UPA Hyderabad opens arms to The Knowledge Foundation

Hi Folks here is some good news that i would like to share with you. UPA Hyderabad  has invited TKF to be a part of their event held at hyderabad on 13 October 2006 as a part of inauguration of Usability forum. Their Chairperson Mr. Sameer Chavan has sent a personal invitation to TKF asking us to be a part of the event. He wanted to have a link exchange and sharing of expertise and resources across both organizations. This kind of opening of doors to other organizations will greatly enhance our visibility as well as network us better in the technology world. I am terribly enthused by this invitation and look forward to being at hyderabad on Oct. 13 congratulating Sameer for the great work he is doing.

Personal Website & Blog Design Competition

The Hyderabad Chapter of UPA has announced a competition to recognize aesthetics and usability of personnel web sites & Blogs.

There are two main competiton categories:

Best Personal Web site, All India category: This category is open to all Indian designers residing in any part of India.

Best Blog, All India Category: This category is open to all resident Indian residing in any part of India.

Rules and regulations
1) The competition will be judged by a jury decided by UPA hyderabad Board and also by online voting. Submitted entries will be displayed for online voting from 5th Oct to 10th Oct .

2) For Web Sites: Creativity, Usability, Content, Popularity, accessibility, Resources etc

3) For Blogs : Quality of the Content, Frequency of updation, Customization of the Blog, Popularity, aesthetics, usability, Incoming and outgoing links & referrals

You can take part in the competition by submitting your website or blog or by mailing hte URLs to to upahyderabad (At) yahoo.com. Last date is October 5th.

To know more about him Check him at this link  Sameer Chavan  . BTW Sameer i have always appreciated Steve krug and the like of similar usability professionals and i look forward to sharing knowledge with others at this event. Happy Holidays !

Tags: UPA, hyderabad, usability, professionals, TKF, the, knowledge, foundation, syed, nazir, razik, sameer, chavan, forum, technology, web, design

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PROTO - The Next big Technology thing to hit India

Post Blog camp fever the Knowledge Foundation team has been huddling their heads together on plans about putting together an event, somewhat similar to DEMO, where we can get some fascinating ideas together on stage with working prototypes and pre-releases, bring the public there, and invite the VC circles there. The demo of the technology , depending on how well it resonates with the audience will give the VC a good perspective on how relevant the product is, and how well the team is capable of conveying their story - which might drive the VCs to invest in them, and it will help the small companies which are struggling to get some exposure.

With a lot of VCs here in India, and news about over-investments all over the place, and sadly all the good companies getting too few notice, it might be something worthwhile. Chennai could use an event like this, since the whole technology space really does need a boost. If it does pick up, it has potential to spawn, just like barcamp or whatever. It cant be an unconference, as there has to be a set of entrepreneurs and VCs (I am sure TIE will be happy to be part of it) to screen the technologies, and make sure that the pitches are compelling enough and help them brush up, but it could be fun nevertheless. TIECON is happening at the second week of December.  Nonetheless it is a great idea and might serve as a great alternative / complement to TIE,  ISB connect which is happening currently which is platform in which VC’s have more say

What would PROTO be?

A PROTO is totally different thing when compared to a Barcamp or a Blogcamp which could be done as where one can contribute whenever they can. It is different not only in the way it is conducted or organized but also in its core philosophy. A barcamp or a blogcamp is fundamentally inclusive but a PROTO is to its core exclusive and that is what constitutes to its popularity. Not every company that applies to PROTO get to present there , there is a screening team which does a thorough job of making sure that only the best of the products gets to reach to PROTO. We might have to think through some of these things while we plan ahead for PROTO. There will be a screening committee put together, and only products that are mature enough, have the relevance with the audience - or founders/presenters who have the capability to present a radically new idea to an audience will be permitted to demo. Now PROTO charges each individual company that presents, and yet i am not sure, but maybe also the audience that attends there. If we could get it done via sponsor, all the best, but if we charge some amount from the companies, it will ensure that they are committed, and there will be a threshold that will eliminate a lot of people who want to demo the program they wrote yesterday night. There is going to be a lot more work involved in this, and the videos / demos have to be very professionally organized. But, its just one step ahead, of what we have accomplished in bar/blogcamp

Will PROTO Take off ?

Our one major concern will be to evaluate about radical new ideas/products/technology but are there enough new radical ideas in India. I have been trying to look out for radical ideas in India and there are only very few names that comes to my mind. No doubt that entrepreneurship is on the rise in India and one gets to see web 2.0 companies springing up everywhere but most of them are what can be called YAFO companies (yet another fad opportunity) basically a concept successful elsewhere and just copied in India to meet a market gap (Bazee kind of companies). We might have to think about if we will have enough participation if we restrict ourselves to radical ideas. But then radical could be a very subjective word and also I could have not been exposed to many ideas that is the reason for me to think that ways. I think now would be a good opportunity to ask the group to name few radical companies that are based out of India.

