Compassion-A-Thon 3.0

Intro

Meet Your Facilitator - Bala Ramadurai

Entrepreneur, Professor, Author and Innovation Coach

• Marie Curie Research Fellow at Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
• PhD from Arizona State University, USA (Materials)
• BTech from IIT Madras, India (Metallurgy)

Prof. Bala Ramadurai - Professor

• IIT Madras, Chennai, India
• Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City, Mexico
• Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune, India

Bala Ramadurai - Author

Bala Ramadurai - Innovation Coach

Bala Ramadurai - Entrepreneur

Spirelia

Innovate with Confidence

Srishti OS — The AI-Native Innovation Platform

Spirelia Innovation Pvt. Ltd.

"Innovate with Confidence, Powered by Insight"

S R I S H T I — The AI-Native Innovation Platform

🔭

Utkarsha

Technology Forecasting
& Roadmapping

MVP LIVE

🔬

Uttishta

AI Inventor's
Assistant

IN PIPELINE

💡

Karmaja

Structured Innovation
& Idea Generation

VISION

🛡️

Narasimha

IP Capture &
Protection

VISION

⚙️

Ananta

Rapid
Prototyping

VISION

Courses Taught

Design Thinking

Human Centred Design of products and services

Innovate Like a Boss

Systematic Innovation using methodologies like TRIZ, Brainstorming

Technology Forecasting

Welcome

No kickoff stage this year — by design

• Some of you saw last year's kickoff on video; some are meeting me for the first time
• Today is a working session, not a talk

Quick refresher — what was the whole point?

Compassion = ❤️ + 🫱

Feel someone's suffering and act to lighten it

Compassionathon

Compassionathon = Compassion + Hackathon

Hackathon = Hacking + Marathon

Portmanteau = Porter + Manteau

Karmic Design Thinking — the 4 phases you're running

EAST

Empathize · Analyze · Solve · Test — then repeat

This Past Year, I Built Something Too

It started at Nirmaan

• Nirmaan (निर्माण = "to create, to build") — IIT Madras's pre-incubation body
• That's where we built Utkarsha — our first product — and put it in front of real users
• Now we're building Uttishta inside the IITM Incubation Cell

This could be your story too

Compassion-A-Thon → Nirmaan (pre-incubation) → Incubation Cell → a real venture

We didn't begin with funding. We began with one prototype and one user

Utkarsha — live, in real users' hands

How Compassionathon changed Utkarsha

I won't give you theory today

I'll give you 5 scars

5 scars from the trenches

1. The thing I hid for too long
2. The sentence I should have written first
3. The number that broke a user's trust
4. The pitch that never worked
5. My unlikely new teammate

Each one is really a lesson about compassion. Let's earn them one by one

Scar 1

Quick poll — show of hands ✋

How finished should your idea be before a real user first sees it?

• 🅐 90% — polished and proud
• 🅑 50% — decent and working
• 🅒 10% — a rough sketch

Prototype Early

(The answer was 🅒)

The mistake we made first

We polished in secret — and built features nobody wanted

A prototype is an act of compassion

A rough prototype this week beats a perfect one next year

Where this lives in KDT

• You quickly move from Test to Empathize, next cycle
• Don't wait for the "end" of test — there is no end, only cycles

Scar 2

Which instruction would you rather be handed?

• 🅐 "Build a search feature."
• 🅑 "Given a waste-picker who can't read English, When she opens the app, Then she finds the nearest bin in under 1 minute."

Shout it out — and why?

Behaviour-Driven Development

You don't need to code to do this

BDD = describe how the thing should behave for a real human — before you build it

The magic sentence

Given … When … Then …

Example from a real Compassionathon-style problem

Given a waste-picker who can't read English,

When she opens our app,

Then she finds the nearest collection point in under 1 minute, using only icons

Why this is compassion, written down

The user is in the sentence — so they can't be forgotten later

A real BDD spec from Utkarsha

Feature: Document Upload
  As a user
  I want to upload documents (PDF, DOCX, ...)
  So that the AI can use them as context

  Scenario: Reject unsupported file types
    When I upload a file named "script.exe"
    Then I should see "Unsupported file type"
    And the file should not be added to the list

  Scenario: Handle a file that is too big
    When I upload a file larger than 10MB
    Then I should see "File too large"

Plain English — anyone in this room can read it. No code yet

Another Utkarsha spec — naming for humans

Feature: User-friendly model naming

  Scenario: Dropdown shows friendly names
    When I open the model dropdown
    Then I see "Deep Research", "Fast Pro", "Balanced"
    And I do NOT see "Mistral 120B"

  Scenario: Tooltip reveals the technical details
    When I hover over "Deep Research"
    Then I see a tooltip with the model size and provider

  Scenario: Same friendly name everywhere
    Given I selected "Fast Pro"
    When I open the settings page
    Then it is still labelled "Fast Pro"

Hiding "Mistral 120B" behind "Fast Pro" is compassion — empathy for the user who doesn't speak engineer

Scar 3

Guess the impossible number

Our app once showed a user a progress percentage that should be physically impossible

What number did they see? 🤔

This actually happened — the "200% bug"

• Utkarsha once told a user their phase was 200% complete 😵
• Nonsense like that quietly destroys a user's trust
• The fix started as a failing test that pinned down the promise

