Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Just Lin, Baby! 10 Lessons Jeremy Lin Can Teach Us Before We Go To Work Monday Morning
Friday’s 38 point performance by Harvard grad Jeremy Lin for the New York Knicks against the LA Lakers was his greatest performance yet as a starter, since he burst on to the scene and propelled the team to 4 straight wins.
Lin now has over 200,000 followers on Twitter. He’s got over 800,000 on Weibo – including 200,000 new ones in the 24 hour period after beating the Lakers.
But there’s more to this story than basketball. This isn’t just a modern-day, real-life version of the Hoosiers movie. The Jeremy Lin story is incredibly popular because we can all see a little bit of ourselves in this man’s struggles and now successes.
What can all of us learn from this young man — and how can we apply these same lessons to our own lives when we go back to work on Monday morning?
1. Believe in yourself when no one else does.Lin’s only the 3rd graduate from Harvard to make it to the NBA. He’s also one of only a handful of Asian-Americans to make it. He was sent by the Knicks to play for their D-League team 3 weeks ago in Erie, PA. He’d already been cut by two other NBA teams before joining the Knicks this year. You’ve got to believe in yourself, even when no one else does.
2. Seize the opportunity when it comes up.Lin got to start for the Knicks because they had to start him. They had too many injuries. Baron Davis was gone. The other point guards were out. Carmelo Anthony was injured. Amare Stoudemire had to leave the team because of a family death. Lin could have squandered the opportunity and we would have never have noticed. But he made the most of it. You never know when opportunities are going to arise in life. Often, they’re when you least expect them. Make the most of them. Don’t fritter them away.
3. Your family will always be there for you, so be there for them. It wasn’t until a few days ago that Lin got his contract guaranteed by the Knicks for the rest of the season. Before that, he could have been cut at any time. He had to sleep on his brother’s couch on the Lower East Side to get by. His family always believed in him and picked him up when he could have gotten down on himself. That made him continue to believe. If you want your family to believe in you like that, you’ve got to be there for them too when they need it.
4. Find the system that works for your style.Lin isn’t Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. He’s not a pure scorer. He’s a passer and distributor – who can also score very well. It didn’t work for him in Golden State or Houston – where he was before landing at the Knicks. But Mike D’Antoni’s system at the Knicks has been perfect for him to show off his strengths. You’ve got to do your best to understand what your strengths are and then ensure that you’re in a system (a job or organization or industry) that is a good fit for those strengths. Otherwise, people overlook the talents you bring to the table.
5. Don’t overlook talent that might exist around you today on your team. You probably manage people at your own company today. Are you sure you don’t have a Jeremy Lin living among you now? How do you know that “Mike” couldn’t do amazing things if you gave him a new project to run with? How do you know “Sarah” isn’t the right person to take the open job in London that you’ve been talking over with your colleagues? We put people around us in boxes. He’s from Harvard. He’s Asian-American. Not sure he can play. How many assumptions have you made about talent around you? Don’t be like the General Managers in Golden State and Houston, and let talent slip through your fingers. With all their money, scouts, and testing, they didn’t have a clue what they had in their hands. Do you know what your people (or even yourself) is really capable of? Take off the blinders of assumptions you wear when you look at the world.
6. People will love you for being an original, not trying to be someone else. You’ve got to be you. You can’t be some 2nd rate copy of Michael Jordan. There will never be another Michael Jordan. Just be Jeremy Lin — yourself. Whatever that is. That doesn’t mean you don’t work hard — it just means you find what you’re good at and do it. Fans will love you for being you, just like they love Jeremy Lin. Judy Garland said it best:
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”
7. Stay humble. If you one day are lucky enough to have newspapers want to put you on the cover in order to sell more, don’t let it get to your head. It’s been remarkable watching how humble Lin remains through all this media frenzy. It makes his teammates and fans love him that much more.
8. When you make others around you look good, they will love you forever. I didn’t know how good Tyson Chandler was, until I saw him playing with Jeremy Lin. Lin has set Chandler up many times over the last week for easy dunks because he drew the defense and then passed the ball. That’s partly why the Knicks are playing so well. They are all working harder to share the ball with others. And it’s beautiful to watch. And when the media swarms Lin, he tells them how good his teammates are. Do the same with your peers and reports.
9. Never forget about the importance of luck or fate in life. Some people believe in God, some in destiny, some in luck. Whatever you believe in, be grateful for it.
