February 24, 2014

Global project opportunity for student by Deloitte's.

Global Project Challenge

Think global, live local

Want international experience on your resume? Deloitte’s Global Project Challenge is an opportunity to get that global business experience and the competitive edge you need—and there’s no passport or travel required.

Take part in the Global Project Challenge and you’ll be part of a virtual global team—working from your local member firm—on real-world business issues affecting international business. You’ll build the cross-border technical and professional skills that are must-haves for today’s and tomorrow’s business leaders. Working side-by-side with Deloitte coaches and professionals, you’ll also build the global connections and networks that will serve you well throughout your career.

Deloitte’s Global Project Challenge will take place in July and last approximately four weeks. Are you ready to learn what it takes to succeed in the global marketplace, at Deloitte—and to add the world to your network

Deloitte’s Global Project Challenge will take place in July 2014 and will last for approximately four weeks. To be selected for the program, you must apply through the country in which you are currently studying. The list of participating countries is available below. Working from your local member firm, you will have a global career-enhancing experience that will set you apart.

What will I be doing as part of the Global Project Challenge?

Deloitte’s Global Project Challenge will offer you a unique global experience. You will have the opportunity to work on a virtual global and team up with Deloitte coaches and professionals to solve real business challenges facing organizations today. Ultimately, as part of this elite group, you will build a global network that can enhance your career for a lifetime.

What’s in it for me? Why should I apply?

Gaining international corporate experience while you’re still at university is certainly a resume enhancer! It will set you apart from your peers and demonstrate your interest and ability to work across borders and cultures..

As a participant in Deloitte's Global Project Challenge, you can:

Acquire skills you’ll need to operate successfully in the global marketplace
Dive into real-world issues affecting international business today
Discover the wealth of opportunities available to you at Deloitte
Forge real networking relationships with professionals around the world
Gain exposure to the diverse business processes and cultures from around the world
Have a unique experience that will enhance your resume and give you a competitive edge

Not to mention, you will also meet and learn from professionals with very different backgrounds and experiences. You’ll meet people who can help you see things from a different point of view and broaden your horizons; people who will be part of your professional network throughout your career.

Participating countries

Deloitte member firms participating in the Global Project Challenge:

Brazil
China
Caribbean and Bermuda Cluster
Germany
Ireland
Malta
Middle East
South Africa
Spain
Turkey
United States of America

Application processs

To find out more about the Global Project Challenge, eligibility, and application process, please contact your university career services or Deloitte campus representative.

A great team is a great listener....

John W. Rogers Jr., chairman, chief executive and chief investment officer of Ariel Investments, based in Chicago, says it’s crucial that leaders always hear and respect their workers’ ideas.

Were you in leadership roles early on?

Sports were a big part of my life. I was the captain of the basketball team in high school, and captain of the basketball team at Princeton. I had some informal roles, too. I was a vendor at Wrigley Field and White Sox Park from the age of 16 to 22. I sold Cokes, beer, peanuts and popcorn. Ultimately, I got a lot of my friends to come along and work as vendors.

Tell me about your parents.

My father was a Tuskegee Airmen captain in the Air Force and a very strong personality. He believed in fairness and ethics and living up to the commitments you make to others. He ultimately became a judge, and he would talk to me over and over about how important it is to be fair.

My mom was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School, in 1946. She had leadership roles in the law, in government and the corporate world. She was a great role model in that she felt anything was possible.

What were some lessons you learned playing basketball at Princeton?

I was not a great player, so I don’t want to give any false impressions. I was fortunate to be on the team, and the coach, Pete Carril, said he kept me around because I worked so hard. I spent most of the time on the bench, but senior year, he asked me if I would be captain.

And Coach Carril taught two things better than anyone. The first lesson was about teamwork and caring about your teammates first. He pounded it home and eventually it became such a freeing and fun way to play. There was a transformation. He no longer had to push the idea; the team fully embraced it. You’re not thinking about who scores the points or who gets the credit; you’re thinking instead about how you can help your teammate succeed on the court. Coaches talk about it, but they don’t always get it through to the kids. Many kids still play selfishly. Princeton basketball is all about the team. It was just transformative. It changed my life.

The other key thing is that he was very demanding about precision. The angle of the cut mattered; the footwork mattered. If the pass was off just a few inches, it mattered. Every detail mattered for the ultimate success of the team. He’d always say, “Do you want me not to notice?” He would stop you and constantly show you what you needed to see and what you needed to understand.

