Interop, Barcamp, Startup Saturdays and more in Mumbai
Monday, 19. October 2009, 07:18:15
So with everytime I go to mumbai, I forget, or almost forget, at least one thing to take with me. This time it was my DVi connector (thing thingy required to connect my Macbook Pro to various projectors). Once I was packed at home, I realized this, and had to drive all the way to office once again to pick it up. 
Plus, just a day earlier, Kingfisher told me that my flight to Mumbai is cancelled
So I had to hustle for Air India to get another Flight to Mumbai. However, everything worked out fine, and now I was on my flight to Mumbai with my trusty DVi connector.
The first event I was there at, was Interop Mumbai. I was speaking there was part of the 'Mobile and Wireless' Track. I spoke on how people all around the world are using the mobile web, and how even though there are differences in the handsets people use around the world (especially between developed countries and developing ones), the kind of sites we visit are very much the same (social networking, search, leisure, etc). Some other presentations I found interesting were from Krishnakumar Avanoor from Shoppers Stop. He presented on what challenges Shoppers Stop encountered with shipping of goods from warehouses to the actual Shoppers Stop showrooms, and how they implemented their in-house IT solution to tackle this problem. One more presentation was more wireless security, where it was explained that WEP wireless networks can be compromised in about 5 minutes. In fact there were two separate presentations by different security companies who did a 'war drive in mumbai, finding out info about wireless networks in the city, and both independently of each other came up with similar figures. Around 15-20% of the networks were completely open, without a password. Around another 20-25% or so were WEP protected, which means that it had really very little security and could be cracked by knowledgeable person within minutes.
There was also a talk by Microsoft. They used a different software for presentations called ‘Pixx’ (if I recall correctly) which had more eye candy, but was for internal use only, so far. First they showed a five minute video montage of what they think technology could help us in the year 2019. It was almost like a happy friendly version of minority report. The video is they showed was basically the ones shown in this video...
They explained how each scene in the montage actually was actually based on some real work research going on right now and that its not that far away in the future that we could have this kind of future with us. The event also had a trade show, and a number of companies had their stalls set up. I went around and found a few good people to talk to. I did have one strange experience there, though. I went to a stall of one of the companies there, because I wanted to talk to the guys there.
I went there, and suddenly a hot booth girl pops up with a mic, asking me some weird question about their company.
Hot Girl: Do you know what <their company's new software> is?
Me: Uhh, I just want to talk to some guys from your company here...
Hot girl: But you have to answer it. You can win some prizes!
Me: Okay, uhh, I have no idea to that answer.
Hot Girl: Okay, I’ll ask another question. Do you know how much <their company's other software> costs?
Me: Uhh....zero?
Hot Girl: Yes, you’re right! You win a USB Drive!
Then she gives me a box. I later open it and it turns out to be a pen, not a USB drive.
But still, I was happy with the pen.
I found that Interop Mumbai was a pretty well organized conference. It was the first time Interop was organized in India, after happening in Las Vegas, New York and Tokyo. It was a great place to meet a fine bunch of very talented people in the IT industry.
I was in town and I had some time to spare before another meeting, so I thought hey, why not attend Startup Saturday Mumbai. It was pretty good to hear from entrepreneurs telling their stories. One of them was Dheeraj Gupta Founder of Jumbo King Food, which is on the way to being an indian version of McDonalds selling completely Indian (fast) food. Jumbo King is poised to have 500 outlets across India by 2010. I found him to be an extremely studious and dedicated guy. He loves to read biographies of famous industrialists in the fast food business. He conducted user studies of people using his product, and made tough decisions about how to proceed after it. Basically, in the user surveys he found that the demographic of people in their late twenties, thirtys and fortys etc had a different idea of what a 'vada pao' was, which dated back to their experience in college back in the day. Jumbo King's vada pao, in a clean setting and a wrapper and all, didnt gel well with their expectation of what a vada pao eating experience should be. So he decided to go specifically after the younger demographic, hoping that when those young peopel grow older, they'll still stick with Jumbo King as their Vada Pao experience has been now shaped by Jumbo King. Once again, as with almost all entruperenuers in India, he complained about the VC community here in India, and how its a major pain to convince them to give them money. Sometimes startups feel frustrated that even after months of chasing around VCs, they get no result.
Finally went to Barcamp Mumbai. This barcamp is also one of my favorites, as the people I meet there are some of the coolest around. I also did my talk, about standards and all (web forms2, canvas, svg, <video>, html5 and css3 in general, etc). I also asked questions in between and gave away t-shirts to the audience to the ones who answered correctly. The session was fun for me to present, and I hope the audience also had fun. I distributed the leftover t-shirts after my talk.
Other talks included a talk by a bright 13 year old kid on blogging, and the CTO of skenzo (a Directi company) on scaling, which was pretty interesting. One more talk, which I missed, but got good reviews, was a talk on high performance computing.
Then came the feedback session. I guess we all had a few differing views on how to make the event even better the next time. Some people called on more students to join. As much a I like students, I don't think bringing in more students will help that much, as usually students do not present. My idea was to promote the idea of barcamps in more organizations so that more people should come. We need more first timers! Especially ones who would present on various topics.
