Mahindra Reva: Environment-Friendly Innovations

Mahindra Reva is one of the world’s pioneers in the production of electric vehicles. Since its founding in 1994, Mahindra Reva is one of today’s most experienced electric car manufacturers in the world.

Mahindra Reva started as a joint venture of USA’s AEV Llc. and India’s Maini Group. The company focused on manufacturing affordable electric cards using advanced technologies. The first model was launched in 2011 in India and in 2004 in London.

With the future of mobility in mind, Mahindra Reva produces electric cars that possess the 5 C’s of mobility solutions: Clean, Convenient, Connected, Clever and Cost-Efficient. Mahindra Reva maintains a wide customer base in 24 countries worldwide. Through the years, Mahindra Reva has produced the largest fleet of electric cars in the world. Its cars have driven a total of more 200 kilometers and have significantly reduced carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

To help in the distribution of its environment-friendly cars, Mahindra Reva is licensing out its technologies. It continues to enhance its existing platforms that would ensure a sustainable production of zero-emission mobility solution. Its factory in Bangalore alone is capable of producing 30,000 electric cars annually.

Mahindra Group of US acquired majority of the company’s stakes for $15.4 billion. Consequently, the company was renamed Mahindra REVA Electric Vehicles Pvt. Ltd. The company is based in Bangalore, India.

On January 7, 2013, Mahindra Reva launched a future-ready electric car and that would be known as the next-generation electric car – the Mahindra e2o. Mahindra e2o has a very small size that promotes maneuverability. It is equipped with GPS, smartphone integration, and reverse camera. It has zero-emissions and leaves the smallest carbon footprint.

Fast Company has listed Mahindra Reva in the 22nd place in its Top 50 Innovative Global Companies of 2013. Meanwhile, the company continues with its research and development, with special focus on its proprietary technology for advanced batteries, the Energy Management System.

The Nerdery: Nerds at their Best (and Happiest)

The Nerdery is a “developer driven interactive production company” that works with other agencies in creating interactive media such as websites and mobile applications. Founded by three programmers in 2003, The Nerdery has expanded to seven offices in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City. The Nerdery’s professionals come from different programming disciplines. The company puts a lot of emphasis on partnership with other agencies because they keep themselves in track with their tasks by sticking technical consulting and execution. They delegate the creative conceptualization to their creative agency partners than focus on their competencies and given responsibilities. In one project, The Nerdery worked with Zeus Jones to come up with a highly interactive web site for Cheerios. Zeus Jones tackled the conceptualizing and copywriting while “the Nerds” worked on meeting the clients’ preferences, which demanded strict technical requirements to establish a strong web presence for Cheerios.

The Nerdery is not a stranger to accolades. It won the Emerging Business of the Year Award in the 2011 Best in Business Awards. It is also part of the Inc. 5000. But aside from its works, The Nerdery is very much applauded because of employee satisfaction. It was awarded the Mpls-St.Paul Busines Journal Award as the topnotcher for the Best Places to Work. Star Tribune (Minneapolis) and Monthly (Minnesota) also gave a spot in their respective Top Workplaces list.

It is not hard to accept this fact because for one, hierarchy is not a big deal in this emerging company. Luke Bucklin, a co-founder of The Nerdery, championed the concept of “Co-President” in the company. Everyone is referred to as “Co-President” to signify even distribution of leadership and to recognize the role of diverse employees. Aside from that, The Nerdery allows employees to bring their dogs to work to create a “working-from-home” atmosphere. Productivity and efficiency increase when employees are happy. And when employees are happy, the final product of projects is almost always impressive. Take it from The Nerdery.

StyleSeat: A New Way to Find the Perfect Hairdresser

Today, finding the best hairdresser is as easy as walking down the streets of the city and finding the salon that will do your hair. Thanks to the new website StyleSeat. StyleSeat was founded by Melody McCloskey. Business Insider has named StyleSeat as one of the Top 20 Silicon Valley startups.

Since its launching in May 2012, StyleSeat has featured more than 14,000 salon experts. From its platform, the services are sorted according to type of service and location. Reviews and ratings are also provided for a more intelligent choice. Appointments can also be made through the website.

StyleSeat is headquartered in San Francisco. While this company is just starting to make waves in the Bay Area, McCloskey is planning to expand its reach. Should the plans succeed, clients can receive credits as reward for using the website.

Through StyleSeat, salon professionals are given the opportunity to grow and enlarge their business. The StyleSeat blog also allows these salon professionals to find tools that would help them manage their businesses.

