Ashish Jha

Healthcare and ICT - Telemedicine using Akaash Ubislate

2011-12-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

Recently I participated in a B-plan contest at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, and got shortlisted for the next round as well. My plan is to provide healthcare services to patients in rural and sub-urban areas at low cost using technologies like tele-medicine and tele-diagnostics. These technologies are currently being used, but they are scattered and not aligned to each other. For example there is a tremndos effort being put by MIT-Media Labs Asia to put together a Health Management Information System (HMIS) along with a tele-medicine solution for rural areas. However, the lack of standardization of tele-medicine has put a roadblock to the success of this solution. India, in particular, lack the government will power to standardize the tele-medicine technology so that all the vendors, service providers, healthcare centers and patients can be brought to a single platform. Unless that happens, any effort in this direction will yield minimal results.

Nevertheless, my solution is more inclined towards usability issues of a healthcare service provider than the standardization issue. Currently, ICT based healthcare services at a rural hospital are provided using desktop computers. These computers are installed at the rural clinic/hospitals, and patients come to visit the hospital in order to get him/herself checked up. This solution is less convenient, entirely non-portable, expensive, and prone to theft of the equipment. Had it been a tablet PC kind of device instead of the desktop computer, the working of the system would have improved many folds. But again, tablet PC are more expensive than a desktop computer and not feasible in a country like India to award each rural doctor a tablet PC.

However, with the inauguration of Akaash Ubislate tablet PC by the Union Human Resource Minister a few months back, the aforementioned concept is very much feasible. My business plan revolves around this concept. Akaash is an Android OS based tablet PC with a cost of around $50. This is way less expensive than usual Apple iPad and affordable to the doctors in rural areas.

More on this in coming days when I will finalize my B-Plan.

Mobile services innovation - where is it heading to?

2010-02-04T03:55:00.000-08:00

Recently I was reading a blog by the CEO of Fjord Oy about the direction in which Mobile services innovation is going. He argues that Mobile based services (MMS, PTT, Video calling etc.) launched in recent years have not yielded up to the expectation. Reason - they were neither designed carefully, nor they they could sustain the poor infrastructure of the service providers. Services innovation was a big talk at Nokia when I was there at their headquarters during pre-recession era, not long back though. It was rumoured that Nokia is going to entirely focus its business to services from device by 2010. This does not, however, seem to happen this year. Though, less bandwidth savvy applications and services have found success in recent times (such as mobile email apps), the apps which demand high bandwidth have miserably failed to draw the attention of customers. Most of the services offered by mobile service providers are still running on SMS.

The reason why internet infrastructure took lesser number of years to grow than mobile infrastructure is basic. The network standards across the world for internet is same, while for mobile they are too many. It is simply hard to replicate the mobile network from country to another. Besides this , there are too many stakeholders. This made the process of innovation in mobile services really slow. The new iPad and other slate devices expected to come this year in market, are all bound to succeed only if they could please their customers in performance. These devices boast to bridge the gap between smartphones and laptops, but still the network backbone provider for iPad, Verizon is finding it difficult to cope with the increased bandwidth requirements of the machine.

The mobile services needs some breakthrough innovations, as it happened with the internet (Skype-in voice and video calling, Google - in searching, Y! - in web chatting and numerous others). These innovations are expected to come from smaller and innovative players rather than big device makers and service providers.

Innovation - the transformation of emerging world businesses

2010-02-02T03:15:00.000-08:00

Innovation is a buzzword today. Everyone wants to be innovative or at least appear to be innovative. Be it service or product or process, every aspect of business is now being linked with innovation. In the Western world (Innovation based economies) this revolution took place several decades ago, but now in the Emerging world (Skill based economies) also innovation is being termed as new way of doing business. But how does innovation finds its place in a world where 90% of business processes (or any other process as a matter of fact) are manual and human skill is in abundance.

Process innovation is defined as a new way of doing things with same or better output in lesser time and resources. Lets consider time as a resource for the time being , other resources being human and machines. Today's businesses need to minimize their input to efficiently manage their manufacturing costs. At the same time they also do not want to play with their output or quality of output. For example, outsourcing of business process (BPO) has been a fairly successful process innovation in the past. Bharti Telecom has been sucessfully been able to achieve lowest possible cost of calling for its customer with high quality of customer satisfaction level, because of outsourcing its all processes but marketing and customer management.

Technology innovation, on the other hand is associated with transforming an idea into workable product which can rise the standard of living of an individual. The process of idea generation is arbitrary and sometimes out of need basis. However, many organizations have set processes and rewards for idea generation by their employees and categorically analyzing those ideas to convert them into products. GE, and Mitsubishi, for example are known to have a well established process of idea and innovation management. Many a times technology innovation is linked to the R&D done by a firm, which is by large true, but not always. Google, for example, has a policy of generating technology ideas out of its regular employees, outside its R&D wing.