How are you a different leader today than when you started out?

I constantly make sure we’ve created an environment that encourages people on the team to really say what they think, to get their ideas out on the table and to give them the opportunity to argue those perspectives and make sure they’re not holding them inside and going home and talking to their family about the idea. That’s something I’m constantly working at — how can I create that environment, how can I ask the right questions, how do I go around and make sure people tell you what they really think? That takes patience, but it’s the right thing to do.

Early on, I was impatient. I’d think, “I’ve got the answer here and I don’t want to take the time to hear everyone’s perspective.” It’s so critical to keep reminding people that you really do want to listen, then letting people know how much you’ve heard them, and that you respect their ideas. If you’re going to be an ultimate teammate, you’ve got to be a great listener.

How do you hire?

What we’re looking for in up-and-coming people is how independent a thinker they are. That’s the key thing for us. You want people who are comfortable standing alone and having an independent point of view and independent ideas. We’ll get better decisions if people bring different perspectives to the table. So you’re trying to find ways through your questioning whether this person has the DNA that allows them to feel comfortable standing alone and being independent in their thinking.

So I might ask a series of questions around a commonly held view of an issue facing America. What do they think about it? Then I’ll ask questions to see whether their perspective comes from what they’ve read or whether they’ve thought about the issue independently. I’m not saying there’s a right or a wrong answer, but you’re trying to get at whether they have come to an answer by just naturally falling into the groupthink of the moment.

The second thing we’re looking for is a sense of teamwork, that these are people who like to help others succeed. You ask questions and listen for whether it’s all about them and whether they have to be the centre of attention all the time.

The final thing is that we want people who are going to be working extremely hard. They’re willing to be here on weekends, be here late at night, and to do it comfortably so that it’s not like you feel you’re having to beg them to be here but that they want to do it because they enjoy being part of the team, and enjoy the work.

What advice do you give to graduating college students?

I try to get them to focus on a few things. One is the importance of hard work and really putting in the extra effort from Day 1, when they start their careers. Surprise your boss that you’re there on a Saturday or a Sunday or late in the evening. It shows people you’re committed.

The second thing is to always look for ways to help your teammates. And the third thing is to make sure you live up to the commitments that you make to your teammates. Become that rare person where people know that your word is your bond and you’re going to do exactly what you say you’re going to do.

Demand for women directors set to rise

Demand is set to soar for suitable women executives and experts to be appointed on boards of listed companies, but a limited talent pool will still make it difficult for firms to comply with SEBI’s new norms mandating at least one woman director, experts feel.

Out of a total 1,456 listed companies on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), only 490 firms currently have at least one woman director on their respective boards, as per the latest data compiled by Indianboards.com.

A total of 488 women directors currently hold 597 directorships in listed firms. Of these, 174 independent directors are together holding 231 directorships, while some of them are present on the boards of five-seven different companies.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has cleared new corporate governance norms that require companies to have at least one woman director on their boards, among other measures.

These norms are required to be implemented by the listed companies from October 1, 2014.

Making things difficult, the new norms also mandate that the maximum number of boards an independent director can serve on cannot be more than seven. This cap has been fixed at three in the case of a person serving as a whole-time director.

Also, an independent director can serve for maximum two consecutive tenures of five years each on a board.

These restrictions would make it further difficult for companies to find suitable women directors given the paucity of supply.

“Now there will be definitely demand for women for posts on company boards and the talent pool is limited... even the number of board directorships is also limited,” Randstad India president (Staffing) Aditya Narayan Mishra said.

“However, I think this is only a temporary problem and things will fall in line in a few years,” he added.

Athena Executive Search & Consulting Managing Director Bhavishya Sharma said, “The biggest challenge now is that there are not enough females at management positions in a company and not enough women who can contribute to the same.”

On the brighter side, this will also open up new opportunities for women executives to move ahead. “The move opens a lot of opportunities for women working within an organisation and give them a way to go forward. This will specially create a new opportunity for women at the one or two levels below the top position,” Mr. Mishra said.

The companies may also have to invest more in building up necessary skills required for directorial positions. “Other than that, a lot of companies will approach HR firms which have a larger pool of talent and we could see companies taking lot of innovative practices in this regard,” Mr. Mishra said.

