Medicare for all – Boon or Bane?

Medicare for all – Boon or Bane?

With the kickoff of 2020 presidential elections, healthcare debate started afresh. All the democratic presidential candidates are trying hard to outdo each other to offer “best” healthcare plan, which covers all the uninsured! But none of the candidates seem to have a coherent plan, which meets basic objective of the so called “healthcare is a right”, without bankrupting already “debt ridden” great nation of US of A!

Is Medicare for all a boon or bane?

While Trump administration defanged the already unpopular Obamacare, by removing the mandatory penalty clause, the plan itself continues to be controversial. It has disrupted the healthcare insurance market, complicating the model even further without any sight of problems of the industry such as a) year over year increasing premiums, b) monopoly of players in some states and c) inefficient medical facilities with no clear value proposition, to name a few.  So, what is the solution to this ticking time bomb, with majority of baby boomers already retired and are on Medicare?

If one looks at the healthcare problem holistically, the problem seems to be much bigger than just covering the uninsured. Healthcare needs to be broken down further into medical care. All the plans whether they are Obamacare, or any others address the medical care of the Americans. This debate needs to be elevated to a higher level and I reserve that debate for another day!

Surprisingly the plans proposed by the presidential candidates fall flat, when one does a “like-to-like” comparison with current plans. For instance, how does the program support a) employer sponsored plans with high deductibles and for people who are under 65 years of age, b) how do laid off workers get into and out of the program depending on their employment situation? c) how does it support people in small businesses, d) does the plan support choices of doctor, specialist, hospitals? e) what is the maximums for individual and family co-insurance, f) does it cover vision and dental health, g) what about immunizations and h) finally how much will be out-of-pocket premiums for comprehensive vs. limited coverage  etc. and many other such questions. Most important question is, how will it get funded and how will providers get paid? Out-of-pocket expenses for customers always depend on the payments paid to providers.

There are lot of other questions which crop up such as a) How does this plan address insurance for groups such as veterans, illegal immigrants and others? What happens to Medicaid program? What happens to employer sponsored plans? How does this impact the larger US economy and debt from an entitlement standpoint?

Every debate of Democratic presidential candidates introduces a new element of confusion to the proposal, as each candidate tries to sell their own plan as the best solution to all the ills of current healthcare models. But none of the plans provide details on addressing systemic weaknesses which result in higher hospital, drug, short-term and long-term costs bankrupting the system. I recently met an older couple in an international flight, who were coming back from another country they visited, to get procedure done. They paid a fraction of out-of-pocket expenses they would have paid in USA for the entire procedure and post-procedure care. Why does medical care cost so much in USA compared to other countries? Some countries are marketing “medical tourism” to Americans, a code word for cheaper medical procedures, performed by equally qualified and competent medical professionals

So, what is the way forward to this mess? Any discussion on health care should not only address the coverage but also address value vs. cost of medical care. Our policy planners can learn a lot about medical costs in other countries with comparable delivery systems for the patients. Failure to address healthcare in a holistic manner will just be “noise” as opposed to efficient and sustainable healthcare for Americans.

Stay tuned and watch this space for proposals for addressing this issue!!

Author Information: This article is co-authored by Jerry Rhoads and Karthik Kandamuri. Jerry is an author and an expert on health care with multiple years of experience in the space. Karthik Kandamuri is a concerned citizen, analyzing the policies and long term effects on the country, with a bipartisan lens.

Music is a gift to god

“Music is my religion, my expression and my language”, says Dr. Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji of Mysore. “Music is a gift to god”, say Hindu scriptures.

Singing or playing instrument in praise of lord is called as ‘bhajan’, in Hinduism. One does not need to be trained in classical music to sing Bhajans. Bhajans are sung in temples, homes, community and family gatherings. Thus, Bhajans have become part of a rich tradition of music in Hinduism. Music and Bhajans have become essential to Hindu worship experience, as they arouse senses and create spiritual vibrations, that enhance devotion. Music and Bhajans also have healing power. Bhajans are sung in every Indian language and there are thousands of popular Bhajans. However, singing Bhajans is slowly dying due to the multiple distractions in the social media driven world.

To reach global audience, Swamiji introduced an innovative and unique instrumental musical form  which, transcends linguistic, ethnic and national barriers. Swamiji skillfully blends ancient form of Indian classical music with modern instruments to create a soulful experience for the audience.

Chicago land is about to witness a unique musical extravaganza called “Nada Shobha Raga Sagara“, promoting universal peace through meditation and healing on September 7, 2019 at the Copernicus Center in Chicago.

Yogasangeeta is presenting a FREE Music for Healing and Meditation concert by HH Dr. Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji of Mysore. Swamiji’s concerts are unique in many ways. They are  a) based on instrumental music, b) ancient “bija mantras”, known to have healing powers are played on instruments (‘bija’ means seed, ‘man’ means thinking, ‘tra’ means liberation), c) compositions are selected based on “celestial” geo-coordinates of the city in which the concert is held and d) compositions are selected based on health condition of the audience! Swamiji uses his skills of ancient crystallography to assess the health condition of the audience.

Sri Swamiji has performed concerts in many cities and iconic venues around the globe; the one performed at Sydney Opera House entered into Guinness book of world record for largest Music Therapy session.

Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, a Grammy-winning Hindustani classical music instrumentalist and recipient of Padma Vibhushan (highest honor award by Indian Government), will also perform and accompany Sri Swamiji along with ‘celestial message troupe’ for a unique musical evening.

