Newsletter MILS

THE MILS GAZETTE The quarterly newsletter NOVEMBER of MILS- DoMS IIT Madras 2021, ISSUE 1 What's inside this issue: STARTUP AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP AI AND THE FUTURE OF JOBS Startup And Entrepreneurship BY MR. SREENATH KIZHAKKEDATH An entrepreneur, surrounded by various stakeholders, thrives to create unique products, services and interactions in the ecosystem while facing high risk and handling resources, time and finances. Startups are catalysts for change, and initiate growth, employment, wealth creation, research and development and provide an influx of a talent pool. Of course, venturing into entrepreneurship is in itself, a bold step. An entrepreneur has to understand the commitment and challenges involved in starting a business, focus on value creation, have multidimensional thinking and have persistence and the risk-taking ability. The trinity of innovation, technology and globalization have created a plethora of generations in the world of startups. 1

THE INTERVIEW MR. SREENATH KIZHAKKEDATH Q. Good morning, Sir, it’s great to have you here with us giving us your insight and clearing out the mysteries of entrepreneurship. So, let’s start with the most basic of questions, what all does one need to start their own company? A. A lot of people think that you can’t go ahead with your own startup unless you’ve got a lot of money or are connected to a lot of people. However, what you essentially need as a base for your startup is to identify a gap in the market, identify a problem out there that your customer is willing to pay for, turn that into your idea, build on it and voila, you have your most important thing for a startup right there. And what’s more, if your customer is the one paying you to solve the problem that you’ve identified, you don’t really have to worry much about funding, it’ll be done by your customers. Secondly, the market out there is huge. So instead of Of course, you would need money, every business needs trying to make it big in a whole wide market right at the money, but it’s more necessary at the later stages for very beginning, figure out a niche area, choose a example when you are expanding the biz or competing particular subset of the market to focus on. Do one for a market share. You don’t really need all that much at small thing but do it well, and success will be the beginning, infact having too much can be detrimental guaranteed. to your business as you would tend to spend the money on unwanted things that you might regret later on. In Q. That was interesting to get to know Sir, since addition, you don’t need to know a lot of investors, just you’re debunking all the myths about startups, what focus on building your brand and a loyal customer base, are some other preconceived notions about being investors would come behind you. an entrepreneur that people need to get rid of? Q. Right, so basically customers should be the Answer: One of the major things that people believe is primary focus, do that and the rest of your problems that to build a startup, you need some sort of crazy, would be more or less sorted. On that note, Sir, we unique idea else it isn’t gonna work out. My point is that would like to know how exactly to differentiate there are so many ideas out there! No idea is really all oneself in the various types of startups that are out that unique, if one person is having an idea, you can be there? Con you shed some light on that? sure that ten other people would be having a similar idea. The point is not to have a unique idea, it is to Answer: Startups can be classified into four broad execute an idea. That’s the difference between categories, Tech startups, E-Commerce, Crypto and someone who’s made it to success and someone who Services based startups. For a tech startup, there are two hasn’t, their idea execution in a way their customer main things that one can do, first is to apply for Cloud would pay for. grants to AWS, Microsoft, Google etc. They provide The other thing is that as I’ve mentioned earlier, you software services that a startup would need and don’t need a lot of money to start off. Infact, a lot of exposure on their websites that is extremely beneficial for successful startups out there are self-funded. a company starting to find its’ wheels. E-Commerce businesses have a huge potential, the key is to brand it and sell it with unique stories, especially if one could take India’s unique culture and products globally 2

