The Midas Touch

KATHMANDU, OCT 10 -

Chhatra Hari Karki, managing director of Midas Group, sounds quite passionate about the projects that his firm has completed and about those on the roll. He has built up the firm from scratch. When he started out to lay the foundation of Midas Technologies in 2001, he had five computers and ten helping hands. Now, he employs more than 220 people - engineers and animators - and is on an active lookout to add more to the number. He has some long-term plans lined up that will probably bear him fruit rather late but he looks relaxed. He sounds like he has all the time in the world to create what he believes will work out - sooner or later.     

“We are primarily focused on health and education,” he says. “We want to change the way education is being provided in Nepal.” For the last nine years, Karki and his team of 120 full-time animators and engineers have been hard-pressed turning the syllabus of grades one to 10 of public schools into audio visual platforms. Around 50 packages of Science, Mathematics and English and Nepali grammar have been completed and about Rs. 150 million invested to create the total project. Most of the public schools in Kathmandu are already been using them. Recently, they also extended to Kavre district on an e-village project where public schools in 20 village development committees have taken up their audio visual method of teaching splurged with animated characters and illustrations. “While our focus is more commercial in urban areas, it is more voluntary in rural parts,” adds Karki.            

While their digitized and animated course lessons are well received under the product name MiDas EduKit, so is their management software tailored for educational institutions and hospitals for effective data keeping and management. Most of the schools and colleges in Kathmandu - both public and private - also use their management software. Karki has also introduced the software in public schools at 11 VDCs in Kavre and is offering free tutorials on how to operate it.   

Though he had to do lot of legwork, Karki has also been able to sell the idea of using data management software in public hospitals, including Bir Hospital. “When we first approached them, they rejected the idea outright. But, we proposed them to offer our services for free - even the computers,” recalls Karki. Since the management software left no room for the administrative staff to mishandle deposits made by patients, almost all of them sought leave and deserted the department when the system came into effect in Bir Hospital. “But we kept on by assigning our own staff to the job and the hospital management extended its full support to us. We finally overcame the bottleneck and got the system running,” says Karki. Now, they have about 90 public hospitals in their pool of clients using their Hospital Management Information System (HIMS). Moreover, about 500 schools and colleges in Kathmandu are also using the software. 

Karki is planning to take the education project to the next level. He is in search of a technological partner to telecast the project live through television channels. “We are in talks with Home TV and Dish Nepal for live telecast,” he informs. “We want to align the program according to the class schedules in public schools so that teachers can teach students their daily lessons through a different, interactive and interesting medium.” While logistics pose a limitation, Karki believes rural schools can be convinced to spend a bit for the sake of better educational facility for students.   

Apart from the educational project and data management software, Karki is also making an animated movie on Budhha called ‘Buddha: Journey to Enlightenment’. It is now two years that the project started and Karki says it will take two more years to complete it. “I took a year off to study about Buddha and the contemporary history for a genuine portrayal of the Budhha’s life,” he says. “Tulsi Ghimire will direct the 110-minute animated movie and Amber Gurung will compose the music. We plan to release it abroad - Hollywood - if possible.”

Karki plans to increase the number of animators in his firm to 200 by the time the movie is complete. After that, he plans to produce at least two animated movies a year. “The next era of entertainment is digital, that too, animation,” he adds. Moreover, he looks forward to make cinematic movies aimed at children for which he has already registered a company called Midas Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.

Karki has also embarked on a new business venture called MiDas InfoBank, a centralized database that provides information on anything from cardiologists to ambulances to vegetable prices. The services are available in various sectors through 7700 and 8800 SMS codes that provide information on four sectors - education, health, general market and services. “The service can be availed for free and we look forward to expanding it to cover more sectors and offer new services,” says Karki. There are 42 shareholders in Midas Group that operates five companies - Midas Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Midas Education Pvt. Ltd, Yeti Digital Pvt. Ltd., Midas Business Centre Pvt. Ltd., Midas Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. and Midas Saving & Credit Co-operative Pvt. Ltd.

Posted on: 2010-10-10 08:37