Aakar Tech

NEXT Growth Conclave 2017 Happening on December 22

aakar@aakarpost.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 14:27:00 +0000

The NEXT Growth Conclave, an annual conference organized by NEXT Venture Corp. is back. The NEXT Growth Conclave is happening on 22nd December 2017 this year.

According to NEXT, "The program envisions to bring the community supporters, startups, growth leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, corporate executives, media and other eminent into one place so they can jointly participate in the meaningful conversation that would craft the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Nepal."

The conclave also hosts ‘Startup Valley’, Nepal’s largest startup exhibit, which allows startups to showcase their exciting ventures in front of a network of influencers, early adopters, and the media. The participants also have a one-of-a-kind opportunity to launch their products at ‘Kickstart Hill’.

In 2016, NEXT organized Growth Conclave for the first time where 12 global speakers presented on various growth hacking topics.

Event Details
Date: December 22, 2016
Time: 9:00 a.m – 7:00 p.m
Ticket: Rs. 3,000 (Buy Tickets)
Website: NEXT Growth Conclave

The Story of a Storyteller - Story, Food and Dream

aakar@aakarpost.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 13:34:00 +0000

This is the story of a Storyteller, Saurav Dhakal. He is the Founder & Curator of StoryCycle.

The Storytellers : Creating a Cycle of Stories - Mr. Saurav Dhakal

Every morning I post pictures of food or farm on my Instagram, get few likes and few more subscribers for our new initiative called #GreenGrowth. Through this initiative, we are trying to promote local food and organic farming while delivering fresh vegetables to subscribers’ homes.

If you register on the site, you will get a weekly call from one of our colleagues to choose from a large variety of products that will be delivered in a basket at your doorstep inside Kathmandu Valley. And all of them are organic!

While I was traveling through The Great Himalayan Trail (GHT), I came across different local produce in rural places such as Jumla (walnuts), Mustang (beans and apples), and Kanchenjunga (organic tea) which were not finding their way to Kathmandu where consumers would be literally hungry to purchase them. As a storyteller, I was pondering to come up with compelling stories about those products.

Before going on the 99-day GHT trek, I had formed StoryCycle together with some friends. We were on a pursuit of stories -- not the common stories covered by the mainstream media but stories of hidden and forgotten people, places, products, culture, tradition and much more. We wanted to showcase the stories through pictures, videos, graphics, and maps.

It was very challenging to start a new venture without any proven business model and proper team. At that time I realized there are gaps and necessity to produce and publish new kind of stories on the internet. So I tried collecting some stories related to environment and climate affected people. This approach gave me some exposure and I was selected as a Climate Champion by The British Council. This profile helped me win a chance to travel the GHT.

It was also challenging for me to travel for more than three months when my baby boy was just born. I started my trek after when he was 16 days old. But the GHT provided me different perspectives of my own life and inspired me through the different stories that I came across.

I was inspired to start the idea of StoryCamp after embarking on the 99-day journey. The beginning of StoryCamp started to serve my quest for the vivid expression of such untold tales. The StoryCycle team started traveling to various small towns and villages of Nepal collecting stories and training local enthusiastic storytellers on newer technologies of sharing stories.

During our camps, we would mark the visited areas on Google Maps and teach the same to fellow trainees in order to increase the digital footprints of the area. During our trip, we realized that many places were not recorded on the map and hence information about them was not available on the internet. I saw many beautiful places along the 1555-km stretch across Nepal during my 99-day trek and recorded stories at some places but I had never been able to showcase a clearer picture of those areas due to lack of technology and skills.

StoryCycle’s collaboration with Google in late 2014 came as a milestone towards fulfilling the dream to conduct mapping projects in the Everest region using 360 degrees imagery.

While we were traveling to show the Google Maps Project to the locals, there was a big earthquake and we couldn't move ahead. It took me six days to be back with my family. Everyone suffered due to the earthquake and I suffered, our teams of StoryCycle and GreenGrowth suffered due to it.

It was a very challenging moment for me and my two ventures. I felt really alone at the moment, but I tried to engage myself in new work. We tried producing a story of Barpak, the epicenter of the April earthquake and collected fund for it.

Parallelly, I was also working hard to promote the idea of GreenGrowth. GreenGrowth is not a food business for me, it's a story business. The only difference is that the story can now be consumed.

The earthquake also compelled me to think about my family roots and to rebuild my cracked house. It was another challenge. Our family decided to shift from Kathmandu to Sindhuli, our family hometown and build a new and safe house.

In the meantime, it occurred to me that the place we were planning to shift to could be a nice and beautiful place. Only if we could use our skills of mapping, storytelling and local food promotion! It might be the key to sustainable growth for the place.

Then again I came up with another social innovative venture called Our Dream City, collaborating with different partners to design a sustainable, livable and smart place/city.

Now with three different ventures and products, the major challenge for me is how to team up.

I tried to adopt a new approach for team building -- member-based organization with no employees. Every individual has both positive and negative attributes and strengths and weaknesses. I believe that focusing on positive attributes or strength generates more energy than negative attributes, weaknesses or problems. I am trying to create a space/organization with a co-existing platform. All members here have an equal share in decision making and formulating policies and guidelines. The members work on assignments as per their experience and expertise and share the benefits accordingly.

After working for two years, now we are 26 members engaged in the three ventures. We call for membership every year. The members meet regularly to discuss the strategy, ongoing assignments, and activities, and planning for future.

My journey that started with stories, has encompassed not only food but also dreams to build a better city, society, and country. With my team of able colleagues and like-minded people collaborating in our journey, I believe we’ll be able to inspire the young generation to take up the reins in their hands – to build better communities with a better quality of life. So that the whole world will crave to listen to our story!

STARTUPSNepal Announces Udhyami Seed Camp Tech Edition

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 03:52:00 +0000

After the successful completion of the first edition of Udhyami Seed Camp Women Edition, STARTUPSNepal has announced the second edition of the Udhyami Seed Camp Tech Edition.

Udhyami Seed Camp Tech Edition is a 6-days long entrepreneurial program, designed specifically for aspiring entrepreneurs and very early stage tech startups who have ground breaking ideas. This edition of Udhyami Seed Camp aims to facilitate teams with 2-4 founding members who have or are willing to incorporate technology in their business idea or business processes; whether it is as simple as the incorporation of the mobile application for distribution or be it a complete artificial intelligence solution.

The selected teams will go through 6 days of intensive business skills training program along with additional biweekly follow up session for the duration of next 2 months. During this 6 days, the teams with 2-4 members will work closely with the experts, coaches and industry leaders to validate their proposed business idea that is technology incorporated into a viable business idea.

The overall Udhyami Seed Camp program will conclude on Udhyami101- Basics of Starting a Business. Here, sector experts and industry supporters will be sharing their knowledge and insights regarding fundamentals of being an entrepreneur and basics of starting a business.

Application Deadline: 20th August 2017.
Event Date: 25th – 30th August, 2017
Time: 9 A.M – 6 P.M.

➤ Apply for Udhyami Seed Camp - Tech Edition

Ncell launches Yonder Karaoke Contest

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 16:24:00 +0000

Ncell has announced the launch of ‘Yonder Karaoke Contest’, offering a platform for music lovers to make their singing talents visible and win Samsung J7 Prime every week for up to four weeks.

All Ncell users using Yonder Music app can participate in this weekly contest, starting Monday (June 19). The contest has been announced on Saturday in the Capital amid a special function attended by artists, musicians, other dignitaries, and guests.

