Monthly Archives: June 2010

Microsoft community TechDay – July 3

What: Pune (Microsoft Technologies) User Group‘s Community Tech Day
When: Saturday, 3 July, 9:00am-4:00pm
Where: MCCIA Trade Tower, 403-A, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all to attend. Register here

PUG is Pune's user group for Microsoft Technologies. Click on the logo to see all PuneTech articles related to PUG.
PUG is Pune's user group for Microsoft Technologies. Click on the logo to see all PuneTech articles related to PUG.

Community TechDays are day-long event for those interested in Microsoft Technologies. The agenda for this one is:

9:00am – 9:30am Registration

9.30am – 9.45am Tea Break

09.45am – 10.00am Keynote

10:00am – 11:00am What’s new in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 – Aviraj Ajgekar

11.00am – 12.00pm Setting Up Remote Access Service on Windows Server 2008 R2 for VPN – Dev Chaudhari

12.00pm – 01.00pm Lunch

01.00pm – 02.00pm Introduction to Forefront Identity Manager 2010 – Mayur Deshpande

02.00pm – 03.00pm Deploying application using Application Virtualization (App-V) – Ninad Doshi

03:00pm – 04:00pm Tea Break & Networking

Mentor India internship for tech students: entrance exam on 4th July

For the last few years, Pune startup KQ Infotech has been running Mentor India, an year-long, free, internship program for technology students, aimed at giving students a very strong base in systems programming, web development, or web design and animation.

The next batch of Mentor India is starting in July, and the entrance exam is on 4th July. Interested students may register here

Click on this icon to see all PuneTech articles related to tech education in Pune
Click on this icon to see all PuneTech articles related to tech education in Pune

From Mentor India’s webpage:

Mentor India is a fusion of the cultural heritage of the ancient Gurukul system with modern methods of teaching and learning. This unique concept emphasizes experiential learning by the Shishya with the Guru skillfully facilitating it. Thus, students of this program would be paying from the day one but in the form of their contribution on live projects.

Being a Software Development & Consulting firm Knowledge Quest Infotech has a strong background of technology, thus enabling students in cultivating their technical roots.

Here are highlights of the program from the KQ InfoTech website:

  1. Mentor India Program ensures that the students learn and earn with upcoming technology
  2. Students don’t need to pay any fees and their training is paid by work on live projects
  3. Students can start earning within 6 months of their program based on performance
  4. Exposure to live projects along one year work experience
  5. Placement opportunity with KQ Infotech and other technology companies
  6. Course completion certification

Any student with one of these degrees is eligible: MCA,MSc CS/IT/Tech,MCM,BE/BTech. Candidates will be selected on the basis of a written technical and aptitude written test, followed by a technical and personal interview.

Syllabus for technical test contains

  • C Programming Language
  • Data Structure and Algorithms
  • Operating systems
  • Quantitative & Analytical Reasoning

Apply here

How to choose an Engineering college & branch after 12th

This article, which has advice for students who plan to do a degree in Engineering, has been posted here on PuneTech, partially in response to some of the comments we’re getting for this PuneTech article, and also partially because I’m sure most PuneTech readers get asked this question by relatives and friends, and I’m hoping that at least some of the advice here will be helpful

If you’ve just finished your 12th standard, and are interested in getting an Engineering degree, which college, and which branch of Engineering to choose can seem like the most difficult, and at the same time, the most important decision of your life. People have been asking me this question for almost 20 years now, and based on my varied experience, here is the advice that I give to prospective engineers.

I can distill my advice down to this sentence:

Get into the best college (in a good city) that you can – whatever the branch.

I’ll explain in a little more detail.

Branch is not all that important

That’s right. Most students and parents seem to be very focused on getting in to the “best” branch (Computer Science, Electronics & Telecommunications, Mechanical, Chemical, Civil, etc.) Everybody wants to get into the “top” branch. Everybody wants to know which branch has the best “scope” in the future.

