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PuneConnect 2016: Pune’s Largest Startup Showcase Event 19 Nov: Register Today

PuneConnect, one of Pune’s most important events for startups, is now in its 6th year. The mega event allows selected early-stage startups from Pune to showcase their products and services to the world at large, specifically to larger companies in Pune, VCs and angel investors from all over the country, and others from the ecosystem.

Register today to be a part of this show.

25 of Pune’s most promising startups have been selected from a huge pool of applicants, and they will be joining some of Pune’s established startups and companies in showcasing their products at the Westin, on 19th November from 9:00am to 5pm.

This is an ideal event to connect with the who’s who of the Pune Startup ecosystem. You will find lots of startup founders, successful senior entrepreneurs, potential recruits, angels and investors from all over, potential customers, mentors, business partners, affiliates, and investors from all parts of Pune’e startup and technology ecosystem – including SEAP, PuneTech, TiE Pune, PoCC, MCCIA, IPMA, HIA, IIMA’s CIIE, and SME Joinup.

Agenda

  • 09:00 am – Registration
  • 09:30 am – Welcome Note by SEAP President
  • 10:00 am – “Session on entrepreneurship and investing in an Idea” Mr. Kuntal Shah Partner, SageOne Investment advisors LLP
  • 10:45 am – Panel Discussion on “Scaling Up” with:
    • Shachin Bharadwaj, CEO, Sminq (earlier Founder of TastyKhana)
    • Shridhar Shukla, MD, kPoint
    • Ajit Patil, Co-founder, SmartCloud Infotech
    • Monish Darda, CoFounder and CTO ICERTIS
    • Moderated by Gaurav Mehra, Partner, Kaizen Private Equity
  • 11:45 am – Key Note- Technology and Start- ups Dr. Gopichand Katragadda, CTO Tata Sons
  • 12:30 pm – Startup Stall Visits | Networking
  • 01:30 pm – Lunch Break
  • 03:15 pm – Startup Shootout
  • 04:15 pm – Awards Ceremony- Chief Guest of the Award Ceremony, Hon. Shri. P.P. Chaudhary, Minister of State Law and Justice & Electronic and IT (Govt. of India) and Guest of Honour of the Award Ceremony, Dr. Omkar Rai Director General STPI

In addition, an “IAN Pitch Session”, by Indian Angels Network, will run in parallel, for invited startups – from 10am to 1pm. Please get in touch with Nidhi Saraf, nidhi@indianangelnetwork.com if you’re interested.

Background

PuneConnect started in 2011 and is held in late October/early November every year. In 2011 we showcased 12 startups, and had attendance of about 250. In 2012, we showcased 21 startups, and had to close delegate registrations at 600 because of space limitations. Since 2013, we have been showcasing about 30 startups out of approximately 150 applicants each year. See PuneConnect website for more information about past PuneConnects.

PuneConnect is a joint initiative of Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP), TiE Pune, PuneStartups.org (POCC), PuneTech, and NASSCOM, SME Joinup, CIIE Ahmedabad, and MCCIA Pune, IPMA, Hinjewadi Industries Association, and IIM Ahmedabad’s CIIE (which will soon have an Pune presence) – basically all the important players in Pune’s startup ecosystem. PuneConnect represents a one-of-its-kind activity that bridges the gap between the new companies and the established ones.

Entries to other prestigious events: Companies featured in PuneConnect have been selected to be on TV (e.g. an episode ETNow Channel’s Starting Up show), or in national-level conferences (e.g. one organized by Zinnov), where they got to demo their products to companies from all over India, or for mentorship programs (like the TiE Pune Nurture Initiative), or even got funding (e.g. AppSurfer, a company from the first PuneConnect that got Rs. 1 crore in funding on the SuperAngels show) – all as a result of being featured on PuneConnect.

Fees and Registration

This event costs Rs. 1200 if you want to be part of the lunch, Rs. 600 if you want to just attend the event, Rs. 300 for students (full day) and is free for students (half-day).

