Proto.in scheduled for July 25th at Pune

The next edition of Proto.in, India’s biggest startup event,  is scheduled for July 25th at the Dewang Mehta auditorium, Persistant Systems in Pune.

This edition of Proto intends to take a solid leap and focus on policies that support Start-ups both in IT and non IT sectors. The start-up community at Proto.in will analyze and understand how best to leverage the existing policies and in what ways it can get involved with key stakeholders such as the government in strengthening the policies further.

Book your tickets to the event – further details on their site.

Qualcomm Ventures launches QPrize business plan competition

Qualcomm Ventures has launched QPrize, their business plan competition. Four winners, one each from India, China, Europe and North America will receive $100K of funding, while the top winner (from the shortlisted four) will win an additional $250K in funding.

QPrize is open all entrants, whose business plans accelerate wireless technology development in the following sectors:

• Consumer/enterprise applications and services

• Communication devices

• Semiconductor and component technologies

• Mobile platforms

• Digital media and content

• Healthcare technologies and services

• CleanTech

July 31st is the deadline to submit your business plans. The India winner will be chosen in September while the finals will be held in November at San Diego.

For additional details, check their website.

Proto.in nominations open for Indian startups

The next Proto.in event will be held in Pune on July 25th at the Devang Mehta auditorium, Persistent Systems campus. Nominations for Indian startups are now open and will close on June 15th.

A few new things that will be part of this Proto edition:

* This edition will be a one day event

* A 3 day bootcamp for shortlisted startups. This will include b-plan reviews, prepping up for the presentation etc.

Rest of the details can be found on the Proto website.  I personally think that the 3 day bootcamp should be an awesome help for the shortlisted startups.

Economic Times Power of Ideas announces first shortlist

Economic Times Power of Ideas has announced their first shortlist of applicants.

This first shortlist consists of 1000 applicants. Manu has done some quick analysis of the results. A few key highlights:

• Maximum number of applicants from Bangalore (202), with Mumbai (138) and Delhi (115) a close 2nd and 3rd respectively
• In terms of age distribution, 357 applicants are in their 30’s, followed by those in 20’s (315)
• Only 126 applicants 25 years or younger made the cut

You can view the rest of his analysis on his blog.

The one thing that I didnt like about the shortlist is that it publicly exposes the birthdates of applicants — this kind of data is supposed to be kept private.

Nasscom adds social networking feature – Nasscom connect

Nasscom seems to have been bitten by the social networking bug. In preparation of the upcoming “India Leadership Forum” on February 11-13, Nasscom has launched a social networking site called Nasscom Connect.

The goal of the site is:

• Connect with delegates before and after the event.
• Meet delegates who are attending the same sessions to discuss similar experiences and challenges around the topic.
• Meet other delegates to compare notes on exhibitors and products
• Meet exhibitors to learn more about their products and services.

There’s nothing kickass about the social networking features, since it uses Joomla’s community builder component, and so is inherently constrained by the features offered by the component.

However, as part of the event, Nasscom seems to be launching several other interesting features as well. They also have RFID enabled kiosks and a mobile networking solution provided by Telibramha, where attending delegates can network with other attendees using their mobiles.

I dont know how much successful these deployments will actually turn out to be, but they definitely get an A for effort.

Economic Times launches Power of Ideas to promote entrepreneurship

I’m happy to announce that StartupDunia has partnered with Economic Times’ new initiative – “Power of Ideas“, a program to promote  entrepreneurship and help people pursue their entrepreneurial dream.

The program will be conducted across 8 Indian cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkota, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Bangalore, Hyderabad & Chennai as below:

Phase 1: Call for Ideas and Participation ( Jan 21st – Feb 20th). You can submit your business summary via email, online or even snail mail.

Phase 2: A jury comprising of ET editors and Indian Angel Network will shortlist candidates. All shortlisted candidates will be given group mentoring sessions to prepare them for an elevator pitch interview

Phase 3: One on one mentoring will be provided to candidates shorlisted from the elevator pitch.

Phase 4: In the final phase, the selected candidates will present to investors.

You can view the entire program details here.

The realm is not limited to technology so folks with non-technology based ideas can also participate.  If you have the entrepreneurial itch, nows the time to scratch that itch.

Kudos to the ET team for putting this together.  If you have any questions, comments, feedback about the program, let me know.

The startups that demoed at HeadStart

Here’s the list of startups that demoed at HeadStart 2009 (excerpted from the HeadStart blog):

Consumer startups:

CashNXT Technologies: P2P money transfer solution. Call 044-667-678-93 and enter your pin and then enter the amount. Place the mic of one one phone to the speaker of the other. The high frequency sounds enables the transaction.  Both the phones would get a SMS to confirm the transaction.

SnappyFingers: Search engine for question and answers. See my review here.

Verismo Networks: Box like device that brings Internet content directly to the TV. Device has a internet/WiFi port and  other ports to connect to TV.

Alertpedia: Define and receive alerts for just about anything – classified listing, price drop, stock dip etc. Like Google Alerts, but for a whole lot of services.

EnTrip: Collaborative trip planning. You can not only plan but also share your trip details with others.

Read more

Startup Camp at IIT Kharagpur

IIT Kharagpur is organizing a great event – Startup Camp, as part of its Entrepreneurship Summit 09.

The reason why the event deserves a mention is because its objectives and agenda are quite different from the regular B-Plan competitions that are organized elsewhere.

Some of the points they hope to address:

* Compensations available in start-ups
* Sustenance of start-ups
* Funding: The advantages of getting an angel fund or venture capitalists on board
* What to look for in a start-up before joining them as interns or employees?
* Avenues that open up for students employed in start-ups
* Dealing with peer pressure.
* What are start-ups looking for?
* And above all, why start off on your own.

The event will take place on Sunday – January 11, 2009 from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM at IIT Kharagpur.

Visit their website for additional details: http://www.ecell-iitkgp.org/esummit

If you can make it, I’d definitely recommend attending the event.

Workshop on Marketing for Techno Entrepreneurs

NEN is organizing a workshop on marketing for Techno Entrepreneurs.

One weakness which has come out time and again is that these start-ups are very weak in understanding the importance of marketing.

This workshop is being organized to address this special need. The workshop will briefly elaborate on the basics of marketing on the first day, and will subsequently address specific issues, which are of prime concern to young technology start-ups, so as to help them decide the right marketing approach and strategy.

The workshop is a 2 – 1/2 day event being organized at IIT Bombay from Jan 13th – Jan 15th. The course fee is Rs 2000/- which includes lecture notes, refreshments & lunch. Startups affiliated with an incubator or NEN can avail a discount of Rs. 1000.

For online registration, visit:

http://ekalavya.it.iitb.ac.in/eOutreachHome.do

Last date for registration: 9th January, 2009

Also review some of the other events in January on my blog’s sidebar.

Microsoft startup event winners

Congrats to Athahar (Bangalore) and Amit (Delhi) for winning tickets to the Microsoft Startup event.

Thanks all for participating.

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