To attend this free healing concert, register at the following web site.

https://healingconcert.com/

Indian Independence Celebrations – Chicago 2015

Indian diaspora in Chicagoland celebrated the 69^th Indian Independence Day with lot of enthusiasm, gay and gaiety, on 15^th August 2015. The crowds at this year celebrations were more than usual, as it happened to be a Saturday. Four major celebrations were organized this year, spread across the area at various times all through the day, keeping every enthusiast busy.

The first event was kicked off at the Indian Embassy, Chicago. Consul General of India Dr. Ausuf Sayeed, hoisted the Indian flag followed by the singing of national anthem and cultural events.

The second event was held at the historic and iconic Devon Avenue in the afternoon. The event was organized by Federation of Indian Associations (FIA), which witnessed massive crowd including officials of the Illinois state, city of Chicago and host of community leaders. The parade was a blend of colorful floats, marching bands, music, dance troupes and drum-beats of dholaks, which created a nostalgic and patriotic fervor encompassing the whole area.  The mood was boisterous, even though it was a very hot summer day, as the floats were cheered by ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ from both sides of streets covering the length of the Devon Avenue. Added attraction was the running commentary describing each float, led by a community leader, which reminded the republic day parade at the India Gate every year.

The third event was organized by FIA at Schaumburg, IL in the evening. One of the highlights of the evening, was musical program by Bappi Lahari, popular Bollywood composer, who performed to soaring crowds. The event also had performances from local area artistes, food stalls, clothes and other attractions from various regions of India.

Indian Association of Naperville, IL organized the fourth event. The event was first of its kind in the area and had about 15 decorated floats sponsored by community organizations, businesses and restaurants in the area. The floats followed the parade and procession route ending at the central park. Several local and international dance groups were part of the procession. Event was attended by more than 10,000 people, apart from the mayor, government officials and political leaders, who expressed their surprise at the diversity and turnover of the crowds, given that this is the first such event by Indian diaspora in the area. Local TV channels extensively covered the event.

Celebrations organized across the area this year gave an opportunity to people to attend events nearer to their homes, instead of people crowing at one location such as Devon. Organizers received high praises from the attendees for flawless event management.

This article was published in local news papers.

Wisconsin Dells – Weekend Trip

With the summer school vacations about to end in a week, I was looking for a weekend getaway for the kids to play in water and do outdoor fun activities. We ended up at Wisconsin Dells, a popular weekend getaway for kids.  Dells is about two hours away from the northwestern suburbs of Chicago,

Dells is a Midwest destination; known for indoor and outdoor theme-water parks as well as other outdoor activities. The indoor waterparks are open all round the year, but the outdoor parks and activities are closed during winters. The city is crowded in summer; from May to end August and deserted during the winters, though indoor parks are very good for a relaxing weekend.  The city also has many other attractions such as operas; white water rafting, Hollywood style water based acrobatic shows. The area becomes a skiing destination in winters.

There are at least 15 different theme parks in the city. Parks are based on themes such as Rome, African safari, jungles of Amazon etc. We checked into a resort which is based on the city of Rome in Italy. The resort has rooms in the park, hotels around the park and a camping ground near the park.

The outdoor park has high speed rides, roller coasters catering to kids and adults and go carts. The outdoor water parks are hugely popular with tubing in the river themed water. Most popular attraction in the water park was a Tsunami themed swimming pool. Every 10 minutes, approximately million gallons of water is released from one end of the swimming pool, creating an artificial Tsunami effect driving kids crazy. Every park area has large food stalls serving variety of food for the guests. Parks open at 10 in the morning until 9 in the night and one does not feel bored, as there many attractions to keep everyone busy all day.

On the second day of our visit, we made it to Tommy Bartlett show which is a water ski and jump boat thrill show. Show was created by Tommy in 1952 as a traveling group of entertainers. The show is performed on Lake Delton which was amazing and thrilling.

After the relaxing weekend at the Dells, Kids are now ready for the new school year.

IACS Startup Incubator Event – Chicago

Indo American Community services (IACS), a Chicagoland based not for profit organization, has been organizing multiple events across the nation by creating a community platform to foster networking, engagement, mentoring, leadership, women, innovation, job fairs and entrepreneurial related exchanges amongst the South Asian community in general and specially Indian American community. By organizing multiple events around the year, IACS brings together successful leaders and entrepreneurs and aspiring leaders and entrepreneurs for the mutual benefit of individuals as well as community.

The second IACS Business and Entrepreneurial conference held on 24^th of July 2015, at Sheraton Naperville IL, was a roaring success. The event was attended by successful and wannabe entrepreneurs as well as people interested in networking.

This year’s event had a mix of startups pitching to seek funding from potential investor panel and demos by startups with their innovative solutions and a panel discussion providing tips and tricks and guidance to wannabe entrepreneurs. The investor panel consisted of Jai Shekhawat, founder and CEO of Fieldglass, acquired by SAP, Raymond Stanton III, Co-Partner of Savearound, publisher of coupons books for retailers and Lakshmi Shenoy, Director of Business Development for 1871, Chicago based startup incubator. The startups seeking funding were Pranadiabetes, (http://www.pranadiabetes.com), Schoolrush (http://schoolrush.com), TracknProtect (http://www.traknprotect.com) and Symplast (http://www.symplast.com). These four firms were the finalists from a list of multiple startups seeking funding. Runners up from the list were provided with an opportunity to demonstrate their products in a startup expo, where the investor panel and other participants had an opportunity to review the features and functionality of the products by the startups. The firms which participated in expo are netisen (http://www.netisen.com),  Occation (http://www.getoccasion.com), Conceptdrop (http://conceptdrop.com) and India Health Link (http://www.indiahealthlink.com).

