An excerpt on what she disscussed about Corporate Citizenship and giving back to her community:
I sincerely believe that it is important to give back to society - the very society that has allowed us to attain the heights we have. At Biocon, our efforts extend beyond the realm of biotechnology through our community-support initiatives and corporate citizenship programmes. We recognise our responsibility to India – her health, education and environment. Our particular focus is on child welfare as we realise the importance of investing in children, to positively impact their future. Biocon Foundation has been established with the aim of identifying and implementing projects that will impact the social and economic scenario in the country. The main focus areas of the Biocon Foundation are providing quality healthcare and health education for the betterment of Indian society.

Read more by clicking here.

Well, there are many elements of a brand that cannot be categorized as touchpoints. For example how does a brand's story (like the story of KFC) or a brand leader's importance to a brand (like Steve Jobs' importance to Apple) get represented by the regular brand touchpoints?  It doesn't. Similarly there are many elements of a brand that are not direct 'touch' points but have immense value for the brand and are not captured by the touch points methodology.

This weakness can be overcome by using the Contact points methodology.

Contact points are defined as all experiences through which directly, or indirectly, consumers come in contact with the brand or obtain information about the brand. Consumers attach varying importance and expectations to different contact points. Brands should not try to be best in all of their contact points but instead focus on a few and try hard to convert those into Wow points. This is the only way to effectively differentiate a brand in today's super-competitive marketplace. Sure there are opportunity costs involved in focusing on a few contact points rather than going all out trying to cover all the contact points. But if you think about it, the real danger lies in not focussing at all - and that is the danger of becoming a mediocre brand and losing your brand forever in the clutter of other mediocre brands.

As entrepreneurs we ought aim to be like ‘the’ footballer… not just a footballer in the league… But the MVP.

It’s hard to understand why some footballers have got the raw talent, the opportunity in the big league, but never seem to reach their potential.

Chances are – we too are that person – but in business.

We’ve been told by our friends and colleagues that we’ve got the talent to make it happen. They believe in us, but we’re not there – yet. That said, we should refer to ‘that football player’ we all have in our mind already. The guy who could be an absolute hero if he just pulled it all together… The training, the preparation, the diet, the mental application, the team effort, the professionalism. (free feel to name / discuss him in the comments) It’s the same with our start up. The idea, and our potential is only part of the equation. In fact, it’s really just like getting drafted. We’ve got along way to go.

If we’re going to play, we may as well behave like the MVP. Do it all. Aim for perfection and strive to extract every ounce of the gifts we’ve been given. As we know the MVP is never the guy with the most raw talent. It’s usually the guy who maximizes their potential.

Let’s do all the stuff we know we should in order to be the best. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Another fine illustration of this principle comes from Google. Most people think Google's success is due to their brilliant algorithms, especially PageRank. In reality, the two big innovations that Larry and Sergey introduced, that really took search to the next level in 1998, were:
1. The recognition that hyperlinks were an important measure of popularity - a link to a webpage counts as a vote for it.
2. The use of anchortext (the text of hyperlinks) in the web index, giving it a weight close to the page title.
First generation search engines had used only the text of the web pages themselves. The addition of these two additional data sets - hyperlinks and anchortext - took Google's search to the next level.

Failure is a data point. For example, Edison famously said about the light bulb, “I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to not make a light bulb.” A business failure is a special kind of data point, because complex data mining teaches that independent, 3rd party data that is not affiliated with the original data source almost always adds more value. In Google’s case, hyperlinks and anchortext were independent data, revealing what other people think about any given web page. Independent data always accompanies a business failure: customers wouldn’t buy, investors wouldn’t invest, industry gurus gave an unfavorable review.

Entrepreneurs have a choice: accumulate data (find out what doesn’t work), or write better algorithms (business plans, strategy, etc.). As in complex data mining, the experts in innovation believe that more data beats a better algorithm. Why does Sand Hill Road continue to fund entrepreneurs who have failed before? Because seasoned entrepreneurs hold more data.

As IBM founder Thomas Watson put it, "If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate".