The event is from 9:00am to 5pm at the Westin, Pune.

Register here.

Event: Expert Talks 2016 – Day-Long Software/Tech Conference (Paid)

Expert Talks 2016, Pune, on 5th November, at Westin, Koregaon Park is a day-long software/tech conference featuring speakers from all over the world, talking about topics ranging from DevOps, Traits in Java (and Go), Agile Transformation, Bug-Fixing Best Practices, Algebra and Property based testing and more.

To get an idea of the type and quality of talks, you can check out the YouTube channel of Expert-Talks where they have uploaded videos of talks from last year’s conferences.

Details of the talks scheduled for this year are here and biographies of speakers are here.

The event will be from 8:30am to 6pm on Saturday, 5th November, at Westin, Pune. The cost is Rs. 1150 if you register before 31st Oct, and Rs. 1950 after that. Register here.

TechMarathi wants tech articles in Marathi for their e-Diwali-ank 2016

TechMarathi.com is a sister site of PuneTech, that focuses on publishing technology articles in Marathi for the benefit of Marathi speaking population who would like to stay abreast of the latest in technology.

Every year, in the time-honoured tradition of Marathi periodicals, TechMarathi publishes a special Diwali online magazine for the the past 2 years. This year too TechMarathi is planning an online “e-Diwali Ank” – a Diwali Special “bumper” edition of articles.

If you are a techie who can write in Marathi, please consider contributing an article. The article can be humorous, informative, experience sharing, or a
short story. It can be an article, poem, cartoon, or any other form of content. You can even translate an existing English article to Marathe – even that can be quite valuable.

These are the submission guidelines:

  • The articles should be 200 words or more (there is no strict upper limits for length of longer articles.)
  • Send the articles in Unicode.
  • Send the articles to sampadak@techmarathi.com
  • You will receive acknowledgement in 24hrs. If you don’t receive it by that time please write to sampadak@techmarathi.com
  • All rights to approve articles for publishing will be with the committee appointed by TechMarathi, and their decision will be final.

If you have any questions or suggestions please write to us at sampadak@techmarathi.com

PuneConnect 2016: Startup Showcase Event for Pune’s Startups: Apply Now

PuneConnect, Pune’s startup show case event, is now in its 6th year, and is one of Pune’s most important events for startups. This is an event for startups to showcase their products and services to larger companies in Pune, VCs and angel investors from all over the country, and others from the ecosystem. PuneConnect 2016 is on 19th November 2016, at Westin, Pune. It is a half-day event where selected startups in Pune can find customers, mentors, business partners, affiliates, and investors amongst Pune’s established companies, successful senior entrepreneurs, and angels and investors from all over.

This event is free for startups selected by PuneConnect. If you are unsure of whether this event is appropriate for you or not, please go ahead and apply, and our selection committee will figure out whether you’re a good fit or not. Please apply right away. The last date to apply is 8th October.

Any startup company that has a product that they would like to demo, should submit a proposal at http://db.puneconnect.com/pc/combo-form/. (The product must be ready before 19th November.) A panel of selectors drawn from experts in the industry will select the most promising startups who will be allowed to set up a demo at PuneConnect, in Westin, Pune, on 19th November 2015.

There will be a special quota for students – i.e. startups whose founders are still students will be given special consideration, so if you know someone in this category, please forward this info to them.

Benefits to selected startups include:

  • Exposure to Pune’s top companies, potential customers and potential mentors
  • Exposure to Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors who are being
    invited to the event
  • Press and media coverage before and after the event
  • Winners of the event get automatic entries to other country-level events (e.g. those organized by NASSCOM)

PuneConnect started in 2011 and is held in late October/early November every year. For the last few years, we’ve been selecting 30+ startups for demos out of 150+ registrations that we receive. Click here for more information about past PuneConnect events.

Media Coverage: In past PuneConnects, Economic Times, Indian Express, The Financial Express, the Financial Chronicle, Business Standard, and the top Marathi newspapers Sakal and Maharashtra Times all have carried detailed articles about PuneConnect and the companies.

