Chautaari Podcast

Amit Agrawal is CEO of Janaki Technology, a Nepali IT company that has delivered award-winning products such as Sparrow SMS, Picovico and Khalti ( winner of mBillionth award for innovations in mobile technology 2013, Startup Chile Program 2012 and Google Business Stories Contest, 2017 respectively).

While this decade has seen a proliferation of IT companies in Nepal providing outsourcing services worldwide, there has been a lack of quality original products designed and developed locally. Janaki Technology has addressed this gap with their exemplary products that have not only served our local market but also made a mark internationally and inspired IT companies and professionals in Nepal.

In this podcast interview with Amit Agrawal, we talk to him about this very journey of creating Nepali products for Nepali market. According to him, while Nepal is an unevolved market with many difficulties (lack of awareness and investment), it is also a vast unsaturated market with immense needs and possibilities and some unique perks- such as media and community support and comparatively less stressful lifestyle.

Shankar Uprety is the creator of Hamro Patro, number one app of Nepal and founder and CEO of Hamro Patro enterprise.

He created Hamro Patro in 2010 while he was working in silicon valley but it was in 2013, the usage of the app took off exponentially as the android phone came to hands of everyday Nepali people. Hamro Patro is the most popular Nepali app with billion requests per month.

In this podcast interview, we talk about his entrepreneurial journey: his aspirations as a young student to make things that can be useful for everyone and his decision to take the leap of faith and coming to Nepal leaving behind his thriving career in silicon valley.

We also talked about being an entrepreneur as an introvert in the culture that regards extroversion as a requirement for being an entrepreneur. He says that introverted characteristics such as problem-identifying and consistency are key assets to an entrepreneur. Also, introverts can create the right team and work on their social skills and there is no reason to hold back.

He shared the dilemma that as a creator, you don’t want to compromise on creating the best quality world-class products but as an entrepreneur, you also need to be realistic about the limitations of the Nepali market. But he is very optimistic about the increasing interest and increased funding in Nepali entrepreneurial scene.

He also emphasized that we need a strong education system for us to be innovative and competitive in the IT sector. Though passion and self-learning can make people like him lead the forefront of innovation, individual passion alone cannot make all students equipped and empowered enough. He strongly believes that we need to prioritize on having strong educational and institutional foundations so that not only lucky 5% but all the remaining 95% students can also flourish and explore their dreams.

Pavitra Gautam is co-founder and CEO of Karkhana, an education company and makerspace that designs and runs hands-on educational programs to promote creative problem solving, experimentation and collaboration. Karkhana runs both co-curricular activities in schools and after-school enrichment programs in 20 schools, reaching out to 5,500 students over a year.

Pavitra Gautam works with a vision to help people believe that they can change the world and also give them an environment to do so. He identifies education and youth empowerment through entrepreneurship as the key to this change. He has cofounded Robotics Association of Nepal, started an annual art, science and tech festival, organized Entrepreneurs Bootcamp, and is an active contributor to entrepreneurial events such as Young Entrepreneurs Summit and Made in Nepal Expo. He likes to call himself an engineer by education, entrepreneur by profession and educator by passion.

In this interview, Pavitra Gautam shares his personal stories of motivation, struggles, and lessons learned in his journey with Karkhana. He reflects on our education system and the trajectory of our society.  He talks about how we can create an innovative society and how Karkhana has experimented and improvised in its organizational culture to retain a creative environment. He has valuable advice for the young generation about finding their passion and balancing the passion and ambition with patience, humility and a holistic perspective.

After decades of working in award-winning grassroots enterprises, Mahabir Pun identifies that innovation and human resource development is the major path for the development of Nepal. He has launched National Innovation Center (NIC) with this vision of leading the way of development through innovation. In this interview, Mahabir Pun talks about how he wants to build NIC as a center where the talented promising youth of Nepal will be nurtured and supported so that they can contribute for national development and why he has given his ultimate commitment to this ambitious mission despite enormous financial and logistic challenges.

He also talks about various aspects of NIC: current projects, selection criteria, mentorship model and NIC’s plan to bring more female innovators. Though he was disheartened initially for not receiving the expected support from the government, he takes it as an opportunity in retrospect. NIC gave him a chance to interact and gather support from the public, also generating awareness about innovation among them.

