Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Startup Guide: The Darden Reboot Chat – Videos are here

And they are here. Seven episodes due to the youtube 10 minute rule. Many thanks to Uzma for burning the midnight oil, encoding the video and solving the volume problem once and for all. Thank you Adnan for ensuring that the session gets recorded for the family (as well as agents and friends) and shipping [...]

May 9, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Columbia Business School, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Startup Insiders, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  Comments Closed

Teaching Ethics to business school students

If there was one mandatory course that all business school students are allergic to, it would be ethics. Not that business school students have a personality flaw that makes them hate the subject, it is just that we intensely dislike being preached to. We are smart, intelligent and savvy enough to figure out what is [...]

May 1, 2010  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Education, I can't hack it, entrepreneurs  No Comments

Startup Guide: Lessons from a failed startup

Looking through the wreckage of an old folder, found this post for the really early days of Reboot – the original list of lessons from a failed startup that became the book. Here is the list, with one new addition, five years later. 1) Technology is not a competitive advantage. Focus on the business problem [...]

April 7, 2010  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, entrepreneurs  3 Comments

Reboot goes on sale online, gets featured at CIO, the Standard, Network World or the Ides of March

What a week it has been. Last night was the first night in 7 days that I slept for 7 hours. My average naptime for the week was an astonishing 4 hours, excluding the time I spent power napping waiting for the red traffic light to change to green, on hold waiting for customers to [...]

March 13, 2010  Tags: , , , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Columbia Business School, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Pressing words, Startup, Startup Insiders, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  No Comments

The second best job in the world, part two…

To the three batches (Division A, Division B, and EMBA Batch 13), who made me feel like a rock star two Thursdays in a row. Thank you. Keep them pictures coming J

December 20, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Columbia Business School, Education, Failure, Startup, Startup Insiders, Training, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  No Comments

Dreamers in Dubai

Kumar, the soft spoken driver from Kerala, has been picking me up from home and dropping me back for the last seven days. On Wednesday night he finally asked if I was working the hours I was working by choice. Starting the day at 8 am and landing on Villa 16, Cluster 35 at 11pm [...]

December 12, 2009  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Alchemy stuff, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Startup, entrepreneurs, small business  No Comments

The Reboot presentation at TIECON, Karachi – Revisited

The TIECON 2009, Karachi, 4th November 2009, Reboot presentation was the first time I was able to shrink the story in under 20 minutes. Spent three days putting the presentation together but it will be a while before I am able to get to an editor that will run the presentation and the video coverage [...]

November 27, 2009  Tags: , , , , , , ,   Posted in: Columbia Business School, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Pakistan, Startup, TIE, computer science, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  No Comments

Hans Rosling, Gapminder & Google.

Two days ago I received a cryptic email from a prospective client. It had a link and a simple “Take a look at this please.” I did. I recommend that you do the same. Hans Rosling and Google together have done more for statistics with their tool, their presentation and their data aggregation than all [...]

September 25, 2009  Tags: , ,   Posted in: Education, Risk, Risk Training, Training, the economy stupid  No Comments

The Society of Actuaries interview

Sam Philips interview for the Actuary was the first published review received by BSOD/Reboot. Though a little dated, it is still relevant. Sam also talks about the book in a sidebar

September 19, 2009  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, entrepreneurs  No Comments

My crazy ride to see my word in print

For more than a decade of my life I was a professional student (which means that I worked, took exams on the side for a professional designation and waited for a very long time to add three letters against my name). A chapter that started in the monsoons of ’89 in Bombay finally closed itself [...]

August 25, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, Personal shit, Pressing words, Startup, Startup Insiders, Writing, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  8 Comments

Myths about Pakistan or an infrastructure rejoinder, three

Jehan did a post on This too is Pakistan, in October 2008. At the peak of distrust, despair and negativity coming out by the buckets in that month, she went out to highlight some of the many things that are right with this country. I didn’t get round to doing a follow up but Post [...]

April 5, 2009  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Desi Back to Desh, Education, Karachi, PASHA, Pakistan, life style, the economy stupid  3 Comments

The essence of a business plan competition

Professor Grandhi at SP Jain is a new friend who had been after me to share my thoughts about what business plan competition at a business school should look like. The post goes out to him and all other promoters of entrepreneurship who believe that we should catch this generation young. Preferably corrupt their minds [...]

March 10, 2009  Tags: ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, entrepreneurs  One Comment

Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment workshop on the 14th of March

Sad, that the only post that I have been able to take out time for in the last two months is a marketing plug for the Alchemy ICAAP workshop. More, non-plug materials to follow, post the workshop. Hang in there….

March 10, 2009  Tags: , , , ,   Posted in: Basel II, Education, Liquidity Risk, Pillar II  No Comments

Teaching the dreamer course again

In Dubai, teaching the entrepreneurship course from today till the end of the month. More later

January 24, 2009  Tags: , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Failure, entrepreneurs  No Comments

Funding for dummies…three

We met Wilson Tan on a trade trip across China. In just over a week, thirty technology companies from the Asia Pacific region covered 3 cities and one hundred Chinese partners, trying to understand the opportunity that was China. Wilson was the President of the organizing body, (the outgoing President of Mercury interactive and on [...]

January 18, 2009  Tags: , , , , ,   Posted in: Blue Screen, Desi Back to Desh, Desi Startup, Education, Startup, entrepreneurs, new ventures, small business  No Comments