Should an entrepreneur be necessarily making only money?
Not in the least – as proved by Dr. Srinubabu Gedela, the founder, CEO,
and managing director of OMICs which is one of the world’s biggest
publishers of open access journals – has under its fold about 700
journals through which it publishes about 50,000 articles every year –
all for free access by the young and aspiring scientific community as
well as anyone else who is interested in getting to know about facets of
our existence.
Dr. Gedela’s story isn’t your rags-to-riches type.
In fact, his is neither rags nor riches although he did hail from a
humble background and made a success of his career through the strength
of conviction that information about science must be made accessible
for all to learn and create more. There was never an element of
commercial interest in any of his endeavours, and OMICS hasn’t even
remotely exhibited qualities of a business entity. All thanks to the
visionary Dr. Gedela.
While it traces the necessity is the mother
of invention and oft-treaded path of many successful businesses, the
journey it has traversed is one of a different kind. Making no attempts
at all to bring in revenue or monetize: only yearning to propel open
access as the mantra for many scientific endeavours.
The humble beginnings in a remote district of Andhra Pradesh
Born
to Mr. Appala Naidu and Mrs. Yashodha hailing from the village of
Allena in Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh, Dr. Gedela completed
his primary education – like most village-folk do – from the only school
in his village. Then, being the bright student he was, time was ripe
for him to pursue higher education. Accordingly, he stepped out of the
cozy and serene environs of his village to enroll into the Andhra
University for a B. Pharmacy. He wasn’t satisfied still with that degree
so he followed it up with a Master’s in Technology degree in
Biotechnology from the same university. His success at every stage of
his educational life encouraged the young and aspiring to be a scientist
to also explore his postdoctoral studies, which he managed to acquire
from the Stanford University in the US.
The prelude to the spark
Like
it happens with most students belonging to modest families in India,
Dr. Gedela also faced many challenges through the course of his higher
education. Of the many that he had to confront, the biggest one was the
access or the lack of it to educational journals. He didn’t have a lot
of money with which to pay for accessing scientific material to support
his post-doctoral thesis (research paper).
The struggle was so
immense that it left a bitter taste in his mouth forever. While he would
weather the storm commendably by doing everything in his power, riding
the extreme wealth of will-power he had, Dr. Gedela went on to complete
his education. Along the way he would present his research work on the
subject “Proteomics” at an international conference held in Seoul, South
Korea, at the Human Proteome Organization.
His paper was well
received and much appreciated. Importantly, his work got the ultimate
approval from the scientific community at the conference when he was
awarded with the “Young Scientist Award.”
The Spark
While
his work being recognized was an elevating experience for the young
Indian, it was also humbling in a way because only he knew the pains and
travails he had had to go through to work on the paper and get the
desired output. He was also mindful of the fact that not many would come
trumps like he did – in fact not may would even go as far as attempting
such research work owing to the extreme lack of access to scientific
material – largely owing to the monetary aspect of it. He felt perhaps
it would have relatively easier and even better if he had had open
access to all the stuff he wanted to sift through to be able to make his
point as well as substantiate it.
That is when it resolved that
not long after he would start an initiative – a publication to be
specific – that would publish scientific material and make it accessible
for free. Thus began the quest for making OMICS a reality.
OMICS International
Dr.
Gedela founded OMICS in 2007 with the sole objective of helping fellow
scientists overcome their difficulties in accessing information and
knowledge through and hence started it as an open access publication.
As
for the name of the organization, word goes that OMICS was derived from
the early interests of Dr. Gedela in the field of proteomics and
diabetes.
The mission of OMICS under ‘Open Access’ was guarantee
free and immediate access to information for any academic or research
requirement of anybody, anywhere, across the globe. And Dr. Gedela has
committed himself in ensuring that there are no digressions from this
mission. It is sacrosanct.
Acclaim, expansion, and allied activity
If
access to material was an impediment to hundreds of ignited minds, Dr.
Gedela was left wondering as to how many were struggling to get insights
from academicians, experts, seniors, etc. by not having platforms for
in-person interaction as well as exchange of ideas which is the very
basis of much scientific activity.
So, identifying this crucial
need for multi-people, multi-level, and multi-type personal academic
interactions, he then set about expanding the scope of activity of OMICS
from being just a publishing house to also becoming an organizer of
events, science fairs, symposia, exhibitions, conferences, summits,
seminars, and workshops across the globe it would invite eminent
personalities from both the scientific community as well as some
business leaders well to communicate the powers of science through
meaningful interaction and discussions where leading scientists from
around the world deliberate their knowledge with young and aspiring
scientists.
This area received so much interest from like-minded
people that today OMICS under the guidance and leadership of Dr.
Srinubabu Gedela organizes about 1000 such conferences, conventions, and
fairs, every year across the globe (across USA, Europe and Asia with
the support from more than 1000 scientific societies) – no mean
achievement.
Today OMICS and its associate companies are present
in 5 countries with about 2000 employees working to not only sustain the
organization’s mission but also to carry the founder’s vision through
the 700 online open access journals encompassing fields such as Life
Sciences,Clinical, Medical, Engineering &technology and Management
under which somewhere about 50,000 scientific research articles are
published annually.
The full entrepreneur and philanthropy
After
making deadly sure that no aspiring science student finds himself in
the predicament that Dr. Gedela had to face during his academic years by
founding the world’s leading publishing house for free online science
and knowledge journals through OMICS and its affiliates across five
countries, Dr. Gedela has turned his attention also towards making his
vision truly sustainable.
The modus operandi being acting as a
venture capitalist. As part of which, it is said, he will fund and
support projects that have the capacity to generate self-employment
among youth. He also turned as a film producer with his production house
called OMICS Creations under which many family-oriented social
entertainers such as ‘Chandee’ ‘Aata Arambham’ & ‘Veerudokkade’ are
noteworthy – movies which mostly dwell on social, family, and women
empowerment issues.
We now know why he is not akin to any regular
entrepreneur as vindicated by his VC activity – not to make money for
himself or the fund but for the benefit of other commoners like him who
would not only benefit through self-employment but also through his
publications which paved the way for a different kind of employment such
as executives, coordinators, presenters, translators, editors, and
freelancers for the scores of publications under the umbrella of OMICS.
The
entrepreneurship of Dr. Gedela completes the full circle with his
social development activities as he also promotes schools,
healthcare,safe drinking water, and sanitation in villages of the
country – an activity he has been involved in for the last seven years.
In fact, he adopted 7 villages including his home Allenna with Burja,
Kilentra, G B Puram and its nearby villages being the other in the much
impoverished Srikakulam District of Andhra Pradesh.
As part of the
strengthening the education infrastructure of these under-attended
villages, Dr. Gedela initiated the “OMICS Educational Society” which
sets the curriculum, trains the human resources, provides technical
assistance and works on capacity building through faculty development
workshops to the teacher and taught in schools that are already
functioning at various levels. The pedagogy in these schools is
well-complemented by audio-visual teaching learning equipment.
Other Association:
| |
 | Vice President of FABA (Federation of Asian Biotech Association) |
Awards & Recognition:
| |
| The Young Scientist, Human Proteome Organization, Seoul, 2007. |
Quotes
| |
| “We Make Life by What We Give.” – speaking in relation to the villages he had adopted. |
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