Along with the overview and updates on NIC, we also talked about Mahabir Pun, the man himself: how his life has been full of adversities, that to get the basic undergraduate education he had to wait until he was a full-grown man of 33 years; how the very same experiences tackling the series of adversities throughout the life shaped him to be the man he is today, with superlative problem-solving dexterity and superhuman courage and dedication.

He also shares his satisfaction of being able to bring opportunities to other people that he could not have himself and the sheer optimism towards the future of Nepal under the new youth leadership who understands the value of education and innovation.

If you want to learn more about NIC or want to participate or contribute, you can email Mahabir Pun at nicnepal.mahabir@gmail.com or call him at 9841592361.

Nanda Kishor Mandal is the head of Yunus Social Business Center, King’s College and founding director of Women Development Advocacy Center (WDAC) He is also in-charge of King’s Incubator program which provides academic teaching, training, access to seed capital, mentoring and networking to new business ventures.

Originally from Janakpur, Nanda Kishor did his early schooling in Kathmandu and MBA from India, where he also worked for Bank of America, Maruti Suzuki and Ashok-Leyland. After returning back to Nepal in 2013, he has committed himself completely to generating quality education and meaningful livelihood, with an overarching goal of transforming society through education.

In this podcast interview, he talks about his work as a social business educator at King’s College and his passion for grassroots entrepreneurship. He shares his experiences regarding the practical aspects of working in private corporations vs. working for nonprofits. He also reflects on our socio-cultural realities that are not conducive to creating a thriving entrepreneurial environment. He mentions that our culture, both at home and at school, suppresses curiosity and questioning, thus deterring our youth to seek out mentorship. He is however optimistic about the changing scenario in Nepal. He observes that the risk-averse culture of Nepal is being replaced by a positively contagious culture of innovation.

As the first person from his family to attend college, Nanda Kishor is grateful to have made it against the odds and believes in hard work and daring to dream.

Khem Lakai is Founder and CEO of GATE (Global Academy of Tourism and Hospitality Education) College. Established in 2007 and accredited by hotelleriesuisse, Swiss Hotel Association (SHA), GATE provides Higher Diploma in Hotel and Restaurant Management and vocational courses in Culinary Arts, Bakery and Barista.  Besides providing leadership to this award-winning institution, Mr. Lakai is actively involved in uplifting and revolutionizing tourism and hospitality education and innovation ecosystem in Nepal. He also serves as Chapter President for Swiss School of Tourism and Hospitality Alumni; Ambassador of Nepal for World Innovation Forum and mentor at Nepali Emerging Leaders Program.

In this podcast interview, we talked to him about his education approach at GATE- how he is blending best international practices with our culture and traditions of hospitality; why we should embrace change to provide the best education for our youth even if it needs going beyond the narrow constraints of the existing curriculum and why he sends his students for international internships so that they go out of their comfort zone. Mr. Lakai laments that most students of this generation are sheltered by their protective parents who themselves had a very tough life. He stresses that every generation has to go through their share of struggles (आ-आफ्नो भागको दु:ख ) to grow as wholesome individuals.

Mr. Sujan Kayastha is Director at Thames International College. He manages the academic team at Thames and provides leadership for all academic activities in the undergraduate program. Mr. Kayastha completed his undergraduate degree with dual major in International Relations and Management from Webster University, St. Louis. He further pursued his graduate studies in International Non-Governmental Organizations from Regents College, London.

In this podcast interview, we talk to him about his personal motivation and institutional approach to higher education in Nepal. He is driven by the core belief that education is a lifelong process and not just the content curriculum and a series of exams. At Thames, he is working to provide a liberal arts approach to education so that the students can take an interdisciplinary and more holistic problem-solving approach. For instance: studies in Social Work is combined with Rural Development so that students can get a context to their social work and Journalism students also study Sociology to gain deeper insights about the society. At Thames, Business students can also sample various humanities courses.

