Sept/Oct 2013

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 Rs. 20

Funding by the Crowd Crazy Business Ideas Roadmap to U.S. Education

RAFIQ MAQBOOL © AP-W WWP

Vice President

JoeBiden Visits

India

Left: U.S. Ambassador to India Nancy Powell (from left), Dr. Jill Biden, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and granddaughter of Mohandas K. Gandhi, Tara Gandhi, at Gandhi Smriti in New Delhi.

Below left: Vice President Biden (left) with President Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi.

Below: Dr. Jill Biden (second from left) gives polio drops to a child at the Health of the Urban Poor program in Kachhpura village in Agra.

RAKESH MALHOTRA

Courtesy Press Information Bureau

Courtesy Press Information Bureau

State Department photo

WWP RAFIQ MAQBOOL © AP-W

Above: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (left) with students at a lab during his visit to Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in July.

Right: Vice President Biden (left) displays a photograph of an Indian Air Force aircraft with Tata group’s former chairman Ratan Tata at a meeting in Mumbai.

Below: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (left) with Vice President Biden during their meeting in New Delhi.

September/October 2013 For notification of new content, write to ezinespan@state.gov

http://span.state.gov

Photographs by STEVE JURVETSON

V O LU M E L I V N U M B E R 5

27

Cultivating Niche Markets Among Ethnic Communities

By M. Scott Bortot

28

Inventions for the Masses

By Carrie Loewenthal Massey

6 8

2 16

Why Innovation is Tough to Define and Even Tougher to Cultivate

Window to the Future

17

From the Blogosphere to the Global Stage

18

20

Small Goes Big

Making Cancer Detection Easier

By Paromita Pain

33

So Crazy It Just Might Work

The Game Plan

By Anne Walls

39

Innovation Cities: The Urban Edge

By Howard Cincotta

By Michael Gallant

Twelve-Month Checklist for Applying: 12 to 10 Months Out

By Don Martin and Wesley Teter

Travel/Innovation

10

TIM THOMPSON

Courtesy Emily McKhann

Blogging

32

Kwanza Fisher: Champion of Change

By Anne Walls

Inspiring Innovation and Revitalizing Communities

By Andrzej Zwaniecki

By Candice Yacono

By Carrie Loewenthal Massey

13

30

Gurbaksh Chahal: Overcoming the Odds

By Steve Fox

By Jason Chiang

10

30

20

Publisher Walter T. Douglas

Editor in Chief David Mees

Editor Deepanjali Kakati Associate Editor Richa Varma Hindi Editor Giriraj Agarwal Urdu Editor Syed Sulaiman Akhtar Copy Editor Shah Md. Tahsin Usmani Editorial Assistant Yugesh Mathur

Art Director Hemant Bhatnagar Deputy Art Directors Qasim Raza, Shah Faisal Khan Production/Circulation Manager Alok Kaushik Printing Assistantt Manish Gandhi Web Manager Chetna Khera

Front cover: Google cofounder Sergey Brin wears Google’s Glass at an event at University of California, San Francisco.

Photograph by Jeff Chiu © APWWP

Research Services Bureau of International Information Programs, The American Library

33 Education

Technology

By Jane Varner Malhotra

Crowdfunding

Googly-EEyed for Google Gadgets © Getty Images

© Getty Images

2

Published by the Public Affairs Section, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 23472000), on behalf of the U.S. Embassy, New Delhi. Printed at Thomson Press India Limited, 18/35, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad, Haryana 121007. Opinions expressed in this 44-page magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.

Articles with a star may be reprinted with permission.

Those without a star are copyrighted and may not be reprinted.

Contact SPAN at 011-23472135 or editorspan@state.gov

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TECHNOLOGY

By JANE VARNER MALHOTRA

2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

PAUL SAKUMA © AP-WWP

H Peep into the future with these hi-tech Google gizmos.

eavily-trafficked U.S. Highway 101 speeds through one of California’s most populous corridors, along the bay between San Francisco and San Jose through tech mecca Silicon Valley. So perhaps it’s no surprise to spot a futuristic vehicle or two merge onto the 101 for a test drive. The latest to hit the roadways is turning heads, though: Google’s selfdriving car.

Essentially a souped-up version of a regular car, the Google car uses remote sensing technology called LIDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, to read information about the surrounding environment and respond accordingly. Mounted on the roof of the car, the LIDAR device sends light beams out to track and interpret moving and stationary objects such as pedestrians, other vehicles and stop signs. With hundreds of thousands of test kilometers already traversed, the autonomous car fleet rides on California highways—including the 101—with official permission from the state authorities since September 2012. The technology has been under development for over five years, supported by challenge contests offered by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Left: Google cofounder Sergey Brin demonstrates Google’s Glass at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco.

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 3

Photograph courtesy Google

“

Above: Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt (from left), CEO Larry Page and cofounder Sergey Brin in a self-driving car.

through the traffic light, then got on to the on-ramp, got onto the highway, and drove at a normal speed, going smoothly like a human might, not jerking suddenly or slamming on the accelerator.

4 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

© AP-WWP/Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles STEVE JURVETSON/Courtesy Flickr

It went safely

bar worn over the ears and across the brow. The side or “arm” of the device houses a touch pad and a small forward-facing video camera. The device does not have any keyboard and is managed through voice control. Users tap the arm to switch between screen images, which might display news headlines, photos, Twitter feeds or driving directions. Instead of an earpiece, Google Glass uses bone conduction to transmit sound through the skull, sending the vibrations to the ear from the inside of the device arm.

Currently the device is in prototype stage, with early adopters winning the opportunity to purchase Glass through hackathon competitions, developer conferences or a Twitter “If I Had Glass” contest. Google developers continue to work out usability kinks, but the concept of a hands-free computing device has the technology industry scrambling to design applications for what may be the format of the future.

Marvin Ammori, CEO at Silica Labs, a Glass platform and app-developing company, believes the new wearable computer may revolutionize future technology. “Anything that can be done more easily hands-free will be affected,” he says. From surgeons to mechanics to drivers, the possible applications are endless. For now, he compares Google Glass to the iPhone before apps, an amazing gadget with a lot of potential. “Once the software is developed, it becomes indispensible.”

Jane Varner Malhotra is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.

Self-Driving Car Test: Steve Mahan http://goo.gl/cbisq

What we’re driving at http://goo.gl/Kncf

Above left: Google’s self-driving car on a test drive in California.

Left: A screen capture of what a driverless car sees is shown in this handout from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles. The department issued Google America’s first license to test self-driving cars on public streets in May 2012.

http://goo.gl/ELDed

Go Online

Above: In this combination of images made from Google’s Project Glass video, the viewer looks through an early prototype of Google’s Internet-connected glasses. It gives directions, lets the user video chat, shop and do everything else one would need a handheld gadget to accomplish.

Self-Driving Cars for Testing Are Supported by U.S. LIDAR http://goo.gl/bg3pbK

Google Glass http://goo.gl/PvzgDE

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Thomas Hawk/Courtesy Flickr

© AP-WWP/Google

When developer friends at Google invited Haitham Hindi, an engineer from Menlo Park, to come for a ride in the driverless car two years ago, his expectations were low.

“I thought we’ll go to a parking lot on the Google campus, they’ll have a few cones, and they’ll show me how the car can do a figure eight or something,” explains Hindi. When his friends said they would be hopping on the 101 to drive 16 kilometers south to San Jose, Hindi assumed they meant that a person would drive on the highway to a testing ground or parking lot in San Jose, where the car would then take over. Nope!

“It went safely through the traffic light, then got on the on-ramp, got onto the highway, and drove at a normal speed, going smoothly like a human might, not jerking suddenly or slamming on the accelerator,” he says. An override button near the steering wheel allows for human intervention if needed, but for the most part, the car handled itself like a pro, even on the 101, leaving Hindi surprised and impressed.

Google aims to release their technology commercially within the next five years. Even today, an increasing number of car models offer innovations stemming from research into self-piloted vehicles, with collision avoidance features like lane-keeping assistance and autonomous braking. With worldwide annual traffic fatalities numbering in the millions, and human error the number one cause of auto accidents, many hope that self-driving cars will improve highway safety.

Another product under development at Google is Glass.

The lightweight gadget includes a small clear screen on a

Why

Innovation is Tough to Define and Even Tougher to Cultivate

Photographs © Getty Images

nnovation: It’s something everyone is in favor of, everyone likes the idea of, yet no one really understands it, according to Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach. Werbach moderated a panel on the topic at the recent Wharton Economic Summit 2013 held in New York City, during which he challenged the participants to define innovation, talk about its relationship to entrepreneurship, and explain what is needed to nurture it. He noted that innovation is essential for companies to grow, and that it is transformative.

In response to a question about whether innovation is necessarily related to new technology and big breakthroughs, Lady Barbara Judge, chairman of the United Kingdom’s Pension Protection Fund, defined innovation as either “using something new, or something known, but in a different way, different time or a different place.”

To illustrate the latter, she spoke of two men who are bringing car sharing, a concept popularized most notably by the Nasdaq-traded company Zipcar, to India in the guise of a company called Zoom. “It is not new technology but somebody saw it, used it, did it in a

different place, in a different time and it’s really very innovative,” she said of the fledgling firm.