Focus will be on to as services oriented companies such as TCS and such could be asked to attend. Putting them on the frontpage, gives a totally different wrapper around this whole thing. Microsoft, for starters is a good one to pursue. There are a whole bunch of VC firms in and around India (personally know a few) and let’s leverage organizations that are crucial parts of an "entrepreneurship and innovative" community…

Why PROTO in Chennai ?

Everyone one of us is aware that there are quite a few very interesting companies based out of bangalore. The curse with any bangalore-based company is that they are all on "stealth" mode. We can make a list of companies, and we will need to send them a notice soon, asking them to get a product ready to be "demo capable", atleast a month before the event, so that we all get a chance to look at it, and if it doesnt make the cut, look at other companies. The first event, we will have to be lenient… not too lenient hopefully, with the perfection of the pitch.

What would be interesting, is if we go a bit beyond India, and also scan for companies around us, in Singapore, Malaysia, etc etc. Rajan is thinking about it, and in a sense, we do want to give our companies exposure, but at the sametime, I think some just don’t know who their competition is and what they are competing against. Putting them face to face with their nemesis, will do quite a bit of good for them. That’s my thought.

Venuewise, we will need a place that can really catch the buzz. A place where anybody who is fascinated about what the next generation of lifestyle is going to be, can walk in. IIT, as much as I can get permission for this, is a bit too inside and wouldnt get much attention - unless we can do enough marketing buzz around it to cover up for it, trading for the prestige that goes with IIT. Hunting is on to find if there are any big avenues in the middle of the Chennai city, such as Nungambakkam or so?

One major concern raised by Syed was how to involve everyone who was a part of the blogcamp team to participation in PROTO. We need to strike a balance there - Think big and very very professional, like TED ( www.ted.com) and have the involvement of everyone. Even though, we’ll need to put together a team and committee to screen through companies and products, we still need to put together the event. Screening is going to be the very least of the process compared to all the other stuff that needs to go on. Plus, as part of the screening process, there will be a team which will go meet the companies (if possible) and perhaps have an interview with them and their team. That should make for some very interesting podcasting sessions. Plus the mingling of professionals with various dreams and aspirations, will be an amazing asset to those of us who are running among limited circles of the entrepreneurial spirit. If we want to go a complete "unconference" mode, then PROTO Camp is not a bad idea to follow - problem is that, you wont be getting any general audience, and it will just be barcamp with lots and lots of demos.

I am assuming at least 150 days of preparation for an event like this. And among the list of invitees, one that comes to mind, is Marissa Mayer of Google, the Product Manager for the company. Think profiles like that, and discussions we could have about the future of technology, add the dash of indian context to it, and it should make for one heck of an event. We need to list categories of technologies we are going to focus on. Volunteers pls pitch in …

Our Objectives

OK Enough of the talking folks lets us sum up on this initiative of The Knowledge Foundation. As was said by vijay in the right context about TKF "Our motives are different, our momentum is different, and we are basically the next wave of India’s future. We have no financial benefits that come out of it. We try to pool people together, connect them by dots, and have a blast at doing it" .

Will someone wonder how to get involved? Well, think a combination and blog camp, bar camp done twice more elegantly (that is going to be tough to achieve, but we can get there). We are going to need all the people we need, to cover all the angles. So if you are interested then join us by mailing me or commenting here.

Tags: Proto, demo, chennai, technology, syed, vijay, kiruba, rajan, adel, ganesh, jaggy, aswin, narain, startup, product, beta, tryout, platform, encase, lifestyle

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Fact finding trip to Mayilaaduthurai

Before getting started, let’s look at these major terminologies associated with the project, because at moments we ourself got confused about these even after having much discussions.

TeNet:

Formed by a group of like-minded professors at the IIT, Madras, the TeNeT Group has conducted extensive research on the issues involved in providing connections to small towns and rural areas. Apart from these, it also involves in providing online consultancy to farmers, medical diagnostic kit production in association with its partners and also create revenue generation models for rural India.

TeNeT is focused mainly on meeting the technology needs of developing countries and one of the significant outputs of its research is corDECT. Its mission include to transform communication in India by enabling
- 200m telephones & 50m broadband connections
- Connect every village to double rural per capita GDP
- Set next generation wireless standards
- Drive a couple of billion dollar product companies
- High quality distance education for rural areas

CorDECT:

All the LSP ’s (Local service providers) and its associated kiosks are supported by CorDECT . CorDECT is an advanced Wireless Access system designed keeping the economic realities of a country like India in mind. Midas Communication Technologies and IIT, Madras have developed it, in association with Analog Devices, USA. The corDECT air interface supports 10 km’s of line-of-sight connectivity and has the provision to extend this to 25 km’s using Repeaters.

