Happy New Year 2013 – Srijan & Kangra Arts Promotions Society
Two years of being an entrpreneur
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
Trek to Kareri lake
Continuation to our trek to Kareri village, 9 members of our team trekked upto the lake. Situated at an altitude of about 9600 feet, the Kareri lake is about 13 kms from the village. We started early in the morning and were there at about 10:15. Spent a good time lazing around the lake and off-course dipping our feet in its freezing water. The walk back was quite tiring as we moved quite fast and wanted to reach Kareri village by 3pm and then Ghaira village by 5pm.
Team Srijan’s trek to Kareri village
It had been a while since we had a team outing, so we decided to go out for a trek to Kareri and then further upto the lake on the weekend of 26th May. About 18 people signed up for the trek to Kareri village. We started early in the day to avoid the summer sun and by noon we were at the Kareri forest rest house. Took the route via Satovari and Ghaira to reach Kareri. We ascended the lake on 27th May, pictures of which I will be sharing in another blog post.
Sharing some of the pictures from the excursion. As usual, the photographer that’s me, continues to be in the background 🙂
Computer Science can be Creative, we can actually do hacking !
What will you feel when a girl with a beautiful smile in her first year of BCA from a college in rural area of Himachal stand up and say “Computer Science can be Creative, we can actually do hacking” ? Surprised, isn’t it ? Well we had similar feelings interacting with the students of Droncharya College of Education at Rait.
Team Srijan, had a great time interacting with close to 40 students and faculty members of the institute while discussing open source movement, Drupal and Linux at their campus on the 11th of February. The facilities provided in the computer lab by the institute were quite good with each terminal having a high speed internet connection. We could actually play some guessing games with students trying their hands searching for information about CMS’s and Linux.
The training ended with bouts of Samosa’s and Chuttney from the famous Gopal Sweets of Rait and with a promise to take up more such sessions in their campus. There was even more surprise in store as almost all the participants signed up for a Linux installation fest to be organised by Srijan in the month of April at their campus.
We would like to thank the management of Dronacharya College for giving us this wonderful opportunity to interact with their students.
Hello Drupal training organised by Srijan & VOH at Dharamshala college
Continuing with our efforts to evangelize Drupal and Open Source technologies across the state of Himachal Pradesh, Srijan team organised a Hello Drupal camp at the Government Post Graduate Degree College in Dharamshala on the 4th of February 2012. The camp was attended by more than 70 students of the BCA, PGDCA and MCA courses being offered by the College. The attendees also included the Vice Principal and Lectures of the Computer Science department of the College.
In an engaging session, which lasted for more than two hours, the participants learnt about the basics of website building, difference between static and dynamic websites, content management systems and Drupal. Varun, our Hello Drupal trainer, also introduced the students to the opportunities which exist in the open source world and especially the career opportunities associated with developing skills in Drupal. The introductory session was followed with hands on Drupal installation and website building sessions.
Hello Drupal training: Introductory session
Q & A Sessions
A BCA first year students lists differences between a Static and a Dynamic website
Srijan team helping participants with Drupal installation
Students were quite excited to be part of this training and were interested in knowing more about the technology. Our team would like to thank the faculty members of Dharamshala College for providing their support and participation in this workshop. We look forward to more such engaging sessions on topics such as Operating systems, System Analysis, Programming techniques, Database & Software engineering with the students of this campus in the days to come.
Next Saturday, we are visiting Dronacharya College, which has a beautiful campus offering educational services to students of rural areas close to a place called Rait.
About the Author: Divyanshu Puri, is working as a Management Intern with Srijan. He is pursuing an MBA degree with a major in Marketing from Himachal Pradesh University Business School at Shimla.
Lohri Celebrations 2012
Srijan opens its new software develpment centre in Dharamshala
Tucked away in the beautiful Dhauladhar ranges of Himachal Pradesh is a small little hill station called Dharamshala. Known for its record rainfall and the place of residence for H.H. The Dalai Lama, Dharamshala has become the second home for Srijan family. We have recently opened our second software development centre in Dharamshala when operations started on 15th June, 2011. Situated amidst an idyllic environment, our office in Dharamshala offers programmers an opportunity to code in heaven. This town is a paradise for trekkers and nature aficionados. With mountain ranges as high as 6000m, this town has attracted mountaineers from all over the world since ages. Besides being a trekking destination the town also attracts hordes of honey-mooners, spirituality seekers, weekend revelers and cricket fans for matches in the international cricket stadium. With this new office, we plan to make Dharamshala an attractive destination for geeks, nerds engineers and mavericks from all over the world.
Why Dharamshala?
The town is getting major fillip to its infrastructure as the government is focusing heavily on developing education and sporting facilities in this place. In the last 10 years this district has seen establishment of 3 universities, numbers of engineering and diploma colleges offering quality technical education. With English as a subject being taught from school the graduating engineers are well versed with a language required to communicate with our international clients. We hope to train and offer jobs to engineers graduating from these institutions. In terms of physical infrastructure Dharamshala offers broadband connectivity through a fibre optic backbone connected to the national grid. There are enough backup options with all major telecom operators offering connectivity solutions through DSL or 3G technology. Electricity is another major plus as the state of Himachal Pradesh is a power surplus state with number of hydro power stations setup across the state. Besides quality of supply the cost of electricity is heavily subsidized.
Facilities
With 1200 sq feet of office, we have enough room to house a team of 35 odd engineers. The office also offers a small kitchenette, meeting room and a sleeping room. Yes, we don’t mind if our engineers catching a wink every once in a while. The town offers our engineers an opportunity to live life to the maximum. With clean and green environment, this town gives additional benefits as necessitated by modern lifestyle. The town is well connected by road, railways and air with Chandigarh and Delhi. Being a tourist place there is no paucity of restaurants, resorts and picnic spots. Restaurants here serve excellent food of all delicacies be it Japanese Sushi, German bakeries, Italian pizzas and Israeli falafel. Nights can be fun with live music hangouts in Mcleodganj. With a government medical college and other private hospitals, the medical facilities are well established. Besides the famous cricket stadium the town also offers a well equipped indoor stadium with facilities like gymnasium, badminton, table tennis and an athletics running track.
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We like having guests in our office. Especially the ones who come up to us and say “Hey we can do this thing together”. So if you are the kind who is keen on settling or moving to the mountains then do get in touch with us. We may just have the right work opportunity waiting for you.
We’re sure you are there on Facebook, more Dharamshala pics on our Facebook page 🙂