Ncell had launched the music streaming app 'Yonder Music', on May 26, which enables users to enjoy free access to millions of songs to download, play, sing and share. The app also offers to the customers a first-of-its-kind interactive feature ‘Snap Karaoke’, allowing users to sing and record their own versions of their favorite songs in a video karaoke style and share up to 29 seconds of their karaoke performance with other Yonder users and on social networks, according to their press release.

“We are pleased to announce weekly ‘Yonder Karaoke Contest’ which will start from Monday, in order to encourage users and amateurs to take benefits of ‘Snap Karaoke’, an interesting interactive feature of Yonder, to unleash their singing talents and get recognized. We believe the contest will contribute to bring out talents in every individual, and help the industry identify potential talents,” said Simon Perkins, managing director of Ncell.

How to participate in Yonder Karaoke Contest?
Ncell user can simply record their songs through Snap Karaoke and share them on Facebook and Instagram using the #MysnapkaraokeWeek1 hashtag. Each week the number of the hashtag changes for sharing of karaoke song on the social media platforms. For example, to participate in the second week, the app users are required to use the #MysnapkaraokeWeek2 hashtag. The contest will be held on a cyclical basis of Monday to Sunday.

Each week, a total of top 10 performers will be selected on the basis of the highest number of shares and likes. There should be minimum of 100 likes with a properly mentioned hashtag. A panel of Yonder spoke-artists will select one winner each week for four weeks from the top 10 performers. One time winner will not be eligible to participate again in the contest.

Winners of the karaoke contest will be announced on Tuesdays and handed over the prize. The performers who win the prize and live out of the Kathmandu Valley will be delivered their prizes from the nearest Ncell Centre in their region.

➤ Download Yonder Music App from Google Play Store

Nokia 3 - Android Phone Launched in Nepal

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 16:25:00 +0000

Nokia is back with Android smartphones. Nokia 3 (N3) Android smartphone is now available in Nepal. HMD Global had announced Nokia 3 at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona earlier this year.

Nokia N3 comes with 5-inch polarized HD display with Corning Gorilla Glass powered by Mediatek MT6737 quad-core 1.4Ghz processor. Nokia 3 features Android 7.0 Nougat, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage (expandable up to 128GB) Micro-USB 2.0, NFC, 2650mAh battery, and 8-megapixel cameras on the front and back. According to Nokia website, Nokia N3 will get regular security patches and software updates.

Nokia N3 Price in Nepal
Nokia is targeting its phone to those who are looking for a premium-looking handset at a budget. However, for Nepali market, the price seems little higher, Nokia 3 is priced at Rs. 15,825 in Nepal. Nokia will be getting tough competition from Samsung, Huawei, OPPO, and Xiaomi here. Nokia 5 and 6 will be available soon.

NOKIA N3
5" HD Display
android 7.0
4G LTE
2gb/16gb
8mpx /8mpx camera
MRP: 15825/-
आयो है मार्केटमा pic.twitter.com/39Olx9DfHo
— माइला साउ (@iMaila_Saau) June 13, 2017

NEXT Launchpad opens application for scalable businesses

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 16:12:00 +0000

Next Venture Corp. has opened an application for its highly anticipated business accelerator program, NEXT Launchpad as announced in NEXT Growth Conclave 2016. It's a mentorship-driven business accelerator program aimed at helping Nepali entrepreneurs and their early-stage businesses to grow faster.

Nepal is a country full of potentials yet to be fully explored especially in the fields of information technology, education, health, tourism, and agriculture. Furthermore, everyone is well aware of the Nepal’s degrading economic scenario and the need to create a youth-friendly environment in the country. One of the most well-observed methods to kickstart an economy is through entrepreneurship, which would not only find a solution to problems of the society but also create jobs, keep entrepreneurial ecosystem intact, and change the society for better. In spite of knowing this, there have been barriers for entrepreneurs.

The entrepreneurs desire to grow their ventures. As it would require large sums of money to utilize the resources, to operate and expand the business, and create the market, it would be practically difficult for them to foster and ultimately such scalable businesses are stuck or die.

Most of these can be easily eliminated through proper guidance, resources and support system but Nepal being an emerging economy, this is lacking. Thus, to avoid such, NEXT Launchpad has been introduced.

How will NEXT Launchpad help?
NEXT Launchpad will fill this gap by providing compact and extensive programs to equip business with the most of what they need to sustain and succeed. Accelerators like this will push the creation of more knowledge-driven businesses with higher success rates. To foster entrepreneurship in Nepal, it provides the best of business knowledge, curriculum, experts, mentors, investors, resources, valuable networks, market exposure, supportive community and access to funding.

NEXT Launchpad is a mentorship-driven accelerator of 4 months, carefully designed to provide optimum value to the business houses and entrepreneurs. This 4-month long program has been broken down into weeks, each with an objective which incorporates business model refining, marketing, legal, strategic management, operations, HR, finance, industry specific workshops, presentation and much more. In addition, NEXT Launchpad has also developed various signature events, like Brainfast, Venture Walk, Venture Talk and Venture Blend to escalate knowledge exchange, networking, and exposure.

How NEXT Launchpad operates?
The applications for the business has been opened from 25th September 2016. Entrepreneurs from all over Nepal who are looking to grow their businesses can apply for NEXT Launchpad. Out of the hundreds of applications, only 10 companies will be selected to go through the accelerator program. The business will be screened out through various phases such as analysis of application forms, founder interviews, team assessment and market study. Each month has its own objective starting from building a strong foundation, gearing for success, managing growth, to attracting and managing funds. To fulfill these objectives, the mentors deliver the workshops and training during the mornings every Monday to Friday. The program concludes with a Demo Day where 10 selected business entrepreneurs pitch their business whereas investors make growth investments in the businesses.

Events of NEXT Launchpad:
Various events are designed to enhance the entrepreneurs’ learning experience in the NEXT Launchpad:

1. BrainFast - Is a brainstorming session over breakfast with business leaders and sector experts on any business issues relevant to the business. This highly focused brainstorming is geared towards solving the specific problems business will face during the accelerator program.

2. Venture Walk - Is a morning walk session for entrepreneurs and the investors to know each other better, building valuable relations. This session will be highly valuable during the DEMO day when the close relationship could assure an investment.

3. Venture Talk - Is a talk program where leading entrepreneurs share their journey of building successful ventures and inspire the entrepreneurs to do more. After the talk program, they will also have a chance to interact with the speakers and the audience.

4. Venture Blend - Is a theme based networking session where people from all the verticals of various industries and people related to the industry get a platform to interact and break deals.

Brain Fast and Venture Walk are organized on every Sunday morning on a request by the selected business. Venture talk and venture blend are each organized on alternate Friday evenings and are open to the public with prior registration. These events boost the growth of entrepreneurs, their team and business with maximum knowledge sharing, networking, and exposure.

NEXT Growth Conclave Inspires to Solve the Local Problem [Tweet Buzz]

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 11:22:00 +0000

Over 700 entrepreneurs, investors and growth experts from both home and abroad attended the Next Growth Conclave on 25th September. The entire event was centered around a stellar lineup of 12 amazing business and entrepreneurship personalities from 4 different countries including Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Thailand.

Celebrated investor, entrepreneur and global keynote speaker, Mahesh Murthy opened the conclave with his take on the new rules of building a successful business in the digital age.

The conclave also hosted 25 of the most exciting and innovative startups in Nepal at a startup showcase called “Startup Valley”. 8 exciting startups launched their companies and products at the conclave on the startup launching platform called Kickstart Hill. The startups and products launched were WebRobo, Green Bamboo Creations, Furniture Hub, Fancy Nepal, Keep Rolling Media, Hodor and Golden peak.