10. Work your butt off. Lin couldn’t have seized his opportunity if he hadn’t worked like crazy for years perfecting his skills. There are no short cuts to hard work. Success is a by product of that. If you’ve got a Tiger Mom who’s always pushed you to work hard, great. If not, let your conscience be your own Tiger Mom! Get up early, stay up late. Nobody gave Lin any free passes. Why should you get any? You can only control what you control and that means you’ve got to work harder than anyone else you know.
I hope the Lin-sanity continues. And I hope we all can apply these lessons to our own work and family life.
- Eric Jackson
Source : Forbes.com
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Cry havoc! And let slip the maths of war
Warfare seems to obey mathematical rules. Whether soldiers can make use of that fact remains to be seen
IN 1948 Lewis Fry Richardson, a British scientist, published what was probably the first rigorous analysis of the statistics of war. Richardson had spent seven years gathering data on the wars waged in the century or so prior to his study. There were almost 300 of them. The list runs from conflicts that claimed a thousand or so lives to the devastation of the two world wars. But when he plotted his results, he found that these diverse events fell into a regular pattern. It was as if the chaos of war seemed to comply with some hitherto unknown law of nature.
At first glance the pattern seems obvious. Richardson found that wars with low death tolls far outnumber high-fatality conflicts. But that obvious observation conceals a precise mathematical description: the link between the severity and frequency of conflicts follows a smooth curve, known as a power law. One consequence is that extreme events such as the world wars do not appear to be anomalies. They are simply what should be expected to occur occasionally, given the frequency with which conflicts take place.
The results have fascinated mathematicians and military strategists ever since. They have also been replicated many times. But they have not had much impact on the conduct of actual wars. As a result, there is a certain “so what” quality to Richardson’s results. It is one thing to show that a pattern exists, another to do something useful with it.
In a paper currently under review at Science, however, Neil Johnson of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and his colleagues hint at what that something useful might be. Dr Johnson’s team is one of several groups who, in previous papers, have shown that Richardson’s power law also applies to attacks by terrorists and insurgents. They and others have broadened Richardson’s scope of inquiry to include the timing of attacks, as well as the severity. This prepared the ground for the new paper, which outlines a method for forecasting the evolution of conflicts.
Dr Johnson’s proposal rests on a pattern he and his team found in data on insurgent attacks against American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. After the initial attacks in any given province, subsequent fatal incidents become more and more frequent. The intriguing point is that it is possible, using a formula Dr Johnson has derived, to predict the details of this pattern from the interval between the first two attacks.
The formula in question (Tn = T1n-b) is one of a familiar type, known as a progress curve, that describes how productivity improves in a range of human activities from manufacturing to cancer surgery. Tn is the number of days between the nth attack and its successor. (T1 is therefore the number of days between the first and second attacks.) The other element of the equation, b, turns out to be directly related to T1. It is calculated from the relationship between the logarithms of the attack number, n, and the attack interval, Tn. The upshot is that knowing T1 should be enough to predict the future course of a local insurgency. Conversely, changing b would change both T1 and Tn, and thus change that future course.
Though the fit between the data and the prediction is not perfect (an example is illustrated right), the match is close enough that Dr Johnson thinks he is onto something. Progress curves are a consequence of people adapting to circumstances and learning to do things better. And warfare is just as capable of productivity improvements as any other activity.The twist in warfare is that two antagonistic groups of people are doing the adapting. Borrowing a term used by evolutionary biologists (who, in turn, stole it from Lewis Carroll’s book, “Through the Looking-Glass”), Dr Johnson likens what is going on to the mad dash made by Alice and the Red Queen, after which they find themselves exactly where they started.
In biology, the Red Queen hypothesis is that predators and prey (or, more often, parasites and hosts) are in a constant competition that leads to stasis, as each adaptation by one is countered by an adaptation by the other. In the case Dr Johnson is examining the co-evolution is between the insurgents and the occupiers, each constantly adjusting to each other’s tactics. The data come from 23 different provinces, each of which is, in effect, a separate theatre of war. In each case, the gap between fatal attacks shrinks, more or less according to Dr Johnson’s model. Eventually, an equilibrium is reached, and the intervals become fairly regular.