Dr. Sindhu Rajan, CEO presented Pranadiabetes. Dr. Sindhu has spent last 12 years at Yale and university of Chicago, on ways to develop effective solutions to help patients impacted by Type 2 diabetes. Pranadiabetes developed an innovative mobile solution ‘StopSugar’ to engage, guide and enforce compliance on signed up patients to proactively manage diabetes. The app takes patient through a sixteen week clinically proven program to help prevent or manage diabetes. ‘StopSugar’ enables phone-based monitoring of key health parameters such as blood sugar, blood pressure, diet and exercise.

Mr. Balu Kadiyala, CEO presented SchoolRush. School rush is a smart phone app supported on both iOS and Android operating systems. The app enables communication between teachers and parents so that parents can be on top of all the activities of kids at school. Teacher can 1) push homework assignments, 2) send pictures, documents and text messages, 3) push voice notifications and message alerts and 4) provides student and staff directory.

Ms. Parminder Batra, Co-Founder & CEO presented TraknProtect. TraknProtect solutions enable enterprises improve their efficiency and saving dollars by helping them track their tools and equipment faster.  One of the primary targets of TraknProtect is hotels such as Hyatt. TraknProtect is a iPad/mobile enabled hardware equipment tracking solution that helps hotels better serve guests by providing real-time location of items anytime anywhere, without increasing labor costs.

Mr. Sashi Kusuma, Co-founder and MD presented symplast. Symplast was founded by a group of plastic surgeons, seeing a need for a complete eHealth solution built specifically for plastic surgeons and medical spas. Symplast is attempting to change the market paradigm in the health care segment. This firm is bringing a holistic approach to solve the problem by taking an end-to-end approach so that patients, doctors and hospitals can reduce and potentially eliminate the need to use multiple systems, technologies in providing a service to the patient. What is unique about this firm is that the people who feel the pain on a daily basis are coming up with a solution to not only solve their own problems but problems faced by other members of their community.

All the firms were seeking additional round of funding to increase their marked foot print by penetrating other verticals.

The presentations are followed by a talk by Jai Sekhawat on tips and tricks for successful entrepreneurship. Jai is the CEO of Fieldglass, which he co-founded and was acquired by SAP in 2014. Jai is one of the top entrepreneurs from Chicago area. He was Ernst & Young’s 2012 Midwest “Entrepreneur of the Year” as well as the 2012 recipient of the Peter Yessne Staffing Innovator Award, recognized for pioneering the Vendor Management Software (VMS) space. Fieldglass was also recognized as the Illinois Venture Capital Association’s 2014 Private Equity Portfolio Company of the Year. According to Jai, entrepreneurship though hard can be successful if focused few key aspects which he listed out viz. 1) Startup is all about Idea, team and funding, 2)Idea is not the company as it may change based on market, 3) Team should stick to their core competency for better focus, 4) Don’t fear big competitors; it is not big but fast and nimble makes the difference, 5) Preserve cash; being frugal is key, 6) Get the strategy right; this makes all the difference and 7) Get the right amount of funding; not too little or too much; too little keeps the firm struggling to survive and too much makes the firm complacent.  All the participants were highly appreciative of the talk.

Participants networked with others after the presentation over dinner and also attended mini presentations by three other startups. The first one is netisen (http://www.netisen.com), a SaaS solution that aggregates web/social media feedback on products and services, analyses the feedback based on patent pending natural language processing algorithm, helping customers improve product features, service based on the feedback. Netisen released the beta version of the product and signed up many pilot customers. The second presentation was by Occation (http://www.getoccasion.com), an online booking solution. This simple to use solution helps customers directly book their orders online rather than speaking to a customer representative, saving cost to the firms and time to customers. The solution is targeted for small and medium merchants and have signed up with some customers. The third presentation was by Conceptdrop (http://conceptdrop.com) , an on-demand graphic design firm which brings designers and firms on a common platform. Firms can post their requirements and freelance designers who can serve the need provide quotes, proposals and ultimately the service in a cost affordable manner. Customers save money on getting best pricing and quality and freelance designers get orders. The final presentation was by India health Link, which plans to deploy health check kiosks, similar to the ones we see at Walmart and other retail chains, in India at an affordable price. As the number of doctors available to serve patients in India is low, this concept can bring basic health care to ordinary citizens in India in an easy manner.

Dinner and networking was following by a panel discussion and Q&A session, where participants got a chance to ask questions and panel addressed them. Panel was facilitated by Balu Kadiyala and consisted of Lakshmi Shenoy, Sashi Kusuma, Arnav (CEO of Fitnesscubed).

Sreenivas Katragadda, President of IACS thanked all the sponsors and participants who attended the event and also discussed about upcoming events planned by IACS for the benefit of the community. All the shortlisted startups received gifts worth of $2,000 of accounting services from Chawla and Associates, CPA firm from Chicagoland and $60,000 worth of software and support from Microsoft.

This article was published in Chicagoland South Asian, newspapers and below are the links.

Indiapost: http://issuu.com/indiapost/docs/indiapost_07-31-2015_e-paper/17

Newsindiatimes.com: http://www.newsindiatimes.com/iacs-holds-2d-business-and-entrepreneurial-conference-in-naperville

Desitalkchicago.com: http://epaper.desitalkchicago.com/2015_07_31/index.html#16/z

IACS – South Asian Women Conference

Indo American community services (IACS) is one of the pioneering not for profit organization supporting South Asian American community through various initiatives such as diversity job fairs, women empowerment forum, professional leadership and entrepreneurial  conferences.