PuneConnect is a joint initiative of Software Exporters Association of Pune (SEAP), TiE Pune, PuneStartups.org (POCC), PuneTech, and NASSCOM, SME Joinup, CIIE Ahmedabad, and MCCIA Pune – basically all the important players in Pune’s startup ecosystem. PuneConnect represents a one-of-its-kind activity that bridges the gap between the new companies and the established ones.

Entries to other prestigious events: Companies featured in PuneConnect have been selected to be on TV (e.g. an episode ETNow Channel’s Starting Up show), or in national-level conferences (e.g. one organized by Zinnov), where they got to demo their products to companies from all over India, or for mentorship programs (like the TiE Pune Nurture Initiative), or even got funding (e.g. AppSurfer, a company from the first PuneConnect that got Rs. 1 crore in funding on the SuperAngels show) – all as a result of being featured on PuneConnect.

Apply now. It costs nothing. Please apply right away. The last date to apply is 8th October.

Interview with Atul Narkhede, CEO of GS Lab

(GS Lab, a high-end, specialized, outsourced product development and software services company, that was founded by Shridhar Shukla and Sunil Gaitonde in 2004, has now grown to 650+ employees, and has also spun off kPoint Technologies a product company. Recently, CTO Atul Narkhede took over as CEO and MD of GS Lab. We took this opportunity to talk to Atul about the transition, where GS Lab is now, and where it is going.)

You have been associated with GS Lab since the beginning. Can you briefly talk about your transition into this new role? What will Shridhar Shukla and Sunil Gaitonde (Founders of GS Lab) be focusing on?

Atul Narkhede: CEO of GS Lab
Atul Narkhede: CEO of GS Lab

GS Lab was formed with a long-term vision of building a company which will work on exciting technologies, take market risks with new ideas, invest in R&D, and keep our lives interesting while doing all this. The company has seen steady, profitable growth for the past 12+ years during which I focused mostly on the technology and incubation front as the CTO. Today, the company has built an excellent team of technology experts and I will now be responsible for the overall growth of the company as the CEO and MD going ahead. Shridhar and Sunil both continue on the board of GS Lab, and both will spend all their time leading kPoint (a product company incubated by GS Lab) towards its growth globally.

What challenges do you see in the market?

The business model for software products and services has been shaken up in recent times by the move to the “cloud model”. The prevalence of public clouds, container architectures, easy-to-consume third-party services and readymade PaaS platforms have fundamentally altered how new products are built from ground up. All companies have to adapt to this disruption, and GS Lab has invested significantly to adopt the new technologies/tools/platforms, train the staff, and change our engagement models with customers. This cloud approach of building products needs fewer engineers compared to large teams we saw earlier, but they need to be experts. GS Lab will need to invest to build such differentiated manpower, and it is no longer a “scale the headcount” game. As the technology adoption is universal, and no longer limited to tech-savvy customers, we need to innovate to be able to reach this new demographic (which is a sales and marketing challenge) and engage this customer base (which needs domain understanding and language) to provide complete solutions which just work out of the box.

What is the long term direction/vision for GS Lab?

We will eventually get into “high value” services and products. Our yardstick for measuring our success would be “revenue per employee”. Matching the global levels of this metric is a tough target. We increasingly see customer solutions needing expertise in multiple technology and business domains; hence we seek to partner with experts in relevant domains, to be able to build multi-disciplinary problem solving teams for future. We have been investing in IP, technology assets, open-source contributions and patents for many years in a chosen set of technology areas. For example, our exploration in video streaming area resulted in a full-fledged product in the “enterprise video” space and is now a separate product company called “kPoint Technologies” which has a large customer base of global MNCs.

What are the technology areas GS Lab is focusing on?

