What: SPIN (Software Process Improvement Network) monthly meeting featuring ‘Role of IT in Clean Tech’ by Anil Paranjape and ‘Quality issues in carbon management industry’ by Shreenath Shanbhag
When: Thursday, 26th November, 6:45pm onwards
Where: Hotel Ambassador, Shivajinagar
Registration and Fees: This event is free for all to attend. No registration required.

Clean Tech and Sustainable Business are probably today’s biggest buzz-words. By all accounts, this is the industry that is likely to spur the next wave of growth in the global economy. As IT professionals we must be aware the challenges of this industry, the gaps that exist in the IT infrastructure for this industry, which are the big opportunities for all of us tomorrow, if not today!

This month’s SPIN meeting features two talks on Clean Tech

Topic I: Role of IT in Clean Tech and in making businesses sustainable

Businesses the world over are waking up to their critical role in society and their practices that have led the world to the brink of massive upheavals on environmental and social fronts. These changes are making consumers more aware of their plights and rights and they are demanding that businesses act more responsibly. Needless to say, the governments are responding to their voting constituencies through increased regulation and legislation that is forcing the businesses to be more sensitive and responsible towards all stakeholders, not just their shareholders. On this uncharted, unmarked and often even undeveloped road to sustainability, businesses are increasingly finding a severe lack of appropriate frameworks, tools, experts, theory, research and empirical data to help them do a better job with their triple bottom-line: profits, people, and planet. This talk aims to explain why we are where we are, what role businesses play in it and then focus on how and where IT can help businesses be more responsible towards the world.

About the Speaker: Anil Paranjape

Anil Paranjape is a renowned technologist and now a successful Venture Capitalist. Originally from Pune, he has completed his BE in Electronics and Telecommunications from University of Pune. After finishing his graduation he earned his degree in Biomedical Engineering from University of Texas. In his working career of 20 years, he was associated with Intel Corporation in Oregon where he helped Intel to develop their flagship microprocessors starting with Pentium Pro. He has also worked on complex Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software tools and methodologies for Intel’s flagship prototype microprocessors including Pentium-4 and the recently introduced Core i7. In 2005, he completed his MBA from Wharton School of Business and then joined Intel Capital where he was responsible for developing new business opportunities.

Last year, he shifted back to India and has been mentoring entrepreneurs and startups to active participation in social impact ventures and tending his prior investments in hospitality business. These days Anil is helping companies with cleantech investments, business incubation and evangelizing sustainable ways of doing business

Topic II: Quality issues in Carbon Management industry and the Early error Detection methodology

First Carbon is a brand new start-up in the Clean Tech industry. Their product helps companies measure and manage their carbon footprint.

In today’s competitive market, quality has become the hygiene factor in every organization. Especially for a product organization, occurrence of bugs at a late stage would be quite costly and it may even impact existence of the product organization. Catching errors in the early stage of the development life-cycle could well be the key to success for a product.

In a brand new industry, getting the requirements right is an even bigger challenge. This talk presents the Early Error Detection methodology used by First Carbon to build Quality in their product up-front. This includes validation of the requirements to catch defects right at the requirement stage and generate test cases in a formal way from the validated requirements to ensure Quality.

About the Speaker: Shreenath Shanbhag, First Carbon

A technically proficient manager with rich IT experience and sound project management knowledge of over 18 years, he has worked in both Product and Projects environments. Shreenath has been involved in various phases of software development including requirements analysis, design, development, testing, implementation and has demonstrated Process design and implementation skills for very complex business processes. At present, Shreenath is actively involved in developing a product in the niche of Carbon Management