The conclave proved to be a fantastic melting pot of entrepreneurial ideas, passions, aspirations and energy, bringing together all relevant stakeholders of the Nepali startup community. The knowledge and insights shared at the conclave will surely help nurture the nascent entrepreneurship ecosystem of Nepal while the interactions and connections the Nepali startups, entrepreneurs and investors had at the conclave will help them grow faster.

The conclave, was organized by M&S NEXT Venture Corp. as a part of its mission to create an entrepreneurial support system for faster business growth and to make entrepreneurship accessible to everyone. M&S Next Venture Corp. also opened an application for its highly anticipated business accelerator program, NEXT Launchpad, at the event.

Here are the LIVE Tweets from the event.

NEXT Growth Conclave on September 25

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 00:45:00 +0000

The NEXT Growth Conclave is being organized on 25th September by M&S Next Venture Corp. The Next Growth Conclave is a growth hacking conference that is designed to help entrepreneurs and the Nepali startup ecosystem. "The growth conclave is designed to showcase Nepal’s growing startup community and cater to its unique needs," according to M&S Next.

The Next Growth Conclave brings together the growth leaders from Nepal and beyond to inform, inspire and educate the next generation of entrepreneurs about growing faster. These speakers will be talking about unlocking the potential of Nepalese businesses, how to make it big and how support systems can help the entrepreneurial ecosystem grow.

Speakers:

Aditi Chaurasia, Co-founder, EngineerBabu, India
Amarit Charoenphan, Group CEO and Founder of HUBBA, Thailand
Ajeet Khurana, CEO of Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT- Bombay
Bhupendra Khanal, Co-founder and Former CEO of Simplify360
Deepak Raj Joshi, CEO, Nepal Tourism Board
Joseph Jeong, Oracle Strategies Cyberport, Hong Kong
Minhaz Anwar, Head, Grameenphone Accelerator, Bangladesh
Sneh Sharma, Founder & CEO, Ittisa, India
Vinay Singhal, Co-founder and CEO, WittyFeed, India
Shahil Agrawal, MD, Shankhar Group, Nepal
Mahesh Murthy, Managing Partner, Seedfund, Mumbai, India

The conclave will also host a startup showcasing platform called "Startup Valley", a 'Kickstart Hill', an "Investors Lounge" and a "Media Lounge".

Event Details
Date : September 25, 2016
Time : 9:00 a.m – 5:00 p.m
Venue: Soaltee Crowne Plaza, Kathmandu
Ticket: Rs. 2000

SEO for Tumblr Blogs

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 02:45:00 +0000

Tumblr themes are beautiful. But they suck when it comes to SEO. Most of the themes, I have used does not even generate the unique title tag, and does not follow the order of highest level heading tag rules. So, for Tumblr SEO, you have to change/add a few lines of code to the theme. If you’re familiar with HTML/CSS, you can do it yourself, if not just ask your developer, and he/she will optimize it for you. Go to the Tumblr settings and edit your HTML/CSS theme from there.

Title Tag

If you’re optimizing your Tumblr blog for text posts instead of photos/links/quotes etc., make sure that the <title> tag contains the PostTitle;

<title>{block:PostTitle}{PostTitle} | {/block:PostTitle}{Title}</title>

Meta Description

Add meta description block, if it’s not already there, we will create meta description dynamically from the post later.

{block:Description}<meta name="description" content="{MetaDescription}" />{/block:Description}

HTML Body

On the blog homepage, the blog of your name is the most important factor there, and all the blog posts title becomes secondary. And in the blog post page, the title/heading of your blog post is the most important SEO factor. So, on the homepage (index page), we are going to use <h1> tag for your blog title whereas, for the blog post listing, we are going to use <h2> tag.

<div class="blog-title"> {block:IndexPage}<h1 class="blogtitle"><a class="default" href="/">{Title}</a></h1>{/block:IndexPage} {block:PermalinkPage}<h2 class="blogtitle"><a class="default" href="/">{Title}</a></h2>{/block:PermalinkPage} {block:IfShowDescription} <p class="blog-description">{Description}</p> {/block:IfShowDescription} </div>

Similarly, on the blog post page, we will be using <h1> tag for the blog post title and <h2> tag for the blog title (index page title).

{block:Title} {block:IndexPage}<h2 class="posttitle"><a href="{Permalink}">{Title}</a></h2>{/block:IndexPage} {block:PermalinkPage}<h1 class="posttitle">{Title}</h1>{/block:PermalinkPage} {/block:Title}

This above method is suitable for text posts on Tumblr. After replacing your existing block with the above code; you’re ready to rock the Tumblr SEO. One little thing, you might have to write a CSS for <h1> and <h2> tag.

If you have a photo blog, you can generate title from the PostSummary;

<title>{block:PostSummary}{PostSummary} | {/block:PostSummary}{Title}</title>

Lastly, do not forget to submit your site to Google Webmaster tools. Tumblr creates sitemaps automatically, check your sitemap at yourname.tumblr.com/sitemap.xml (replace yourname) Submit it to Google Webmaster Tools.

Originally published at aakar.me.

IT park, KU IT meet 2016 and relevance of holy Trinity, the oxygen!

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 01:00:00 +0000

The chill climate at night and moths after the light and far away the fine bright static light that boasts around its neighborhood with that might as that of the king Lion in the Jungle. Roaming around the Kathmandu University with your friends and the “meaningful talks” that almost conquers the topic of discussion and far away glittering IT Park and the lights that make it shine are the common scenario to the nocturnal KU citizens.

Oh that reminds me of the MoU between Kathmandu University (KU) and IT Park. I believe someday there shall come opportunity when a KU final year Students interning the sprouting companies established around the park. Well, intern season is on and I shall not be able to live the dream to reality as of now. But let’s hope the future students shall able to intern there without leaving this peaceful and clean surrounding of Dhulikhel and KU.

Dreamers are we allowed being, always. But was not the scenario realizable itself? IT park as the platform for tech companies with necessary infrastructure for operation. I guess while its establishment in 2006, starters back then was surely inspired by the Silicon Valley of USA. However,as the aim the impact the park has made in the IT market is almost null. Well, Let’s leave the history to critics, but better late than never, see how the MoU and consequent decision to hold the annual tech-mela and meet for IT stakeholders- students, professionals, developers, named KU IT meet 2016 with the theme Education-Technology-Entrepreneurship has been announced . Let's leave future to the God-the time herself, but courage and initiative taken by Kathmandu University, Kathmandu University Computer Club (KUCC) and students to revitalize the almost dead park with this holy trinity oxygen is commendable.

As earlier said, the lights and shining of the park building is distinguishable from the local community of Banepa and Panauti in the Kavrepalanchowk district with the population of 381,937(2011 census). However, as they say a building is a home when it gets life and impact it makes on the life of the people involved. Similarly, this is, with full confidence I can say, the event or to be precise life to the building.

The technology is growing rapidly and the world has been weaved together by a web more and more like never before. This cliché you hear every day from almost everyone, but few really reflect and analyze to what is required to catch up with that pace.

Connecting back to the aim of IT park itself, the youth and upcoming generation are the ones whose are to be targeted for getting close to the pace. With the synchrony of that aim, one of the theme- Education comes to fit in the puzzle. The more we are able to make our youth acquainted with the tools that has the capacity to make our life easier, the more we ourselves can carry on with the pace and innovate something for the mankind besides the slogan as Buddha's Birthplace and Sagarmatha's Situation.

