We did mention that we are “The” Startup Event, didn’t we? We have ensured that every speaker here at Proto does have that inclination. You’ll sense the difference when you hear them speak. I assure you that. Introducing the So far Confirmed Speakers for Proto.in January Edition ‘08.
Alok Kerjiwal is the founder CEO of Games2win.com. Alok has been the brains behind the ventures Contests2win and behind the successes of such ventures. His current venture Games2win sees quite a bit of traction in the arena of Games and he will share with us the flair that Indian content has on the global gaming market. Alok has the credit of building a multi-million dollar valuation company in this space and is quite a wealth of resource to tap into.
Ashhar Farhan is very well known among the telecom circles as the guy behind the light weight telephony protocol and also builds radios as a hobby. He is an entrepreneur and has been talking a fair bit lately on the topic of bootstrapping at lowcost. Having been known personally through a friend as a guy who conceptualizes a million dollar idea on a restaurant napkin, Ashhar is a guy to look forward to hear his views on what the next generation of communications is going to be like.
Gaurabh Mature. Can you think of a guy who is young, has a great taste for design, quite early on in his career worked for the likes of Samsung and also has a like, nay, love for technology and the trends that it offers? Gaurabh is a guy who fits all those and has a great sense of design and style. He will be talking about how great design is a crucial element of every great Product. And oh, Gaurabh is a designer for Nokia.
Gokul Gopalakrishnan heads the collaboration of Servion and Cisco and is quite well known among the telecom blogs for some of his controversial topics, mostly related to security and reliability. Having come from a background of working with startups and with an obcession for robust and reliable products, he makes for a perfect fit for the kind of quality and experience that Enterprise applications demand. He has been a stern advocate for the rich use of Digital Communications and what we are missing by not putting them to use yet. Hear him talk about it.
Laura Parkin is the director and head of the National Entrepreneurs Network (NEN). She is one who has crossed all the chasms between an entrepreneur, a venture capitalist, and now is out to build a network of students who are aspiring to become entrepreneurs and to aid them with the resources and encouragement. She has certainly come fullcircle on that front. With all these capabilities, she also brings with her the experience that each of these roles has brought her through, which turns into valuable insights. Some of the greatest lessons are learnt the hardway and having lived through the dotcom bust as entrepreneur, Laura has experience that we have much to draw from.
Mohanjit Jolly has the tendency to make an instant impression from the time you meet him. He might attribute that as well to the ‘Sardar’ side of him and I wouldn’t be surprised. The first impression I have of him is the fact that he is a Venture Capitalist, who has kept the entrepreneurship spirit very much alive in him and prides himself in taking risks with companies and burning his fingers more often than not. Having a background of working with Guy Kawasaki in Garage.com, he carries much of what one would identify as the ’spirit of the valley’, which is what gets things moving and pushed beyond limits.
Paul Murphy is the director of Innovation at Microsoft India is a soul that is all out to create a sustainable and creative ecosystem here. While his claim might be true that I might be the only “business contact” that he has made through Facebook, Paul is quite well known among entrepreneurs for being a liaison with Microsoft for enabling startups with as much power as possible on the technology front. He is also responsible for the overall strategy of Microsoft with the developer and startup community here and his presence at Proto will be an opportune moment for those building on the MS Platform.
Ravi Narayan has been an active supporter of the Ecosystem much before the team in Proto came together to break their heads over the problem of a missing Ecosystem. As an entrepreneur and as a son of the soil who has returned back from the US after a very successful venture in the telecom Domain, Ravi is quite well aligned in the dreams of what makes an ecosystem click and the hardwork that is required to make a startup successful. As the name of his firm suggestions, “Active Mentorship” is very much a key factor in enabling startups, and I would agree with him wholeheartedly.
Roopa Doraiswamy is a lawyer who is very entrepreneurial in Nature. As one of the sharpest lawyers that I have come across in the ecosystem, they are also quite young compared to most lawyers that you find around. What Roopa brings to the table is also the flavors that the partners bring, from having practiced law in different parts of the world such as Boston, HongKong and in the UK, which all adds quite a bit of depth and perspective to the approach that they take. As a startup in many ways, their firm represents startups and do cover everything from Incorporation, to helping to deal with mitigations (should it ever get to that). Their firm is one of the first to release a handbook which serves as an essential legal guide to every startup.
Samir Sood is the head of Mergers and Acquisitions at Google, and has been a key figure in the startup Ecosystem here in India. I have not known of many entrepreneurs who haven’t heard or known him. Prior to Google, Samir worked with Cisco in their investments and Acquisition arm and has helped the company with many strategic investments such as in Indiagames. He has a strong take on some of the key reasons for the success and failures of companies here in India and has much insights to share.
Subash Menon is the CEO of Subex Azure Systems. I have much respect for this company for the sheer reasons of them being a telecom company, having had the ability to sell globally, and for what they have become in terms of the branding and size as a well established company. Subex has always been the role model that I have been quoting as an example as to how an Indian product company can position themselves for the global market place. There is much to learn and draw from this experienced entrepreneur, and one who has a passion for grooming product companies.
Sujai Karampuri is the entrepreneur that most entrepreneurs who are running product companies associate themselves with, for the struggles that he has openly shared during forums in building a product company here in India. While there are very few who do talk about the trials of entrepreneurship, Sujai will tell you that there is nothing romantic about bootstrapping a company. Having made that impression of a strong commitment quite early on as they nominated for Proto, Sujai has sticked with his commitment of living upto his dream, and making a breakthrough of making the first WiMAX deployment in France. Sujai will share of his experiences and things that one needs to be prepared for, before launching off.
Surojit Niyogi: Do you use Facebook? Do you read? Do you use iRead? If the questions to the first two are a Yes, I expect the third one to be a definite Yes. Surojit and his brother Saurabh are the brains behind that application and are the best people to talk about what are the opportunities with Facebook’s Application Development Platform, the limitations and the opportunities ahead. Can you build commercial applications out of that? Well, Surojit is there to answer them for you.
Unni Krishnan represents Sun Microsystems and will be the the person launching the Startup Essentials Program here in India. Sun Microsystems has been a well known startup enabler in the Valley and their Indian counterparts are quite keen on understanding what it takes to serve the Indian visionaries who are starting off. While Unni would be launching the Startup Essentials Program, they are also very keen on understanding what you expect from them, what your requirements are, and how they can help to make that come true. I for one, would love for them to supports startup here in India as much as they have done for companies such as Ning, and I have no doubt that given the chance, they definitely would.
Vishal Gondal is the visionary and the driving force behind Indiagames.com. There are just a little more than a handful of entrepreneurs who have a success story to share here in India yet, and Vishal is one who is out of that rare few and is still sensible enough to draw some learnings out of. He will be talking about what it takes to build a company from nothing, to something, and the attitude it takes to build the company that grows. If you didn’t know it takes a drastic shift in attitude, paradigm and vision as an idea grows and I hope to hear from Vishal what his experience has been.