It seems to be a baby boom season. Quite a lot of people in circles I know are expecting and shuddering as to how to tell their immediate bosses, the news and the fact that they will be taking a slighter long period in the near future.

There is a team that I am personally mentoring where the team lead is a lady, and she is expecting a baby. I am actually a little stuck as to how to deal with this situation - partly cause I haven't dealt with a situation like this before. Atleast a month ago, I was.

When you are bootstrapping a company, especially one where there are a total of five people, one not being able to give a total 100% usually translates to 20% of your company underperforming - When its your lead, there are a whole lot of other complications that come into the picture.

Don't get me wrong. Motherhood is an amazing thing and I am thankful to my mom for all the things she went through to bring me into this world. My mom, I believe also managed to work through the pregnancy and took very few days off - apart from the maternity leave that was granted. My mom isn't the only example. There are countless number of women, and quite a few of them that I quite admire who have managed parenthood, and a professional life - but its quite a balancing act, and have no doubt about it.

This post is not about them though. I am so very not qualified to handle that topic. I should take on a guest blogger to write about that, but instead, this topic is about how a startup should be prepared.

A startup team is small, precious and very fragile. That said, it is also under a lot of stress to deliver. A startup team is also extremely friendly, more family-oriented than big businesses can be, and are also very supportive of the individualistic needs and passions.

With that set, the advice to plan for a scenario like this is quite simple. What if one of the folks working for you fell sick, broke a bone or caught chicken pox and disappeared for two months? You should look at this as something similar, except here you know exactly when the person would be taking off.

That is probably one of the most simplest and realistic ways to drop it. All panic and initial hysteria aside, the beauty about situations like this is that there is time ahead to plan for the temporary replacement or work shuffling with someone in the organization. I am expecting that the staff is more open about it, and can give you a heads up much ahead of time, but if and when it does happen, don't panic. You can always plan your way around it.

Start off with this:

1. Sit down with the person and have a chat. Acknowledge the situation and tell her that its okay. Let her calm down a bit.

2. Take a realistic and last week account of how and when she's been able to come to work and if the new state of things is affecting her performance. You will notice that she has been coming to late in the mornings, but that is expected. Prepare for it.

3. When setting up meetings with clients or partners and if her presence is going to be required, do ask for her approval, and no matter what she says dont setup an early morning meeting. Even she doesnt know how she'll feel on the morning of the said date.

4. Break the news to her as to how the team is going to stay on top of things when she would be gone. If you are going to be bringing in a temporary replacement, assure her that the replacement is just a temporary one and her job will be waiting for her when she comes back - whenever she is ready.

5. Give her the option as to how she wants to move forward with the plan. Different folks take different timelines to recover and get back to work. If she is going to be gone for sometime, do check with your leave policies and reconcile with her if she will be granted materinity leave, or if it will be on loss of pay. Startups cant afford to keep both a temporary replacement and a full-time staff on payroll for the same job at the sametime. But clarifying it with her would really help and relieve some stress.

6. Dont panic. Be supportive, and if there is someone in the office, preferably a female staff who can interface with her on any needs she might have, that's a lot of good deed that you could do.

I have always said that its better to hire folks from the opposite gender when it comes to bootstrapping a company. They take much better ownership of their tasks, and their loyalty levels are much higher compared to most men. That said, once a while when momentous occassions as such do happen in the life of the team members who do contribute the most, we also need to turn back and return the gratitude, with a courteous "We'll be here for you".

This book has a lot of helpful ideas for running a company or a project/team, especially if you're in the design industry (but even if you're not).

My problem with it is Kelley's patronizing tone. Throughout the book I felt like I was being told just how great his company (IDEO) is, how they do everything right (even their mistakes are right!), etc. Needless to say, it got to be kind of nauseating/overwhelming.

Because of that, it took me forever to finish, and unless someone can give me an EXTREMELY compelling reason, I won't be reading anymore books by Tom Kelley.