In its objective to champion gender equality and women empowerment, IACS has been hosting South Asian Women Conferences for the past four years. IACS hosted its fifth South Asian Womens conference on Sunday 26^th of April at Marriott Hotel, Naperville, IL. This leadership and networking event was fully packed and was a confluence of women leaders from corporations, community development organizations, small and medium women owned enterprises and potential ‘wannabe’ women leaders seeking to build connections.

The event was kicked off by Ms. Saily Joshi and the panelists were introduced by Ms. Chandini Duvvuri, IACS organizing members of the conference. The panelists at the event were from three distinct fields from corporate and community organizations and consisted of Ms. Amy Best, SVP human resources, Exelon, Ms. K. Sujata, CEO and President, Chicago Foundation for women and Ms. Sarita Rao, President AT&T Wi-Fi services. Each panelist did a short presentation about their educational, family and career background and challenges they faced and continue to face in reaching where they are in their career. The common themes which emerged from each of the presentations were 1) addressing the common challenges women face in starting, 2) growing and 3) nurturing their individual careers without compromising work-life balance. All panelists acknowledged the challenges faced by women in the current landscape of wage disparities between men and women at work in a predominantly male dominated corporate and business world is a challenge.

Ms. Sujata in her presentation mentioned a study that current wage disparity between men and women in corporate world, for the same job will even out in the year 2079. State of Illinois is faring a little better in this respect, where the wage disparity may even out by 2065. But the irony is that majority of us will not live to see that day! As a society we cannot progress unless women are equally successful. How do we as a society addresses this challenge? Equal pay and opportunities for women not only help them empower but also helps society and community as a whole regardless of the race, region or geography. Some of the potential solutions could be to provide right opportunities and encouragement for women boosting their confidence in matching men at workplace in performance, growth and success. Ms. Sujata listed out some of the initiatives planned by her foundation to benefit women.

Ms. Best spoke about women taking up opportunities with calculated risks, even though they may not be popular or ‘cool’. She recounted her own moves at the beginning of her career where she had to take some risks in moving to a new location, adjusting herself to new environment without impacting her family. Ms. Best also mentioned that communication is one of the key factors which may help women. Communications could be about their success, need for growth, support, mentoring and any other issues faced by women. Unless women speak up they cannot progress. Other key skills and attributes which every aspiring woman leader should develop are teamwork, transparency, new ideas for solutions, agility, resilience, ability and willingness to learn new concepts and skills with a touch of a good sense of humor.  On the ‘not-to-do’ front, she advises not to work in silos and not to get involved in too many unproductive meetings. Ms. Best is on board of many organizations as well as few initiatives within her firm which help women leaders to succeed in their jobs.

Ms. Sarita Rao narrated her own experience of working on a merger and acquisition project in her job which was deadline driven and highly stressful. She had to work with various cross-functional groups within AT&T to see the merger through. The key learnings she shared with the participants are viz. 1) be yourself; develop your own personality and express opinions fearlessly after a good background work to earn the respect of colleagues, 2) think diversely; do not limit and work across groups to expand horizons and 3) thank people who worked with or for you and make it personal; send a handwritten greeting card vs. sending an email or text message as people value not only the mutual feeling but the form of expressing it, which will have long lasting benefits. Ms. Rao also sees a great need for support groups, community organizations and networking groups such as IACS to provide platform for women to connect, exchange ideas and support each other for mutual benefit.

The presentations was followed by a short question and answer (Q&A) session in which panelists addressed questions from participants and pointed them to training opportunities and resources on leadership and career development.

Another interesting aspect at the conference was the stalls setup by three Chicagoland based women owned businesses at the event. These three women business owners introduced their firms to the participants after the Q&A session, with their short speeches. The first one was Niketa Jhaveri, CEO & Co-Founder of Brave Champs. Brave Champs is a ‘monopoly’ like a game which helps kids in identifying various professions such as Pediatrician, Firefighter, Carpenter, Architect etc. This game has dual-purpose of entertaining kids and also educating them on what each professional does and prepare them for their future. An interesting fact about this game is that it is not integrated with any iPhone or Android ‘App’ as the objective of this game is to keep the kids away from any gadgets. Brave Champs is targeting schools, especially schools which cater to kids with special needs.

The second presentation was from Deepa Salem, Founder and CEO of ‘WotNow’ App which is free and works on iPhone and Android. In today’s technology driven world, every individual receives multiple emails about events and tasks related to their personal life. Whether the email is about a parent-teacher conference at school or a doctor appointment or a social event, it is challenging for individuals to keep track of events. WotNow app enables users to sign up for events and organizations user chooses and synchronizes event calendar for the user in a single interface. About 500 Chicagoland organizations partnered with WotNow to push notifications to users. WotNow aims to scale this app nationally once it is successful in Chicagoland.

The third presentation was from Manvee Vaid, Founder and Curator of Deccan Footprints. Deccan Footprints is an online catalogue of art and paintings. This firm connects the artists in India with art galleries in USA. Contemporary or folk artists in India, lack exposure to the tastes and demands of customers in USA.  Deccan bridges this gap by helping artists fill out the relevant paperwork to enable them to participate in galleries, make the artwork ‘sellable’ and pass on the remuneration back to artists in India. Love of art and helping artists is the motive of this firm. Profit is currently not the motive as a lot investment and costs go in coordination and logistics for get artworks from India.

