Overall Learnings

1. There is no problem, i.e., (1) there are not enough good problems that startups are working on (2) there seems to be no shortage of funds, platforms and ecosystem partners willing to help startups, there are not enough good startups for them to support. The ecosystem is hungry for successes.
2. It was a good *startup* conference and not as a *product* conference – talks about bootstrapping, mentors, jobs for dummies, writing a B-plan, etc. were out of place.
   • We saw delegates from Sun Microsystems, Intuit and many other big companies. These guys would not benefit from such sessions when they were expecting a product-oriented conference.
   • Conferences are really really hard to make.
3. Product Management skills are the need of the hour, NOT talks about talks about opportunities in X sector, and so on. When there is no culture of knowing how to execute, rest of the topics are moot points. We will explain this with an example below.
4. What can be done better next time? More emphasis on product management, practical sessions such as case study on using Google Adwords to do market research, it was briefly mentioned in Naaem Zafar’s presentation, but why weren’t topics like these explored more? And also, people like @gauravnomics should be invited next time for marketing sessions. And so on.

Bottom-line: If you are considering to start a full-time startup, then please, please, build your product management skills than your powerpoint skills.

Now, on to the notes from some of the interesting sessions that we have attended.

Learnings from the Sessions

1. Guy Kawasaki said “Don’t worry, be crappy. Get it good enough, then take the shot and start selling. Don’t ship crap but ship ‘revolutionary new crap’. It’s not about the first version, it is about getting it out there and fixing according to what customers say. Beta programs are BS because no one will give proper feedback. As a rule, all betas go well. People will give real feedback only when they put their money on the line.”

The rest of what he talked about was irrelevant to the context of the conference – about products from India – see Sameer’s question: Why Kawasaki at a Product Conclave? for more.

2. Workshop on marketing and branding strategies for product organizations. The session was moderated by Peter Yorke and the panel had the CEO of Brandcomm, Sridhar Ramanujam, MD of Inventus Cap, Samir Kumar, CEO of Stelae Technologies Aruna Schwarz & Professor. Venkateswaran from SDM Mysore.

• Product is the language in the company. Brand is the language in the mind of the customer. Creating a value proposition is all important to make a product successful.
• When a brand is being created, the path is very similar to what Gandhi had professed so many years ago. First other companies ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you & finally they respect you. Any product/brand will go through all these phases.
• Starbucks is all about consumer experience. That is where all the concentration should be.
• Products are mostly identical. It is of utmost importance to provide and deliver value.
• Product is just a minimum criteria and the value proposition has to be driven by the right marketing mechanisms.
• Technology is one of the unique industries that create a need instead of satisfying a need. You have to be more in touch with market and consumer behavior to drive success through marketing as product development is only a basic condition that is satisfied.
• The most interesting story had been by Stelae. Her company was started by 2 non tech, purely business people even though they were providing a tech solution to publishing companies in France. They did have a customer when they started on it. But, they didn’t hire a CTO until 2 years into the process. This should be an eyeopener to many people in the tech community. Titles are not important. If the roles are satisfied, ignore the titles and move on & create products and do customer development.
• CEO is the overall image of the company. For 5-8 years, there will be no other brand image for the company. CEO will have to meet customers. The way CEO answers the phone might also become crucial to whether you make or break in the industry. Be professional in all your interactions.
• The key message is that “Brand is You”
• The VCs dont want to hear about any cool tech products, or any other kind of cool lingo. They want to see that there is a balance towards customer development. The problem is similar if there are only sales folks and no tech folks. Take care of balance.
• DO NOT create a marketing plan based on any textbook definitions. There have been biz plans with totally irrelevant target spending like on magazines etc.. when the product really requires traction online. The spending has to be very very targeted. Keep in mind that the really important thing is ROI and not doing something for the sake of satisfying criterion. Avoid misdirected spending.
• It has to be all about customer development & customer centricity.
• Have you asked yourself how the price premium is being justified for the product? What is the most unique proposition?

See Minimum Viable Product by Eric Ries and Customer Development process by Steve Blank for a succinct description of the same.

3. Krishna & Arjuna sessions – the value of a mentor/mentee relationship, and how startups should look for advisors

• Krishnas are valuable when they are “been there done that” people
• Arjunas can’t know everything, mentors can guide and tell you what you never expected
• 2-3 advisors in a mix of areas is a good choice
• Look for balance of ideas and execution, balance of advice and rolodex of contacts
• Examine your own SWOT analysis and find people who can shore you up
• Advisors look for humility ⇒ learnability, trust relationship, and their own relevance to the mentee
• Watch out for time constraints of advisors
• Communicate right things at the right time – they need to know enough precise context to advise you so that the 3-4 hours you spend with them is productive
  • A person who has been advising 3-4 companies say that they come to him only when they are in trouble and not give ongoing updates which shows their immaturity
• Can have a 2-3 year contractual obligation / timeline for advisors
• Avoid expectation mismatch, have structuring of relationship
• Distinguish between CEO coach / mentors vs. Advisors vs. Consultants – what are you really looking for?
  • Mentors / CEO Coaches are for long-term
• Compensation is the last thing in mind for a real mentor, but it is a gesture of goodwill. Equity-based vesting over the years is the best and simplest option.
• Only when we walk a few steps together, you really know the person
  • Do due diligence
  • Be patient (think long-term)
  • How do you structure an exit?

4. The panel session on telecom products led by Rajesh Jain was one of the best in the conference. The topic was broad, meaning not much depth but Rajesh Jain really did it well. He asked really pointed questions, guiding other panelists, keeping it sharp & on schedule. It was so interesting that midway I forgot to update my notes on the talk & got totally engrossed in the talk. The following points are all from my mind, so apologies in advance if something is misquoted.

• The panel had one member from each stack of the telecom product space. Vishy from Bell Labs was representing the most basic infrastructure. Sangeet from Comviva was in the space of applications and layer above the basic infrastructure. Manoj Dawane of Mauj Telecom was representing the VAS and consumer space from the telco perspective. Rajesh Jain represented the consumer from a overall perspective at the level of apps independent of the network.
• In the next couple of months/years, there will be an explosion of virtual operators in India. Virgin mobile is one of the virtual operators in India. As far as we know, they use the network of Tatas to provide their services. This will hopefully lead to better margins & free apps on mobiles.
• Hopefully the perennial “1 year away” 3G will be introduced in a couple of months.
• Overall, the telecom space in India is one of the most competitive space. In most countries, the margin is around 20% whereas in Indian market, it is less than 8-10%, putting pressure on the whole ecosystem to show ROI and profits.
• The main reason for the low margins is that the operators want to reach users at all segments and also control the revenue sharing. There have been some issues in measuring traffic for revenue sharing. The operator is all powerful.
• First up, the bell labs member spoke about the innovations at the most basic level.
• 1. Village Net – They are coming up with better antennae technology and hardware to increase range of wifi routers to 20km with no reduction in bandwidth, it is really difficult.
• 2. Mango application – mobile audio video on the go. GPRS is currently not cost-effective and people don’t know what to do with GPRS. The network cant support multiple media downloads etc. with the current infrastructure. You should be able to go into coffee day, browse or download for a couple of minutes, pay in micropayments and get out of coffeeday. This kind of technology is being realised by bell labs
• 3. Micropayments… This was more like a teaser.
• Second, the comviva member…
• Basically, this is the space which supports doing ringtone downloads, infra for VAS support, payment systems of telcos, everything other than basic infrastructure and non consumer end of VAS. This is a huge space in terms of products but very few companies. For example, comviva is in 40 different product spaces. I dont even know the extent of opportunity in this space. This is a good space to think about new services. Map services etc… have to be realised at this level. Another example is the top up technology supported by this layer of infrastructure.
• Indian ecosystem is really really innovative due to the competition and the market. This has led companies to innovate in India and then move on to other emerging markets. It is preferred that you enter the Indian market even though the margins are less and only afterwords diversify. The reason is that the the product will be suited to the consumer market as the company knows the consumer in and out.
• The future will be mobile financial services, mobile internet and mobile cloud.
• Because of the constraints in terms of processing and multiple platforms on each phone, there is a huge need for cloud computing for processing information, helping create a mobile cloud & pipes. This seems to be really appealing space to think of innovative products. Are the telecom departments in engg colleges listening?!
• Thirdly, the mauj member…
• Manoj has had a very interesting life in telecom. He was in telecom when incoming calls were priced at 16 rupees!! ie 1994. He has seen the innovations in the mobile space starting from prepaid cards. He was one of the people who approached Hindustan Unilever distributors to take care of prepaid markets. They went to Italy & some other country to learn how it works and had to implement. Can you imagine the journey form there to easy recharge of today?
• Manoj has been in places like UP which is 6 times the UK in population but a huge challenge to innovate and drive revenue. How can a prepaid card of around 10 be sold and above that, ask them to have ringtones and message beeps? They had to develop a infrastructure to make it based on daily revenue. That is vas, instead of being one time huge money, they made it per day. This was good for telco as well as the customer.
• Rajesh Jain mainly spoke about his ideas to appstore. How that will probably be the time when we can assume that regular users will have access to all kinds of applications.

Some more really good observations form this session:

• Learnings – The learnings in product development can be divided into 3 distinct sections. 1. Customer acquisition is really important. 2. Cashflows have to be handled carefully and effectively. 3. Execution – organization and management. It is all in the promise of delivery and execution.
• English – This was one of the questions. A startup is doing voice based VAS which is teaching english on the phone. I think it is a really good thing that the company is doing. They have been facing operator pressure but I am sure that with the help the telecom ecosystem, we might finally see some kind of education being imparted on the mobile phone. The day might not be far when the mobile phone will overtake the radio as the means to disseminate information in a more personalised manner. One day, there might be info about health, childcare, classes, agriculture and anything else that you can think of… the name of the person who asked this question was Mitul Limbani.
• Persona – “am I the customer” is WRONG! “I am building for the customer” is RIGHT! especially for enterprise customers. Basically, you have create a persona of a customer to keep the company and product in the right direction.