George Damis Yancopoulos, president of [New York-based] Regeneron Laboratories and chief scientific officer of Regeneron Pharmaceutical, defined innovation as “an approach...that addresses a major imminent want or need that people have, [something] they know they want or need or that they will want or need once we provide it.” He pointed out that innovation isn’t always easy to spot. “A lot of things get hyped as innovation but ultimately...they’re not really that innovative because they’re not all that useful.”

Yancopoulos put his definition of innovation in the context of the industry in which he works—biotechnology—reminding the audience and fellow panelists that at the turn of the millennium, the sequencing of the genome was being hailed as a great innovation.

“A lot of people thought that was going to change everything,” he said. “The problem was that [for] the people who really knew about the challenges in providing new treatments for diseases, it was just an incremental step.”

key e h t are t a h W nts e i d ? e ingr novation , new n for i education Is it logy or ip? o h techn preneurs entre 6 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

From Knowledge@Wharton, April 30, 2013. Copyright © 2013 Knowledge@Wharton.

All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States.

Key ingredients for innovation also include entrepreneurship and execution, pointed out John Rogers, executive vice president of [New York City-based] Goldman Sachs. “There’s probably an oversupply of innovation,” said Rogers.

“It’s the execution that makes a difference.”

With that distinction in mind, Goldman Sachs made changes to its foundation five years ago to focus more on program-driven initiatives like 10,000 Women, which offers a business education to females in underserved places of the world. The program’s curriculum and business model provides women with mentorship and teaches critical business skills such as planning and negotiating. The program now successfully operates in 22 countries. “As innovative as the program is, it’s no substitute for the entrepreneurship of the women themselves,” Rogers noted.

“Goldman Sachs had nothing to do with the innate skills or the capabilities of those women.”

Education’s role Education is also critical for innovation and entrepreneurship, the panelists

Wharton Economic Summit 2013 http://goo.gl/ETgMBy ‘

How to Manage Innovation http://goo.gl/h4uEK

agreed, adding that greater emphasis is needed on areas that the U.S. school system doesn’t currently focus on, and a more enlightened approach to teaching children about failure. Judge said that the United States can no longer afford to ignore the need to educate engineers.

“We don’t have enough engineers across the country,” she noted, adding that there is too much attention given in the U.S. to training future financiers. ...She also noted that there is a need to encourage women to become engineers.

“If we don’t educate women [in this area], we are missing a bet.” ***** Based on the experiences of 10,000 Women and another Goldman Sachssponsored program, 10,000 Small Businesses, Rogers agreed that entrepreneurship is not a learned skill, but he believes that schools have a role to play in fostering it. “I know that we can’t just teach it,” he said. “We can give skills that help to enhance it, to help move to the next stage, but the determination and the absolute pervasive optimism about possibilities are innate.”

It’s critical that schools learn how to channel natural, innovative entrepreneurs into places where they can execute and create, he added.

A characteristic that innovators and entrepreneurs share, Dintersmith noted, is their lack of fear, and their understanding of the importance of failure.

“Success is key, but it’s quite possibly the case that you can’t succeed unless you understand failure and every aspect of it and you’re comfortable with it.” *****

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INNOVATION

The key ingredients

Looking at innovation on a larger level and the critical role of entrepreneurship, Ted Dintersmith, a partner in Charles River Ventures [which has offices in Massachusetts and California], put forth the supposition that the single biggest factor that has improved the world over the past two millennia is the U.S. innovation ecosystem. He pointed out that in the 50 or so years it has been in existence, some $500 billion has been invested.... He added that 11 percent of the private sector workforce in the U.S. and 21 percent of the U.S. GDP are a result of venture-backed startups. “The single biggest source of global competitiveness, improving productivity, improving quality of life is due to what entrepreneurs are doing every day,” said Dintersmith.

Government has a key role to play, according to Jay Schnitzer, former director of the Defense Sciences Office, and must become more innovative and more supportive of it. Schnitzer added that while there may be no formal department of innovation or innovation czar in the United States, DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—is actually an innovation engine for the federal government. “In fact, I would argue that DARPA’s product is innovation,” said Schnitzer of the agency, the arm of the U.S. Department of Defense charged with the development of new technologies for use by the military. *****

Go Online

He cited his company’s discovery of a new kind of medicine to address disease mediators as a genuine example of innovation. The medicine was first tested on an “orphan disease,” one that afflicts only a few hundred people.

Yancopoulos noted that the medicine was innovative because it addressed the needs of those patients, giving them enormous relief, yet it was only seen as an innovation when the approach was applied to a more common ailment, macular degeneration, which robs elderly people of their vision. *****

Smart Heat-Blocking Glass

Window to the Text by JASON CHIANG, photographs by DOUG LEVERE

magine a glass window intelligent enough to block heat in the summer, yet allow it to pass through in the winter.

This notion of a “smart” window may soon become a reality, thanks to the breakthrough research of Sarbajit Banerjee, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. Banerjee and his research team have pioneered an innovative window coating that blocks heat when hot and allows it to enter when cold—a potentially game-changing innovation in the ongoing struggle against global climate change.

A graduate of St. Stephen’s College in New Delhi, Banerjee arrived in the United States at the age of 21 to continue his doctoral and postdoctoral studies at Stony Brook University and Columbia University in New York.

Shortly after, he was recruited to the University at Buffalo in 2007 to further his work as a solid-state chemist and materials scientist. It was here that Banerjee honed his research to focus on materials that undergo phase transitions.

I

Below: Sarbajit Banerjee’s chemistry lab.

Below right: Banerjee (second from left) and his team of researchers at the lab.

Below far right: Banerjee (left) at work with a fellow researcher.

Banerjee refers to these materials as being “chameleon-like,” since some sort of external stimulus drives the materials to switch from one structure to another.

The most common example of a phase transition is when heat causes melting ice to undergo a transition from a solid to a liquid.

After exploring phase transitions in a variety of different materials, Banerjee’s team became particularly intrigued with the compound vanadium oxide because of its unique interaction with radiated heat. Through research, Banerjee discovered that high temperatures caused the compound’s crystalline structure to change from one that is transparent to heat to one that actually reflects it.

When formed as thin nanowires, the vanadium oxide could be directly applied as a coating on glass. The result: a “smart” window capable of reflecting heat at high temperatures instead of allowing it to pass through the glass. Conversely, in colder temperatures, the coating remains transparent and allows both light and heat through

MIT Technology Review named Sarbajit Banerjee as one of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35.

8 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

Future Banerjee is currently in the process of licensing his heat-blocking window coating to industrial partners in the United States. He also has a partnership with Tata Steel in Mumbai to explore how to use the coating to deflect heat from the corrugated steel roofs in India and other parts of the developing world.

As he works to make these materials commercially available, Banerjee predicts that it will cost just 50 cents per square foot—much cheaper than the expensive tinted windows that also block out natural sunlight.

The exciting progress of Banerjee’s innovative “smart” windows has not gone unnoticed by his scientific peers.

In 2012, MIT Technology Review named Banerjee as one of the world’s top innovators under the age of 35.

Judging from his excitement in exploring new materials, Banerjee is far from finished in his quest to make the world a cooler place.

Jason Chiang is a freelance writer based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

Go Online Sarbajit Banerjee

What drew you to research in the United States? What were the biggest adjustments to make when you arrived?

I was attracted by the research infrastructure and the open intellectual culture of the U.S. The general qualities of U.S. academia and research environment that I’ve come to appreciate over the years include openness to new ideas, a healthy irreverence for tradition, and the tremendous opportunities provided to young people. The biggest adjustment for me, having been born in Kolkata and having gone to college in Delhi, was getting used to living in American suburbia.

The cold snowy winters in New York also took a lot of getting used to.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered along the way in your research?

The U.S. research environment, while being extremely open to new ideas, is also very competitive. The biggest challenge one faces is securing the resources—funding and equipment—to pursue new ideas. We have been fortunate to secure some federal, philanthropic and industrial support, but it is a constant struggle to ensure that there are enough resources available to fund students and to pursue new research directions.

What advice would you give to those aspiring to follow your path in materials science?

http://goo.gl/sf7ft

35 Innovators Under 35 http://goo.gl/sjNk2w

Climate Change: Basic Information http://goo.gl/77ncmj

Sarbajit Banerjee shared some of his experiences in an interview with SPAN.

1. Ignore traditional disciplinary boundaries as much as possible—our urgent technological challenges today are across disciplines.

2. Try to talk to people from all walks of life—it never ceases to surprise me how much one can learn from a casual conversation.

3. Passion and interest can only take you places if you are willing to put in the hard work.

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 9

SCIENCE

to warm a building’s interior.

Banerjee’s work could not have come at a better time in the ongoing fight against global climate change.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Earth’s average temperature is projected to rise another 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius over the next hundred years.

In hot climates around the world, billions of dollars are spent every summer on air conditioning to cool homes, factories and vehicles, while releasing hundreds of millions of tons of harmful carbon dioxide into the Earth’s atmosphere. A 2012 report published by Transparency Market Research valued the global air conditioning market at $98.2 billion, with projected growth reaching $178.4 billion by 2018. With his heat-blocking window coating, Banerjee says his ultimate goal is to “transform windows to adapt dynamically to the external environment instead of being static, immutable structures” that are “gluttonous” in their energy consumption.