Crypto has a highly decentralized model for projects Artificial Intelligence and there are a lot of grant programs available out and Future of Jobs there for funding. The acceptability of crypto currency in the market depends on various factors such as the BY MR. SUDHIR TIKU different state governments’ policies and regulations, the nature of the currency, how well the currency is Technological disruption has begun. Jobs in the future will distributed in the economy. be massively automated. Artificial Intelligence will The basic foundation for a services startup would be to revolutionize the way the world works. According to the build an area of expertise, consult with a committed World Economic Forum's \"The Future of Jobs Report team of employees, creativity and enthusiasm, along 2020\", AI is expected to replace 85 million jobs with the determination, willingness to take risks and worldwide by 2025. Right from healthcare to agriculture, making an economical use of money, are essential every area will face transformation. Amidst such qualities in order to be profitable from the Day 1. forecasts of future developments, we felt that it was imperative to understand what influence artificial Q. Thank you for such great suggestions, Sir, I’m intelligence will have on the future of jobs. sure they would be a great help to many budding It was indeed an honour to hear Mr. Sudhir Tiku, Vice entrepreneurs out there. Something that has been President for Asia Pacific and China at Bosch Singapore - on all of our minds is how do you think startups and Building Technology Division address the students and their way of working has changed post Covid 19 in impart his powerful insights. A TEDx Speaker and a comparison to the prior situation? persona with interests in Trends of Future Life Ecosystems, History, Future of Jobs and Technology, Mr. Tiku shared Answer: Nearly 70% of the top 10 largest companies in with the virtual gathering his views on how the modern the world have cores in technology. 2019, specifically, technological era has revolutionized the industries across saw close to $300 billion in venture capital investments domains, their way of working and interactions. around the world. However, the unprecedented COVID- He enumerated that the unending race for humanity to 19 crisis changed the picture, with rampant layoffs push their boundaries has resulted in increased life among start-ups, drop in demand and capital crunch to expectancy and even the creation of their alter-ego, the name a few. But fundamentally, as time went on, things AI. revolving around economy is doing well, more and more companies are fine to be distributed across different workforces. Evidently, a major transition period has emerged with respect to entrepreneurship. With a massive digital shift parallel to pandemic, tech economy seems to be fundamental for rejuvenation. For instance, in 2021 alone, Indian start-ups have so far raised upward of $20 billion in funding, achieved unicorn statuses. In spite of the hindrances, future predictions perceive India’s start-up hub to be a global game-changer. BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS 1.The Lean Startup, How Today’s Entrepreneurs use continuous innovations to create radically successful businesses by Eric Ries 2 Zero to One. , Notes on Startups or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters 3.The Hard Thing about Hard Things, building a Benbusiness when there are no easy answers by Horowitz 3

An artificial neural network can be created with the guide the deployment of artificial intelligence but also basic unit called perceptron, the replica of the shape the development of them. Some of the institutes neurons in the human brain. But Perceptrons are working in this domain are The Partnership on AI to advanced and robust in terms of functional, Benefit People and Society, IEEE, AI Now Institute, biological, and logical aspects. Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies etc. He also mentioned that these technologies have enabled the employment of AI in repetitive, niche jobs in the current scenario, whereas the scope for AI to perform more nuanced roles will soon develop exponentially to a plethora of jobs- ranging from Ethical Sourcing Managers, to Personal Data Brokers, Genomic Directors, Cyber City Analysts, AI Healthcare Technicians and more. Such usage of AI will result in more data-oriented approaches, data autonomy, and transparency. He enlightened the audience that the current industrial jobs are not going to vanish, but rather transform into more sophisticated ones where aspirants will be required to up-skill themselves accordingly. THE INTERVIEW MR. SUDHIR TIKU The real challenge of successfully deploying any artificial intelligence Q. How should industry aspirants prepare based system lies in the domain of themselves for the future of the workplace ethical parameters within which the affected by the artificial intelligence? system will operate. Ans – The future of the workplace will not be a Q. How can critical sectors in India like agriculture, building. Rather It will be a structure or structure less healthcare, education etc. will be benefitted with practice where people will create value with the help the technological advancements in the field of of AI. This augmented workplace will require first to Artificial Intelligence? unlearn, learn and embracing the discomfort of not knowing. Then further by resisting oversimplification, Ans. The successful working of any artificial intelligence quick conclusion, acquiring a differentiating domain system depends on the availability of reliable data. The knowledge and getting a holistic vision of the sectors like agriculture, healthcare, education etc. are challenges will certainly help any aspirant to be better extremely critical for a better future of this world and prepared for the future. with the present technological advancements, they are being digitized at an extremely fast pace. As more and Q. How the AI of future will tackle with the more data become available, the more these data will problem of Ethics and Morals? help these sectors in the areas of prediction, monitoring and automation in the future. Ans. The sole purpose of using artificial intelligence is For example, in case of agriculture, which depends on to accelerate the prosperity of the human race. The geological, climatic and processing factors, artificial real challenge of successfully deploying any artificial intelligence can help in better selection, prediction and intelligence based system lies in the domain of ethical automation of these factors as the systems become parameters within which the system will operate. In more and more trained with the available data. order to tackle this problem, multiple agencies including research institutes, technology companies and government institutes are collaborating to create a standardized ethical framework which will not only 4