February 23, 2014

Yes Its not human its robot with the felling

A Dutch man who lost his left hand in a fireworks accident nine years ago is now able to feel different kinds of pressure on three fingers of a prosthetic, robotic hand. The work involved a new kind of implanted device that delivers feedback directly to the remaining nerves in the man’s arm. The implant was left in place for 31 days, allowing the man to feel gradations of touch pressure, depending on the amount of electrical stimulus delivered.

The work, carried out by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, adds to remarkable recent advances in prosthetics that can convey sensation. In another project, researchers at Case Western Reserve University are testing a different type of implant that delivers varying kinds of sensations and has been attached to an Ohio man’s arm for 19 months. This implant is still reliably delivering sensations — such as touching ball bearings, sandpaper, or cotton balls — on 20 spots on his hand and fingers.

To achieve their result, the Swiss researchers inserted electrodes into two of the patient’s three major arm nerves: the ulnar and median. Forces detected on the fingertips of an artificial hand are translated into electrical stimuli delivered to the electrodes.

“It was quite amazing, because suddenly I was able to feel something I had not been feeling for nine years,” the subject, Dennis Aabo Sorensen, said in a video provided by the Swiss institute. “I could feel round things and hard things and soft things. The feedback was totally new to me. Suddenly, when I was doing the movements, I could feel what I was doing, instead of looking at what I was doing.”

Stimulation in the ulnar nerve produced sensations in the man’s pinky, while stimulation in the median produced sensations in the index finger and thumb. The researchers were able to adjust stimulation levels to correspond with the amount of pressure being applied to a digit, producing sensations ranging from the lightest touch to major pressure. What’s more, Sorensen was able to tell how forcefully he was holding an object, allowing him to prevent it from slipping without squeezing too hard. Sorensen could even tell if he was gripping something round, made of wood, or a rolled up cloth — even when blindfolded and wearing noise-suppressing ear coverings.

“This is very important,” says Stanisa Raspopovic, a scientist in the Translational Neural Engineering Laboratory at the Swiss institute, and one of the researchers on the project. “This graded sensation is done in real time, and he can immediately feel the difference.”

The Swiss institute said in a press release that the Dutch man was “the first amputee in the world to feel — in real time — with a sensory-enhanced prosthetic,” but other such trials are underway. The implants in one of Case Western’s subjects in Ohio, Igor Spetic, a 48-year-old man who lost his right hand in an industrial accident, has been in place the longest.

Jack Judy, director of the Nanoscience Institute for Medical and Engineering Technologies at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and a former U.S. Defense Research Projects Agency programme manager working on neural interfaces, says “the results look good in the short run,” but adds that “the real concern is the long-term stability” of the technology. “When the long-term performance of the new neural interface is established, this novel alternative approach could significantly improve the quality of life of amputees,” he says.

Raspopovic says in earlier studies in rats the Swiss implant lasted nine to 12 months, adding: “We are very much confident, that this can last for a long, long period.”

The Swiss study is the result of a collaboration called Lifehand 2, using a robotic hand, under development by several European universities and hospitals. A patient controls the movement of the hand with standard technology in which muscles in the residual limb activate mechanical parts on the prosthesis.

Other efforts underway around the world aim to improve prosthetic control, by rewiring nerve fibers to control more sophisticated prosthetics, for example, or improving brain interfaces to allow for thought control.

Even a bad strategy can do good to business

Deviations from official strategy sometimes result in huge gains for companies just as Apple found out with its Graphing Calculator software and Google with Gmail.

When an assignment to create the first version of Apple’s Graphing Calculator software was cancelled in 1993, freelance software developers Ron Avitzur and Greg Robbins paid no heed. In an act of innovation-as-rebellion that has become legendary, they used their Apple ID badges to gain unauthorised access to the company’s campus, working into the wee hours for six unpaid months until the project was finished. Ten years after its completion, the Graphing Calculator software had shipped with an estimated 20 million machines.

This is a compelling example of what organisational researchers call “bottom-up exploration” — employee deviations from official strategy that sometimes result in huge gains for companies. Apple isn’t the only Silicon Valley firm to have benefited from letting staff follow their muse: Google famously allows its employees to spend 20 per cent of their time on company-related personal projects, a policy that led to Google News, Adsense and Gmail.