5. Writing a B-plan — Naeem
This was a good session by Naeem, mostly self-explanatory from his slides and from this description. The reason the session was so good was because Naeem was candid and to-the-point, busting so many common myths.

6. Building global consumer businesses out of India.
This was another really good session. We could hear all the stories of the people who created Indian brands for the global market. The companies chosen were also really good. Infosoft CTO Pallav had the most inspiring story. Ganesh of Tutorvista told us about his journey from BPO till tutorvista. Amit Ranjan shared his stories of the creation of slideshare. Narendra of Intel Asia spoke about how managing Asia pacific software products for India was challenging and interesting over the last 10 years. I will briefly tell each of their stories.

• Pallav – He started off without even knowing that PO means purchase online/order?! He is on the path to creating 6 new products after more than 6-8 products in the market. His dad takes care of all the finance part of it. He had to rely heavily on word of mouth, opensourcing code, writing code for free or for some mindspace in the user. It is the perfect rags to riches story of the coding world.
• Ganesh started off working with the BPO. Most investors when he approached them told him that the concept was too complicated and will be really difficult to maintain quality across especially if you expect a teacher who is not tech savvy to wake up at 3am and then teach an american kid when ganesh himself doesnt really know what american education is all about. The opportunity was that for really heavy personal tutoring, the rates were like $30-40 per hour against $100 per month of tutorvista. There are around 1000 teachers and 500 hours of teaching everyday today. (dont remember number exactly). The marketing in local media in silicon valley to Indian gujjus etc.. was unsuccessful. They found out that online ads were the best thing to attract and retain customers. They have adwords on more than 4000? words. It is a really interesting to see the challenges overcome by Ganesh. It seems such a simple idea but so difficult to execute! Every other person who knows skype would have thought of this idea but there are real challenges in executing it and keeping quality.
• Amit of slideshare was also very interesting. Amit was working for pepsi. His sister was a psychology prof in berkeley. Amit was bored of creating presentations everyday and decided to do something on his own. (oh! the irony! They modelled a lot of their site on the ideas of youtube, like embedded links etc.. One of the sequoia presentations has had more than a million views! The team is distribute 2:5 (us:india). They have around 23 people in all. It is really interesting to see an indian company based out of here be a global brand.
• Narendra – shared the challenges and the post mortem of what has happened in the last 10 years in APAC, especially India from a product perspective. Intel was/is interested in software domain as they see software to drive the sales of hardware. Narendra has been following APAC for a long time. The ecosystem is slowly opening up in India and slowly more product companies are coming up like subex etc…? There were a lot of jargons in his speech. It was good but since I dont remember any anecdotes, you will have to read his part elsewhere.

To end it up, let’s take the case of an actual product that we saw in the stalls section of the conclave. The product was called YoPedia (see walkthrough). Great concept of changing the focus of the user from “which software do I use?” to “what task do I want to do?” It delivers the long-forgotten promise of WinFS, especially allowing to store and categorize links, URLs, files, in a seamless way. It has many additional features, such as picking a few of them and emailing them, making new Word documents just 1-2 clicks away, and so on.

The downside? It *still* is not easy to use. This is exactly where product management would come into the picture. For example, anybody who is looking to simplifying the concept of a filesystem would assume that one single way of categorization would have been enough. But YoPedia actually had 6-7 ways of categorizing – category, topic, tags, color, workspace, etc. This means that it replaced the headache of folders with the headache of multiple ways of categorization! Excellent idea, great potential, but suffers from only tech people working on it. Not easy for a beginner, even though that is the USP. The product is still in alpha phase, and will be released as beta in the coming months, and we hope that it will eventually become the simple, easy-to-use, and must-have product that it can be.

It felt gratifying to see one product in the conclave that was interesting, which is both sad and ironic. Here’s hoping to really seeing more products from India!

This event report was brought to you by Swaroop C H and Srikanth Thunga, who thank StartupDunia for the opportunity to attend the event.

P.S. See http://blog.nasscom.in/emerge/category/nasscom-product-conclave-2009/ for more coverage of the event.

Comments

• November 6, 2009, sandip commented: Thanks pranav!!
• November 6, 2009, Raghu Pandey commented: That was a quite comprehensive coverage. Thanks
• November 12, 2009, Nevil Nayak commented: Appreciate the coverage. Its nice to gain knowledge on consensus amongst Indian companies. similar issues exist all over the world and this coverage is a good barometer.
• November 21, 2009, Rahi Jain commented: Good coverage and documentation. This is a saver, as in conferences there is knowledge pouring literally out of ears. So you did a good job, session to session,
• December 10, 2009, VLSI Training Institute commented: Thanks you have summarized everything very nicely
• December 25, 2009, Siva commented: About lack of Product Companies in India ..generally guys tend to forget the likes of AdventNet/Zoho, Tally, Focus, Ramco types ........but focus on new age consumer internet start-ups only ......Not sure why ?
• January 28, 2010, Abhishek commented: Good coverage.. Very nice.. Thanks!
• June 23, 2010, Reece Khan commented: i love to download ringtones from our local forum. it is always updated.";;
• July 28, 2010, Zoe Murphy commented: i am always on the lookout for the latest Ringtone and i always look for sites that offer ringtone donwlaod.;~:
• September 14, 2010, Austin Cook commented: which site on the net have the best free ringtone download? .;"
• October 13, 2010, Kitchen Rugs  commented: does anybody know where i can download free ringtones**'
• October 25, 2010, Wire Gauge : commented: there are very small number of websites that offers free ringtone downloads, most ringtone download sites require you to pay fo,":
• December 22, 2010, Activated Carbon Filter commented: usually, the best sounding ringtones are coming from paid ringtone donwload sites :`*
• August 20, 2011, Rini commented: I found your blog website on google and verify a number of of your early posts. Proceed to keep up the excellent operate. I simply further up your RSS feed to my MSN News Reader. In search of forward to studying extra from you in a while!… I am often to blogging and i actually respect your content. Cloud Computing has really peaks my interest. I am going to bookmark your web site and preserve checking for new cloud computing information.
• August 24, 2011, Emma commented: Thanks for the recommendations you have shared here. Yet another thing I would like to express is that laptop or computer memory needs generally go up along with other advances in the technologies. For instance, as soon as new generations of cpus are made in the market, there\'s usually a corresponding increase in the shape calls for of both the pc memory and also hard drive space. This is because software program operated by simply these processor chips will inevitably boost in power to use the new technological innovation.

Introduction

Question: Where are the successful product startups from India? How to become one? And how long will we be taking example of only one company (Zoho)?

To answer this question, we’ll be attending NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 on Oct 27-28 at the Lalit Ashok hotel, Bangalore.
It’s a traditional conference organized by NASSCOM (short for “National Association of Software and Services Companies”), the consortium that represents software companies in India.
The agenda this year is “Positioning to Win.”

Why is it interesting?

As the official website says:

Come, demonstrate your product, network, share with peers, and learn how to identify market opportunities, build a product organization with domain expertise, roll out a product, build brands, reach out to prospects and customers, create a network effect of channels, user and development communities – in short how to build a viable and scalable business model.

Of course, the caveat is always that no amount of teaching or sessions will help anyone until, you, the audience takes it seriously, imagine putting it into action immediately and ask questions on what will come up in your course of action. In short, look for the advice that you need.

Now that we have that diatribe out of the way, let us focus on the conference. There will be 4 keynotes, 11 panel sessions, 4 workshops, networking sessions and unconference sessions. The full program agenda is available as a PDF. The truly interesting part of this event is the quality of people expected to be on stage.

Here are the parts of the agenda that we found interesting:

1. Key Sessions and Panel discussions:

• Technology Opportunities serving the millions of India: The next major growth area for Indian technology firms
• Building a product ecosystem that addresses the millions of India
• Building global consumer businesses out of India
• Leverage the ecosystem for Product Development
• Indians Pulling off the impossible
• Product strategies in the telecom sector: potential for global leadership
• Why and how you can tie-up with SIs if you have a software product for enterprises
• Listen to key speakers from the usual suspects such as Guy Kawasaki, Kiran Karnik, Ashish Gupta, Rajesh Jain, VCs to people you would not usually get to hear from such as Ajay Dhir (CIO, Jindal Steel), Rajesh Hukku (SVP, Oracle), and founders of successful startups such as from iYogi, Stylkist, BabaJobs, and so on.

2. Workshops such as the Workshop on Go-To-Market strategies for Product companies which is being led by Subinder Khurana, Delivery Head, Enterprise Analytics, Cognizant.

3. Unconference sessions

• Krishnas and Arjunas — regarding advisors and mentors
• Hiring in startups, plus startups and potential employees get to talk to each other
• One on one business mentoring sessions
• Impact of social media inside organizations

4. Product Expo showcasing 12 companies with products for the enterprise market.

5. Specific structured networking sessions for startups with CIOs, country delegations, potential partners, potential advisors, potential employees, potential investors.

The downside is that because there are three separate parallel tracks, we won’t be able to cover all of them. We hope that we can cover the whole spectrum along with other indian startup blogs.

We wonder if we can hope for talks such as the one by Prof. Deepak Malhotra (Harvard Business School) about how to negotiate at NASSCOM Leadersip Forum 2007.

How to follow this event?

If you’re unable to attend the event in-person, then don’t fret because there are multiple ways to follow this event:

• We will be covering the event and hope to bring you new insights and interesting learnings as much as possible.
• Participate in the NASSCOM communities discussions
• Follow the NASSCOM blog
• Follow the #nasscompc tag on Twitter and @nasscom_pc
• Watch out for NASSCOM videos

This guest post is written by Swaroop C H, co-founder of a startup called IonLab. He writes regularly on his blog at www.swaroopch.com, considered to be one of the top ten blogs in India along with StartupDunia.