IOT (Internet of Things) is one of thrust areas for GS Lab in the near future. We realized the need for building hardware design capabilities in the org, and are running pilots to produce hardware device prototypes along with the software-based cloud stack to power comprehensive IOT architecture for our customers. When such a system has a large number of endpoints, all generating data in real-time, a key requirement is to understand the instantaneous behavior of the system and hence we’ve created a framework for generating ‘streaming analytics’ to monitor such large-scale systems. This analysis helps pinpoint bottlenecks in the system, and help scale up/down the cloud service based on traffic patterns observed. We’re trying to apply this IOT solution to the ‘energy management’ space in particular with focus on electrical power consumption and solar photovoltaic power optimization. Connected IP-cameras are omnipresent today given the security concerns at all commercial as well as residential installations. These cameras generate continuous stream of video data. While surveillance is the primary objective, these videos are increasing used for automatic event detection, object detection, counting object movements, etc. We are looking at some streaming video use-cases to incorporate into smart-city solutions that will certainly be deployed in near future.

IT Services is a crowded market. What differentiation does GS Lab bring to the table?

GS Lab has always had the philosophy of having “small but effective” teams to build technology products instead of “large solution teams” approach. For this, we’ve had to create technology depth with a focus on full-stack engineering. Most of the customers GS Lab engages with are startups at a very early (idea) stage. We have the ability to translate these ideas into PoCs and rapidly evolving cloud services which result in mature, robust, scalable solutions. We position ourselves as a provider which spans the range “from lab to complete solutions”; i.e., we are able to work with both – early stage products which require agility, low time-to-market, quick prototyping constraints as well as mature, complex products which need scalability, maintainability and monitoring as primary focus areas. As a result, we’ve had several instances where the initial PoCs we created for startups are today large-scale mainstream products at marquee technology companies post acquisition over the course of 5-9 years.

GS Lab has grown quite fast over the past 2-3 years. What is the current size (employee base)? Can you describe your hiring strategy and work culture? What are the challenges?

We are 650+ strong today spanning from campus hires to experienced employees who have worked all over the globe. We hire mainly based on references and we have strong incentives for referrals. Our employees come from all parts of India including quite a few from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Every year, we sponsor a large number of final-year engineering projects and offer internships; this is our primary source of getting campus hires, as against participating in campus placements. This long-term relationship with prospective employees enables both the company and the employee to understand each other better and results in a more fruitful relationship. GS Lab believes in hiring for attitude and aptitude as against point skills, and we’ve had several employees who have excelledin the company even when they did not have a formal background Computer Science.

What advice would you have for a young software professional, who is just starting his/her career?

The one thing I’d advise young professionals is to value the quality of work over the company brand or pay. The kind of colleagues you work with is also extremely important to how you grow and mature professionally. You must value the “degree of freedom/control” at work and should join an organization that encourages independent thinking, ownership and demands results. Look for a workplace that doesn’t straightjacket you into a narrow role, and enables contribution to various activities to let you discover your own passion and strengths. A right choice of the first company lays the foundation for a fulfilling career.

Rohit Srivastwa’s Junco Tech. acquired by Quick Heal to form Cyber Security Consulting Arm

Last week, Quick Heal, the Pune based information security and anti-virus company, acquired JUNCO Technologies, a Pune based cybersecurity and IT consulting firm founded by Rohit Srivastwa, and incubated by Science & Technology Park, Department of Science & Technology, Government of India

Rohit is a well known name in infosec circles in India. He is the founder of one of India’s first infosec communities, ClubHack, IT Pro/SysAdmin community ClubSysAdmin. He is specialist in IT infrastructure, cyber warfare and cyber-crime investigation. He has been an advisor to several military agencies, law enforcement agencies and corporates in India and abroad.

With the acquisition of JUNCO technologies, Quick Heal acquires this domain expertise, and in-depth industry and technical knowledge, and has launched Seqrite Services, a cyber security consulting organization, and will also launch Quick Heal Academy, to impart cyber security education programmes globally.

‘Seqrite Services’ will offer a Managed Security Services, including Cyber Audit and Cyber Forensics, Security Consulting and Security Operations Centre (SoC) to Enterprises and Government organisations. ‘Seqrite Services’ will be an arm of ‘Seqrite’, the Enterprise Security brand by Quick Heal which was launched in 2015.