N-Louge communications (P)Ltd:

Internet and telecommunication provider, launched by IIT-TeNet to serve the information and communication needs of people living in small towns and rural areas of India. The company has developed a three-tiered business model that enables it to fulfill its mission based on the belief that delivery and management of Internet services should devolve to the level of the supply chain that comes closest to the user of the service. This decentralized model of operation draws, in large part, from the success of cable TV operations in India.

a) At the top level is n-Logue, which provides equipment, training and support to the LSPs and kiosks, and also takes care of regulatory and connectivity issues.
b) At the second level, n-Logue identifies and partners with a local entrepreneur (also called a Local Service Provider or LSP) in every area it wishes to operate.These LSPs find subscribers, provide services and collect payments.
c) At the bottom level are the village kiosks, which provide services and information aimed at the rural market. With the help of n-Logue, the LSPs recruit the local entrepreneurs who set up the kiosks. Thus there are up to three business entities involved in the operation - n-Logue, the LSP and a kiosk operator.

Chiraag:

Chiraag which means "enlightment" refers brand name of LSP’s. Each LSP’s have the following equipments:

A leased Internet connection to the nearest Internet gateway
A 60’ tower with multiple CBSs to transmit the corDECT signal
A DIU and RAS for routing Internet and voice data
Radius, NAT and DNS servers
Software to bill customers on a monthly basis and track the payments.
Chiraag also provide services in Education, Agriculture, E-commerce, E-governance, VoIP, DTP, Astroservices, browsing and some other online & offline services.

Village Kiosks:

With the assistance of n-Logue and the financial support from the State Bank of India, the LSPs recruit local entrepreneurs to set up and run village-based information kiosks. These kiosk owners are typically locally based men or women who have at least a 12th Standard education, and demonstrate the ability and motivation to run their own business. Each village kiosks has following equipments to the minimum,

Wall Set that receives the wireless corDECT signal
Branded PC with 15” color monitor
Computer peripherals including speaker, microphone, CD-ROM, digital camera, inkjet
Printer and sound card
UPS with battery providing 4 hours of back-up power for PC
All required cabling
An application suite consisting of word-processing, browsing and email software all
in local language as well as English.

22September2006(10.00PM):

As planned in our earlier meeting at Coffee Day, our five member team
Syed- http://orione.wordpress.com
Ragavan- http://nontechie.wordpress.com
Vignesh- www.vicky.in
Sugumar — http://srilux.blogspot.com
Ravi - http://jatropha.blogspot.com

We left Chennai from Tambaram in Tambaram-Mayilaaduthurai Fast Passenger with full of hope to study the feasibility of TeNet-n-Louge project. The entire journey was peppered with discussions on what could be done and how it could be done until 1 am in the morning as we were nearing the destination.

23September2006(5.30AM):

We reached Mayilaaduthurai and headed to Hotel Silambu.

8.00AM:TKF team members had a formal introducton, discussion and break-fast with Ms.Saloni ( our Tenet Liason for the Trip and head of Rural BPO project for Tenet) also Mr.David ,a Chennaitee who works with the centre.

9.00AM: Saloni took us to the Chiraag access centre(LSP) and we met one of one of the staff, Mr.Ashok at first and he explained the functioning of the village KO’s and access centre.

9.45AM: We met Mr.Vijay Iyer who heads the centre and he elaborated about services the rendered by Chiraag. With him a plan was made on how we will take up the task of the interaction with the rural kiosks for the entire day , we planned to visit the following Kiosk’s of which we could visit only three centres.All the village kiosk’s are located within 10km radius from the LSP (access centre-corDECT).

1) Kuthaalam-Mr.Swaminathan
2) Railadi-Mr.Saravanan
3) Theradi-Ms.Amalorpavam
4) Semmanarkovil-Ms.Vennila
5) Punganoor-Mr.Nazroodin
6) Arasur-Mr.Ilayabharathi.

Chiraag-Infocomm-Internet&telephony centre(LSP):

Here, we look at the access centre or LSP of Mayilaadurai.The following information was gathered from the technical engineer of the centre-Mr.Saravavanan who has a diploma in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Chiraag in tie up with ITC boosts Agarbatthi production among ill-literate as a revenue generation model. The centre has equipped with 2 systems with net connection, 2 systems without connection,2UPS, 2digicams,Genset,2Webcams,2Printers,CD writer, reader.
Bandwidth: 35kbps; Phone service: Reliance.

10.30AM-We started our kiosk visit in 2 autos accompanied with Mr.Ashok kumar (N-Louge project associate) who holds a management degree and Ms.Saloni.

Kiosk-01-app.11.15PM-

It was the first kiosk at Kuthaalam, which is being run by Mr.Swaminathan who holds a Diploma in Electrical and Electronics communications.He is also a cameraman and he runs this kiosk along with his own electrical shop in the front. The kiosk is equipped with 2 systems, scanner, printer, CD writer, and web cam.
The centre is utilized by the near by ONGC staff and public. The centre is located in the proximity of 8 schools of which two are higher secondary schools including 2 matriculation schools and a engineering college.