Interview with Sarbajit Banerjee

Courtesy Emily McKhann

The Motherhood’s client management team with Emily McKhann (second from right, front row) at their Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania office.

Blogosphere

From the

to the

Global Stage

By CARRIE LOEWENTHAL MASSEY

10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

http://goo.gl/2LhrTx

The Motherhood http://themotherhood.com/

Go Online

A Google Hangout with Secretary of State John Kerry

Shot@Life http://www.shotatlife.org/blogust/

Emily McKhann

E The Motherhood

galvanizes mom bloggers for international change.

mily McKhann didn’t necessarily think of herself as a “mommy blogger.” But she’s certainly glad she became one, considering the journey it set her upon.

A mommy blogger is someone who does what the title would suggest: she blogs about day-to-day life as a mom.

According to Mashable.com, in 2012 there were 3.9 million mom blogs in North America alone, as reported in a study by Scarborough Research. Five hundred of these blogs have significant readerships, the report said.

McKhann started blogging in 2004 while caring for two small daughters. She had spent her career in corporate and government communications, leading public relations firms in Washington, D.C. and New York City, and serving as New York City’s commissioner for the United Nations. With her friend and former communications colleague, Cooper Munroe, McKhann created a mommy blog to share her life as a parent, not knowing she would become part of a powerful Internet trend.

Blog gone wild, and a business emerges McKhann quickly realized the influence of the new role she had taken on as a blogger. In 2005, when hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast region of the United States, McKhann and Munroe invited readers to donate provisions and post what they had to donate in the blog comments. They would then do their

“best to let people in the Gulf Coast know about their offers so they could connect one-to-one to receive packages directly,” says McKhann.

“It became a phenomenon,” she says.

“Our blog became a place for people to post what they needed and we just woke up to the power of the mom blogging community. …We realized we could use the Web to connect to people living in temporary housing and that we didn’t need a big agency in the middle.”

“Blown away” by the response they received from women wanting to help the Katrina victims, McKhann and Munroe founded The Motherhood in 2006. The organization serves as a social media agency and digital public relations firm that connects American nonprofit organizations and consumer brands with what McKhann considers to be their most important audience: moms. The Motherhood reaches these moms primarily through partnerships with mommy bloggers that have strong readerships and robust social media networks.

“Moms initiate conversations around the dinner table and are such catalysts for action within their families and communities, or across the globe if that’s where their interest lies,” McKhann says.

One of The Motherhood’s main projects is indeed global, as they work with the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign to support delivering vaccines to communities in need around the world.

As part of the effort, The Motherhood

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BLOGGING

https://twitter.com/EmilyMcKhann

Courtesy Emily McKhann © AP-WWP/PRNewsFoto/Scarborough Research

Left: Emily McKhann (left) and Cooper Munroe discuss a client project.

helped organize a blog relay where every day in August its network of mom bloggers wrote about Shot@Life.

This year, for every comment these bloggers receive on their posts, Walgreens pharmacy has pledged to donate $20. The amount is the cost of immunizing a child with essential lifesaving vaccines. Walgreens pharmacy, with headquarters in Illinois, has committed to donate up to $200,000.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also recognized the impact of McKhann’s work on connecting moms to global issues. He invited her to participate in his first Google Hangout, in May. She was among five people who engaged with Secretary Kerry in a conversation about the impact of American foreign policies. McKhann asked Secretary Kerry which global issues he thinks should resonate most with moms, to which he answered the environment, health and education, and security.

McKhann hopes to continue to expand The Motherhood’s global reach and its impact on these issues by incorporating mom bloggers from overseas, including India.

“It would be groundbreaking to create ways for mom bloggers in the U.S. to collaborate with mom bloggers around the world and work on issues they care about,” she says.

Her advice for entrepreneurs: Expect the unexpected and grow with it.

As McKhann’s blogger-turned-entrepreneur experience shows, career paths don’t always stick to their original plans. McKhann encourages other business developers to stay flexible and expect to “pivot” along the way.

“Whatever your business plan says, know that conditions will change and you will grow and change to meet those challenges,” she says. “Whatever plans you have, your success will be different than what you anticipated and that’s the beauty of it.”

Carrie Loewenthal Massey is a New York City-based freelance writer.

Innovation and Revitalizing

Inspiring

By MICHAEL GALLANT

Above: Venture for America fellow Nihal Shrinath (center) with his team.

Right: Andrew Yang, founder and CEO of Venture for America.

Through Venture for America, college graduates bring entrepreneurial energy to cities in need.

n 1989, the nonprofit organization Teach For America began operating on a simple yet compelling premise: find some of the United States’ most promising recent college graduates, train them as teachers, and place them in the country’s highestneeds school districts. Now 24 years later, a new, independent organization is pushing that same model in a very different but highly promising direction— entrepreneurship.

“We recruit and train talented young people who want to become entrepre-

neurs,” says Andrew Yang, founder and CEO of Venture for America. The nonprofit organization trains its fellows for five weeks at Brown University in Rhode Island before placing them at nascent companies in cities like Providence, Cincinnati and New Orleans—communities that are often in need of the economic adrenaline new companies and top talent can bring. “Our fellows work with companies in these cities to make them prosper and expand,” says Yang, “and in so doing, they help the cities themselves,

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NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION

Photographs courtesy Venture for America

Communities

Photographs courtesy Venture for America

and learn firsthand the skills of building a business.”

Geography is key to Venture for America’s philanthropic mission. When top students graduate from American universities, Yang says, they most often cluster in the same few cities and professions—financial services in New York or management consulting in San Francisco, for example—depriving other locales and professions of their creativity and talent.

Venture for America seeks to turn that paradigm on its head.

“It’s helpful to apply talent develop14 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

ment to startups and growth companies in places that aren’t New York and San Francisco in order to spur economic growth,” says Yang. “We want to train young people to build successful businesses, regardless of what city they’re in.”

Just look at Detroit, Michigan. 2012 Venture for America fellow Kathy Cheng graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and turned down a consulting offer in New York in order to work with Venture for America in the aging automotive industrial city. After arriving in Detroit, Cheng began working with a

Top: Venture for America fellows during a work camp.

Above left: Fellows on the lawns at Brown University during a 2012 training camp.

Above: Venture for America’s Class of 2012 celebrate the organization’s first anniversary in Newport, Rhode Island.

Go Online

Venture For America http://ventureforamerica.org

Andrew Yang at TEDxGeorgetown http://goo.gl/fQgbeS

Starting a Teach for America for Entrepreneurs http://goo.gl/AX7An

Above left: Venture for America fellows Max Nussenbaum (from left), Brentt Baltimore, Ethan Carlson, Ovik Banerjee and Sara Cullen work on a training camp challenge.

startup called DoodleHome, which helps designers streamline their creative process. Through Cheng’s hard work, the company has expanded exponentially, Yang says, and attracted significant financial investment as well.

Venture for America recently honored Mike Mayer, also a member of the organization’s first class of fellows, for his efforts in New Orleans. Not only did Mayer work full-time at a blossoming technology company, he also cofounded a nonprofit organization, Startup Effect, that teaches local junior high school students about entrepreneurship. Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, even agreed to advise Mayer and the other Startup Effect cofounders.

“Mike’s work was definitely worth spotlighting,” says Yang. “This fellow went to Wharton, one of the top business schools in the country, and got a lucrative offer from Credit Suisse to go into investment banking on Wall Street. He turned it down to go start a business in New Orleans. It’s a great story.”

Yang is quick to point out that tales of entrepreneurial risk and success in the United States are not limited to graduates of the most prestigious schools. Visit nearly any city across America, he says, and you will see people of all ethnicities and backgrounds starting and running busi-

Left: Fellows Charles Watkins (from left), Jim Kahmann, Barry Conrad and Brian Bosche during a training camp.

nesses. But when it comes to highly visible, technology-based startups in places like Silicon Valley, “it could use some more diversity,” says Yang, laughing.

“That world tends to be pretty male dominated, but entrepreneurship is never a zero sum game,” he continues. “If you have more diversity, some people might think that they would be crowded out of opportunities, but really, there would just be more opportunities overall.”

This is a key theme that Venture for America works hard to promote. “We can provide an on-ramp and training ground for women and underrepresented minorities that might traditionally have a harder time accessing the resources they need when it comes to entrepreneurship,” says Yang.

Their efforts are gaining the organization significant attention, and the buzz isn’t limited to the borders of the United States. “We’ve even been approached by people in India, countries in Scandinavia, and beyond about bringing what we do to other environments,” he says. “It’s great that our organization can serve as a template for something that could be beneficial in countries around the world.”

Michael Gallant is the founder and chief executive officer of Gallant Music. He lives in New York City.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

15

ANDREW LOUIS/Courtesy Flickr

D Gurbaksh Chahal

oes this sound like a formula for enormous success? Come to the United States from India at age 4, speaking almost no English. Grow up in one of the poorer sections of San Jose, California. Experience bullying and discrimination because of the turban you wear as part of your family’s Sikh religion. Drop out of school at 16.

