Young & blogging it!

Raghav Sarma

They're opinionated and know what they're talking about. From writing on golf tournaments to make-up and cars, tweens and teens are out there, registering their presence on the worldwide web.

Teeing off online!
Sanjith Rao (9) tees off with high-profile Internet entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia and blogs about his day on Little Mairpady. In a post on the South Zone Junior Golf Tournament at Thiruvananthapuram last year, he writes, "For breakfast I had idli and sambhar. At 7.30 am we teed-off. My game was good. I took 52 shots (They are known as strokes)." His posts span the gamut from magic tricks, board games, and climbing trees. He loves computers and figures, "in 2 or 3 years I will know everything about programming and I will be able to write my own programs."

Sanjith, a grade 4 student at Bangalore's Shishu Griha Montessori, started the blog, when he was seven. He says, "Nobody in my school knows yet." Does he know what he wants to be once he's older? "Yes, a software engineer."

On a virtual highway
Raghav Sarma (13), a student of New Delhi's Modern School and perhaps the world's youngest automobile blogger, wanted his father to teach him how to drive a car. He obviously refused, but when Raghav wailed, "I know more about cars than you do," he asked him to chronicle it online and prove it. That's how the blog LTD - Licence To Drive began. One month on, Raghav blogs about the F1, hybrid cars and his favourite SUVs. His blog also attracted advertising banners from international automobile biggies.
He says, "I'm too young to know what I want to be in the future, but I like the idea of automobile journalism or even becoming a footballer." His father's friends also take his a dv i c e on what car to buy!

All made up!
"Make-up, make-up and some more make-up... Just a blog with random thoughts, reviews on products and much more from a young make-up addict," states Fathima Abdul Kader's blog Brittu00Present.

The 16-year-old from Paravur, near Ernakulam in Kerala, dreams of getting a degree in literature or journalism, learning the art of make-up or turning fulltime blogger. The writing bug first bit the 11th grader when she started contributing articles for a lifestyle blog to make some extra bucks and finally, set up her own. Her parents are supportive and her brother offers technical support, but she didn't tell her friends for a long time, worried they would "think I was vain". But now, they come to her for tips.

She says, "I mainly get products from online shops and small mineral make-up companies who want their brand to be known t h r o u g h word of mouth. I have never ever been paid to write on my blog and would never do that as it goes against review-blogger ethics." Her dream for her blog? "I want people to see it as a make-up blog for teenage girls by a teenage girl, where I review cheap and good products for girls like me who can't afford high-end products."

Miss, Mr or Mixter?
It's tough being a gay teen in India, and that's probably what drew "Firebolt" to the virtual space. The teen started a self-exploratory blog The Freezing Flames three years ago, aged 16. Says the student of BTech (computer science), "I 'came out' to my parents and they understand. I identify as nothing, neither male nor female. Only my sister and very close friends are aware of the blog. It was my private space."

There's a second blog now - Space of Nothing. Having given up the idea of gender, the pronoun "he" is fine if pushed. The identity remains secret. A quote from the blog, "I hate being called 'Miss' and am not quite used to 'Mister'. The other day, I came across a gender neutral honorific 'Mx' (pronounced Mix or Mixter)... and I'm considering using that if need be." From tweeting about the Delhi earthquake to Durga Puja with cousins and spending vacations in Bangalore, he also reads a lot of queer blogs and is a fan of the "queer" Khaos Komix. His Twitter profile states: "I refuse to conform. I defy your notions of gender and sexuality. You cannot tell me who or what I am. I am me. I dare you to face me."

They can't be ignored and looks like we'll be reading a lot more from them!

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-11-06/man-woman/30366354_1_blog-hybrid-cars-automobile

Eager to give, but don't know where to begin?

These social entrepreneurs just put their skills where their heart is, from teaching slum children English, to packaging social awareness in mobile games and spreading smiles through theatre, discovers Anuradha Varma

YOU won't find them in kurta-pyjamas but in jeans and t-shirts, doing what they do best - getting things done. These innovative visionaries are high on social consciousness. For Siva Cotipalli, whose website Dhanax connects the 'haves' with 'havenots', Poonam Bir Kasturi, whose dream is to make India green with her do-it-yourself biodegradable Daily Dump pots, Brij Kothari, who gives literacy a leg up with his concept of 'same language subtitling', Karthik Kumar of Evam, a theatre group that gives you happiness for the price of a ticket, Hilmi Quraishi who sells social awareness through a mobile phone and many others like them, the return on investment more often than not comes from their impact on society. A social entrepreneur works for more than just profit...