The mathematics do not reveal anything about what the adaptations made by each side actually are, beyond the obvious observation that practice makes perfect. Nor do they illuminate why the value of b varies so much from place to place. Dr Johnson has already ruled out geography, density of displaced people, the identity of local warlords and even poppy production. If he does find the crucial link, though, military strategists will be all over him. But then such knowledge might perhaps be countered by the other side, in yet another lap of the Red Queen race.
Source: The Economic Times, Mar 31st 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Indian entrepreneurs in US stuck with temporary, non-immigrant work visas
SAN FRANCISCO: "What on earth am I doing here!" Kunal Bahl said to himself in frustration, as he waited seven long hours to meet with a prospective client for his venture SnapDeal. As the clock ticked away in the lobby of the shoe-making company's India office, Bahl revisited the fragments of the American Dream he had lived - road trips aboard his convertible along the Pacific coast with the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other. But most of all, the professionalism and respect for young entrepreneurs like himself. He had started his first company, a detergent start-up, while still studying at Wharton.
When he didn't win the visa lottery, Bahl had to pack up his entrepreneurial dreams and his bags and return home to Delhi. Visas are granted through a lottery system when the number of applicants is more than the number of visas to be granted. "There are no options then. There's nobody you can petition, no forums you can appeal to," he says.
Over half-a-million highly-educated and skilled immigrants are stuck with temporary, non-immigrant work visas like the H-1B, which don't allow them to start a company or even change jobs. Pushed to a corner, they come back to India, where the entrepreneurial climate is far from ideal.
These are people with new business ideas, energy and the drive to succeed in an ecosystem that fosters creativity, but their dreams are shattered by a system which believes they are taking away American jobs. But in reality, this is actually hurting job creation in recession-hit US. The immigration system's fears may not be centred in reality.
Between 1995 and 2005, 25% of Silicon Valley's startups - which had at least one immigrant founder - employed nearly 4,50,000 people. The companies generated $52 billion in revenue in 2006, according to a report titled, Intellectual Property, the Immigration Backlog, and a Reverse Brain-Drain, co-authored by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur and academic who has been researching the subject for years.
"Now, due to immigration issues, that's a loss of that many jobs," says Wadhwa, whose first company, Seer Technologies, created 1,000 jobs within five years and second company, Relativity Technologies, created 200 within three years.
Besides, by losing some of the brightest minds, US immigration is putting Silicon Valley's innovation hub status in serious jeopardy. Yale graduate and former Amazon employee Sachin Garg says visa issues prevented him from pursuing the two business ideas he had built specifically for the American market. Garg might employ just 10 people right now at his online book store upRack.com but that's because he just started it a few months ago. By as close as 2016, he claims the company will grow in revenue to $1billion and employ over 4,000 people. "These jobs could have belonged to the US," says Wadhwa.
On the other side of the fence, most dreams fade out with the H-1B visa (see box). Hardeep Singh knows just what it feels like. He quit his high-profile job in San Francisco with an investment bank, to start Costnomics - a software as a service start-up that promotes IT financial transparency - with his partner Nilesh Patel. Being on H-1B meant he could invest in the company, but not take money from it. His old employer had offered to file for his green card. "But that meant I'd be stuck with the company for 10 years and my youth, energy, go-get-it factor would all be gone. So I decided that I'd rather go," says Singh who moved to Pune to start the India development team for the company.
Like Singh, Prakash Mishra too had invested in a start-up in the Bay Area but could neither raise much funding nor reap the monetary benefits because he was on the temporary H-1B. After years of trying, when he finally left to become an entrepreneur in India, the company was acquired and Mishra got nothing. A start-up he worked for earlier too, got acquired by Google but since he wasn't on a green card, he couldn't avail of the money. "If I'd have had a green card, I could have had $15 million in the bank," Mishra says.
Much has been said about Indians and Chinese immigrants returning to their home to take advantage of the booming economies there. While that's true, many return frustrated with no real choice. That too, after having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in obtaining degrees with the hope that they'll let you live the dream entrepreneurial life in America. "You don't tell mummy and daddy that you're back because America didn't want you. You say you came back because you missed them and would rather pursue your entrepreneurial dreams here with them in this booming economy," says Wadhwa.
It's also harder to be an entrepreneur in India. "Indian VCs are focused on how you can solve a problem in India. Our solution is focused on Global 2000 companies which are mainly in the US and Europe. They don't even understand the concept of our idea! The more I stay in front of the customer and US VCs, the more profitable we can get as a company and the more jobs I can create in the US... it's all one big cycle," says Singh. His presence in the US is pressing for the company - the clients are mostly American, and he needs to raise funds to expand his business.
