Learning the art of success from failure

BANGALORE, INDIA: Success does not come from vacuum but often from failure, felt panelists at the MIT Alumni Panel, which was moderated by Jason Pontin, Editor-in-Chief, Technology Review.

The panel discussion, held as part of EmTech 2010, included Prof Anant Agarwal, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT; Dr Arun Chandavarkar, COO, Biocon; Prof. Vijay Chandru, CMD, Strand Life Sciences; Dr. Anita Goel, Chairman, Scientific director and CEO, Nanobiosym; Dr. Jagannath Raju, director, Systematics India; Prof. Ramesh Raskar, Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab and co-director Center for Future Storytelling and Mohanjit Jolly, executive director, DFJ.

The panel started with a brief about the panelists, their vision and the failure they faced before reaching where they are today.

Dr. Jagannath Raju talked about his company, the increased focus on the agricultural sector and the challenges he faced in educating the farmers in India. He said, “We never looked at anything that will not work out as a failure. One needs perseverance and work continuously  with the goal in mind. He gave the example of his first company focused on services, which could not withstand the challenges of business.

Meanwhile, Prof. Ramesh Raskar spoke about his vision to go beyond the traditional cameras. He said, “Today the cameras mimic our eyes. The images have not gone beyond the realm of real eye, the airplanes do not mimic the birds, they have outshined in perforce delivery. Similarly the cameras should work on visual social computing and bring new era of cameras.”

Talking about the failures, he said that though he did not face any failure in terms of financial loss, one of the biggest failure has been in the achievements.

“I won some 40 patents with me, but out of these only 6-7 have gone ahead to become a product. There have been many factors behind this like lack of industry confidence in the product, the market was not ready to adopt that technology, etc,” he said.

Anita Goel talked about how she wanted to bring together the two world of physics and technology as one and her dreams came into reality with Nanobiosym. She said that everyone has to take risk in life and grab the opportunity. When she was first approached by the US military for a project, they had concerns about the success for her idea. But she took the call and never looked back.

Dr Arun Chandavarkar shared the vision of developing oral medications for diabetic patients, who need to go for injection of insulin but can grab the daily dose. Other areas of focus are oncology and arthritis.

Mohanjit Jolly shared about his experiences as a venture capitalist. He informed that one of the companies he tied up with were MChek. Another company he partnered is an e-waste company, which has now acquired the license to import e-waste from other countries and break them.

He added that one of the basic things that inspired him was the killer feature of the company. He said, “We have faced a lot of failures as a venture, but if we do not fail, then it means that we have not tried enough, and not taken any risks.”

Lastly, Prof Vijay Chandru talked about his product company that got acquired and the new life at his second company from Strand Life Sciences.

He talked about his learning and understanding about the market, and how, despite being a great product, his Simputer (a hand held device) lost its way in the market and the company got acquired.