain in India to make energy alternatives broadly available in rural India. India has various successful and large grass roots efforts in different sectors. Like Micro-financing, various handicraft small scale industries, Dabba, Lijjat Papad, etc. So anyone out there promoting large scale reliable solar energy alternatives at affordable cost?

Help the cause of several poor kids in the developing world by donating new kids book or cash at the TiE-Rockies holiday party on Dec 12th at Dazzle. Details of the event is on TiE-Rockies website. TiE-Rockies has partnered with Room To Read during this holiday season to help spread hope and make the world a better place. I mentioned Room To Read in one of my earlier blog here.

PS: Here is the list of the books that Room To Read recommend to help the cause.

I recently read Dr. Sugata Mitra’s experiment of “Hole in the wall” and how kids living in the slum of India learned basic computer skills on their own. An interesting experiment suggesting how kids in young age are motivated to self learning and picks up the needed computer skills on their own – while adults require hand holding to accomplish the same skills. I am sure this is a generalization – but where does this fire in the belly to learn and be self-motivated goes away as kids become adults?

Anyway, this effort has great potential to help poor kids who otherwise would not have access to computers. Based on the success of Dr. Mitra’s earlier experiment, “Hole in the wall” is expanding its effort. They are making computers available more broadly across poor neighborhoods now spanning in India and Cambodia.

Here is an old interview of Dr. Mitra about his experiment.

I am sure we all look for meaningful ways to contribute back to the roots that provided us all the support we needed when we were growing up.

Recently, I come to know about Room to Read and instantly liked their model of engagement – both at the donor’s end and the recipient’s end. It is founded by John Wood who used to be an ex-Microsoft executive. He wrote his calling and how he started Room to Read in his book “Leaving Microsoft….”. In some sense, it is the “long tail” of philanthropy that has all the potential to scale and bring the systemic changes needed at the global level as macro business/technology trends continues to make this world smaller and smaller.

On donor’s end – having a transparent system with low overhead helps them know how their contribution is truly helping. No smoke screen or black hole where money goes and you have no idea who/where it end up helping. It is a great crowd puller where people can relate to the meaningful impact they are doing in the world at their own capacity.

Also, partnership model with the local community that is benefiting from the charity is a great way (possible systemic way to bring the change) to make any contribution successful. It brings their skin in the game needed to cultivate the proud ownership and a feeling of accomplishment on their part necessary to bring social change. At the end of the day charities that just hand out money to a cause without much community participation loose the luster and fail in bringing the systemic change.

I have always admired successful micro-financing model work in Bangladesh done by Mohamad Yunus. The model that Room to Read uses also reflects several similar aspect.

Bottomline – I am a believer that solving world literacy is the key to several of our modern day problems in the society today. Ironically, it is more visible in the populous part of the world. May be success of model like Room to Read has the potential to eradicate the world with such flaws.

From what I gather, Room to Read funds a girl education for a year at $250; builds a library at $2,000; builds a school in a village at $8,000. To help just reach out to Room to Read – I am sure they will be thrilled to hear.

PS: I am in no way associated with Room to Read program.