When he didn't win the visa lottery, Bahl had to pack up his entrepreneurial dreams and his bags and return home to Delhi. Visas are granted through a lottery system when the number of applicants is more than the number of visas to be granted. "There are no options then. There's nobody you can petition, no forums you can appeal to," he says.
Over half-a-million highly-educated and skilled immigrants are stuck with temporary, non-immigrant work visas like the H-1B, which don't allow them to start a company or even change jobs. Pushed to a corner, they come back to India, where the entrepreneurial climate is far from ideal.
These are people with new business ideas, energy and the drive to succeed in an ecosystem that fosters creativity, but their dreams are shattered by a system which believes they are taking away American jobs. But in reality, this is actually hurting job creation in recession-hit US. The immigration system's fears may not be centred in reality.
Between 1995 and 2005, 25% of Silicon Valley's startups - which had at least one immigrant founder - employed nearly 4,50,000 people. The companies generated $52 billion in revenue in 2006, according to a report titled, Intellectual Property, the Immigration Backlog, and a Reverse Brain-Drain, co-authored by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur and academic who has been researching the subject for years.
"Now, due to immigration issues, that's a loss of that many jobs," says Wadhwa, whose first company, Seer Technologies, created 1,000 jobs within five years and second company, Relativity Technologies, created 200 within three years.
Besides, by losing some of the brightest minds, US immigration is putting Silicon Valley's innovation hub status in serious jeopardy. Yale graduate and former Amazon employee Sachin Garg says visa issues prevented him from pursuing the two business ideas he had built specifically for the American market. Garg might employ just 10 people right now at his online book store upRack.com but that's because he just started it a few months ago. By as close as 2016, he claims the company will grow in revenue to $1billion and employ over 4,000 people. "These jobs could have belonged to the US," says Wadhwa.
On the other side of the fence, most dreams fade out with the H-1B visa (see box). Hardeep Singh knows just what it feels like. He quit his high-profile job in San Francisco with an investment bank, to start Costnomics - a software as a service start-up that promotes IT financial transparency - with his partner Nilesh Patel. Being on H-1B meant he could invest in the company, but not take money from it. His old employer had offered to file for his green card. "But that meant I'd be stuck with the company for 10 years and my youth, energy, go-get-it factor would all be gone. So I decided that I'd rather go," says Singh who moved to Pune to start the India development team for the company.
Like Singh, Prakash Mishra too had invested in a start-up in the Bay Area but could neither raise much funding nor reap the monetary benefits because he was on the temporary H-1B. After years of trying, when he finally left to become an entrepreneur in India, the company was acquired and Mishra got nothing. A start-up he worked for earlier too, got acquired by Google but since he wasn't on a green card, he couldn't avail of the money. "If I'd have had a green card, I could have had $15 million in the bank," Mishra says.
Much has been said about Indians and Chinese immigrants returning to their home to take advantage of the booming economies there. While that's true, many return frustrated with no real choice. That too, after having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in obtaining degrees with the hope that they'll let you live the dream entrepreneurial life in America. "You don't tell mummy and daddy that you're back because America didn't want you. You say you came back because you missed them and would rather pursue your entrepreneurial dreams here with them in this booming economy," says Wadhwa.
It's also harder to be an entrepreneur in India. "Indian VCs are focused on how you can solve a problem in India. Our solution is focused on Global 2000 companies which are mainly in the US and Europe. They don't even understand the concept of our idea! The more I stay in front of the customer and US VCs, the more profitable we can get as a company and the more jobs I can create in the US... it's all one big cycle," says Singh. His presence in the US is pressing for the company - the clients are mostly American, and he needs to raise funds to expand his business.
But the US' self-inflicted loss could become India's gain in terms of not only jobs in the short term but also innovation. As emerging powers like China threaten its supremacy, it's in America's interest to maintain itself as a lucrative innovation hub. After all, foreign nationals accounted for 24.2% of all US international patent applications in 2006. The Chinese led the pack, followed by Indians.
Ditched by the US, these entrepreneurs are putting their American lessons to good use in India. Garg for instance, created upRack.com straight out of his Amazon learnings. "It will revolutionise online retail in India just like Amazon did in the US," he says. Bahl utilised the lessons he had learned from the detergent start-up he had founded in the US to create SnapDeal; today, he's a rising entrepreneur in India, having innovatively created an entire market that didn't exist.