I must not delve into the power that the word education has and the change it can create, it’s obvious. But the way education has not been integrated with technology till now by our authorities is, to be honest from a Computer Engineering student's viewpoint, disgraceful. Like for example, the way Facebook connects people, Google feeds us information at a click and faster and efficient networks that are making this world into spherical webs with diameter very much minimized compared to the actual one . But does our youth especially the middle school ones and the ones below SLC and even the +2 ones know how and what it requires to make Facebook, Google, Twitter or products as such. Well, let's say it's pretty difficult stuff to grasp, but I can bet bucks for the fact that more than half the population of high school and higher secondary students do not know that there is a platform and there is a technique called programming which can help make your vision and dream turn this world for real using the wand called technology.

Well again, let's leave policies to authorities. But coming back to the initiative, I just want to highlight why the initiative itself and the holy trinity oxygen is really relevant today. With the events like Developers' meet, software and hardware competitions, IT quiz competition, IT talk shows focused towards the youth and inspiring them towards technological innovation is what this IT meet 2016 is categorically aiming on with the theme Education. Everyone uses technology but integrating its mechanism with the stuffs we study is pretty progressive in today's conventional educational system. We (We as in high school students of today's system) know mathematics but we lack the knowledge of what computation is! Irony, isn't it? We know number system, Calculus and everything but little do we know about languages like python, Java, that can really carry out the computation to help us innovate. So, with this meet particularly aimed at that theme, through aforementioned events, students are able to see the bigger picture of abstract concepts they study. They come with the capacity of comparing mathematics to Computation. They are able to widen the horizon through the motivations they gain through the distinguished ones in the field. They are able to think freely and innovate. Isn't this what education is supposed to do?

Pages can be filled talking about this but the aim of IT meet 2016, from the effort and aim organizers are putting into, I can say through this event, KUCC wants to light Nepal through the lights of Technology from Sagarmatha of IT in Nepal itself, IT park. So, that the ones in the dark can follow the path the light provides with the tool in hand called Technology to alleviate themselves from their own miseries, turn their hardships into comfort and ones around them. Isn't this what the big word Entrepreneurship called? With the events like Software and Hardware Hackathon, platform is provided to the ones with the ideas. They get a place for brainstorming their ideas in a way it can be usable to the market it is aiming to. When the aim and the way and vision get clear and tied up with effective business plan, the budding idea can get shaped into a startup, the repeatedly used word Entrepreneurship.

Enough said, so do visit the IT Park, Banepa-Panauti road on 29th and 30th of April yourself to witness that enthusiasm sprouts, that motivation bursting into action through your own eyes. Be the part of that change. Peace!

This post is written by Prabesh Acharya. He is a computer engineering student at Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel. Twitter: @70acharya

9 Reasons to participate in Ncell App Camp

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 00:45:00 +0000

The second edition of Ncell App Camp 2015 is back with a bang and promises an impressive lineup of trainings, workshops, seminars from the best mentors. It is an opportunity for the always-eager Nepali youth to hone their skills in app development and help them bring their own creative ideas to life.

Here's a few exciting reasons for participating in this year's App Camp:

Platform for Creative Business Ideas
If you have been looking for a platform to put forth your creative ideas, Ncell App Camp is the perfect platform for it. The best thing about it is that it's not limited to your own ability but will also help you to get a business sense in order to develop that ability, turn that idea into an app and make it sustainable.

Training Workshops and Seminars
After the selection of 150 ideas, representatives of each team will get to participate in a series of workshops and seminars based on idea management, skill development and business development with national and international speakers. You will learn techniques to successfully develop your app into a business and yourself into an Appreneur.

Mentorship from the Best
The camp features a great mentorship opportunity for each team. Last year, Tommy Palm (the man behind a candy crush saga) mentored the teams at the camp and provided valuable knowledge and guidance on mobile app development, capacity building of participants, entrepreneurship skills for successful startups and business development.

A window to the world of app development and technology market
The recent growth of app development in Nepal promises a budding market for innovative and handy apps. The camp is a doorway to the technology market.

Interaction with like minded people
You will get to meet and interact with people like yourself who are interested in turning an idea or a dream to reality. You will learn from each other and a healthy competition will help broaden your horizons.

Networking platform
Getting to meet people, experienced, chances to collaborate with people who have established themselves in the market. This will help you to build contacts, correspondence and learn from them in the future as well.

Exposure
Along with interactions and networking you will get exposure in this field and so will your app. This will help create a market space for it as well. Last year, Ncell App Sansar was introduced at the camp. It is Ncell’s app store wherein the winners and participating teams of Ncell App Camp can place their apps for distribution in the Nepali market. In addition, the grand winner gets to participate in an overseas app camp experiencing the app world outside the country.

Unique in Nepalese context
For the first time, Ncell App Camp last year provided a much needed opportunity for where innovative minds to materialize into prolific businesses. This year too it aims to continue it and create space for technological innovation here in Nepal.

Prize Money
Last but not the least, each category winner team will get Rs 250,000 and grand winner will get Rs 500,000 that you can utilize and invest for the benefit of your app and business.

Nepal Telecom Introduces Prepaid Data Package

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 14:33:00 +0000

Good news for Nepal Telecom's GSM prepaid users, the telecom has introduced, the most awaited Data Packages.

According to NT's Facebook post, there are six different types of data packages, ranging from 200MB to 10GB. The telecom has categorized the data plan into three categories: Bronze, Silver and Gold Pack.

#Nepal Telecom Introduces the most awaited Data Package for GSM Prepaid. Thanks NT. ;) pic.twitter.com/iz45E6nXY3
— Aakar Anil (@aakarpost) August 17, 2015

Data Package Rate for Nepal Telecom's GSM Prepaid

Plan	Package	Price (Rs.)	Validity
Bronze	200 MB	130	1 Month
	500 MB	300	1 Month
Silver	1 GB	500	1 Month
	3 GB	1,290	2 Months
Gold	5 GB	1,800	3 Months
	10 GB	2,800	6 Months
*Prices are Exclusive of Govt. Taxes

How to Subscribe NTC's Prepaid Data Plan?

You can easily subscribe to your preferred data plan via SMS. All you need to do is, send an SMS text to 1415 with data package name. Below are the examples:

For 200 MB Data Plan: Type DATA200MB and send SMS to 1415
For 10 GB Data Plan: Type DATA10GB and send SMS to 1415

Nepal Telecom has already introduced, the data packages for GSM postpaid users. Right now, postpaid users are getting voice calls worth Rs. 500 and 2GB data volume at Rs. 900/month.

And the PostPaid. :) “@Birjuz: @aakarpost did you notice this, btw? pic.twitter.com/CrDi9Cbmyy”
— Aakar Anil (@aakarpost) August 17, 2015

To check the data volume, type VL and send SMS to 1415. Enjoy the NT's prepaid and postpaid data packages.

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Ncell App Camp is Back Again

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 01:15:00 +0000

Ncell App Camp - country's biggest mobile app development competition - is back again! Ncell on Tuesday launched Ncell App Camp 2015, opening registration for all interested mobile enthusiasts to submit their mobile app ideas for the competition.

Ncell opened the App competition 2015 unveiling the official website. "Ncell App Camp is not a mere competition; it is a platform through which we wish to inspire youth to build innovative businesses, be a part of the global app industry and contribute to a country's economic growth," said Erim Taylanlar, CEO of Ncell.

In Ncell App Camp 2015, Ncell has opened a competition under four categories, viz. Games and Entertainment, Health, Tourism, and Utilities.

As in 2014, competition under Ncell App Camp 2015 will be implemented in multiple stages. In the first stage, 150 best ideas among all submissions will be selected for capacity trainings and mentorships. In the second stage, best 24 ideas with a prototype - six from each category - will be selected for the finals, following which four category winners and a grand winner will be declared.

The category winners would be rewarded with a cash prize of Rs 250,000 and one grand winner, best app among the category winners, will receive additional prizes of Rs 500,000 and also an opportunity to participate in the similar international event.