The pre-event networking session was very interesting and engaging for all participants. To enable participants in breaking the ice and network with other participants, each participant had to complete a form. The multiple questions in the form were categorized such as ‘identify a participant who is January born’, which required each participant to introduce themselves to others and check their birth month. This simple technique was very effective to get participants to warm up to each other. In the process they got to know each other, develop connections, which may bond them together to learn from each other for mutual benefit in future.

Participants enjoyed participation in the event and appreciated IACS for hosting such event. Sreenivas Katragadda, president of IACS thanked all the participants, volunteers and sponsors of the event. All the panelists were presented with mementos by Vekat Majeti, CEO of Loment Inc. one of the sponsors of the event. Other sponsors included Grainger, ITW and L&T Infotech.

All the participants had post-event network opportunity over dinner.

This article was published in local news papers and url is

India Post:Page 18 and 19.

 http://issuu.com/indiapost/docs/indiapost_05-08-2015_e-paper

Sai Rainbow Festival 2015

Dwarakamai organized its annual Sai Rainbow Festival and “Shri Shirdi Sai Palkhi Utsav”, on Saturday, March 28, 2015 at Eisenhower Junior High School, Hoffman Estates, IL. The event was attended by about 500 people including families and kids, who participated and celebrated the grand event, laced with cultural programs and Palki (palanquin) procession of Shri Sai Baba.

The event got kicked off with the chanting of Sri Hanuman Chalisa and Guru Datta in the divine presence of Shri Sai Baba (idol and a picture); placed in flower bedecked silver Sai Palkhi (palanquin). The bearers of the Palki holding their silver Raj Dhand (royal and pompous sticks) were dressed in cute and traditional Indian palkhi bearer’s dress (Bhaledhar attire), embroidered with colorful stones. The chanting was led by Sekhar Devarapalli of Chicago Baladatta center, which was followed by singing of national anthem of USA and India by a group of young kids.

The cultural performances were introduced by Ms. Anita Ravindra Kumar and Mr. Venu Mattey, who were masters of ceremony for the occasion. Performances included a mix of song and dance sequences from various parts of India, with a blend of spiritual, folk and Bollywood style items. Each performance was received by the audience with thunderous applause.

The cultural event was followed by a grand temple-like procession. The procession reminded many participants of the traditional temple processions held in India; where all the participants in the procession such as men, women, kids and children alike dance in front of the men-drawn chariot with temple deities, to the tunes of songs, glorifying the temple god. In this celebration the Palkhi adorned by Sai Baba deity was shoulder-lifted by the men and rest of the revelers danced with traditional temple brass bells (aka manjira) and decorated bamboo sticks (aka dandiya) in groups enjoying the occasion. The procession concluded with a grand Harathi (oil lit temple lights) performed by all the participants to seek the blessings of the lord.

Local businesses owners from Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg area displayed colorful Indian dresses and ornaments for sale at the “Sai Mela” in the school corridors, which added color to the festivities.

The event was preceded and followed by a sumptuous Indian breakfast and lunch. The annadanam was sponsored by the volunteers of Dwarakamayi. All the interested devotees who attended this event and interested to attend future events can visit http://www.Dwarakamayi.org, to get to know more details about the upcoming temple at Schaumburg, IL.

Dwarakamai (www.dwarakamai.org) is a non-profit organization, dedicated to organizing events and activities for the development of personal and spiritual growth of the community. Dwarakamayi was started by the devotees of Shri Shirdi Sai Baba, a saint well-known for his wisdom, secular and spiritual inclusivity. Dwarakamayi is based in Massachusetts with three branches in and around Boston metro.  Dwarakamai also conducts Shri Sai Palkhi (Spiritual Walk) in various cities such as Boston, Chicago, Denver, Viginia, Allenton, PA and Edison, NJ. The idea behind organizing these events is to recognize divinity in each individual soul, to sing and chant the name of the Lord and dance to the glories of Shri Sai Baba.

The spiritual concept evangelized by Dwarakamayi is quite different from the conventional concept followed by Hindu temples in North America. Followers of Dwarakamayi believe in the concept of “no tolerance for politics and pelf and no resistance for prayers”. This organization does not promote building permanent temples and related infrastructure, which involves a lot of capital and need to run the temple as an organization, needing to raise funds and breeding politics, undermining the very concept of temple, which is supposed to foster spiritual growth and peace.

To minimize the costs and politics and to maximize devotion, Dwarkamayi organization runs “temple like” facilities in rental places, which involves bare minimum costs to the devotees. The organization is run entirely by volunteers. Their concept is more like a “temple on wheels”, catering to the communities, which do not have a temple or place of worship in the vicinity.

Volunteers of Dwarakamayi also take Sai Palkhi to the homes of the devotees on request, where chanting sessions and dances are held to popularize their concept. These sessions are generally organized during the spring season to enable larger participation of devotees. The growing number of devotees attending this event every year is a testimony to the fact that, this concept is gaining ground.

Dwarkamai is planning to either rent or own a place in the Schaumburg area, to operate a worship center of Lord Shirdi Sai Baba and Lord Datta. They also plan to use the facility to provide other voluntary services such as health care to the needy devotees and community members, Ayurveda (traditional Indian herbal healing form) and pranic healing and yoga camps. The facility and the services are planned to be manned and run by volunteers.

The event held on Saturday was very successful and all the devotees had a lot of “spiritual fun and frolic”.

The above article was published in Chicagoland South Asian news papers.