This is misguided. There are a number of reasons why the branch doesn’t matter all that much:

  • If you study in a good college, all branches have “scope”. There are successful businesses and well-paying jobs in all disciplines, including civil engineering, and chemical engineering. And the vast majority of computer science graduates in the country do not have decent jobs (because there are so many of them!) If you study in a bad college, a good branch is not going to help you. Also, so called “good” branches with lots of “scope” tend to be over-crowded, because everyone is entering that field. And finally, nobody really knows which branch will have the most “scope” 10 years from now. (When I did my Engineering, my friends took Computer Science in VJTI because they couldn’t get into more sought after branches like E&TC and Mechanical!)
  • Changing of field is very common amongst engineers. Just looking at my batchmates, I know metallurgical engineers who are in advertising agencies, mechanical engineers who are into banking and finance, chemical engineers working on Bollywood movies, and computer scientists in the insurance industry doing non-computer stuff. What branch you get your degree in is forgotten within 5 years of graduating.
  • What branch the student is interested in, is irrelevant. This is a big one. 12th standard students tell me, “I am more interested in Computers. I don’t like Mechanical.” Frankly, in 12th standard, you have no clue what any particular field involves. If for a field, hundreds of colleges in the country are giving engineering degrees in that field, then almost by definition, that field has interesting and cool work going on all over the world. If you find that field boring, then, the most likely explanation is that you’ve been taught that subject by a bad teacher. My guess would be this: any subject that you find very interesting was probably taught to you by a good teacher, and for every boring subject, there’s probably a bad teacher of that subject sometime in your past. A good professor in any branch can make the branch come alive for you.

I am not asking you to ignore the branch entirely. All I’m saying is that give it a little less importance than you are currently giving it.

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Madras (Chennai)
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Guwahati
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Kanpur
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Kharagpur
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Bombay
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Roorkee
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Bhubaneshwar
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Gandhinagar
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Hyderabad
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Indore
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Jodhpur
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Patna
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Rupnagar
Location of the 15 IITs in India. Source wikipedia.

College does matter

The original IITs, and BITs Pilani, are clearly better than other engineering colleges. Most NITs are better than most state engineering colleges (except the top state colleges). Top state colleges (e.g. COEP, VJTI, PICT) are clearly better than the second-tier engineering colleges. And so on. (Unfortunately, I don’t really know how good or bad the new IITs are. You’ll need to make that judgement on your own.)

It’s fashionable to say the college doesn’t matter. And it is very common to trot out examples of students from terrible colleges who have succeeded in life. But that’s flawed logic. Students who succeed inspite of being in a bad college, are probably succeeding in spite of the college, not because of the college. And probably would have done even better if they had been in a better college.

Better colleges have better systems of education, better professors, and better “resume value” (which, whether you like it or not, is a factor for a long, long time.) Also, in better colleges, you have better classmates. This matters in the short term (because better classmates means more influence of friends who are interested in the right things), and the long term (better “network”).

So, here’s my (controversial) advice: if you are getting a not-so-good branch in a very good college, vs. a good branch in a not-so-good college, you should definitely choose the not-so-good branch in the very good college. I would definitely pick Metallurgical Engineering in IIT-Bombay, over Computer Science in MIT. If the colleges are sort-of-comparable, then go for the “better” branch (for whatever definition of “better”). For example, if you have Mechanical Engineering in COEP, and Computer Science in VIT, then go for VIT – because althought COEP is better than VIT, it is not all that much better.

Note: I am not saying that you’re screwed if you get into a bad college. There are enough examples to prove that good, motivated students can shine from anywhere. All I’m saying is that if you have a choice, then choose better college over better branch. If you get into a bad college, then work hard, ignore your professors, and try to get guides/mentors/projects from industry (right away, not just in the last year).

City also matters

To a large extent, success in life is not simply about academic knowledge. It is also about a whole bunch of other factors – what we call “exposure”. This involves all kinds of things – like interactions with industry, various (non-academic) activities that you indulge in in a city, seeing the various interesting and different things that people are doing in the city, opportunities of getting involved in various initiatives, and generally “smartness” (as in “The Bombay exposure has really made him smart.”)

So, doing a degree in Pune or Bombay, is, in my opinion, clearly better than doing it in a college in Amravati.

Also, please get out of your parents’ house. Stay in a hostel, or a rented flat with a bunch of your classmates, or something. That will propel you into the real world, give you some maturity, and the ability to deal with all kinds of issues that you need to deal with, when you are no longer staying under a protective cover provided by your parents. This is an important part of your education at this stage.

