Jason Goldberg, Founder and CEO of social|median will be giving a talk today (Monday) at 6:30pm, at True Sparrow Systems office (near E-Square). For more details, see the event announcement. You can also try out social|median (click on “create an account” and use invitation code “punetech”).

IdeaCampPune is this Saturday. Registration is free, but compulsory, if you wish to attend. You can register by clicking on the “Edit Page” link at the the top of that page. Use “c4mp” as the “Wiki Password / Invite key”.

Related Post: PMC vision for the future needs your help

However, I don’t think this is something that can be done without active community participation. For really successful implementation of some of these ideas, what is really needed, in my opinion, is the involvement of the tech community to help with the execution - frontends, backends, usability, evangelization. I would like to start a discussion on how we can help.

Dr. Saraph has agreed to attend IdeaCampPune for a few hours in the first half o the day. If we can get a few discussions started around this topic, he can participate, clarify his vision for us, and answer questions. I have also requested him to write an article giving some more details on his ideas and initiatives, so we can start thinking about how best the community can help in each of those areas. He hopes to have it done by Monday or Tuesday, and I’ll post it here as soon as I get it. Please check this site again on Tuesday. (Or better yet, subscribe to the RSS feed or email updates.)

If you have any immediate questions or suggestions please post them in the comments below, and I can have Dr. Saraph answer them.

Related articles:
Upcoming Events: IdeaCampPune
PMC to re-charge Pune wi-fi project
Pune Municipal Corporation gets CIO, new website, wiki

Management tips: Learning from diving sports/projects by Mr. Michael Waldbrenner

and

 Infrastructure Project Management: Case Study - Pune Public Transport System by Mr. Shirish Kanitkar

Venue: Cummins Auditorium, Pune Shramik Patrakar Sangh, 193 Navi Peth, Ganjwe Chowk, Near Alka Talkies, Garware bridge & S. M. Joshi hall, Pune 411030. Reception (Tel) - +91(20) 24334190

Date: Saturday, May 10, 2008

Time: 10:00 am to 12:30 pm

Topic 1:  Management: Learning from diving sports/projects

Michael is going to talk about how the experiences from sports can be applied in management as well. He would present examples in context of scuba diving about how the principals applied in sports can be equally applied for Project management. Michael’s hobbies are sailing and scuba diving, especially scuba diving in water filled caves. This hobby might be considered dangerous but if planned and executed properly it would be equally interesting. There are a lot of similarities to current IT projects. Both are “mission critical”, you can plan them well but you can not cope with all risks attached. Michael will talk about how can we compare the planning and execution of international extreme cave diving projects with international software projects and what can we learn from that?

Speaker: Mr. Michael Waldbrenner

Mr. Michael Waldbrenner - Director, Global Sourcing Healthcare & Welfare India, TietoEnator Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Before Michael finished school (Germany) he already has started his own business together with his twin brother Andreas. They sold PC hardware at that time and installed computer networks in big companies. Also they both gave training in multiple programming languages. In 1993 the company was then converted into a GmbH (private limited) and Michael was one of the managing directors. The focus moved more and more to software development for Logistics companies, banks and travel agencies. 1994 there was a big change in the German healthcare system and therefore the idea to develop a hospital information system was established. In 1999 the Private Limited was converted into a stock based company. Michael was then made the CFO of that company. The revenue at that time was around 2,5Mio EUR supporting around 60 hospitals with the Hospital information system, which contained 84 Modules at that time. In 2005 the business got merged with TietoEnator - IT-Company with 17,000 people in 23 countries.

Topic 2:  Infrastructure Project Management: Case Study - Pune Public Transport System

Increasing traffic in a city leads to problems of congestion, pollution, and road safety and in general a decreasing quality of life through decreasing open spaces etc. However, just building more infrastructures such as roads, flyovers and tunnels to accommodate the increasing number of vehicles cannot solve this problem. In fact, this only makes the problem worse as even more vehicles try to occupy the same space making increasing congestion, pollution and accident rates. The only sustainable solution to addressing the problem - something recognized the world over now - is to have a strong public transport system that is attractive to all sections of society and to provide support for non-motorized transport such as walking and cycling. For Pune, this translates into drastically improving the services provided by PMT, planning and implementing city-wide footpath and cycle networks, planning and implementing a city-wide Bus Rapid Transit system, and undertaking a techno-economic feasibility study of options such as a metro.

