IdeaCampPune has been moved to 17th May, and now has a venue – no surprise that Persistent has graciously offered Bhageerath (their office at Senapati Bapat Road) as the venue. For more details see the IdeaCampPune wiki.
Tag Archives: Events
Entrepreneurial Challenge 2008 – TiE and Canaan Partners
This is not exactly a Pune event, but given the number of people with entrepreneurial instincts in Pune, this should have wide appeal here.
TiE and Canaan Partners announced the launch of the TIE-Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge 2008, a business plan competition open to early stage entrepreneurs from across the country. The idea is to submit a business plan before May 12th (if you can figure out where the template is. (Thanks pluggd.in.)
There are a number of interesting awards, including guidance and market development support from Microsoft (to one finalist), a course at ISB (to one person from each finalist team), and being featured in Business Today.
Open only to those who have already incorporated a company.
IdeaCampPune – 17 May
When – 17th May 2008 (Updated!)
Where – “Aryabhatta”, Persistent, Nal Stop (Up-Updated)
BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. As per the BarCamp rule, there are no spectators, only participants. We only need 3 things – a place to hang out, wi-fi connection, ideas and food.
If you have no idea what a barcamp is, check out the wikipedia page on barcamp
Ideas
Often our ideas remain ideas and we are not sure whom to discuss them with. You may have a great idea, but the real challenge lays in finding its appropriate application. Cohesive and divergent thinking is what is required to build ideas from scratch to working prototypes. In the process we need to discuss with people from different walks of life to identify how our ideas can make a difference in their lives. Can our ideas make money for anyone?
About IdeaCampPune
This is a self-organized gathering to share ideas and see them shape by applying divergent thinking. The objective of the camp is to get people from different roles like designers, entrepreneurs, financers, creative minds, technology evangelists, product managers and marketers together to bandy ideas from everyone’s viewpoint. Ideally by end of the gathering we should have ‘proof of potential’ for our ideas.
Potential Ideas
There is no restriction to what ideas you come up with except that it should make business sense and is useful to at least a group of people. You can share with the community how your idea solves an identified problem or serve any observed need.
You can queue the ideas continually on this page and in case we get more ideas flooding, then the participants will decide which ones to discuss.
Topics I would like to hear about
Head over to IdeaCampPune’s Page and look at what people have listed so far. Click on the edit link at the top of the page and add your own topics. (You’ll be taken to a register/login page. There, on the left-hand-side, fill “c4mp” as the wiki password/invite key, and fill in some username and e-mail address to register.)
Schedule
| 9:00-9:30 am | Event kick-off |
| 9:30-10:30 am | Brief introductions |
| 10:30 – 1:00 pm | Ideate, collaborate and build |
| 1:00 – 2:00 pm | Lunch |
| 2:00 – 5:00 pm | Ideate, collaborate and build |
| 5:00 – 6:00 pm | Summarize – present what you have built and discuss what do we want to do next with the developed ideas |
| 6:00 – 7:00 pm | Happy hour – Evening snacks, socialize |
Sponsors
If you have money please sponsor this event. We need more such events in Pune.
Planners
| 1 | Harshada Deshpande | harshada11@gmail.com, http://designecology.blogspot.com/ |
| 2 | Vishal Sethi | vishal.imt@gmail.com |
| 3 | Hrridaysh Deshpande | hrridaysh.deshpande@gmail.com |
Volunteers
Head over to the IdeaCampPune Page and yourself as a volunteer to get involved.
Events: Pune OpenCoffee Club meeting & Startup “lunch” combined today
The Pune OpenCoffee Club and the Pune Startup “Lunch” events are being combined into one event to be held today (Friday, 4th April) at 5:30pm on the terraces of Bookeazy on BMCC road. (No, there will be no lunch at 5:30pm.)
The Pune OpenCoffee Club (POCC) is an informal club for people interested in the Pune startup ecosystem to meet regularly for discussions, exchange of ideas and networking. The Pune Startup Lunch is gathering where people interested in working for startups can meet founders of startups to get an idea of the possibilities.
Mukesh Singhal of Canaan Partners will also attend to mingle with entrepreneurs. He is also interested in meeting with startups on Saturday. Send him an e-mail at msinghal@canaan.com if you are interested.