Kiosk-02-app.12.oopm-

Here we had a ideal lady who fits in to our policies. She gave us the hope that we can take up the project. Goes by the name Amalorpavam, she seems to be rocking in the field of e-governance. She holds a B.com., degree, and deals regularly with government officials like IAS officers, Dhasildhar and other officers through web cam and tries to solve public illness.

The centre has single system, scanner, webcam and printer.The main feature about her is that she is in to this field fully without any other side business like some others and she is from the place called Theradi which is located on the way to Kutraalam from Mayilaadurai.

But we bound to loss this promising lady as she has got a government job in a far away place from this center and she will be moving to that place shortly.So,this centre will be managed by her brother who completed ITI and also who is a major supporting factor for Ms.Amalorpavam.

Kiosk-03-app12.30pm—

This centre is being managed by Mr.Saravanan who is running a type writing institute , DTP centre and a provisional store in the front ,one of the reliable customer for the access centre in terms of payment and other factors when he was having connection some time back and now he is having 2 systems without connection and Fax,,..

He holds M.sc.,B.Ed.,PGDCA,MHMP,DFT and also into his doctorate and seems to be over enthusiastic for the project if it will earn him money .He was working as a data entry operator in a Tamil Daily called “Daily thandhi”some time back.So he has good contact with the local reporters. He has authored many short stories and articles on temple History,,,.. which in total amounts to 300.

Back to access centre—1.00PM-

After slight refreshment, we continued our discussions with Mr.Iyer for about 30 minutes. He shared the success stories of the access centre and weekly visit made by couple of the district IAS officers and other government officials like DSP and their interactions with the rural kiosks and follow-up actions made on some of their problems and we also happen to meet some other Kiosk operators, they were,

Mr.Venkatramani-Aruvapaalayam
Mr.Sendhil kumar-Photographer and also doing Agarbatthi business
Mr.Sivakumar-who is doing CAD training.

App.1.30PM —

We moved back to the hotel for lunch .After a heavy lunch, we had a very hot discussion and argument in the hotel for about one hour on
Kiosk operators, their potential, expectancy and revenue generation,,..

Afternoon-3.15pm—-

We met Ms.Vennila from Semmanar kovil .We as usual started explaining her about Computer, Internet, Blogging.,,,but at the end we came to know she holds a B.E., Degree in IT and she seems to have come across some blogs. She is the one who is teaching basics of computers and its operation to the kiosk operators .She also seems to be promising

Apart from these operators, myself and Ragavan happen to meet some other kiosk operators who had been to the accessing center on that day for their personal reasons.We found some are capable for this project apart from those operators whom we had been directed to meet.

App.3.45-4.45PM—Again we had interaction with Mr.Iyer ..

App.after 5.30pm—We got back to the hotel and rested for about 2 hours. We have discussed about internet and basics of blogging, content creation,,…with all the kiosk operators we came across.

8.00PM—TKF hosted dinner to the Tenet group and Mr.Iyer at Hotel Silambu.

9.00PM—Post dinner after bidding pleasantries to our local host Vijay we moved back to the Mayilaadurai station from the hotel.

9.30Pm—The entire team got into the train with so many unanswered questions in the
minds.
24Sep06-5.30AM-The team reached Tambaram station and we moved back to home .

Some observations made by the team:

1) Connectivity is very slow. So we lost our interest in live blogging from the spot.
2) We found very few promising operators for the project.
3) Revenue generation is not possible at present since the content also will be primarily in Tamil , regardless of its translation in the future.
4) It would be fine if we can arrange a meeting with all the kiosk operators affiliated with the LSP. So that we can come out with some more able operators. Hope Mr.Iyer will make this Possible for the second fact finding team which will be visiting the kiosk’s next month.

Lot more has to be discussed with the whole (15 member) team in the next meeting. Lets hope The Almighty will be on our side and lead us in the right path!!!

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TED

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TeNet and TKF kickstart N-logue !

Hi folks, We are going to mayiladuthurai tonight to conduct the feasibility study on the N-logue project today We have Vignesh, sasi, raghavan, sukumar and me are leaving tonight and the home base coordination will be done by Sunil .  We will be doing some blogging onsite from there  possibly photoblogging  and some audio podcasting with rural india (Mera watan) and if possible some orientation with the KO team. Once we are back  we will have a feedback session  with the knowledge foundation before meeting at IIT Chennai with the TeNet group. All coordination with Saloni and Falguni has been done and we are set to go. Mayillu…. here we come. 

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Rural Content Project between TeNet & The Knowledge Foundation MOM

Minutes of meeting held on Date: 20^th Sep’06,6.30pm to 8.00pm,Café Coffee Day, Adyar

People Present:

Syed, Sunil, Raghavan, Sukumar, Balaji, Mahir, Vicky, Ganesh APP, Kausik, Baggy, Sankar Pandian, Ravi Shankar.

