What do you call a meet where about 60+ people interested in entrepreneurship drop by to share ideas? That's Bangalore Open Coffee Club for you all. I am speechless at the number of people and the quality (many of them are people who run their own start ups, a few VC's) . When me and Vaibhav started the marketing of this event, we expected about 15-20 to be a good number to call this event a success. Now the numbers speak for themselves of the success of the inaugural meet. Read on for more details.
I was there at Brewhaha a few minutes before 11:00am, and man there were about 10 people already over there. There was a bit of silence and I felt a bit awkward, but the talk started rolling out and then there was no stopping. By about 11:15am, there was fairly a large crowd(yes yes!!), and then I started out with an introduction of what we were going to do over the next two hours. Then it was Vaibhav's turn to speak and then the ball rolled on to all others. More than 55 folks introduced themselves, and there expectations from OCC Bangalore. Jace, Hari tried to live blog the event thanks a lot to them(i guess, there was some issue, but do check out for their version). I will mention some of the folks who were present, at the end of this post (the rest of you please excuse me and my memory, I will include the link to you, if you send across a mail).
Some key people for the event apart from all the interested and enthusiastic folks were Laura A. Perkin from the finance of NEN Online, Mr. SameerKanth a consultant at NEN Online, Yiting Shen a MIT Sloan student (she manages a fund, more details later). It was really wonderful to have you here at OCC Bangalore, thanks a lot and hope to see you more at the event.
The introductions were mostly about who they were? what they do? and what they expect from OCC Bangalore? To summarize the expectations, my key takeaways are as follows(please feel free to comment/add to these)
There were three kinds of participants at the meet.
The key expectations from OCC (not in any particular order)
Then we had a discussion on what people want from a regular meeting like this. Rajan tossed of his ideas from organizing MoMo Bangalore. Then there was a flowing discussion where Tejas, Bhaskar V Kode, Sandeep, Amit, Guna(was there at Chennai Open Coffee) and lots of others pitched in on what could be the direction for this event.
There were a lot more ideas that were tossed in but thankfully my memory again deserts me at the moment of writing.
Finally we concluded with the idea that we will meet again on 2nd September 2007 at Brewhaha from 11am to 1pm. This time we will have an agenda over which we will meet. Post your thoughts on what you want here on the group (opencoffeeatbangalore).
On a personal note, there were so many folks whom I knew by face from barcamp who were here, Harish, Hari, Jace, Aashish, Amit, Mansi, Shivku, Manoj, Piyush, Rajan, Keshav, Himanshu, Saurabh, Anand, Sandeep,Akshat (If I missed someone whom I knew, memory dump!!).
Some of the others who were there (mentioning those who run companies,others whom I missed out please let me know)
It was really interesting and to meet you all. Bangalore Open Coffee Meet is your meet. It's a place where you want to meet others, learn with others and grow.
Spread the word, drop by, share your experience, and grow.
See you at the next meet.
PS: Thank you all for paying up for the coffee/snacks you bought. In the scale of the event, some of you have missed out on paying your due. Thanks to Vaibhav for sharing the spoils.
Releated Posts:
Post Event Blogging:
Vaibhav at Technofriends
Himanshu Sheth at Thoughts Prevail
Harinath at Harisays
Jace on Livejournal
Saurabh at the100rabh
Piyush at Silicon Tryst
Sid at Siddhi
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Bangalore Open Coffee Kick Starts with Bang
Open Source: Social Networking Platforms
Social networking is the in thing. It has transcended the realms of your friends. Now we have community sites for almost everything that you can think of. In India too we have lots of startups coming in this space.
Some of you with ideas in this space might be overwhelmed by the amount of work you have to do get your idea up and running. Don't worry, there are lot of good open source platforms out there.
If you feel Open source stuff is a bit taxing, then you have some hosted solutions. Just pay a few bucks and you have a full fledged social net running.
What are you waiting for pick your favorite and let your community grow.
- Open Source
- Appleseed
- AroundMe
- Clonesumating
- Consumating
- Dolphin
- Drupal (A OSF CMS, can be used)
- Elgg
- osDate
- PeopleAggregator (Free for Non Commercial use)
- PHPizabi
- yogurt
- Zoints
- Hosted
This list is by no way exhaustive. If you know of any which are not listed here, do let me know. I will include them here.
Note: The above list is in alphabetical order.
[lInks]
Mobile Monday Bangalore
One year, 12meetings a lot of ideas and host of people a charged atmosphere, this is what MoMo Bangalore is today. I got to hear about MoMo from a friend of mine in March this year. The concept is simple, a group of people who are interested in the wireless space meet once in a month and let discuss on the trends, challenges, opportunities that this space has to provide.
Yesterday, I was there at the 12th MoMo Bangalore, need I say I was Impressed. Boy! the level of enthusiasm was infectious. The topic for the evening was IMS-FMC and India, the speaker Akshay Agrawal a head of India Business Development Team at TI India. It was not like any normal seminar/lecture you might have attended, a very lively discussion ensued. Frankly being an outsider to the field, I could just only follow the direction of the discussion and not all the details. However, to give tell you one thing the main idea of the discussion was convergence.
