From writing poetry in a tearoom to creating one of the "50 Best Creative Apps" globally, Dhrupad Karwa shares the story of Haiku JAM

"Funnily enough, the idea for HaikuJAM was born in the painful aftermath of a previous startup attempt! At the time, my team and I had been developing an online utility-bill management system that would auto-switch British homeowners onto the cheapest available energy tariffs, after their existing deals expired. Despite winning a ‘Startup Weekend’ hackathon, raising angel funding and receiving written acknowledgement from PM David Cameron, we were forced to shelve the project due to red tape poisoning the industry.

"Funnily enough, the idea for HaikuJAM was born in the painful aftermath of a previous startup attempt! 

​I felt really low and somewhat broken. To recuperate, I headed to London’s Fortnum & Mason tearoom for a cup of smoky Lapsang Souchong with my dear friend (and professional actor), Shubham Saraf. On a whim, I took out my journal and wrote the first line of a haiku poem; I then asked Shubham to contribute the next line, and I concluded the collaboration with a third line. Two hours (and many 'JAMS') later, we were simply amazed at how our expressions had evolved from one person to the other, and often in the most unexpected and delightful of manners! I suddenly felt an immense desire to create with others, and not necessarily just friends but anyone, anywhere in the world…

This was the beginning of a story called 'HaikuJAM', a story that is still very much in motion. HaikuJAM is a creative social network based on collaboration, which I co-founded with my university buddies, Neer Sharma and Andy Leung. Through our beautiful mobile app, people connect to create poetic content together, using words and photographs.
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The three of us have just arrived in India to debut a new platform through which brands can leverage HaikuJAM to host creative competitions, based on their products and marketing campaigns. Awesome prizes, sponsored by the brands, will then be awarded to the creators of the winning JAMS.
The road ahead is long but incredibly exciting! Our vision is rooted in collaborative creativity: the JAM. We care deeply about channeling human inspiration to make beautiful things happen around the world.
On a final and hopefully fitting note, here is a poetic tribute to Alterbeat and all those in pursuit of their artistic passions, co-created in HaikuJAM:

In your eyes, we’re a
Broken generation, but
Art cannot be fixed
by Stacy, Gautam & Dhru"

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