That’s the early life of Gurbaksh Chahal, a multimillionaire entrepreneur who started, built and sold two

How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions,” says the love and support of his tight-knit family helped him overcome many childhood obstacles. Eager to help his family financially but unable to persuade the manager of a fast-food restaurant to hire him, Chahal began buying refurbished printers and reselling them profitably on eBay. A budding entrepreneur, he watched his father trade stocks on a

Overcoming the Odds

Courtesy RadiumOne

By STEVE FOX

Go Online

RadiumOne http://www.radiumone.com/

Gurbaksh Chahal http://about.me/gchahal

Oprah Winfrey interviews Gurbaksh Chahal http://goo.gl/VeLyLd

16 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

Internet advertising businesses by the time he was 25. Now 31, Chahal is again on the cutting edge with a company called RadiumOne he founded in 2009 that has some 250 employees and customers such as Hyundai, Del Monte and Popchips. RadiumOne helps companies use social media technology to target consumers precisely for advertising delivered on digital, mobile and video channels, as well as on Facebook.

Chahal, who described his meteoric business career in an autobiography called “The Dream—

home computer in the late 1990s and noticed that Internet advertising companies—some of them located in San Jose—were wildly popular with investors.

Enlisting his older brother Taj, then 19, to help him, Chahal started his own Internet company, ClickAgents, promoting it as a “performance-based advertising” firm that could measure how many viewers clicked on a customer’s ad. He scoured the Internet for a firm with software that actually could do that, offered the young founder $30,000 he didn’t yet have for the program, and then started coldcalling ad agencies until he found one

The meteoric rise of an Indian American entrepreneur, who dropped out of school at 16 and went on to sell his company to Yahoo for $300 million.

Steve Fox is a freelance writer, former newspaper publisher and reporter based in Ventura, California.

Kwanza Fisher

Champion of Change

By CANDICE YACONO

young entrepreneur in the American Deep South has received recognition from the White House for her efforts to close the academic achievement gap for disadvantaged African American youth.

Kwanza Fisher was selected as a White House Champion of Change for her founding of Neighborhood Mathematica, now Math-Amazing Neighborhoods, which trains volunteer coaches to conduct 10-week intensive math programs that culminate in regional competitions. The coaches work with Atlanta-area kids from grades 1 to 8 after school. In Fall 2011, it reached more than 500 students. The largest city in Georgia, Atlanta’s population is approximately 50 percent African American and data from national math tests showed that just 12 percent of eighth-grade African American boys were performing at grade level in math.

The Champions of Change program was created by President Barack Obama to highlight everyday Americans who are working to better their communities in different ways.

In addition to her White House honors, Fisher is also founding director of Catalyst Achievers, which coaches students in order to prepare them for college.

Catalyst works with students in both primary and secondary school

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and begins by testing each student to learn their personality type and learning style. The organization helps students with many aspects of their academic career, including standardized test scores, preparing for college admission interviews and learning foreign languages. They also work with local nonprofit organizations to help them develop their own academic programs, including workshops, seminars or speaking engagements.

In a panel discussion at the White House, Fisher said her “aha moment” regarding her future business plans happened at about 3 a.m. one night.

“I was driven by the thought of education culture—how do we close education gaps?” she said.

Her solution was to create a culture of education outside the school system, so the child would be immersed in a success mindset that made high standards the norm for them. She said coming to that realization was the catalyst that drove her forward in her business plans: “I think it’s really important to just keep going with your passion—whatever really drives you, ride that wave, even if it keeps you up late, late, late in the night, like it did for me.”

Candice Yacono is a magazine and newspaper writer based in southern California.

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 17

ENTREPRENEURS

willing to pay $30,000 for 30,000 “clicks.”

“Suddenly I was in business,” Chahal wrote in “The Dream.” “That’s how fast things moved.” He then called Web sites that carried ads and offered to split the money with them if they would carry ads the agency had created for its customer.

Many accepted. In a short time, the agency’s customer was happy, the agency was happy, and Chahal had learned an invaluable lesson he recounted in his book: “They had no idea they were dealing with a 16-year-old kid because I presented myself as a serious professional…perception is reality.”

Chahal sold ClickAgents for $40 million, promptly bought his parents new cars and paid off their home mortgage. In 2004, Chahal founded a company called BlueLithium, which was sold to Yahoo! for $300 million. His success has brought him fame and fortune—the high school dropout received an honorary doctorate in commercial science from Pace University in New York and the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2013 in the platform technology category. He has met President Barack Obama, and also has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, who asked him about the discrimination he faced as a child.

“The way I looked at it was, ‘OK, I’m different and I’m willing to accept that.’ ” Chahal told Winfrey. “It really matured me in a way where I used that negative noise as energy in a way to go ahead and find out what my true passion was, what my strengths were.... My dream was I wanted to go ahead and control my own destiny and not be at the whim of someone trying to put me down because of my appearance or who I was.... I wanted to be successful and run my own company.”

Courtesy White House

“I think it’s really important to just keep going with your passion—whatever really drives you, ride that wave, even if it keeps you up late, late, late in the night, liike it did for me.”

Innovative small businesses that break the mold.

So Crazy It Just Might Work JJ CASAS (http://jcasasphotography.com)

By ANNE WALLS

Jellyfish Art http://www.jellyfishart.com

Alex Andon.

E

xquisite jellyfish aquariums you can own. Members-only canine day care. Last minute weddings bought from other people’s cancelled nuptials. Crazy ideas? Maybe. But profitable ones?

Definitely. Welcome to the new wave of small business ideas that are taking the United States by storm. SPAN met three young entrepreneurs who, fueled by drive, imagination, and a huge pile of ingenuity, have turned their dreams into reality. lex Andon always had a fascination with the sea. While getting his bachelor’s degree in biology and environmental science from Duke University in North Carolina, he accumulated a lot of experience building aquariums for all sorts of different sea creatures, including jellyfish. But Andon soon noticed these delicate, ephemeral organisms couldn’t survive in a traditional tank because they would get caught in the filtration system. “So I designed a small affordable tank that was able to house jellies,” he says.

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18 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

“Then I started selling it online and it quickly became very popular.” He makes it sound easy, but Andon was smart about the way he parlayed his idea into a viable business.

“The first step was designing the tank and acquiring a source of jellyfish,” he says. “I experimented with a lot of different designs in my garage and built a breeding and holding tank system. I called people all over the world and eventually found companies able to supply jellyfish. Then I opened an online store and began selling them.” But that wasn’t how his portal, Jellyfish Art, became a successful business idea. He realized that to grow his business, he needed some start-up capital. So he started a Kickstarter campaign on the crowdfunding Web site and asked for $3,000.

Andon’s innovative campaign raised more than $162,000, giving him enough funds to grow…and then some. kyBride founder and CEO Lauren Byrne had a similar experience of starting small and seeing her ingenious idea explode in a big way. She was a student at Darden Business School who had also been a bridesmaid in many of her friends’ weddings. When a good friend had to cancel her wedding and lost a huge amount of money doing so, Byrne wondered why she couldn’t sell canceled weddings to new couples who could use the wedding ceremony slots, catering arrangements and decorations of the cancelled wedding, thereby saving money and also escaping the stress of organizing everything. While SkyBride initially started off by helping couples who call

S

Courtesy Jeff Kolodny Photography

y

of mouth alone,” Frost says. “To this day, we have yet to spend a single dollar on advertising or PR. This frees up resources to invest in building a better facility and providing a higher level of service.”

One of the biggest reasons these entrepreneurs succeeded is because they have been able to tap into an unusual market segment or an area where needs were not being completely met. “Selling our first cancelled wedding was really exciting,” Gates says. “We were able to prove that the business model works and at the same time, help out a really great couple.” When asked for advice for other aspiring entrepreneurs, Frost offers: “Don’t be afraid to cash in on a lifetime’s worth of personal relationships and social networking. Your personal networks are a free and powerful incubator for the virality of your idea.”

Andon offers one more important piece of advice for starting a business based on an untested idea: “Sell before you build.

Make sure you have customers willing to pay for your product before you create it.

And a customer who actually pays for a http://www.skybride.com pre-order of the product (i.e. puts their money where their mouth is) is 10 times Lauren Byrne (right) at a better than a customer who just says they wedding in Palm Beach, Florida. would buy the product.”

The entrepreneurs have overcome many hurdles, but the biggest one seems to be love for Leo and passion for dogs into a the self-doubt that plagues many would-be business startup.” business owners. Frost has a maxim for Ruff Club, their New York City-based canine day care and membership club, has that: “The impulse that says, ‘If it doesn’t already exist, there’s a reason for that’ is been open a little under a year and they the enemy of innovation.” Take it from already have a three-month waiting list.

“We made a bet early on that if we built a the mouths of these three innovators. compelling new concept in a buzzy part of town, folks would learn about us Anne Walls is a writer and filmmaker based through social media, free press and word in Los Angeles, California.

SkyBride

off their weddings, it now also offers solutions to those looking for fullyplanned or discount weddings. “Things really started to take off for us when we got some great press coverage,” says SkyBride COO, and Byrne’s business school classmate, Heather Gates. “People began to jump onboard and see that it was actually possible to find savings, even when it came to a wedding.”