After an hour of brain storming, we had a good presentation of jB5 a mobile browser by Jataayu Software. Since I haven't used any high end browser, I am not in a position to compare it with other mobile browsers in the market. However, usability wise, I feel it does a good job. Will hopefully get to review it when I lay my hands on one. The demo went fine with lots of question being thrown about the usage, business model and host of other things.
Finally, it was time for some snacks(courtesy Jataayu Software), I got to talk to some of the people. Many of them entrepreneurs or working on mobile platforms and stuff. One company that interested me right away and might interest you as well is Active Mobs, a group SMS service. Check it out, its really cool. I will write about them shortly.
To end this post, let me introduce you the men behind MoMo Bangalore, Rajiv and Rajan. Thanks to both for such a wonderful meet.
Open Coffee! Wanna Have a Coffee in Bangalore
[hIstory]A brain child of Saul Klein based in London, a venture partner at Index Ventures and a VP of Skype. It all started in March this year. For details on what OpenCoffee Club is all about check out this post by Saul Kelin on his blog. To know more about the happenings keep tuned over here .
[hOw iT wOrks]
The concept is simple, events are arranged at a predefined venue and a predefined time where entrepreneurs and interested people come over to chat, discuss their ideas, and most important of all build relationships. It's not just the entrepreneurs who come but also the VC's (the people with power!!). This gives the entrepreneurs a chance to pitch their ideas and see if the VC's might be interested in them. The best part, all of this happens informally, no boardrooms, no presentations. Check out the thoughts behind OCC .
[wHere dO i fInd oNe]
I know by now you are excited about all this and just screaming at me where do I find an OCC? Is there one near my city? To answer you, since OCC started in London, there are now over 39(as of writing) locations across the Globe. Check them out to see if your place has one. Don't find your city? Nothing to worry, you can start one. Just get started and get in touch with Saul.
[oUr oWn bAngalore]
For all those in Bangalore, I have created profile for myself on OCC. Also started a discussion titled "Coffee in Bangalore." I see an encouraging response and plan to kick start the first meet next weekend. If you are interested drop a mail or a comment to this post. I will keep you folks updated on the happenings.
So, what are you waiting for, get this kicking, this is your event, this is your future.
Credits: The First photo is by David Terrar, the second one is by Jason Mendelson.
Update: Folks from Bangalore, we now have a Open Coffee Club Bangalore group on Upcoming. Join that for keeping up to date on the happenings.
Proto.in Second Edition
Good news for all those out there in the wild. It's time for you to come out into the open and showcase your brain child to the world. If you are an early stage start up in need to showcase your technology, someone looking for those green backs to take you to the next level, looking out for some smart folks on whom you can bet your money. It's time to act.
"Proto.in" is coming out with its second edition in July 2007. The nominations are open for some time. All you folks out there take time to be present at what can be called the biggest startup fare in India. One more encouraging news is that this time around, they are accepting nominations from other Asian countries. For more information check out there blog.
Now for people like me, who might be interested in just following up on what is happening over there, please wait for some more time until you get more information. Will post more info. once I get closer to it.
Multiply
Recently I came across this wonderful site. Haven't explored much, but what really hooked me to it is the ease with which one can share photos. Just Simple.
For some reason its called multiply and the invite to the site looks some thing like this: "Multiply with Ramjee". Now was the pun intended?
Any way enjoy some moments at Multiply .
IIT Alumni Meet
IIT, the name sounds a chime in most of the Indians mind. Someone or the other they knew is related to this TLA (Three lettered Abbreviation). Without venturing into the details, for those of you who are ignorant to this IIT phenomena, it should suffice to say that IIT's are most reputed engineering colleges in India and have carved out a name for themselves on the world stage. It would not have been possible had it not been for its students, the prodigious talent from India, who made the world there playing ground.
By now you would have made out that I am one of those belonging to the IITian clan. The reason for me to bring up this topic today is a direct outcome of an event that happened yesterday. I am referring to the IIT Kharagpur Alumni meet that was organized in Chinaswamy stadium.
The setting was perfect, it just rained before people started trickling in like the drops that trickle over cheeks in a drizzle. The lush green outfield was marvelous. All the birds roosting at this time in the evening on the stands was a sight not worth missing.
Talking to total strangers whom you have never met till that date, and then getting along with them as if you knew them all your life. That's something that happens only at few gatherings, and trust me IIT Alumni gathering is one such.
Luckily for me, not many from my batch turned up, leaving me ample time to interact and socialize with some of the older folks. Some of the noticeable persons are the, DIG of Bangalore police currently heading the cyber crime branch. And very many people heading their own organizations or a large part of an MNC. To think of that we shared the same campus with these folks from a different time was enthralling.
After some inter hall competitions of Dumbcharades and antakshari, which were essentially fun, we discussed on some serious matters concerning the governing of the Association. Where we want to take the Bangalore chapter and then topic of these days, 'reservation'.
In essence it was the meet of a group which believes to the core that they can do anything in this world, once they set their sight on it. The experience simply cannot be described.
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