Help support children’s education in Hyderabad

Asha is a non-profit, volunteer-driven organization that focuses on facilitating basic education for the needy. The Hyderabad chapter of Asha has been conducting an annual corporate quiz at ISB in order to raise funds for a host of projects including providing mid-day meals at schools and subsidizing education for under-privileged children.

The most probable dates for this year’s event to be held at the Indian School of Business are either May 27th or June 2nd.

Here are some links about Asha and the ACE quiz for your perusal:

1. Information on Asha-Hyderabad
2. Information on the ACE quiz
3. Downloadable PDF with information on the ACE quiz
4. Downloadable PDF with information on the sponsorship package

In case you or your organization will be able to help sponsor the event, please contact the relevant names mentioned in the above links. You can rest assured that the money will be fully utilized for the most worthy cause.

How can we control population?

Rakesh Z. asks a great question on tolmolbol: “Population” for india is one of the biggest or only the biggest problem. Today many problems in india are directly or indirectly related to increasing population. So, how could we control our populaion?

Firstly, I wish he would refer to India with a capital I. But nevertheless, the question is quite remarkable and it is quite cool that people are using Hyderabad Bol to ask such profound questions to their community. And yours truly is a sucker for pondering over solutions to profound questions. I think this question is profound simply because at some point in the future, humanity is going to be forced to find an answer to this problem. For there has to be a maximum limit to the population that can drain on the earth’s resources and it is too early to say if we can successfully colonize the Jovian satellites.

I first thought we should come up with a disincentivization program but couldn’t think beyond an economic basis for such a scheme. But the problem with using money as a yardstick as well as a stick is that people at the bottom of the economic pyramid will be unfairly penalized. Perhaps this question is best left to those wonderfully brilliant thinkers and economists such as Stephen J. Dubner (to whom I once sent a fan mail addressing him as Mr. Lubner) and Steven D. Levitt. But I have never stopped myself from trying to answer questions way out of my league. So, why should I start now?

Here’s the best I could come up with: Embrace genetic engineering to the extent that parents can determine the gender of their offspring. Also restrict every parent to procreate atmost two children – one male and one female. (Not really sure if “procreate” is the right verb for this sentence?) Parents may be given a choice in selecting the order of the gender of their two offspring. And in the future if a situation were to arise that parents should just have one offspring or if parents start to restrict themselves to just one child of a predominant gender, say male, we can resort to a lottery scheme to assign gender and maintain balance.

What say?

Some tips on breaking the ice

The “Ice Breaker” speech is your first Competent Communicator(CC) speaking project in Toastmasters. As one of the newest members of HTM, I completed my ice breaker speech two days ago. Suffice it to say, my debut speech went off pretty well. Thanks, Pavan for a lot of inspiration.

Based on my experience, I’d like to share the following tips with others:

1. The most important factors that contribute to a good speech are oodles of confidence, the substance of the talk and the style of delivery. You need to work on all of these aspects.

2. Confidence can stem from your character and your past experiences or can also be generated out of practice. Some folks are naturally gifted speakers with remarkable maturity and intellect. They can deliver an awesome speech under any circumstance and these tips are not meant for them. But if you are like the vast majority who get a few jitters when speaking before an audience, read on.

3. You can easily become a confident speaker by knowing your speech inside out. To get to that stage, you can start by picking a subject that you like or are passionate about. Preferably, a topic that can inform, inspire or entertain the audience.

4. If you have the talent to write well, then you are already half way there. One technique for delivering a good speech is to write down your speech like you would write a good blog post. It is easy to be fluent and show conviction when the words are your own.

5. Once you have the draft of your speech, fine tune it. This is one aspect of style. Work on the opening so that it is unique and memorable. If you are speaking to an audience comprising of strangers, you should strive to earn their attention in the first few sentences of your talk. Try to similarly work on the ending so that it is either inspiring or worth remembering. Easy ways to do so include using some funny or motivational quotes and stories. I still remember a speaker who began his talk with a humorous quote as follows: “There is an old Bulgarian proverb that goes ‘Seize opportunity by the beard for it is bald behind’”. Other ways of engaging the audience include asking an interesting question, asking for a show of hands and so on.

6. Rehearse your speech a couple of times. Then rehearse again along with vocal intonation, hand gestures and other appropriate body language. This is the second aspect of style.

7. The final tip is to stay relaxed before your speech. If you have completed the above six steps and if you know your speech inside out, you should be ready to go even in your sleep. If not, go back to step 6 and practice.

On a separate note, all the above tips apply when you are addressing a sensible audience. Talking before a screaming mob is an entirely different experience and requires some extra tips. Will blog about it another day.

Best/worst April fool’s joke

Mohit R. asks “What’s the best prank you’ve pulled off or got(ten) fooled?” on tolmolbol.

Every time someone asks that question, I invariably end up laughing at myself for a prank that I initiated; but one that was paid back in full by a victim. At my previous company, it was customary to celebrate every single occasion. If you bought a car or bike, it was “sweets in the pantry.” Same thing if you got engaged or if you became a proud mom or dad or if you came back from a vacation or if the Indian cricket team won a match. Phew! It was a paradise for sugar freaks. So, one April 1’st morning, I decided to pull a prank by sending an email to all and sundry with the subject line, “Sweets in the pantry”. No sooner than I pressed the “Send” button, heads were seen popping out of cubicles and rushing towards the pantry. Boy! were they in for a surprise?

As I was chuckling to myself about this silly joke, I got a reply in my inbox from one of my colleagues. The subject line of the email read “Re: Sweets in the panty” and the message had just one line, “Dude, you better be careful when sending mails to everyone if you can’t spell pantry”. I was immediately red-faced and dashed off an apology. Soon, it dawned on me that I couldn’t have been so stupid, could I? I rummaged through my “Sent Mail” folder in order to find the mail I originally sent. I stared open-mouthed when I found it. For there it was, my email, sweetly titled, “Sweets in the pantry”.

And that’s how the cookie crumbled.

tolmolbol on AlooTechie

Caveat: Self-promotion in this post.

AlooTechie is a uber-cool Indian blog with the tagline “Whatever Matters in the Indian Online Industry”. Their current top story features an interview with the tolmolbol team. Some weeks ago, we were also featured on iLeher, another top-notch blog focused on the Indian internet space.

If you are interested in the Indian online entrepreneurship scene, you should definitely tune in to both these blogs.

That said, normal service in this blog is to resume soon.