The Future Of The Harry Potter Franchise

I have made no secret of the fact that I am an avid Harry Potter fan. I consider the series a modern epic in the same sense that Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Valmiki’s Ramayana, or Vyasa’s Mahabharata are epics. And, aided by modern rich media consumption channels, the Harry Potter films, merchandise, games, and websites have already built a $15 billion global franchise around this marvelous literary phenomenon that British author J. K. Rowling gave birth to. It has transformed children’s reading habits and their scope of imagination. And it has launched perfectly rational adults into flights of fancy that were perhaps inconceivable once upon a time. >>>

Catching Up On Readings: Deep Shifts In The Mobile Market

Even as Nokia falters, as we will see this week in Tech Stocks, Microsoft continues to improve its mobile strategy. Click on the full article to read more.
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Bootstrapping An Innovative Telecom Services Startup: Callture Co-founders Mamoon Rashid and Siva Sanmuga (Part 1)

Mamoon Rashid and Siva Sanmuga are serial entrepreneurs who co-founded Telcan in 1997 followed by Callture in 2004. Both graduated from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, after completing their engineering studies. Callture is a Canadian technology company based in Ontario and is a subsidiary of Telcan.

Sramana: Mamoon, can you give us some context to begin your story?

Mamoon Rashid: About 13 years ago, Siva Sanmuga, Anton Mendoza and I were in our final year of engineering studies at the University of Waterloo. We had an idea about how to deliver international callback services. >>>

How Not To Finance Your Company: TalkPoint CEO Nick Balletta (Part 7)

Sramana: How did the business ramped up from 2005 through 2010?

Nick Balletta: We have quadrupled revenues during that amount of time. Our revenues are north of $20 million. >>>

Catching Up On Readings: IBM Looks To Africa

IBM has had a presence in Africa for several decades, and as this week’s Tech Stocks points out, the company has been increasing its activity on that continent. Click on the full article to read more.
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Catching Up On Readings: A Host Of New Products And Ideas

As this week’s Tech Stocks coverage shows, major companies such as Google, Apple, and Skype are rapidly moving forward with more products for online communication. As we will see tomorrow, Yahoo is still having a lot of trouble in comparison to its peers. Click on the full article to read more.
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Happy Fourth Of July

Happy Fourth of July to all readers celebrating in the United States and abroad. Click to hear the Declaration of Independence read aloud by staff at National Public Radio.

(Photo: National Archives/National Public Radio)

Sramana Mitra To Speak At The Commonwealth Club On August 11

Sramana Mitra, Founder of One Million by One Million, will look at the current challenges facing India and the untapped opportunities in technology, technology-enabled services, rural and slum development, energy, infrastructure, health care, film and education. Author of Vision India 2020, Mitra will discuss start-up companies in India developing into billion-dollar enterprises over the next 10 years. She will also speak about her global initiative, One Million by One Million, which aims to help a million entrepreneurs each reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond by 2020.

Location: Silicon Valley Bank, 3005 Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, California
Time: 6:00 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing
Cost: $20 standard, $12 members

Find more details and REGISTER HERE.