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Ruff Club http://ruffclub.com

SMALL BUSINESSES

Alexia Simon Frost (left) and Danny Frost of Ruff Club with their dog, Oscar.

JACOB CASS, Just Creative

anny Frost and his wife, Alexia Simon Frost, had a similar personal experience that led to the start of their now-booming canine day care business. “We had experimented with traditional dog day care for Leo and were turned off by it. The places we visited felt impersonal, transactional and tech-backwards, and the whole business model seemed ripe for an update,” Frost says.

Leo is the couple’s 3-year-old miniature Australian Shepherd. “Around the same time, Alexia was ready for a career change. We looked at ways to channel our

Innovation Cities:

By HOWARD CINCOTTA

TRAVIS CONKLIN

What are the qualities that make these five American cities more innovative and creative than others?

20 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

he Los Angeles metropolitan area is America’s largest in area at 87 million square kilometers, and second only to New York in population. Yet, the number of patents it generated was unimpressive until a recent burst of creativity saw them jump 50 percent in the past five years, vaulting the city into the top ranks of U.S. innovation centers.

More international students, about 8,600, attend the University of Southern California than any other U.S. institution of higher learning.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena is the primary U.S. center for robotic exploration of the solar system, and it operates the Mars Rovers.

T

Walt Disney Concert Hall, the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is one of the most acoustically sophisticated concert halls in the world.

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 21

TRAVEL/INNOVATION

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s global connections and competition increase, traditional measures of success—size and output—have increasingly given way to such qualities as creativity and innovation. But how do you measure an elusive quality like innovation?

One way to quantify innovation: the number of patents for unique inventions that a metropolitan area has generated, whether in total or per capita. In the United States, for example, 20 metropolitan areas generate 63 percent of its patents; and just five urban centers account for 30 percent of all U.S. patents.

But patent numbers are only a starting point. What are the qualities a city must possess to encourage a culture of innovation?

That becomes a more complex equation, and while there is no one-size-fitsall solution, highly-ranked innovation cities share some common denominators: •They are home to major universities and research organizations.

•They have a culture of dynamism and great infrastructure to attract and sustain diverse companies—from high-tech corporations to start-ups.

•They also recognize that a vibrant cultural scene and appealing lifestyle attract younger creative populations—from music, museums and theater to bicycle lanes and open public spaces.

SPAN takes a look at the top five American innovation cities, compiled from 2ThinkNow-Innovation Cities, Brookings Institution, Forbes Magazine and 24/7 Wall Street.

Los Angeles

The Urban Edge

TRACIE HALL/Courtesy Flickr KEVORK DJANSEZIAN © AP-WWP

U.S. Navy photo by RICK NAYSTATT

Taking advantage of its year-round sun, Los Angeles has become a green technology pioneer with a novel program that will allow customers with rooftop solar panels to sell their electricity back to the utility company. This Feed-In Tariff initiative is already one of the largest urban solar rooftop programs in the United States.

Hollywood’s film and television industry continues to thrive, but so do other performing arts.

“There are more artists, writers, filmmakers, actors, dancers and musicians living and working in Los Angeles than any other city at any time in the history of civilization,” according to the University of Southern California’s Stevens Center for Innovation.

Among the jewels in the city’s cultural crown: the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, one of the largest art museums in the United States; The J. Paul Getty Museum, whose two locations span the entire history of Western art; and The Music Center performing arts complex, which includes several theaters and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Mars Exploration Rovers http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

Photograph courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

Top: The Getty Center, located in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, is one of two locations of The J. Paul Getty Museum. The center has outdoor sculptures displayed on terraces and in gardens. A separate building contains a research library with over 900,000 volumes and two million photographs of art and architecture.

Above left: Noah Olsman, a University of Southern California student, prepares his team’s autonomous underwater vehicle for a practice run during the annual International RoboSub Competition in San Diego.

22 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

Left center: Workers install solar panels on the roof of the audience bleachers for the Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Left: The Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

oston can claim to be one of America’s most venerable major cities, dating back to its founding by Puritan settlers from England in 1630; it can also claim to be one of the world’s most highly rated innovation cities.

One reason: the Boston metropolitan area, with 4.5 million residents, is home to more than 100 colleges and universities, including Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Boston University alone is the city’s fourth-largest employer.

Boston is replete with museums, galleries, performing arts theaters and music—from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops orchestra to indie rock bands.

Boston has encouraged the development of special zones to attract technology firms and start-ups, notably Kendall Square in Cambridge, close to MIT, and a new Innovation District along the city’s waterfront, which is anchored by District Hall—an eclectic mix of technology labs, art galleries, classrooms and conference spaces subdivided by garagestyle doors. District Hall is among the first freestanding public innovation centers in the world.

JOHN PHELAN/Courtesy Wikipedia

TAFYRN

Boston

B

Boston’s Innovation District

Right top: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is known for its cutting-edge research. In each of the past five years, MIT has had over 100 U.S. patents issued.

Right center: Widener Library at Harvard University. According to the university’s Web site, research activities at Harvard are carried out in the departments of the 13 schools and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and at more than 100 research centers, on campus and around the world.

CHRIS DEVERS/Courtesy Flickr

Left: Amanda Palmer performs with the Boston Pops orchestra (right).

TIM PIERCE/Courtesy Wikipedia

http://www.innovationdistrict.org

Above: The Genzyme Center at Kendall Square in Cambridge. The area is home to many technology firms and start-ups. In 2005, Genzyme was awarded a National Medal of Technology and Innovation for “pioneering dramatic improvements in the health of thousands of patients with rare diseases and harnessing the promise of biotechnology to develop innovative new therapies.”

Above: With 142 research centers and institutes, research is a substantial enterprise at the University of Pennsylvania. As of fiscal year 2012, it had a research budget of $923 million.

Above center: A nine-foot bronze sculpture of inventor, statesman and writer Benjamin Franklin. It was partially funded by the Fire Department and 1.8 million pennies donated by schoolchildren in Philadelphia.

Above: An exhibit sponsored by DesignPhiladelphia.

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Philadelphia 24 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

http://www.barnesfoundation.org/ visit/philadelphia

Photograph courtesy Elf

JOSEPH MOBLEY

MatthewMarcucci/Courtesy Wikipedia

jepsculpture/Courtesy Flickr

R. KENNEDY

Philadelphia

Top: The Barnes Foundation houses hundreds of works by Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern masters in a structure that combines the vision of their original owner Albert Barnes with a contemporary execution.

o single historical figure pervades the spirit of a city as does Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin, whose accomplishments range from discoveries in electricity to establishing the first public lending library.

The center of a metropolitan area of six million inhabitants, Philadelphia does not dominate in any single innovation category. Instead, it has successfully integrated its strength in education—notably the University of Pennsylvania, founded by, guess who?

Mr. Franklin—with growing biotechnology and financial sectors.

The city has transformed America’s first naval shipyard, which closed in the 1990s, into a spacious campus-like setting of 4.8 square kilometers for 130 companies and organizations engaged in manufacturing, technology, and research and development.

Philadelphia has also gained a reputation as a center for graphic and product design, fashion and multimedia art.

Its most recent cultural achievement: a magnificent new gallery for The Barnes Foundation art collection.

Using thematic connections, the gallery mixes paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Seurat, Titian and Picasso, with art from other artistic traditions.

S

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

San Francisco Bay Area

CHRISTOPHER CHAN/Courtesy Flickr Berkeley Lab/Courtesy Flickr

ilicon Valley remains the red-hot center of the digital/Internet technology revolution, attracting an estimated third of the American venture capital being invested in new enterprises and advanced research. The valley is home to such iconic brand names as Apple, Google, Intel, Oracle, eBay and Facebook.

San Francisco also ranks among the leading American cities in mass transit access. “We put transit first, ahead of the passenger car,” says Bridget Smith, director of the city’s Livable Streets program, which aims to increase bicycle, pedestrian and streetcar usage.

These electric trollies, streetcars and light rail systems receive their power from a cityowned hydroelectric facility, lowering net emission levels to just above zero. By making the city even more attractive with paths, open spaces and greenery, San Francisco hopes that 20 percent of all urban travel will take place on bicycles by 2020.

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to many public and private universities including Stanford, in the heart of Silicon Valley, and Berkeley, the flagship of the University of California system. Among its best-known facilities: the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which conducts advanced research in applied physics.

Top left: The James H. Clark Center at Stanford University houses interdisciplinary research in the biological sciences. It is also home to Stanford’s Bio-X Program, which seeks to encourage researchers in the biological sciences to interact with researchers in other fields.

Above center: Students at the 2012 Open House at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Above left: Cable cars in San Francisco.

Below: Silicon Valley attracts an estimated third of the American venture capital being invested in new enterprises and advanced research.

Photograph courtesy Elf

JUSTIN BROWN/Courtesy Flickr

http://www.lbl.gov

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

25

TIM THOMPSON

A

Howard Cincotta is a U.S. State Department writer and editor.