Silicon Valley will certainly lose out on talent like Anil Panariya, a semiconductor engineer who lives five minutes away from Google, Nasa-Ames, LinkedIn, Complete Genomics and others, in Mountain View, California.
Panariya has been itching to take time off and work on a prototype for years. Taking three months off to build a product even if it doesn't work is only normal in this neighbourhood. But his H-1B visa status doesn't let him do this.
"I live in this global innovation hub but I can't build my own innovation due to my visa. I'm a technical person and I want to experiment with some prototypes. If these work out then of course I'll pursue a business idea. However, if these don't, then I would return to my day job. Is this basic freedom too much to ask for? If returning to my home country is the only way to live my dreams, then I guess that's my only option," he says.
After years of struggling with immigration issues, Rohit Kulkarni finally got the much-coveted green card employee authorisation document (EAD). This allowed him to finally launch a company whose first product is a health-tracking iPhone app. "I worked like crazy. But I just couldn't give it the dedication and the nurturing a start-up needs because I was too busy complying with immigration rules and working full-time for my H-1B and green card employers," says Kulkarni. Worse, in spite of burning all that midnight oil, Kulkarni's green card wasn't approved, forcing him to move to Paris and pursuing his idea there. "The US offered my wife wonderful work opportunities but we moved to France so that I could finally focus on my company," says Kulkarni.
This explains why investors Paul Graham, Brad Feld and others have long been pushing for the Startup Visa. Under the current legislation, it will be granted to foreigners if they can raise at least $100,000 from a US investor to start their company and create at least five new American jobs after two years.
Alternatively, if the person is on H-1B visa and/or is a student at an American university, the candidate can get a startup visa if s/he earns at least $60,000 per year plus $20,000 from a US investor. (see box: The Startup Bill.) "The impact of such a bill would be huge and even more so for Silicon Valley," says Wadhwa, who expects the legislation to be passed between three and six months.
The start-up visa might nudge university graduates to turn into entrepreneurs. But will it impact people like Panariya who aren't in academic cocoons and need time to build prototypes before they can make a case for funding?
Most important, won't it divert the person's attention away from innovation towards financing and job-creation?
Thus, how would it be different from the immigration distractions which drove Kulkarni to France? "It's for risk-takers," says Wadhwa. And isn't that what entrepreneurship is all about?
Ditched by the US, these entrepreneurs are putting their American lessons to good use in India. Garg for instance, created upRack.com straight out of his Amazon learnings. "It will revolutionise online retail in India just like Amazon did in the US," he says. Bahl utilised the lessons he had learned from the detergent start-up he had founded in the US to create SnapDeal; today, he's a rising entrepreneur in India, having innovatively created an entire market that didn't exist.
Silicon Valley will certainly lose out on talent like Anil Panariya, a semiconductor engineer who lives five minutes away from Google, Nasa-Ames, LinkedIn, Complete Genomics and others, in Mountain View, California.
Panariya has been itching to take time off and work on a prototype for years. Taking three months off to build a product even if it doesn't work is only normal in this neighbourhood. But his H-1B visa status doesn't let him do this.
"I live in this global innovation hub but I can't build my own innovation due to my visa. I'm a technical person and I want to experiment with some prototypes. If these work out then of course I'll pursue a business idea. However, if these don't, then I would return to my day job. Is this basic freedom too much to ask for? If returning to my home country is the only way to live my dreams, then I guess that's my only option," he says.
After years of struggling with immigration issues, Rohit Kulkarni finally got the much-coveted green card employee authorisation document (EAD). This allowed him to finally launch a company whose first product is a health-tracking iPhone app. "I worked like crazy. But I just couldn't give it the dedication and the nurturing a start-up needs because I was too busy complying with immigration rules and working full-time for my H-1B and green card employers," says Kulkarni. Worse, in spite of burning all that midnight oil, Kulkarni's green card wasn't approved, forcing him to move to Paris and pursuing his idea there. "The US offered my wife wonderful work opportunities but we moved to France so that I could finally focus on my company," says Kulkarni.
This explains why investors Paul Graham, Brad Feld and others have long been pushing for the Startup Visa. Under the current legislation, it will be granted to foreigners if they can raise at least $100,000 from a US investor to start their company and create at least five new American jobs after two years.