Indian American Leadership Networking Event – Chicago 2015

Indo American Community Services (IACS) organized leadership and networking event on Saturday, 14^th of March at Marriott Hotel, Schaumburg, where ‘who’s who’ of Chicago area corporate executives participated to share their knowledge, background and experience with the aspiring participants from Indian community.  The speakers included Soma Somasundaram, CEO and President of Dover Energy, Mark Hacker, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer at Motorola Solutions, Socka Suppiah, Co-Founder and COO of Saggezza and Rajan Nagarajan, Vice President Strategic Business Process Transformation at Kraft Foods.  United States Representative Bill Foster, representing 11^th district of Illinois, also shared his business background and experience with the audience.

The panelists were introduced by Sunder Dittakavi, organizing member of IACS. Discussion was moderated by Sundaram Nagarajan Executive Vice President – ITW.  The discussion topics focused on aspects of leadership such as key attributes of leaders, influence of role models in career growth, impact of globalization on leaders, leadership and organizations, risks and rewards leaders and potential leaders embrace and finally positive or negative impact leaders have on their families and family values ecosystem. The topics for the discussion were selected based on the questions received from the participants prior to the meeting. Mr. Sundaram Nagarajan from executive from ITW, deftly moderated the panel discussion, to elicit views from panelists covering a broad spectrum of opinions.

Mr. Foster in his speech appreciated IACS for organizing such events as they provide a forum for aspiring as well as established leaders to connect and network with industry and business peers, exchange ideas and may even meet some potential customers. He recounted his own experience and hardship faced as a youngster trying to generate business along with his brother for his startup firm, when no such events existed. In those days, the only way they could connect with potential customers was to participate in tradeshows, which was expensive for small businesses to afford. He encouraged IACS to hold more such events to help community members.

As globalization, outsourcing, economy and jobs issues are the major topics today; panelists started the discussion with this topic. All panelists agreed that globalization is here to stay and the need of the hour is to accept this reality and work around it. Deep understanding of the customer problems whether they are national or international, creating value proposition to customer, not just a product or service is a key to survive, sustain and thrive in the globalized business world. Another key aspect which was discussed was the ability of the leader to visit customers in the field to understand the challenges they face. This also motivates the field staff that the leaders are sensitive to their problems. Mr. Mark quoted a personal experience from baseball in his childhood days; he played the role of identifying the weak aspects of his team and played role of ‘bridging gaps and motivating players’.

Another interesting topic which was discussed was leader’s ability to handle change. All the panelists gave real life examples of how they adjusted themselves to change. The consensus among all panelists was that, change is imminent and it is the only constant. Sometimes change can be a good or bad one. But every adversity also creates an opportunity. Leaders are those who embrace opportunity and positively respond to change. This may involve some risk taking. Ultimately success or failure may depend on how well the options are evaluated and execution of plan. Mr. Rajan gave an interesting quote which summed up leadership attributes as ABC viz. A – Aspiration, Attitude, Aptitude and Altitude;  B- Beliefs and Behavior; C- Creativity, Communication and Collaboration.

Next topic of discussion was about hiring fresh talent. What attributes do leaders look for while hiring new employee. Mr. Socka had an interesting quote on hiring; ‘hire for attitude and train for skills’.

Do leaders sacrifice a lot to grow and sustain into leadership roles? All panelists agree that they do. Leaders do sacrifice some aspects of life and family to accomplish bigger things in life. That is a choice of life they make.  Discussion was followed by a question and answer session and some of the questions were addressed by the panelists.

Sreenivas Katragadda, President of IACS addressed the gathering listing out all the activities organized by IACS. Other activities include Student internship program, in which selected students get an opportunity to work at US Congress in Washington DC, Women’s Leadership conference which will be held in April of this year, job fairs held in various US cities and a mentoring program.

IACS launched mentoring program at the event. This is a new initiative by IACS.  Nag Vaidyanathan, from ALLSTATE insurance, who advised in this launch, spoke for few minutes, stressing the need for participation in the mentoring program either as a mentor or mentee; this will help members of community in personal as well as professional development.

Audience included a mix of entrepreneurs, business professionals, aspiring youngsters and students, who had the opportunity to interact and network with panelists and other participants before and after the event.

This article was published in the following magazines:

http://www.prlog.org/12436493-indo-american-community-services-leadership-networking-conference.html

http://issuu.com/indiapost/docs/indiapost_03-20-2015_e-paper

http://epaper.desitalkchicago.com/2015_03_20/index.html#14

http://newsindiatimes.com/indo-american-community-services-hosts-panel-on-leadership-skills/

 

AAP maybe putting break on Modi wave

Arvind Kejriwal and AAP may finally be putting breaks to Modi’s juggernaut. The Delhi polls in which AAP is projected to get a full majority, despite BJP deploying all of its ministers, members of parliament, VHP, RSS, Kiran Bedi, current bete noir and past colleague of Kejriwal from the anti-corruption agitation and finally its campaigner-in-chief and showman Narendra Modi, should force them to take a step back and rethink its political and electoral strategy. If indeed AAP wins the Delhi elections, which it is expected to win; hopefully the message will be loud and clear to the top brass of BJP. The message is ‘stop selling and start delivering’!

BJP and particularly Modi have been on a constant campaign trail starting with the national elections. With Modi’s elevation as the PM, the campaign has gone international. Starting with the visit to Japan and the ‘drum act’, visit to USA and his famous speech at the Madison square garden in New York, followed by visits to Australia and other countries, all his speeches were aimed at Indian audiences and eager electorate, hungry to see a prime minister who has a great talent for connecting with his audience. Anyone remember Manmohan Singh? BJP reaped the Modi magic in elections held in various states starting with Haryana to most recently in Jammu and Kashmir.

