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FRIDAY, April 18, 2014 Do You Qualify For Special Election Period Under Obama Care? Read on Page 20 Or Call 713-771-2900.
Vol. 27 No. 16 Friday, April 18, 2014 Published Weekly from Houston 713-774-5140 28 Pages ( 2 sections) 50 cents E-mail: editor@voiceofasiaonline.com
IDC hosts 33rd. Annual gala, TiE Mentored Company donates to ID Charity Clinic Wins $1 million at Rice and Medical Students Business Plan Competition
Uttam Tripathy, MD, President, Indian Doctors Association (left) presented a check to Dr. KT Shah of Indian Doctors Charity Clinic at the IDA gala. by Shobana Muratee HOUSTON - An impressive gathering of Houston’s very best physicians was witnessed at the Indian Doctors Association’s (IDA), 33rd Annual Gala held on Saturday, April 12, 2014 at the Westin Oaks Galleria here in Houston. Guest of Honor Dr. Elizabeth Torres, President HCMS applauded the IDA for its overwhelming strength of 100,000 members. She was introduced by Dr. Subodh Buchar, Master of Ceremonies. Addressing the gathering of over 700 guests, Dr. Torres said, “At the Harris County Medical Society we certainly understand the diver-
BCM student receives scholarship certificate from Dr. Kalpalatha Guntapally and Dr. Uttam Tripathy at the IDA gala Continued on Page 8
BetaGlide team the winners $1 million with TiE Houston President Aruna Viswanathan (far rt.).
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etaGlide, a mobile tools startup from IIT Kharagpur and a winner of TiE International Business Plan Competition (TIBPC), won $1 million at the Rice Business Plan Competition in Houston on April 12, 2014. BetaGlide was the recipient of the Mercury Fund Technology Transfer Investment prize at RBPC. This was the culmination of an amazing journey for BetaGlide that began from the IIT Kharagpur incubator TLabs, won the business plan competition at TiE Kolkata earlier this year, and as a result competed in the Asia final of the TIPBC at TiE Delhi; won the student track of Asia finals and thus becoming TiE Glob-
Dashavatar – A Magnificent Presentation From Samksriti
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he excitement in the Wortham Center was palpable. The audience was in for an extraordinary experience that far surpassed their expectations. The curtain opened upon a stunningly beautiful silhouette of Vishnu, with the voice of the narrator (Rathna Kumar) explaining the reason for the avatars. It was continuous and seamless story-telling, through dance and drama, of the Ten Avatars of Vishnu, presented in a short one and half hours, with each story acted out by various characters and linked to the next by three groups of dancers who were the Sutradharis (Chorus), summing up the Continued on Page 5
Dr. Rathna Kumar (center right) with artists of Dashavtar at the Wortham Center, Houston. Photo credit: Navin Mediwala.
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The Charter member community of TiE Global and TiE Houston is proud to have played a part in setting this young startup on a path to success.”, said Ashok Rao, Chairman of TiE Global, who also happens to be a Trustee of the Jones School of Business at Rice University. Ashok Rao was the force behind the creation of the TiE International Business Plan Competition and the partnership with the RBPC. This is the third year of the partnership between RBPC and TiE Global and teams from India have shown steady improvement each year. “We are delighted to partner with TiE. TiE brings a lot of value to the RBPC by bringing the best of Asia and Europe to Rice for the world’s richest student business plan competition”, said Brad Burke, Managing Director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. “Success has a thousand parents. There are so many in TiE who contribute to the success of the contestants at the TIBPC and beyond. Beta-
BetaGlide is an issue analytics and user management platform for mobile app developers that helps create better and more efficient apps. (http://www.betaglide. com). Mercury Fund Technology Transfer Investment Prize encourages the commercialization of university technologies. (http://www.mercuryfund.com) TiE is a global network of successful entrepreneurs with presence in 61 cities in 18 countries that focuses on startup success through mentoring, education, networking, incubation, and funding. TiE Kolkata, TiE Delhi and TiE Houston contributed to the success of BetaGlide. (http://www.tie.org). Rice Business Plan Competition is the world’s richest and largest graduate-level student startup competition, hosted and organized by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, which is Rice University’s flagship initiative devoted to the support of entrepreneurship. (http://alliance.rice.edu/rbpc.aspx )
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Historically, teams from India placed near the bottom at the RPBC, the world’s richest and most competitive student business plan competition. A total of 42 graduate student based teams, carefully selected from a large number of entries from across the world, compete for over $1.6 million in prizes. “It was a dream come true for me to see a team from India win the largest award in the history of the RBPC.
Glide’s achievement is truly the acknowledgement of our strength as a global community focused on giving back”, according to PK Agarwal, CEO, TiE Global. “We are grateful for all the mentoring and coaching from the Charter members of TiE Houston, TiE Kolkata and TiE Delhi without which this would not have been possible”, said Amritanshu Anand and Anshul Singhle, the co-founders of BetaGlide.
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