Interested mobile enthusiasts with a team can register and submit app ideas in any of the four competition categories. Registration is free of cost. The deadline for idea submission is 12 noon September 20, 2015. Participants can create an app for any platform like Android, Apple iOS, Windows, SMS and J2ME, among others.

In 2014, Ncell App Camp had attracted 457 initial app ideas, ICT for Agriculture (app name IFA Krishi) had bagged the grand prize along with the title winner of agriculture category. Sentinel, RitiRiwaj and Lipi (the Script) were category winners of Corporate Solutions, Education and Tourism respectively.

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Google Doodle Celebrates Nepal Teacher's Day 2015

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 02:39:00 +0000

Google Doodle is celebrating Nepal Teacher's Day 2015 (Guru Purnima). This doodle is available all across Nepal on Google homepage today.

On the Doodle's page, Google writes, "Teachers are our mentors, friends, and catalysts. They’re the wild, eager sparks that can, with a word, set our passions ablaze. Not quite parents, they nevertheless raise us to be the very best versions of ourselves. And their impressions last lifetimes, as the lessons we’ve learned are passed down to others, like inheritances of wisdom. Today, let’s celebrate teachers, one of the noblest and most selfless of callings, all across Nepal."

Happy Teacher’s Day!

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Together We Stand, Hand in Hand Launches #TshirtsforRelief Campaign - And You are Invited

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 14:51:00 +0000

An independent club, "Together We Stand, Hand in Hand" launched a "T-shirts for Earthquake Relief" campaign. The fundamental idea of this campaign is to contribute NPR. 1,00,00,000 (NPR. 1 crore) to the PM's Disaster Relief fund, for the earthquake victims.

"Understanding the importance of trusting the government for national upbringing and realizing the need for contributing to the PM Relief Fund, #TshirtsforRelief is a campaign that aims at selling 17,000+ T-shirts (NPR. 600) to contribute a sum of 10 million rupees to the Prime Minister Relief Fund.", a member, Aashish Acharya said in an email.

After the earthquake, responding to the needs of emergency and immediate relief, a group of companies came together to form an informal club ‘Together We Stand, Hand In Hand" and had launched an emergency relief campaign, that touched the lives of around 27,000 people and distributed over 48 Lakhs worth of relief materials. #TshirtsforRelief campaign is their next initiative.

"Together We Stand, Hand in Hand" is organizing a launch event for the #TshirtsforRelief campaign on Friday, 12th June 2015. The event includes painting exhibition, T-shirt displays and musical performances.

Event Details: #TshirtsforRelief Campaign Launch
Date: June 12, 2015
Time: 4 PM to 6 PM
Venue: Office Space of Three H Management Pvt. Ltd., Jwagal, Kupondole, Lalitpur

For more information, visit #TshirtsforRelief campaign page.

Update: Previously, article mistakenly stated "Together We Stand, Hand in Hand" as a campaign. We have updated the article. "Together We Stand, Hand in Hand" is an independent club, that has launched a #TshirtsforRelief campaign.

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Nepal PM Office (@PM_Nepal) Joins Twitter

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 12:38:00 +0000

Office of the Prime Minister Nepal joined Twitter as @PM_Nepal on Wednesday (10th June 2015).

Prime Minister Sushil Koirala's, Chief Press Advisor Prateek Pradhan confirmed that, the PM has joined a popular micro blogging site Twitter. He tweeted, "Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Sushil Koirala is on Twitter. @PM_Nepal".

After joining Twitter, PM Office tweeted, "Prime Minister Office Nepal is on Twitter's cyber space from Today."

This is an official account of Nepal Prime Minister Office, and will be transferred to the next PM after Sushil Koirala. "It's the existing PM's official handle. We wish to institutionalize this handle, and assist all the PMs in the future to be transparent.", Prateek Pradhan said on a Tweet.

Currently, the account follows 2 profiles and has earned around 5K followers within 24 hours. Social media sites are getting popular among the political leaders. Former Prime Minister, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai has joined Twitter in 2013.

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Answers for a Shaking Nation

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 01:02:00 +0000

This post is written by Diwash Thapa. He is an undergraduate Physics and Chemistry Major at UNC Chapel Hill, aspiring to become a radiologist.

I gaze at the setting sun and the hills that embrace it on the horizon of the North Carolina landscape: how vast, how serene, how naturally peaceful. But as I pull out my phone and check my recently downloaded app QuakeFeed, my heart skips a beat in fear that another jolt might have hit an equally vast, serene, and naturally peaceful territory some 13000 kilometers away from here: Nepal. That territory is where my heart still calls home some 3 years after moving to the US.

It is heart wrenching to see images of the places you knew growing up turned into rubbles, and your family and friends having to endure a life of fear and uncertainty. But this pain is belittled by the sufferings of the people who actually experienced the 7+ magnitude earthquakes in Nepal; such is the scale of the calamity. The world has come together and chipped in to relieve and reconstruct Nepal and here I am making petty donations, otherwise helpless to this cause.

Helpless I may have felt but I quickly realized that I could help my countrymen in a way only someone in my position can, in one of the major universities in the world, amongst the best and brightest minds in the field of seismology. I am by no means an expert in the field, but I have dug deep into relevant journals and articles and spoken to experts in the field just to answer some of the prominent questions people back home are raising concerning the earthquake. In the aftermath of the earthquake there has been a flow of information on the web as large as the actual catastrophe, sparing physical damage but creating an intellectual tumult among Nepalese.

Here are the answers to three basic questions about the recent seismic activities based on my meeting with Dr. Jonathan Lees, chair of the department of geological sciences in the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Why are these earthquakes happening?
My conversation with Dr. Lees began with him playing a time-lapse video of the continental drift, now subsumed into the plate tectonics theory; perhaps he wanted to be sure that I first understood the root cause of seismicity before we progressed further. As I watched in awe how a chunk of land fragmented into continents and moved in random directions over time, scale millions of years, in the last one-sixth of the video one particular fragment rose up from the southern hemisphere and collided head on with another fragment located in the northern hemisphere. That was the Indian subcontinent playing tag with Eurasia, politely put.

With the two continental plates being of similar physical properties there is very little room for either to move. Hence, neither gives up, producing mountain ranges like the Himalayas and terrains like the Tibetan plateau. Dr. Lees stressed that the earthquakes are part of the readjustment of the continental crashing. These will continue until the readjustment is complete, which in geological timescales could be millions of years. The most recent earthquakes are because of the release of the pent-up strain in one of the faults created by this continental tussle. This fault is about 700 km long, about the length of Nepal.

Why are Earthquake Magnitudes reported with such inconsistency?
Earthquakes are measured in several different scales. The popular ones are the Richter scale, the moment magnitude scale, and the Mercalli scale. The Richter scale is the most widely know metric because it has been around for a longer time. Developed by Charles Richter in the 1930’s, the Richter scale is best applied to earthquakes in southern California. Although there have been corrections to this scale and methodology, its prime disadvantage that it fails to accurately reflect larger earthquakes near magnitude 8 is significant. The Richter scale measurement is expressed in units of ML, also known as the local magnitude.

The more widely accepted modern scale is the moment magnitude scale. “The moment magnitude is based on the size of the event, how much slip occurred [in the fault] and the properties of the rock,” said Dr. Lees in trying to explain the difference between the various scales. He also pointed out that researchers abroad don’t quite know the properties of the rocks in Nepal although this is not merely why there are discrepancies in the values reported; “I have a different computer algorithm while the guy down at Duke University may have a different algorithm which results in different estimates, then we also make assumptions like in any scientific calculation that results in experimental error.” The moment magnitude is reported in units of MW.