‘Quick Heal Academy’ is created with the intention on building a talent pool of qualified cyber security professionals, who are in short supply in the industry currently. The academy will work closely with universities, law enforcement agencies, and education institutions to engage with students and design programs. The academy will offer Online, Classroom and Corporate training courses in Cyber Laws, Cyber Crime Investigation and Cyber Security.

The Cyber Security skills shortage is impacting organizations throughout India and around the globe, with employers reporting difficulties hiring skilled candidates and preparing for cyber security threats. According to NASSCOM, currently India has around 50,000 trained cyber security professionals in 2015 and the need is for at least one million skilled people by 2020. Commenting on the new vertical launch, Kailash Katkar, MD & CEO, Quick Heal Technologies Ltd said; “There is substantial awareness around the need for the security products and solutions;
proper consultation, education and skilled manpower is still lacking in the industry at large. At Quick Heal, we are determined to bridge this gap by putting to use our expertise which we have built over the years.” He further added; “We hope that through these two services we will be able to empower organizations in effectively addressing Cyber Security Challenges and contribute towards strengthening the cyber security training ecosystem.”

‘Seqrite Services’ will be led by Rohit Srivastwa. Vishal Kumar, a specialist in Cyber Law, having diverse exposure through his association with PwC and Asian School of Cyber Laws, will be steering the ‘Quick Heal Academy’ operations out of New Delhi. Vishal has also been a member of the working group on Cyber Laws, Legal Framework, and the Cyber Security, 12 Five Year Plan (2012 -17) Government of India.

Quick Heal, is of course Pune’s first major software product company to get an IPO, and is a provider of security software products and solutions in India. It has over 1,300 employees across 36 cities in India, and a network of over 20,000 channel partners. It has subsidiaries that are present in Japan, Dubai, the United States of America, and Kenya.

Event: TiECON Pune – Indian Startup Ecosystem Conference – 15 April

TiECON, one of the top startup conferences in the country, will be held in Pune again this year for the 4th time, on 15th April.

The keynote address will be by Sanjiv Bajaj, MD of Bajaj Holdings & Investment, Bajaj Finserv, and Bajaj Allianz. In addition, there are a number of other speakers – startup founders, venture capitalists, and others from the startup ecosystem including Ambareesh Murty of Pepperfry, Hari Menon of BigBasket, Sanjay Katkar of QuickHeal, Sanjay Nath of Blume Ventures, Varsha Tagare of Qualcomm Ventures. See this page for a full list.

The event costs Rs. 2099 for TiE Pune members, and 3199 for non-members, and 2499 for “members of supporting organizations” (including PuneTech readers). Thus, if you’re not a member, you can use the “Members of Supporting Organizations” ticket, with the code “TiE-Pune Tech”.

See the event website for more details.

Interview with Monish Darda, Founder of Contract Management Software Product Company ICERTIS

ICERTIS is a Pune-based software product company that makes cloud-based contract management software. Yesterday, they announced that they have raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Ignition Partners, and existing investors Greycroft Partners and Fidelity Growth Partners India.

ICERTIS is a provider of contract lifecycle management (CLM) in the cloud. In the last year itself the company signed on clients like Cognizant, HBO and Airtel. In addition to helping users create contracts, the software provided by the company also tracks when terms are met, ensures regulatory compliance, and automates administrative tasks like sending renewal reminders.

We took this opportunity to catch up with Co-Founder and CTO, Monish Darda.

Congratulations on the new funding round. Can you discuss some of the funding details, and the expansion plans.

Thanks! We announced our Series B funding today – we raised $15 million, led by Ignition Partners and current investors – Fidelity and Greycroft. We plan to use the funds to expand our global operations, invest in marketing, and further enhance the Icertis Contract Management platform.

Can you talk about the vision for ICERTIS, and the product direction?

