iBlog: Nishit Shah

Proto.in was one event that I was looking forward to attend for a long time. Infact, I was so enthusiastic about it that I was the first one to register for it, even before the organizers had officially opened up the registration. My name tag also had #1 I had reached a day b4 event started to volunteer for getting things ready for the event. It was gr8 fun interacting with the organizers and other volunteers. We all were there @ the Seminar Hall @ IIT-D working hard to make sure everything was ready for the next day. I have taken some candid shots of ppl working behind the scenes. I was taken aback after entering the Dogra Hall @ IITD where the Startups were gonna demo their products on the second day. It is HUGE. I bet, I have never stood on any stage bigger than this. This was the best "platform" the guys @ proto.in could give the startups to showcase their products.

Day1. Fastrack Sessions.

Keynote - Kiran Karnik, the former president of NASSCOM.

Building Services for India: The Art of Pricing - Murugavel Jankiram, Bharat Matrimony.com

At helm of a fast growing Business - Bhavin Turakhia, Directi.

This session was real good. Bhavin brings so much passion and enthusiasm in his talks that one is always impressed by his talks and I am sure that I will remember this session for a long time to come. In his session, Bhavin gave an analogy that running a business was like playing a game. Check the slideshow below. Check out Siddharth’s Blog he has written a very nice article on this session.

I wasn’t there in the seminar hall for most of the sessions after that as I was busy networking. I met some really interesting people, one is bound to as the event attracted a lot of startup enthusiasts, investors, techies, technocrats et al

Day2. Startup Showcase.

The 2nd day was the d day for the startups short-listed for this year’s proto. Each of the startups were given 6 minutes to demo their products in front of an audience followed by a Q n A session after each category got over. Since pictures speak louder than words, I have found a couple of slides which sums up the entire 2nd day.

This slide shows the startups that showed their demo @ Proto4

Missed this year’s Proto? Keep checking Proto.in for the next one coming up in December @ Bangalore.

Am leaving for Delhi day after tomo to attend Proto.in For those who are not aware it is an event for startups where get a platform to showcase their products / services in front of an audience which consists of top technocrats, VCs, angel investors, entrepreneurs, et al. Check the who’s coming to Proto July Edition here. The event is on 18th and 19th @ IIT Delhi. I’ll be staying @ IIt Delhi.. its always good to have friends everywhere!

The 2008 Second Edition is a 2 day event. The first day consists of Fast Track Sessions where the Indian Entrepreneurs will talk about their experiences. I am really looking forward for this day which also includes the Keynote session by Mr. Kiran Karnik, ex-President NASSCOM and yeah Directi’s CEO Bhavin Turakhia is gonna be talking on Building a Fast Growing Business, Recounting Experience.

The agenda for the 2nd day consists of the startups who have made it to showcase their products / services.

I am gonna be there in Delhi for around little over 5 days (including 2days for event). Have kept enough time to roam around the capital. Have plans to go to Chandni Chowk for chats.. I just love them, Karol Bagh for shopping and of course will take a ride in thw Delhi’s Metro. Haven’t been there yet, coz the last time I had been to Delhi, it was far from completion ! I just loved Bangkok’s Metro and Skytrain. Hope the ones here are as good as them

I’ll be traveling by Mumbai Rajdhani train, after the recent fare hike and my lavish Bangkok trip, the fligts are a bit too expensive for the timebeing ~8k for return Thanks to the flexi-hours @ Directi, only 2 days will be taken away from my leave bank ! for the 5 day trip. I’ll be back on 21st July.  Plan to go to River Rafting @ Kolad near Pune on 26th .. hope my hand gets better by then

  Brand Equity Quiz is one event that I look forward to attend every year. Sadly is always as a member of the audience but would love to be a part of the participating teams. This year’s finals was held at MMRDA grounds. I liked the last year’s venue (Turf Club) better than this one. The semis and the grand finale were held back to back and quizmaster Derek O’Brien had promised to pop the champagne for the winner exactly at 9:43pm. He was absolutely precise in his calculation. The event was supposed to start at 6:30pm and I barely managed to reach the venue on time as I had gone for the first Directiplex outing. First the semis took place and then the grand finale started at 9pm after a short break. I really wanna know how to get VIP invites to this event because every year I fill up the online form or get in touch with the Economic Times guys and get the pass for the audience section which is quiet far from the stage. I need to start networking more with influential people

