Author: Avishek Gupta

I help drive sustainable development by financing the growth of professionally managed entrepreneurial ventures that solve key social and environmental problems. Having financed and observed over 250 ventures from close quarters, I understand the challenges that such ventures face in scaling up. I have the knowledge of process, financing and technology solutions that can help overcome those challenges. Separately, I have the experience of building businesses that finance early/growth stage companies. Most recently, I was involved with growing Caspian Debt to a full-fledged operating company from an initial 3 member fund investments team.

Reading List – 2nd November, 2013

1.) The article emphasises the fact that life is random and can not always be explained by numbers. It also makes a point that we are prone to exaggerate the consistency and coherence we see. As also pointed out by Daniel Kanheman in his book.

Article: Here

2.) The letter of Benjamin Franklin that made the first reference to Daylight Saving Time. It was meant to be a satire mocking the laziness of the French.

Article: Here

3.) Have you ever faced a situation where people in a room couldn’t agree with how cold the air conditioner should be? Looks like here is a solution! A wristband to replace the air-conditioner and give you a “personal” cooling solution.

Article: Here

Some interesting points:

  • In 2007, 87 percent of households in the U.S. used air conditioning, compared to just 11 percent of households in Brazil and a mere 2 percent in India.

4.) A scary article on how consistent use of antibiotics has led to a stage where bacteria is now resistant to almost all forms of antibiotics! (A long read)

Article: Here

5.) Compulsory voting. People in Australia who do not vote have to pay a fine or go to jail.

Article: Here

Some interesting facts:

  • 23 countries across the world have mandatory voting laws. Only 10 of those enforce them.

6.) A fascinating article on medical imaging technologies of the future.

Article: Here

Payments, Banking and Cost implications of cash – India

Electronic Payments have always intrigued me. I have written about this in the past. I was reading through a few more documents on electronic payments and read through the Reserve Bank of India Vision Document on Payments. Quite an insightful document in terms of statistics. However, my feeling was it doesn’t quite clearly layout the strategic framework to be adopted for payments in India. SOme statistics from the vision document and some other sources.

 Penetration of banking services
  • Of the six lakh villages in India, the total number of villages with banking services stands at less than one lakh villages as at end March 2011 and nearly 145 million households are excluded from banking.
Penetration of Electronic payment
  • Only 0.6 million of the 10 million plus retailers in India have card payment acceptance infrastructure.
  • Mid-2011, the number of non-cash transactions per person stands at just 6 per year.
  • 32% of e-commerce takes place through the system of “cash on delivery” (COD) NOT online payment.
 Other numbers:
  • The Indian bill payment market is a US$ 160 billion market. Indian households pay on an average 50 -55 bills a year. Among the electronic payments infrastructure, ECS occupies a 50% share followed by cards and bank account funding.
  • It is estimated that Government subsidies alone constitute more than Rs. 2.93 trillion and if these payments are effected electronically, it may translate to 4.13 billion electronic transactions in a year.
  •  The penetration of ATMs is 63 per million population and that of PoS terminals is 497 per million population
 Banking Infrastructure
  • Today, the banking infrastructure in the country consists of 80,000 bank branches, 1,50,000 post offices, 88,000 ATMs, and 500,000 POS machines. Of these, the rural banking infrastructure only consists of about 30,000 bank branches and 1,20,000 post offices. In comparison, there are more than 10 lakh telecom retailers that operate throughout the country.
  • 18 million outstanding credit cards and 228 million debit cards.
 How much cost does the economy bear to support a cash economy?
Cost of cash to the economy is 5-7% of GDP.
-costs for rbi  include printing currency, currency chest management, and wear and tear
-cost for bank include cash logistics, cash management, security, storage, and the opportunity cost of idle cash in branches and ATMs

Reading List – 26th October

1.) The article talks about the concept (and practice) of owning shares of an individual! The investors invest in an individual and hope to make returns which form a percentage of the individual’s future income. Uncomfortable situations may be that your investors will vote to decide if you want to have a moustache or if you should commit suicide!

Article: Human Marketplace

2.) Interesting perspective on Amazon’s business model and the story behind the profit-less growth.

Article: Amazon

3.) Why Twitter? A few good points on what twitter has been able to achieve through the medium it provides. It cuts distance and democratizes information/interaction.

Article: Twitter

4.) A short but interesting article on the Psychology of Online Comments. How annonymous comments impact discussions. Annonymous comments may not always be bad. How voting up comments impact behaviour of those making comments.

Article: Online Comments

Some interesting facts from the article:

  • 25% of the online remarks/comments made are annonymous.
  • As the age of a user decreases, chances of making an annonymous online remark increases. 40% of people in the eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-old demographic have posted anonymously.
  • Reason behind bad behaviour with the crowd – “diffusion of responsibility” i.e. feeling less accountable for your own actions, and becoming more likely to engage in amoral behaviour.

