Wonder Grass: Three months in its infancy

The New Year, we await the coming year with lot of enthusiasm and eagerness.

Wonder Grass, practically 3 months old now. We started operating from the office at NS Raghavan Center, IIM-Bangalore on 2nd October, so we can consider it as our Foundation day.

These three months have been full of activities, crammed schedules and running around to get our fledgling operations in some stable shape, but as with all start-ups the anxiety and work-pressure never seems to cease.

But there have been some good achievements and milestones for Wonder Grass in these three months into its working, Beginning of a new year could be a good time to sum-up what we have done so far and also to visualize and lay our road map for the year to come.

October saw two critical moments, one the selection of our company 'Wonder Grass' for incubation support by NS Raghavan center for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) at IIM-Bangalore and second award from BiD India challenge for innovative business plan.

We also bagged first order to supply treated -graded bamboo for Ar. Surya Kakani's project for a school 'Anand Niketan' at Ahmedabad.

November; We started the registration process for Wonder Grass. We proposed to organize a seminar under the theme 'Bamboo and Building Industry; Prospoects and Potentials', which was eagerly accepted by Dr. Kalyani Gandhi and she even got the venue finalized. It was due to the support from NSRCEL, that we got the boost to pursue the work on Seminar. Data compilation for invitees, sending emails, calling concerned people.

Running short of manpower and resources, but we kept persisting. Enjoying the experience to organize and conduct a full fledged seminar.


December; All our energies were concentrated on making the event a success. To generate enough curiosity amongst invitees we even tried to get some articles about bamboo and its building applications in leading newspapers, without success.

Keeping the date of the seminar our deadline, we could put together our communication-material together,

1. Visiting Card and Logo
2. Banners for the seminar,
3. Brochures
4. Website

The communication material has come out really good. Brochure designed by Jaai, has come out really wonderful. It lives you with the comprehensive idea about the venture.
Our printer Mr. Subramnay did a good job and that too on time. He works really hard.

Chandrima and Prashant were really patient with all my constant pestering to complete the website, and upload it. Prashant literaly worked two nights to finally upload the site. ALl those who have seen it have appreciated the website.

Chandrima has come up with an interesting logo, which people have liked a lot.

The seminar was a great success, much more than what we had anticipated or expected. It has generated a good awareness about bamboo for building applications in general. Some stake-holders from mainstream construction industry have already approached us to see if we can start providing them services.

Wonder Grass, has been featured in two regional dailies namely 'Vijaya Karnatak' and 'Prajavani', this has taken our name far and wide.

People from across Karnataka have been calling to see if we can provide them with the building-soluiton using bamboo.

To sum it up;

• We have made the beginning and launched Wonder Grass into the operations.
• We have, if not completed but put together some kind of 'identity' for the company, which is represented by our visual communication materials,
• We have received a lot of inquiries and we are working on three interesting and large projects for now. it is in the initial stages of discussion, we will know for sure about our role towards the middle of January-2008.

Bamboo and Building Industry Seminar

Seminar 'Bamboo and Building Industry' has given us necessary impetus to take further the work we have initiated in bringing bamboo-based building systems in the mainstream of construction industry.

It is due to the efforts and support provided by the NS Raghavan center for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), at IIM-Bangalore that this task was made easier and enjoyable.

It is for the center and prof. Kalyani Gandhi that we could put forth the issue of sustainable building systems and role of bamboo in future of building industry from the platform and podium of the premier business institute of management in world like IIM-Bangalore.

The platform such as this ensures that business community and key stake-holders in the mainstream building industry will take a note of the emerging trends of bamboo based building systems. Professionals and organizations tend to listen and understand you with patience if you talk from this platform.

Seminar went on well. Speakers provided us with insights and perspectives of this sector from various viewpoints.

Ashwin Mahesh, founder-director of Mapunity was kind enough to agree to moderate the discussion during the course of the seminar. As it always happens there was a last minute hitch, Er. Vilas Gore, who was coming from Mumbai could not make it to the venue as the flight was cancelled.

Seminar as was planned happened in three segments, first segment 'Market Prospects' was very well put forth by Mr. C Hariharan, CEO, BCIL. Arguably the largest Sustainable Building Entreprise in India today.

He provided an all round perspective on what future lies for the sustainable and green building systems, and what are the avenues one can explore. He provided inputs from the experiences of what BCIL has been offering and doing for last 10 years or so.

There was a brief but interesting discussion that followed his presentation. Ashwin kicked off the discussion by putting a very critical question that haunts all the sustainable and green 'systems' of the day, that is how do you scale up? what deters and blocks the 'scale-up' nature of the sustainable technologies.


Ar. Jaigopal then provided a broad overview of the projects that his office has carried out along with Vilas Gore using bamboo for building applications. His work gave a vast range of various applications for which bamboo can be used from a fence to be used as composite wall panel or flooring system.

The next session, after a small tea-break was basically to throw light on various business-possibilities that bamboo offers for entrepreneurs to look at.

During this session we had representatives from some interesting and national level organizations who presented a vast range of applications that were already into market for the people and consumers to be used. It gave a glimpse of various products and systems that are already into offering using bamboo.

Dr. Gopalan gave a fascinating talk on the huge work on bamboo-composites being carried out by RV-TIFAC composite park headed by Dr. Gopalan himself. The range of products and applications using bamboo based composite materials like boards, panels and sheets gave a new perspective of how bamboo can be used.

Mr. Ajay Kumar, who represented National Mission on Bamboo Applications, a premier body set up by Government of India under the aegis of Dept. of Science and Technology, gave an overview of the work undertaken by NMBA in the area of structural applications of bamboo, specially what is largely known as engineered bamboo. They have been very active in developing and providing solutions in the pre-fabricated and easy-to-assemble building units.

Ar. George Joel, who represented CIBART - KONBAC, presented one of the works recently completed for MSTDC (State tourism development corporation). KONBAC is an organization set up and promoted by INBAR, International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, a multi-lateral organization with headquarters in China.

The Resort, basicaly developed along the lines of a Boat-houes, uses bamboo as primary building materials and its formation into interesting structural formations.

A small note for concluding remarks was presented by himself along with acknowledgments.

As a part of concluding remark, we announced that we shall initiate a network, what we call 'Friends of Bamboo', for all of those who are interested in bamboo and its applications in building industry. As a initiation of this network, we gave away a sapling of bamboo plant each to all those who were interested and asked them to water the plant twice a week and spend 10 minutes every week on thinking about bamboo and how it can used.

Bamboo and Building Industry; Prospects and Potential

Some images from seminar

Bamboo and Building Industry; Prospects and Potentials

'Bamboo and Building Industry; Prospects, Potential and Possibilities'

The seminar was supported by NSRCEL, IIM-Bangalore and organized by Wonder Grass

Venue: Main Auditorium, IIM-Bangalore
Date and Time: 15th December, Saturday. 9.00 am to 1.30 pm.

The Primary idea behind the seminar was to see three critical segments within construction industry, like Demand (Prospects in the market), Application and resource potential of the Bamboo as building material and various business prepositions that are into play or proposed, to understand the economic apsects of this industry.

To address these three different segments we had invited individuals who would provide us with some insights into these different apsects. A brief introduction about the content of the seminar and what is proposed in the seminar can be found in the attachment.

Our effort was to bring in critical stakeholders from within the larger sphere of building industry like Builders-developers, Architects, Finance institutions, Housing Banks and investors etc. Management professionals etc.

Talking from the platform of Indian Institute of Management, it is expected that the so-called mainstream would take notice and be willing to spare a moment to listen to what is being discussed.