I belong to a middle class family hailing from the sleepy town of Trivandrum in God's Own Country Kerala. My entire childhood was at JesuitRunLoyolaSchool at Trivandrum where I spend 13 formative years of my life. This is where I found best of the friends in the same wave lengths, who now accompany me as I start an entrepreneurial journey. Creative Freedom at Loyola was very high and in 9th standard, we launched a school news paper christened - The Times of Loyola. Being an avid sport enthusiast, I also captained the school Basketball team and Played State Level Basketball and excelled in the sport that gained me an admission at Sports Authority of India (SAI) training center to take up professional basketball. While in fifth semester in college, we did a direct marketing initiative for BPL Mobile that earned us 8lacs in 3 months. That formed the seed capital to build up a company even while in college.
MobME - A TePP funded company is today one of India's leading startups and one amongst the many startups that will lead to a day when the sun will rise to see the Dawn of a Silicon Coast in India. MobME has a slew of Innovative Products ranging from SMS to Voice to a Media Factory churning out Mobile Content. The company is focused on developing its Mobile Content Sharing Platform christened Mobshare. Mobshare is the leading and preferred platform by leading Mobile operators, Media Companies and Marketing agencies for Mobile Community, Photo and Video Sharing Solutions.
TePP is an amazing project that gives wings to dreams. The Seed Capital is what is always lacking in entrepreneur eco-system and in most cases - the amount of funds required is between 5 to 10 lacs where you need capital to take an idea into a pilot or test stage. Where Venture Capitalists shy away - TePP is a shining example of the vision of the scientific community in India who realized this gap and thus spurring Innovation across the country. Thinking out of the box – innovation became the bread and butter of MobME and that brought in Industry recognition from leading Organizations as well as National and International Media.
IIT Kanpur has come out with the simplest document (I have come across) on matters related to IP. It allows Faculty to begin their entrepreneurial journey with incubation in SIDBI funded incubtor, take pre-seed grant amount from TePP to cover technology risk , prepare business plan with suport from Prof BV Phani and become VC eligible big player. They can take this as full time (sabbatical) or work part time on their project. For use of institutes IP , developed by the promotors as students/ faculty and for continued use of lab, library and other facilities, the faculty company has to give the institute a liability free equity of 10%. An example of `unleashing innovation'?
