World Unicorns 2019

World Unicorns 2019

USA obviously is ahead with 172 unicorns. China comes second with 89 unicorns. UK has 17, with India a close behind UK with 16 unicorns.

South Korea and Germany are next with 8 each. 9 countries have between 2 to 4 unicorns. 11 countries have at least 1 unicorn. In all 26 countries have unicorns.

How I did it?

World unicorns 2019

For mapping unicorns on the world map; I started with downloading the excel file from CB Insights.

The first challenge to me was the valuation was in currency format which was read as a string in pandas. By writing a function the valuation was converted into a number.

Then built-in group by function was used to group and aggregate on count of unicorns by country.

Now I did not have country codes in my data frame. The country codes were needed later to map it using pygal library. So, I downloaded country codes file from pygal. Later I mapped it and had my original data frame have country codes in an additional column. However, the mapping did not recognize South Korea. Its official name is different. So, I had to correct it.

Then the countries were put in five buckets as per the count of unicorns in a country.

The final challenge was to convert these five data frames into dictionaries. It was repeatedly giving type error. So, I had to go back to pandas and dictionaries and read again about sub setting pandas and converting to dictionaries. Finally, with a lot of tries I could convert five data frames in to five dictionaries.

These five dictionaries were used with pygal to plot the words map.

Topic-Sub-total in Excel

Topic-Sub-total in Excel

Situation-

Do you do subtotals of numbers having categories? Please see the example below.

Example-

Let us say you have two stores namely store A and store B. And you want to do sum of store sales and also the total sum. Please see the screen clip below. If you use SUM formula for sub-totalling and also for totalling you get a result that is not the correct number. In fact, it sums two times. 

Solution-

The problem can be overcome by using the function called sub-total to sum up. When you do that, you are asked to choose the code. Since we want to sum up within sub-total function, we will use code 9 for sum. Please see the screen clip below. 

For doing the total (or total of total) use sub-total only. Now you get the correct total. It works even if you add more entries. It works in Google Sheets as well in LibreOffice Calc. 

“Talking Books” for all of whom cannot read standard print due to blindness, visual impairment, dyslexia, or other learning disabilities.

It gave us immense pleasure when we implemented a CSR project to record “Talking Books” in my previous organisation.

Talking Books are recorded materials—most often books —in audio formats provided to people who are visually impaired, or otherwise unable to read or use standard printed materials.

We implemented the project in our offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai by creating recording studios. We recorded many titles, mostly for educational purposes, on CDs, and later on pen drives and passed on to our partner NGOs for onward distribution to the visually challenged.

Thanks to Information technology, Talking Books have now become the preferred method of learning for visually challenged. In our field survey we found them spending as many as 10 hours in a day listening to Talking Books. That's a lot of time.

We recorded books in MP3 format also upgraded to DAISY format. The DAISY format has advanced features in addition to those of a traditional audio book. Users can search, place bookmarks, precisely navigate line by line, and regulate the speaking speed without distortion.

The project was very popular with employee volunteers. They recorded books in English and regional languages. They helped themselves by scheduling the use of the studios for recording. The IT infra team also rallied and supported.

The next logical step in this project would be to put the recorded Talking Books on cloud for ease of access. This is the only way it can reach far corners in India.

In India the Talking Book Project was initiated by NAB (India) in 1963 with the help of United States Government. Now it does recording directly in digital format and has thousands of titles.

The Origin

In 1932, the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) received a grant from the Carnegie Foundation to research methods of recording the spoken word as a means of delivering printed material to those with vision loss. The result of these efforts was the Talking Book project. Talking Books radically altered the lives of many blind individuals for whom literature and written information were previously inaccessible.

The basic idea was not new. When Thomas Edison applied for a patent for his Tin-Foil Phonograph in 1877, one of the ten potential uses he listed for his invention was "phonograph books, which will speak to blind people without effort on their part." Interestingly, this item was second in his list of ten; "reproduction of music" was fourth.

Leading examples from USA and UK

Founded in 1948, Learning Ally, is a non-profit volunteer organization operating nationwide in the United States, serves more than 300,000 K-12, college and graduate students, veterans and lifelong learners – all of whom cannot read standard print due to blindness, visual impairment, dyslexia, or other learning disabilities. It has a collection of more than 80,000 human-narrated textbooks and literature titles can be downloaded on mainstream smartphones and tablets.

Founded in 2002, Bookshare® is an online library of computer-read audiobooks in accessible formats for people with print disabilities. It is the world's largest accessible online library for people with print disabilities with 573,651 titles.