Jithin C Nedumala, Make a Difference (MAD)

MAD provides a common and convenient platform for youth to make a difference in children's lives, by teaching a batch twice a week. The cost of teaching a child for a month comes to something like Rs 10.41. Says Nedumala, "We take a child when she is in the 5th standard, teach her English in a fun way four hours every week, ensure she has her computer class half an hour daily and meets professionals from various fields." He adds, "Once she finishes 10th she would be well equipped with the language and we would find a sponsor for her higher education. Hence, MAD is probably the most efficient way of spending your 10 rupees." MAD teaches 1,200 children with the help of 350 volunteers in four cities, which will soon expand to five more. They plan to take the concept to Nigeria and Pakistan as well.


Siva Cotipalli, Dhanax

Want to put aside some money to help the needy? Contact Dhanax. It partners with NGOs and self-help groups to identify credible borrowers. They also determine the ability of the borrowing party to honour the repayment of loan. A lender registered on the Dhanax website goes through the borrower information and chooses one or more borrowers to lend to. People lend only once to the borrower. The borrower repays the lender monthly. The beneficiaries are mainly low-income women earning Rs 5,000-Rs 8,000 per month who take loans for starting small businesses, pay kids' school fees, etc. Says Cotipalli, "So far, over 350 loans have been funded through the website. We have transacted over Rs 20 lakh of loan amount and the largest lending has been Rs 60,000."



Brij Kothari, Planet Read

When Kothari was a student of Spanish during his time at Stanford University, he once commented to friends that if Spanish films came subtitled in the same language, it would help their linguistic skills a lot more. Recalls Kothari, "In jest, I added that if they put Hindi subtitles on Hindi film songs, India would become literate." The idea stuck and he spent the next 12 years on research. He explains, "It's karaoke on popular culture. Viewers begin to read along and thus, reading improvement becomes a by-product of entertainment." Over the last 10 years, SLS (Same Language Subtitling) has been implemented on Bollywood film songs on TV in Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, and Punjabi. It has woven regular reading practice into the lives of 150 million early-literate people. The goal is to persuade all channels in India to show song content on TV with SLS.


Poonam Bir Kasturi, Daily Dump

Can an ordinary person do anything to make the five-km radius around them better? That's the question Bangalore-based NID designer Poonam Bir Kasturi asked herself. The answer was Daily Dump, which enables the ordinary home owner to not throw out her organic waste, but compost it at home in a pot. Kasturi explains, "All organic waste can be composted - vegetable, fruits, cooked food, even bones and fish waste, teabags, newspapers, flowers, sawdust, etc. Plastic, metal, medicines and diseased plants can't be composted." The compost can be sold to a nursery or put in potted plants or used to nourish a tree. Her dream is to make "composters fit every home in India". While Kasturi funds her business from what she earns as a design consultant, she maintains, "Wall Street would discount it, but I think it's worth it."


Hilmi Quraishi, ZMQ

An educational technologist, Quraishi believes profits make for more commitment. From mobile games creating awareness on HIV/AIDs and climate consciousness, the company plans an SMS-based system offering prenatal and post-natal advice for women in rural areas, which will give her tips on what to eat, vaccines, etc. Also planned are a series on lifestyle diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes. While the games are usually free, a nominal amount is charged. The games are made popular through NGOs, schools and other local organisations. Often, profits are put back into making games. He says, "If an aerated water bottle can be sold in villages for Rs 10, why can't we sell training packages for the same price?"


Karthik Kumar, Evam Entertainment Pvt Ltd

The "happiness factory" was a vision of two people - Sunil Vishnu K and Karthik Kumar, both MICA graduates. Says Kumar, "We ran a successful youth-theatre movement in Ahmedabad and this sparked our own storytelling enterprise." He adds, "Our audiences have been easily enthused by energetic performances, and this has led to workshops, fun merchandise, and stories in other formats." They have been self-funded in their five years of operation, and this shows the soundness of the model itself.


Vishal Talreja, Dream A Dream

The project had modest beginnings, with a group of young people, taking children from local orphanages on special outings on weekends. Soon, the dream got bigger. Founded in 1999, it now teaches life skills to children referred by their partner NGOs in Bangalore. Says Talreja, "They are children whose basic needs such as food, shelter and education are being met but who, without support and opportunities run a risk of falling back into the vicious cycle of life on the street." The skills taught include teamwork, communication, decision making, besides building confidence and self-awareness.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/Eager-to-give-but-dont-know-where-to-begin/articleshow/3996205.cms