The event is free and open for all. You should attend if you are:
- A founder of a startup
- Interested in starting a startup someday
- Interested in working for a startup
- Generally interested in the Pune startups ecosystem
Details of venue and directions are here. See here to get an idea of who have already confirmed attendance attending.
Pune OpenCoffee Club Meeting – 4th April (for Startups)
If you are a Pune-based entrepreneur (or think you’d like to be an entrepreneur someday), consider joining the Pune OpenCoffee Club. There is a meeting of the POCC on Friday. Main agenda is for the members to get to know each other. Also a couple of VCs will be attending – they also want to get to know Pune entrepreneurs.
Details from Anjali Gupta (anjali at NOSPAM bookeazy dot com):
Dear Pune OpenCoffee members,
Thank you for your enthusiastic response in bootstrapping the Club. In the last few weeks over 50 members and 20 startups have joined POCC on http://punestartups.ning.com
Who’s here?
Pringoo, Komli, Mithi, Mangospring, Zmanda, 42, ThinkingSpace, TechZemplary, Coriolis, Josh Software, Niyuj, Indyvation, Mobikon, 5 Colors, Business Gateway, Spring Computing, TastyKhana, Lipikaar, and BookEazy.We’ve planned our first networking meetup on 4th April, 5:30pm – 7.30pm (Friday) at BookEazy.
We’ve also invited a few guests who have expressed interest in meeting POCC entrepreneurs at the meetup.
– Mukul Singhal, Canaan Partners
– Niren Shah, Norwest Venture Partners
– Startup mentors and incubators will also be attendingDo invite entrepreneurs, founders, investors/advisers or those interested in starting up or joining startups.
For event details and directions to the venue, please visit:
look hereDon’t forget to confirm your participation here to help us plan:
RSVP link: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/428897/
RSVP over email: anjali at NOSPAM bookeazy dot comFeel free to add your feedback and comments on the POCC forums.
Look forward to meeting everyone.
Best regards,
Anjali
Pune needs more of a tech “community”. So please join.
Yahoo and CRL (EKA) to collaborate on cloud computing research
(Link courtesy Amit Paranjape via e-mail)
Yahoo and CRL have just announced that they will collaborate on research into cloud computing. I believe this announcement is essentially about Yahoo’s use of Hadoop on CRL’s EKA supercomputer.
This Yahoo!/CRL announcement comes on the eve of the first ever Hadoop Summit. Apache Hadoop is a Free Java software framework that supports data intensive distributed applications running on large clusters of commodity computers. It enables applications to easily scale out to thousands of nodes and petabytes of data. In Feb 2008, Yahoo announced that its Search Webmap application has been converted to a Hadoop application that runs on a more than 10,000 core Linux cluster and produces data that is now used in every Yahoo! Web search query.
CRL’s EKA supercomputer is a Hewlett-Packard based system with 14,400 processors, 28 terabytes of memory, 140 terabytes of disks, a peak performance of 180 trillion calculations per second (180 teraflops), and sustained computation capacity of 120 teraflops for the LINPACK benchmark. Of the top ten supercomputers in the world, EKA is the only supercomputer funded by the private sector that is available for use on commercial terms.
This announcement should also increase the interest in attending the presentation on EKA to be held here (i.e. in Pune) in a few days (Thursday, 27th March). The talk promises to be very interesting, especially given the background of speakers Dr. Lagu and Dr. Sherlekar (who used to be profs in IIT-B amongst other things). Details.
Upcoming Event: Seminar on CRL’s Supercomputer (4th fastest in the world)
A presentation on CRL’s EKA supercomputer will be held next Thursday evening. Considering that it is one of the fastest supercomputer in the world, and considering the qualifications of the speakers (see below), it promises to be an interesting talk.
Details
When: 27th March 2008, 6.30 to 8 pm.
Where: MCCIA, Crossword Building 5th Floor, Hall 4 & 5, Senapati Bapat Road
Price: No entry fee.
CRL’s EKA Supercomputer – Architecture and Applications
Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) has recently designed and built a high performance computer (HPC) system called EKA (Sanskrit word for “one”) which has been rated fourth fastest in the world and fastest in Asia. This rating was announced in the recent Supercomputing 2007 conference held in Reno, Nevada in USA. Of the top ten supercomputers in the world, this is the only computer funded by private sector and is available for usage on commercial terms. CRL is a fully owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Limited. The Tata group has always contributed to scientific research in India and EKA will strengthen this cause with appropriate public-private partnerships.