Knowing as we do these benefits of deviations from strategy, however, as well as the reality that the strategies coming from the C-suite are seldom perfect, is it sensible for managers to place such a heavy emphasis on implementing them effectively? In a recent working paper, Explaining the Implementation Imperative: Why Effective Implementation May be Useful Even with Bad Strategy,Eucman Lee — a Ph.D candidate at London Business School — and I develop a theory that aggressively pursuing effective implementation may in fact be very sensible. By “effectiveness” at strategy implementation, we mean the extent to which an organisation’s actions correspond to its strategic intentions. Thus a company that seeks to pursue a low-cost strategy can be said to have successfully implemented the strategy if its costs indeed fall relative to its rivals.

Whether this leads to high profits or not depends on the appropriateness of the low-cost strategy in that particular industry.

The fundamental feature of strategy implementation that we focused on in our research is the separation between beliefs and actions. In the typical company the people who come up with strategies and refine them are not those who implement them. In an attempt to study the consequences of this separation carefully, we built what is known as an “agent-based model,” basically a computer programme that replicates the logic of interaction between individuals in a way that allows us to project what is likely to occur in the course of many such interactions in a wide variety of circumstances.

Improve the implementation

Our model involved a manager and a subordinate, programmed to try to look for the biggest possible profit by choosing from a range of options through trial and error, akin to a gambler facing a slot machine with several arms. Each period the manager would pick a strategy and “tell” the subordinate what to do, and the subordinate would implement the strategy as he understood it. There would be a performance outcome, and then the manager would modify his beliefs about the value of the strategy based on the performance observed.

We ran the model through numerous periods, building in different types of features corresponding to the real world such as communication errors and top-down and bottom-up exploration of ideas.

Across a range of conditions, we found that it was generally a good idea to improve the implementation effectiveness of the subordinate, even when the strategy the manager chose was not a good one to begin with.

As we picked open the model to see what was going on, we discovered two main reasons for this phenomenon.

First, bad implementation makes it difficult for companies to learn from either failure or success. When a strategy produces undesirable outcomes, how are leaders to know whether the problem lies in the strategy itself or in all the deviations that crop up in the absence of effective implementation? If the outcome is good, how do we know if it was indeed because of the strategy? This could lead a CEO into unfortunate decision-making based on a confounded impression of the outcome.

Second, the organisation as a whole does indeed benefit from learning better strategies through some deviations from current strategy. Beyond a certain point these aberrations hurt, however, because they don’t allow the organisation to extract the value of the good strategies uncovered. Any communication gap between managers and employees automatically will foster some amount of divergence, and attempts by senior managers to look for new strategies also generate deviations in the course of time. On top of these, deviations resulting from imperfect implementation tip the level of deviation into the harmful zone.

Measuring the process is vital

Our results also suggest that companies not only should continue to invest in improving their strategic implementation but also should focus on sharpening their measurement of implementation effectiveness. Indeed, a manager who looks, listens and accurately interprets implementation effectiveness can be a greater asset than a silver-tongued boardroom orator who knows how to communicate the strategy effectively.

Why is that? The well-communicated strategy may not be the best anyway, and deviations arising from misunderstanding it can be benign. However, an unobservant manager may contribute biases, false realities about what actions actually were driving current performance. Indeed, eagle-eyed managers who can measure implementation effectiveness are the most likely to help companies capitalise on innovations originating from bottom-up exploration. The potential breakthroughs that occasionally come about when employees wittingly or unwittingly deviate from company strategy are unlikely to be replicated, let alone propagated as best practice, without managerial intervention.

Managers instinctively know that good implementation is important, but too often they think of it as being only as good as the strategy it serves. In fact it should be considered an adaptation mechanism in and of itself, not merely a way to bring subordinates into line but also an essential tool to help find and fix flaws within the current strategy — and find better ones.

How to improve your concentration to excel in Life.................................

How to build concentration for study

Concentration on work is important in all sphere of life. Effective study is only possible if you study with full attention throwing off mind all the irrelevant thoughts which interrupt in the process of learning. Concentration means to throw off mind all unnecessary thoughts and converge all the mental capabilities on a point. Normally the rays of sun do not burn a paper, because these rays are dispersed but if the rays of sun are converged on paper with the help of lens, it burns the paper at once. Similarly converging your mental capabilities enables productive study – the power of concentration.

These are the tips to improve power of concentration.

Try to get full sleep.

Take at least six hour rest for refreshment and relaxation of your mind. A fresh mind can concentrate more easily.

