IIT Grads Land Hot Jobs as they Turn Change Agents

8 Career & Companies
Short Takes
Evaluation of Cos’ Boards
Must for Transparency: PwC
NEW DELHI Compulsory annual
evaluation of a company’s board
will help boost accountability and
transparency but the move might
face initial hurdles such as reluctance in sharing fair views, says a PwC report. The Companies Act, 2013 mandates an annual evaluation
of the board, its committees and individual directors, while Sebi has also put in place similar
provisions for listed firms. “Evaluation of the
board’s performance is a significant step towards increased accountability and transparency, given that the board wields significant
authority and is trusted to act in the best interest of shareholders,” PwC said.
THE ECONOMIC TIMES | KOCHI | FRIDAY | 3 JULY 2015
IIT Grads Land Hot Jobs as
they Turn Change Agents
Gulf Petrochem Plans
to Set up `. 1,000-crore
Ethanol Plant in India
Flipped Classroom: The Threefold Path
UAE major looks to
leverage govt’s
mandate to blend
ethanol with petrol
Avanti’s answer to three key questions
DEPENDENCE ON
HIGH-COST TEACHERS
Avanti’s ‘flipped model’ moves the
focus to pre-class conceptual clarity
through local-language videos and
in-class peer learning
The standard of teaching is
maintained through high-quality
videos that are delivered by the
founders and other top recruits
Agility Appoints Detlev
Janik as South Asia CEO
HIGH LEVELS OF EXISTING KNOWLEDGE
AND ACADEMIC ABILITY REQUIRED
Learning material is graded and begins with
first principles, allowing students to build up
conceptual understanding at their own pace
The language of instruction is Hindi and the
informal facilitator and peer-learning model
is less intimidating, encouraging greater
participation in the classroom.
For continued student learning, a highquality, doubt-clarification expert comes into
class once a week
LOW USAGE OF
TECHNOLOGY
AND STUDENT TRACKING
Facilitators have a clearly
defined workflow before, during
and after the class, allowing
them to track individual student
needs better
Rachita.Prasad
@timesgroup.com
An integrated learning
management system (LMS) and
online doubt-clarification
system creates a virtuous
feedback loop
In Great Demand
NEW DELHI Global logistics provid-
er Agility has appointed Detlev Janik as its CEO for South Asia region.
“In this role, Janik will be responsible for leading Agility’s global integrated logistics business in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka,” the company said.
Janik joins Agility with more than 35 years of
experience in the logistics industry, including
over 30 years based in India and South East
Asia. “The South Asia region, with its large and
fast-growing markets, is immensely important
to Agility and we invested early to develop a
significant presence,” said Chris Price, CEO,
Agility Asia Pacific.
‘Healthcare Sector Needs
74 lakh Workforce by 2022’
NEW DELHI The National Skill De-
velopment Corporation (NSDC) has
estimated that incremental human
resource requirement in India’s
healthcare sector will almost double to 74 lakh
by 2022. “Workforce requirement for the
healthcare sector is expected to grow from
35.9 lakh in 2013 to 74 lakh in 2022,” NSDC
said. Besides, the size of the healthcare sector
is expected to grow to `. 9.64 lakh crore by
2017, it added. At present, healthcare spending in India stands at less than 5% of GDP, as
compared to other developed countries, while
out-of-pocket expenditure comprises about
92% of private expenditure as compared to international average of nearly 50%.
Japan Body Appoints
Sakamoto as New India Head
NEW DELHI Takema Sakamoto will
head the India operations of Japan
International Cooperation Agency
(JICA) as its Chief Representative
for the country. “JICA has announced appointment of Takema Sakamoto as the new Chief
Representative of India Office. Sakamoto has
rich experience working for JICA, including the
task as the former Chief Representative of Iraq
Office,” a statement said on Thursday.
Saumya.Bhattacharya
@timesgroup.com
New Delhi: A 22-year-old chemical engineering graduate from
one of the Indian Institutes of
Technology (IITs) wouldn’t find
it too difficult to land a generous
job offer. However, Krishna
Choudhury, class of 2015, IIT Guwahati, has gone off the beaten
track and turned teacher at a
startup, where he will try and
help more under-privileged students get into his alma mater.
The level of job satisfaction more
than makes up for a much lower
salary.
Choudhury works at Avanti, a
for-profit venture backed by the
Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the Pearson Affordable
Learning Fund, which is turning
the classroom on its head and
drawing top IIT graduates as fac-
ulty. It has a teaching staff of 75 at
its centres across India. Of these,
40 are from the IITs, most of them
in their 20s and earning about a
fourth of what they would have
got elsewhere.
“Among the most exciting
things we’ve been able to achieve
is attracting India’s best undergraduates to roles in the education sector,” said Avanti president and co-founder Akshay
Saxena, an IIT Bombay alumnus.
“All of our recruits have a passion for teaching but what’s most
exciting for our team is that
we’re working towards re-imagining education and creating an
alternate model that uses technology to deliver quality
through process.”
Hasratpreet Kaur is the first engineer from her village of Jati
Majra in Punjab’s Sangrur district, having graduated from IIT
Delhi this year. A farmer’s
daughter, Kaur found the Avanti
model of teaching so compelling
that she decided to shun a corporate career and join the organisation. “It helped that I always
wanted to be a teacher eventually,” she said.