Comments

• October 15, 2011, Jessie Gill commented: Gippy Grewal

The E-Cell @ IIT KGP is organizing an ‘Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive’ to promote entrepreneurship and encourage students across the country to embrace entrepreneurship. They will organize an Entrepreneurship Awareness Camp in 10 cities over a span of 10 days across various college campuses. Some of the campuses they intend to cover as part of this drive include Punjab Engineering college, Anna University, Delhi college of Engineering, BITS Mesra etc. Times Private Treaties and the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) have collaborated with the ECell on this effort.

You can find additional details on their website.

• Event: Conference for Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneurs
• What would be your single biggest advice to fresh college graduates in India ?
• Event: “Entrepreneurs Forum” planned at Bangalore

Comments

• October 2, 2009, amit commented: How is Delhi College of Engineering included in this drive?
• October 3, 2009, TAPAS commented: Dear all, i have a professional working samsung and also doing some kind of online business.. my website is www.lessdeal.com we deal industrial good to diffrent company.. i want to participate
• October 9, 2009, Sartups's Blog commented: Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive by IIT Kharagpur... <p>The E-Cell @ IIT KGP is organizing an ‘Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive’ to promote entrepreneurship and encourage students across the country to embrace entrepreneurship. They will organize an Entrepreneurship Awareness Camp in 10 cities ...

Under The Radar, a premier showcase conference, is seeking applications from mobile startups to present at their upcoming conference on November 19th in California.

As part of their effort to seek out innovative companies outside of silicon valley, they’ve solicited StartupDunia to reach out to Indian mobile startups.

So if you are an Indian mobile startup, here’s your chance at some excellent exposure — drop me an email at contact[AT]startupdunia.com with details about your startup, founders etc. – I will compile a list of the most promising ones and pass them along.

Some of the categories they’re looking for:

Business Apps | LBS | Games/Entertainment | Infrastructure | Content | Sync | Micro-payments/virual currency | Data Storage | Green tech | Developer tools/Opensouce frameworks

• Event: Conference for Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneurs
• Economic Times launches Power of Ideas to promote entrepreneurship
• The startups that demoed at HeadStart

Comments

• August 23, 2009, Floost commented: In truth, immediately i didn't understand the essence. But after re-reading all at once became clear.
• January 1, 2010, Manav Patel commented: It locates your mobile with GPS and without GPS. Its Amazing ! www.mobitrack.in Mobile tracking is through SMS. One can track mobile With simply Sending ??? through SMS Its tracks mobile for Employee, Family members, Drivers, Vehicles etc. It works with GPRS and provides you google map links also. Mobile Tracking Software, mobile phone tracking, gprs tracking, gps tracking, mobile tracking
• February 10, 2010, Syed Syeed commented: My only concern here is privacy. They need to make it absolutely clear what they do to protect your files, who has access to them, and so forth before it can become useful in businesses. mobile phones
• February 10, 2010, Syed Syeed commented: The whole presentation was full of fun little references and jokes. This is one of the best presentations I've ever seen. Informative, to the point, and the jokes made it more engaging. mobile phones
• August 17, 2010, Shaguf Mohtisham commented: Ins & outs of mobile programming, design & business @ MODS, Nov '10 BLR. CfP ends 19 Aug.Selected speakers get honorarium fee bit.ly/modsCfP
• September 21, 2010, Raju Arora commented: Hi Guys, If you are Mobile App Developer, Here is a chance to showcase your App in front of 1000+ live audience only at Mobile Developer Summit 2010 in Bangalore, by just sending a small pitch which will offer you a chance a glory, fame and the potential to meet the people that can take your App to the next level. For details log on to mobiledevelopersummit.com

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.

• Microsoft invite only event for startups – free tickets
• Startup Camp at IIT Kharagpur
• SIPACON 2008 – Free tickets and discount codes