 

 

Key Points Discussed

1. Syed updated everyone on the project as per interactions with TeNet.
2. Group was very positive of supporting the pilot project for 5 villages in Mayiladuthurai area.
3. Team of 5 people will visit Mayiladuthurai on 23^rd Sep’06. These are – Syed, Raghavan, Vicky, Ravi & Sukumar. The main agenda of the visit is –
4. 1. To understand the rural kiosks environment
   2. Evaluate feasibility and Try live blogging while at Kiosks
   3. Conduct a project overview to 5 selected Kiosks operators
5. Another visit will be made in Oct’06.
6. During coming days teams will be formed for handling various aspects of the project.
7. The key areas to be handled are –
8. 1. Backend Blog Admin Team (For server config, design and tool integration)
   2. Blogging team for training KO on content generation, Interaction with selected Kiosks, Team with TeNet
   3. KO Mentors
   4. Photoblogging, video blogging technical Coordination team
   5. Steering Committee on Overall project Management

1. It was agreed that at all stages proper documentation will be maintained and this project will be showcased to PMI for adhering to global standards and processes being followed.
2. It was suggested that next meeting could be held in TeNet premises, mid-next week.

Tags: the knowledge foundation, n-logue, iit, digital, divide, meeting, technology, information, rural, poor

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Some great feedback and leads for the success of Blog Camp

Following the Blog Camp 2006 the core team has been flooded with offers to avail expertise on Various projects and we jumped the gun on the N-Logue project teaming up with TeNet (IIT Chennai) as many of us related it to a high priority task and need of the hour for Rural India. But we do have initiatives on the offers that have come our way and we would like to take them up as and when we could avail sizable resource to it. Outline here are 3 offers that we received apart from N-logue. And Kiruba has also received his share of offers on Barcamp Chennai 2007 and FOSS Chennai. We will Keep you all updated. It cannot get better than this!

1.

srikondoji@ebulawa.com
URL : http://www.enewss.com

Hi syed,

I have received very positive and encouraging feedback from anand (who represented enewss) at blogcamp chennai. We really appreciate giving us the oppurtunity to be associate sponsor.

Also one more aspect that arise out of my discussion with anand was to kick start the same euphoria witnessed at chennai in Hyderabad.

We would like to start in a small way in hyderabad. Could you help us in this effort?

Please let us know, if anyone else has already started this effort in Hyderabad, if not we will be more than happy to do there.

Any help/transfer_of_knowldedge will be highly appreciated and duly recognized.
Please email us at srikondoji@ebulawa.com

Thanks
sri

2.

Sir,

Im Azhar on behalf of Malaysian students who love blogging everyday.

Congrats, to all BlogCamp India committees. I found your website after the unconference finish. What a wrong time… Anyway, i go through your programmed website, and i cant find any paper or article on conference session. Can i get the soft copies? Love to read all knowledge.

Another things, in Malaysia, we also have a club similar like India. It is Geng Jurnal or in English, The Journal Gang. http://www.jurnal.biz. I like to know more how to organize similar blog camp here. Could you give some advise?

Hope to hear from you soon.
Bye.
Regards,

Nor Azhar Bin Ahmad
Master Student’s In Bioinformatics
d/a PM Abd Manan Ahmad
Faculty of Computer Science and Information System
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
81310 UTM Skudai
Johor Darul Takzim, MALAYSIA
Office Tel : +6075532359/32360
Office Fax : +6075532201/65044
Internet Fax : 00-1-775-860-8040
Mobile : +60177562052
Website : http://azharahmad.com
Blog : http://azharahmad.com/blog/

3. We have receive offers to present in the OnMedia Conference at New York

Hello Friend of AlwaysOn,

We wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to provide us with your program input for OnMedia, AlwaysOn’s new executive event focusing on the disruption of marketing, advertising, branding, and PR! The event will be held on January 29th-31st at the Mandarin Hotel in New York City.

Check out our program plans below and let me know what you think. Our goal is to make OnMedia the most powerful executive event of its kind in the heart of the media capital of the world.

OnMedia is where cutting-edge technology CEOs from companies such as YouTube, Technorati, MySpace and Quigo meet the advertising and media establishment. This two-and-a-half day industry insider event features high-level debates on which forces are disrupting and creating new opportunities in marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations. OnMedia also showcases 50 "top innovator demos" from CEOs who are revolutionizing the way media is being created, distributed, and consumed.