The senior team from CRL will cover salient aspects of EKA — architecture and applications.
About the Speaker – Dr. Rajendra Lagu
Education
B.Tech, Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay, 1978, M.Tech, Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay 1981, Ph.D., University of Florida, Gainesville, USA, 1985
Experience
- Member of Technical Staff, Computational Research Labs, Pune, June 2006-present
- Project Director, Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), IIT Bombay, June 2000-May 2006
- Adjunct Professor, School of Management, IIT Bombay, June 2000-May 2006
- Group Software Manager, Mastek Limited, January 1995-May 2000
- Assistant Professor, IIT Bombay, June 1986-May 1990
About the Speaker – Dr. Sunil Dattatraya Sherlekar
Education
- B. Tech (Elect. Engg.), I.I.T Bombay, April 1978
- M. Tech (Computer Sc. & Engg.), I.I.T Bombay, July 1982.
- Ph.D., I.I.T. Bombay, Sept . 1987
Experience
- Larsen & Toubro Ltd., Graduate Engineer Trainee, June 1978 – Nov 1978.
- CSRE, I.I.T. Bombay, Sr.Research Asst, Dec 1978 – July 1979.
- Computer Centre, I.I.T Bombay, Sep, 1979 – Oct 1982.
- Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Head, Embedded Systems ( R& D), June 2002 – date.
Awards
- Fellowship of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, 2007
- IEEE Test Technology Committee award for contributions to the Asian activities of the committee.
- UNESCO / ROSTSCA award for young scientists for contribution to the field of Computer Sc. & Informatics, 1989.
About the Speaker – Mr. N. Seetha Rama Krishna
Education
B.E (ECE), 1986, MBA (Dual) Indira Institute, Pune
Experience
21+ years handling Complex IT infrastructure & Data Centre solutions to verticals like:
- Space, Defense, Research, Academic
- Energy, Industry, Public Sector, Finance.
- E – Governance (Govt), Medical Informatics.
- Executed several turnkey & consultancy projects in all above mentioned areas.
- Currently working with Computational Research Laboratories Ltd (Wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons) from May 07.
- Earlier was working with C – DAC.
Other Upcoming Events: Startup Lunch, OpenCoffee Club and VC Circle.
Tech Community Building: Startup Lunch, OpenCoffee Club and Bloggers Meet
Startup Lunch, Pune
[A StartupLunch] is roughly the same as the SpeedDating concept. The startup founders are seated on one side and the candidates get to say hello and have a quick conversation to talk about what the background of the founder is, why he started the company and what sort of person he is looking for, while asking questions to the candidate about the reason to join a startup and what his/her passions are and ten minutes later the same process continues with the next founder. Within an hour, you would have met/spoken to most of the startups, and by the end of the day would know whom to get in touch with for your first/next job.
Something like this would be really useful, especially in Pune, because most job seekers are not aware of the startups that exist in the area, and where to find them. The Startup Lunch is an attempt at fixing this.
Register here if you are looking for a job. And register here if you are a startup. Jaspreet Singh (jaspreet.singh _at_ druvaa.com) from Druvaa has taken the lead in organizing this in Pune.
VC Circle Growth Capital Forum
VC Circle is holding a day long event targeted towards the venture capital, capital investments and entrepreneural community. Basically, companies seeking funds to grow, and people with money who are willing to give it out.
Snapshot of the Event
Venue: Le Meridien, Pune
Date: April 4, 2008
Time: 10.30 am-5.30 pm
Registration fee per attendant: Rs 3,000 inclusive of all taxes.
The confirmed list of speakers:
George Thomas, Partner, India Value Fund
Nikhil Khattau, MD, Mayfield Fund
Srini Vudayagiri, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
Cyrus Driver, MD, Helix Investments
Gaurav Mathur, MD, India Equity Partners
Deep Kalra, CEO, MakeMyTrip
Niren Shah, MD, Norwest Venture Partners
Kartik Parija, MD, Zephyr Peacock
Shantanu Surpure, Managing Advocate, Sandhill India Advisors
Subba Rao, Chairman, Robo Silicon
Abizer Diwanji, Executive Director, KPMG
Shiraz Bhugwadia, Director, o3 Capital Partners
Kuntal Shah, Co-Founder, Axis Holdings
Pune OpenCoffee Club
The Pune OpenCoffee Club is an attempt to establish recognized, open and regular meeting places where entrepreneurs can meet with investors, advisor’s, (and anyone else) in a totally informal setting.nurture the startup eco-system through Community participation
Pune OpenCoffee Club was started by Santosh Dawara, co-founder of Bookeazy.