Comments

• March 29, 2010, Annadhatha MK Rao, Age: 63, Engineer, Reformist & Social Servant commented: Global Economy - Crisis, Cause and Cure. Individuals and institutions not working for their native land are killing their nation in many ways. Products and services not reaching your nation and people are destroying your nation.
• June 24, 2010, Annadhatha MK Rao commented: Foolish nations are STACKING foreign currency as an asset while wise nations are STOCKING gold and other natural resources. Annadhatha MK Rao Agriculturist & Reformist annadhatha@sify.com
• September 15, 2010, annadhatha MK Rao, Economist commented: Nations ignoring Norinomics seldom prosper since Norinomics (Nori Economic Theory & Principles propounded by globally reputed scientist Nori Murthy) alone has the required potential to form the strongest and flawless base originating from the finest economic principles. Thus Norinomics is the best economic theory ever propounded on earth, neglecting it is neglecting irreversible and everlasting prosperity. Hence scientist Nori Murthy richly deserves Bharat Ratna and Nobel Laureate for this priceless and ageless contribution to humanity across the length and breadth of the globe. By: Annadhatha MK Rao, Economist, Age: 64
• September 20, 2010, annadhatha MK Rao, Age: 64, Economist & Reformist commented: India and Indians become rich and happy by adopting the Tax Laws recommended by India’s globally reputed Akshara Brahma & Scientist NVSN Murthy since these tax laws have all the potential to multiply business growth, employment opportunities, industrial growth and national revenue in a simple, effective and efficient manner. By all means, these laws are 100% pro-public, pro-industry, pro-entrepreneur, pro-taxpayer, pro-employee, pro-employer, pro-investor and pro-government. What more can we ask from scientist NVSN Murthy who is serving like a candle. For this priceless contribution to India and Indians, scientist NVSN Murthy richly deserves Bharat Ratna along adequate reward. Even after celebrating 64 independence days, India and Indians did not see significant progress because India and its policy makers are not receptive to good ideas. Finally, India and Indians do not prosper in the right direction if the recommendations of scientist NVSN Murthy are not implemented. Lastly, we must quickly realize that we cannot change the fate of our nation and people if we do not change our mindset. We must also quit our selfish attitude, power and popularity games, race for name and fame, politics for position and popularity, credit stealing attitude, egotism, dogmatism, bureaucracy, demonocracy, hypocrisy and red-tapism for a common cause. Let us also realize that India and Indians did not fail due to lack of knowledge or talent, we miserably failed on every count only due to lack of open-mindedness essential for adopting ideas coming from eminent people like Akshara Brahma & scientist NVSN Murthy. By: Annadhatha MK Rao, Economist, Age: 64
• September 20, 2010, annadhatha MK Rao, Age: 64, Economist & Reformist commented: Akshara Brahma & Scientist NVSN Murthy is a priceless and ageless gift to humanity and nations of our world. Let us be humane enough to honour him with Nobel Laureate. By: Annadhatha MK Rao, Economist, Age: 64
• September 20, 2010, annadhatha MK Rao, Age: 64, Economist & Reformist commented: Akshara Brahma Scientist NVSN Murthy gave numerous priceless recommendations to benefit people, institutions and nations of our world. He has meticulously loaded simple words with volumes of knowledge and wisdom. Let us be wise enough to use this un-ceasing wealth to benefit the people and nations of our world. By: Annadhatha MK Rao, Economist, Age: 64
• September 24, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist and a temporary visitor on earth re-scripting concepts commented: Our selfishness seldom permits us to work for a common cause like scientist NVSN Murthy. At least, let us be selfishness enough to adopt the priceless recommendations of our candle-like scientist NVSN Murthy for providing peace, progress and prosperity to individuals, institutions and nation. Annadhatha MK Rao, Economist, Age: 65
• September 24, 2010, annadhatha MK Rao, Economist commented: Humanitarian, Philosopher, Philanthropist, Economist, Reformist, Akshara Brahma and Scientist NVSN Murthy is the greatest gift of God to our mother planet earth ever since the birth of earth. Our selfishness seldom permits us to work for a common cause, at least, let us be selfishness enough to adopt the priceless recommendations of our scientist NVSN Murthy for providing peace, progress and prosperity to individuals, institutions and nation. Annadhatha MK Rao, Economist, Age: 65 Note: This supersedes the above. By mistake I did not change the name.
• October 16, 2010, Annadhatha MK Rao, Economist commented: Re-Yuan Trade: India must follow China which made agreements with Brazil that allows payment for imports from China in Yaun and imports from Brazil in Lira. Further, China made similar agreements with several other countries like: Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Argentina etc. After visiting China, HDFC MD & CEO Aditya Puri made a bright proposal to Indian government to follow China and RBI kept mum on this crucial issue for reasons best known only to it. At least now, we need to work on right priorities and must learn to take good ideas from eminent people like Aditya Puri. Through this golden proposal, Aditya Puri proved a fact that he can make the best finance minister, prime minister and policy maker of India. Lastly, the entire world must follow China in this aspect.
• November 7, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: (1). Economy : Happiness of the people is the real economy of a nation and all other things are traps. (2). Economics : The mechanism that makes the people happy is called economics. (3). Misapprehensions : GDP, Forex, Sensex and Inflation are not elements of economy; therefore they cannot measure the economy of a nation. (4). Inflation : Inflation is the market-exaggerated-disproportion in the production, distribution and consumption of goods, services and wealth. Therefore, this planning-sensitive element is not a worthy parameter for effective-assessment of the economy of a nation since the imbalances disappear either by planting preventive measures or timely corrective actions or permanently installed system-controls for timely actuation of precisely installed regulators. (5). Economist: Agriculture is the epicentre of economy, thus, no nation can survive if its farmer is suffering since agriculture and the mechanics of economics are the two reactants rigidly controlling and producing the final product generally being referred to as “Economy”, which too, is directly proportional to the speed at which a nation moves its men, material and money and, is accurately measurable for specifying its index by an economist who has sensibly blended fundamentals with commonsense and constantly qualifying himself as a precise tool for the intended job. (6). Numbers & Digits: Economists not isolating economy and economics from numbers and digits are destroying their nations. (7). Economic policies: Evaluate first, then adopt and finally adapt since economics is a subjective subject with objectives subjective and role-sensitive. (8). Wealth: Wealth can neither be created nor destroyed, but it transforms into several forms and possesses enormous potential to alter the dynamics of economics, its misplacement or displacement causes proportionate degree of imbalances in the economy of the nation. (9). Money: Money accumulation does not mean wealth acquisition since money seldom measures the strength of a nation or individual, more so, yellow metal. (10). Real asset value of a nation: Money in circulation is the real asset value of a nation since it is the only asset working for the nation, hence, the higher the better. (11). Cooperation: Cooperation is the orthocentre of economy and is directly proportional to the need and inversely proportional to the greed of the nations. Nations necessarily viewing cooperation as basic necessity become all-time rich. (12). Bedrocks of economic growth: Fair play, benefit-balancing and cooperation are the keystones that accelerate economic growth - destroying them is destroying nations. (13). Governance: Business is not the business of the government. Therefore, nations must not involve in any commercial activity since their only business is governance, policy making, administration, safety and security of the people, food and health security, draught and flood control, conservation of wildlife and forests, pollution and inflation control, infrastructure development, environmental protection, public service, standardization, rationalization and simplification of rules, regulations and procedures. (14). Farmer’s Role: Politicians in power seldom comeback to power by ignoring farmer, politicians aspiring power seldom come to power by ignoring farmer, political parties ignoring farmer do not survive. (15). Present status of economics: Economics became Agonymics since politicians removed economics from social science and merged it with power politics to suit their convenience. Therefore, economics no more deals with production, distribution and consumption of goods, services and wealth. (16). Politics: Accurate diagnosis and wrong prescription are the ethics of politics. (17). Invasion: Politicians invaded the theory & principles of economy and economics, therefore, these vital topics are no more understandable. (18). Poverty Allotment: Politicians reserved poverty for the poor and prosperity for themselves. (19). Poverty Alleviation: Poverty alleviation elevated politicians and eliminated the poor. (20). Cost of Nothing: Nothing is free in this world since everything comes from nothing. Nothing is free in this world though everything comes from nothing. (21). Cost of Price: Since everything comes from nothing, the initial cost of everything is zero, as the value adds up, so does the price. (22). Nation’s Health: Wealth is not a measure of nation’s health. (23). Speed Means Growth: The economic growth of a nation is directly proportional to the speed at which the nation moves its men, material and money. However, safety and cost-effectiveness are vital considerations. (24). Commonsense: Commonsense is the essence of all kinds of knowledge available to human beings on earth. Therefore, commonsense has become the most uncommon commodity on earth ever since the birth of earth. Unfortunately this priceless commodity is becoming more and more uncommon day-by-day, therefore due to its unavailability, we seldom apply this priceless commodity to solve problems.
• November 7, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: Global Peace Pill: Do not do for others what you do not want others to do for you. Adopt “LoveAll-HateNone“philosophy originated from Humanity, therefore Humanity is the essence of all religions, faiths and philosophies of our acquisitive world. Most importantly, for all those who believe in God, Humanity is the visible form of God. There is God in everyone; we need eyes to see Him. We acquire everything only to carry nothing. A true religious mind knows no religion since GOD knows no religion. No one is bad since everyone belongs to God. We ask what we want, God gives what we need. Laws not built on humanity do not last longer. There is God within, we need humanity to see Him.
• November 7, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: Neither individuals nor institutions nor nations become leaders by following or copying the other, therefore, make laws, rules and regulations relevant to the nation since the needs, problems, priorities and culture of different nations are different.
• November 7, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: (25). Remuneration: The more you give, the more you get – both remuneration and satisfaction. (26). Nature (The Greatest Teacher on Earth): Nations adopting nature’s laws become healthy. (27). Global Peace Pill: Do not do for others what you do not want others to do for you. Adopt “LoveAll-HateNone“philosophy originated from Humanity, therefore Humanity is the essence of all religions, faiths and philosophies of our acquisitive world. Most importantly, for all those who believe in God, Humanity is the visible form of God. There is God in everyone; we need eyes to see Him. We acquire everything only to carry nothing. A true religious mind knows no religion since GOD knows no religion. No one is bad since everyone belongs to God. We ask what we want, God gives what we need. Laws not built on humanity do not last longer. There is God within, we need humanity to see Him. (28). The need of the hour: Sow humanity and reap peace. Sow peace and reap progress. Sow progress and reap prosperity. Sow prosperity and reap endless happiness. Therefore - Humanity is my caste, Humanity is my community, Humanity is my religion, Humanity is my creed, Humanity is my race, Humanity is my tribe, Humanity is my region, Humanity is my nationality, Humanity is my language, Humanity is my mother-tongue, Humanity is my consideration, Humanity is my philosophy, Humanity is my approach and Humanity is my way of life. Finally, Humanity is my whole world. (29). Inseparables: Pain and gain, body and soul, day and night, light and heat, and, noise and vibration are inseparables. Therefore do not waste time for this. (30). Inevitables: Failure and success are like day and night, ignore them and strive for stability. (31). Source of failure: At times we fail, many times we are failed. (32). Statics and Dynamics: Be dynamic since nothing on earth is static, including earth. (33). Cause & Cure of Death: Death means unwillingness to change. (34). Acquisitions: Balance your acquisitions since no one can carry anything. (35). Hiring tasks: Qualification seldom qualifies anyone for employment, percentage of marks does not mean merit, age does not mean maturity, experience does not mean knowledge, talent does not mean wisdom, sincerity does not mean creativity, drive does not mean determination, motivation does not mean innovation and honesty does not mean productivity and outspokenness does not mean output. Therefore, employers must develop exacting tools to measure performance and creativity essential to assess usefulness and wage-worthiness. Individuals, Institutions and nations ignoring these facts end up in recruiting non-contributors and non-performers. (36). Change: Only a change can change a change and change alone can challenge a change along with the inevitable uncertainties associated with every change. These are the real challenges of life for the present and future generations. (37). Uncertainties: Uncertainty is more certain and more inevitable than the most inevitable change and challenges. Thus, entrepreneurs must be more vigilant than never before since emerging technologies demanding abrupt changes need abnormal potential to absorb changes and challenges associated. (38). Measure-worthy elements of a person: Money, power, position, popularity, personality, qualification, experience and age of a person are not measure-worthy since performance and contribution alone matters. (39). Science: So far, science has miserably failed to understand the nature, its secrets and several things happening around. For reasons best known to all concerned, man-made tools like science, engineering and