The third—by contrast a discrete metric—is the Mercalli scale, which reports earthquake events based on human experiences. “Did the coffee cup shake, or did the lights swing, did the cabinets fall over?” These are some of the subjective question witnesses are asked for categorizing an earthquake in Mercalli scale, according to Dr. Lees. The 7.8 MW earthquake was reported as very strong (VII) to severe (VIII) in the Mercalli index by IRIS, a network of seismology research universities in the US.

Hence, to answer the question of why earthquake reports have appeared inconsistent, it may either be due to differences in scale of measurement or the way of calculation, despite using a common scale.

Are there possibilities of larger earthquakes in Nepal?
This is the one question I believe every single Nepali is asking at the moment, including me. A more naively unrestrictive way of putting this question would be, “Is there a larger earthquake to come?” I will attempt to answer these questions in a way I believe everyone would like to hear —with a cautious tone but positive outlook.

It is needless to mention that Nepal lies in a very seismically active zone and the nature of the plate tectonics underneath makes it vulnerable to larger earthquakes. The pent-up strain in the particular fault may indeed require large magnitude earthquakes to dissipate all the energy. Couple this with the fact that Nepal hasn’t had a major earthquake, of magnitude 9 or so to release this strain, in its documented history and you have an argument to send the whole nation into panic!

I inferred through my talk with Dr. Lees that the aforementioned argument, while not entirely wrong, could be counter argued. For instance, the 8.0 MW Nepal-Bihar earthquake of 1934 occurred around the time when Richter scale was just invented while the moment magnitude scale was another 40 years away from development. Is it, then totally out of the question that the 1934 earthquake may have been a 9 MW earthquake? “ They are just guessing these historic events [in justifiable ways],” answered Dr. Lees. Likewise the western region of the fault hasn’t had a major seismic event since 1555 and seismologist have already speculated that the next big quake will be in the western region of Nepal. “[500 years] in geological timescales is nothing,” laughed off Dr. Lees. So, it is totally within the realm of reality that the fault goes on for another 500 years without any major seismic activity.

But Nepal hasn’t had a major earthquake in its documented history you may repeat. And to you I point out the operative word is “documented.” We are talking about a country that used to be so far removed from technology and literacy that even events of recent history are inferred from foreign records. Who then is to say that a 9.0 MW earthquake didn’t occur before 1555? The event, that such an earthquake had occurred is as likely as it will happen as you are reading this.

On the matter of probability, different research groups and organizations like the USGS make statistical forecasts of seismic events based on empirical data collected over time. But forecasts are not predictions and should be interpreted rather carefully. For instance, the statistical probability of getting heads on a coin toss is 50 percent, but that does not mean, if you tossed a coin ten times you would see 5 heads and 5 tails. You could see 10 heads, or 10 tails, or any other theoretically possible combination.

The 50 percent likelihood of heads or tails only tells us that for a sufficiently large number of trials, say a 1000 tosses, one might get 499 heads and 501 tails, pretty close to 50 percent apiece. Forecasts of earthquakes are very similar. If the USGS forecasts a 40 percent chance of 6-7 MW earthquakes in the next week, all that can be said is if there were about 1000 earthquakes next week there is a very good chance that 40 percent of those will fall in the advertised range. However, a thousand earthquakes a week is not very likely in the first place and any single earthquake can turn out to be of any magnitude.

What is a hundred percent likely event is that there is chaos in nature. One has to consider that science is only a human model to interpret nature and models fail at one point or another. In seismology most models fail to successfully predict events due to chaos. In order to explain this I will borrow an analogy from Dr. Lees. If you take a twig and bring its ends together, it comes under high extension in the middle and eventually the twig will snap. You may know the physical properties of the twig down to a molecule, but you will never be able to tell how these molecules interact to break at a certain point. Earthquakes are just like that. It is just how nature rolls!

3 Super Cool Gadgets You Need Right Now

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 15:52:00 +0000

This is a guest post by TechGuy. He loves writing about Gadgets and Technology.

It is difficult to settle upon some lofty smartphone and drag upon it for years or months for that matter. Either switching to a new smartphones become inevitable or some new features need to be added to keep them interesting. This is what gadgets and accessories are for. Simplifying a task that otherwise takes longer and is arduous to do. Performing a function that digital devices on their own are unable to perform. Mobile companies therefore come up with new and innovative accessories, which are not only astonishing in their unique performance but almost become unavoidable. For such gadgets, we have online shopping sites like Kaymu in Nepal -- that make things easier for you. Following are some of the gadgets that you need right now.

Google Chromecast

With the era of smart phones and tablets, come a lot of accompanying functions that need to be fulfilled. Moreover, smart TVs have further strengthened the connection of man with the internet world. However, how do you build a connection between the small screen (smartphone, tab etc) with the big screen? To this end, Motorola has come up with Google Chromecast that establishes a connection between the two. You can transfer pictures, videos and movies from internet to your TV without using any remote or cable. All you need is an internet connection. Just sit back and watch the videos play on your TVs.

Micro SD Card

Micro SD cards are the ultimate solution to your camera quality problems. It happens quite a lot when you don’t want to give up your smartphone just because of its bad picture quality. What if all the other features in that smartphone are perfect? At this critical juncture, you don’t need to change your phone and just add a Micro SD card into it. This San Disc Ultra Micro SD card will enhance the picture quality manifolds. It will also enable you to capture perfect images and shoot HD videos at the spur of the moment.

Play with the Music with Moto stream

This could be the ultimate thing for music lovers. Moto stream turns any sound device wireless. By connecting the home speakers with this device you can have a wireless connection, which means any Bluetooth device can be then connected to it and you can start listening to music anywhere you want. If you have your digital device with you, but you don’t want to tangle it with wires, then this is the panacea for all such irritants.

One thing is for sure that these gadgets have a mesmerizing effect on your everyday experience. So, instead selling off your products, you should be looking for such amazing gadgets around you.

Google's Doodle Celebrates Nepal Republic Day

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Fri, 29 May 2015 07:56:00 +0000

Google has published a doodle on its home page to honor the strength and resilience of the people of Nepal on the occasion of Nepal Republic Day 2015. On doodle's page, Google says, "this country (Nepal) is an international symbol of splendor, peace, and tenacity".

Today's doodle features the candle, stupa and temple, that symbolize the celebration, prayer and a way forward. "The concept of light in this Doodle means three things for Nepal: celebration of this National day, prayers to Buddha, and a guiding light on the way home.", writes Google. Search engine giant, Google further adds, "We hope today's Doodle will remind the people of Nepal that they are an inspiration to the entire world, and that their burning perseverance lights the way for us all."

Google has launched Crisis Response map and the Person Finder in Nepal after the devastating earthquake. Google says, they will continue to help rebuild Nepal.

"In the aftermath of the recent devastating and tragic earthquakes our hearts and minds are with the people of Nepal and the aid workers there helping to heal and mend families as they regain their footing, standing again as their world shifts beneath their feet. Google is committed to supporting efforts to rebuild, and to help carry the load on the difficult climb to recovery.", writes Google.

"Nepal Republic Day, 2015" doodle is available on Google.com and Google.com.np's homepage in Nepal.

On Aakar Post: नेपालको गणतन्त्र दिवसमा गुगलको डुडल

#GoHomeIndianMedia trends on Twitter on World Press Freedom Day

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Mon, 04 May 2015 03:41:00 +0000

"Go Home Indian Media" trends worldwide on Twitter on Sunday, after the insensitive reporting on Nepal Earthquake by Indian TV channels.

