Our hearts weep for the lost lives and the valiant heroes at Mumbai !

A few months back I was supposed to leave to Jaipur on the that day morning and missed it just to realise that evening there were a string of bomb blasts there. Eversince that day everytime i am supposed to fly domestic there is always a awareness to keep checking news until late night. Day before was one such episode as i was preparing to fly to Delhi. The entire week we had added concern on severe rains lashing the city continuously due to the aftermath of ” Cyclone Nisha ” tormenting the state. By 11 pm i was checking twitter from my mobile to get info on these attacks and the rest of night was spent awake before the television as events unfolded. Inspite of the stormy weather i couldnt avoid the trip to delhi  and Noida as i had people flying in from brunei for that meeting.

We salute the Valiant heroes like ATS Cheif Hemant Karkare, ACP Ashok Kamte and encounter Specialist Saliskar and similar 14 such people from the police forces who laid down their lives protecting India and our guest in the line of action. Every time terror strikes closer to home there is always an urgent plea within oneself to get proactive and gear up for crisis / Emergency response management. Last time we had such a incident was a week before Barcamp Chennai 2 and we ensured that we got someone from the Police department (Commissioner’s Office) to come and still we felt that we havent heard anyone in particular give us a clear picture on how we can work as a team to help the public at crisis. Maybe we are barking at the wrong tree. We should have atleast a halfday workshop on Crisis and Emergency response management in case of any manmade or natural disasters .  We need to get a dedicated workshop arranged on this topic with experts. Learnings from such workshop can translate in saving valuable time that might be a matter of Life and death during such crisis.

More than 50 hrs of thorough engagement with these radical elements has got the attention of the world into India. Time and again let me reiterate ” Terrorism has no Religion ! ” . This year i read a book called ” Shantaram ” by Gregory Roberts that gave a newhue to Mumbai in my mind. Places like Leopold Cafe ,The Taj hotel have been painted with such detail in the book that you feel like you are there. Disaster like this shakes our basic premise and trust on Humanity. In the forthcoming IGF Conference at Hyderabad where I have been invited with a Fellowship on Internet Governance from NIXI (National Internet Exchange of India) I would be making an effort with our global friends to look at this disaster from an Indian prespective as well.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Blogging about Saving money and films !

Is my blog a personal journal ? Partly yes and partly it isnt !

Yes because i write mostly about my passion and about my personal initiatives in serving my time at earth. That involves in writing a lot about group initiatives of TKF and event updates on Momo, howtocamp, proto, blogcamp. wikicamp so on. This has created a lot of readership audience who look for updates on all these front from us here. Thanks to vijay that PROTO has a mouthpeice and separate platform where updates can be followed but for other events we are yet to create a separate site where we can aggregate all that data and provide our enthusiasts.

At the same time to bore such readers about my other passion like investments and other pursuits in the same space dilutes the seriousness of the blog. So here are two separate blogs that will be exclusively on that front.     

Paisa Bachao !

This blog will explore smart investment strategies and how to survive incurrent financial times. This blog would also explore realty trends in chennai market with assessment about Stocks, mutual funds, bullion market, and related industry news. To ensure that there is freshness in the blog I would care to avoid installation of pipes thus making it one more content aggregation destination Instead we would like to throw open new ideas that have succeeded in other markets that can be followed. I would be interested to invite Experts with their opinions and views to join in coauthoring this blog

Bollynews

Bollynews blog will be about popular movies as well as rare movie reviews , Industry news and tidbits. We welcome bloggers who are interested to coauthor this blog on the category about Kollywood in this space .

Tags: paisabachao, bollynews, bloggers, invited, blogging, opportunityPowered by Qumana

Blog Camp 2008 in the making !

Blog Camp 2008 is at the horizon and we are planning an usual 2 day event but with added scope of content and audience from regional language bloggers in tamil, hindi also to converge in this event. Mainstream media today has a great recognition for citizen journalism and blogging. For such bloggers we aim to create a networking opportunity to mingle with the techies to know better ways to commercialise their blogs and manage analytics and related areas.  On personal space mobile blogging has arrived in India with availability of cheaper bandwidth and mobile gadgets that facilitate blogging easily. These are some of the added features and scope of content that will be discussed apart from the regular blogging and blog related content during blog Camp 2008. So Gear up folks Blog Camp 2008 will be here and the venue will be Tidel Park and the dates will be confirmed very soon.