technology continue to fail forever, in spite of this hard reality, we must continue respect science since it carries the entire essential potential essential to add sweetness and flavour essential to make life worth living and enjoyable. This fact is nothing but truth. Therefore, let us go along with the nature as thoughtfully did by the wisest and the most knowledgeable ancient people of our planet. (40). Cost of selfishness: Sun sets only on selfish. (41). Source of smiles: Good people give smiles, other give tears. (42). Copying risks: Neither individuals nor institutions nor nations become leaders by following or copying the other, therefore, make laws, rules and regulations relevant to the nation since the needs, problems, priorities and culture of different nations are different. (43). Success: Success seldom comes by following or copying or imitating, this analogy is true for individuals, institutions and nations. (44). Heroism: Genuine leaders follow heroism and seldom choose beaten tracks since following is a fault, copying is a crime and imitating is an offence. (45). Life: Life is uncertain because death is certain. (46). Friendship: The most valuable and least respected commodity on earth is friendship, whereas, the least valuable and most respected commodity on earth is money. (47). Longevity: Those who live more, suffer more. (48). Earning: We earn more only to live less. (49). Eating: We eat more only to live less. (50). Strength & Stamina: God gave strength to men and stamina to women. (51). Truth: We seldom seek truth since we are comfortable with facts. (52). Facts: Facts are partial truths. (53). Lies: We talk lies to live less. (54). Disagreement: People of earth are fighting for an invisible GOD common for all. (55). God: God is universal, so, He is not different for different people. If God is different for different people, HE is no more a God. (56). Ideas: Ideas are more valuable than ideologists since every idea is a spontaneous overflow of powerful thinking and carries the potential to change the world. (57). Greetings: God seldom greets us because we are greedy. (58). Rules: If rules are not simpler, bitter will be the result. (59). Food: Agriculture gives food, arms give blood. (60). Birth: We take birth only to pursue death. The way we live, the way we die. Birth causes pain, death relieves pain. Birth and death are accidental since life is incidental. (61). Decisions: Woman knows where the shoe pinches most; therefore their involvement is vital in decision-making process. (62). Impossibilities: Nothing is impossible since impossibilities are time-sensitive and person-sensitive; therefore, let us continue to chase for solutions. (63). Time effect: Buying power of money is increasing day-by-day, therefore - today money is able to buy what it failed to buy yesterday. (64). Failures: Willing to fail puts life on positive mode since unwilling to fail causes distress, disease and death. (65). Weapons: Weapons cause weeping – quit them. Guns do not give smiles, missiles do not mount peace, bombs do not bag boarders, arms do not bring arms together, money do not melt hearts, wealth cannot wipe-off tears, therefore let us apply something which is more powerful i.e. humanity to solve and resolve our problems and disputes. (66). Tomorrow: Tomorrow is not there for animals and other forms of life that are wiser than human beings. For reasons best known to us, we did not buy this philosophy and therefore, we became unwise. Thus, we started acquiring things for tomorrow ignoring the fact that tomorrow’s existence and its availability to us is entirely in the hands of tomorrow. Finally, we must realize a fact that tomorrow is only in the hands of tomorrow; whereas, today is in our hands, therefore, let us contribute something today instead of waiting for tomorrow. (67). Savings: If I am saving something for tomorrow, I am depriving someone who needs it today (.) Saving something for tomorrow is depriving someone who needs that something today. (68). Postponement: Tomorrow is too late and too far for any good job, hence do it today. (69). Spending: We need to save something for a rainy-day which is bound to come to all of us, one day or the other. (70). Words: Words have no meaning of their own since they are subjective and thus, user-sensitive. Hence this world is a battle field for definitions. (71). Our World: Mad people think others are mad, others think the other way round. No one knows who is really mad since everyone is mad in his own way - this is the real beauty of our wonder-world wonderful enough to keep life going in a wonderfully wonderful manner. (72). Love: Lives loving love live lively since love loves the love lovely and the love loved by love loves the love lovely and lovingly. (73). Progress: Working against nature is unnatural and abusive, therefore work along with nature since nature is the greatest teacher with principles as rigid as rigid can be. (74). Use: Misuse and abuse are inevitable for things that are in use. (75). Failure of money: Money can buy pleasures, comforts and luxuries, not happiness. (76). Composition of life: God fills life with little satisfaction and large dissatisfaction. (77). Hidden World: This is a hidden world since everyone is hiding something. (78). Today’s trend: Become important by reducing other man’s importance. (79). Talent: Talent makes you competent, cleverness makes you successful. (80). Perfection: Never aim at perfection since it is not there. No one is perfect since everyone is perfecting imperfection. Nothing is perfect in the world since imperfection is being perfected. (81). Excellency: Consistency is better than Excellency. (82). Misunderstanding: We often misunderstand because it is easy to do so. (83). Underperformance: We underperform since we undermine learning.
• February 1, 2011, Elbert Altice commented: Hey pretty nice blog!! Man .. Wonderful .. Astounding .. I'll bookmark your weblog and take the feeds also...
• June 23, 2011, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: Norinomics Easing Life and Economic Crisis Economics and Life - Rationalized, Humanized and Harmonized A New Economic Philosophy with a Human Face MY contribution to MY people of MY planet Humanizing Humans for Peace and Progress Misunderstanding: We often misunderstand because it is easy to do so. Bends in life: Every bend on the road need not be a bend in life. Life: Life is uncertain because death is certain. Distribution of Strength & Stamina: God gives strength to men and stamina to women. Madness: Everyone is mad since no one is glad. Curiosity: Curiosity causes creativity, create it. Satisfaction: Satisfy with earning, not with learning. Studentship: Remain as a student as long you remain on earth, this ensures success. Learning: Self-teaching is the best way of learning. Bad Learner: A poor listener is a bad learner and a very bad earner. Friction: Friction is responsible for industrial and population growth. This is the most sought-after element on earth. Study Campus: Campus qualifies to learn outside, pursue it. Study Results: Results mostly come from off-the campus learning, promote it. Time Sharing: Spare time to share with others. Inventors: Inventors may be mad, not inventions. Every day is a turning point: Every day we turn a day, whether we work or not. Teamwork: No team is strong since a weak man is there in every team, for sure; failure takes place through the least path of resistance. Origin of life: Life originates from friction and fluids. Progress on earth: Progress of any kind is impossible without friction and fluids; wear is the single largest controller of economy and economics of our world since it effectively affects individuals, institutions, organizations and nations. Purity: Nothing on earth is pure since nature believes in doping. Purpose of life: The purpose of life is not only to live, also to support other lives. Brain robbery: Brain robbery is the biggest crime since it involves physical, mental, financial, virtue and morality loss, at times – the life itself. Love your society: Life without love for others is not a life, it something untold by life. Professional ethics: Buy ideas, do not copy, also discourage copying. Importance: No one becomes important unless and until someone gives it, this being regarded as recognition. Service to humanity: There is God in every genuine needy, help him to serve Him. Live to Love: Life is not for living; it is for loving. Certainty of life: In life, nothing is more certain than death. Qualification of work: A qualitative work does not qualify to work. Quality Work: A quantified work is a quality work. Adjectives: Adjectives in reports adjourn actions. Do only one thing at a time: God gave us two eyes to see only one thing at a time, two ears to listen to only one thing at a time, two hands to do only one thing at a time and, two legs to reach one destination at a time. Therefore - the right way of doing many things at a time is to do only one thing at a time. We get what we deserve most: We cannot give anything to anyone, at the most, we can deliver something to someone granted by HIM and, HE gives us credit for delivering things granted by HIM. Effect of Failures: Failure seeds philosophy, changes psychology, imparts maturity and releases poetry. Life’s live mode: The purpose of life is to live, not to stay alive. Problems: Man created money and made it powerful too, thus the problems. Remuneration: Remuneration is for efforts and results, not for qualification or knowledge. Omissions: We omit errors to invite mistakes and thereafter blunders; finally we give excuses or bite the dust. Knowledge: Knowledge, if not delivered, disappears. Seeds of progress: Wise men prefer to wear-out since they believe that - it is better to wear-out than to rust-out. Unless we dissatisfy with the things around, we do not think of something better, thus the achievement of betterment is achieved since – there is always a best way of doing anything even it were to boil an egg. Ruling cultures: Rules rule the negative minds; service rules the positive ones. Performance Standard: Aiming at quality without achieving consistency is absurd. Never discuss quality since the term “quality” is a relative term, not an absolute one. Quality of goods and quality of persons is one and the same since both insist reliability and dependability. Results: Work produces output, contribution causes growth and innovation brings revolution. Philosophy: It needs an out-of-the-box imagination for understanding and development. Real failure: Failure to put efforts is the real failure. Giving is gainful: Giving is an investment for gaining, it is neither expensive nor an expenditure. Thus, give liberally and expect the fruits and experiences for the goods you deliver. Real Challenge: If a change cannot change a change, it is no more a change. Ideally, minor changes must deliver mega changes (benefits), thus design of small changes for deriving mega changes is the real challenge of our world. Mind’s Rigidity: Egotism is the rigidity of mind in a flexible body. The degree of rigidity is the extent of brittleness - the inherent characteristic that causes cracks and failures. Open-mindedness and broadmindedness are the remedial measures that ensure success, peace and progress. Professionalism: Rational thinking and logical approach must be eyes of a true professional, deviation from this principle causes derailment. Genuine witness: Time tells truth since it is the biggest enemy of all liars and afraid of none. Leadership: Biased leaders bypass progress. Innovation: The insignificant portion of creativity passing through bureaucracy i.e. net creativity Vision: God gives eyes, we need to develop vision. Meeting is profitable: Meeting more people means meeting more success since knowledge, ideas and prosperity comes mostly from meeting people. Postponement: Postponement postpones prosperity and attracts calamity. Ideas: Ideas originate from imagination. Thus, ideas are imagination-sensitive. They are neither age-sensitive nor power-sensitive nor position sensitive. The talent conceives and the genius buys. Inability: We can't find a solution for every problem since we don’t reach the root of every problem. Wine’s Wise Principle: We blame wine since it is drowns more people than the sea, but it is drowns just the people, on the other hand, egotism is killing innovation and creativity essential for the overall wellbeing of human life, animal life and plant life, this fact and its impact are getting ignored for reasons best known to all involved. Cause of tears: Egoism is drowning nations and people in tears and troubles. Failure Placement: We seldom succeed if we place preferences in place of priorities. Route for results: Unless we burnout, we cannot bring out results. Efforts & Results: Seldom stop efforts since failures can fail results not efforts. Insincerity: Undirected efforts dilute results and take us to unwanted goals. Value of Earth: Nothing on earth is more valuable than earth. Deviation: The corrupt corrupts the corrupt, this erupts the world. Nori Theory of Efforts (NTE): For a dedicated worker, failure is an input and success is an output, he is untouched by both failures and successes. NVS Narayana Murthy (Nori VSN Murthy), Independent Research Scientist (metallurgist), Age: 58, A temporary visitor on earth serving people and nations through re-scripting facts and fundamentals, Earthman (Indian), Caste: Peace, Religion: Progress, Community: Humanity, Race: Humanism, Nationality: Oneness, Profession: Service. Also, a passing visitor on earth melting hearts and merging people through humanity and friendship for causing peace, progress, prosperity and happiness to people and nations since life on earth is a one-time gift of GOD, hence, certainly worth living without causing and inviting tears. Place of birth: Indian soil Current address: Asian soil Present address: Planet earth Permanent address: Unknown Past address: Unknown Future address: Unknown Email address: norimurthy@sify.com
• June 23, 2011, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: Belief betrays: We fail if we prefer to believe what we prefer to be true.
• August 1, 2011, Chandrappa GC commented: Government must adopt the golden reforms proposed by India’s Global Scientist NVSN Murthy. The reforms designed by him are: pro-public, pro-government, pro-taxpayer, and pro-progress. Government cannot get this kind of proposals even after paying crores to its committees, consultants and advisors.
• October 23, 2011, NVSN Murthy, Researcher commented: Debt: Debt is neither a defeat nor death. Also, it is neither a disease nor a devil, in most cases it is a status symbol too. Coming to realities, debt is an accumulated deficit over a period of time. It is nothing but the inevitable borrowings used for supporting people with health care, education, infrastructure, relief, subsidies, goods and services. Thus, nations must stop worrying about debt and start working for rising incomes to meet their peoples’ needs and, there is no point in wasting time and resources on debates and discussions since happiness of the people is the real economy of a nation and the mechanism that makes the people happy is called economics, everything else like GDP, Forex, Sensex and Inflation are nothing but traps. Nori Murthy, Author-Norinomics Full name: NVSN Murthy, Research Scientist, India A temporary visitor on earth serving people and nations