Here’s Who We’re Inviting:

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

8:30 am � 9:30 am
Are There Chinks in Google’s Advertising Armor?
•  Iggy Fanlo, CEO, AdBrite
•  Larry Braitman, CEO, Adify
•  Gurbaksh Chahal, CEO, Blue Lithium
•  Mike Yavonditte, CEO, Quigo
•  Lance Podell, CEO, Seevast

9:30 am � 10:15 am
Track A—Top Innovator Demos: Mobile Marketing & Advertising
Demo Review by Industry Experts

Track B—Workshop: Become a Power Blogger
Power bloggers share their recipe for building reputation and audience. Learn the strategies and tactics that worked for them, and could help you build your power base.
•  Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine
•  Steve Rubel, MicroPersuasion
•  Michael Aringtonm, TechCrunch

10:15 am � 10:30 am—Break

10:30 am � 11:15 am
Track A—Top Innovator Demos: Online Advertising Service Providers
Demo Review by Industry Experts

Track B—Workshop: Manage Your Online Media Buy
There’s more to buying ads online than choosing which adwords to buy. Join the CEOs of startups with successful new buying approaches for publishers and advertisers.

11:15 am � Noon
Top Innovator Demos: Public Relations Firm Pitch Competition
Demo Review by Industry Experts

Noon � 1:45 pm—Lunch
Lunch Panel: What is Consumer-Generated Media Worth?
•  Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
•  Tom McInerney, CEO, Guba
•  Chris de Wolfe, founder, MySpace

1:45 pm � 2:30 pm
What are the Blogosphere Numbers Telling Us?
•  Pete Blackshaw, CMO, Nielsen BuzzMetrics
•  Dave Sifry, CEO, Technorati
•  Joe Davis, CEO, Coremetrics
•  Joshua James, CEO, Omniture

2:30 pm - 3:15 pm
Track A—Top Innovator Demos:
In-Content (Gaming, Audio, Video) Advertising
Demo Review by Industry Experts

Track B—Workshop: Learn What’s GoingOn
GoingOn is a network of networks. Learn how this new open web publishing and community management platform can benefit your company.

3:15 pm - 4:00 pm
Track A—Top Innovator Demos: Technology Enablers
Demo Review by Industry Experts

4:00 pm � 4:15 pm—Break

4:15 pm � 5:00 pm
Track A—Top Innovator Demos: Community Platforms
Demo Review by Industry Experts

5:00 pm � 6:00 pm
Can Brands Get Away with "Buzz Marketing" in the Blogosphere?
•  Steve Rubel, SVP, Edelman PR
•  Buzzer
•  Pitchfolks
•  Ogilvy PR

6:00 pm � 9:00 pm
Reception: Top of the Rock
Featured Entertainment/Presentation TBA—Big Name

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

8:30 am � 9:30 am
How Can Advertisers Go Mobile?
Featuring: Endemol, Weather.com, and a leading mobile handset maker.

9:30 am � 10:15 am
Track A—Top Innovator Demos: Web & Blog Analytics & Research
Demo Review by Industry Experts

Track B—Workshop: Engage Contagious Behavior
Engaging contagious behavior is something of value to all tech companies, not just the few like MySpace, YouTube, and FireFox. This workshop will jump-start your efforts.

10:15 am � 10:30 am—Break

10:30 am � 11:15 am
Track A—Top Innovator Demos:
Demo Review by Industry Experts

Track B—Workshop: Harness Web Analytics to Your Advantage
Are you confident that you’re making the most out of your web analytics? Do you know what analytics can drive your business advantage? This workshop will show you how.

11:15 am � Noon
Top Innovator Demos: Advertising Agency Pitch Competition
Demo Review by Industry Experts

Noon � 1:30 pm—Lunch
Lunch Panel: Is It Possible to Achieve "Brand
Engagement" in a One-to-One Online Environment?
Featuring: Brandimensions, AOL, McCann, and Daimler Chrysler

1:30 pm � 2:30 pm
How Long Will Search Keyword-Based Advertising Dominate?
Featuring: Ask.com, Yahoo, and Google

2:30 pm - 3:15 pm
Top Innovator Demos: Next Generation Search
Demo Review by Industry Experts

3:15 pm � 4:00 pm
How Much is the New Dotcom Worth?
Featuring: Battery Venture, Venrock, Deliva & Phillips, and Veronis Suhler

POSSIBLE PANEL: What is the Best Strategy to Get Your Brand in the Game?
Featuring: Massive, Electronic Arts, IGN Network, OMD, and Shockwave.com

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The Knowledge Foundation and N-Logue Project !

Hi all, As promised we couldn’t hold the meeting over last weekend owing to tied up schedules and personal commitments for most of us and also the fact that this was the first weekend that we lay off after working constantly for the last 6 Sundays for the Blog Camp. All of us needed the break. But the developments happening cannot wait so let me post what this entire project of the tie up between The Knowledge Foundation and N-Logue is all about.

N- Logue project is run by the TeNet Goup in IIT Madras under Dr. Ashok Jhujhunwalla. The project is managed by Mr. Falguni, Ms. Saloni and Ms. Aarthi from TeNet.

About

The Project is about empowering the rural India to create digital content showcasing our native culture heritage and age old history and to preserve tradition of the people.

