When Paul is not working out of his office in Bangalore, he is busy traveling to different parts of India meeting with policy makers, entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists, students and teachers. His goal is to foster and help create entrepreneurship and innovation in India, especially among the student community. Paul and his team work with various Tier-1 and Tier-2 schools to help create entrepreneurship and innovation programs and incubators where students can get hands-on knowledge and experience of starting companies.

In Part-1 of the interview Paul talks about the three-pronged strategy that Microsoft has in creating and promoting entrepreneurship in India. He points out that support structure in terms of capital, mentorship and cross-border angel networks are starting to form in India, but there is lots more that needs to be done in India.

Tune in to find out what Paul has to say about Microsoft’s roadmap for entrepreneurship and innovation in India.

Related Post: Video Clip of Paul Murphy

Raj worked with Jet Airways for 6 years and retired a couple of years ago as Vice President. Prior to that he worked for 25 years with Singapore Airlines. What Raj brought with him to Jet Airways was his deep knowledge and hands-on experience of working in Singapore Airlines. He was part of a team that helped shape the success of Singapore Airlines and transform it into a global brand known for its excellent and innovative service.

In Part-2 of the interview Raj shares his experience of working with Jet Airways and Goyal, who founded the airlines in 1993. Goyal is a “dynamite” and is very “pro consumer oriented,” and “always wants the best for his Airlines,” says Raj. “He never takes no for an answer,” and is very “hands-on,” he adds. It is Goyal’s persistence and openness that led to Jet Airways adopting the best practices in customer care, food and ground service. What is ironic in some ways is that Goyal looked at Singapore Airlines as a model to emulate. And about 30 years ago Singapore Airlines looked at Air India as a role model for best practice in the commercial aviation sector. “From India to India,” is how Raj describes the change that is taking place in the Indian aviation industry led by Jet Airways.

Starting June 14th 2008 Jet Airways will become the first India-based airlines to operate a direct flight from San Francisco to India. Jet will fly from San Francisco via Shanghai to Mumbai.

In case you missed Part-1 of the interview with Raj you may want to listen to it. Raj spoke about the evolution of Singapore Airlines into a innovative company known for its excellent service.

Technorati Tags: n.sunderaj,jet airways,naresh goyal,indian aviation,san francisco,air india,travel,india,ideas

This is a two-part interview. In Part-1 Raj talks about the connection between Air India and Singapore Airlines, and how with laser sharp focus the airlines emerged as one of the top airlines in the world. How did Singapore Airlines do it? How did they do their branding and marketing? How did Singapore Airlines emerge as a trend setter known for its excellent service, innovation and marketing? Maybe there is a lesson here for India on how it lost out on its early advantage in the aviation industry.

Raj started his career with Air India in Singapore and then joined Singapore Airlines. After spending 25 years at Singapore Airlines Raj retired as VP from the airlines. He had barely settled down to enjoy his retirement days when he was recruited into Naresh Goyal’s Jet Airways, where he was a senior executive and helped raise the profile of Jet Airways. “India to India,” is how Raj describes his stint with Jet Airways and in an ironic twist of fate he brought back to India what he had learned from his first job working for Air India. Raj thinks that his former boss Naresh Goyal has the spirit, motivation and ambition to make Jet Airways into one of the top airlines in the world. After Jet Airways Raj joined Air Sahara from where he retired as senior VP recently.

An aviation buff Raj continues to track the latest developments in the the aviation industry.

Raj lives with his wife Geetha in the San Francisco bay area.

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“What wireless has done in voice and cable can be done in broadband too,” he points out. Prior to joining Tata Shankar was part of Airtel and says, “I have been part of the mobile revolution, which changed the way people India communicated. And I am lucky that I am involved in another revolution.” In a short span of less than 10 years the number of mobile users in India has grown at a break neck speed and every month a few million new subscribers are added according to the figures released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Can a similar revolution be replicated in WiMax? What are the reasons that WiMax will succeed in India? What about 3G? Tune in to find out why Shankar thinks WiMax is the right way to go in India.

This interview was recorded at TiECon 2008 in Santa Clara, CA.

Technorati Tags: WiMax,WiMax in India,broadband,Internet,Shankar Prasad,Ideas,India,Technology

Inspired to do something in the area of education Neeru’s husband Vinod Khosla suggested looking into textbooks for high school students. And that suggestion sparked off Neeru’s interest although she initially resisted the thought since she believes in providing personalized content for school kids. However, Neeru discovered that there is a gap and a need to provide contextual content for high school students and teachers especially in the areas of science and math. And thus was born the idea for CK-12, her non-profit organization. Through CK-12 Neeru has combined her passion for education with purpose.