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.

• Cleantech dominates IITB Eureka competiton
• BITS Pilani Business plan competition Conquest 2009
• Symbiosis Institute B-plan competition “Endeavour”

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.

• Free tickets to Proto giveaway
• Did Proto really uncover “new” startups ?
• Proto startups – Where are they now ?

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.

• Economic Times launches Power of Ideas to promote entrepreneurship

Comments

• March 30, 2009, Aditya S. Chauhan commented: Hi there, Very Well done Manu..!! Just finished going through your blog and the analysis report. I am one of the selected in the 1000 list and was thinking of sitting and analysing the same. Good that you did it my dear. Saved so much of time and i think you did it much better than i could have. Cheers..!! Aditya S. Chauhan P.S. - Do visit our site and i shall look forward to follow up this page for comments and feedbacks. :-)
• March 30, 2009, Aditya S. Chauhan commented: Aditya S. Chauhan says: March 30, 2009 at 5:57 pm Hi there, Very Well done Manu..!! Just finished going through your blog and the analysis report. I am one of the selected in the 1000 list and was thinking of sitting and analysing the same. Good that you did it my dear. Saved so much of time and i think you did it much better than i could have. Cheers..!! Aditya S. Chauhan Cornucopia Weekend Planners (We 'turn-on' your weekends..!!) www.cornucopiaindia.com P.S. - Do visit our site and i shall look forward to follow up this page for comments and feedbacks.
• March 30, 2009, Narayanan Mummidi commented: Hi Mr Manu, Kudos to your efforts in bringing to light a very interesting & indepth analysis of Short list candidates announced by Economic Times -The Power of Ideas. Very useful content for the Participants aswell as to onlooking Public. Hats Off 2 u. With best regards Narayanan Mummidi
• April 4, 2009, Adhishwar commented: Find a device to generate cloud
• November 18, 2009, aryan malik commented: this is immense work on drive of economic times. if you may send top 50 ideas it will be great help for me aryan malik
• October 15, 2011, Jessie Gill commented: Punjabi Downloads
• December 13, 2011, Hens commented: Hi Mr Manu, Kudos to your efforts in bringing to light a very interesting & indepth analysis of Short list candidates announced by Economic Times -The Power of Ideas. Very useful content for the Participants aswell as to onlooking Public. Hats Off 2 u. With best regards Narayanan Mummidi Reply

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.

• The startups that demoed at HeadStart
• Call for killer Indian mobile startups
• Workshop on Marketing for Techno Entrepreneurs

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.

• Economic Times Power of Ideas announces first shortlist
• Call for killer Indian mobile startups
• Nasscom adds social networking feature – Nasscom connect