Avanti was established in 2010
to provide affordable, high-quality education to disadvantaged
students aspiring to study at India’s top colleges. Having turned
for-profit in 2012, it has centres in
Mumbai, Delhi, Kanpur, Chennai and other locations. Besides
the IITs, it’s also hired graduates
from the National Institutes of
Technology and St Stephen’s in
Delhi. So what’s the attraction?
“I believe that the biggest draw
for high-quality talent, for example IIT alumni, towards Avanti is
the company’s social mission,
and a performance-based culture for achieving that mission,”
said Prachi Windlass, director of
education, India, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. “Admission into a top engineering college is a life-transforming
experience, and who understands that better than young
graduates.”
Many of these young people
want to give back to society in a
meaningful way, while furthering their own professional aspirations. Avanti provides them
that platform: a fast-growing,
high-potential startup that’s
tightly bound to its mission of
improving college entrance success rates for underprivileged
children, Windlass said.
“We had to turn the classroom
on its head,” said Saxena. “You
have to be very disruptive in how
classrooms are run.”
The ‘flipped model’ has been developed in collaboration with
Harvard University educator Eric Mazur.
Google Set to Tweak Android One Strategy
Company to come up with version 2.0 as it got lukewarm response after initial launch
[email protected]
New Delhi: Google has gone
back to the drawing board for
Android One and come up with a
version 2.0 as it were. Having
met with a tepid response for the
first phones based on the system
in September last year, it appears to be reorienting the strategy towards people who’ve had
smartphones before rather than
first-time users, said a person
with knowledge of the plan.
That involves a shift in pricing
as well.
The latest Android One smartphone, made by Indian handset
vendor Lava International, will
be launched in Delhi on July 14
and will cost about `. 12,000,
roughly twice what the first
phones were priced at. The
launch is likely to be attended by
top Google executives involved
with the project. Android One
was devised as a set of specifications that allowed companies to
build cheap devices that run
smoothly on the operating system and get direct updates from
Google. Another change relates
to vendor engagement, said the
person cited above. The latest
device has been developed in collaboration on hardware and
software with Lava and chipmaker MediaTek. Indian handset vendors weren’t involved in
Mumbai: Gulf Petrochem will
set up a `. 1,000-crore ethanol
manufacturing plant in India,
according to a top company executive, as the UAE-headquartered entity seeks to leverage on
the government’s mandate to IT HAS BEEN A DECADE
blend ethanol with petrol.
since the government opted
It has been a decade since the
for blending 5% ethanol
government opted for blending
with fossil fuel to reduce
5% ethanol with fossil fuel to revehicular emissions
duce vehicular emissions, a measure that was later made mandatory. But the country is far from ACCORDING TO ESTIMATES,
reaching the target, managing at
India needs over 115 crore
most 2% blending as oil marketlitres of ethanol to meet its
ing companies say there isn’t
target of 5% blending
enough ethanol available.
According to estimates, India
needs over 115 crore litres of eth- INDIAN UNITS PRODUCE
anol to meet its target of 5%
only 80 crore litres,
blending. But Indian units procreating a big demand
duce only 80 crore litres, creatfor the product
ing a big demand for the product.
Ethanol manufacturers, mostly
sugar markers who use molasses
as raw material, say state levies Mohan Bansal, strategic adviand the price fixed by the Centre sor to the company.
at `. 48.50 a litre is a deterrent to
Bansal said that so far the ethcapacity expansion.
anol manufacturing units have
“We want to grow in India. Be- been concentrated in states
sides our oil business, we have that produce sugarcane and,
diversified into steel. Now we therefore, Gulf Petrochem is
want to get into ethanol manu- looking at other states which
facturing,” Manan Goel, Gulf don’t have enough capacity. It
Petrochem’s group director told has shortlisted Punjab, HaryaET. “States have been inviting
na and Madhya
investments so we are looking
Pradesh
and
for a site where we can get the CBEC has
would finalise a
land closer to the raw material notified
site soon.
availability.” Gulf Petrochem, a withdrawal
“We are talking
company promoted by brothers of 12.36%
to state governAshok Goel and Sudhir Goyel, duty on
ment and even
has primarily been into oil trad- ethanol
the central goving, refining and bunkering. It produced
ernment to see
now wants to enter the ethanol from
what kind of inmarket with a manufacturing molasses
centives can a
unit that would produce around after Oct 1
green
project
60,000 kilolitres of ethanol by
like this get,”
2017-18. While almost 90% of In- Bansal said, adding that the
dia’s ethanol is manufactured business environment in the
from feedstock of molasses, country looks encouraging for
Gulf Petrochem may adapt a new investments. The current
technology that uses rice husk. government is exploring in“There is a big market for etha- creasing ethanol content in aunol and even at the fixed price to fuels to 10%. Sugarcane makthe project is viable. The gov- ers have cited state levies as a
ernment has indicated that if big discouraging factor and
there is ethanol available at the have even written to chief minfixed price, oil marketing com- isters of producing and conpanies will buy it,” said Brij suming states.
design and development the
first time around.
“The first-phase partners took
devices from original device
makers (ODMs) in China and
had no say over hardware and
software. The latest device is
controlled by Lava, which would
be in a position to provide an enhanced experience,” the person
said. Not having done so earlier
may have been among the reasons for the muted performance.
There hasn’t been too much demand for the first Android One
phones which were made by Micromax, Karbonn and Spice.
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