Engineering vs other fields of study

Frankly, I am not qualified to give advice on whether you should do Engineering or something else. If you find that you’re interested in some “alternate” career (e.g. photography, movies, music, art, design, whatever), here are some thoughts that you might find helpful:

  • Try to find out which are the top institutes in the country where you can get a degree or certificate or whatever it is that helps with learn the field that you’re interested in. Then find out what it takes to get admission to that institute and how much it costs. And then make a detailed plan as to how you could actually do it. This will significantly improve the chances that you’ll be allowed to do it, and also that you’ll succeed in your chosen career. I would love to see more and more students in India follow this path.
  • If you can’t get into one of the top institutes, maybe you should listen to your parents? It’s difficult to justify a risky career move on the basis of a mediocre education in that field.
  • I find that most students who claim to be interested in such alternate careers are too lazy to actually do the work needed to create the plan mentioned in the first bullet-point. If you’re one of those lazy bums, then you don’t really deserve to follow your so-called chosen career. Give up, and do whatever stupid engineering degree that your parents want you to do. Alternative career paths are for people who are really passionate and are willing to put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
  • If you are not really sure of what alternate career you want to pursue, but just have a vague notion that you want to do something other than Engineering, then you’re probably not ready for an alternative career yet. No point in going for a off-the-beaten-path, risky path unless you’re really passionate about something and clear about what you want. You’ll be better off with a conventional degree, until you figure out your passion.
  • Medical vs. Engineering: Again, I’m not really qualified to give advice about whether you should go for engineering or Medicine. However, note: there are many students who avoid the medical side because they hate 10th or 12th std. biology. In this case, remember that doing a medical degree is not at all like 12th std. biology. So, this alone is not a good enough reason for rejecting medicine. Try to talk to, and find out more, from some real doctors what it is like to study medicine. You should consider medicine as a career, especially if you like people more than you like machines or software programs. If you’re not good at maths or logic, engineering is not for you.

Conclusion

If you disagree with me, please leave a comment below, with supporting arguments, and we can discuss.

If you know a 12th std student who could benefit from this article (or the discussion in the comments), please mail them this link.

Some of this advice is also applicable to engineering graduates who are planning on going abroad for a Masters degree. I’m planning on writing a detailed article specifically covering that case – issues to consider when applying for a Masters in the US. I’ll write that article one of these days – so make sure you’re subscribed to PuneTech, so you don’t miss it.

Updates

(After this post was published, readers posted a number of interesting, insightful and detailed comments. You should really read all the comments on this post, but I’ve summarized some of the important points here for the lazy folks.)

  • A number of people disagree with me about whether branch matters or not. See the comments of Neeran, Dhananjay, Vikram Karve, and Rajan Chandi for more details; and also my responses to those comments. I would summarize it as: if you’re on of those well-informed students who really know what branch they find interesting, then for you, branch does matter a lot.
  • There appears to be a lot of support for the “get out of your parents house; stay in a hostel/flat” directive. Parents and students, both, please heed this advice.
  • Amit has posted a list of non-IIT, Indian colleges that he considers “good”, based on his experience of hiring people from various colleges, and seeing how they performed. (Note however, the purpose of this article is not really to produce a ranking of colleges – that is too controversial and subjective. Form your own impressions of the quality of various colleges (from whatever sources you can), and then use the advice in this article to decide how to choose between those colleges.)
  • Ajay Garg points out that if you really need all kinds of details about engineering admissions (like lists of colleges, branches, cut-off marks, etc.) then go2engineering.com is a great site

Update 2: If you’ve cleared the IIT-JEE and are wondering which IIT to join, and which branch to choose, and whether to go for an IIT or NIT, this article by Prof. Dheeraj Sanghi of IIT-Kanpur might help. He updates it every year.

Update 3: All commentors who’re asking me about whether to choose college A or college B – Sorry, I have not really bothered to keep track of rankings and quality of colleges. So, the judgement about whether a college is significantly better than another college needs to be done by you using other sources of information. Most importantly, all those asking me which has better scope/prospects ECE, or CS, or IT, or whatever else, you missed the whole point of the article, didn’t you? The branch does not matter. If you can’t decide, just pick whichever branch has a higher cutoff. Some experienced commentors have suggested that interests are important, and students who have a strong interest in a particular branch, should choose that branch. Well, if you did have a strong interest in one branch, then you wouldn’t be here asking a question about which branch to take. If which branch to take is not very clear to you, then you don’t have an interest in any branch, and just take the branch with the highest cutoff in the best college that you can get into.