While Modi was busy campaigning, governance has gone from government to people; literally! The “swach bharat”, “toilets for girls” in schools, “save the girl child” campaigns and others was targeted mainly for public participation, though Modi started some such as kicking off the “clean-up” and nominating celebrities. But despite their altruistic cause, without a framework for monitoring, measuring, managing and governance, participation remained symbolic and turned into a farce. There was buzz in the social media and few TV channels that many famous politicos, corporate honchos and movie stars, eager to get noticed and praised by Modi, “cleaned” already clean roads for TV cameras and cheap publicity. Apart from the symbolism, disbanding planning commission and unceremoniously sacking of “non-performing” top bureaucrats – no tangible results have been delivered; neither on policy front nor on reform front. On top of this, BJP is taking the route of ‘implementation of laws by ordinances’ rather than debate and discussions in parliament; as parliamentary proceedings are stalled, due the provocative electioneering speeches by the ‘non-fringe’ members and ministers of BJP. I have very simple and dumb question. How is that churches are burnt in Delhi and ‘ghar vapsi’ programs and constant attempts of polarization happens just before elections only during BJP rule? And Mr. Modi, ‘the communicator extraordinaire’ never condemns any of these despicable acts by the so that called ‘fringe’ elements of the ‘sangh parivar’. Such much for the Modi’s election slogan of ‘maximum governance and minimum government’!

The onset of Delhi elections was very interesting. All the TV channels and social media were abuzz with the personal connection Modi established with Obama. Much has been reported on the similarities of humble backgrounds of Modi and Obama. While Modi found his footing as a RSS pracharak, Obama started out as a community organizer. Both are great communicators and eloquent speakers. They also have many other similarities. Obama an unknown senator from Illinois got prominent due to his speech in 2004 Democratic convention to nominate John Kerry as Democratic nominee. Then senator and Democratic candidate John Kerry lost to President Bush. Candidate Obama won Democratic Party nomination by beating Hilary Clinton, who was much more known, popular and well-funded. Obama won the elections by raising the hopes and aspirations of war weary and recession hit Americans. Despite being a popular and well liked president at a personal level, he faced electoral reverses, the latest being the complete wipeout of majority in the Senate. House is controlled by republicans for many years. Obama who promised to make Washington bipartisan made no difference, if not made it worse. His signature health care program is still maturing and will take years to provide measurable benefits to the patients.

Many Americans ignored his visit to India and some watched it with amusement, the reception and coverage by Indian TV channels of the visit. Some political observers even joked that Obama wanted to avoid the ‘cold’ political climate in Washington to ‘warm’ welcome in India. The joke went on to say that the next two years will see many more international visits by Obama, as no sensible legislation can be accomplished as republicans control both chambers of congress and campaign for 2016 elections is already on. Political posturing and symbolism will be name of the game for the next two years. Of course there are some good things that happened under Obama’s watch. The biggest one is the turning around of American economy from the worst recession and America did not get into a new war, though there was a lot of pressure to get into one!

Modi who won the elections and became the PM by raising the hopes and aspirations of all sections of Indians should take advantage of the majority he has in Lok Sabha and pass some urgently needed reforms and revive the economy. One of the first things he should do is to put a lid on these communal and fringe elements and restore harmony. It will be sad to see Modi waste his political capital and jinx the hopes of many people who supported him. On the economic front, though low crude oil prices are helping in lowering the inflation, this advantage may not last longer so as Modi’s honeymoon.

Recently I bumped into a retired professor from Jawahar Lal Nehru University, Delhi, who was on a visit to Chicago. He made a very funny and insightful statement. He said that Indians have bad choices of political parties. He termed India has ABC problem from a political party standpoint.

A – AAP – Agitation party, B – BJP – Bigots party – religious intolerance and C- Congress – Corrupt and Crooks party, Congress-Cohorts – Communists and others – Clueless. Poor Indian voter has to choose from among these parties. The reality is he has no good options.

Hope all the parties prove this skeptical professor from Delhi wrong!

 

Article Published in Times of India. Link/Url:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/contributors/contributions/karthik-kandamuri/AAP-maybe-putting-break-on-Modi-wave/articleshow/46187680.cms

IACS Business and Entrepreneurial Conference – Chicago

Ever watched a “Shark tank” episode on ABC TV channel? It is telecast every Friday night. For someone who does not follow this program, it is a very fascinating series on entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs and by entrepreneurs, quite literally. This popular series has a panel of very successful entrepreneurs, who listens to the pitches of would be entrepreneurs, seeking funds for a product or a service they plan to offer – and build their own companies and may be hire others if they are successful. At the end of each presentation, the panelists poke holes into the presented business plans, marketing strategies, profit projections and sometimes they even fund the projects if the presenters are successful in convincing the panelists about the viability and success of their project. It is a very interesting TV series as viewers also get a glimpse of emotions of the presenters immediately after their presentation, on what they thought went well or not so well. Another interesting aspect of shark tank is that, there are periodic reviews of performance of the projects or products funded by the panelists and viewers are informed about funding successes or failures.

How about attending such events live? On top of attending event in person, what if every attendee gets an opportunity to be a part of a pre and post meeting networking sessions with industry peers, product demos and job fair from leading local firms looking to hire engineers, over few drinks and a sumptuous dinner?  Sounds awesome?