TIM THOMPSON

Startup Seattle http://startupseattle.com EDWARD/Courtesy Flickr

Seattle

FRANK KEHREN/Courtesy Flickr

t four million inhabitants, the Seattle metropolitan area can’t match Los Angeles in size, but it can when it comes to innovation levels and numbers of patents issued annually. Since Microsoft moved to the region in 1979, Seattle, dubbed the Emerald City, has vaulted into America’s top ranks of innovation cities.

Seattle has gained a reputation as a center of technology, innovation—and coffee consumption. In addition to Microsoft, the Seattle area is home to one of the world’s largest coffeehouse chains, Starbucks, and global online retailer Amazon. Other major Seattlebased enterprises: Expedia, TMobile and Nordstrom.

Seattle’s entrepreneurial community is active and growing, aided by Startup Seattle, a collaboration of the city and several technology firms. The city is also promoting innovation hubs, beginning with a district that adjoins the University of Washington campus.

“It’s right there: Innovate, Educate, Build,” Seattle Mayor Michael McGinn said in an interview with geekwire.com. “When you think about how we will compete in a global economy, those are the three categories you want.”

Top far left: The first Starbucks store opened at Seattle’s Pike Place Market in 1971.

Top: The Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.

Above left: As part of its public arts program, the Seattle Arts Commission installed Hammering Man in 1992 at the entrance of the Seattle Art Museum.

Above: The Seattle skyline.

26 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

Cultivating Niche Markets Among Ethnic Communities

By M. SCOTT BORTOT

M Go Online

Courtesy Allied Media Corporation

Allied Media connects clients with diverse ethnic communities.

ostapha Saout wants to reach a small but growing audience. His business, Allied Media Corporation, develops and customizes marketing messages to ethnic groups in America. By targeting advertising to diverse ethnic communities, Allied Media reaches Americans who are often ignored by traditional media agencies.

Saout founded Allied Media in 1998 and started operations out of his home in Virginia. At first, he struggled to find clients. But after the attacks of September 11, 2001, clients recognized the need to communicate with ethnic communities, and Saout and his employees saw an opportunity.

“It dawned on everybody [in his office] that...there was a big lack of understanding of that region and of the people in this country who are Muslims or Arabs,” Saout says.

Soon, the U.S. government, corporations and nongovernmental organizations looked to Saout’s media company to communicate with Arab and Muslim populations in America and around the world. Allied Media’s clients include the U.S. Army, FBI, Western Union, Aramex, the United Nations and the National Security Agency.

Allied Media also marketed the 2010 U.S. Census to both Muslim and Arab American communities. The Census Bureau now translates the census form into several languages, and Saout’s company advertised in media outlets most used by ethnic communities.

A full-service advertising company, Allied Media provides clients a range of services including market research, public relations strategies and video production for television and the Internet.

Saout says his diverse staff knows the intricacies of ethnic markets, both foreign and domestic, as well as which media outlets are best at reaching certain groups.

“If you want mass-market outreach, then you would want to go with a much larger agency that deals in Main Street messaging,” Saout says. But this approach often misses specific ethnic groups. “These messages

cannot just be translated or broadcasted widely in the hopes that some of it will trickle down. It doesn’t work that way.”

“You also need somebody who...knows the sensitivities that will help the client not fall into a negative trap that will backfire and negate the message,” Saout says.

“You have to take a message and make sure that it resonates by taking into account cultural variables.”

Despite having found his niche, Saout says it is a challenge to educate people about his company’s advertising specialty. The Internet has been an indispensable tool to understand his market and promote Allied’s services.

“A lot of people in companies, when they think of ethnic multimedia or minorities, they think only African American or Hispanic, end of story,” he says. In addition to these two markets, Allied Media connects clients with Afghan, Arab, Eastern European, Iranian, Muslim, Somali and South Asian groups across the United States.

“There will be a need for companies like ours to navigate for clients to connect to whatever groups they want to speak with,” Saout says.

Being an immigrant is an advantage. Saout grew up in Morocco, attended the University of Paris X in France, and holds a master’s degree in business administration with a focus on marketing from Seattle University in Washington state. During most of the 1990s, he worked for the television and radio organization Arab Network of America, where he learned about Arab and Muslim American communities across the United States.

Because of this knowledge, Saout is a featured commentator on media outlets including CNN, CBS News, Fox News and National Public Radio.

“Many times you feel that you are helping to build bridges between these players,” Saout says. “That is very rewarding.”

M. Scott Bortot is a staff writer with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Information Programs.

Allied Media Corporation http://www.allied-media.com 27

Inventions for the

Masses

By CARRIE LOEWENTHAL MASSEY

“

Don’t congratulate people for raising money. That was never the goal. The goal is building a successful and meaningful business.

A ”

lways wanted to invent the next great lifechanging gadget? Well, it may be as simple as just creating the vision and then leaving it to Quirky to do the rest.

Quirky is a company that enables what it calls “social product development.” You, or other would-be inventors, submit ideas on the company Web site and the Quirky staff and community of other inventors, collaborators and people interested in product ideas who register on the Web site evaluate their viability. The team selects the products it wants to make, and each week three new ideas come to life.

As a baseline, an inventor who submits an idea earns 4 percent of the profit the product makes. Inventors can earn more if they contribute more to the product development process through participation on the Quirky Web site.

An entrepreneur is born Quirky is the brainchild of Ben Kaufman, a 26-year-old New York Citybased entrepreneur. He founded the busi28 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

ness to make the invention process more accessible for the common person who is full of great ideas but does not have the means to execute them. For centuries, it has been really hard for people who have great ideas to execute them, Kaufman says in a New York Times interview, adding that they need access to capital, they need to know the right people, etc.

Kaufman has firsthand knowledge of what it takes to see an idea through product development. In his high school days, he sat at his desk trying to find a way to inconspicuously listen to his iPod during math class and envisioned creating a hollow lanyard to hide headphone wires. Kaufman’s parents took out a second mortgage on their house to provide him with the money he needed to make the vision a reality.

According to a Forbes profile, Kaufman flew to China a week before high school graduation to meet with manufacturers, and though he lost some money there, he returned home, raised more venture capital, and turned his brainchild into the still

Photographs courtesy Quirky Inc.

Right: Quirky engineers Tim Connelly (left) and John Jacobsen.

Below left: Quirky CEO Ben Kaufman.

A piece of the process for everyone Kaufman ultimately sold his interest in mophie and used his earnings from the venture to start Quirky. His aim with Quirky is to create a community in which tens of thousands of people can give insight into and have influence over the development of a product, he says in a video on the Quirky Web site.

Remembering how rewarding it felt to see people using his mophie products and to think, “I had a part in that,” Kaufman describes starting Quirky as his chance to “bring the world in and let [its] products become…reality,” he says in the video.

“And that’s what Quirky is,” he continues. “It’s individuals having a little piece of something huge.”

Since its inception in 2009, Quirky has brought to the market such successes as Pivot Power, a flexible power strip that

allows for reconfiguration of the outlets to accommodate more plugs, and the Crate system, a modular furniture collection that gives the traditional milk crate a functional and aesthetic upgrade.

Hundreds of other products have hit the shelves of major retailers throughout the United States.

It’s the work that matters Bringing these types of user-friendly, practical items to the market is what drives Kaufman, whose future plans for Quirky include opening retail stores in New York, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City, with more locations to follow, reports Forbes.

He has earned praise for his fundraising successes, but Kaufman cautions that the ability to raise money is not the mark of a gifted entrepreneur. Maintaining the passion and drive to execute on the business’ vision is what matters, and the money is just a necessary component of that execution, he says in a blog post.

“Don’t congratulate people for raising money. That was never the goal. The goal is building a successful and meaningful business,” Kaufman writes.

“When people raise money, instead of congratulating them, wish them luck.

Their work is just getting started.”

Carrie Loewenthal Massey is a New York City-based freelance writer.

Go Online Quirky http://www.quirky.com

Ben Kaufman on The Tonight Show http://goo.gl/McLcFz

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 29

CROWDFUNDING

successful iPod accessories company, mophie, a combination of the names of his dogs, Molly and Sophie.

Small

Big

Goes

By ANDRZEJ ZWANIECKI

“

F

http://goo.gl/ZddtBb inding the money to start a business or launch an artistic idea is changing, as bank loans or regular investors are nudged aside

by Internet investors who are unknown to each other and making micro investments.

Called “crowdfunding,” the practice of soliciting funds online from small investors or donors is growing in popularity, especially in Western countries. “The number of registered Web sites containing the word ‘crowdfund’ has increased by tenfold, reaching over 9,000,” says Yen Le in a guest post on Crowdsourcing.org, an industry research group.

The trend has allowed budding artists,

30 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

”

Above: Kris Rogers (left) and Adam Karol released their first extended-play album in January 2013 with help from fans who donated money via Kickstarter.

Below: The 60-page, four-part graphic novel, ”Code Monkey Save World,” by Jonathan Coulton and Greg Pak was funded through a Kickstarter campaign.

designers and entrepreneurs with little or no financial resources to fund projects from among Internet users in return for future, often modest, rewards. These may include pre-ordered products, discount coupons, T-shirts, dinners, or sometimes, a phone conversation with a founder.