That being said, here are a few excerpts I liked:

Here's the good news. Neither you nor your company needs to be best of class in every category. Like an Olympic decathlon, the object is to achieve true excellence in a few areas, and strength in many. If you're the best in the world at uncovering your customers' latent, unspoken needs, the strength of your insights might help you succeed in spite of shortcomings elsewhere. Similarly, if you can paint a compelling visualization of the future, maybe your partners (suppliers, distributors, consultants, etc.) or even your customers can help you get there. If there are ten events in creating and sustaining an innovative culture, what counts is your total score, your ability to regularly best the competition in the full range of daily tests that every company faces. (p 6)

We're all searching for the next iMac or VW Beetle--any worthwhile innovation that captures the public's imagination and strengthens the company's brand. But many companies shy away from novel solutions. Moreover, they tend to believe that truly creative individuals are few and far between. We believe the opposite. We all have a creative side, and it can flourish if you spawn a culture to encourage it, one that embraces risks and wild ideas and tolerates the occasional failure. (p 13)

You learn from people who break the rules. (p 39)

As soon as he writes a script's final lines--"Fade to black"--he pens the first scene of his next movie. It's a wonderful strategy for any team--to end one project by beginning another. That way, when you do take a break, you already have an opening, a beginning to work from, rather than starting from scratch. (p 88 )

When people feel special, they'll perform beyond your wildest dreams. (p 93)

What's the opposite of writer's block? ... We all recognize the euphoric moments when ideas and decisions come effortlessly. It's a kind of magic that loosens us up and lets us perform at our peak. Athletes call it being in "the zone" and psychologists call it "flow." But athletes who overtrain and students who cram too hard often find that zone of peak performance to be elusive. The trick is to find that delicate balance between complete choreography and pure inspiration. (p 179)

If you're the master of your own destiny, you'll have the self-confidence to take risks. Yes, you'll occasionally stumble, but you'll keep reaching for new successes too. (p 180)

The best products and services aspire to the classic design principle "Make simple things simple and complex things possible." (p 214)

"'Fail often to succeed sooner.'" (p 232)

The late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan was the driving force behind the creation of the federation, consisting of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain. His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler of Abu Dhabi and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces is the President of the UAE and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Ruler of Dubai, is the Vice President and Prime Minister. The UAE occupies an area of 82,880 sq km along the south-eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Qatar lies to the west, Saudi Arabia to the south and west, and Oman to the north and east. The capital and the largest city of the federation, Abu Dhabi, is located in the emirate of the same name. The UAE has an estimated population of 4.1 million and a GDP of $ 87.9 billion (2004.).

The UAE has capitalized on its convenient location on the trade routes between Asia and Europe by building a fine tradition of being a good host and trade partner since time immemorial.

Its oil wealth and the hard work of its people headed by the President HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has turned it into a bustling advanced nation with one of the world's highest per capita income within 34 years of its formation. Although the UAE's GDP is highly dependent on oil, the country has recently begun reform programs to diversify its economy with a focus on tourism, services and real estate development.

Today, the UAE is at the center stage of the modern Middle East with around 9.5 percent of the world's proven crude oil reserves and 3.5 percent of natural gas reserves that make it a critically important source of energy.

The UAE is serviced by more than 65 international airlines, and has air links to over one hundred cities in the world.

Economy:
Since the discovery of oil in the UAE more than 30 years ago, the UAE has undergone a profound transformation from an impoverished region of small desert principalities to a modern state with a high standard of living. There are substantial opportunities for doing business in the UAE. The country has an open economy with a high per capita income. It also supports a liberal economy and is committed to free trade, since it's a signatory of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. There are no restrictions on profit transfer or capital repatriation. Import duties are low (4 percent) and in the case of foodstuffs, medicine, agricultural products, and items imported for use in the free zones are non-existent. Labor costs are competitive and corporate tax and personal taxes are nil. In addition every effort is being made to reduce the paperwork involved in establishing a business in the UAE. These factors combined with a strategic, accessible location, an excellent reliable infrastructure and an extremely pleasant and safe working environment promise well for future investment.

