Navtej Kohli

Eight-year-old Svetlana Patakovich has a lot more spring in her step lately. That’s because her dad Viktor has a great new job, working as a wildcatter oilman in the newly mined Russian oil fields for Granox, Ltd. Thanks to Granox, Viktor is able to make the best paychecks of his entire life, and that translates to a nicer life for everyone in his family.

“Papa gives me nice dolls now,” says Svetlana, happily waving a doll in her hand. “It’s an American Girl doll.”

Truly a sign of the times, we think. Remember how, just 20 years ago, Russia was America’s enemy? But now, thanks to a bold new world of economic and political freedom, companies like Granox can seek new opportunities in Russia, and in turn create new opportunities for thousands of oil workers like Viktor. And that’s all because of the forward-thinking vision of Granox founder Navtej Kohli.

“All my life, I’ve sought opportunities for myself and my family, from the time I grew up in poverty in New Delhi, India, to today when I have homes in three different continents,” says Kohli. “There truly is no better way to improve the world and the lives of others than by giving them an opportunity to earn more money and lift their lives up.”

At Granox, Ltd., the company believes in a better future for all: whether it’s by treating its workers right, or finding new oil sources in an energy-hungry world. And as long as there are new opportunities to be found, Navtej Kohli will keep his eyes open for the Viktor Patakoviches of the world.

By Navtej Kohli

We often see advertisements on television and on billboards for associations and programs that receive donations for underprivileged children in foreign countries. We’re either moved to call a toll-free number and pledge money to such organizations, or we turn away from the images that make us uncomfortable. It is quite something else to be presented with these images in the flesh, meeting disabled and impoverished children and their families face to face. For me, meeting such people changed my outlook on philanthropy and helped me to understand that calling a toll-free phone line or pledging a couple of dollars to a trust fund isn’t the same as actually working to make a difference in people’s lives. More information is available on my two other blogs, Navtej Kohli at Wordpress, and Navtej Kohli at Livejournal.

On Christmas Day in 2001, my company, Grafix Softech treated our staff to a day out at a farm in the Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. During the outing, I was introduced to some of the region’s disabled children and their parents. It was a moving experience. Their experiences with both disabilities and a total lack of resources of coping mechanisms highlighted the disconnect between the act of donating some money and the real people who benefit from those funds. The only real way to help people like this is to work with them, and thus, I was inspired to create what is now the Tej Kohli Foundation.

The Gunacaste province of Costa Rica

Although poverty has been reduced over the past two decades, Costa Rica still suffers from reduced economic growth and a 5.7% unemployment rate. Our government’s efforts to provide universal health care and education are hampered by deficits. This fact - the sticky situation our government is in - is one of the main things that fuels the tragic way many Costa Rican children live. While Costa Rica is quite prosperous in comparison to some of our neighbours, these factors mean that certain sectors of our society need help from the private sector and from philanthropic organisations in order to maintain an acceptable quality of life.

Since its inception, I’ve received immeasurable help from my business partner, Grafix Softech co-founder Juan Bonilla and his wife Alicia. Maria Pais has helped us out as well, and as of right now, the Foundation has helped over two-hundred and fifty children in multiple Costa Rican provinces. My plan is now to extend the Foundation’s reach to children in my native India, and to Africa. They’re lofty goals, but before our company outing, I’d never have known that a small group of people were capable of anything near what we’ve already accomplished.

In order to extend aid to the Far East, I recently met with General AJ Singh (Ret.). Up until now, the efforts of the foundation have been funded exclusively by me, but in order to grow, we’ll need funding from other sources. General Singh and I are attempting to find other donors in order to further the scope of the operation and we’ve had some significant interest, but securing some definite sponsors is still a work in progress.

This said, the Tej Kohli Foundation is far from limited in its achievements. My favourite memory from my time working on this project is probably that of a disabled young woman who was confined to the care and shelter of her parents and completely unable to pay for any education. We are talking about someone whose lifestyle and future are predetermined by her physical and financial constraints; however, with the Foundation’s help, she recently gained a Bachelor’s degree in Organic Chemistry and has since found employment.