N-logue is also about bridging the digital divide and about creating an awareness among rural masses to take to blogging to make their voices heard across India.

N-Logue aims to showcase our expertise and craftsmen from rural India to the world and thereby create a source of commercial interest for such underprivileged masses. It is about providing recognition to such hidden talent and to ensure that relevant organizations take preventive and protective measures to preserve such talent pool from extinction.

Outline

N-logue aims to create a lot of kiosks (nodal points) across all villages in India. These kiosks will basically be connected to the Internet and will be equipped with connectivity and system with a web cam and camera. These kiosk will typically be manned by an operator who will act as the news aggregator of that village. Apart from running the kiosks these operators (KO) will also be news generator for the village.

How

We should find an active kiosk who has a reasonably smart (class XII graduate) person who has a flavor of writing. We would like her / him to prepare a story about his / her village every day (25 days a month) and post it to us (we will edit and put it on our site). The story could be on anything: news from village, interview of a person, about different people (profiling), about agriculture in village, school, water, disease and health care, crafts and skills, about shops, about government officers in village, politics in village, culture, festivals, about reaction to films and TV shows in village, electricity, lighting, roads, any other thing. We expect the person to generate 4 to 5 page story and have one photograph associated with the article.

This will be TeNeT sponsored work.

The role of The Knowledge Foundation

The Knowledge Foundation will work along with TeNet on the N-Logue Project using our team in educating the pilot group of 5 villages and their KO’s on the how to blog, We will form a team that will set the platform and the site where we can do this entire activity on a separate domain.

Ideas

1.We define areas in which stories can be sent

2. To begin with we also give a pool of ideas that they should write on - as we move on they can add their own topics.

3. The 5 KOs could probably start a group blog - which is easy to use and maintain in both English and Tamil. Also they can easily add photo’s and audio/ video files to the blog.

4. We can make sure some of us read these stories and comment on a regular basis to keep these people motivated.

5. A one day basic training on how to blog can be provided to these KOs. This one day training can be provided hands on at site on the village itself. (Volunteers Please let us know..)

6. Subsequent training, assistance or interaction can be provided by using the bandwidth and connectivity that TeNet has with all these villages as a separate dedicated network which can be used to do live Video casting too..

7. A lot of support would be required from readers to encourage these people, that means a lot of need to blog about it - though money would be a major motivating factor, I think the recognition will also play an important role.

Points to be kept in mind during the entire hand holding process will be …

a. We should also look at what data would be attractive to marketers and involves creativity .. for example … tracking aspiration levels with different age groups can give insights into popular brands and their positioning ..

b. Focus will be also towards descriptive accounts of popular events would help identify the best times and place to run marketing campaigns.

c.One more topic we should encourage is movies - since it is a very popular form down south.

We invite more ideas as of now from our Bloggers Group Pls write to us…

For an initial hands on couple of us are planning to go to the village this weekend to conduct feasibility study and to do a Blog of one day in the life at the village. Interested people pls get in touch immediately as we need to book the tickets for the trip. We leave on Friday night reach there in the morning spend the entire day with the villagers (Bring your gadgets guys) record events, maybe try to blog, photoblog, videocast right from there to evaluate bandwidth and other issues and start back to chennai on saturday night so that we are back on sunday morning at chennai.

I feel this will be more meaningful side to our entire blogging community and look forward to an interesting and soul filling experience.

Work to do

1. First we need to set up The Knowledge Foundation Web site up and running and a blog installed so that all this can go there.

2. Next we need to design a very basic blog where we can bring all these content and start activity for all these villages

3. We need the techies to generate absolutely simple training material so that its easy to start all these KO’s on blogging.

Whoever wants to pitch in please let us know before 20th. evening so that we could do the relevant arrangements. We want to restrict the group to minimum bcos its initial fact finding trip only and regional blogger’s are the need of the hour.!

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/33154

Tags: N-Logue, knowledge, foundation, digital, divide, rural, india, blog camp, blogging, bloggers, blog, villages

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If HOPE is time, then how long we need to hold our investments ?

I heard a gentleman throwing lot of ideas on the subject of "Hope" in life. I was then seriously looking at the dimension of HOPE with regard to investments.

In life, there are areas where we have total control & areas where we have no or little control.

Someone buys a real estate property in a remote location. Mobilising funds to buy and doing the needful to own the property is under his/her control. But generating return out of the investment made is certainly beyond his/ her control. The individual just is on a HOPE….. that it will appreciate in value over time.

I buy a stock, upon thorough analysis. Funds, adequate information, at what price to buy all these things are in my control. But I cling to the rope of HOPE…… when it comes to the return aspect. Hoping that xyz company will deliver solid returns.

I buy a mutual fund. I can choose the brand, texture of the fund and things like that. But I keep HOPE….. on the fund manager to make me happy.

I board an investment vehicle, hoping that it will beat inflation and still give me a decent value for money. HOPE again !

