It has been over 2 weeks from the visit to GHF World Homeopathy summit. I had met Dr. KRK Prabhakar Reddy there and came to know about IIHP scientific seminar @ Vijaywada on 26th April. I had thought to go there as well but sat on the decision until Thursday 23rd April. In the meanwhile, I have traveled once more to Mumbai on a family trip; it is summer holidays for children and home alone for myself. It took few days to get used to this. I searched through facebook posts to find the contact details & reached Dr. Lakshmi. This time – we wanted not only to be with the practitioners but also introduce them to Homeo Clinics – An app for every Homeopathy Practitioner. After making few calls to Dr. Lakshmi & Dr. Baskar – which they obliged – decided to put a stall at the seminar.

This visit was different in few aspects.

1. I had stall duty and had limited time to listen to the speakers. Still I managed few minutes. More on this later.
2. I met quite a range of practitioners in their technology usage; quite refreshing & interesting conversations.
3. There were last minute adventures during hyderabad-vijaywada-Hyderabad travel given my absent mindedness.
4. Good food @ Swarna palace. Good company of other stall managers.
5. What remained constant – was you are still surrounded by homeopathy practitioners and policy makers.

I almost spent 1.5 days with Sreedhar, a good designer @ printo. He helped me realize & add the creative beauty – to get our flyer & banner for the stall. All through – I was pre-occupied how to best communicate the value the app brings for the practitioner. Book tickets, cab, hotel, grab meals in between and catch a little bit of sleep. It was only 25th that I could catch 7 hours of sleep. It is key since next day 26th I have to be fully awake!

It was interesting to met a full rainbow spectrum of practitioners on stall – in terms of technology usage. I met practitioners steady with manual note taking – on one side of the spectrum to another side – practitioner who wants the app on everything – ipad, android and windows. I met first practitioner using Windows Phone…ya…Windows phone Nokia lumia 720. I carry a lumia 730 – a pretty good companion. We were mid way of porting the app on Windows Phone but it is on hold until we get other work done. I met practitioners from places near vijaywada to up to Vizag –  Eluru, Guntur, Bapatala, Rajamundry, Jaggayyapet, Palakol and I am sure there were more  – who we can meet next time!

I missed taking selfies this time with interesting personalities at seminar. It met one practitioner who claimed to have every software that exists – with him and that too Top edition! When I pitched our access anywhere feature, he made interesting remark. Something on these lines — “Sir – mai clinic ke andar ghar to bhul jata hu and ghar ke andar clinic ko bhul jata hu.”. In English – “Sir, I forget home when I enter my clinic. Also I forget clinic when I step out of it.” Certainly, it is good practice to have a good work-life balance. but nevertheless, there is no harm in having the power (access everwhere) with you and exercise only at your will. I met Dr. Anand again (after GHF Mumbai).

I met with students from Kadappa college. Some of them aspire to take up Masters from JSPS after finishing their bachelors. I remembered Dr. Aruna from Kadappa college then. Sometime – I would visit there. I felt student crowd was relatively less but still there were still groups hanging around for tea together but not many watched the promotion of Acer Iconia Win 8.1 tablet – that we had put in Tea area!

I caught moments from the honorable commissioner of AYUSH speech who appreciated the efforts of Homeopathy practitioners – as silent workers, their contributions in controlling swine flu epidemic and inspired them to speak/publish their contributions for better recognition of Homeopathy. He also motivated students. On a low note, he expressed that there is strong need for the upgrading infrastructure at the colleges and call for action to the alumni & NRV (non resident villagers – I am not sure if I got this term right. I heard it first time in his speech) – in partnership with government – to contribute to the required fund of order of 10cr for this. I missed lectures & talks by Dr. Issac Golden, honorable minister of health – A.P., Dr N Srinivasa Rao – member central council of homeopathy and other esteemed speakers of the day.

This post will be incomplete without the mention of Dr. M. Kutumba Rao – if I heard right – he is in his 88th year. What is memorable about his speech is his sense of simplicity & humor. He inspired students & practitioners alike about the practice. It was exciting – to see him, Dr. M Jayaram (son) and Dr. M Sarala Kiran (grand son) together – 3 generations practicing Homeopathy.

About the adventures, ola cabs canceled my cab at Hyderabad. I managed to get an auto to get to railway station and decided to leave the banner in the auto. When I realized during the train – technology came to rescue and I found that there are banner printers next to the hotel in vijaywada. After parking @ swarna palace, I went in the nearby lanes experiencing the beautiful summer heat. I met designer & owner of Karuna Graphics who checked and gracefully directed me to Vasu Digital where I got the banner done – in fact, printing was better than the original I was carrying! I could not resist taking a pic of their huge machine setup printing huge banners.

