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Surfing for business bytes
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Instead of scrabbling through multiple sources for business-related information, you will soon get all your info-nuggets on a single site
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START-UP: The website takes a huge time investment (and some money as well!) from Pradeep and Vathsal Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
Anything to do with management and management students makes good business sense so its no surprise that two youngsters would set aside many hours a week from their nine-to-five jobs to nurture their web-site dedicated to students and young people interested in business. Located at http://biz-gyan.tripod.com, the website is still hunting for money to move to a regular www domain, but it's already in action and ready to use for "anyone wanting an in-depth look at business," explains co-founder Vathsal Kumar C. His partner Pradeep D.C. adds: "If people want information on business, they shouldn't have to look beyond this site."
Obviously the site has a while to go before it becomes the last word in business information for aspiring CAT students, business course students and those looking to enter the management arena. What it does have though is a lot of potential and the ability to zero in on some areas that business students might need information on — there are lists of management-related jargon culled from over 25 different dictionaries (although you can't yet type in a word and get the meaning, you have to manually scroll for it), lists of tycoons, tag lines and links to quizzes and puzzles and wise words from teachers and trainers.
Being a new site and handled by two youngsters, there are occasional spelling errors in the names mentioned and no experienced management guru to offer advice, but this is a step in the right direction. The website was begun by the boys who say they struggled while doing a business management course. "We couldn't afford the costly books, and used to struggle during the quizzes for lack of access to information," explains Vathsal, and so this website was designed to provide easy access to useful information, enabling students to avoid the confusing results of a Google search — the boys spent nine and a half months just culling information and hours at a Reliance cafe every day just so that other young students and professionals have a single source to get current information from.
Students are beginning to rely increasingly on web searches and dictionaries in order to access information and already entire CAT coaching classes are conducted on the Net with a large number of students opting for them. "Our company has online audio and video courses which are about 40 per cent cheaper than the other classes," explains Sayeed Ahmed, Centre Manager for Kaplan Educational Centre in Ulsoor. "How successful a website would be depends on the kind of information it provides access to," he explains, "but online courses are very popular with almost 40-50 per cent of our students opting for them since you have both video and audio inputs. "The drawback with most online sources of information is that they don't always allow for channels to clear doubts, ask questions and get advice from an experienced hand.
That's one of the major problems that Pradeep and Vathsal are facing at biz-gyan: the lack of a resident expert, not just to guide them, but perhaps also to address issues of concern amongst the youth using the portal. "We are trying to get soft copies of books and information from authors that we will make available on our site," says Pradeep, adding that they are also approaching a chartered accountant to act as adviser. First up though is the search for funds; getting on a full-fledged website itself would cost about Rs. 60,000.
Leave them comments at http://biz-gyan.tripod.com/id2.html
HEMANGINI GUPTA
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