I managed to write down few of the questions from the semis. But, as the game progressed my pace wasn’t good enough to jot down everything. On second thoughts I should have learnt how to write in shorthand. Coming to the quiz, the theme for this year’s event was history of quizzing in India. How the first quiz took place in 1960’s to the present day. For every round there was some quizzing trivia for that decade and the best part was that the winners of those rounds got the prizes that were given way back then. The first round winners were given a couple of beer bottles and a live duck in a cage as these were the prizes given way back in 1967 by Derek’s dad Neil O’Brien who conducted the quiz back then. Even the quiz was carried out exactly the way it was back then. The questions were written on stripes of paper which were kept in an old biscuit box and Derek took them out randomly. The scores were written on blackboards with chalks back then, and also at Brand Equity Quiz finals for the first round. As the technology progressed in the 70’s and the 80’s the quizzes were carried out in the exact same manner and the prizes given to the winners were same too including a gift hamper which contained many things like shampoo bottle and shoe polish ! lol…that was innovative thinking ! But the best prizes went to the winners of the Brand Equity Quiz, TCS, who walked away with prizes worth 13 lakhs including 2 Mahindra Scorpios.

The audience were not spared either, Nokia E series fones, two Kingfisher Airlines tickets to any destination in India; three Pierre Cardin watches and one Sykz Gym voucher worth Rs 15,000, one Star Cruise package for a couple for five nights, etc were given away. And the best part was if anyone answered the question, the whole row would get prizes, which was pretty cool. I have uploaded few of the pics of the event here.

Its almost here! BarCampMumbai3 is just a fortnight away. After attending BarCampMumbai2, BarCamp Techfest & BarCampPune4, I thought of working behind the scenes for BarCampMumbai3. BarCampMumbai2 rocked with more than 200 attendees and this time around we scaled up the infrastructure to meet the enthusiastic crowd. BarCamp is a place where anyone can speak, anyone can participate, the agenda is drawn collectively at the start and any topic is welcome as long as you have others interested as well. You are free to walk-in and walk-out anytime you wish ! This edition will also host a BlogCamp which will have people talk about all things blog and also other aspects of social media and marketing. There is also FireTalk where you can talk about your idea and exhort like minded people to join you – it can be a cool app or a full scale business plan. The people gathered thus prepare a broader blueprint offline and then present it to larger audience later in the day. To participate just edit the Wiki at http://www.barcampmumbai.org/BCM3_registrants This time around we have Directi and Sun Startup Essentials as our sponsors.

BarCampMumbai3 @ IIT- Bombay on 29th March’ 08 ..meet u there…

Its the first time that I am having two posts with exactly the same heading back to back! Had just been to BarCampPune4 @ ThoughtWorks, Pune yesterday and boy what a great camp it was. Since it was a geeks only event, there were no talks on Startups and Entrepreneurship! More focused towards Technology, Web 2.0 and Developers. There were 3 sessions related to Ruby, seems to be the favorite language of the guys at ThoughtWorks ! Met Tarun Chandel, Rohit from ClubHack, Sidu from TW, Vinukumar from PagalGuy, Freeman Murray, Thakkar of smsGupShup.com, Raxit from MyKavita among others. Had a gr8 time. BarCampPune4 was very well organized and the sessions were very good. Hats off to the guys @ ThoughtWorks and organizers. Have uploaded some pics of the event at my Flickr Album.

Off to BarCampPune4 @ ThoughtWorks Technologies. With interesting set of sessions and an opportunity to network with like minded individuals always draws me to BarCamps. This would be my third BarCamp that I’ll be attending as a member of the audience. Have gradually moved to the planning team of BarCampMumbai3 ! Among the list of campers I saw the name of Akshay Dhavle I had a classmate in school by the same name. Was not sure if this is the same guy. But it was gr8 to know that this is the same Akshay. Its been 10 years since I got out of school and in touch with only a bunch of classmates and Akshay is not one of them So it would be great to meet someone after such a long time and that too at an event like BarCamp. Meet u there !

All set for the Iron Maiden Somewhere Back In Time concert tomorrow. My tickets are here, have taken an off from work tomorrow. The concert is at MMRDA grounds, Bandra Kurla Complex. Gates open at 4pm with opening acts by Parikrama. The tickets are cheap at 1000 and 1650 as compared to other concerts that I have attended. I have bought the Rs.1650 one and will reach the venue very early to grab a place to stand very near the stage, something that I had done for the Roger Water’s Dark Side of the Moon concert last year. I would be wearing my traditional rock concert T-shirt. Its always the black Tee with Cannabis leaf design on it ! Will write more about the show and post few pics on my flickr account after the show !