Other examples of children whose lives we’ve helped substantially improve include a twelve-year-old boy, afflicted with autism and, again, in a severe state of poverty. With the help of the Foundation, Jose is enrolled in a special education program and enjoys are far more comfortable life than he did previously. Helping children like these is fantastic.

The expansion of the Foundation means that its services can extend from being primarily focused on providing medical and therapeutic care, and continue to offer funds for education, food, clothing and other daily needs. As tough as it can be to see the disastrous situations that children in Costa Rica and abroad have to live in, I really do believe that we’ve made a positive difference and have the potential to make an even bigger dent in the problems poverty creates in our world.

~ Navtej Kohli

Navtej Kohli

If you’ve been online as long as I have, you’ll remember the days of Web 1.0. The days when the internet was as controlled and inaccessible to the public as television still is today. The days when getting your content published necessitated that you were a media mogul, a mainstream media employee or very good with HTML.

Thank God those days are over. We all complain about how easy it is for the populous at large to get online: have you ever clicked through to someone’s MySpace or Bebo account and been assaulted by moving images, loud music and slow-loading videos? It’s terribly annoying. However, I’m of the opinion that, despite the annoyances of Web 2.0, the fact that the web is now largely controlled and influenced by the public is a great thing.

I’m not talking about awful networking sites here; I’m talking about sites like Associated Content, which bills itself as “The people’s media company.” There, users can create and publish content in a responsible, user-friendly, well designed context. This content isn’t produced and censored by CNN, Reuters or the like. It’s created by “real people.”

Now, you may say that everyone can now create a blog, which is essentially a website where you can post your thoughts and opinions. However, a small Blogspot or Wordpress blog is difficult to advertise and build a readership for. Publishing your content on a site like Associated Press, while it’s not on your own domain, exposes your writing to so many people without you having to market your own website or maintain it, fix its bugs, pay for it, etc.

When the net was dominated by those with money, power and knowledge, we were living in a far more closed climate than we are today. The example of the massive Digg revolt of a few weeks ago highlights the power that we users now have online. I’ll put up with dreadful MySpace atrocities in order to feel the sense of democracy and user-control that we now have on the internet. Contributing to sites like Associated Content only ensures that we maintain the control we now have.

Navtej kohli

Navtej Kohli

More and more these days, I’m seeing philanthropic sites pop up. Whether they’re dedicated to the environment, poverty, education or a combination of all three, these sites are a great way of getting the philanthropic message into the public eye and yet another way.

Call it what you like, charity, philanthropy or donations-based causes often need all the publicity they can get. People are often skeptical of philanthropists, believing that most are “in it for the attention” or that they money raised is being spent on advertising, “expenses” or other things not directly helping people.

I am passionate about philanthropy: I believe that helping others is an important part of how we build and maintain a structured society. Thus, I was pleased to come across this list yesterday that features six prominent philanthropic sites.

My favourite in this list is probably “Donor Choose” because it focuses on education. Education is a large part of breaking the poverty cycle, and my (Navtej Kohli) foundation is dedicated to providing educational opportunities for impoverished children in South America.

Navtej Kohli

A couple of days ago, an American friend of mine expressed the opinion to me that cricket was a rather silly sport. She did not understand how the sport had become so popular in former British Empire nations such as Australia, India and South Africa. She said that, to her, cricket appeared to involve a group of guys standing around on a big round field, rocking back and forward on the soles of their feet all day long.

Ricky Ponting, a famous Australian cricket player

At first, I was a bit offended. Cricket isn’t stupid! I played cricket for my school and it’s a highly technical, skillful game that requires high levels of physical fitness and endurance. The name “Navtej Kohli” has appeared in several record books for the sport and I’m defensive about it! But I digress…

It’s not like this is the first time I’ve heard people talk about how they do not like or understand cricket, but this instance made me think about the sentiment more than I do usually. In thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that, rather than just cricket, all sports are inherently stupid.

This is not to say that I don’t like sport. Far from it. I love sport. When I visit Digg, I usually digg nothing but sports stories. I love NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball. I’ll try and watch as much of the summer and winter Olympics as possible. But yes, friends; sports are silly. Let me elaborate…

Cricket
Cricket is enthralling. As I mentioned in my introduction, it’s involves physical fitness, mental endurance, natural talent and practiced skill. But despite my love of cricket, I can see why it is indeed silly.