In UK Calibre Audio Library, Listening Books, and The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) provide similar services.

Africa

But the most interesting example, I came across was that of Literacy Bridge.

Literacy Bridge saves lives and improves the livelihoods of impoverished families through comprehensive programs that provide on-demand access to locally relevant knowledge. At the heart of the programs is the Talking Book – an innovative low-cost audio computer designed for the learning needs of illiterate populations living in the poorest areas in the world.

Literacy Bridge, an NGO working in Ghana, makes “Talking Books” available to over 200,000 people living in extreme poverty in Northern Ghana. Through songs, dramas, and interviews, the books provide education on health and agriculture to reduce material and child mortality, hunger and chronic malnutrition and help people to reconsider gender roles.

Simple and actionable instructional messages that are repeatable and can be played when needed enable people to learn and adopt new practices to fight poverty and disease.

This initiative is linked to goal of Education (no 4) of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of United Nations.

Google Finance

Use of Google Finance to track your Equity portfolio

The investment culture in India is shifting from saving to investing. The instruments are shifting from tangible assets like gold, real estate to intangible assets like stocks. The investment gurus are suggesting mutual funds as the option to take to investing, but they are also suggesting to invest in some good stocks if you do understand - with a medium to long term horizon to get appreciation of your investment.

But even if you do invest in good stocks, how do you measure the growth or appreciation in the invested stocks? It is one thing to read newspapers or reports giving out growth numbers; but another to do that calculation on your own.   

Add to it how do you track and record all the corporate actions? No doubts your DP / broker gives you such reporting tool. But does reporting tool provide the flexibility to do the analysis? Also every time you have log-in to the live system which is not a good option.

Google Finance portfolio tracker

I attempted to enter stock data manually in a spreadsheet but I found Google Portfolio tracker offers the following benefits.

Firstly it allows you to import a spreadsheet with basic trade data (date, amount and numbers) and that's it. It adds all corporate actions automatically in the background and gives you the complete report at a stock or at a portfolio level that has multiple stocks in it. Secondly for the stock it offers all the news and comparisons with its peers. So you can keep yourself abreast with the developments in the stock. Thirdly it offers choice of Indian Rupee as a currency. Last but not the least, you can export your portfolio in spreadsheet format.

I did come across errors where it couldn't handle corporate actions involving dividend plus special dividend and bonus offers resulting in fractions where It didn't round-off.

But on the balance it is easy and intuitive to use like any Google product. Since most of us have a Google account, you may want to try it. 

HORN OK PLEASE TO GO OFF TRUCKS

A welcome move! It was long overdue.

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/cover-story/Horn-ok-please-to-go-off-trucks/articleshow/47115692.cms

In addition to honking their is safety involved here. 

1. In addition the authorities have to ensure that the side mirrors of these vehicles are in working conditions. If the side mirrors are not in working conditions; they do not know who is in parallel lanes. And when they change the lane they are hazard to other vehicles.
2. Also their tail lamps and brake lamps have to be checked. Driving behind such vehicles in dangerous when brake and tail lamps are not working especially in the evening. Worst when such vehicles are parked without working tail lamps. Hence driving in the evening becomes hazardous more so on Mumbai Pune Expressway. 

Visual Search

Visual Search using Google Goggles

I tested the app on Android phone. It is easy to use. 

It read QR codes, business cards, printed logos, logos on metallic surfaces, 3D logos on wall, bar codes  very well.

I have a large number of business cards to scan and I found this to be a good tool. The cards can imported in to Microsoft Outlook. It also allows you to import cards in to Google contacts.

I found it to be a useful tool.

The app is worth giving it a try. 

Indian Billion Dollar FMCG Brand

In our family if we eat glucose biscuits then these have to be Parle-G. If Parle-G is not available then we do not eat any other glucose biscuit. It is true of my many friends and relatives. And may be true of many from Mumbai.

So I was happy to note that Parle-G in February 2013 became the first Indian FMCG brand that crossed 5000 crore Rupees mark in terms of retail sales in one year. Parle Products were launched in 1939 when the British ruled India. Factually, Parle Products in 2012 sold 5010 crore rupees worth glucose biscuits at the retail price. To me Parle-G is almost a billion dollar Indian brand. But compare this with Pepsico.

PepsiCo offers the world's largest portfolio of billion-dollar food and beverage brands, including 22 different product lines that each generate more than $1 billion in annual retail sales and are sold in more than 200 countries.

Indian FMCG brands have a long way to go.