Uber: Easy and Convenient Access to Luxury Cars for Hire

Uber is a San Francisco, California-based mobile application startup, providing connection between passengers and drivers of luxury cars for hire. In the US, Uber covers the areas of Sacramento, Baltimore, Detroit, Phoenix, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, Atlanta, San Diego, Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. Other cities covered by Uber’s services include Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Melbourne, Stockholm, Sydney and Singapore.

Uber’s fleet includes Cadillac Escalades, Mercedes Benz S550, Lincoln Town cars and BMW 7 Series. Reservations are done through text messages or mobile application. The customers can also track the location of their reserved cars through the app.

Three entrepreneurs named Garrett Camp, Oscar Salazar and Travis Kalanick founded Ubercab in 2009. The idea was conceived in the 2008 LeWeb conference held in Paris. Uber’s product was first launched on Android and iPhones in 2010 in San Francisco.

Uber.com was a domain originally owned by a blogging and social networking company, which shut down in September 2008. UberCab purchased the domain from the Universal Music Group in 2010.

Since 2010, Uber gradually expanded its reach until service points were also opened outside the US. More cities are set to be reached by Uber’s mobile app. Meanwhile, plans to venture into non-taxi ridesharing are on the way.

One of the major obstacles for startups is funding, but not for Uber. Upon its launching in 2010, Chris Sacca and other angel investors in Silicon Valley funded Uber. In early 2011, Benchmark Capital and other investors raised $11.5 million for Uber. Later that year, other investors such as Bezos Expedition, Menio Ventures and Goldman Sachs raised $32 million to bring Uber’s initial funding to $49.5 million.

In April 2012, Uber offered conventional taxi reservations at lower prices in Chicago. In July 2012, the company brought 90 Jaguar and Mercedes Benz drivers to London. Other offshore markets also opened later.

Sproxil: Providing the Best Brand Protection

Sproxil has been providing first rate brand protection services for many of the world’s emerging markets. This venture-backed enterprise provides Mobile Product Authentication® solutions that help ensure that what consumers buy are not counterfeit. Within seconds, doubting consumers can verify the genuineness of the products they buy through text messages.

Consumers can find a scratch-off security label in the products they buy. The one-time PIN found after scratch-off is texted to the Sproxil platform. Sproxil will send an authentication message that confirms the genuineness of the product or warns that the product is possibly a counterfeit.

Sproxil’s MPA is used by the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies to curtail the growing industry of fake drugs. Sproxil is also used by non-pharmaceutical companies such as businesses in the industry of food supplements, personal care, and automotive components.

Among the awards received by Sproxil include the IBM SmartCamp Boston Award and the Clinton Global initiative Outstanding Award in 2009. Nigeria and Kenya have also awarded Sproxil with regulatory endorsements.

United Technologies: Global Innovator with a “Quality First” Mindset

United Technologies (UTC) is a global provider of high tech products and services in the global building and aerospace systems industries. Its major commercial businesses include the air conditioning, ventilation and heating provider UTC Climate Controls and Security, and Otis elevators and escalators. In the aerospace business, UTC’s products include the Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine which is a part of the UTC Propulsion and Aerospace System, and the Sikorsky aircraft. UTC pursues innovation through a research organization that would improve the performance and efficiency of UTC products.

In 2012, Barron ranked UTC among the World’s Respected Companies. Industry Week also ranked UTC as the 24^th largest manufacturer in the US and the 73^rd publicly traded manufacturer in the world. UTC is 48^th in the 2012 Fortune’s list of US companies and first in the Most Admired aerospace and defense companies. The Forbes Global 2000 of 2012 ranked UTC as the world’s 120^th largest company. The Thomson Reuters named UTC among the top 100 Global Innovators in the industry of transportation equipment.

UTC stands out because of quality. Each UTC employee is governed by the “quality first” mindset. Improvement of quality is the job of every UTC employee. Both internal and external customers are fully satisfied with UTC’s innovative products.

UTC’s excellence is defined by the way customers from all over the world patronize its products. For investors, UTC’s excellence is determined by how much these investors are willing to invest in its businesses. Because UTC is offering superior quality products and services, customers and investors grow with the company. All stakeholders prosper. That is what competitive excellence is for UTC. This is embodied in the ACE mission statement.

ACE stands for Achieving Competitive Excellence. It is proprietary to UTC. This ensures that the company's operating systems are world class. ACE focuses on how to increase efficiency while reducing wastes in a significant manner. ACE contains three important elements: culture and philosophy, tools and competency. All UTC facilities worldwide are guided by the ACE Mission Statement.