Firstly, let’s look at the names given to the positions in cricket. There are about 92471 positions that players can take on the field (okay, more like fifty), but some of them have names that make even true cricket fans crack a grin. Here are some of the best:
• Silly mid-off
• Silly mid-on
• Fly slip
• Short fine leg
• Straight fine leg
• Wide long on
• Fine leg
• Short third man
• Square leg
• Fine leg
• Short leg
• Straight long off

Try explaining that to an American who’s used to hearing “center field” and “pitcher.” Even the position that baseball would name “catcher” is called a “wicket keeper”, which means very little if you don’t know what a wicket is.

What’s a wicket? Three sticks, stuck into the ground with two little sticks on top of them. If the ball hits the sticks, the batter is out. If the batter doesn’t manage to hit the ball and the batter’s leg is in front of the sticks, the umpire (referee) can decide that the ball would have hit the sticks had the leg not been there, and the batter will be out. You look up “subjective” in the dictionary and there’s a picture of this offense, known as “leg-before-wicket” or LBW.

Cricket is best served in one-day format, which means that the match only takes one day to complete. Old-fashioned cricket matches take three to five days and often end in a draw. The draw, however, does not involve both teams arriving at the exact same score, but rather indicates that neither team can win due to the time constraints of the game. That is, the game would have to take even longer in order to determine a winner. This is always very frustrating if your team is the one that’s been doing the best and, given a chance to finish, your team would undoubtedly win.

One-day cricket was invented to negate the traditional lengthy matches. This form of the game involves both teams being bowled to (or pitched at, in baseball lingo) fifty times. The only instance in which a team would not face all fifty balls is if their players were all out before fifty balls had been bowled.

So, I can see why many people think cricket is silly. It goes on too long, its names are very traditional British labeling masterpieces (i.e. silly) and many cricket outfits look like preppy boys’ schools’ uniforms. However, I still love the game and would love to have my American friends sit down and watch a closely-contested international one-day game with me. Once you’re hooked, cricket’s silliness doesn’t matter anymore.

Check out some of the questions I’ve answered about cricket at here – Navtej Kohli – Answers Profile

Swimming
Swimming is the most passive aggressive of all sports. Every competitor is isolated in their own lane, unable to tamper with competitors’ races. This immediately makes swimming less interesting than sports like running, where shoving your competition off the track and attempting to cut the backs of their legs with the spikes on the soles of your shoes is a well-loved pastime.

For a sport that involves racing (as opposed to accumulating points), it seems very odd to have people sprint up and down a body of water in order to get back to the place where they started. Running is often guilty of this, too. Some events, such as the very short sprints, make more sense, as the swimmers’ goal is to get from one end of the pool to the other as quickly as possible. It would make even more sense if there were treasures, money or tasty snacks at the other end. However, there usually aren’t.

The dumbest thing about swimming is the four different styles in which a swimmer can compete. “Freestyle” (more accurately called crawl stroke or over-arm) is the fastest style, but someone invented three others, including backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke. Why would you invent slower ways of getting back to where you started from? Including a style (butterfly) that no one apart from national-level swimmers can do properly? And why invent breaststroke – the least hydrodynamic way of traveling through the water known to man?

Netball
Netball is, like cricket, a sport that is primarily played by former British colonies. It’s especially popular in England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies. Its defining characteristic, however, is that is almost always played by women and not by men. The reason for this is ambiguous; I’ve heard a couple of stories about boys not being allowed to participate in netball in various schools in which the game is popular. While this doesn’t seem fair, one has to ask, “why would they want to play in the first place?”

Netball is a dumbed down, rule-intensive, whistle-blowing version of basketball. Some examples of netball’s ridiculous rules include that which prohibits players from running with the ball. You may say, “So what? You can’t run with the ball in basketball, either!” You would be correct; however, one can dribble the ball when playing basketball. So long as the ball is bouncing up and down in between your hand and the ground, you can take it wherever you so choose. But not in netball.