I found whereabouts of Big bazaar, buckinghampeta from local merchants to buy chocolates – I had forgotten to buy at Hyderabad previous day. Well – you got to have good time at stall and what’s better than having a melody chocolaty! Food @ swarna palace does need a mention. I was pleasantly surprised for two veg meals I had there. During return – my train ticket stayed at WL1 and with a tip from Dr. Krk I decided to take a bus return journey; I avoid bus journey by all means! I got bus within 5 minutes of reaching the bus station. The onion sweetness in the highway dhaba near vijaywada for dinner – was awesome and made up for the hardship of the bus return journey. I reached Hyderabad early 3am Monday and maneuvered home in auto in empty lanes of Hyderabad experiencing cold morning breeze.

In Closing, My sincere thanks to Dr. Lakshmi, Dr. Baskar, all doctors manning registration desk and entire organizing committee. Thanks to every practitioner who visited our stall & gave his valuable time. We will connect with you again (in fact I got a call back yesterday) to serve you! Thanks also to practitioners who  not visited our stall (but plan to visit next time – pun intended). Thanks you Sudheer for good company throughout the day, Krishna Prasad (bioforce), Siva Rama Krishna (SBL) and all other stall managers. Special thanks to Dr Krk for connecting me to event, being so warm & cordial & the tip to take the bus in night, Dr N Srinivasa Rao for his valuable time to hear us, being human & offering a ride back Hyderabad with a brief intro when he heard that my train ticket remained wait-listed and being humble & approachable.

How do you measure success? Closing a few deals. We did not. but most of the practitioners did hear us till the end and liked what we offer. We did get to meet a good number of practitioners, introduce them to Homeo Clinics – an app for every homeopathy practitioner and of course, what an eventful trip!

It was Wednesday last week. I had to take a call whether I should go to World Homeopathy summit 2015 Mumbai. I had heard about World Homeopathy Summit in Mumbai being organized by Global Homeopathy foundation way back in dec – from one of the practitioner. I was not sure whether it made sense for me to join or whether I can join as a delegate? I decide to call the organizers to find out whether a non-practitioner can join the conference. I got ok. I thought it might be good platform to hear/meet some of best minds and practitioners at the conference. With some deliberation, I decided to go for it.

I tried to join the gang of experienced practitioners (& professors) from JS Homeo college but somehow could not synchronize my itinerary with them. Sat (11th) – day started with boarding an early morning flight from Hyderabad to Mumbai. I meet the Dr. KR Prabhakara Murthy & a set of JS College alumni & practitioners from Hyderabad – at Mumbai airport.  From Sat morning to Sunday evening – it was like being in a crowd – whichever way you go – you hit next person who is doctor, scientist, researcher; quite unusual for a software guy. Every other discussion fired different part of my brain!

It was heart warming to see classmates meeting after 20-30 years, hugging and laughing out their college times! It was nostalgic to see student, prof and prof of prof taking a walk together along the new marine lines beach together. In general, I found that there is good bonding between Profs (many of them are practicing) & students – my sample size was certain limited. There was lot of energy from students – some interested in goodies @ conf (like club mahendra free stay) & hanging around with friends, some having serious discussion about their research / projects, some chasing celebrities like Dr. Dana Ullman for a selfie who was available at arm’s length at times (Dana was also kind enough to let me click a selfie with him) and many remained glued to their seats in the auditorium to listen to each lecture until last hour of the conference.

Did you know that India has 150+ Homeo medical colleges? Did you know that India has 250K+ homeo practitioners? Did you know that Gov of India now has separate ministry for Homeopathy? Did you know that in some countries like USA, Homeopathy faces challenges from modern medicine significantly? Did you know that homeopathy medicine becomes more powerful as it is diluted more & more? Did you know that it can act at a sub atomic level? How it can be enabler/catalyst for the human vital force to build balanced harmonious human being? I am quoting few things I get to know here.  For all the people seeking science base & spirituality existence at the same time – it threw more light at the subtle phenomenon – how “like cures like” is used to trigger the human immune system (vital force). Like I need to face my fears to overcome them, body also need to face some of these diluted things – to build up its subtle immune power.

While a set of practitioners (including conference focus) were seeking scientific base to establish Homeopathy credibility, there were practitioners who questioned this & whether this is against the spirit of Homeopathy & at a time when modern medicine is into soul searching about their processes – taking Homeopathy in that direction is right? Both sides are probably right in a broader holistic view and conference enabled them to have a platform to raise their views.