There might be a surprise 3 rd day in Blog camp which might be a new formula that we plan to test in Indian ethos. The contents of that day will sure be a blockbuster and a first of its kind in India and provided that we are able to pull it off well then this by itself will evolve as a separate event. We will get into the specifics of this as soon as we finalise on dates and budgets for BlogCamp 2008. Currently The knowledge foundation lends the support of past volunteers of Blog Camp 2006 to pitch in and also welcomes spirited young people to volunteer and make this event a greater success than Blog Camp 2006. Mail us at blogcamp@googlegroups.com for participation. Good day !

Tags: blog, bloggers, blogcamp, blogcamp.in, the knowledge foundation, Chennai, tkfPowered by Qumana

Stop AIDS !

INP + (Indian Network of People living with Aids) a not for profit body in association with Frenz Concepts is staging a fashion event at The Accord Metropolitan on 12th Jan, 2008, called ” RAMP 2 STOP AIDS “

Tamil nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andrapradesh are the top four states in india with the highest incidence of AIDS. India has 2.5 million people afflicted with AIDS.  One study, undertaken among residents slum areas in Chennai, has found that 6% of men had had sexual intercourse with another man. Almost 7% of the men who had sex with other men were HIV-positive, and more than half them were married. Poverty combined with low status does not allow a vast majority of women to negotiate safe sex, and thus makes them vulnerable to the disease.

Statistics with INP+ show that the incidence of AIDS is more than 50% among the age group of 15 – 24. This came as a rude surprise to most of us at The Knowledge Foundation.

Historically Chennai figured in the global AIDS map as the first city in India where the first AIDS case was reported in 1986. Then in 1999 Namakkal a town in Tamil Nadu had the highest incidence of AIDS cases.

Indian government has been doing a lot of initiatives to combat AIDS . NACP (National AIDS control Programme) is a part of the Ministry of Health that takes a very proactive role in all the states of India . NACP III is currently under execution until 2012 which includes Anti retroviral treatment for those affected by AIDS and so on. But still we have a long way to go…

Coming back to this event , The event organizers aim at creating a kind of awakening particularly among the youngsters of today who with their uber lifestyle that is supplemented by early careers and augment hippie culture.

The RAMP2STOP AIDS event is a melange of screening of a Documentary on AIDS followed by a Fashion Show for the cause by designers Sidney and Erum Ali. Followed by Fashion Choreography by Sunil Menon. There is abundance of knowledge available with us at TKF for those who are interested to know more on this.

Tags: NACP, AIDS, erum, ali, sidney, accord, metropolitan, youth, tkf, namakkal, undp, tamil, nadu, andhra, pradesh, karnataka, fashion, showPowered by Qumana

PROTO TE 2008 : Nominations are open !

PROTO has once again opened nominations for the emerging companies, startup for its Third Edition due to be held at Chennai on January 19th and 20th , 2008,

We are at the final stages of finalising a spectacular venue for the event. This time all the participant will have the luxury of booking their tickets right from the comfor of their desks using their Credit Cards online. No more will there be the hassles of sending in the Cheque or DD and then calling me up every now and then to check if the payments have arrived so on. The 2008 edition of PROTO poses a bigger challenge to the planning teamand that will be to ensure that we get quality audience (Investors, CEO’s and Industry experts) to reserve the premier seats well ahead of time so that all the participating companies get to share the "Elevator pitch " with the best of the Minds in the industry. That also means that our promotions will be more industry focussed and towards people who have fair idea of this event.

On a personal front Fuente (my company) was planning to nominate in PROTO TE 2008 with our product "CIRAKA" but it seems like we will not be ready with it yet and there needs to be more iterations on it before we release the Beta. So that means my partcipation at evangelising PROTO will be as usual gung ho and on all fronts. What more … this might be the last edition of PROTO to be held at Chennai as we are planning to let afloat the movement to other cities as well. So the entire Knowledge Foundation will work towards creating the never seen so far event. Good day !

Tags: proto, 2008, tkf, the knowledge foundation, ciraka, fuente, online, nominations Powered by Qumana

Google’s plans on Web 2.0 summit !