Shree Higher Secondary School, मौरिघाट, दाङबाट SLC exam दिदासम्म वसन्त गिरीले Science Lab कस्तो हुन्छ देखेका थिएनन् । चुम्बकको बारेमा किताबमा पढे पनि चुम्बक वास्तवमा कस्तो हुन्छ देखेका थिएनन् । SLC सकेर उनी काठमाडौं आए र Amrit Science Campus बाट I.Sc. गरेर Tri Chandra College बाट B.Sc. र M.Sc. गरे । त्यस पश्चात Oregon State University, USA बाट Analytical Chemistryमा अर्को Masters गरे र University of Wyoming, USA बाट सोही विषयमा Ph.D. गरे ।

डा. गिरी नेपाल फर्केर Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) मा research fellow भएर काम गरे । तर त्यहाँ मासिक तलब पाए पनि ठोस काम गर्न नपाएको, नसकेको लागेर उनले अन्य वैज्ञानिक साथीहरूसँग मिलेर Kathmandu Institute of Applied Sciences (KIAS) संस्थापन गरे । 2014 मा शुरु भएको KIAS मा अहिले जैविक विविधता, जलवायु परिवर्तन, खडेरी अध्ययन, वातावरण प्रदूषण जस्ता विषयमा अनुसन्धान हुनुको साथै जैविक र रासायनिक विश्लेषणका लागि नयाँ प्रविधि विकासको अध्ययन-अनुसन्धान पनि हुन्छ।

विज्ञान-अनुसन्धान यात्राको बारेमा भएको यस कुराकानीमा डा. वसन्त गिरीले आफ्ना इच्छा, अनुभव , दुखेसो, सपना सबै खुल्लासँग, मनबाट बताएका छन् । यस audio podcast सुनेर प्रतिक्रिया दिनुहोला ।

Suyogya Man Tuladhar is founder and CEO of Black Box Academy of Art and Technology. Black Box Academy provides Bachelor's degrees and Diploma programs in Animation and Game Design.

In this podcast interview, we talk to Suyogya Man Tuladhar about his journey into the animation industry of Nepal and about the animation industry itself, as he is one of the pioneering veterans in the field. He shares that he started BlackBox Academy after he identified the need for an academic institution for animation since we, as a nation, lack qualified animation professionals. Lack of a critical mass of professionals limits our possibilities regarding what we can do as an individual studio and what we can do as a national industry. He gives examples of India, Philippines, and Vietnam and emphasizes how entrepreneurs and government need to understand the potential of the animation industry. Though having successfully led various ventures, his ultimate dream is to see Nepali animation industry delivering world-class original projects. Both an entrepreneur and artist at heart, he is optimistic and believes that we have all the necessary ingredients to realize that dream. Nepal is a youth-centric country and we have diverse cultures rich with stories told to us by our grandparents through generations. He wants to dedicate himself to creating this ecosystem where our youth can animate our own stories.

Rashmi KC is passionate about education, empowerment, and awareness.  She is involved as Board Chair at Women Development Advocacy Center (WDAC), a not for profit organization working for women and children through programs on education and livelihood. She runs meditation series at WDAC as a weekly program and also as mentorship session.

She is also working as an Education Consultant for the development industry. But she would like to go full time with meditation industry someday. In this interview, Rashmi talks about the importance of learning to recognize our thoughts, feelings and their presence in our body through meditation. This recognition she thinks is the process of self-awareness. She also shares about how self-awareness has helped her personally and how she has been sharing her experiences with people around her in the hope that it will help them in some way.

Prof. Bertram “Chip” Bruce is a computer scientist turned educator. He started his research on artificial intelligence earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Broadening his research into literacy and education, he has dedicated himself to the conception and promotion of democratic, or progressive education.

He is currently Professor Emeritus in Information Science at the University of Illinois. He has published several books in the field of information, literacy, education, and community development. Having worked in various countries such as China, Australia, Haiti, Turkey, France, Germany, Ireland, Romania, Finland, and Sweden, he has made Nepal one of his focus areas making regular visits since 2016.

He has helped set up Progressive Educators Network of Nepal, collaborating with institutions such as King’s College, Teach for Nepal, Karkhana, Kathmandu Living Labs and bringing together students, teachers, engineers, development workers, policymakers, and others who see learning as part of full participation in society and the natural world. He was recently on a Nepal trip supported by a Fulbright Specialist grant to assist King’s College in becoming a progressive education university. Though officially retired, he has been working with spectacular enthusiasm and an exemplary collaborative and learning spirit. Equally inspired by his work and his personal journey, we interviewed him talking on various topics: his peculiar career path, need for progressive education, observations from other countries’ educational approaches, the role of technology in education, and being a life-long learner.