Sudeep D'Souza

Mona has worked with dental hospitals over the past 3 years helping them with their social media strategy and IT related strategic plans. You can read more about her experiences in her blog on dental hospitals . Given below is an extract of an article she has written about dental hospitals There are more than 1500+ dental hospitals in Hyderabad. Consultations cost anywhere between Rs. 100/- to Rs. 300/-. It is a business that functions a lot on word of mouth and references. However, if you are someone like me who came to Hyderabad and don't have anyone to point you in the right direction, then this is the dental review blog for you.If you call up JustDial, they will redirect you to the one that is paying them the most and who is in your area, ofcourse. However, for me, teeth are personal and sensitive and after horrible experiences, i decided to come up with this blog - To share information on good dental hospitals and in my own way give back to society.  If you refer to

It is getting harder for freshers to break into the software industry and land a good job especially if you are from a tier 2 or 3 colleges. So what can you do. The answer to this is very simple – the industry is looking for people who can do a task that is given to them – when you join the industry the key is to be able to “write code” as that is what you will be hired as a fresher to do. Let us say you go for a training you should ask yourself at the end of it – can I write code and if the answer is NO – then you will find it extremely hard to get a job in the software industry. The key is to get a computer and get comfortable with it. The more you work on the computer the more comfortable you will get at it. So go for the training and come back to your PC and you need to work hard at it writing programs – what programs? – You may ask and the answer is simple – any program that will teach you the concept that you learnt. You can find these programs to code at these locations

For those of you who are not too familiar with these terms I would advise you to read my first article - Quality Assurance Vs Quality Control where I have spoken about my understanding of the two terms and it kind of leads into this article. I have been asked this a few times by professionals who do QC (essentially testers although testing != QC) - "How do I move into a QA role?" and I have also read in a few websites and newsgroups for QA and QC where one looks at moving from a QC role to a QA role like a natural progression in ones careers. Since I have played the QA role I would first talk about some of the things that helped me perform this role. Since the QA role expects the person to have a holistic view of the process of software development it is important to have a bit of experience in all the facets of software development right from requirements to design to development to deployment. Its only when one understands all of these elements in software developmen

Over the last few months I have seen a lot of business ideas that base their revenue generation through advertising. In my experience this is a very dangerous strategy for a startup. Let me narrate my experience about implementing this strategy on a website that Inforica had developed called mindqjobs.com . We launched this website in the last week of december 2012 with much fanfare with the assumption that we will get the traffic to monetize through advertising. The assumption was made on the fact that the website was to be used by the students of a software training institute Mindq Systems  which number in the 1000s every month. We started off by putting Adsense and the pennies started to flow in almost immediately. Thats right, all we got were pennies which added up to a few dollars every day, an amount barely enough to pay for hosting the site on a shared server. One of the reasons is because the traffic was from India and not the west, so you end up making very little in terms

Its appraisal time and everyone wants to be the most valued associate. But how do you become the most valued associate - here are my thoughts Creating a belief that you can meet your commitments. Given a task you will do what ever it takes to complete it in the allocated time. Take pains to ensure that the task is done with minimum defects or issues. This can be achieved by multiple practice runs or by a lot of testing. There is an eye for detail to ensure that simple things are not overlooked and there is no compromise made on quality. Shortcomings of delivering the application are noted and brought to the attention of the superior as soon as they are identified so appropriate action can be taken. Do not wait to be asked for status to bring this up.  Having the knowledge to deliver and train others so that you gain respect within the community. Should have the passion to learn new things and apply them in ones work. Documenting what is being done so that anyone else can take o

Was reading this small write up in the times paper about the NASSCOM initiative to create 10000 startups and over the last one month I have been part of 3 startup events in Hyderabad focused primarily towards students and encouraging them to take the entrepreneurial plunge rather than take up a campus recruitment offer. Startup Weekend University Startup Weekend University is similar to a regular startup weekend event except that the combination of students to experienced professionals is 70% students and 30% professionals. We had about 75 participants and the event was held at the beautiful BITS Pilani, Hyderabad campus over 3 days with many students staying on the campus. The students were primarily from BITS, IIT, IIIT and Vignan University, Guntur with a few students from other colleges in the city.  The event was a highly successful event in showcasing that students can build products over the weekend that have a business side to them. There were 13 startups formed over

Life can be challenging for an entrepreneur. The inherent risks of running the venture are high and thus each day presents their own challenges. The risks are there as the number of people that can do a job is limited, the money available on hand is limited, the number of customers you have is limited and vendors do not give you attention as you are small. Any one of these can change every day and you will notice that you have ups and downs in quick succession - just like you are going on a roller coaster. This can play with the mind of the entrepreneur in a very significant way. The important thing is to keep evaluating your position with respect to your employees, customers, suppliers and money flow as often as possible and take actions accordingly. There are days when it would seem impossible to manage all of this and you feel like throwing in the towel wondering if it is all worth it. It is at this time you have to go back to your vision and believe completely in your vision a

Its been 5 years since I have applied for my daughters passport and I wrote a series of articles at that point of time on the process Daughter's passport : Getting the application form Daughter's Passport : Documents Daughter's Passport : Submitting the form The process now has changed significantly and so much for the better. I got the passport in about a week after applying for a tatkal passport. Let me go over the steps here. Please note a few things with respect to my application  It was for a minor. It was a renewal of a passport that expired less than 3 years ago. There was no address change. The address on the expired passport and the new passport is the same. Step 1 : Create a login Create an account on https://portal2.passportindia.gov.in/AppOnlineProject/user/userLogin . Give a valid email id as you will need to validate the email id after registration. Step 2 : Apply for Fresh Passport / Reissue of Passport Once you login, click on the link tha