The furthest a player can move when in possession of a netball-ball is three steps. That is, if a player catches the ball mid-air, they can land, put the other foot on the ground, and then step with the foot on which they landed. After that, they have to either bounce or throw the ball to another player, otherwise they are sited for “stepping.”

Needless to say, this makes for a game that resembles a badly composed, staccato-laden piece of music. Another very annoying thing about netball is the rule that prohibits obstructing another player. I never understood this. Seeing as the point of the game is to stop the other team from scoring goals, it confused the heck out of me why it was wrong to jump up and down in front of someone who was trying to throw the ball into the net. All of that dancing and waving that you see in basketball is not allowed in netball. The most the defense can do is stand there and hold up a passive arm in front of the opposing player.

Combine that with the constant whistle-blowing from the referees and the fact that spectators are also primarily girls (and girls scream) and you have the makings of a thoroughly annoying game.

Soccer (Football)
The game of soccer, which many countries refer to as “football”, is best known for its brawls. English fans, in particular, are infamous for fighting each other and for picking fights with foreign nationals when they travel across the Channel to Europe. Hosting the football World Cup is an honor; however countries’ police forces must shudder upon hearing the happy news that their nation is the next to host the competition.

There are three things that are ridiculous about soccer. First is the fact that players can’t touch the ball with their hands. The goalkeeper can, but no one else is allowed to lay a hand on the ball unless they’re chucking it into the field of play from the sidelines. This makes soccer the Irish Jig of sports. I’d love to see a soccer game played where the players’ arms must be stock-still at their sides. That would be fun to watch.

The second silly thing about soccer is the Hollywood aspect. Upon falling over, many players love to grasp their ankles, knees or various other delicate body-parts and pretend that a) a player on the other team is responsible for their fall, and b) that they are inconsolably injured. Other sportspeople have been known to engage in similar tactics, but soccer players are the prime offenders when it comes to Hollywoods.

The third thing that makes soccer silly is actually one of the things that people like about it the most. No one ever scores. When someone does score, it’s like the second coming of Christ. Many games, especially ones involving top-level teams, end in scores like 0-1, 1-2 or, one a big day, 3-2. Thus, fans spend ninety minutes watching an average of three goals take place. It’s not wonder they go nuts when someone managed to kick the ball into the net.

Navtej Kohli

Handwriting Wizard website accurately anayzes personality. Based on a user survey released today, over 81.7% of the users rank the report of the HandwritingWizard.com very accurate.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) January 21, 2006 — Do-It-Yourself Handwriting Analysis website turns out to be more than a “game.” Users concur results are more than chance and insights surprisingly accurate. What’s more, the data collected from the users reveals surprising personality traits of the typical Internet user.

2005_wizard_tiny2.jpg

Based on a user survey, over 81.7% of the users rank the accuracy of the Handwriting Wizard over 80% accurate. This is surprising to skeptics and naysayers who still believe this psychological test is no more accurate than reading tea leaves.

When Bart Baggett launched the Handwriting Wizard website in 2004, he had no idea it would become the most popular destination of his network of handwriting analysis and self-help related websites. (www.HandwritingWizard.com )

Deciding to make the membership free was a good decision, giving away an Apple Ipod was another smart move. Making it free gives people who are just curious to check it out and see for themselves if there is any truth to the claim that your handwriting is a reflection of your personality.

It takes between 8-12 minutes to complete the online questionnaire which is the base data used to calculate the meaning of the strokes, letters, and curls of the typical cursive handwriting. Instantly, the user receives a 3-6 page “personality report” of writer. Many people use the test to get insight into their bosses, employees, lovers and spouses.

According website’s creator, Bart Baggett, “The exit surveys are very encouraging for the accuracy of handwriting analysis in general. I expect 98-100% accuracy when I personally analyze handwriting using my own eyes. However, I never expected a generalized test to score so high considering the entire data being input is based on a just 52 graphical traits, no combining of the traits, and an untrained eye.”