When Kickstarter.com, a U.S. crowdfunding service, was launched in 2009 by three partners, it was supported only by the partners’ friends. Its first successes were small: two arts projects received funding—$100 and $37, respectively. Today, crowdfunding

© AP-WWP/Pak Man Productions

© AP-W WWP/Adam Karol and The Hotness via The Topeka Capital Journal

The number of registered Web sites containing the word 'crowdfund' has increased by tenfold, reaching over 9,000.

http://goo.gl/a2Kjp3

TODD WILLIAMSON © AP-WWP/Millennium

http://www.ouya.tv/discover

Right: Actor Zach Braff is turning to crowdfunding to raise money to make a movie.

http://goo.gl/rzZruL is a $2.8 billion global industry, and many project owners ask for $1 million in funding…and get it.

Click and invest Crowdfunding’s proponents argue that the funding model democratizes the investment process, allowing thousands of potential users of a service, buyers of a product or art lovers to invest in ideas that excite them. The money they put on the line is a vote of confidence in the project.

The crowd “is incredibly capable of identifying and validating a good idea,” Carl Esposti, chief executive of Massolution, a crowdfunding consulting firm, told Forbes magazine in 2012.

Crowdfunded projects are pursued under the intense scrutiny of a crowd. For the most part, they are successful. More than 96 percent of those that met their funding goals on Kickstarter delivered expected results, according to a 2012 study by Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. But that study also suggests that an easier access to capital may encourage launching projects that are not ready: only 25 percent of projects that

Top 10 Crowdfunding Sites For Fundraising

Left: Julie Uhrman, chief executive of Android game console maker Ouya. The console was launched in June 2013 following a successful funding campaign through Kickstarter.

http://goo.gl/sSOv1

MARY ALTAFFER © AP-WWP

RICHARD DREW © AP-WWP

http://goo.gl/Sdr0F

Go Online

An Introduction to Crowdfunding

http://getpebble.com

Above: Pebble had had successful camTechnology paigns on Kickstarter founder Eric delivered results on time.

Migicovsky wears Another concern—that a the Pebble watch. fraudster could raise funds The company raised $10.2 for a project he has no million through intention of pursuing—has Kickstarter. proven exaggerated. “The transparency and social networking dynamics of crowdfunding have been excellent at keeping fraud near zero,” says Kevin Lawton, a co-author of The Crowdfunding Revolution.

In the future, an entire crowdfunding ecosystem will emerge from crossplatform innovations, according to Lawton. In addition, government grants and philanthropy will transition to crowdfunding allocation.

Top Crowdfunding Campaigns of 2012 Pebble Smart Watch:

Project Eternity, a video game:

$10.2 $4 million

million

Ouya, a mobile gaming console:

Amanda Palmer & the Grand Theft Orchestra’s music album:

$8.5 million Star Citizen, a computer game:

$7

$1.2 million Source: TriplePundit.com

million

Andrzej Zwaniecki is a staff writer with the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs.

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 31

Courtesy Andrew Federman Photography

Making Cancer Detection Easier

By PAROMITA PAIN

An American teenager researched for thousands of hours to look for a noninvasive solution for detecting breast cancer.

T

he inspiration to beat cancer struck Brittany Wenger when she was 15. At 17, she won the grand prize at the Google Science Fair 2012. Her project, “Global Neural Network Cloud Service for Breast Cancer,” was all about early and noninvasive detection of breast cancer. It involves a cloud-based computer program, called a neural network, which can be taught to detect patterns from different genetic expressions that will help detect cancer. Neural networks learn by example and work like the human brain, only here they can identify patterns that are too complex for humans.

“I was the kid who never outgrew the ‘why’ phase,” says Wenger. “When I found science, I got a lot of answers but with science there are always more questions than answers. And the best part? The more you ask the more you get to know.” She was motivated to research issues of breast cancer when a cousin was diagnosed with the disease.

“The more data I feed into the Neural Network application, the better it works,” she says. “Recently, I got in touch with a hospital in Philadelphia and got samples from their pathologist.”

Wenger says her program is 99.1 percent accurate in detecting malignancy.

32 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

“At this point I need more data,” she says.

“I am looking for collaborations and am all ears for any advice that experts might want to give. I realize I am just 18. I have a long way to go.”

Paromita Pain is a Ph.D. research associate at the University of Texas at Austin.

Google Science Fair 2013 https://www.googlesciencefair.com/ en/2013/

Brittany Wenger’s project http://goo.gl/zBlhT

How to Make a Neural Network in Your Bedroom: Brittany Wenger at TEDxCERN http://goo.gl/FfCAa8

Go Online

Learning from failure This success didn’t come easy. “The first time I tried it, there were more errors than code,” she says. “But then with science we learn from our failures and so I went back to the drawing board.” It was on her third attempt that she started getting near-perfect results. The project is currently in its beta testing phase and Wenger hopes that more hospitals will start using the program.

Run on her laptop from her bedroom in Florida, the project isn’t costing her any money yet. “I host from this cloud server where I get a certain amount of space for Creating new methods free,” she says. The Google Science Fair, “One of the methods of analyzing if a tumor which was a chance to “discuss my work is malignant or benign is called the fine neewith the rock stars of science,” was very dle aspiration biopsy where a hollow needle is encouraging. “I have been working on this for inserted into the mass to collect cells for three years now and must have spent over a examination,” she says. “They are the cheap- thousand hours researching and perfecting est and quickest methods of detecting malig- the algorithms,” she says. nancy.” However, a lot of hospitals in the Often this meant forgoing time with friends United States don’t use them because the and family, but Wenger has no regrets. “My results can sometimes be inconclusive, she friends are very understanding,” she says. says. “So the purpose of my program is to “We are a very eclectic bunch where one is a provide a tool to analyze these fine needle musician who plays...six instruments; another tests so that they can be better used.” is a writer and an artist.” She also played varWenger started out with data collected by sity soccer in school. the University of Wisconsin in the early 1990s Wenger joined Duke University this fall on a and created the Cloud4Cancer Breast Cancer full merit scholarship majoring in computer Detection platform (http://cloud4cancer. science and plans to go on to medical school. appspot.com/), where hospitals that wanted She is also working to expand the platform to to help with the research could input data. detect leukemia and ovarian cancer.

ThE

GAME PLAN

By ANNE WALLS

Building a

better city, and a great career, with an

MIT’s urban planning students present preliminary planning ideas to members of the Harlem River community group in the Bronx, New York City.

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 33

URBAN PLANNING

ALBERT CHING

urban planning degree.

JUDITH M. DANIELS/SA+P WILLIAM STAFFELD © Cornell University

Top: An exhibition by students of the Program in Art, Culture and Technology, a division of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning. The exhibit was installed at MIT’s Media Lab. Above: A lecture and group discussion in the Abby and Howard Milstein Auditorium at Cornell University.

34 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

Top right: Students in a physical planning class at Cornell University.

Above right: Students working on a site planning project at MIT using immersive digital design tools.

Above far right: A community innovators lab event at MIT.

Right: Arlene Ducao (left) and Abdulaziz Alghunaim, part of the winning team of MIT’s OpenIR $7,500 contest award.

They worked to offer geolocated infrared data as ondemand map layers, and translating the data so that anyone could read it easily.

WILLIAM STAFFELD © Cornell University Courtesy Colab/MIT ERAN BEN-JOSEPH DOUG KUPERMAN

E

veryone knows architects design buildings and contractors, along with many able-bodied construction workers, build them. But who designs everything in between—the roads, the parks, the waterways, even the sidewalks? That would be urban planners, a group of individuals focused on making every neighborhood a better place to live. Their jobs meet at a very interesting and often tricky intersection of public demands, political agendas and environmental concerns. Not only does an urban planner need to be trained with the skills to make everyone’s request a reality, they need to know how to balance them.

How do urban planners get the credentials and experience for the work they do? That would be their urban planning degree. There are graduate and undergraduate urban planning degrees, but graduate programs are the most popular—and growing.

“Since 2008 we’ve seen a 30 percent increase in

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

35

“

undergraduate applications, and a 70 percent increase in Ph.D. applications,” says Robin McCallum, graduate advisor at the University of California, Los Angeles’ (UCLA) Luskin School of Public Affairs.

McCallum says this is partly due to “the expansion of planning needs nationwide.”

As of January 2013, the U.S. Planning Accreditation Board accredits 72 master’s and 15 bachelor’s programs at 76 North

Students should immerse themselves in current events. Obtain a broadbased education, but develop some marketable skills.

WILLIAM STAFFELD © Cornell University

”

36 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

Below: Master of city and regional planning student Jennifer Pierce at a flood recovery worksite in Apalachin, New York.

Below right: Students and faculty of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

American universities.

Core courses in grad programs typically include history and theory of urban planning, statistics, urban design, urban economics, land use and planning law, and planning practice. Though there are plenty of schools to choose from, a few programs rise above the rest.

Ezra Haber Glenn, a lecturer in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says the number of enrolled international students, especially from India, has been rising. “MIT’s program in urban planning has a long tradition of work in international development, and the challenges of planning for the next generation will be increasingly global—so it makes sense to have students come from all over.”