Comments

• January 20, 2009, D commented: How safe is it to submit your idea to an unknown group of people ? a good idea can be stolen i guess. At what stage of your idea (inception, implementation, ready ) should one enter this event ? can some one shed some light on this.
• January 20, 2009, pranav commented: D, There's nothing like stealing an idea. The concept of idea is worthless - its the execution that matters. Everyone has ideas - its the execution that separates the entrepreneurs from the wanna-preneurs. You can ask any entrepreneur around that they'll attest to it -- ideas are by themselves of very little value. But even then if you're apprehensive of someone stealing your idea, then the program just asks for business summaries - the program website FAQ section should answer some of your concerns. You can enter this event at the idea inception level itself -- if shortlisted, the program will help refine and develop your idea. let me know if you have any more questions.
• January 21, 2009, Ajitesh commented: I totally agree with Pranav on that! Ideas at most of the time are not of much value. In Times Ascent, today, following is what they say about a true enterpreneur: A true enterpreneur is one who takes up an ordinary idea and convert it into extraordinary business proposition. Thus, an idea in itself does not hold so much. Its the vision of the enterpreneur which makes the idea successful by executing the idea in an extraordinary manner.
• January 21, 2009, D commented: Hi I disagree.... a good idea needs to be protected. Remember that only the first to market an idea will survive and take the lions share of the market. In atleast the webworld the barriers to entry being so low it makes sense to keep the idea under wraps. I have been apprehensive about idea sharing since mark zuckerbergs stole connectu idea to launch facebook. infact i stopped attending the MIT networking events after that.
• January 21, 2009, Rabi commented: See even before facebook there was MySpace, and even after facebook there is Orkut and then Big ADDA. Concept is same "SNS" but they are implementing differently, Orkut boasts of very good GUI, facebook of apps and BigADDA of marketing exposure etc etc. SO at the end what mattered is how each one of them executed the same concept, uniquely. Your sharing of idea can never be a threat, on the other hand your execution itself becomes a threat after its released in the market. If you'r worrying about sharing your idea with Handful of Industry experts (who anyways have no intentions of stealing it) think about sharing it with millions when you have a released product. It becomes a bigger threat!!!
• January 21, 2009, sarav commented: Yes, I agree with D. It is really unsafe to submit an Idea to a company, which has some team to develop something.
• January 21, 2009, sarav commented: If the idea is IT or software related then only the problem and should think before submit . Other ideas I am not sure...
• January 21, 2009, Sachin commented: Absolutely agreed with Pranav and Rabi.. You can always share your idea. as Pravan said - "Everyone has ideas - its the execution that separates the entrepreneurs from the wanna-preneurs."
• January 21, 2009, AVISHEK commented: WOWWWWW WAT AN IDEA BY ET ,.ITS REALLY THE WAY WHICH WILL PAVE THE PATH 4 SOME GEN-NEXT ENTERPRENUERS.I HOPE IN FUTURE GOVT WILL ALSO EXTEND ITS HAND FOR SUCH PROGRAMMES. WISH THIS IDEA A VERY BEST OF LUCK AND ALSO TO ALL THE PARTICIPANTS
• January 21, 2009, pranav commented: Sarav, consider this scenario - lets say you approach investors and pitch them about your idea. assume that you're concerned about the vc's stealing your idea and request them to sign a NDA before pitching your idea. most of them will show you the door if you do that. I'll say this again -- ideas are worthless without execution. if you are paranoid about others stealing your idea, you're worrying yourself about absolutely nothing..
• January 22, 2009, D commented: I would definitely invest in the guy who has the guts and foresight to protect his IP. A look at the statistics and we will find that there is no respect for IP protection in India. Plagiarism thrives in India and will continue to thrive
• January 22, 2009, D commented: Pranav, Just a suggestion ... can you put a forum to this website for these kinds of discussions ?
• January 22, 2009, Kartik Gupta commented: Hi, Read the discussion and have a thought upon this. 1) I agree totally that its the execution that matters and not the idea. It depends how well thought is the idea. How much knowledge you have in your domain.. etc etc 2) As it is true and pranav mentioned it above tooo.. that they have not asked about the full details and just the basic idea: "then the program just asks for business summaries" so combining the two. The idea as such is not as important as are its details and the execution planned for it, and at the same time its just the opposite these guys here are asking (the same is asked in Business plan completitions too). Then how fair is the judgement?? PS: This is from a personal experience. I have competed in many B plan competitions. The idea is solid, and has won at many places, but some times its not even shortlisted as its a very generic idea, but lot of work has been put into it, which cannot be seen during the first shortlisting.!!
• January 22, 2009, Rohit commented: what happened to TATA NEN thing ?
• January 22, 2009, pranav commented: thanks D for the suggestion -- I'll look into it -- although it might be only doable early next month -- gonna be caught up in a few personal issues rest of the month.
• January 24, 2009, The Competition is wonderful and unlocking the bottled spirit of India is right on track! THANKS ET!!! commented: This is a wonderful initiative in India. I hope investment in rural sector, especially one which harnesses the best mix of traditional with modern technological and managemental tools, gets a bigger pie. This, I say because, with 86% of inefficiencey in delivery of public services, the coordination of services to rural India, could fill up the coffers of millions of entrepreneurs who would also be able to quench their spiritual quest in making many SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRES!!! I, on behalf of our NGO, HABITAT and its flagship 9-GRAM, 9-RATNA YOJANA, call to visit our web-site and see our presentations so as many of us could work as 'network organisations' in some states of India where we are strong such as Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar. Our condition is that any kind of technological, service delivery and service innovation, which could be deployed as a tremendous cost-cutting measure, shall be welcome and would find entrepreneurial energy in a cluster, which we could together choose under our managemental tool named, "Multi Institutional Alliance or MIA"!
• January 30, 2009, priyanka commented: i just wanted to enquire that whether the idea that we submit has to be a totally new idea or can it be based on an ignored sector or regarding the extension of an already existing product or sector?
• February 2, 2009, pranav commented: priyanka, it can be anything -- a totally new, disruptive idea or an extension / enhancement of any existing idea - product - market. As long as you think - hope to build a business out of it, it's valid.
• February 3, 2009, Dinesh Nim commented: Hi, Good to know that people are so concern about their ideas. They do not want to share the idea due to threat of being the idea stolen by an unknown company. I am not denying the fact but I just want to ask those intelligent people that what will they do with the idea if it is not shared or executed. Ideas will multiply and become many but will never work. But if you share, probability is there that one day they end up being known and respected. At the end: "Future Belong's to Risk Takers and not Comfort Seekers"
• February 4, 2009, D commented: that is not what I meant by sharing idea. I think there is no point in sharing ideas among other entrepreneurs or an unknown set of people at the inception level. there is a time and place for everything. Ideas multiple ...sure.... they do.... but ideas get stolen too .... do you know the amount of IP that gets stolen every year? if there is no problem in sharing ideas then why do companies keep their products under wraps almost until their launch or atleast till they have a prototype ready?? just my 2 cents....
• February 4, 2009, Neha commented: Hello, We want to participate in The Economic Times The Power Of Ideas. We could not find category related to our web portal. - MeriCAR.com We want to put this into Category - AUTO, but it is not in the list of categories. Can anybody suggest us? Regards, Neha
• February 4, 2009, pranav commented: i guess they're still in the final mode of the competition..which seems like forever..
• February 4, 2009, manish commented: Dear Neha, you could easily put in last category OTHERS. i THINK THIS SHOULD SOLVE YOUR PROB. ALL THE BEST MANISH
• February 4, 2009, pranav commented: D, http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html
• February 4, 2009, pranav commented: thanks manish for the input..
• February 4, 2009, manish commented: i think its a great initiative by times of india group and all budding enterprenuers shud take part. all the best to all. manish
• February 7, 2009, VINITA commented: Its a good initiative.....probably many of us have ideas, most of them exceedingly brilliant. The only thing that matters is that how these ideas are transformed into real projects and are executed in an appropriate fashion. I do agree to some extent that mere ideas are of less value as they gain importance only when they are executed. But ideas are the first step to any project. Any one who has entreprenual skills and has a vision can make anything out of these ideas even if he just got to listen the idea or concept from an unknown person in an informal conversation. Anyways, I would like to know that is there any proper format to submit your proposal or it could be in simple words just giving an outline or summary of the concept. Would be happy to recieve comments. Vinita
• February 7, 2009, Sai commented: Yes even my concern is the same..........can i get sum help with regards to the format expected..............thanx...
• February 8, 2009, Mathew commented: There are the list of 10 questions that need to be answrred within the stipulated word limit.I guess that should be enough.Actually the questions are one line questions but the answers will surely not be in a single line.... Hope it helps.all the best to all.
• February 8, 2009, tushar commented: very well said
• February 9, 2009, pranav commented: vinita, I'm not sure if any format is expected, but I guess a business summary format should suffice..you should be able to get a business summary template from the web. however, if you want further clarification, i'd say that you can contact the ET team on their email: etideas@indiatimes.com
• February 12, 2009, BALAJI.k commented: Dear Sir, Can single contet can give more than one ideas.or the same can present together. Regards Balaji.K
• February 19, 2009, Rakesh commented: I could not see my idea on the site (ideas.economictimes.com). I would suggest if they can display all ideas simply on the page rather showing "bulbs". It is good idea showing bulbs, but now there are many and difficult to search info. Regards, Rakesh MeriCAR.com
• June 15, 2009, ARVIND DESAI commented: reservebank must start specify the validity /expiry dates on currency notes of rs.1000 and rs.500 in the way similar to expiry dates put on by pharmacy companies. this single action can wipe out most of the black money that is circulating freely in the market. this will also reduce the corruption in a big way. the expired note may be retrieved through banking system on declaration of pan card no. but the problem is it hurts the decision making politician most. the GDP can grow to 10% and more without doing anything.the common man is the highest gainer.
• October 4, 2009, lodha says commented: you are right same happned to me in engineering sector
• October 4, 2009, lodha says commented: any one can believe me if I will mak promise to make money double in 3 years with manufacturing sectores. Is there anybody to ready .only youg entereprenure location is rajasthan and gujarat My self done MBA (FIN) LONDON,LLB, MCOM call or mail 9687967770 vijayrlodha@yahoo.com
• October 4, 2009, lodha says commented: good work man you are right
• December 9, 2009, areapal.com commented: Dont worry. They won't do like that! Economic times are one of the brand organization in india.
• March 2, 2010, Scientist NVSN Murthy commented: Indian BUDgets are BADgets since they seldom carry reforms, we call our loose spending plans as Annual Budgets, this is unfortunate.
• July 2, 2010, Anup commented: Hi consider this scenario : and I quote from one of magazines -- there's a place where people cant even afford phones in an STD/I SD booth-. They do not know how use the technology either there was this person who raised the idea - lets promote communication and things will be better - nobody bought this idea finally even though the whole business proposition showed losses on paper before starting - STD and ISD booths were set up all over the place giving an employment opp too. in a few years- the growth in the region was phenomenal if the idea is really good, the threat is zero ! Not excuting it and not being a slave to the idea is a bigger threat ! the above was called disruptive innovation !
• July 12, 2010, swayam commented: Interesting way to showcase one's entrepreurial venture ideas!! Kudos to ET team!!
• July 12, 2010, Prasad commented: REally... it's a great concept to promote entrereneurship in india, and to leverage the progress n developement of india, beyond the limit.
• July 20, 2010, atul commented: I think ideas are important as a potential seed to a great biz. Don't get fooled by this "ideas are dime-a-dozen" bit that is usually thrown around by those looking for ideas at dirt cheap ideas. Ideas are stolen not just in india - but also in the biggest corporations in the west. Having said this, do understand that Ideas are the first step - there is a long path of building the product/service, marketing/sales and business development before the idea actually bring in good money. So yes, if you have an idea, you definitely need to be careful sharing/disclosing it. But, remember there is a long way ahead as far as money goes.
• August 19, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist & a quitting visitor on earth commented: A peace pill for our peace-seeking world: Adopt LoveAll-HateNone philosophy since Humanity essence of all religions, faiths and philosophies of our acquisitive world. Do not do for others what you do not want others to do for you. God and Religion: A true religious mind knows no religion since GOD knows no religion. No one is bad since everyone belongs to God. Laws not built on humanity do not last longer. The need of the hour: Sow humanity and reap peace, Sow peace and reap progress. Sow progress and reap prosperity. Sow prosperity and reap endless happiness. Therefore - Humanity is my caste, Humanity is my community, Humanity is my religion, Humanity is my creed, Humanity is my race, Humanity is my tribe, Humanity is my region, Humanity is my nationality, Humanity is my language, Humanity is my mother-tongue, Humanity is my consideration, Humanity is my philosophy, Humanity is my approach, Humanity is my way of life. Finally, Humanity is my world. NVSN Murthy, Scientist A temporary visitor on earth promoting Humanity and Friendship for Peace, Progress and Prosperity of people and nations of our mother planet earth. Past address: Unknown Present address: Earth Future address: Unknown
• August 19, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist & a quitting visitor on earth commented: A peace pill for our peace-seeking world: Adopt LoveAll-HateNone philosophy since Humanity is the essence of all religions, faiths and philosophies of our acquisitive world. Do not do for others what you do not want others to do for you. NVSN Murthy, Scientist A temporary visitor on earth promoting Humanity and Friendship for Peace, Progress and Prosperity of people and nations of our mother planet earth. Past address: Unknown Present address: Earth Future address: Unknown
• August 19, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist and a temporary visitor on earth currently passing through Asian soil commented: Uncertainty is more certain and more inevitable than the most inevitable change. Thus, Indian entrepreneurs in general and corporate sector in particular, must be more watchful than never before since emerging technologies demanding abrupt changes needs abnormal potential to absorb changes associated.
• August 26, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist and a temporary visitor on earth currently passing through Asian soil commented: Politicians in power seldom comeback to power by ignoring farmer, politicians aspiring power seldom come to power by ignoring farmer, political parties ignoring farmer will disappear forever. NVSN Murthy, Scientist and a temporary visitor on earth currently passing through Asian soil.
• September 2, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: Qualification seldom qualifies anyone for employment, percentage of marks does not mean merit, age does not mean maturity, experience does not mean knowledge and talent does not mean wisdom. Therefore, employers must develop tools to measure performance and creativity essential to assess usefulness and wage-worthiness. Employers ignoring these facts end up in recruiting non-contributors. NVSN Murthy, Scientist A temporary visitor on earth currently passing through Asian soil and attempting to promote new concepts and higher levels of competitiveness essential for effective development of people and nations of our mother planet earth.
• September 2, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: Change is challenging: Only a change can change a change and change alone can challenge a change along with the inevitable uncertainties associated with every change. These are the real challenges of life for the present and future generations.
• September 2, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: Death means UNWILLINGNESS to change.
• September 2, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist commented: So far, Science has miserably failed to understand the nature and several things happening around. For reasons best known to all concerned, man-made tools like science, engineering and technology continue to fail forever. This fact is nothing but a truth. Therefore, let go along with the nature as thoughtfully did by the most knowledgeable ancient people of our planet.
• September 19, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist & a passing visitor on earth currently passing through Asian soil commented: NR Narayana Murthy seldom did his best to become the best. He became the best because he did the best. This is the only secret of his success. NVSN Murthy, Scientist and a temporary visitor on earth.
• September 19, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist & a passing visitor on earth currently passing through Asian soil commented: No one is poor by caste since caste cannot cause poverty, we attach poverty to caste for political gains and people prefer that to bypass competition, in the process – people who are genuinely poor are suffering most. NVSN Murthy, Research Scientist and a temporary visitor on earth currently passing through Asian soil.
• September 23, 2010, annadhatha MK Rao, Economist commented: The easiest thing in this world is to criticize contributing giants like Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Ratan Tata etc. These negative comments are nothing but jealousy. Let us quit this nasty and dirty mindset since it drastically cuts our life span through deadly diseases. Finally, let us involve in a constructive and productive activity. Annadhatha MK Rao, Economist, Age: 65
• September 23, 2010, NVSN Murthy, Scientist and a temporary visitor on earth re-scripting concepts commented: Nothing is free in this world since everything comes from nothing. NVSN Murthy, Research Scientist. A temporary visitor on earth re-scripting concepts
• November 30, 2010, website designing kerala cochin commented: I agree totally that its the execution that matters and not the idea. It depends how well thought is the idea. How much knowledge you have in your domain..
• December 9, 2010, Dhiren vyas commented: agree with you atul ...
• January 29, 2011, Sahil commented: I beleive that at the end of the day its not about the idea but more about the implementation. If you could implement it well, you should npot fear going into the market with your idea
• February 7, 2011, Pratap.Das commented: Nice Idea.
• May 19, 2011, Kary Ockerman commented: Appreciating the time and effort you put into your blog and detailed information you provide. It's nice to come across a blog every once in a while that isn't the same unwanted rehashed information. Wonderful read! I've bookmarked your site and I'm including your RSS feeds to my Google account.
• August 24, 2011, Hannah h commented: Hi, we have enjoyed your posts and site. We shall return again, thanking you, please keep posting your great articles. Yours.

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.

Enterprise Startups:

WisdomTap: Aggregates and collates reviews and rankings for consumer products. Licenses technology & data to other businesses

Meshlabs: Enables content search, discovery and personalization in an enterprise.

TringMe: Should need no introduction.

Indusgeeks: Specializes in building virtual world spaces – ranging from learning spaces to branded spaces to virtual conferences/meetings.

Artin Dynamics: Artificial Intelligence based power management solution. Software+hardware solution to conserve power consumption.

I’m hearing some great things about this HeadStart event. A lot of folks found the sessions as well as the demos really interesting. Did you attend HeadStart ? If so, feel free to share your experience.