Our vision is to apply the cloud to unlock the power of contracts. The cloud has enabled the extended enterprise to be connected in ways unimaginable just a few years ago, and we are at the forefront of that technology revolution, helping the business get better and more efficient. We were one of the first Cloud Software Vendors to build on Microsoft Azure – Icertis Contract Management has evolved into a powerful platform for managing all types of contracts and is super easy to use, getting the consumer experience to enterprise apps. We will continue to build on that platform.

What is ‘Contract Management’, and how does software help in improving this business process?

Contracts bring the enterprise together – whether you are hiring, or acquiring a company and everything in between, you have a contract to make that happen. Icertis Contract Management (ICM), is a cloud-based contract lifecycle management platform designed to help global enterprises turn its contracts into powerful business assets. ICM provides a 360-degree view into an organization’s contract operations to increase compliance, improve governance, mitigate risk and enhance user productivity.

What are the industries, market segments where the ICERTIS Contract Management Solution is deployed? Can you talk about any customer examples?

Icertis Contract Management is deployed across many industries and market segments as it is able to manage all types of contracts. The platform is used to manage over 2 million contracts in 40+ languages by over 500,000+ users in 150+ countries. We have an elite roster of customers including Becton Dickinson, Cognizant, HBO, Microsoft, and Skullcandy; all of which use ICM to enhance productivity, increase commercial compliance, improve governance, and mitigate risk.

Can you discuss some of the technology issues in the solution? What are the technical challenges?

We developed the Icertis Contract Management platform Cloud First. This Born-in-the-Cloud Enterprise App sent some unique and interesting challenges our way: around security, robustness and integration. Cloud development philosophy is “loosely coupled,” bringing with it a different way of thinking, and attention to detail. We have explored the nooks and crannies of Azure, we use almost all PaaS services that Microsoft Azure provides – I don’t think there is so much Azure expertise concentrated so much anywhere else! Keeping up with the platform, and adopting it to deliver a best in class platform has been challenging, fun and fulfilling.

Can you share some thoughts about your entrepreneurial journey so far? What advice would you have founders who are just getting started with their startup venture?

I love the excitement. Entrepreneurship is in my bloodstream, and it is a high! Two bits of advice: First, go all in. You have to believe from day 0 that you are going to make it, so don’t hold back; if you don’t, it is not for you. Second, don’t overthink. That leads to starting trouble, procrastination and loss of confidence. Doing things and being smart about knowing your boundaries really helps!

This is an exciting time for India – the land of opportunity is here, nowhere else. Grab it with all you have got.

KPIT’s Electric Bus – Towards ‘green’ transportation

Electric cars and buses are the future of transportation. Multiple goals: 1. Reducing fossil fuel dependence, 2. Carbon taxes and 3. Urban pollution/emission targets will drive rapid adoption of emission-less electric cars in the coming two decades. According to McKinsey’s forecasts, future cities could have up to 50% electric vehicles by 2030.

We recently got an opportunity to visit the KPIT facility in Pune to see their electric bus R&D and manufacturing set up. We also saw the electric bus in operation, and got a nice ride in it around Hinjawadi in Pune. This bus was inaugurated at the Indian Parliament in December 2015 by the Hon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

KPIT has been working in the area of hybrid (electro-mechanical) powertrains for many years now. Their ‘Revolo’ solution for converting existing IC (Internal Combustion) engine powered cars and buses into hybrid vehicles, has been field tested for over 150,000 km.

KPIT's Electric Bus
KPIT’s Electric Bus – The Prototype. Click on the picture to see full size image.

The KPIT Electric Bus leverages and builds on this R&D and manufacturing experience. KPIT has filed over 20 patents in this area. Do note, in some aspects, an electric vehicle is simpler than an Electric-IC engine hybrid. Even if you leave aside the IC engine, a hybrid vehicle has to deal with power distribution, switching across the two power trains. In electric vehicles, there is no switching, as there is a single power train powered by electric motors. ‘Regenerative braking’ is used in both: hybrid as well as pure electric vehicles.