As a part of my earlier post on Web 2.0 related information here is a post that is a recorded video of the plans of Google in healthcare, storage, search and so on. Google seems to be charting out great plans for the individual users to access their personal health information online synonymous with their mailing plans. A very interesting video to know more about the plans of the behemoth. Good Day !

Honey, I shrunk your devices !

There have been many coffee table conversations with friends and buddies reminiscing about how IT has changed our lives itself. To be more specific there have been specific discussions where we have wondered about the compactness of the form factor that has changed over the period of years as personal computing has evolved. I am sure many of us have had similar conversations at our living rooms as well but this blog post is about the doers / aka.. the real performers who took up the initiative to make the form factor more compact. There has been instance i had wondered how a device as small as ipod is able to hold 30 gb data compared to the standard hard disk of a PC that is at least 8 times bigger and makes so much noise while reading.

Enter professor Albert Fert from Universite of Paris – Sud also scientific director of Unite Mixte de Physique of France and Peter Grunberg also a professor at Germany who pulled out the concept of GMR (Giant Magnetoresistance ) . GMR effect large changes in electrical resistance for small changes in magnetic resistances. This effect was explained by murdin so vividly here at reuters " A computer hard disk reader that uses GMR sensor is equivalent to a jet flying at a speed of 30,000 kmph ..at a height of just 1 meter above the ground and yet being able to see and catalog every single blade of grass as it passes over" Isnt this amazing ? This inventions has opened the frontiers of technology to a totally new level. There is a new term being coined called Spintronics for developments in this technology. Looks like movies like "Island" are soon to be a reality . Nano technology is going to bring in similar breakthrough into new avenues of scientific exploration. Soon there might be devices that can record a persons total life metabolism at all stages of growth that will be helpful to narrow down on what can be termed as good habit from bad habits. Devices of this kind might be of great help in drug discovery studies thus Technology contributing towards the betterment of mankind.

After so many years i could really comprehend that Nobel Prizes in Physics are given to some practical realtime solutions and theories too. Most of the time either the studies that get awarded nobel prizes are way above my grasp or are too abstract. But this time the awardees seem to be well deserved and their invention has greater implications in the days ahead of us.

Tags: fert, grunberg, nobel, prize, physics, nanotechnology, ipod, spintronics Powered by Qumana

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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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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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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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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Tremendous success of Blog Camp 2006 at Chennai !

Since the beginning of the blog camp my blogging had taken a big hit as i was more involved in coordinating things and also moderating sessions for the two days. And i havent slept the entire two days as we had to take care of small incident at Beach house party me and raghavan being the only sober guys had to take care of things and by the time me wrapped things up it was 4.30 in the morning and i alongwith Sunil was scheduled for and interview with Osama Manzar about exploring common grounds to take up empowerment of the rural poor in india at Tidel park followed by another detailed interaction with Lakshmanan of Arvind Mills direct marketing on the launch of Fashion Blogging in relation to the global launch of Fashion Blogs of Fashion IQ .com . Subsequent to that i alongwith Andy had to moderate a session with Sujatha of Podbazaar.com. Totally hectic day and so many things happening.

We do have some totally lighter moments from the Blogcamp courtesy some pics taken unaware about serious and seasoned bloggers like Nandhu, shyam and ganesh, other bloggers but then never let your guards down in front of bloggers. They will totally bomb you! Excellent reference will be to the tagline of Blog Camp ” How do you feel Now ? ” what say you blogcamp admin group.

Surprise of the Sponsors !

The two days of blog camp 2006 was a great boon for the related sponsors Yahoo, Nokia, Ford, Intel, Merinews, enewss and other sponsors. Yahoo received a lot of foot fall for all their services and Nokia was conducting a workshop on hot to do moblogging using the N Series of mobile phones from Nokia, Ford had conducted an ipod contest for best live blogger and podcaster. The footfall in the camp exceeded to 350 people.

Live from Tidel those 2 days!

