* A 22 year old who has 5 startups to his credit...
* Truck-loads of Start-ups such as Aggregatorz.com,Novix,realAcres.com
* CXOs of companies such as iXiGO.com, Creative Commons
* Have a cup of coffee with the Business Heads of SUN and IBM
* Angel-Funder's such as Mahesh Murthy giving an introduction on what they look in a company before investing
* Junta talking about their crazy ideas and how they won an Apple IPOD cause of it.
* Sessions on Jumpstarting your startup.
everything in only one place ... the Mumbai Barcamp2 recently held at IIT-Bombay.
If you are those kinds who say "what the hell is BARCAMP" ... refer to the site Barcamp before you read ahead
Myself and my friend had gone over there to research for our topic upon ISVs and the SME sector (in the IT industry of course) and i must say that we were as surprised as Ali-baba after he mumbled "open sesame".
Not only did we get to have a lively discussion with Mr Bakshish Dutta,the marketing manager for SUN's start-up essential program(the event sponsorers too) how they could forge across newer contacts with startups and ISV(Independent Software Vendors) who would later on decide on a required collaboration with SUN; but also came across many IT employees who were looking forward for such conferances to get a feel of the latest technologies and in the end also decide if they want to join any of the startups.
So how is everything in this un-conferance as it is named ORGANIZED ??
The moment you enter into the halls (there are 4 concurrent sessions happening) and you shall be greeted with this Board, riddled with Stick-ons announcing the speaker and his topic...
if you like it you go ahead and involve yourself in the brain-storming else you simply go ahead to the adjoining parralel session.
Also, this open format means that if you have an idea and want to thrash it out.. then go ahead take out a Stick-on and write your name and idea and utilize one of those free spaces(if any)
For those who believe in out-doors we also have a coffee table, wherin people just hang around (in a circular fashion) each holding a cup of coffee and a brilliant idea in their brain and voila you have a great conversation.
A few things i really loved : The totally informal methodology of brain-storming, there is absolutely no issue of patents or information rights which are discussed. Everyone comes with an open problem or idea and others simply add on their suggestions and opinions.
A few things i think can be improved : The entire conferance was essentially IT based; given the fact that most of the start-ups are web-related and the entire show was over-whelmed by 200 IT junkies looking for the next happening thing.. there wasn't even a glimpse of other fields.
So the next time, some one says "BARCAMP" do not raise your glasses and says cheers but rather put on your thinking hats and hop on to this discovery channel.
Other links :
http://startupcentral.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/barcamp-mumbai-2/
http://www.livemint.com/2007/10/15234644/More-on-entrepreneurship-less.html
http://barcamp.org/BarCampMumbai2
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