Abu Dhabi - Capital of the United Arab Emirates
The city of Abu Dhabi is one of the most modern cities in the world. It is the federal capital of the UAE. Abu Dhabi is the center of government and business life in the UAE, headquarters of the emirate's oil operating companies and the base for embassies. Abu Dhabi has 94 per cent of the country's oil reserves, covers around 87 per cent of the UAE's total land area and is home to 38 per cent of the population.

The architecture of its modern buildings and sky scrapers is the finest in the Middle East. Abu Dhabi's oil wealth has been wisely utilized to encourage a healthy trade and commerce atmosphere other than those related to the oil industry. The promotion of tourism and various tourism related projects will further elevate the status of Abu Dhabi in the region. Large gardens and parks, green boulevards with lush greenery, sophisticated high-rise buildings, state-of-the-art communication services and transport, international luxury hotel chains, rich shopping malls, and cultural centers all contribute to Abu Dhabi's reputation of a business and cultural destination.

Abu Dhabi's long coastline - the shallow waters of the Arabian Gulf, extending from the base of the Qatar Peninsula in the west to the border of the Emirate of Dubai on the north east, was once the world's best waters for pearling. When the pearling industry declined, oil discovery in the offshore oilfields of the Arabian Gulf revived the economy of Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi was also the first Emirate to export oil from the Umm Shaif offshore field in 1962. On the land, it stretches south to the oases of Liwa where some of the world's largest sand dunes can be found, and east to the ancient oasis of Al Ain. This makes Abu Dhabi the largest as well as the most populated of all the other Emirates.

Dubai:
Dubai is the second largest Emirate in the UAE. The city of Dubai is divided by the famous Dubai creek or Khor. This natural harbor, and Dubai's strategic location on the international trading map has made it one of the world's leading trading and commercial centers.

In the 1960's, with the discovery of oil, money started to pour in and Dubai's prominence and prosperity increased. But aware of the risks of oil-dependency, Dubai actively promoted new industrial ventures. The Jebel Ali Free Trade Zone - the fifth largest in the world – which, within a short span of ten years, has attracted over 900 international companies that include global giants.

Dubai's attractiveness not only lies in its trade. Like the rest of the UAE, it has also been actively promoted as a tourist destination.

Sharjah:
Sharjah is situated between Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah interrupted by the small enclave of Ajman. Sharjah is known as the cultural capital of the UAE. It is the headquarters for the UAE Authors' and Writers' Union.

Ajman:
The Emirate of Ajman is situated on the coast of the Arabian Gulf, extending over a distance of 16 km, between the Emirates of Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain. The area of the emirate is 259 square kilometers, equivalent to 0.3 percent of the country's total area, excluding the islands.

The town of Ajman, the capital of the Emirate, lies on the coast of the Arabian Gulf. The port of Ajman is located along a natural creek (Khor) which penetrates the town.

Umm Al Quwain:
Umm Al Quwain is situated between Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah on the West coast. The traditional occupation of this Emirate has been fishing and date cultivation.

Umm Al Quwain's attraction lies in its long clean beaches, an enclosed lagoon and public horse riding stables. Located 50 kilometers south of Umm Al Quwain is Falaj Al Mualla, the agricultural part of the Emirate. Seneyah Island, one kilometer away from the town of Umm Al Quwain, is a natural reserve for a large number of bird species as well as deer and Al Qaram (mangrove) trees.

Ras Al Khaimah:
Ras Al Khaimah is the northern most Emirate of the UAE. Its history extends into antiquity. Archeological excavations reveal that a settlement with an advanced civilization that carried on trade with the Indian sub-continent existed in this region.

The sea around Ras Al Khaimah too abounds in tuna fish. The mountains have enabled the set up of stone quarries and a cement factory. Also the oilfield of Saleh has boosted up the revenues of the Emirate.

Fujairah:
Fujairah holds a unique position in the UAE. It is the only Emirate that lies on the eastern side of the UAE, along the Gulf of Oman, while all the six other Emirates are along the Arabian Gulf.