• Call for killer Indian mobile startups
• CEDT – IISc launches business incubator in partnership with HeadStart Foundation
• Nasscom adds social networking feature – Nasscom connect

Comments

• January 12, 2009, startups commented: These startup guys are blood suckers.They want best talent but dont want to pay.Never join an indian startup.Its better to beg on streets than join indian startup.They simply copy a hit website and start to call them startup.I have seen 4 digg clones proudly claiming them to be startups!! .Everyone is fraud.They hire you make you work 16 hours a day and when you ask for money they will tell you that you are doing good work that is your prize!!None of them does good job.Its a myth.Simple fact is if you want best talent you have to pay either in salary or share.Do any startups give shares here.Answer is no.If they cant pay much at least they can give shares. No one from startups is going to like this comment.
• January 14, 2009, Vijay R commented: I was amazed by the breadth of tech startups at headstart, it was quite heartening. The event itself was very useful to meet different players in the startup eco-system, including technical gurus from big companies. Since headstart is organized by the ACM, they also had a technology track, and while I didn't attend it, it seemed to be bring in more people to the show - which was again useful. It was also fantastic to see how different people used and perceived our product. BTW, my company, WisdomTap, goes *way* beyond just aggregating and collating reviews. We crawl information about products from the webs best communities, especially discussion forums, which are hardly represented in web search. After this, we do deep semantic analysis and use other sophisticated information retrieval and machine learning techniques to determine very detailed product ratings. One of our unique features is the ability to determine the authority of commentators in these community sites - so that people can determine how much to value each opinion. We also recognize what people have said about the suitability of these products for various use cases, and determine the aggregate ratings for that. You can, for instance, find which are the best lenses for photographing wildlife, or the best phones for browsing the web.
• January 14, 2009, pranav commented: hi vijay, thanks for sharing your headstart experience. I've been hearing similar rave reviews from others who attended as well. good luck with WisdomTap..If done right has great value.. -p
• February 6, 2011, Ruben commented: Interesting websites I was reading about companies that invest in small startups.

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.

• Proto.in scheduled for July 25th at Pune
• Microsoft invite only event for startups – free tickets
• BITS Pilani Business plan competition Conquest 2009

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.

• The startups that demoed at HeadStart
• TATA NEN shortlist of 25 hottest Indian startups
• Event: Conference for Entrepreneurs by Entrepreneurs

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

Thanks all for participating.

• Microsoft invite only event for startups – free tickets
• SIPACON 2008 – Free tickets and discount codes
• Proto.in scheduled for July 25th at Pune

Comments

• December 15, 2008, amit commented: Hi Pranav, Glad to recieve your email. Thanks for the invite.

Microsoft India is hosting an invite only event “Doing Startups: Affordable and Fast” for a discussion on technology support for new startups and entrepreneurs. This event will be of interest to existing entrepreneurs as well as those who plan to start their own company. You can learn about technology enablement using Microsoft tools & technologies.

The event will be organized simultaneously in Bangalore (Domlur) and Delhi (Nehru Place) on Tuesday, December 16th from 6:30 pm  – 8 pm.

I have two tickets for the event (one for each venue). If you are interested, leave a comment with your name and email and I’ll randomly pick a winner (pls mention which venue you’re interested in attending). Please participate only if you can attend the event !! You have till Saturday evening to participate.

• Free tickets to Proto giveaway
• SIPACON 2008 – Free tickets and discount codes
• Microsoft startup event winners

Comments

• December 12, 2008, Athahar commented: Hey... i'm the first guy to comment... hence a slightly higher wieghtage for me. I'm planning to start a venture on Location Based Services. Its coming out soon. Cloud9 TechVentures I'd be interested to visit the Bangalore session,
• December 12, 2008, pango commented: I would be interested for delhi event. thanks
• December 12, 2008, amit commented: Hi, I am very much interested in attending the Nehru Place, Delhi event. I am planning a product for digital content distribution and digital content categorization. Would appreciate if i get a chance to attend this event.
• December 13, 2008, Anuradha Y commented: Hey, I would be really interested in attending this event. I head the India center for my tech startup - Amazech (which is into IT Services and then into our own line of products). So I'll sure look forward to Lady Luck favoring me :-). Bye, Anu
• December 13, 2008, Anil Madalgere commented: Hi, Thanks for the initiative, appreciate it. Count me in for the random pick. Regards Anil Madalgere
• December 13, 2008, Anand S commented: I would like to participate the event in Bangalore.
• December 13, 2008, Bhavish commented: I hope i'm not too late. I'm a blogger and tech & entrepreneurial enthusiast in Bangalore. Would definitely go if I get the ticket to the Bangalore session. Thanks, Bhavish
• December 13, 2008, Achal Premi commented: Hello, I recently attended the event in which Bill Gates visited IIT Delhi(Spark a million Dreams). I want to attend this MicroSoft event also. I would like to attend it at Nehru Place.
• July 1, 2009, Ashish S. Jaju commented: Hmmm !! Microsoft seems to be in the right place to catch up with growing startups.. I am gonna attend this anyhow.. Free is always more welcome
• March 5, 2011, syed jalaluddin hussaini commented: hi i am intrested to attend the microsoft events which are held in banglaore but for my surprise that i always get from pune can some one tell me how to get in banglaore events as i stay in bangalroe
• November 10, 2011, D GOPALA RAO commented: Hi, I am very much interested in attending the Bangalore (Domlur) event. Would appreciate if i get a chance to attend this event.

IIT Bombay’s business plan competition Eureka 2008 received about 2000 submissions. The forty finalists have been shortlisted with more than a third (15) coming from the cleantech sector. Besides the regular top 3 winners, two best teams from cleantech will get a chance to present at CMU’s Sustainable Living Biz competition as well.

Check out the list of finalists here.

• Entrepreneurship event – Eureka! 08 at IITB
• Qualcomm Ventures launches QPrize business plan competition
• Symbiosis Institute B-plan competition “Endeavour”

Comments

• November 2, 2010, rishant commented: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” . Paulo Coelho iDEAS - 2011 .Business PLAN Competition organised by TECHKRITI 2011 and E-CELL IIT KANPUR . Just write a business plan and submit it . This act alone makes you different from thousands who dream only and never do anything about it . What you will get if you are selected ? Legal advise , Money , Guidance etc .etc....... Yes . But what you get is actually a chance to realise your dream and very few people get a chance to realise their dream . “journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step “. Take the first step .Write a bplan and submit it in IDEAS 2011. For website visit : http://www.ecelliitk.in/ideas/

The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL), BITS Pilani, is inviting entries for its annual business plan competition – Conquest 2009. 

The competition is open to all students and corporates in the country. It encourages business plans from all industries – IT, Manufacturing, Pharmacy, Health Services, Rural Development, Infrastructure, Biotechnology, Finance & Marketing etc.Prizes of more than INR 3 lakhs and Angel funding opportunities up to 20,000$ are up for grabs.

The deadline for entries is December 12th, 2008.

• Qualcomm Ventures launches QPrize business plan competition
• Cleantech dominates IITB Eureka competiton
• Symbiosis Institute B-plan competition “Endeavour”

Comments

• November 24, 2009, Amit Agarwal commented: Great Work Guys We need more initiatives like these in India. BTW- the link is not working. Regards, Amit

The Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association (SIPA) is organizing their annual event, SIPACON 2008, on November 8th at the HP Auditorium in Palo Alto. The theme of this year’s event is “Social Media & the Enterprise“.

Speakers include:

Ravi Belani (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Justin (Founders Fund), Ross Mayfield (President and co-founder at Socialtext), Andras Boross (CTO, Mobile Clarity), Ramneek Bhasin (CEO, Mobio), Mohan Giridhardas (Senior Partner (Director) at Mckinsey) – full roster can be viewed on their website.

I have two free tickets to give away for the event (regular cost is $39). Leave a comment with your name and the email id (first come first serve basis). Others can avail the tickets at a discounted price of $29, by registering on SIPA’s website and use SIPALIANZ as the promo code.

• Microsoft invite only event for startups – free tickets
• Microsoft startup event winners
• Proto.in scheduled for July 25th at Pune

Comments

• October 17, 2008, Raj commented: Hey, I would love to attend this event. Can I please get 1 ticket :) Thanks, Raj!
• October 17, 2008, Snehal commented: Hi, Can I please get one. Looking forward to going for this event. Thanks a lot in advance. Cheers, Snehal
• October 17, 2008, sushil commented: Hi, Thanks for offering the free tickets. I have been to SIPA events in past. Can I get one. Thanks in advance. Enjoy, Sushil
• October 17, 2008, ajit commented: can I get one?
• October 17, 2008, dhirendra commented: i want new finle
• October 20, 2008, pranav commented: thanks guys for your interest. Raj & Snehal have won the free pass. Everyone else can avail the discounted price of $29 using the special alliance code.
• October 28, 2008, Sanjay commented: Please send request for free tickets to contact@sipa.org. If it becomes available again, tickets will be issued.

Pune based Symbiosis Institute of Business Management is organizing their B-plan competiton (“Pitch Perfect”) as part of their entrepreneurship event, “Endeavor”.

Agenda of the event is:

• Registration opens and Invite Business Pitch Presentations:   10th September – 22nd October 2008

• Announcement of Shortlist -12 Business Pitch Presentations: 7th November 2008

• 480 seconds presentations by the selected teams at SIBM Campus: 15th November 2008

The top 2 teams will get an opportunity to compete for funding of Rs. 50 million and 30 mins to present before the core team of Seed Fund in Mumbai.
Other VC’s attending the event are NEA-IndoUS Ventures, IndiaCo Ventures Ltd.

Additional info can be found at their website: www.sibm.edu/endeavour08

• Qualcomm Ventures launches QPrize business plan competition
• Cleantech dominates IITB Eureka competiton
• Startup Camp at IIT Kharagpur

Comments

• October 4, 2008, Raghu commented: their website says.. the last date was 2nd oct ... and not 22nd oct.... we are a bit late dude :)
• October 4, 2008, Prashant Dadu commented: The date is updated to 22nd-October-2008
• October 4, 2008, pranav commented: @raghu, yeah, they've corrected it now. Looks like a typo on their part ..
• October 5, 2008, Raghu commented: Hi pranav.. you sure must have got some insiders at sibm :)

The submission date for IITB’s business plan competition – Eureka ! is fast approaching.

If you are a startup looking for mentoring, incubation and access to funding, I suggest you submit your application to the competition. Total prize money is about Rs 20 lacs, not to mention the other benefits.

Check out their website here.

• Cleantech dominates IITB Eureka competiton
• TiE-ISB Connect 2008, TiE-Canaan Entrepreneurial Challenge 2008
• TiE-ISB Connect 2007 business plan competition