Alternatively, if the person is on H-1B visa and/or is a student at an American university, the candidate can get a startup visa if s/he earns at least $60,000 per year plus $20,000 from a US investor. (see box: The Startup Bill.) "The impact of such a bill would be huge and even more so for Silicon Valley," says Wadhwa, who expects the legislation to be passed between three and six months.
The start-up visa might nudge university graduates to turn into entrepreneurs. But will it impact people like Panariya who aren't in academic cocoons and need time to build prototypes before they can make a case for funding?
Most important, won't it divert the person's attention away from innovation towards financing and job-creation?
Thus, how would it be different from the immigration distractions which drove Kulkarni to France? "It's for risk-takers," says Wadhwa. And isn't that what entrepreneurship is all about?
Source: The Economic Times, 29 MAR, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Dark side of giving: The rise of philanthro-capitalism
A few years ago, Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, had a chance meeting with Som Pal, former member of the Planning Commission and earlier minister of state for agriculture, and was bowled over by his sage-like views on developmental issues. The president promptly invited Som Pal to his blighted country to suggest policy measures to get out of a developmental quagmire. Som Pal travelled to Rwanda; he was hosted at the presidential palace and allocated an entire office during two long stints.
Rwanda was sitting on a food security crisis in spite of having fertile land and favourable climatic conditions. "A set of policy guidelines and an action plan were quickly crafted. I held out a promise to Kagame - Rwanda could be food surplus in a short time," recalls Som Pal.
His plans were, however, rendered futile, as a hostile system overwhelmed him, even attempting to buy water hand-pumps at $12,500 apiece. "Most African leaders are only keen on projecting the agony of their people for international support in dollars," laments Som Pal. "A complete nexus between institutions, large corporations and narrow, vested interests are at work." Elements of this trend can be seen in India too.
Since then, Som Pal has had several brushes with Kenya and Zambia too; the story runs along similar lines. How then would he evaluate the much celebrated Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) - an initiative driven by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the oldest and the largest philanthropic repositories, respectively, in the world? The Gates Foundation alone has committed $264.5 million to AGRA.
"They are using the pitiable condition of the African people to get a foothold into the continent," explains Som Pal. "Their large philanthropic resources are being utilised to further the interests of business." In countries with weak governance mechanisms, like in Africa, it becomes a lot easier.
Proponents of chemical-free and GMO-free (genetically modified organisms), sustainable agricultural practices like Som Pal are beginning to feel uncomfortable about AGRA and a host of big-ticket philanthropic initiatives across developing countries. As are an increasing number of independent policy wonks and scientists across the world.
For instance, the Gates Foundation's sheer clout is taking it, intentionally or unintentionally, to places where policy, business and philanthropy intersect. There are its business and investment links with large companies that are driven by the profit motive. There is its growing stranglehold in the policy-making space across emerging markets, especially in education, healthcare and agriculture.
The $23.1-million investment by the Gates Foundation in Monsanto, the world's largest producer of GM seeds, is a small example of a trend.
Civil society organisations see it as vindication of what they had always suspected: the unstated agenda of pushing GM crops into Africa. In recent times, though, following strident protests, Bill Gates appears to have tempered his views on agriculture; he talks about picking the best from organics and tech-driven agriculture.
The Gates Foundation's insistence that its investments and grants ought to be seen separately has also attracted considerable flak. The question is asked: how can it be a 'passive investor' in companies such as Monsanto when its avowed goal is doing good with philanthropic monies? "Doubts about his (Bill Gates) larger motives, despite some good outcomes of his charity, are beginning to cloud my thinking," concedes Mira Shiva, a public health activist. Two emails sent by ET to the Gates Foundation, on December 29 and March 22, went unanswered.
In his blog postings and writings, Eric Holt-Gimenez, director of the US-based Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy, labels it 'Monsanto in Gates' clothing'.
He describes how AGRA, as a prelude to the introduction of GMOs, is laying the ground for a conventional breeding programme - labs, experiment stations, agronomists, extensionists, biologists and farmer seeds. He points out that about 80% of the Gates Foundation's allocation to Kenya has gone into biotech research; in 2008, about 30% of its agri-development funds went into promoting and developing GM seeds.