Fujairah's main economic activities in the past were fishing and agriculture. Pearl fishing was non-existent because the waters of the Gulf of Oman were much deeper and colder than the Arabian Gulf, not suitable for the growth of pearl oysters.

The Fujairah port is an important port for container liners and for the world's largest livestock shipping companies which have set up their main holding station for sheep and cattle for the entire Arabian Peninsula here.

Its clean beaches, the numerous water sports like swimming, yachting, water surfing and deep sea fishing attract tourists all round the year. For more information on UAE, visit http://www.uaeinteract.com

I call it the "Mr Orange Tactic":

Click Here to Listen Now.

If you'd prefer to download and lsiten in your own time - Click Here to download the mp3 recording.

I look forward to your comments, let me know what you think!

Abundant regards,

James.

What is “entrepreneurship”? I believe the definition is well understood and that most people would be able to identify it when they see it. However, the term seems to have been bandied about quite frequently in recent years.

One problem is with self-classification. People are not good at describing or classifying themselves. Typically, an individual describes himself as he would like to be perceived – not as he actually is perceived. This phenomenon applies to “entrepreneurship” as well. When one proclaims himself as being such-and-such, I tend to let the evidence make the determination. A reporter once asked a great football coach about the poor record of his team, given the immense talent. The coach’s response was, “we are what we are”.

In terms of “entrepreneurship” I have observed a great deal of misclassification. Entrepreneurship implies a creative thinker in terms of business and commerce and one who is a risk taker. In actuality, I have seen very few risk takers among those self anointed as “entrepreneurs”. Today’s entrepreneurs typically take high salaries and assume little risk. When one venture fails, they seem to easily move on to the next high paying entrepreneurial opportunity.

Part of the problem is the environment. The space of innovation and creative thought is surreal. In it, creative thinkers, speculators, idealists, and others mingle easily. Those who enjoy risk and are adrenaline junkies can also find a happy home there. But that does not qualify those individuals as entrepreneurs.

So what is an entrepreneur? That is an article for another time. For now, I’ll just quote a Supreme Court justice, “I know it when I see it”.

Take the guy at the corner pizza shop. He takes out a loan for $40k for a pizza oven, spends another $25k on rehabbing a storefront, and has no choice but to make the business work. He puts a lot on the line, relatively speaking, and is willing to take the risk that he can make great pizza. Now that is my idea of an entrepreneur.

David Heinemeier Hansson (from Ruby on Rails fame) has a very healthy perspective on making money online which is often lost when running circles around buzz words and reading popular press articles speculating Microsoft acquiring Yahoo for billions of dollars.

Making money online by setting up your own startup and giving a well thought out shot might be a lot less magical, yet still as rewarding as getting those billions would be. Aim high, but it's healthy to remember that there's more to life than Wired's front cover. Well, at least to some =)

When I left Zillow, I wrote down some simple goals for myself:

1. Become a well-known blogger
2. Have a successful startup in a year
3. Get in shape and Lose 40 pounds

And here's what I've done to work at those:

• Goal #1: Blog
  • Started this blog. Recently bought zealoustiger.com - there's nothing on there yet, I'm trying to figure it out. Stay tuned. :)
  • Setup my girlfriend with her blog: www.jpharm.wordpress.com
  • Setup and starting to blog on EggSprout: www.eggsprout.com/blog
• Goal #2: Startup
  • Incorporating the company.
  • Learned RoR. Awesome language. It makes coding so much fun.
  • Networking, networking, networking.
  • Coding, coding, coding.
  • The stealth site is now up. www.eggsprout.com
• Goal #3: Get in shape
  • I've kept up the 3 mile run/day. It's starting to get easier now.
  • Been eating less and healthier - it's way harder than it sounds.
  • Lost 20 pounds already. That's 50% to the goal!

Everyone asks me how much I work. You can see my day's hourly breakdown in the one month recap, and it hasn't changed since then. Still about 12-13 hours of work a day, 7 days a week. But seriously, when you're working for yourself, it isn't work at all. I'm learning SOO much, having so much fun, and lovin' it.