The risk for an organization to become innovative is that it looses it's employees' precious work hour. Innovation needs resources (time, human and machine). But as far as money is not involved directly, organizations tend to accept this model of innovation. As soon as the innovation demands spending, things start to deteriorate. Smaller firms with limited revenues can not afford to leave its employees in innovation mode for long. The irony is that most of these firms disappear if they do not innovate. This vicious circle is now being broken by many newcomers in the market, who are giving more importance to innovation rather than traditional way of working in emerging economies.

Legal Sales: A beginner's lessons

2009-08-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

The essence of sales; hit as many prospects as you can. The experience of sales and marketing for me has not been very elaborated but still, i have spend a few months selling services and interacting with people across the globe. And believe me, it was worth talking to them (whatever be the topic of discussion). I chose this field, shifting from a completely differen field, just for the sake of 'change'. a word of caution for technology oriented people who wish to pursue this field: if you can not talk a lot; don't go for it.

The periphery of sales is made up of the following ingredients:

Research: Before speaking to a prospect, research as much as you can about him/her/his firm. This gives you an idea of what to speak, especially when your meeting/call is short of anf fixed agenda. And believe me, alsmost 90% of the sales meetings are unorganized and they lack any fixed topic of dicussion.

Communication: Communicate a lot, but sensibly. However, its worst if you do not talk than you talk insensible. The challenging part is to start communication with completely strange people. Devise ways to begin talking with them. They may be your potential clients. A word of caution: speaking slowly will make the prospect understand you properly and will remove any chance of confusion, plus it will show that you are confident and in control of yourself.

Showcase: Your work speaks louder than you yourself. Show them what you have done and what are you capable of doing. A few samples (relevant to the prospect's business) will help you showcase yourself in a different way.

Follow up: You may not get business the very first day of the meeting. Sales cycle may stretch from months to years. Remain in touch with your prospect. Send them regular updates about what are you doing currently and how it can bringe change to his business. A moment will come when your prospect will understand your importance and will get back to you with some potential work.

However the core of any client relationship is how much your get hold of the market situation and how you develop a personal relatioship with your client. These skills ofcourse come with experience and as you dig deep in this field, you uncover yet another layer of client-provider relationship.

Legal Freelancing??

2007-03-25T00:47:00.000-07:00

What the heck..Is it possible?? How do you do it? Well it is a tough question to answer, specially when you are in India and your clients are in US or Europe. There are tools and technologies to help you out, but the field is too traditional to handle. The current scenario is that legal outsourcing firms are spreading their businesses and getting more and more clients. But then, you are a freelancer, working alone, with limited resources and handful of knowledge. Can you go ahead with it or it is just too cumbersome to find a client?

Right now the scenario is that the outsourced legal jobs are mainly in IPR, contract drafting, document reviews or legal research. Well, the clients are abroad and you are going to approach them...how?

Get in touch with freelance website: These websites have a handful of projects listed (Elance being the best provider). But, the problem is that there are big players waiting for it, and you have tough time convincing the buyers. The lawyers from US have a benefit of being easily accessible to the client, being able to understand them and having years of experience. What to do now..Again the cost is the key...how much you bid and what portfolio you show. Be patient, it will take some time for you to get your first project and hopefully by then, impatient will not wait (reducing competition)!

Get in touch with law firms: These law firms (in India and abroad) often look for freelancers to carry out there jobs cheaply. The Indian law firms are in the phase of transition from serving traditional Indian clients to handling foreign clients. So they so called half established business, which are either looking for a VC to invest or striving to be self sustainable in due time.

The path to freelance in legal area is foggy though I believe its worth pursuing.

Change your life with Freelancing

2007-03-24T10:41:00.001-07:00

A little effort in your life can change the way you spend your spare time, and that too giving you extra earning. Yes, freelancing is one such way which I have practiced for quite some time now. And now I can confidently say that it pays to be in this field.
As a student, it was quite difficult for me think the ways I can earn some pocket money. Should I work in Call Centers, or work part time somewhere? I had no idea how I can make money online and spend my time in something constructive. Now, when I am in a job and have access to some professional people, I can understand what quality and deadlines mean. And these term have a lot of significance while you freelance. However it is a matter of commitment and how the lady luck favors you, when you enter the freelancing for the first time. The things that are critical are:

Present yourself properly. Your presentation reflects your ability. For a person dealing with you for the first time goes entirely with what your specialties are, what have you done, what are your achievements (and of course how much you quote). Online profiles are the most deceptive ones and anybody who is not personally familiar to you will find it hard to initiate working with you. I personally found this problem and struggled for a long time before getting the first break. So better prepared with some sample work and a good quotation before you bid for the job.

Be professional. Come on, this world demands professionals, who can deliver quality and on time. Promise legibly and practically, and over deliver. By over promising, you might be able get work for first time, but under delivery will ruin everything. A poor review or grade by the service buyer might get you no work in future.

Beat the competition. Many buyers put their projects open to freelancers because they can't afford big payments. Thus, to get a break, beat the competitors by quoting less (be aware not to quote too less to make buyers skeptic). Once established, raise the rates.

Choose a field you are familiar with. To be professional, choose a field which you have some experience. Do not jump into developing software if you have not worked in a software industry for some time. It is then only you can deliver quality and satisfy the buyer.