#GoHomeIndianMedia trend which was started in Nepal in the morning, was trending on India for a while before trending worldwide. It was the top trending trend on Twitter with more than 100K tweets yesterday (By the time of this write up, there are more than 150K tweets on the topic, according to Topsy). This trend sums up the sentiments of people from all around the world.

After this hashtag, few people from India went on creating #DontComeBackIndianMedia and #SorryNepal hashtag, which was beautiful.

Nepalese People are not happy the way Indian Media has reported the #earthquake in #Nepal and have trended #GoHomeIndianMedia
— Nepali Poet (@npPoet) May 3, 2015

#GoHomeIndianMedia is about Indian Media. It has nothing to do with Indian Government. Indian Government was the first to reach Nepal+
— Nepali Poet (@npPoet) May 3, 2015

Nepalese: #GoHomeIndianMedia, Indians: #DontComeBackIndianMedia Indian media (to another media): अब कैसा लग रहा है? कहा जावोगे?
— Nepali Poet (@npPoet) May 3, 2015

Here is one reason why Nepal is saying #GoHomeIndianMedia pic.twitter.com/ute8QxXBwc
— Kavitha Reddy (@KavithaReddy16) May 3, 2015

Nepal - #GoHomeIndianMedia India - #DontComeBackIndianMedia India - #SorryNepal Nepal - #ThankYouIndia Sums up our beautiful friendship :)
— Sudha Subedi (@sudhasubedi) May 3, 2015

On World Press Freedom Day, #GoHomeIndianMedia is trending in Nepal & #DontComeBackIndianMedia in India. They should seriously introspect.
— Ujjwal Acharya (@UjjwalAcharya) May 3, 2015

#ThatMomentWhen you see #DontComeBackIndianMedia trending again. You should know dear media, you have literally been hopeless.
— kanchan (@kanchanojha) May 3, 2015

.@nasonnguyen It makes sense to say: #GoHomeIndianMedia pic.twitter.com/VrY6L2w2DK
— Aakar Anil (@aakarpost) May 3, 2015

#GoHomeIndianMedia Trending #1 @ Nepal #TrendsMap pic.twitter.com/inb9u6Hi4K
— GoGoze (@GoGoze) May 3, 2015

#1 Trends in India #GoHomeIndianMedia pic.twitter.com/3e6KxmXPH2
— GoGoze (@GoGoze) May 3, 2015

Trending worldwide! #GoHomeIndianMedia pic.twitter.com/Wl552eunwm
— lexlimbu (@lexlimbu) May 3, 2015

TREND WATCH what the world is thinking right now #GoHomeIndianMedia pic.twitter.com/BAevbkospY
— GoGoze (@GoGoze) May 3, 2015

#GoHomeIndianMedia Tweets Keywords pic.twitter.com/fA4FhhS138
— GoGoze (@GoGoze) May 3, 2015

Stories of Everest with Apa Sherpa in San Francisco

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Sat, 21 Mar 2015 13:41:00 +0000

A Kathmandu-based Nepali startup, StoryCycle showcased the Khumbu Street View project in San Francisco, USA with 21-time legendary Everest summiteer Apa Sherpa.

Apa, who guided the Google and StoryCycle team to the Khumbu region last April, joined the launch event in San Francisco today and talked about his experiences.

“The next generation Sherpas need to have different options for the profession than climbing, so education is a must to the children of the region so that they can pursue other career choices and not necessarily have to make risky expeditions”, said Apa.

Raleigh Seamster, Program Manager of Google Earth Outreach stressed on the need for similar kinds of projects to be continued in the region to make a strong digital presence, and applauded the team’s effort in making the Khumbu Street View project successful. She also highlighted on how StoryCycle as a partner could extend the community mapping efforts.

Saurav Dhakal, founder and curator of StoryCycle said that this Everest Street View project could give the country new vibe to the world, as this launch has coincided right before beginning of this year’s expedition season, and said Everest project has given us energy and excitement to work on more interesting projects in the coming years.

Ankur Sharma of StoryCycle presented videos from the Khumbu region trip, along with 360º imageries and anecdotes of the Sherpa people in the event. The program felicitated the team members of the project from Google, Apa Sherpa Foundation and StoryCycle.

The event was hosted by the Global Nepalese Professional Network (GNPN) in Runway Incubator at the Twitter building in San Francisco. Enthusiasts, mountain climbers, entrepreneurs, regulars, techies, Nepal lovers, mountain lovers, sherpa community and members of the Nepalese communities living around the Bay Area attended the event, the event also witnessed Norbu, son of the Tenzing Norgay.

View the Everest Base Camp:

Views: Everest Base Camp by Google Maps

Images via StoryCycle

ICT for Agriculture Becomes the Grand Winner of Ncell App Camp 2014

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 15:55:00 +0000

ICT For Agriculture, grabbed the first prize of Ncell App Camp 2014, securing the highest score in overall markings, leaving behind other 23 finalists, as the grand finale of the six month long competition concluded today in Kathmandu.

Similarly, Opinio (SentiNep), Riti-Riwaj and Lipi (The Script) won the categorical first places under the themes agriculture, corporate solutions, education and tourism, respectively.

ICT For Agriculture, is an android based mobile application that aims to connect farmers, traders, experts and agricultural extension agencies at a single platform to help with farm management and simplify market chain value while also ensuring food security in Nepal. The app helps farmers pre-harvest and post harvest of crops by providing information about diseases related to their crops. It also provides a weather forecast linking farmers to the end consumers in the market.

Avinash Jha of ICT for Agriculture, explained that it was really hard for them, being IT graduates, to work on agriculture theme. "Most of their friends had suggested us not to go for it. But since this addresses a common problem that most Nepalese were facing, we decided to continue." The team already has 900 users of the app.

Thematic winner Opinio, under corporate solutions category, developed by a team called SentiNep, analyzes the sentiments and opinions of people and categorizes them into positive, negative and neutral comments. It gathers sentiment related to a product/service/business from around the web (social media, blogs and news portals).

Chandan Gupta, team leader of SentiNep, said that the team will use the prize money in office set up and marketing their product. "Since we all are students, this cash prize makes it more convenient to take our business further." The team has expected to publish their app online within next three months.

Likewise, Riti-Riwaj, the thematic winner in the education category, is a platform to store Nepali culture, history and traditions, and thus preserve the traditions by educating people the importance of it in such level.

Manish Shrestha, team leader of RitiRiwaj said that their team is preparing to make their app available in the market within a month and formally go in the market through a registered company within a year. "Waning knowledge in the young generation about their own culture made us realize the need of coming with this app."

Lipi (The Script), the thematic winner in tourism category, is an application that tries to help tourist decipher Devnagari Signboards or text through simply taking a picture which the apps turns into text in a language of the users' choice.

Rupak Raj Ghimire, business developer for the team said, "Now we will work on making our app more matured. Ghimire said that the team faced more challenges in the technical aspects specially due to large file sizes of the images that the app needs to read.

The 24 finalists of the camp pitched their refined app ideas, including business models, as a part of their final presentation for the competition. During the program, each team was provided 10 minutes, including two minutes for answering the jury's questions and additional three minutes to demonstrate their apps.

A panel of eight independent judges, including Kunda Dixit, Narottam Aryal, Purna Bahadur Chhetri, Saurabh Jyoti, Suman Pandey, Tomi Ahonen and Tomas Martunas, assessed the teams based on five preset ground rules which incorporated the importance of the problem the application would solve, their business model, the completeness of the product, global scalability of their product and the team's presentation.

These finalists had been selected from among competing 150 teams which were filtered from a pool of 457 applicants. The selected teams had received several trainings, mentoring and had participated in different seminars to build up their knowledge on business modeling, marketing as well as the technical aspect of app development.