Speakers: Mr. Shirish Kanitkar, Mr. Sujit Patwardhan & Mr. Ashok Sreenivas

Mr. Shirish Kanitkar, Mr. Sujit Patwardhan & Mr. Ashok Sreenivas are active members of PTTF (Pune Traffic & Transportation Forum http://www.pttf.net/). PTTF is a cross-platform NGO for sustainable transportation policy whose vision is “Sustainable, affordable, safe and eco-friendly mobility for all”. This group is working on Pune city’s alarmingly deteriorating traffic situation and the activists are trying to address this issue for about 4-5 years now. The group has spent a lot of time and energy in PTTF activities in trying to further the cause of sustainable traffic and transportation in Pune and made significant impact on local bodies.

Note:

1. Monthly seminar is FREE FOR ALL / NO Entry FEE; one does not have to be Deccan Chapter member to attend this seminar.
2. Practicing PMPs can earn 1 to 2 PDUs (Professional Development Units) by attending this seminar.
3. Please share this information with other interested / your friends, they need not to be Deccan Chapter member.
4. Practicing PMPs can earn 1 to 2 PDUs by attending seminar.
5. Non paid members may subscribe to On Target Newsletter by paying marginal amount of Rs. 100/- Annually. All payments must be paid in advance. Checks payable to: “PMI Pune-Deccan India Chapter”, Payable at: Pune, India. You may bring the check on seminar day and handover to Sangeeta Zaparde (Finance Director) OR Omkar Gurjar (Marketing & Communications Director). Please write your Name, eMail ID & Date of Subscription backside of the check.

To subscribe to PMI Pune-Deccan India Chapter:

1) Visit http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/pmi-pune-chapter and click on - Join this group! button.

2) Send mail to pmi-pune-chapter-owner@yahoogroups.com with following information

Name, Personal   Email, Home Phone, Mobile No, Company Name, Work Email, Work Phone, Designation, PMI Member (paid $119)? Deccan Chapter Member (paid $10)?

3) Chapter website: www.pmipunechapter.org

Thanks & Regards,
Omkar Gurjar, PMP
Marketing & Communications Director
PMI Pune-Deccan India Chapter

xG Technology, Inc., provider of low-power, long-range wireless communications technology, has selected its VeriCall Edge embedded VoIP software for xG’s new xMax TX60 wireless handset.

VeriCall Edge software will provide a complete embedded VoIP software solution for the TX60 handset, including all of the signaling and media processing (codecs), and quality of service technology required to place and receive voice calls.

Source

Trinity Convergence is a provider of embedded software platforms for VoIP and voice + video over IP (V2IP) products and services. Trinity has a development center in Pune on Senapati Bapat Road. See the PuneTech wiki profile of Trinity for more information.

Serial entrepreneur, Jason Goldberg, who founded and headed Jobster, and who is now on to his next startup, social|median, a social news website, will share his past experiences as an entrepreneur and then Jason and Nishith Shah, CEO of True Sparrow Systems will talk about their experience in working on social|median development with Jason in New York and the team in Pune.

When: Monday, 12th May, 6:30pm
Where: True Sparrow Systems office, near e-Square
Detailed Location: See http://www.truesparrow.com/location

About the Speaker

Mr. Goldberg is the founder and CEO of socialmedian, a social news service that connects people with personalized news and information. Founded in January 2008, socialmedian is currently in alpha stage.

Previously, Mr. Goldberg founded Jobster, where he served as CEO from 2004 to 2007. Mr. Goldberg is currently Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors at Jobster.

Prior to founding Jobster, Mr. Goldberg launched and helped run several new products and services for T-Mobile and AOL.

Mr. Goldberg has a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Stanford University and a BA from Emory University with honors and Phi Beta Kappa distinction.

From 1991 to 1998, Mr. Goldberg spent most of his twenties working for President Bill Clinton, first on the 1992 Presidential campaign and then in the White House from 1993 to 1998. At the White House, Mr. Goldberg job was to help keeping the trains running on time.

About social|median

See the PuneTech wiki profile on social|median for more information and links. social|median is currently in an invite-only alpha - however, special invitations have been opened up for PuneTech readers. Use invitation code “punetech” at the social|median sign-up page.

Literally Monkiri means the Japanese art of paper cutting. Monkiri lets one read and write blogs about any item published on a website. At this time, this facility can only be used to post to a blog hosted on Monkiri.

[edit] Features

With the help of the Monkiri button a user can snap required portion of the item on the webpage and blog it. The user can then give a comprehensive review of the same and add on his comments. The ‘View Entries’ feature from Monkiri menu enables other interested users to visit the blogged item and comment on the same. In this way everyone visiting that page can review the comments giving one a potentially large audience. Over a period of time users can build up an online journal of articles of interest. In other words, Monkiri makes blogging and sharing a simple affair.