Test-Driven Development

TDD in plain language

Decide how you'll know it worked — before you build it

Pin that promise down — as a test

// phaseValidator.test.ts — written BEFORE the fix
describe('Model Phase — 200% Bug Fix', () => {
  it('should NEVER return more than 100% completion', () => {
    const result = validatePhaseCompletion('model', completeData);

    // THE KEY TEST: completion must never exceed 100%
    expect(result.completionPercentage).toBeLessThanOrEqual(100);
    expect(result.completionPercentage).toBeGreaterThan(0);
  });
});

Definition of "done" = the user's relief, made measurable

• "Under 1 minute" · "without asking for help" · "on her own phone"
• If you can't measure the relief, you can't tell if you helped

The lesson that cost me the most

Wire BDD + TDD into the prototype from day 1

• Not "build now, test later"
• Every prototype ships with its behaviour and its test of success attached

KDT mapping for Scars 1–3

• Behaviour (BDD) → Empathize + Analyze + Solve
• Test (TDD) → lives in Test
• Improving the prototype → also Test
• Together they make a tight EAST cycle instead of one big gamble

Keep Score

Grab a scrap of paper — this is your scorecard

• After each activity, score yourself 1 (not yet) → 5 (nailed it)
• Honesty beats a high number. No one collects these

Activity A — Behaviour & Test

Write 1 behaviour + 1 test for your project

1. Given … (who, in what situation)
2. When … (what they do with your solution)
3. Then … (what relief they get)
4. Test: one number or fact that proves it worked

Time remaining:

Score yourself ✍️ — write it on your card

Running total so far: _ / 10

Activity B — Your Tiny Prototype

Plan the smallest thing you can show a human

• What is the smallest prototype that tests your "Then"?
  • e.g. a fake button that just says "coming soon" — do they tap it?
• Which real person will you put it in front of, and when?
  • e.g. "the chai vendor outside the gate, at 4 pm"
• What's the one test from Activity A you'll watch for?
  • e.g. "found the bin in under 1 minute, icons only"

Time remaining:

Score yourself ✍️ — write it on your card

Running total so far: _ / 25

Scar 4

You have ₹0 and a working prototype — what grows your venture fastest?

• 🅐 A killer pitch deck
• 🅑 A big-name investor
• 🅒 A viral launch video

What I thought would grow us

• Investor pitches 🎤
• Funding requests 💸
• Polished decks 📊

🤔 What's missing from this entire list?

What actually grew us

One happy client, referring the next

Your customers are well-meaning strangers

Strangers who want you to win. Their feedback is the gift

Why a referral is pure compassion, compounding

Serve one stranger completely → they bring you the next

KDT mapping

• This is the Test phase done honestly: "customer repeat cycles"
• Don't optimise for applause from judges — optimise for the stranger who comes back

Activity C — Your Referral Map

Who would refer you — and what would they say?

1. Name the one person your solution could genuinely help this week — e.g. the chai vendor at the gate
2. Write the sentence they'd say referring you — e.g. "found the bin in under a minute"
3. What would have to be true for them to say it? — e.g. it worked first try, no help

Time remaining:

Score yourself ✍️ — write it on your card

Running total so far: _ / 40

Scar 5

A 2-person team shipped what usually takes ~10 engineers

What was the secret weapon? 🤔

Claude Code is my friend

A 2-person team that builds like 10

AI handled the how — so we could prototype early, for real

But here's the compassion catch

AI owns the how

The who and the why stay yours

Use the time it saves to spend more time with real people

Score yourself ✍️ — last one for your card

Running total so far: _ / 45

KDT mapping

• AI is a force-multiplier for Solve and Test
• Empathize can never be outsourced — that's the human's job, your job

The 5 Scars, One Picture

Each lesson is a KDT phase in disguise

Why You're Really Here

Winning is not the main goal

What actually matters

• Real customers using what you made
• Their honest feedback
• Your prototype getting better, cycle after cycle

The leaderboard is just a side-effect

Self-Evaluation

Add up your scorecard

You've been scoring all session. Total them

Your full card, in one place

What your score means

• 36–45 → You're running real EAST cycles. Keep going
• 22–35 → Strong start. Pick your lowest row and fix it today
• Below 22 → Stop polishing. Go put a prototype in front of one human now

Your one commitment

Write down the single lowest-scoring row, and what you'll do about it before our next checkpoint

Time remaining:

Your Next Move

What can you do — starting now?

1. Show up with one rough prototype
2. Put it in front of one stranger today
3. Feedback → improve → repeat

Two paths from here — pick yours

• 🆕 First time here? → Build your prototype and show it to people today

• ✅ Already registered for Compassionathon? → Show your prototype to as many strangers as you can

Either way, the move is the same: get it in front of a real human

And after that?

The same door is open to you:

Nirmaan → IITM Incubation Cell → your own venture

Need Help During the Build?

Bring your Given / When / Then — fastest way for us to help

Paradox

Work with Heart ❤️, Play with Joy 🙃!

Keep in Touch

Love to keep in touch

https://balaramadurai.net/about/

bala@balaramadurai.net

http://in.linkedin.com/in/balaramadurai

My LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/balaramadurai/

Acknowledgement

Big thank you to

• Paradox organizers
• IITM BS team
• Sayantan Mukerjee, Sukraat Dang, Shyam V
• Of course, all of you

Biggest thank you of all goes to

Kunal and Tulika, the engine under the Compassionathon hood

Oh and one more thing

Selfie