Over the past couple of years Neeru and her co-founder Murugan Pal have been working behind the scenes to create open-source, collaborative text books called textbooks. Flexbooks and their technology will be made available in August 2008.

In this interview Neeru shares how CK-12 is developing the technology and seeding content to create flexbooks that will are free to be used by high school students and teachers. She also shares on where and how she gets help from her husband, the in-house expert, who helps her with her questions. Doing a start-up is consuming as Neeru has discovered. So, I asked her if she has a better understanding of what her husband’s work in running his companies and being a venture capitalist. Tune in to find out what Neeru has to say on this subject.

Related Links: Knowledge Unlocked, Video Demo of Flexbooks and Video Interview with Neeru Khosla and Murugan Pal.

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Rajeeva waited 30 years before he could do his startup and earlier this week his company completed their first important milestone. The company announced the fabrication of the industry’s first ever silicon thin film solar PV module at its new factory near Dresden, Germany. Understandably Rajeeva is very excited about the progress his startup has made thus far. The company recently announced its plan to expand its operations in the Southern state of Tamil Nadu, India. Signet Solar has raised funding through a friends and family round.

During the energy crisis of the 1970s Rajeeva thought of starting a solar company, but by the time he completed his PhD the interest level in alternative energy had faded. He started his professional career in Silicon Valley working in the semi-conductor industry sector. He has been a senior executive at Fairchild/National Semiconductor, VLSI, Tessera, Philips Semiconductor, and Intersil, where he was CTO and VP of world-wide operations.

Passion, right timing and right people were the ingredients that led to the birth of Signet Solar.

Tune in to find out what Rajeeva has to say about cleantech, future of cleantech and running a startup.

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Ravi joined NEA in 2004 and has led investment rounds in a handful of companies, including 4 that have an India connection. Ravi’s area of interest is Information Technology, but he has a strong interest in cleantech companies and sits on the board of Deeya and Suniva.

I caught up with Ravi at this year’s TiECon in Santa Clara where we spoke about cleantech, Deeya, investing and India and what is that he enjoys the best about being a venture capitalist. “At the core it is company building, where I can use my business and technical skills that I have developed,” says Ravi.

With a PhD and an MBA from Wharton Ravi brings strong research skills to the table. Prior to joining NEA Ravi worked for different organizations including Goldman Sachs.

Technorati Tags: ravi viswanathan,nea,venture capital,deeya,suniva,technology,cleantech,india,ideas,vc interview

Vivek has been consistently rated as one of the top executives by various business magazines in the last few years including Time and Forbes among others.

I caught up with Vivek at this year’s TiECon in Santa Clara, where he was a featured speaker. In this conversation we get to hear a little bit about Vivek on where he grew up and studied, and how he joined the corporate world and worked at Pepsi and GE and transitioned to head Wipro, which is a top-tier IT company headquartered in Bangalore. (more…)

Pico wrote his first book Video Night in Kathmandu about 20 years ago and still features as one of the top must-read books. He is also the author of The Lady and the Monk, Falling Off The Map, Abandon and most recently a book on Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan leader, who has been living in India since 1959.

In part-2 of our conversation Pico talks about growing up in England and California, his writing style, globalism, living in Japan and his favorite author Graham Greene. Pico often writes about globalism, and yet lives in a secluded part of Japan where he does not watch TV or read newspaper and probably the phone rings once a month at his home. Most evenings he plays ping-pong with senior Japanese people. And when he comes to his mother’s home in Santa Barbara he often makes time to stay at a Benedictine monastery. Tune in to find out how Pico is able to keep his pulse on the planet and write those articles and books on globalism.

If you missed Part-1 of the conversation with Pico you might want to listen Pico talk about his new book, the Dalai Lama, and about Communism and Buddhism.

Technorati Tags: Pico Iyer,Video Night In Kathmandu,The Lady and the Monk,Falling off the map,Abandon,Dalai Lama,travel writing,india,people

“In The Open Road, Pico Iyer transcends his celebrated excellence as a travel writer,” comments Peter Matthiessen, while the Economist writes that Pico has “an access and insight into the Dalai Lama that lifts his writing above the clichés that normally surround him.” (more…)