June 19th, 2009
Another Path to Riches
By Stephen Baker, BusinessWeek
As recently as a year ago, many Stanford grads could count on high-paid jobs at tech companies, banks, and consulting firms. Not so this year. With many companies scaling back hiring, the answer for some grads is to launch startups.
Driptech
In many poor farming areas, water is scarce and expensive. Drip irrigation would help farmers grow crops with only a fraction as much water as traditional methods require, though putting the systems in place has long been too costly. Driptech produces low-cost units to manufacture drip pipelines. According to the company, which has a pilot project in India, farmers who invest $20 in drip systems can grow $100 to $260 of vegetables a year—without waiting for rain.