One week before the event i was hunting for a solution to address the rising needs of the Virtual attendees of Blog Camp. One of the advantages of coming from an IT background and from good networked company was that i was able to narrow down on the solutions that are available in hand to enable live videocasting/streaming and also to keep in mind the bandwidth effeciency. I got in touch with Clickstream and the response was so swift from them that i had Abhijit from calcutta representing Clipstream calling me offering to help me officially . Abhijit was so enterprising that on the first day of the Blog Camp before 11 we were hitting maximum viewership in his software and we were getting the feedback on the quality of the feed was excellent Then again we started asking him to increase the licence. We subsequently raised the level to 200 viewers and by the second day we were hitting max levels. Clipstream software is built with a feature that whenever the load of the viewers is more than maximum it alerts you and by second day during the discussions of Sharad Haskar and Sunil Gavaskar the viewership was at maximum levels. We had additional feeds from Skype as skype casts and there was the most useful IRC too. We had some great planning ad hoc by the techie goups of the BlogCamp Admin . Callers and viewers as far away as Orange county, thailand, Australia, and UK not to forget many places from india.

Post Blog Camp 2006!

For all of those who would like to view the different facets of the twod days and a more detailed account of individual sessions i would suggest that you can click on the following link and get to know the extensiveness with which the blog camp at chennai was blogged about. Pls click on the following link as the coverage on it is great.! Hats off to enewss.

http://www.enewss.com/index.php?search=blogcamp

The photos of the event are available at

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=blog+camp

http://technorati.com/tag/BlogCamp

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Blog Camp is rolling !

Hi guys first cut views of the Blog camp are here. Its 8 am and the Admin crowd is already there and we are busy setting our systems up. All excited to rock! Will keep posting as and when things happen

Pls check flickr with tags " Blog camp live chennai "

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dreampics/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joesat/

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Blogging to Alleviate poor masses of rural India

This morning as every morning of this week was cluttered with stream of callers / fellow bloggers and patiently answering all queries about various issues related to the forthcoming event Blog Camp 2006. Interestingly i got a call and the called told me he is Osama and suddenly all my antenna’s were up but the subsequent conversation that ensued followed immediately by his mail was one of interesting events of the day. Here is a transcipt of the mail of Mr. Osama Manzar and his very enlightening views

" I am extremely glad to come to know this entire new phenomenon of Bloggers camping and discussing the larger issues og Blogging. There is no doubt that Blogging is a typical Bottom Up phenomenon, where you get to know information directly from the source and the source get a chance to disseminate the information which is not subjected to various layers of so-called cleaning processes.

Anyway, as discussed, I am extremely keen to be a part of the BlogCamp scheduled on 9th and 10th of September in Chennai. I was going through your website and realised that there is no topic discussing the the real India which is hidden in its hinterland, across the country side, and among the 70 percent of Indians who speak local languages and whose knowledge lies in their oral conversation. If Blogging can include the Rural India, or rather if we initiate a dialogue of how Rural Blogging can be done, in no-time, we will see the cyberspace enriched with "GlocaL" content (Local Content for Global Reach). India is among the poorest country in the world if you look at how much india-related content present on the virtual world. And, ironically, Internet is the only true Universal Medium for unlimited access and dissemination of content and information. How do India in this case of being the poorest on cyberspace, can take advantage of the global economy? For the economica prosperity to trickle down to the bottom of the pyramid, India needs to reach out to the Internet through all possible means and tools about its immense local content and assets. And this is possible with only bottom up approach, meaning blogging can paint the cyberspace with the colours of India hidden into its 650,000 villages and among more than 3/4th of a billion population of our country. "

Mr. Osama Manzar runs an organisation called Digital Empowerment Foundation, that works in the areas of empowering masses through ICT and related tools. We have perhaps the largest database of case studies, where ICT tools are being used for rural empowerment in its various senses. They also run the award called The Manthan Award for Best e-Content & Creativity in India.

He holds the following posts Chairman: The Manthan Award, Founder & Director – Digital Empowerment Foundation, Jury Member: Dataquest eGov Champions Award 2006, Board of Director: World Summit Award, Austria, Vice Chairperson: Global Alliance for Bridging Digital Divide, Author: e-Content: Voices from the Ground – The Sequel 2.0 [2006]

Sir, I look forward to the great opportunity of hearing you in person on your favorite topic, your passion and responsibility to the rural masses in India. Welcome to Blog Camp 2006 

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