The KPIT bus leverages Li-Ion batteries and multiple AC induction motors. The controller can bring in one or more motors online, depending on the power/torque requirements. The bus has a range of 100-200 km (depending on the Li-ion battery packs configuration). The motors can generate power between 80-240 KW with a Torque in the range of 450-600 Nm (depending on the selected configuration). The KPIT electric bus technology has been specifically adapted to Indian conditions.

The KPIT electric bus also integrates with the KPIT intelligent transportation system and provides real-time monitoring of bus including location, vehicle health and driver behavior, along with traffic data and performance. On-board diagnostics and related remote monitoring is also available.

KPIT is working with CIRT and other concerned authorities to further refine this technology as well as the necessary certifications. Going forward, there are two primary business models for KPIT: Working with OEMs and Retro-fitting existing vehicles.  They are also in discussions with various OEMs regarding ’embedding’ their technology.

KPIT estimates that their electric bus costs will be significantly lower than other solutions, given the indigenous technology developed and the ‘Make in India’ push. The currently available electric buses range from INR 2.7 – 4+ crores, and KPIT’s solution will be a fraction of that.

Do note, the pay-back period should not just focus on the monetary savings, but the reduction in pollution and CO2 emissions. This will be a key driver for the adoption of electric vehicles in our congested, polluted cities.

It’s good to see this kind of innovation and R&D happening in Pune, especially in the area of manufacturing and transportation (not just pure IT).

Internship/Job Mela 2016 for Pune startups+students

It’s back! The Pune Open Coffee Club is organizing an internship/job mela for final year students (MCA, BCA, BE, ME, MTech, MBA) on 16th January, 2016, from 9:30am to 5:30pm, 14th June. The difference from other internship/job melas is that only startups are invited to participate in this.

This event is free for students, and has a nominal charge of Rs. 500 for startups. Startups who wish to be part of this, please signup here, and read the For Companies section below. Students who wish to be part of this register here, and read the For Students section below.

How does it work?

The actual event is on 16th January, at IMED campus. One week before that, on 9th January, there will be a qualifying test for the students, conducted by ReliScore for C/C++/Aptitude.

On the day of the event, Saturday 16th January, registered startups are expected to set up a table from 9:30am to 5:30pm at the venue: IMED Campus, Bharati Vidyapeeth Erandwane Campus, Paud Road. Map. Detailed agenda for the event will be put up on the event page later.

Benefit For Companies

Last year 1000+ students signed up. Similar numbers are expected this year.

All these students will go through an online test of minimal programming competency by ReliScore. Only students who get a passing score on will be allowed to attend. (Last year, 400 out of 1000 made it through.) The students who pass will be given grades from A to E based on their performance. Out of those (last year, about 100 students secured the top two grades.) Student grades will be shared with companies who have registered for the Job Mela. Companies are free to set their own minimum grade criteria for students wishing to talk to them, or submit a resume.

On 16th January, companies will get a chance to interact with selected students, shortlist the ones you like, and interview them right away (or schedule an interview for later).

So sign up here.

What are startups expected to do there?

Get marketing material – lots of it. Visiting cards, leaflets and what not. Get banners – we will arrange to have one table for you. Get a laptop with a running PPT. Come with your mind prepared to be asked the same question a hundred times over, from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm. Stay for the whole duration – you never know when you might find the correct match. You can also interact with other startups to grow your network and see if you can find some synergy!

For Students

Students: You don’t find so many startups in one place, at one time, all accessible to interact with you!

Why work with startups?

Startups are cool. Startups are where the action is. The experience that you would get in a startup in a few months, would be better than what you would get from large corporations in a few years. In startups, you get an exposure to the various moving parts of a company – coding, testing, admin, HR, marketing… you name it! More than all of this, you get to work directly with founders of the company, who will one day make it very big (like Google, Twitter?).

What do startups want from me?

Life at startups can be very exciting – but you need to be prepared to give more than 100%. Many startups work on cutting edge technologies, and there is going to be a huge learning curve for you, to be able for you to meaningfully contribute to the company. So, it requires dedication, patience and a positive attitude.

Please register here.