If that is the case, is HOPE time ?Looks like ! But HOPE till when ?

On Investments HOPE is something tricky. Some people invest and keep waiting hoping for better and better returns. This is disgusting. Isn’t it ? Have a clear goal, invest for reaching that goal & be clear on the rate of return. Once we get the desired appreciation do not HOPE for greater returns. Instead protect the appreciation and reach your goal.

Tags: financial management, hope, investment, funds, real estate, india, ganesh, syed, nazir, razik, stock, planning

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Forthcoming Blog Camp Admin meeting - N-logue !

This morning i was scheduled for a meeting with Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor IIT Chennai on a project related to TeNeT (Telecom and Networks Group) thanx to our common friend Dr. Osama Manzar. As scheduled i arrived at the pristine IIT campus to meet Dr. Ashok. The meeting was attended by Mr. Falguni , Ms Saloni and Ms Aarthi . What ensued for the next 2 hrs was an interesting outline of a project on how we bloggers can make a big difference in the digital divide of india and measures we could take and contribute to empower rural india to bring to the global platform.

This project will be discussed in more detail in the forthcoming Blogcamp admin meeting and we need to evolve with our creative inputs so i suggest all to be there and not miss it.

Whenever there is a crisis or emergency we bloggers have been doing so much of good work in our field to facilitate better communication. Here is a requirement of a similar sort where we get our bit in the nation building process. We are not neta’s (politicians) but nations are built by people like us who would like to make a difference. So be there if you are interested to chip in your ideas and for other after the meeting the plans will be posted in my blog to know more about it. Have a nice day !

Just serving my time at Earth !

Tags: IIT, tenet, rural empowerment, blogging, bloggers meet, india, rural, the knowledge foundation, digital divide

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Blog Camp summary by CNN - IBN

Fuente Systems shares some limelight at Blog Camp 2006 !

Fuente Systems and Mecosoft Systems have been strong supporters for the entire Blog Camp Admin group ever since we started our planning activities very seriously. They were helpful enough to spare their office for all our weekend meetings where in we were doing a lot of planning and strategising for the event.

Here there is a small space where we are sharing the space in the blog camp.

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A defining moment in Blog Camp 2006 !

Cricket is a relegion in this part of the world and blogging is our passion and in blog camp 2006 we happened to have a person who could identify with both the worlds in a great manner. Sunny is a professional podcaster for yahoo and his podcast that are pre match and post match are very famous. He graced blog camp by visiting us and sharing his experiences as a podcaster. Many bloggers have written about it and many more will write about. But here is a rare moment where The little master  is seen accepting the official Tee of blog Camp 2006 as a token gift from me. Thanx Sunny for coming ! And Thank you Yahoo for making it memorable to all of us . Left of sunny is the Spammer. He got a 1 O 1 with sunny for 10 minutes and the excerpts of that conversation are available here

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Web 2.0 in Fashion = Fashion Blogs

Last weekend at the Blog camp 2006 conference i chanced upon meeting Mr. Lakshman a top executive of a leading Fashion House in India and we immediately hit it off talking about fashion. What followed was an interesting dialogue between me, sunil and Mr.Lakshman which i fortunately recorded as a podcast and will be made available here as soon as i have compile and edited it into usable form. For the benefit of all those who would like to read about here is an excerpt from the discussion…

“Fashion trends today is a top down approach globally whereby most of the trends are driven to the masses by only handful of people like Designer, design houses, celebrities & artist, manufacturing houses so on. This traditional topdown approach can be redefined by blogging about fashion.

Today youth come about defining trends in the fashion world and with the web evolving so fast this kind of inputs as blogs can drive the industry to redifine trends with a bottoms up approach “

That is what FashionIQ Blogs aims to pursue with a visionary zeal. Pls hear this interesting transcript / walk the talk in entiriety here. Is this what we can define as Web 2.0 in Fashion.

Tags: Fashion, arvind, syed, nazir, razik, web 2.0, trend Tags: sunil, apollon.in

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Lessons learnt at Blog Camp 2006, Chennai

Last evening the Blog Camp Admin group had convened at Anokhi to wrap up the various outstanding issues of the event and do a post mortem of the same. We also wanted to recapitulate the lessons learnt from the event. Some key points that were discussed encompassed freezing on the following features:

1. Blog camp.in will become a common site hereafter and this chennai event will be a part of www.blogcamp.in/chennai .
2. Any takers who would like to spread the word or host another blog camp in their city of choice could always contact us and the blog camp admin is all willing to help and volunteer all the pitfalls and measures to be taken.
3. The current blog admin group would like to carry forward their team spirit and hold focussed workshops targetting niche areas and bringing in experts to address those niches starting this weekend at sunil’s place
4. All the more a compelling reason to fast track The knowledge Foundation
5. In a month we might hit upon the next big thing and start working on it…
6. As for now more on celebration and new networking will be the agenda for the day.

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