Do you know what is confidence....

If somebody asked me What i mean by confidence? I would have been giving some wague answers until i read the article on The Hindu. Its about a More Abled person - Oscar Pistorius. Pistorius a double amputee (legs removed) meaning a disabled person physically but not mentally, because of his confidence and the attitude he used artificial limbs to become the fastest man on earth with no legs. There is a long debate going on, as his aim now is to compete in the Olympics, not the paralympics - that is held for disabled, the Olympics in China. But the IAAF - the federation for athletics is seriously debating on whether to include Oscar. View the below video of him



Now i guess the saying "You are what you think" makes more sense.

Near Field Communication

Today was an easy day as was going through a SQL Server Performance Tuning Training, its was to learn few new things that were otherwise would have been taken for granted. Heard new things (atleast for me) like:

1) Summary Tables concept that has the snapshot of the actual data just for the reporting purposes.
2) Asynchronous Data Queue where an end user could send his request into a queue and the system would notify about his work status after its been completed.

After reaching home, I was browsing through the freebies given in the Proto.in. One of'em was the Information Technology magazine. Its a great magazine and am planning to subscribe to it, it had tones to information would recommend to an aspiring technopreneur. Came across an article on NFC Technology was wondering what it is, its the Near Field Communication technology that is very much similar to Bluetooth or the Wi-Fi but the coverage is just 1 or 2 feets. Could be ideal for interactive advertisements, TV ads where the audience can directly buy products, coffee tables @ cafe fitted with this where the customers can place their mobiles or laptops to connect to internet and its upto the limitations of ones' imagination on the application of this technology. Even am very much interested in this, will try and explore more about it and will share them here. Meanwhile keep sharing and keep learning :)

Day 2 in Proto.in

The day began with Amitabh's India Poised, seeing it for the first time it inspired me a lot. View it down here, it would make every Indian proud and would make him/her strive to make India proud.....


Ok now, about the Day 2 of the D Day, entrepreneurs were waiting to impress VCs, VCs were waiting to find the right partner, Tech Enthus were waiting to try & get most of the day and not to be left behind. It was another gr8 day. We had 22 Ideas/startups/entrepreneurs (what ever you call it) shortlisted out of 100+ entries. You can find out the list of'em here. Out of these the ones that driven me are: 1) tolmolbol.com a cool local city based portal that has everything that a commoner would be needing. 2) buzzworks.co.in 3) britesoft 4) ziva 5) cricko 6) Thinx Works - i need to mention about this one, bcaz they are not tech companies they do CLAY ANIMATION yeah you read it right an animation of this kind I heard / seen for the first time and 7) Minekey. Through out these 2 days myself and Ramesh had been silent spectators, though we did n/w however deep inside we felt some kind of hollowness, its when we decided that this should be our last entrepreneurial event that we attend as mute spectators. If we gonna be present for such an event it should be because either for our presentation or our competitors'. Lets start and have fun. The end of Proto.in 2007 have made a new begining in us :). Thanks Proto.in

ok lets start....

Yes it was indeed a difficult decision for me to start blogging. I used to wonder what does that I have to offer. However today things started to change, I wont say its a sea of change but a new beginging. Today has been very special, meeting so many Entrepreneurs, VCs, Tech Enthus & so many like minded people under single roof....thanks to Proto.in. Yes myself and my friend Ramesh attended Day 1 of this event and looking fwd to Day 2. The atmosphere has been electrifying there. Below are just a gist of things I heared obsorbed today.

Session 1: How to boot strap by sekhar Vembu
To say it in a word its AWESOME. Few points from this wonderful stuff
"Fire in the Belly" is the single most qualifying stuff for a successful enterpreneur nothing else.
If you have decided on starting out a venture just do it, dont attend events (he mentioned proto to :) )
There wont be any Work-Life Balance it would be WORK WORK WORK :)
recommended the Blink book

Session 2: Build to Last by Ashish Gupta from Helion VC
A typical down to earth presentation. Ashish who an entrepreneur turned VC gave wonderful insight into things that can be controled by an entrepreneur and things cannot. BUILD NOW was his tag line.

Session 3: Effective PR by Rohit from Techtribe
This was a real loud one, gave insight on how to tap the media & use it for ur success. Spoke on Timing & Content for the media. WHATS DIFFERENT IN YOUR PRODUCT is what most important for PR !!! Rohit had a cool iPhone and marketed that too ! :)

Session 4: How to pitch to VC by Alok Mittal canaan partners
This covered things sort of what a VC typically expects out of a B Model.

Session 5 - 6: Equity Dilution by SandHill India Advisors. And Valution of a startup by Paresh Patel Sandstone Capital - Kind of good by both'of em spoke germen to some extend to me :)

Session 7: The Chennai Fund by Gopal Srinivasan TiE Chennai
This one was awesome. Nothing was new in his presentation to 90% of the audience however i was in the rest 10%. Spoke about wat TiE does, they mainly do mentoring and valuating your idea and also seed or early funds your venture. Chennai guys make most use of this opp.

Then the much awaited Lunch break came in, and thatz when I found a Biz Delivery Lead from MindTree Consulting and Ramesh found Raj Madhuram from Impiger. We had a good delicious talk. Especially Raj answered questions on how he and his co-founders boot strapped Impiger and so on it was good.

Back after lunch we joined the discussion on Open Source usage, do check in this site FOSS.in. Then a session on how internet has evolved by Ganesh Rengaswamy this one was real good. So, now that we have fallen in love @ first sight with entrepreneurship lets wait and see how long does it takes for the marriage :)