View full survey and users statistics: http://www.handwritingwizard.com/survey/results

This validation of graphology comes just before National Handwriting Week is recognized the week of John Hancock’s Birthday, (January 22-29, 2006). Handwriting University.com is offers training and certification in the science of handwriting analysis. They have campuses in India, China, and the USA. (www.HandwritingUniversity.com)

About Bart Baggett, President of Handwriting University
Bart is the author of five books on handwriting analysis, including “Handwriting Analysis 101” and “Success Secrets of the Rich and Happy” (Empresse Publishing).

navtej kohli

What is a Pay Per Click Search Engine?

A Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine is a search engine that allows a person to bid an amount of money on related keywords so their site is ranked according to the amount bid.

Basically, if you bid $0.25 on the keyword “book” and that is the highest bid on that particular keyword, your site would be #1 in those results. If your competition bids $0.26, they will become #1 and your site will be #2.

The Pay Per Click industry is relatively new and there are new Pay Per Click search engines popping up to get a piece of the action. Some are good, some aren’t. We’ll show you the ones that will pay off immediately.

The rapid growth of search has empowered business professionals with the most efficient way to research vendors, products and service providers. Throughout the purchasing cycle, 93 percent of business professionals reportedly use the Internet during some phase of research, and 37 percent do both researching and purchasing online. Most significantly, however, 64 percent of business professionals say they use search engines as a main resource to find products and services.

This high level of search activity creates a huge opportunity for business-to-business advertisers who are increasing spend on online advertising as the burgeoning Internet ad industry continues to grow from an estimated $5.6 billion in 2005 to $11 billion by 2008.

Competition for the top spots on search results is intensifying, and BTB advertisers must learn tactics to increase the effectiveness of campaigns in order to sustain and improve conversion rates without breaking the bank.

Ensure each click is worth the cost. To create an effective pay-per-click campaign, BTB advertisers must identify what type of visitor they want and carefully allocate budgets across both their major and targeted online advertising channels.

Major search engines are primary channels of PPC because they bring in the largest number of click-throughs and help establish brand awareness to a broad audience. Research shows that most users of major search engines are still in the window-shopping phase, researching vendor and product options for later purchase. Though branding achieves long-term goals, conversion rates from major engines are often lower than from other channels.

To raise conversion rates, BTB campaigns must target specific audiences likely to become both immediate and long-term customers. Conversion rates tracked across multiple search engines show that searchers who are ready to spend most often connect to sites from niche, or vertical, search engines.

kohli explains a vertical search engine is a site that specializes in a specific segment of a market and returns results related only to that segment. Common sites include Business.com, IndustryBrains, Knowledgestorm, IT.com, GlobalSpec and goWholesale.

Navtej kohli insists Business searchers turn to vertical engines as a main resource because they care more about the relevancy of search results than about the number of results returned. This makes vertical engines the most effective way for BTB marketers to generate the highest conversion rates and ROI on PPC advertising.

For example, a business purchaser that needs quick access to manufacturers that sell “leather shoes” would find 11 million results on a major search engine and most of the results would be consumer-related. But by conducting the same search on a BTB vertical engine, the results would provide targeted listings of manufacturers or distributors that sell in bulk to businesses or retailers. The vertical search results save the purchaser time by providing prequalified listings and advertisers that best meet immediate and long-term needs.

advice For advertisers from tej , vertical search engines provide the security of knowing that each user is a prequalified buyer within the specific industry. This means that each click-through from a vertical engine is more likely to convert into a sale than a click-through from a more generic venue.

Overall, vertical search engines provide BTB advertisers key benefits that major search engines cannot offer:

* A highly targeted audience of ready-to-purchase buyers.

* Lower advertising and PPC costs.

* Higher conversion rates and ROI.

The best niche sites also provide fast and easy campaign set-up and management, dedicated account representatives and tools for managing and tracking keywords and click-through rates. Many also provide valuable industry-related content such as blogs, community forums and news that increase the stickiness of the site for business users.

For BTB advertisers, getting top positions on major search engines is competitive and often requires expensive search engine optimization campaigns that don’t guarantee results. Smart BTB companies know that only buyers looking for the products or services being sold will click on their vertical search engine ads. On vertical sites, every click is a chance to gain a new customer.

navtej