So what should you major in for your undergraduate degree if you would like to be an urban planner? Earth sciences, mathematics, policy, life sciences, geology, physics or geography. Diversifying your study and work experience are integral to the skill set of a future urban planner, says Kieran Donaghy, professor and chair of Cornell University’s Department of City and Regional Planning. “Students should immerse themselves in current events.

Obtain a broad-based education, but develop some marketable skills,” Donaghy

Courtesy UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

unteers to graduate studies in planning and professional international development planning opportunities,” says Cornell’s Donaghy. advises. “Seize opportunities to intern But it’s not all studying while abroad— with public agencies and firms who are your program can also help you get work engaged with issues of contemporary importance: transportation, land use, experience as well. Says UCLA’s housing, infrastructure, energy use and the McCallum: “Our International Practice environment.”

Pathways program places students in Once you are enrolled in an urban plan- internships, and this summer, numerous ning program, you should get your passstudents from the UCLA Luskin School of port ready because you may be hitting the Public Affairs are working and interning around the globe as part of UCLA road, since studying abroad is an important part of the journey. “The Department Luskin’s strategic plan to engage the of City and Regional Planning has had an school and its mission in international issues.” enduring relationship with the Peace But the road to becoming an urban Corps that connects former and future vol-

planner isn’t all dry course work and piles of textbooks.

“I’m currently an urban planning graduate student at MIT, where a lot of time is spent deciphering exactly what it is an urban planner does,” MIT graduate student Andy Cook writes in an article on NextCity.org. “Everyone you ask will give a different answer, but a common theme is this: We’re supposed to be the ones that see the big picture.”

And the best way to be prepared for life’s big events is to first plan a truly great education.

Anne Walls is a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California.

Go Online

JUDITH M. DANIELS/SA+P

Above: Students attend a lecture at the UCLA Luskin School’s Urban Planning Department.

MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning http://dusp.mit.edu

Cornell University Department of City and Regional Planning http://aap.cornell.edu/crp

UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs’ students visit India http://goo.gl/QFScg

American Planning Association https://www.planning.org

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

37

P

ollo Tropical, a Florida-based restaurant chain, launched its maiden venture in India in July. The outlet was inaugurated by Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs at the U.S. Embassy, John McCaslin, in New Delhi. “Franchising is an emerging concept in India, and the United States is proud to be able to play a role in facilitating the development of this burgeoning industry,” he said at the inauguration of the restaurant, which specializes in grilled dishes. Pollo Tropical’s expansion to India is the culmination of an initiative that began with its participation in a U.S. Department of Commerce-sponsored Franchise Trade Mission to India in 2011. https://www.facebook.com/PollotropicalIndia

Courtesy Infosys

Courtesy http://bera.house.gov

Courtesy Centre for Knowledge Societies

he United States Agency for International Development announced a partnership in August with the Centre for Knowledge Societies, an Indian innovation consulting firm, to implement a $3.2 million initiative to help improve the reading skills of primary school age children in India. The Read-EngageAchieve-Dream (READ) Alliance aims to promote early literacy among millions of Indian children through targeted events. The program brings together corporations, nonprofit organizations, think tanks and schools. http://goo.gl/v4V0Tp

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Photographs by RAKESH MALHOTRA

U.

S. Congressman Ami Bera visited India in August to further bilateral trade and economic ties. He is the only Indian American currently serving in U.S. Congress and represents California’s 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Bera visited Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore, where he met business leaders from both American and Indian companies. The “U.S.-India trade relationship [is] growing steadily; we should continue to encourage expansion of bilateral trade,” he said on Twitter. Congressman Bera is also a member of the U.S. Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. https://twitter.com/RepBera

T

A

nita Sengupta, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, met hundreds of school students during her two-week visit to Chennai (above), Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore in August. The aerospace engineer discussed her work on the Mars rover program and her role in Mars rover Curiosity (below). “Today I gave a Mars Curiosity presentation to over 3,500 Kolkatan[s] in the Science City Auditorium in Kolkata. The turnout was phenomenal, which is especially meaningful for me as my family is from West Bengal,” Sengupta wrote on her Facebook page. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

I

nfosys founder and Executive Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy met with students and faculty from the University of South Florida at Bangalore as part of a study abroad partnership program between the Tampa-based university and Infosys. Now in its fourth year, the three-week program includes opportunities for students to interact with professionals in the company and gain a better understanding of software engineering and the global delivery model. http://www.usf.edu

This article is the first of a series on what to do in the 12 months leading up to submitting your graduate school applications.

Twelve-Month Checklist for

Applying to Graduate School 12 to 10 Months Out

By DON MARTIN and WESLEY TETER

12 months before applying 1. Do a Web-based search on graduate programs in the field of study you are pursuing, such as psychology, law, humanities, advertising, finance, etc. to identify as many institutions as possible. One excellent resource for this type of inquiry is GradSchools.com.

2. Once you have done a thorough search, make an alphabetical list of all your options, regardless of what you presently know or have heard about them, and put them on a spreadsheet. Be careful about accepting word of mouth or what you think you know as final at this point in the search process. Do not eliminate any option from your list.

3. Go online and do some initial research on all the institutions. Assess not only the content of material on their Web sites, but look at the way in which it is presented. Is information easy to find? Is the tone friendly and inviting? Are there easy and quick ways to request more information?

This would also be a good time to subscribe to university mailing lists, follow the school’s Facebook page or LinkedIn profile, or request an e-brochure from each of the schools that interest you. The material available will vary from institution to institution, so be sure to review each Web site carefully before contacting the admissions office.

Requesting additional information not listed online will provide you an opportunity to find out just how responsive admissions offices are to you. This can be very telling, and may shed light on the general level of responsiveness of those institutions about which you have made an inquiry.

Give each institution a grade on their Web site, and on the level of responsiveness they provided. Here is a suggested grading system:

Web site A = easy to navigate, informative, captivating B = well-done, good information, friendly C = fairly easy to navigate, not as helpful/friendly D = difficult to navigate, not very informative F = what were they thinking?

FF = no Web site, or close to nothing Responsiveness A = had a response within 5 business days B = had a response within 10 business days C = had a response within 15 business days D = took three weeks or longer for a response F = no response

11 months before applying 1. Based on the items above (Web site and responsiveness), you are now in a position to narrow your search.

But do not narrow it too much. Obviously those institutions you have graded as F or FF could be eliminated. You may be surprised at some of the options you are eliminating should you rely completely on the grades given. If you still have an interest in a college or university that you did not initially grade well, keep it on the list for now. However, if you continue to get the same treatment you did when first browsing the Web or asking for information, ask yourself: If I’m being treated this way now, how will it be should I apply, be offered admission, and enroll?

2. Further expand the spreadsheet you created last month to compare each of the options that remain on your list.

(See the infographic on page 40.)

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 39

The U.S. higher education system offers an impressive range of institutions, academic and social environments, entry requirements, degree programs, and subjects in which to specialize.

Finding the best “match” between you, the institution, and its faculty requires hard work, research, and having a clear understanding of your goals.

Design by Vilimikata

Develop a list of at least 10 to 20 programs that interest you – use comprehensive Web sites like EducationUSA.info, CollegeBoard.org or GradSchools.com to help you get started.

Keep an open mind as you fill in your spreadsheet.

Many students find their best match, and funding opportunities, in unexpected places.

Search beyond the Ivy League and find the best fit for you.

40 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

Don’t narrow down the list at this stage, or do a rank order – this takes time and much more research.

Your Re search S Finding preadsh that ma universities/co eet: tch your lleges

needs Use this s p r e a d help you sheet or the app track your progprograms like E lication process. ress throughou xcel to t

Some of the columns in your research spreadsheet will have letter grades, some will say “yes,” “no” or “maybe,” some will be dates, dollar amounts or various numerical responses, and some will be more evaluative (scale of 1-5, with 1 being terrible and 5 being outstanding).

10 months before applying 1. Work on completing your research spreadsheet, filling in every column for each option. As you go along you will eliminate a few or quite a few. That is okay. As a consumer you are doing what you should be doing—comparing.

2. After reviewing your spreadsheet, do a very general rank order of the options that remain. You could rank every option, starting with #1 and going to the end of the list. Or,

you could group your options: top group, second group, third group, etc. Whenever possible, you should have at least five options left. However, depending on the type of graduate program you seek, the number of options will vary.

The point is that you are still not at the place where you need to have a “shortlist.” You are still 10 months away from applying, and will have several opportunities to narrow down your list before that time.

Don Martin is a former admissions dean at Columbia, University of Chicago and Northwestern; and author of “Road Map for Graduate Study.” Wesley Teter is a former regional director for EducationUSA in New Delhi. He is also the editor of the multimedia outreach campaign, 10 Steps to Study in the United States.

Give each institution a grade on their Web site and the other factors that are important to you – add notes or comments to help you compare your options.

What other factors would you add to your research spreadsheet?

Are rankings important, for example? Why or why not?

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013

41

Registered under RNI-6586/60

In Celebration of the

50th Anniversary of the

Photographs by RAHUL KISHORE

March on Washington A multimedia exhibit (above) and a live musical performance by the Corn Potato String Band (right) were organized at the New Delhi American Center in August to mark the anniversary of the historic march where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream� speech.