Plus, just a day earlier, Kingfisher told me that my flight to Mumbai is cancelled
So I had to hustle for Air India to get another Flight to Mumbai. However, everything worked out fine, and now I was on my flight to Mumbai with my trusty DVi connector. Interop Mumbai
The first event I was there at, was Interop Mumbai. I was speaking there was part of the 'Mobile and Wireless' Track. I spoke on how people all around the world are using the mobile web, and how even though there are differences in the handsets people use around the world (especially between developed countries and developing ones), the kind of sites we visit are very much the same (social networking, search, leisure, etc). Some other presentations I found interesting were from Krishnakumar Avanoor from Shoppers Stop. He presented on what challenges Shoppers Stop encountered with shipping of goods from warehouses to the actual Shoppers Stop showrooms, and how they implemented their in-house IT solution to tackle this problem. One more presentation was more wireless security, where it was explained that WEP wireless networks can be compromised in about 5 minutes. In fact there were two separate presentations by different security companies who did a 'war drive in mumbai, finding out info about wireless networks in the city, and both independently of each other came up with similar figures. Around 15-20% of the networks were completely open, without a password. Around another 20-25% or so were WEP protected, which means that it had really very little security and could be cracked by knowledgeable person within minutes.There was also a talk by Microsoft. They used a different software for presentations called ‘Pixx’ (if I recall correctly) which had more eye candy, but was for internal use only, so far. First they showed a five minute video montage of what they think technology could help us in the year 2019. It was almost like a happy friendly version of minority report. The video is they showed was basically the ones shown in this video...
They explained how each scene in the montage actually was actually based on some real work research going on right now and that its not that far away in the future that we could have this kind of future with us. The event also had a trade show, and a number of companies had their stalls set up. I went around and found a few good people to talk to. I did have one strange experience there, though. I went to a stall of one of the companies there, because I wanted to talk to the guys there.
I went there, and suddenly a hot booth girl pops up with a mic, asking me some weird question about their company.
Hot Girl: Do you know what <their company's new software> is?
Me: Uhh, I just want to talk to some guys from your company here...
Hot girl: But you have to answer it. You can win some prizes!
Me: Okay, uhh, I have no idea to that answer.
Hot Girl: Okay, I’ll ask another question. Do you know how much <their company's other software> costs?
Me: Uhh....zero?
Hot Girl: Yes, you’re right! You win a USB Drive!
Then she gives me a box. I later open it and it turns out to be a pen, not a USB drive.
But still, I was happy with the pen.
I found that Interop Mumbai was a pretty well organized conference. It was the first time Interop was organized in India, after happening in Las Vegas, New York and Tokyo. It was a great place to meet a fine bunch of very talented people in the IT industry.
Startup Saturday
I was in town and I had some time to spare before another meeting, so I thought hey, why not attend Startup Saturday Mumbai. It was pretty good to hear from entrepreneurs telling their stories. One of them was Dheeraj Gupta Founder of Jumbo King Food, which is on the way to being an indian version of McDonalds selling completely Indian (fast) food. Jumbo King is poised to have 500 outlets across India by 2010. I found him to be an extremely studious and dedicated guy. He loves to read biographies of famous industrialists in the fast food business. He conducted user studies of people using his product, and made tough decisions about how to proceed after it. Basically, in the user surveys he found that the demographic of people in their late twenties, thirtys and fortys etc had a different idea of what a 'vada pao' was, which dated back to their experience in college back in the day. Jumbo King's vada pao, in a clean setting and a wrapper and all, didnt gel well with their expectation of what a vada pao eating experience should be. So he decided to go specifically after the younger demographic, hoping that when those young peopel grow older, they'll still stick with Jumbo King as their Vada Pao experience has been now shaped by Jumbo King. Once again, as with almost all entruperenuers in India, he complained about the VC community here in India, and how its a major pain to convince them to give them money. Sometimes startups feel frustrated that even after months of chasing around VCs, they get no result. Barcamp Mumbai
Finally went to Barcamp Mumbai. This barcamp is also one of my favorites, as the people I meet there are some of the coolest around. I also did my talk, about standards and all (web forms2, canvas, svg, <video>, html5 and css3 in general, etc). I also asked questions in between and gave away t-shirts to the audience to the ones who answered correctly. The session was fun for me to present, and I hope the audience also had fun. I distributed the leftover t-shirts after my talk.Other talks included a talk by a bright 13 year old kid on blogging, and the CTO of skenzo (a Directi company) on scaling, which was pretty interesting. One more talk, which I missed, but got good reviews, was a talk on high performance computing.
Then came the feedback session. I guess we all had a few differing views on how to make the event even better the next time. Some people called on more students to join. As much a I like students, I don't think bringing in more students will help that much, as usually students do not present. My idea was to promote the idea of barcamps in more organizations so that more people should come. We need more first timers! Especially ones who would present on various topics.
WIDGETIZE