[edit] Links

• Website: http://monkiri.com
• Monkiri FAQ: http://www.monkiri.com/faq.php

[edit] Articles

• Pluggd.in profile - thinks Monkiri will find it tough to compete with sites like del.icio.us and stumbleupon
• CenterNetworks profile - thinks Monkiri is like skitch without all the features. Which might not be a bad thing.

Final Thoughts

Monkiri is entering a very crowded space which has had established players for many years. Also, restricting users to only post the clippings on Monkiri hosted blogs (as opposed to the users’ own blogs) is a serious limitation. In my mind, Monkiri joins FlockPod in the list of Pune-based companies that are doing something in the “commenting on other websites” space, but who need to figure out exactly what the value proposition is.

With private company, Microsense, “struggling” to implement the Unwire Pune project a year after its launch through out the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation is planning to rope in multiple agencies to provide the (Wi-Fi) wireless internet connectivity facility.

[…]

“Four more private agencies have offered to provide the wireless internet connectivity service and we are planning to rope them for the implementation of the coveted project,” Anupam Saraph, chief information officer (CIO), PMC, told this paper on Sunday.

PMC now has an experienced industry veteran, in the form of CIO Anupam Saraph, at the helm of IT-related affairs since January 2008, and he is slowly trying to overhaul the system. He recently gave the PMC website a new look, and introduced the use of wikis for internal project management. He has a bunch of other initiatives cooking that I hope to write about in detail later this week. Stay tuned.

Compared to how things were a few years back, the Startup Community has come together in such a fabulous way. We have OpenCoffee Club meets, Startup Lunches, Startup Saturdays, Mobile Mondays, Barcamps, Ideacamps etc, etc, and the plethora of other activities that organizations such as TiE, NEN, NASSCOM, etc are providing to benefit this same target audience.

All that said, we understand that most of these benefits are enjoyed by those who live in the major cities, and in most cases in the cities down south. There hasnt been much activities going on in cities such as Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkatta, Ahmedabad or any where in Kerala to bring the community together and to share, ask questions, and receive support from one another.

In an attempt to bridge that, we are hosting an online meet this Saturday at 3pm at http://chat.proto.in. Most of you would know how to login, and the process is quite simple. Visit the URL, enter a nickname and you could join in.

If you would be participating, do send a reply to this mail, and feel free to ask any questions if you do have any. You are also more than welcome to invite your friends, should they be interested, and ask them to join.

I look forward to seeing you there this weekend.

Posted by Vijay Anand over at Pune OpenCoffee Club

Here’s their pitch:

Today millions of ads run on millions of portals hourly. Imagine a world where you could identify where all your competitors are advertising, and use that information to decide how to advertise in the portals that best fit your brand — irrespective of geography, language, and time zone.

This service is now live (although it is still in “alpha”). According to co-founder and CEO, Devaraj Southworth:

“We set out with a singular mission; to organize the world’s online advertising information and make it universally accessible and useful through a single, automated portal - and in the process eliminate the enormous inefficiencies that currently exist. (!)Yureekah is free to all users, enabling agencies and advertisers to reduce costs, but also levels the playing field for small business owners and individual advertisers by offering the same access and ability. We believe that our suite of products will change the way in which traditional online advertising operates. Our objective is to develop a collaborative online platform for all online advertising needs and intend to replicate the success of Google’s AdWord in the Display space.”

(!)Yureekah was started by the serial entrepreneurs behind iThink Labs and 30Seven Design. How did it get started?

At 3:00 am EST, 12:30 pm IST March 5, 2007 my cell phone rings. “Hello” I squeak into the receiver. Immediately I recognize the excited voice of my business partner Vishal over 3000 miles away. “Devaraj, are you sleeping?” “Uh, I was,” I replied. “Listen, we have to figure out a way to streamline the manual processes involved with online competitive research,” Vishal said. “This minute?” I questioned, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “Yes, we may lose a $1 mm media pitch if we don’t provide a global competitor analysis to our client by next week,” Vishal exclaimed. This was clearly a business problem, but also an opportunity that deserved attention. There was no way we could provide real time competitor analysis globally within one week. If we, as a boutique agency, were facing these issues then certainly larger agencies, direct advertisers, and small businesses owners were feeling the same pains. That’s how it all started, a simple conversation between two guys at 3 am which fundamentally altered our frame of reference, how we approached our existing businesses, and our lives.

Source.

See full profile of (!)Yureekah at the PuneTech wiki for more details of target customers of (!)Yureekah, and the people behind it.