If you are interested, please sign up
Bloggers Meet
Pune Bloggers Meet organized by Vineet in conjunction with IndiBlogger and Microsoft last weekend was attended by over 50 people.
There was quite a diverse crowd:
- Entrepreneurs: Arun from trak.in. Karamveer Singh
- Press: Times of India. Also Indian Express
- Bloggers from Pune: Krishna, Rahul
- A doctor
- A hindi poet
- A movie reviewer
- A novelist: Marathi and Hindi
- Bloggers from Bombay: e.g. Tarun, Rohit and others
There are lots of interesting and enthusiastic people in Pune.
Upcoming Events: Pune Bloggers Meet, VC Forum
Pune Bloggers Meet, March 15, 4pm
Indiblogger is arranging a bloggers meet in Pune (sponsored by Microsoft). To get an idea of what the meet is likely to be like, see reports of their previous blogger meets at Hyderabad and Bangalore.
So far, it appears that about 30 bloggers have confirmed attendance (although I suspect that the final number is likely to be higher). I know that a bunch of bloggers from Mumbai are coming down to Pune specially for this, and it appears that some are coming from Kolkatta and Bangalore too.
VC Circle Growth Capital Forum, Pune, April 4, 10:30 to 6
VC Circle is holding a day long event targeted towards the venture capital, capital investments and entrepreneural community. Basically, companies seeking funds to grow, and people with money who are willing to give it out.
VC Circle is a news website tracking India’s deal economy – venture capital, private equity, investment banking, mergers, acquisitions, corporate law, and entrepreneurship. VC Circle was founded in November 2005 by Sahad P V. a journalist with 10 years of experience in Business Today (Assistant Editor), India Today Group, Business Standard (staff writer).
A similar event in held in Bangalore in November 2007 attracted over 100 attendees. Speakers were mostly from the venture capital and growth capital investments communitiy. To see a list of speakers at that event see here. The speakers and other details for the Pune event haven’t been announced yet.
NIT & MIT beat VIT and IIT in Robocon India
Sorry, couldn’t resist that headline.
Robocon, India was conducted in MIT, Pune this weekend and Nirma Institute of Technology, Ahmedabad won the event with a team consisting of a “combination of students from mechanical, computers, electrical and other engineering streams”. MIT, Pune were the runners up. IIT Delhi and Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune were the semi-finalists. It is pretty impressive that Pune had two teams in the top 4, considering that 38 teams from all over the country, including 5 IITs (K,B,M,D,G) had participated. The two finalists (NIT & MIT) will represent India in the International Robocon which is also being hosted by MIT, Pune this year from 29th August to 2nd September.
Since we are the hosts, the theme is also ours. The robots have to participate in a Dahi-Handi competition. Specifically:
Two (2) opposing teams a Red team and a Blue team will operate Manual machines and Autonomous machines and attempt to get at the pots of butter placed at a height and remove the large cube of Butter (Makhkhan) from the bowls.
A few of the machines would also attempt to “Steal” the Earthen Pots (Matkas) containing balls of Cheese (Paneer) being carried by the Young Girls (Gopis).
Points are earned when the Butter is removed from the Bowls placed at a height.
Points could also be earned when a Pot and/or Cheese is transferred to a Basket.
The team which picks up all the three butter cubes directly from the bowls and holds them in the air will be declared “GOVINDA” (the winner) and the game will be over.
If no team becomes “GOVINDA”, the team which accumulates more number of points within the specified time of three (3) minutes will be declared as the winner.
Samples of the Paneer, Makhkhan, and the Matkas have been sent to the participants in various countries. As far as I know, samples of Gopis have not been sent.
India has never won the International Robocon (actually International really means Asia and Oceania, and typically gets about 20 entries (which are in turn selected using local competitions in each country similar to Robocon India)). China won last year, and Vietnam has won it thrice in the 6 years that the competition has existed. Looks like winning will be tough this year too. For example, we selected our entries out of 38 teams, whereas Thailand selects out of 200 teams and Vietnam selects out of 300.
I first found the news here, and in ToI. Then did a bunch of digging on my own.