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Safe Surfing, Safe Parenting: Security Awareness lecture by Rohit Srivastwa – 26 June

What: CSI Pune workshop on ‘Safe Surfing, Safe Parenting’ by Rohit Srivastwa
When: Saturday, 26th June, 3pm-6pm
Where: K.B. Joshi Hall, Cummins College of Engineering, Karve Nagar, Pune.
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all. Register here

Click on the logo to see all PuneTech posts about CSI Pune
Computer Society of India, Pune Chapter, is one of the oldest technology user groups that is still active. Click on the logo to see all PuneTech posts about CSI Pune

Safe Surfing, Safe Parenting

This workshop by security evangelist Rohit Srivastwa aims:

  • Create awareness among the society at large about the social threats hidden in uncontrolled access to internet
  • show how parents can inculcate safe internet habits in their children and how they can monitor for any unwanted activities by children.
  • show children as to how they should refrain from the internet sites which are tempting but not safe for their age / level of knowledge.

This event is sponsored by Symantec Corporation.

Update:
The slides used by Rohit are now available online:

Click here if you don’t see any slides above.

About the Speaker – Rohit Srivastwa

Rohit is a well known security evangelist, having an expertise in hacking, cyber crime investigation and IT infrastructure management.

He is actively involved in advising and assisting several military agencies, law enforcement personnel, media, corporate and Government bodies. He provides coaching and training to the Police department of Pune, Mauritius and Malaysia on the related subjects. He is also a visiting faculty at Asian School of Cyber Laws, Symbiosis and many other institutes.

Rohit is also the founder of ClubHack, a community to provide a platform to the security experts across the globe to come together, and to spread security awareness amongst laypeople.

Apart from ClubHack Rohit has been involved in many large scale projects in the field of IT infrastructure management & security. In his last assignment Rohit was Director Technology at Commonwealth Youth Games (2008) where he headed the technology division and delivered the complete technology of games. After that he was Director Technology and Network Operations for Commonwealth Games Delhi (2010).

Looking for a job? Try PuneStartupJobs…

Looking for a job? Try PuneStartupJobs

There’s a new jobs listing forum in town, and it contains postings of jobs that you will not find anywhere else. Check out the PuneStartupJobs mailing list (which is an initiative of the Pune Open Coffee Club).

Pune OpenCoffee Club - POCC Logo
POCC is an informal group of the Pune Startup ecosystem. It contains more than 2500+ people who either have their own startups, or want to start one, or provide some service (or funding) to startups. Click on the logo to find all punetech articles about the POCC. Thanks to threenovember.com for the POCC logo.

The Pune Open Coffee Club is an informal group for all those interested in the Pune startup ecosystem, and many of the startups on that group realized that the conventional avenues for job postings were either too ineffective, or too expensive for the smaller startups. To counter this problem, the PuneStartupJobs mailing list was started. In keeping with the philosophy behind the POCC, the PuneStartupJobs mailing list is also free – any POCC member can post job postings, and anybody can subscribe to receive updates.

Features of PuneStartupJobs:

  • Free. No fees for posting. No fees for subscribing
  • Anybody can subscribe
  • Focused: Only Pune Startups can post. (Some other postings (e.g. Mumbai) get through once in a while, but it’s largely local.)
  • Moderated: All posts are moderated, so no spam.
  • A weekly digest of PuneStartupJobs postings is auto-posted to the main PuneStartups mailing list. This ensures wider (but delayed) circulation to a larger group. (Thanks to Pune startup Thinking Space Technologies for implementing this functionality.)

So, if you’re someone likely to be interested in getting a job with a startup in Pune, or if you might know someone who might be interested, or simply, if you’re interested in finding out what kinds of people Pune’s startups are looking to hire, you should subscribe…

POCC Meet: Taking your startup to the next level, with Vilas Kelshikar – 19 June

What: Pune OpenCoffee Club meeting on Taking your startup to the next level, with Vilas Kelshikar.
When: Saturday, June 19th, 4pm-7pm
Where: TaaraGo Center, A4, Ashiayana Park, Above FabIndia, North Main Road, Koregaon Park
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all to attend. No registration required.