"Though the program has successfully concluded today, it does not end here. We are still thinking of some ways to encourage all the hardworking and creative teams to move ahead with their startups by providing proper guidance through some kind of new programs in the future," said Sanju Koirala, corporate communication director at Ncell. "This is a beginning of yet another journey."

"I feel extremely excited and extremely proud of being a tiny part of the gateway to a global approach that this beautiful country is not only about the Everest, trekking or Yeti. This country is about technology and creativity," said ErimTaylanlar, CEO of Ncell. "I just want to remind few things. The Ncell App market is ready to market these products into the global market."

Tomi Ahonen, one of the jury members in the grand finale said, "Nepal is generating world class mobile services that serve needs of education, agriculture, tourism and business to business needs."Ahonen suggested all the 24 teams to enter several international app competitions.

The winners of each category received a cash prize of Rs 250,000 and the overall winner received additional Rs 500,000 and won a chance to represent Nepal in the International Application Conference in 2015.

24 teams selected for grand finale of Ncell App Camp #AppCamp14

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 13:27:00 +0000

Ncell on Wednesday announced 24 teams, six each from four categories of Agriculture, Corporate Solution, Education and Tourism, as the finalists for Ncell App Camp 2014, the biggest mobile app competition of Nepal.

There were 150 teams competing to find place in the top 24 under the four categories. Following the closure of submission of final ideas on December 1, independent panel of selectors, including representatives from institutions like International Financial Corporation of the World Bank Group, Nepal Tourism Board, Golchha Organization, NIMBUS and f1Soft, among others, evaluated and scored their final app ideas and business plan to decide on the finalists.

The teams were judged based on their scores on criteria such as importance of problem their ideas solved, global scalability potential, business model and articulation and presentation, among others.

Six teams that got the highest scores and found way into the finals under Agriculture are Care Crop, Creative Mind, Creatu Developer I, ICT for Agriculture, Saathi and The Revolution. AppsJhola, Cabby, Drupartment, Eagle School Bus, QOD and SentiNep have been selected as finalists under Corporate Solution.

Likewise, MeroAnswer, Group of Innovative Developer, Leazies, Riti-Riwaj, Special Forces and Team Xaverian have been selected as finalists under Education, while HireAGuide, Home Stay Nepal, Nepflights, Team Yellow Nepal, Tourist Talk and Lipi (Script) have their way to the finals under Tourism category.

The top 24 teams will compete in the final competition to be held through December 9-11, 2014. During the final stage of the competition, the teams will learn more about running an innovative business and get additional guidance from local and international mentors on their app ideas.

On the final day, teams will pitch their idea and present a demo of their app to a panel of jury, who will then decide the winners of the competition.

The winners of each category will receive Rs 250,000 and the overall winner will receive additional Rs 500,000 and an opportunity to participate in similar overseas app camp in 2015.

Yellow Nepal -- Nepali Startup on Google Business Stories Challenge Final

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 12:26:00 +0000

If you're a foodie or a regular restaurant goer in Kathmandu, then you might have heard about "Yellow Nepal" - a Nepali startup behind the popular 'Yellow App'. Yellow app is the location based search app that lists nearby restaurants, discount offers and events of Restaurants in Kathmandu. Founded by Anish Shrestha and Manisha Karmacharya in 2014, Yellow Nepal is the mobile startup and aims to become a local search engine for foodies.

The Yellow Nepal, which had applied for the Google Business Group's (GBG) stories challenge earlier, has made to the finals of the GBG stories challenge out of more than hundreds of submissions from more than fifty countries.

"During the contest, we had hundreds of submissions from more than fifty countries from people who are doing extraordinary things with technology, changing lives and creating opportunities.", says Google.

Now Google has asked the general public to select the most inspiring startup among the nine global finalists. Watch this YouTube video of Yellow Nepal and vote for the Yellow Nepal. The three global winners with the highest number of public votes will be eligible to win $5,000 for their venture.

How to Vote for Yellow Nepal?
You can register your vote in two simple steps.
1. Sign-in to your Google account (If not signed in).
2. Watch this Video and Like it -- To register your vote, click on the thumbs of the video.

Yellow App is available for Android on the Play store. The iPhone users have to wait for a few months.

Lets VOTE and help Nepali #startup - Yellow Nepal for GBG stories Challenge: https://t.co/lbZD1dOuGc #Yellow Nepal is the FINALIST.
— Aakar Anil (@aakarpost) November 25, 2014

Teams Learn About Monetizing Their App Idea #AppCamp14

aakar@aakarpost.com (Aakar) — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 14:19:00 +0000

Ncell App Camp 2014 team organized a seminar on 'mobile application trends; marketing and monetization' on 4th Novemeber, as 150 teams move ahead to implement their ideas. Below is the PRESS RELEASE:

Addressing to the participants as a keynote speaker, Biswas Dhakal, president of Cash On Ad Pvt. Ltd., encouraged the young developers to add creative fluid to their ideas. "Engagement is another aspect you should consider while making apps. You should plan in advance how you can bring users to your product", said Dhakal who emphasized that the developers should implement appropriate promotion and branding strategies while making apps. "Social media are the most effective tools for viral marketing to decrease user acquisition cost of your apps."

Keynote speech from Biswas Dhakal was followed by a panel discussion where panelists discussed on business potential, legal and technical challenges of mobile application development in Nepal. They stressed on the growing trend of using apps as business tools to minimize cost and increase connectivity.

"Initially, we could not create job opportunities in Nepal using internet technology when most developed countries were already doing it. But now we can see mobile phones in the hands of almost every Nepali. It is important for us to follow the trend," said Sanjay Golchha, director of Golchha Organization.

Stressing that the government should facilitate local operators in Nepal to have their own app store, Golchha added, "Apps provide a better platform for emerging entrepreneurs. However, the telecom operators should help create such platforms by facilitating the sector."

Motivating the participants, Aadish Shrestha, managing director of Focus One Nepal, said that the mobile applications have been largely contributing in the businesses. "Data collection has become easier and faster due to data enabled mobile apps," said Shrestha who argued that there are companies who want to invest in such apps that help in their businesses.

Vahdat Zehtab, head of B2C department at Ncell, asked the app developers to look outside Kathmandu Valley to explore their potential markets. "Data consumption is rich in Nepal but when compared to that of the other developed countries, it is still not good enough. I believe Nepal will leap forward in this sector," said Zehtab arguing that going global is not the major issue for developers to meet their goals. "It is just that you have to be very specific to what you target. Let us make sure, what we want to solve."

Interacting in the program, the competing team members raised questions regarding copyright issues and challenges in payment gateway facing young developers mainly in Nepalese context. Mobile applications are mostly taken as intellectual property in Nepal and are dealt under the Copyright Act 2059. This law does not require the application be necessarily registered. "However, registration helps putting ideas into tangible form which makes it easier for the developers to be secured in future," said Anju Upreti Dhakal, advocate at Pioneer Law Associates.

Kailash Neupane, spokesperson of Nepal Telecommunication Authority said that the government has been reactive to the technological developments when it comes to legal provision and government facilitation. "The government should also see it from the perspective of revenue and think of how it can bring such developments into legal frameworks."

Out of total 457 ideas received, Ncell has selected the best 150 ideas to compete in the app camp. These selected teams are working on their ideas on different sectors; agriculture, tourism, education and corporate solutions. Once the teams submit their refined ideas, 6 best ideas from each category – that is 24 teams in total – will be selected for the final competition, which will be held through December 9-11, 2014.

The thematic winners would win cash prize of Rs. 250,000 each and the overall winner will bag additional Rs. 500,000 in cash along with Ncell sponsorship to participate in a similar overseas app camp.

Below is the schedule for training and seminars:

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