There was government organizations participation like CCRH as well. In fact, CCRH sponsored a day lunch and made additional donations. Also expressed their interest in sponsoring research projects. There was participation by Dept. of Ayush executives and many other top bureaucrats. Few things from Dr. Manchanda lecture stick in my memory. Answering a question that – there is need for a elaborate library with access to achieves of leading international journals. He mentioned that CCRH has already have digital access to many of the renowned international journals, encouraged & call to action to the colleges to seek access & enable their students to get exposed to the latest research. On a low note, he mentioned that despite his repeated asks – only a handful of the colleges are leveraging the resources!

There was one mention that practitioners & researchers need to instead focus on putting forward more positive results rather than defending & having a negative commentary when homeopathy is dismissed as non-science or discredited; like looking at glass half full vs half empty. There were couple of discussions & presentations on usage in veterinary & call for action to bring together practitioners working in that domain. There was one presentation by Brazil delegate that walked through long list of research papers in past years. There was strong interest in few presentations – one by IITB about nanoparticles  presence in homeo medicines, few on nosodes, one about application to cancer  and one more that I mention little later. I might have missed some since I did not take notes instead depend on my memory.

Location was nice right in the hub of Mumbai – marine lines. Beach was at walkable distance. Railway & airport at reasonable distance. There were minor issues with mikes and strong lights glare on stage for speakers. Otherwise, good audio visuals. Few stalls – club mahendra promised 3 night free trip (riders unknown) to delegates, free homeo medicines to practitioners from one vendor, one stall of homeo software. One stall to delegates to click their selfies as memorabilia. Welcome kit & participation certificate. There was minor traffic during registration but minor teething issues are expected at any place. Decent simple packed lunch on both days. I forgot to mention delegates recorded their feedback as one of the fun activity and chatted around Tea counter during breaks.

Finally – let me come to the Dr. Khuda Bukhsh talk on day 2. This talk was in my opinion was one of the highlights of the summit & deserves special mention. He threw light on interplay of human genes & homeo medicines in dilution such as 30c. If you missed it – I heard that organizers might make available recordings of the talks on dvd. This talk will certainly be a recommended watch – my personal favorite. He got standing ovation from the crowd for his work & talk.

On a lighter note – I met one senior practitioner from Karnal (my memory defies me to remember his name). He simply stood out of the crowd with his hat & staunch mustache. I could not resist but to request for a selfie with him. He kindly obliged. His comments also sticks to my memory – mucha rakane ke liye such boline ka daam chahiye jo gyada logo ke paas nahi hai. isliye kaam log hi rakhte hai! English version – to keep mustache – one needs guts to tell the truth that only few have – hence, you find less people with such mustache.

While we strive towards excellence in building productivity software & services at scale and one such app – Homeo Clinics – we have dedicated for Homeopathy practitioners – it is imperative to devote time to know your customer and the domain. It starts at connecting with more & more of the practitioners, be between them to understand the problem space and invite them to use the solution. In sum total, the summit was empowering trip for me to get more into Homeopathy in general, get through bit of terminology / jargon, connect with a handful of senior & long time practitioners, get more enlightened, make few new friends & last but not the least – have a good time!

Are you a homeopathy practitioner? Did you think about your hour worth? Homeo Clinics is a must have productivity app for every Homeopathy Practitioner – to do more; be more.

It lets you focus on your patient. With its simple intuitive interface, it lets you manage your note taking about your patients effectively. It comes preloaded with the standard abbreviations for the homeo medicines & let’s each practitioner personalize his own. It does not stop here. Your data is safely stored in world class Microsoft data center, backed up nightly and accessible any time any where to you!

Homeo Clinics app is available through windows 8 store on your laptop running Windows 8.1. Give it a shot!

Congratulations & Welcome to Homeo Clinics! Happy exploring and use your free time to treat more patients, teach students…

Not convinced yet. Give me few minutes to walk you through notes I have taken while talking to a set of homeopathy practitioners.

Are you ready for the change?  To do more. Be more. No more fumbling with note books. You can focus on – your patient. For everything else – Homeo Clinics is there.

For more, refer Homeo Clinics facebook page. We love to hear from you!

How about getting a Win 8.1 tab free?

It has been couple of weeks since the public release of Homeo Clinics app in Windows Store. While the app comes with free trial period, some of you might be looking for the subscription offers beyond the free trial period.

We are releasing the details about our subscription offers. You can refer them here. We do understand that some of you may need to upgrade from windows 7 to windows 8, buy a wifi device or may want to buy a handy windows 8 tablet. For all of you – we have put limited period attractive offers with the goodies coming to you – FREE!

Go. Check it out.