Pune OpenCoffee Club - POCC Logo
POCC is an informal group of the Pune Startup ecosystem. It contains more than 1500 people who either have their own startups, or want to start one, or provide some service (or funding) to startups. Click on the logo to find all punetech articles about the POCC

Taking your startup to the next level

Mr. Vilas Kelshikar is an IIM-Ahmedabad Alumnus with 30+ years professional experience – wherein he held progressively responsible positions in reputed companies engaged in diverse product-lines/sectors (including Education / Training, Hospitality, Real Estate Services, Trading ) in Gulf, Africa and India.

Vilas has hands-on experience in diverse functional areas including Strategy, Joint Ventures, Sourcing, Setting-up, Turn-around, Expansion, Project Finance, Feasibility Studies, Sales & Mktg, HR, etc.

He can also talk about the possibilities of Pune companies exploring business opportunities in Gulf and African countries. If people are interested, he can talk about country profiles, business practices, currencies, establishing/doing business, SWOT analysis, etc.

Vilas is Currently based out of Muscat.

Thanks to TaaraGo for hosting the event. Please visit TaaraGo.com for event updates in Pune

TechMarathi Event: Trends in Java; How to type in Marathi – 19 June

What: TechMarathi kickoff lecture, featuring technology trends with Harshad Oak, and introduction to typing in Marathi using Baraha, Quillpad, Google Transliterator, and Lipikaar
When: Saturday, 19 June, 4pm-7pm
Where: Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Atur Centre, Model Colony. Map.
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all. Register here

TechMarathi is a special interest group of PuneTech and focuses on bringing the latest tech information to students and professionals in Marathi. Click on the logo to see all PuneTech articles about TechMarathi
TechMarathi is a special interest group of PuneTech and focuses on bringing the latest tech information to students and professionals in Marathi. Click on the logo to see all PuneTech articles about TechMarathi

Trends In Software Development For The Java Platform.

Harshad Oak is the founder of Rightrix Solutions & editor of http://IndicThreads.com and the author of 3 books and several articles on Java technology. For his contributions to technology and the community, he has been recognized as an Oracle ACE Director and a Sun Java Champion.

Harshad will talk in Marathi about what the next 5 years have in store for the Java Platform

How to type (email, blog, doc etc.) in Marathi?

Mandar Vaze has 15+ years of experience in IT industry. He is currently working as Senior Module Lead at Avaya India. Mandar will talk about how to type in Marathi using Baraha, or Quillpad, or Google Transliterate

Using Lipikaar to type in Marathi

Lipikaar is a Pune-based startup that takes a very different approach to typing in Marathi. It uses a “sms-style” typing rules, and they claim this is much easier for people who are not very comfortable with English, compared to the other styles of marathi typing.

Neha Gupta and Praman Shetye of the Lipikaar team will talk about the how and why of Lipikaar.

About TechMarathi

http://TechMarathi.com is a forum that aims to bring all information about software technology in Marathi to technology professionals who are still more comfortable with Marathi than English. The website contains articles that are translations into Marathi from sources all over the world, and also original Marathi content. TechMarathi also holds technology events where the primary language is Marathi.

TechMarathi was started by Nikhil Kadadi and Pallavi Kelkar and is a Special Interest Group of PuneTech.

Interview with Anup Sable: KPIT Cummins/Bharat Forge develop hybrid car technology in Pune

Ever since Toyota introduced the Prius in the 1990s, hybrid vehicles have become an exciting new development area in the Auto Industry. With ever increasing fuel prices and environment concerns, hybrid technology will increasingly play an important role in the automobile of the 21st century.

Hybrid vehicles use a combination of power from an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. The electric motor is powered by a battery, which is typically charged during braking and decceleration. The battery can also be directly charged from an external electric source (these vehicles are known as ‘plug-in hybrids’). Hybrid vehicles typically deliver significant double digit savings in fuel economy and emissions.

Last week Pune based KPIT Cummins and Bharat Forge announced a joint venture for the design and development of a plug-in hybrid solution. PuneTech interviewed KPIT Cummins SVP, Anup Sable, to get more details about this ….

You announced a joint venture with Bharat Forge last week in the exciting new area of hybrid vehicles. Can you explain the new solution that you are planning to develop?

