Author: Varun Singh

Its been a while since I updated about my activities and experiences. Having moved to Dharamshala, the only negative I see for myself is the rare opportunity of meeting friends who have come to stay in bigger cities of the world. At the cost of being termed narcissistic, let me share some updates and insights of what I have been upto in the last 2 years. With this, I hope to start a thread with like minded individuals who would be interested in associating with us, spreading the news about the work being done by our group and sharing more information about their entrepreneurial journeys.

To begin with, I quit my last job (with IL&FS) in June 2010 with an idea of setting up an enterprise in Himachal. An enterprise which will help create livelihoods opportunities in the mountains. The business had to be clean, environment friendly and should have the potential to scale. We experimented a lot by trying out multiple options in dairy, tourism, handicrafts and IT. The first 6 months just flew, with no idea hitting the ground. Probably the idea was too grandiose and we were too short on cash. I still remember a chance meeting with an alumni at Jabli (on the way to Shimla) and his talk about focusing as an entrepreneur.

By January 2011, we had moved our base from Shimla to Dharamshala (my hometown) and were fast burning whatever little cash we (also my wife) had saved. Thanks to the generous support offered by some of my close friends, we survived for another 6 months. It is in this period, that I decided to focus on my core strength which is managing IT and stop work on all other ideas. We decided to setup an IT company in Dharamshala and started operations in April 2011. By October we were a team of 8 people and in a year’s time we have grown to be a 21 people team.

So what do we do ?

We are a technology company with focus on building robust, scalable and reliable web based solutions for our customers. Currently our team specializes in building websites, e-commerce portals and web- applications using open source CMS’s like Drupal and WordPress for customers spread across time-zones.

Besides being an IT company, our business has a social angle to it as we are the first real software engineering company to set-up base in Dharamshala and sustain it. Those familiar with this place will recognize Dharamshala as home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, identify with the beautiful stadium which hosts IPL matches or imagine jumping of the cliff while para-gliding. Technology is something which probably does not even occupy any mind-space amongst the natives or people who come visiting.

It is our endeavor to make Dharamshala an IT destination and a melting pot for creative kinds, intellectuals, geeks and entrepreneurs from all over. We have a co-working office space, where people, remotely linked with our work can come and do their own gig, as long as they are ready to share their knowledge and skills with our people and the community around us. We also throw in a bit of free filter coffee, if they like.

Our team is deeply involved in helping youngsters from colleges in and around Dharamshala improve their skills, exposing them to latest happenings in the technology space by organizing sessions, workshops, hackathons, internship programs etc. At any given point of time we have atleast 5- 6 interns from colleges around Dharamshala and other parts of India working with us.

Besides this, we throw our office open to individuals from various walks of life to come and interact with our engineers every Friday talking about Environment, Music, Films, Communication, Time management, Personality, Human rights etc. We have had the pleasure of hosting Entrepreneurs, Geeks, Artists, Activists, CXOs, Bureaucrats and Politicians and look forward to meeting more interesting people going forward.

Since the technology business is always about building an eco-system, I am also helping few other start-ups and established companies setup offices in this town. We have got cheap and highly reliable electricity, pensioners willing to rent out places on cheap rentals, plenty of engineering and management colleges around, good internet and physical connectivity with other cities in the India.

What else ?

Besides technology business, I volunteer with a non-profit which is trying to revive the Kangra miniature art. Like other traditional art forms this art was also dying a slow death and was almost on the verge of extinction with no next generation artists taking to this art. We set-up  “Chitera”, an art institute in collaboration with the district administration and have helped train about 15 youngsters so far in this art. A group of 6 senior artists from our first and second batch continue to work from a small studio and our non-profit helps market their work. If nothing else, the studio is worth a visit during your next visit to Dharamshala. Our artists can share interesting insights about the paintings, how they are made and their life in journal when you visit them. You may like to read more about our work here at www.kangraarts.org