"To spend one year as a tiger is better than to live forever as sheep"

A bootstrapped search start-up launches its product and then raises $600,000 in a seed round.  Quick write-up on TechCrunch.

Majority of those 330 employees would be laid off with partial pay. According to the company, the exact number of employees involved is disclosed after consultation with Labor Inspectorate officials.

As manufacturing volumes fluctuate significantly, Elcoteq's policy has been to maintain extensive flexibility in its workforce. Using the option of compulsory holiday with partial pay maintains the capability of upgrading volumes at short notice while at the same time reducing costs, explained Minna Aila, the director of investor relations and corporate responsibility 

The company said in March that it has lost more than half a billion kroons in the quarter. Last year the company closed its plants in Finland and Mexico and transferred some jobs to Tallinn. In February Elcoteq sold its plant in St. Petersburg.

Source: BBN

The difference in beer prices compared to Germany is due to the excise duty: it is four times higher in Estonia, Noop said.

According to Noop, that difference in excise duty between Germany and Finland is ten folded. Excise duty in Czech Republic is on the same level as in Germany, Noop added.

Source: BBN

Eesti Päevaleht writes that according to Eurostat, in 2005 Estonian agricultural companies had between 0.6 and 1 million kroons in fixed assets per agricultural employee. Latvia and Lithuania had less than 0.4 million kroons in fixed assets per agricultural employee.

While added value per agricultural employee was 135,000 kroons in Estonia, the figure in Latvia was 84,000 and in Lithuania 76,000 kroons.

Source: BBN

Perseverance
"If at first you don't succeed, try and try again".  That old quote says it all really, there will be plenty of times where you fail in your entrepreneuristic endeavours but a good entrepreneur will take all he can from the failure and give it another go.

Confidence
If you don't have full confidence in your own abilities and ideas you are likely to fail.  Confidence in yourself comes from trusting your knowledge and ability, which in itself comes from spending time expanding your knowledge and developing your abilities.  Personal development leads to trust which leads to confidence.  simple really! :)  To have full confidence in your ideas you must know every detail inside out by spending time researching them fully.

Ability to take risks
Sometimes in life you will come across opportunities which may seem too good to be true.  Most of the time they are but every now and then it could be a potential goldmine with the right person willing to take the risk with it.  Aside from these "golden opportunities" just getting out of bed one day and deciding to become an entrepreneur is a great risk in itself and one which most of us don't take.

Not afraid of hard work
Being an entrepreneur is hard work, plain and simple.  The responsibility is fully on your shoulders and you must be willing to do whatever it takes to become successful.  This is another area I think puts off a lot of people from going into business for themselves.

Creativity
Creativity covers many areas like coming up with original ideas or thinking different ways around common problems.  I don't think this attribute is as important as the others but it certainly helps.
Like I said, this is just a short list of a few attributes I personally think are important to entrepreneurs.  The good thing is that it doesn't really matter if you don't have them all just yet as I believe anyone can learn/develop them with the right amount of effort.

But in the spirit of symmetry here’s a few contradictions you’ll never find:

Bias for doing over planning 

Bias for speed over perfection 

Bias for niche over mass market 

Bias for authenticity over spin 

Bias for passion over ability

It pays to have a bias for what you stand for.

Looking at these plans, up close and from a distance, and thinking about the aspirations of the women (and men) in the room and the ambitions of every entrepreneur I meet, I decided that these are prayer flags of a sort after all.

Here are some of the images I captured at yesterday's event:

By the way, notice Christine Herron in one of the photos... now we know where First Round Capital finds its deals.

So here's the question. If you had to do an evaluation and mention a venture capital firm that comes at the top of your mind, for their clarity in thought, attitude, business sense, and at the speed at which they went about doing things, who would it be?

Leave a note in the comment.

• Janet B of Organized Assistant provides some great free online tools that are quick and easy to use.

• Kathie of VA Directory provides a simple tip to help you work out who you paid money to when you forgot to write it down!

• MBB of Money Blue Book Personal Finance Blog tells you how to get a virtual business office for cheap or free.

• MBB of Money Blue Book Personal Finance Blog tells you how to obtain business credit for your small business.