5.) Two interesting articles on Artificial Intelligence. While one (New York Times) argues that we have come a long way with self driving cars, Siri (Apple), etc. The other argues that things like Siri is NOT artificial intelligence because artificial intelligence is about replicating the process of human thinking which these do not!

Article 1: The real meaning of AI

Article 2: The rapid advance of AI

Also found the expanded version of CAPTCHA: “Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart”

6.) Story behind CAPTCHA. How a brilliant idea converts printed books into digitised books by using people on the internet at no cost! As an aside, Luis von Ahn, the inventor, has also created Duolingo which I love! Do check if you want to learn new languages!

Article: Crowd-sourcing digitisation

Reading List – 19th Oct

1.) Talking about the book “Permanent Present Tense” (Basic), by Suzanne Corkin, the article tells us the story of a man who inspired the story of “Memento“, the English movie.

Article: Memory

Some interesting definitions/lessons from the article:

  • Retrograde amnesia-  victims are unable to retrieve some or all of their past knowledge.
  • Anterograde amnesia – victims can’t lay down new memories but memory of the past is more or less intact.
  • Transient global amnesia – a situation when one person has both retrograde and anterograde amnesia.
  • Episodic memories- memory of discrete events in his life
  • Semantic memories- general knowledge of the world, including the meanings of newly encountered words
  •  New memories live in the hippo-campus of the brain

2.) A short piece on psychological pricing argues that pricing at INR 19.99 and not INR 20 has science behind it.

Article: Psychological Pricing

Some interesting definitions/lessons from the article:

  • Prices ending in .99 have higher sales conversion rates than prices ending in one cent/paisa higher!
  • As we’re reading prices, we either round down after the whole numbers in our minds or essentially forget what comes after the beginnings of prices.
  •  When we see a price ending in 9 or .99, we believe the seller has priced the item at the lowest point possible and that we’re getting a great deal.
  • While pricing ending in 9 is perceived as bargain, those (products/services) who position themselves as elegant and special avoid pricing that ends in 9 and often price their products/services with even numbers!

3.) The article talks about the possibility of increasing the speed of internet access by atleast 10 times by using the ubiquitous light bulb!

Article: Li-Fi

Some interesting definitions/lessons from the article:

  • The amount of data that can be transmitted depends upon the frequency of the electromagnetic wave. The lower the frequency of the wave, the less it can transmit.
  •  Energy-saving compact fluorescent bulb flickers between 10,000 and 40,000 times per second. The human eye can not perceive the flicker.
  • Light could be a key source of internet connectivity underwater where wi-fi does not work.

4.) How does honey kept sealed in a jar last for so long?

Article: Honey

Some interesting definitions/lessons from the article:

  • Honey has very little water. Water is necessary for survival of microbes which lead to spoilage.
  • When the bees regurgitate the nectar from their mouths into the combs to make honey, an enzyme mixes with the nectar, breaking it down and releasing hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide is an agent that does not let microbes survive.
  • Honey will not spoil till it is not allowed to absorb water from the atmosphere.
  • Honey sucks water out of things it comes in touch with and hence used for healing wounds in ancient days.

“For what it’s worth…

“For what it’s worth, it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that stop you. I hope you feel things that you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.” –Benjamin Button

How can Decision-making be Improved?

Found an interesting paper written by Katherine L. Milkman, Dolly Chugh and Max H. Bazerman on the topic.

The paper broadly talks about System 1(intuitive) and System 2 (explicit, effortful) of decision making and points out three ways of moving from System 1 to System 2:

a.) Gather historical data and analyse.

b.) Look at the situation and the implications of your intuitive decision as an outsider.

c.) Weigh the implications of a decision that is exact opposite of your current decision to see if your current decision has merit.

The paper can be found here.

Proliferation of “Chinese” goods!

When I went around looking for some memorabilia at the Liberty Island, US hoping to take something back home, I was surprised to see all items having a “Made in China” stamp. I repeat … all. I was stumped. I wanted to carry something back that represented the US and here, everything that represented the US was actually Chinese!

A few years earlier, I lived in a remote village in North Bengal for two months. The village was 10 km away from a metalled road and had only mud houses. There was no electricity and none of the households had a toilet. Guess what the villagers used for pumping water into the fields for agriculture? Chinese pump sets!

Low cost wins. Not just against remote access and utter poverty, but also against pride.

Developed vs developing world

Is there a way to differentiate between a “developed” nation and a “developing” nation by asking a single question?

I think yes.

When you want to find out if a particular place belongs to the “developed” category just ask a fairly rich local “What is your preferred mode of travel within the city/town anytime during the day? ”

If the answer is a train or a bus or any other public transport, you know you are in a developed country.

(I guess it is simplistic but more often than not the logic is correct.)