The hybrid solution developed by KPIT Cummins is a plug-in parallel hybrid solution that consists of the following key components:

  • Electric motor
  • Electronic motor controller
  • Battery pack
  • Mechanical assembly & coupling
  • Proprietary software for control algorithms of the motor & batteries
  • Intelligent battery management system that enhances battery performance and battery life

Overview:

  • Plug-in: The batteries used in the solution can be charged from a standard external electricity source such as a domestic power outlet.
  • Parallel hybrid: The motor and engine work simultaneously at all times. The vehicle will, at no point, work like an EV (electric vehicle) only and hence will continue to operate as a conventional fuel vehicle if the batteries are fully discharged. The solution is battery-agnostic, in other words, it can be adopted to work with various types of batteries such as lead acid batteries or Lithium Ion batteries. The tests were performed using a lead acid battery based solution. The solution works without any interaction or interference with the existing Engine Management System (EMS) of the vehicle. The system is thereby also adaptable to vehicles without EMS and without electronic engines. It requires low maintenance and has a reliable three phase AC induction motor.

11 global patents have been filed in areas such as integrated system, motor design, motor mounting, and control system and battery management.

Is this a full-fledged hybrid vehicle you are building, or a sub-system that will be sold to Auto OEMs?

Our solution can be retrofitted in every car – new and used. Small, mid-size and large. This will not be a complete vehicle that we build.

Can you talk about the advantages of plug-in hybrids over other conventional hybrids?

Benefits:

  • Doesn’t interfere with Manufacturersâ in-vehicle systems
  • It is battery chemistry agnostic
  • Is compact yet delivers high peak power
  • Fuel efficiency improvement of over 40% as observed during tests at ARAI. The solution however provides 60% to 80% improvement during city driving conditions & above 50% during highway driving.
  • Solution is capable of reducing GHG emissions by over 30%.
  • Since the consumption of fuel will go down on account of the hybrid solution, the government would be able to save through the reduction in subsidy and foreign exchange outflow.
  • Retro-fitment of this solution can be expeditiously done in 4 to 6 hours.
  • Solution does not require additional infrastructure investments from the government.

What markets do you see for this technology?

After-market, vehicle owners & OEMs

What unique capabilities does KPIT and Bharat Forge bring to the table?

The technology for this intelligent plug-in, parallel, full-hybrid solution has been designed and engineered by KPIT Cummins, while the solution for automobiles would be manufactured through a joint venture (JV) between Bharat Forge Limited and KPIT Cummins Infosystems Limited. As part of the joint venture, KPIT Cummins will license the technology to the JV while Bharat Forge would bring in its manufacturing, assembly & integration expertise to the JV. The solution will be marketed to OEMs and fleet & individual vehicle owners through a network of certified and authorized dealerships

A general question – how do you see the future of embedded electronics space evolving in the next few years?

The embedded electronics space will see growth in its application in the Indian Vehicles at a rate faster than what happened in Europe, US and Japan. The key difference between application of electronics in the vehicle in Western world and in India would be that in western world it evolved with the advances in technology(and regulations) but in India it will be driver by market demand at the appropriate price.

About Anup Sable – SVP, Automotive and Allied Embedded and Tools, KPIT-Cummins

Click on the photo to see Anups Linked-in profile
Click on the photo to see Anup's Linked-in profile

Anup heads the Automotive line of business which is a leading product engineering partner to the automotive industry.

He is responsible for managing relationships with customers and helping them to globalize & standardize efficiently. He has been instrumental in creating a robust delivery ecosystem which supports clients in bringing complex technology products and systems faster to markets.

Passionate about technology in cars, Anup began his career as a research engineer at the Automotive Research Association in India (ARAI). He joined KPIT Cummins as a software engineer in 1994. With over 15 years of experience in the field of automotive electronics, Anup has played a key role in setting up the Automotive Electronics practice at KPIT Cummins.

Anup has done his engineering from Government College of Engineering, Pune.

vodQA Nite: The testing spirit – event for QA professionals – 10th June

What: vodQA Nite, an event for the software testing industry
When: Thursday, 10th June, 5:30pm
Where: ThoughtWorks Technologies, GF-01 and MZ-01, Tower C, Panchshil Tech Park, Yerwada. Map
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all to attend. Register here

vodQA Nite: The testing spirit

Thoughtworks Pune presents vodQA Nite – THE TESTING SPIRIT! – an event for the software testing industry to strengthen the QA community by sharing and learning new practices and ideas.

‘vodQA Nite’ offers a unique opportunity to interact with people who are equally passionate about software testing and continuously strive to better the art. The format of ‘vodQA Nite’ is scheduled such that each speaker will have 10-12 minutes to present followed by a couple of minutes of “open” discussion with participants. The topics covered in this workshop will be appropriate for any level of testing experience.

