India's Hidden Hotbeds of Innovation

Prof.Anil Gupta is father of my friend. A quiet unassuming man dressed in hand spun cotton shirt. Only years later I learnt about his work with grassroots inventors and innovators.

Anil Kumar Gupta taught at famed business school, he started 'Honey Bee Network' to help grassroots inventors and innovations. Every year his management class traveled to rural India to study and learn from traditional knowledge and innovation of the people.

In this 2009 TEDTalk India's Hotbeds of Invention he shares his experiences with Honey Bee Network. Enjoy and get inspired.

SIM Card Registration Failed Solution

Few days ago I sent a message on twitter "Anyone know the reason for Nokia's SIM Card Registration Failed problem?". Got quite a few solutions from my friends . It is the most common problem with Nokia mobile phones. Restarting the phone few times or removing SIM and cleaning the contacts also fixes the problem. Try some of the solutions that worked for me.

Solution 1: Blocked SIM or Faulty SIM

In countries like India, you need to register your SIM card. The cell phone company blocks the SIM if they don't receive the application within few weeks of activating the phone. Please check if this is case.

Take out the SIM and test it with a different phone, if the phone fails to read the SIM, get the SIM replaced. Few days ago this worked for a friend with a brand new Nokia handset here in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Solution 2: Clean SIM Contact Pins

Take out the battery and SIM card. Use a clean eraser to wipe the gold contacts of the phone and on back the SIM card. Replace the SIM and make sure its firmly held in place. Few phones tend to start to working when you bang them on your palm a few times due to this reason. Tighten the tiny screws on the back panel of the phone near the SIM card if they are loose.

Solution 3: Phone Software/Hardware Issues

Despite all your efforts, the phone refuses to work then try to the phone repaired or replaced. Some users found that the cellphone firmware upgrade tends to fix this issue. I got a Nokia phone firmware upgraded, it fixed the problem for few months. But the phone started to have the problem again.

Unfortunately there seems to be no sure fix for this problem. Most cell phone service centers including Nokia Authorized shops often fails fix this annoyance. They even charge you service fee just for checking the phone :( .

I would love to hear your experiences, have you had this problem? Did you manage to fix it. Thank you ajuonline, BasilKurian, geohacker for your suggestions.

Universal Braille Kit (UBK)

The Universal Braille kit (UBK) is brainchild of octogenarian N.Krishnaswamy. It is designed to teach braille to blind children at home in developing countries with no access to special education. The Universal Braille Kit has a braille cube, an alphabet plate, a braille slate and stylus, a standard abacus and instruction manuals. This kit is produced by Workshop For Rehabilitation and Training of the Handicapped (Worth Trust) in India.

Last year I traveled to Chennai to meet N.Krishnaswamy (NK) at Vidya Vrikshah. We remained in close contact sharing ideas on various braille projects. Last week few accessibility designers met at Worth Trust factory in Katpadi, Tamil Nadu. NK was there, full of energy and ideas. NK never fails to surprise me. " Arky, At my age I am in a terrible hurry" he says with a chuckle. Just as he was leaving I managed to corner him and shot this video.

In this video N.Krishnaswamy explains the story behind the design of the Universal Braille Kit (UBK) and explains the concepts by demonstrating various devices of the kit.

The Universal Braille kit (UBK) from arky on Vimeo.

If you are interested to procure the Universal Braille Kit, please do get in touch with Worth Trust.

• Worth Trust
• 48, New Tiruvalam Road
• Katpadi, Tamil Nadu (India)
• Phone: 0416-2242739 0416-2243464
• Email: worth@md3.vsnl.net.in
• Website: http://www.worthtrust.org.in

Bait Seaside Restaurant, Kovalam beach

Taj Green Cove in Kovalam, Trivandrum opened a new seaside restaurant Bait. If you are craving for a good thin crust pizza then you should try Bait's wood chip oven baked pizza the best in town.

The restaurant is designed by local architect Vinod Mathew, he showed me around this amazing place. The restaurant is constructed on raised platform of solid timber away from reach of high tide. It has some of best view of the beach, the lake on the other side and Taj Bali village style cottages further inland.

Old wooden railway sleepers are layed all around the building adding texture with their weathered look, they are used because of their amazing resistant to sea water. The restaurant flooring is created with concrete mixed with gel and coloring agents, the bathrooms are great example of how you can use concrete to create great surfaces. The bar stools are created from single block of wood, the chairs are custom designed with bamboo string backs. The deck chairs are custom designed and built in Vinod's workshop. I won't blame you if you doze right away in these comfortable chairs. The ceiling is covered with elephant grass and grass hand woven mats covering inner roof.

