25-year old Harish Jayaram Hariraj with a Mechanical Engineering background is the founder of a string of promising start-ups ranging from green consultancy, web development, real estate and also cloud storage. His passion lies in green technology and sustainability, hence upon graduation he started off his own consultancy firm, H3 Green Solutions to encourage the adaptation of cleaner, greener, and cost effective solutions. Harish sets his sights on a nationwide Green & Sustainability Summit in 2011 to encourage more eco-friendly solutions in Malaysia.
Despite his passion for green, Harish is the founder of many other initiatives, with the Malaysian flavored Websitelah.com, his very first entrepreneurial project at the age of 23, an international high-end and eco-friendly property brokering firm with H3 Property, also spearheads a global green cloud storage project with Vaultsky.com. Harish is also the founder of Brewing Quality Entrepreneurs (BQE), a CSR platform for Malaysian Entrepreneurs as he aims to contribute back towards the community while he rises up to face new challenges in business.
A little about the nature of his business:
“I realize that with all the climate change and ongoing environmental destruction, the future remains bleak no matter how advance our technology improves. Green will certainly be defining Gen Y and ideas that evolved around sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint will ultimately contribute towards the survival of the human race. With these thoughts in mind, all my businesses evolve around sustainability, from paperless solutions with web development with Websitelah.com to the usage of centralized green cloud servers to manage content limiting the usage of resources with Vaultsky.com. Also the removal of complete dependency on air-conditioning units in this tropical climate with proper ventilated buildings and the use of less heat generating lighting was my intention with a consultancy business with a vision to trade these residential or commercial properties in global markets where the demand for sustainable eco-friendly property is higher.
On how he came up with the idea for his business:
“I have always been a firm believer in opportunity seeking and being there to find solutions for all problems. Entrepreneurs are essentially the combination of both these elements, opportunity seekers and solution providers. Perhaps this is what engineering really taught me in university, to understand the root of each problem and to overcome the challenges by making the best of assumptions, charting the course for execution as well as the testing and simulation part by trial and error. The idea for my businesses came from my surroundings, being always wanting to find solutions to the immediate problem. Hence one after the other, the ideas was developed into solutions and then it became an entity altogether.”
On how Gen Y entrepreneurs differ from entrepreneurs of previous generations:
“In my personal opinion, Gen Y entrepreneurs are even bolder when it comes to taking risks compared to the Baby Boomers partially due to the dependency on their parents (who were not affected by any post war syndrome as compared to their parents’ generation, or The Veterans), and more advanced with the usage of technology at their fingertips.”
On advice for other young entrepreneurs:
“We are the ones that will shape the future. Although we may to a certain extent take advice and guidance from the previous generation of entrepreneurs or mentors, ultimately the responsibility is placed on our shoulders to lead our generation towards a sustainable world and the overall advancement of the human race. Time is never on our side, hence even after time is managed - you will then realize somehow that truly time is never on our side. So don’t waste it”
This article was published on the cover story in the May 2011 issue of SME Magazine (Malaysia Edition)
HJH