Connect with like-minded peers, and gain insight from industry practitioners.

Please note : This is a free to attend event. Register as an attendee here.

Who should attend?

Quality analysts and testing aficionados who want to interact with the testing community. This is also relevant to those interested in the nuances of test automation and how testing works in an Agile environment.

If you have any queries, email vodQA-Pune@thoughtworks.com

Tech events in Pune this weekend – 4 & 5 June

There are a number of interesting tech events in Pune today and tomorrow. Here is a brief overview of each. All of these events are free, and no registration is required.

PLUG Meet – Presentation on Unicode by G Karunakar

Tomorrow, Saturday, June 5, 4pm-6pm, 7th Floor, SICSR, Model Colony,

The Pune Linux Users Group’s monthly meeting happens on the first Saturday of every month, from 4pm to 6pm at SICSR, Model Colony. This month, the agenda includes a talk by G Karunakar on Unicode. Linux CD/DVDs will also be available at the meeting for anyone looking to install linux.

This is a great place to meet open source enthusiasts in Pune

For more details, see: http://plug.org.in

Mentoring Workshop on clean energy financing in Pune

Today, Friday, June 4, 10am-1:30pm, 1st Floor, Hotel Le Meridien

Private Financing Advisory Network (PFAN) is a multilateral, public-private partnership initiated by the Climate Technology Initiative (CTI) and funded by USAID. PFAN seeks to identify clean energy projects at an early stage and act as a project financing coaching and consultancy service to facilitate financial closure of such projects. After establishing dedicated in-country networks in China, Indonesia and Philippines, PFAN has now launched its services in India.

This workshop will introduce Indian clean energy entrepreneurs and stakeholders to the PFAN initiative and how they can leverage this platform to connect with investors and avail pro-bono mentoring services.

Agenda:

9.30 pm: Registration
10:00 am: Welcome Note, Suneel Parasnis, Team Leader – Clean Energy Finance, Contractor, USAID ECO-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program
10:10 am: Introduction to CTI-PFAN, Kavita Kaur, Country Manager – PFAN India, Contractor, USAID ECO-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program
10:30 am: MOU Signing – IT Power India and IndiaCo Ventures
11:00 am: Investor’s Expectations out of Business Plan â Rahul Patwardan, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, IndiaCo Ventures
11:30 am: Tea/Coffee Break
11:45 pm: Promoting Clean Energy – R.Chandrasekhar, CEO, IT Power
12:15 pm: Components of a Good Business Plan âSuneel Parasnis, Team Leader, ECO-Asia
1:00 pm: Panel discussion
1:30 pm: Lunch

For more details see: http://www.cti-pfan.net/

PuneCleanTech meet: Energy Efficiency – Opportunities and Challenges

Tomorrow, Saturday, June 5, 11am, Venture Center, NCL Innovation Center, Pashan Road

The new gee-whiz technologies such as solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels et cetera take all the limelight these days. But the fact remains that they are still a miniscule part of our energy mix and will remain so for the foreseeable future. A far bigger opportunity, however, exists all around us. There is enormous potential for making the conventional energy generation, distribution, storage and utilization much more efficient than what it is.

What is this opportunity? Where is it? How does one find it? How big is it? What can be done about it? How can it be addressed? Does anyone address it today? How do they do it? What qualifications do they need to do it?

Mr. Shishir Athale, founder of Sudnya Industrial Services, an energy services company, will discuss all these questions on June 5th, 11am at the NCL Venture Center (June 5th is also the Environment Day, a fitting coincidence!).

For more details see: http://punecleantech.com/energy-efficiency-opportunities-and-challenges/

POCC Meet: How to build a great startup team

Tomorrow, Saturday, 5 June, 4pm-7pm, 4th Floor, SICSR, Model Colony

The initial stages require only a handful of core team-members (3 to 5). These few are crucial to the success of the startup product or service. Finding these people, is one of the primary challenges facing startups today. Chetana Mehta will tackle a whole bunch of questions related to this topic. Chetana Mehta, ex-VP HR at GS Lab helped grow Persistent Systems, GS Lab when they were at a similar stage has offered to cover some aspects of nurturing and training teams.

For more details see: http://punetech.com/how-to-build-a-killer-startup-team-pocc-event-5-june/