Take regular exercise.

Brain takes its nutrients from blood for functioning properly. Physical exercise speeds up blood circulation to brain and brain gets well nourished as well as brain gets rid of waste products. Physical exercise is necessary for enhancing power of concentration.

Study in a place with no or less distractions.

Your study place should be free from such things which may absorb your attention, i.e television, music, changing color bulbs, maps etc. Similarly study in quiet place free from sound distractions.

Avoid multi-tasking.

While you study avoid playing with other things. Like you study as well as texting to friends on cell phone or making hair styles or one eye on television and one eye on book. Similarly study one subject in one time.

Have free mind.

Throw off your mind all the irrelevant thoughts while you study. If you are obsessed by a certain idea, try to find a solution to your problem first. Stress makes it difficult to concentrate.

Fixation of priorities.

Fixation of priorities, what should be done first and what should be done next, is very important for having full concentration in your work. If you don’t fix your priorities and work haphazardly, it is more likely you start thinking while doing one task “shouldn’t I do the other task first as that is more important”. This thought will not let you work with concentration. Make time-table for your subject and follow it.

Take short breaks in long study.

If you study for a long time, you get bore and can’t maintain concentration on work. You should refresh your mind by taking short breaks to maintain your concentration on study.

Have interest in your study.

Lack of motivation and interest leads to boredom and dividend attention so develop your interest in your studies.

Have good breakfast.

Your breakfast should contain items with high protein content, carbohydrates and low sugar content. When you get up from sleep, have good diet though normally you should take light diet.

Don’t take too much tea or coffee.

Tea or coffee has caffeine that gives you more strength for sometime but soon leaves you sluggish.

Concentration Exercises.

There some exercises which improve your power of concentration i.e. yoga, self-hypnosis, looking at a round spot on wall with full attention etc. There are books on these things you can study.

The earth needs to be Handled with care

A few years ago I was asked to suggest games and activities that very small children could play or carry out in a group by way of what is called “co-operative learning”. I ransacked the magazines and scrap-books I’d collected over the years. It had to be something a teacher in an Indian school could conduct without too much disruption. Remembering words from that famous bookTeacher, “War and peace wait outside an infant’s room, wait and vie” (Slyvia Ashton-Werner), I looked for something that didn’t trigger competition. To my satisfaction I found a game devised by my friends Shaku Raniga and Sherrif Rushdy. It did not call for different coloured cellophane paper or sequins or five boxes of the same size or a length of rubber hosing or an unused light bulb.

All it asked for was a large leaf.

The teacher was to wait till all the children lined up in a straight line, one behind the other. Then out came the leaf. Preferably a banana-leaf but it could be the leaf of a canna plant. It was given to the first child very ceremoniously. “Take this leaf. Hold it above your head, don’t drop it, pull it carelessly or tear it. Pass it backwards over your head to the child behind you. Don’t look back. Once you hand it over, stand still.”

Those were the instructions.

The second child was to receive the leaf very gently, and taking care not to drop it or bend it out of shape, had to pass it over his or her head backwards to the third child and so on till the leaf reached the end of its journey in the hands of the last child. The last leaf-receiver was to give it back to the teacher who would

hold it up for all to see. The purpose of the lesson was to teach children how to handle all of Nature, which belonged to all of us collectively. Everyone was equally responsible for “land health”. The leaf was the messenger of the Earth. The Earth was like the leaf and was to be treated respectfully. The success of the group as a whole depended on the leaf remaining intact, hence it was important to emphasise that there was to be no grabbing and that every one had to wait patiently till the leaf reached him or her. The teacher could then ask, “How much time would it have taken for the leaf to grow to its present size? How much time will it take for us to shred and destroy? Is not a forest a long time growing?”

I would like to deepen this message and say that we must treat all of life like the children treated that leaf in the co-operative game.

Be careful how you handle yourself, your friends, your family. Flinging words, tearing into the other’s feelings, ignoring or ‘dropping’ family are all symptoms of a civilisation in decline.

Be careful how you handle knowledge. We are the only species that stores and records the memory of generations long gone, so we have a duty to not distort or misuse the collective gifts of the past. Let’s remember that we are not superior to Socrates or Bhaskara because we can fly aircraft and they did not. Is not the Uttarakhand catastrophe based on our inability or unwillingness to look after our leaves?

Lastly, be careful how you handle the truth.