Wooden Railway Sleepers

Custom Designed Furniture

Watch the fisherman bring in the catch

Meera enjoying in the children play area

Bean bags for adding comfort

Bar with wooden block chairs

Solar eclipse India 2010

While waiting at Trivandrum airport I captured the solar eclipse with home-brew filters made of two strips of Xray sheets.

A Retort To Remember

Quickly recorded Sabriye's retort when Cornelia commented about my technical abilities 'But Arky should know how to do that right?'. Pat came the reply, you know what 'Arky doesn't know shit'
What a great way to start the new year with a compliment. :)

Have a wonderful New Year !!

Christmas Party 2009

Returned from workshop in Hyderabad on christmas eve. Took a long hot shower to recover from the 26 hour train journey and drove over to Thapovan for the christmas party.

Fort Cochin Heritage Walk Mapping party

Sajjad blogs about yesterday's Fort Cochin Heritage Walk Mapping party in Cochin. We had to wind up the two day mapping party on the first day itself. We had to leave the city immediately, a political hartal (strike) was due to begin the next day. The city transport system would grind to a halt leaving us stranded in the city.

Living on the fort cochin island itself was too expensive, the cost of rooms skyrocket around the fort cochin carnival time. Perhaps we hope return to the Fort Cochin soon to continue mapping the whole island. Perhaps better prepared next time guys! .

Fort Cochin is marked for one of the earliest establishments of foreign trade in Kerala. The heritage walk is an awesome 6 KM journey on foot, which takes us back to the 1700’s when the Dutch, the Portuguese and the English was busy trading the wealth. The island provided them a very wonderful place to trade and refresh. The heritage walk meets us at different monuments which reminds us of these historical landmarks. I met Arky at the Ernakulam Boat Jetty, from where we collected few maps and other resources.

Read more about the Fort Cochin Heritage Walk Mapping party

Linux at Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Symposium workshop

Last week I traveled to Hyderabad to talk about 'Linux for Linguists' at the Sanskrit Computational Linguistics Symposium workshop. Department of Sanskrit studies, University of Hyderabad organized this national workshop titled "Sanskrit and Computers, Getting equipped to face new challenges".

Few years ago I spent sometime working with newly created department of Sanskrit Studies learning the fundamentals of computational linguistics. I return to the department every year to work with the researchers. They use Ubuntu Linux for their work, the Ubuntu logo kolam at the entrance of the workshop was a surprise.

Linux Talk In Sanskrit

The event had yet another surprise in store for me. Thirumala Kulkarni introduced Linux in the Sanskrit, one of oldest language of the world. Can you match that ! .

Linux For Linguists Slides

The first part of my talk was a demo of Ubuntu Linux LiveCD and how to install Ubuntu Linux on their personal computers. In my talk I introduced Linux and its numerous toolset that can be used for linguistics research. The talk was peppered with humour rather than technical jargon and I ended my talk asking the research to contribute back to the Ubuntu Linux project.

Linux For Linguists

q

The response from the participants of the workshop was very positive and inspiring. The event did generate a lot of interest and hope it will help more people adopt gnu/Linux for their research work.

IISE Christmas Greetings

Its Christmas eve, the IISE campus is now a very lonely place. We miss our friends who returned to their countries to pursue the dream projects. I hope this audio greeting would bring joy and many warm memories.
Merry Christmas !!

12th Bar Beach Party

Beer, Barbeque's and Blues at the The 12th Bar beach party in Kovalam

The beach The Music The Blues And the food ! ( What more can one ask for) 12th Bar Band Johnny, You guys rock!

Kalarippayattu Video

I lived in Kerala for over an year now. Never had a chance of watching Kalarippayattu, the oldest fighting system in existence. Last evening I visited Thapovan to watch a demostration of Kalari.

Veli Tourist Village

Veli Tourist village on the other side of Trivandrum city is very popular with tourists. Thats one reason why I didn't visit it until now. The village was created by the kerala tourism is built on site where Veli lake flows into the Arabian sea. As you enter the Veli tourist village, there is park with couple of artificial ponds and huge fish in dirty murky water but it doesn't seems to matter much. Everyone around is happy snapping pictures and posing.

There are sculptures everywhere on the green grass. Some celebrating the beauty of female form other so obscure that no one gives them a second glance. And to top it all there is a huge power grid tower right middle of the park. Perfect !

Found a good spot on a stone bench and immersed myself in Philip Zimbardo's book The Lucifer Effect. It can be trying experience to ignore the crowds gawking at you. Its too hot to go walking yet, have to kill few hours before I start walking along the pathway on lake shore and then onto the mile long beach.