I am not making a story up; this was the event I attended on 19^th September at Sheraton Naperville. Indo American Community Services (IACS) organized this event for the “would be” and “planned to be” entrepreneurs to meet with “successful and established” entrepreneurs.  The event was IACS Business and Entrepreneurial Conference. The event started with networking session over drinks sponsored by Chicagoland employers such as Grainger, ITW, Allstate, Microsoft and many others.

The event also had three firms making their pitches for funding in their startups. These firms were shortlisted from among many firms looking for some help in ramping up their efforts to generate new business and revenue opportunities. The shortlisted firms represent different industry segments such as real estate, mobility software for retail industries and personal physical fitness.

The first firm which did the pitch was Turbo Appeal (http://www.turboappeal.com).  Turbo Appeal is a cloud based software aka software as a service (SAAS), which helps real estate attorneys by simplifying and automating real estate property tax appeals.  This software covers the entire life cycle of real estate taxes such as lead generation, customer service correspondence, automation and reporting. The firm is started by a group of serial entrepreneurs and attorneys.

The second firm which did the pitch was Martmobi (http://www.martmobi.com). Martmobi provides a mobile enabled commerce platform for small and medium retail businesses. As users who buy products or services online on mobile and smart phones grows exponentially, ability of firms to quickly enable commerce online plays a critical and differentiating role in maintaining and increasing revenues.

However, enabling ecommerce should not be expensive given the economies of scale due to competitive software for enabling ecommerce. Smaller firms selling products online, surviving on shoe string margins and budgets and cannot afford full time IT staff to support mobile commerce can buy licenses from Martmobi.

Martmobi provides a template based solution for businesses to ramp up a cost-effective and relatively inexpensive ecommerce solution.  The firm is also started by a couple of serial entrepreneurs. This firm was pitching to get some funds to hire marketing team to penetrate new segments of market and generate additional revenues.
The third and final firm which pitched for funding was Fitness cubed (http://www.fitnesscubed.com). Started by three young entrepreneurs, this firm offers exercise equipment for people with sedentary jobs. Sedentary lifestyle is a new normal for all us today due to explosion in desktop computer based workforce. Fitness cubed offers a mini elliptical which goes under the desks for people who maintain a sitting posture for a long time during their day. They can keep working on the elliptical while sitting and also keep working on their computers simultaneously. This is a great product for someone who finds it difficult to find time for exercise. This product is also Bluetooth enabled and is connected to a cloud based database to keep track of the number of minutes a person exercised. Fitness cubed already raised funds online by posting their product on ‘Kickstarter’ (http://www.kickstarter.com), a crowd funding site. The product has many customers already and is well received by corporations concerned about the health of their employees. This product is unique as it combines physical activity, cloud computing and healthcare rolled into one.

The panel which judged the presentations consisted of 1) Arman Ghosh, Co-founder of Growth Panda, 2) Ashish Rangnekar, CEO and Co-founder of BenchPrep, 3) Eric Olson, Origin Ventures, 4) Sundaram Nagarajan, SVP, ITW and 5) Kunal Chopra, Associate at Techstars Chicago. At the end of presentations IACS president Srini Kattragadda, announced that Microsoft Corporation gifted free software and services and a Chicagoland accounting firm Chavla associates offered free tax services to these three firms for one year. It was a valuable gift to these upcoming firms who need every possible help from larger and successful companies.

Open question and answer session (Q&A) was organized after a short break, for “planned to be” entrepreneurs after the above pitches were complete. The panelists answered questions, summarized by mediated by Balu Kadiyala another Chicagoland entrepreneur. These questions and answers were targeted towards ‘wannabe entrepreneurs’, who are yet to plunge into their own businesses due to fear of failure or lack of guidance and other reasons. This session was also very interesting as each of the panelists discussed their educational and professional background, successes and failures they faced and how perseverance and persistence made their enterprises.  Though the time for Q&A was very short, mediator and panelists did a great job covering the whole spectrum of entrepreneurship including ideas, execution, products, services, risks, funding, failures and successes. Panelists interacted with attendees after Q&A over dinner.

Attendees also had a great opportunity to see the demos of other products which were on display at the booths in the open area.  The products which were on display were HiFi Kids (http://www.hifikids.com) which is a great product in Edtech (technology enabled education) sector. HiFI kids offers online education for kids in the form of quizzes. Teachers can use this site to build quizzes and conduct an online competition among kids. Parents can create quizzes for their own kids and their peers. Results of the quizzes can then be used to inculcate competitive spirit, critical to successful learning in the age of competition.  One unique feature of this product is that kids who subscribe to the program online at this site can compete with other kids at the same level using a gadget similar to a TV remote control.

The second product which was on display was plush toys from a firm called eMotiplush (http://www.emoti-plush.com).  This is a unique concept of plush toys which can be manipulated by hand by little kids and in the process design shapes of their own liking. These toys are based on a concept called “slow toy movement” which is getting popular in Europe.

The third product which was on display was software, called appwebsearch which helps users of mobile apps based on category, industry etc. In a world where there are millions of apps for mobile devices, it is nearly impossible for a user to know the new apps which are published, updated, upgraded etc. This software is like a google like search engine for mobile apps.

On the whole it was a great event organized by IACS. Many attendees appreciated and enjoyed the event. IACS has been organizing such events to foster engagement and peer-networking among the members of the Indian community. IACS must keep organizing such events in future as well, to benefit the Indian community as a whole.

Karthik Kandamuri attended this event and he can be reached at Karthik.kandamuri@gmail.com