• Laurie of Halo Secretarial Services discusses that solo entrepreneurs need to use an assistant to be successful.

• James Lee of Online Business Freedom presents a summary of The Journey of Entrepreneurship Event at USC.

• Fred Black of Fred Black: Internet Business Blog tells you If You Can't Sell Crap-In-A-Box, You Ain't Selling!.

• Richard McLaughlin of Oh, the Places You'll Go gives you info on More Widget Building.

• Cindy King talks about The Phases Of Cultural Communication You Go Through To Increase International Sales.

I’m glad, though, that I didn’t hit the snooze button and roll over – even if it wasn’t really an option. The event was both interesting and inspiring. Held on the lawn at the edge of the Stanford Golf course, Women 2.0 brought together about 125 super smart women and a number of very clever men (hey, what Silicon Valley event do you know where women outnumber men by about 10:1?). Gender aside, everyone engaged with the topic at hand: focusing entrepreneurship on global good.

I had the pleasure of starting the day by interviewing Rachel Payne, a founding member of Google.org and manager of the global development initiative of the search engine’s philanthropic arm. Payne is an impressive young woman, passionate about creating change in the developing world. Focusing efforts on small- and medium businesses in east Africa, Payne recognizes that entrepreneurship is catalyst for economic development in some of the most challenged parts of the world. Through the Believe Begin Become initiative, Payne took Google employees to Tanzinia and Ghana to mentor entrepreneurs entered into Google.org’s business plan competition. The winner; Joseph Tackie, CEO of Meaty Foods Ltd, providing high-quality, healthy packaged meat products.

Not the stuff of most Silicon Valley entrepreneurial events. But then, the women here were not, by and large, building typical technology businesses. Some of the businesses I learned about:

• Erica Douglass successfully sold her web hosting company Simpli Hosting, Inc. last year. After taking time off and appreciating that the sale gave her the resources to erase her debt and live comfortably, Douglass found a passion in helping people get their financial house in order. To that end, she’s producing WealthCamp, a one-day event with a singular, but ambitious goal, Douglass said: giving each participant a clear plan to eliminate debt, build to financial freedom, and pursue their greater interests.
• Allvoices.com is the “anti-editorial" media site with the ambitious goal of giving every citizen of the world a voice in the news. Calling it the “people’s media company,” co-founder Amra Tareen touts “algorithms not editors” as the organizing principle for user-generated news content. “This is an unedited, unfiltered site,” she says. Allvoices enables anyone to initiate a news event and create a dialog around that subject. “If allvoices had been available after 9/11, we would not have gone to war in Iraq,” Tareen asserts. The site is in limited beta now and expects to launch over the  summer.
• Erica Estrada, co-founder and lead engineer of d.light design, paints a picture of an African woman, living in a village without electricity, doing morning chores by the dim light of a kerosene lamp. By the third week of the month, when the kerosene ration has run out, this mother does her chores in the dark. D.light design has a simple mission: provide affordable power and lighting for people living off grid. It’s a big market. Nearly a quarter of the world’s population – 1.6 billion people – have no access to electricity. Estrada and her small team are building “bight, efficient, cheap, durable, fast-charging” lights, bright enough to fully light a 10 by 10 room. The company’s “expensive” model, an LED light providing 80 hours of light on its brightest setting, sells for $25, including the solar recharging panel. “We’re tapping the bottom of the [economic] pyramid. Those people are consumers, too,” Estrada says. “Light improves education, enables people to generate more income. We want to move people into a brighter future.
• Leila Chirayath, founder and CEO of Market for Change, was struck by the numbers of young people who come to the US for their university educations, only to return to their home countries and sub-standard jobs. She identified a talent pool of engineers who are bright and creative developers, but who simply don’t have the resources to build a client base. Chiravath build Market for Change to broker outsource relationships between small developers in developing regions with US companies. “We want to create a broader job market in under-developed market reasons,” Chiravath said. In Kenya, for example, “finding clients is the hardest problem. People in the U.S. irrationally aggregate Africa into one country.”