GRAIN, an international non-profit that supports community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, has been wary of public-private coalitions like AGRA and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
It says their research programmes feed into the growth strategies of corporations; further, the programmes often adopt elements of business models of those very companies. Delhi-based Shalini Bhutani, till recently representing GRAIN, sees a design in the Gates Foundation's announcement of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in Bihar, following a recent visit by Bill Gates. "The involvement of this set of players in the promotion of GM rice is too well known," she says. AGRA, it is often charged, has been created with little civil society or farmer engagement. Protests are now breaking out across the continent. The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, with a membership of 65 civil society and farmer organisations, tried to block the import of a 40,000 tonne consignment of GM maize into the country last year.
Source: The Economic Times, 25th March 2011
Rwanda was sitting on a food security crisis in spite of having fertile land and favourable climatic conditions. "A set of policy guidelines and an action plan were quickly crafted. I held out a promise to Kagame - Rwanda could be food surplus in a short time," recalls Som Pal.
His plans were, however, rendered futile, as a hostile system overwhelmed him, even attempting to buy water hand-pumps at $12,500 apiece. "Most African leaders are only keen on projecting the agony of their people for international support in dollars," laments Som Pal. "A complete nexus between institutions, large corporations and narrow, vested interests are at work." Elements of this trend can be seen in India too.
Since then, Som Pal has had several brushes with Kenya and Zambia too; the story runs along similar lines. How then would he evaluate the much celebrated Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) - an initiative driven by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the oldest and the largest philanthropic repositories, respectively, in the world? The Gates Foundation alone has committed $264.5 million to AGRA.
"They are using the pitiable condition of the African people to get a foothold into the continent," explains Som Pal. "Their large philanthropic resources are being utilised to further the interests of business." In countries with weak governance mechanisms, like in Africa, it becomes a lot easier.
Proponents of chemical-free and GMO-free (genetically modified organisms), sustainable agricultural practices like Som Pal are beginning to feel uncomfortable about AGRA and a host of big-ticket philanthropic initiatives across developing countries. As are an increasing number of independent policy wonks and scientists across the world.
For instance, the Gates Foundation's sheer clout is taking it, intentionally or unintentionally, to places where policy, business and philanthropy intersect. There are its business and investment links with large companies that are driven by the profit motive. There is its growing stranglehold in the policy-making space across emerging markets, especially in education, healthcare and agriculture.
The $23.1-million investment by the Gates Foundation in Monsanto, the world's largest producer of GM seeds, is a small example of a trend.
Civil society organisations see it as vindication of what they had always suspected: the unstated agenda of pushing GM crops into Africa. In recent times, though, following strident protests, Bill Gates appears to have tempered his views on agriculture; he talks about picking the best from organics and tech-driven agriculture.
The Gates Foundation's insistence that its investments and grants ought to be seen separately has also attracted considerable flak. The question is asked: how can it be a 'passive investor' in companies such as Monsanto when its avowed goal is doing good with philanthropic monies? "Doubts about his (Bill Gates) larger motives, despite some good outcomes of his charity, are beginning to cloud my thinking," concedes Mira Shiva, a public health activist. Two emails sent by ET to the Gates Foundation, on December 29 and March 22, went unanswered.
In his blog postings and writings, Eric Holt-Gimenez, director of the US-based Food First: Institute for Food and Development Policy, labels it 'Monsanto in Gates' clothing'.
He describes how AGRA, as a prelude to the introduction of GMOs, is laying the ground for a conventional breeding programme - labs, experiment stations, agronomists, extensionists, biologists and farmer seeds. He points out that about 80% of the Gates Foundation's allocation to Kenya has gone into biotech research; in 2008, about 30% of its agri-development funds went into promoting and developing GM seeds.
GRAIN, an international non-profit that supports community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems, has been wary of public-private coalitions like AGRA and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).
It says their research programmes feed into the growth strategies of corporations; further, the programmes often adopt elements of business models of those very companies. Delhi-based Shalini Bhutani, till recently representing GRAIN, sees a design in the Gates Foundation's announcement of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia in Bihar, following a recent visit by Bill Gates. "The involvement of this set of players in the promotion of GM rice is too well known," she says. AGRA, it is often charged, has been created with little civil society or farmer engagement. Protests are now breaking out across the continent. The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, with a membership of 65 civil society and farmer organisations, tried to block the import of a 40,000 tonne consignment of GM maize into the country last year.
Source: The Economic Times, 25th March 2011
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