Maurice Levy, Publicis @ WEF Davos07: We will be Carbon Neutral before 2010!

Maurice Lévy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Publicis Groupe was interviewed by Adam Reuters as part of Second Life/ Real Life coverage of the World Economic Froum annual meet. There was much talk about digital advertizing dominated by google. Adam smartly steered the top Ad man towards Corporate Social Responsibility, and towards Carbon Neutrality. Interestingly, Adam extracted a commitment from Maurice that the ad conglomorate will be Carbon Neutral by 2010!

I asked a question on how more ad money going digital will increase the digital divide. Maurice observed that it is a tough question and the discussion moved on to the Hundred Dollar Laptop.
Overall it was a wonderful experience to interact with a WEF regular, and pose a question( get a response instantly too!), all mediated by Second Life. All the more happy to bring up the digital divide to the front burner of people who can really make a difference.
Thanks Reuters. Thanks Lindens.
After the interview I had a small informal discussion with Zee Linden( John Zdanowski) CFO of Linden Labs. We talked about L$ vs US$ watching, and interest rate and using SL as a financial products prototype area.
I’m more and more sold into the unconference medium aspect of SL.

Infy:Web2.0 Cluelessness?

Infy the poster child of Indian IT success story does not seem to get Web2.0 right. Going by the blog post by Kris( Gopalakrishnan) – President, Chief Operating Officer and Joint Managing Director, Infosys Technologies Ltd they are as clueless about web2.0 as the big corporations they wish to serve:

Companies like Infosys have a role in transforming companies in the Web 2.0 environment. These are early days. I think the definition of ‘flat world’ will evolve in the next 2-3 years

Let us see how Infy can transform Technorati, or WordPress or 37Signals.

Kris: I believe we have an opportunity to help companies move towards Web 2.0.

Nice try Kris, to sign up fat multi-year contracts with clients old and new.

Too bad they choose to expose their cluelessness at World Economic Forum(WEF), Davos 2007

proto.in

Funny Questions, Pak humour blog

I came across this Pakistani blog that I find very funny. Check it out.

Reach out to larger number of Innovators: Dr. T Ramasami, DST

“I want a lot more innovations and innovations to be identified and supported throught the TePP program” is what Dr T Ramasami, Secretary, DST expressed while he was explaining the significance of the program at a press meet. Explaining the salient aspects of the program, he said it is very essential to support individual innovators and grass root innovators to acheive inclusive growth. The press meet was organized as part of Indian Science Congress 2007, Pride of India Exhibition. The TePP innovators were featured in the ‘Creative India’ pavilion.

Answering a query form the press on how many innovations are supported so far( some 200 innovations are actively supported by the program), he suggested a dramatic increase in the number of innovators to be supported. ‘Only with volume, impact can be realized’ he quipped.
Earlier he went around the pavilion and interacted with all the innovators. Responding to the innovations presented in the exhibition, he said he is inspired and encouraged by the energy and spirit of the innovators.

It was a pleasure to explain the the ‘inclusive development’ aspect of my Paper File Tracking work. He gave a pat with a ‘Going Hi Tech …??’

Links:
Prove your Idea with a Prototype.
TePP/Dsir Home Page.
TePP Blog at Blogspot.

Annamalai University Rocks as part of Indian Science Congress 2007

The organizers of the Indian Science Congress 2007 at Annamalai University have done their homework well. It is well organized, there is no chaos at the registration desk. The networked computers that run the registration made it a breeze for the pre-registred delegates. With the pre-registred delegates taken care the spot registrants were easy to handle. The entire workforce of the university is ensuring that the arrangements are very somooth.
The accomodations were well planned and available in plenty. And the toilets and baths are cleaned regularly.

The food and related hospitality are excellent. The breakfast was a full south indian fare with badam halwa as dessert. Chettinadu hospitality working overtime!

The security arrangements were meticulous and planned such that it does not disturb the movement of ordinary delegates.
UPDATE(05 Jan 2007): The food arrangement during lunch is very bad. There is so much queue and no alternative source of food available!

On the exhibition front IIT Mumbai Director, Dr Prof Ashok Misra came to our Creative India Pavilion( DSIR, TePP) and released the Calender 2007 with photos of all the innovators.

He also visited my stall and explained all about my Paper File Tracking:

More as the action happenes….