The Randomness of Randomness

Open Coffee Club Kolkata gets a new life!!!

// August 28th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Business, Crowdsourcing, Entrepreneurship, Events, Open Coffee Club, Startups, Technology, The Ecosystem

It was this HeadStart Kolkata meeting in Pallav’s office! Post the meeting, I caught up with Manish & Sumit at the RDB Adlabs Cafe Coffee Day in Sector V.

We did some brainstorming & had short spurts of chit-chats over random topics. A part of this conversation was reviving the OCC Kolkata chapter. In fact, when Sumit suggested his idea, he didn’t even know he was talking about reviving OCC

Sumit’s idea:

Sumit hyperactively said that we could create a group of a few people in the city, who could meet regularly and work together, meanwhile sharing & discussing ideas and be helpful to each other. The basic concept of crowdsourcing per se.

How the picture was drawn.

I told him about the existing OCC Kolkata community, how it started in July last year out of my post-jaundice pastime and its current state, where Amitabh was frantically trying to survive the community.

It was at this point when we decided to take a plunge on this. And after two weeks of lethargy(We’re in Kolkata. You have to spare us for that ), I got in touch with Amitabh, we started shooting emails to each other much faster than the frequency of the consistent strikes in Kolkata, and eventually decided to imbibe the original concept of Saul Klein in Kolkata’s OCC, about which you can read more here and even more here!

And that was not very far behind. It was just this last Sunday! We closed the topic by Monday. Sumit took up the job of writing a blogpost & circulating it. Everyone else among us and the HeadStart Kolkata team decided to tweet & retweet about it!! A day-clash with something called the Toastmasters Club which happens every week on Tuesdays prompted us to schedule OCCs on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays. So, we decided that we will arrange for internet, wi-fi & meet twice every week on Wednesdays & Saturdays. Wednesdays in the Sector-V CCD & Saturdays in the Park Street CCD!

Well, what it apparently meant was that the re-shaped OCC Kolkata would start off on my 25th birthday !!

The first new-faced OCC Kolkata – when it happened

The work culture at OCC Kolkata

On the D-day, me being sick joined in a bit late. But, when I reached, I found there were already 7 other people there. All were happily working. Bingo! That was a surprise!

Lending a supposedly incomplete list of people who’d come down, from Sumit’s blog:

• Sumit Datta
• Saikat Singha
• Prashant Verma
• Pallav Nadhani
• Sumana Chakraborty
• Sougata Pal
• Bibhash
• Samiran Ghosh
• Mitesh Ashar(myself)
• Nitesh Ambuj
• Pankaj
• Abishek Rungta
• 

  Sumit & Saikat in an intense discussion about their product, while Sumana is busy with her own work

  Ashmita Brahma

• Nikita Poddar
• Debashish Mohanty

Now, as I see the first OCC after the re-design, the response was simply fantabulous. Apart from the number of people who turned up over the span of the whole day, there were people who took back some value, which has had been the lacking part, as I can say from personal feedback I have received from so many people.

The value

Among others, Sumana, who is a copywriter, got 3 leads!

Abhishek & Pallav

Where as, Abhishek & Pallav, who are planning to come up with an angel fund based out of Kolkata, actually ran the idea through the people present and crowdsourced the name of their angel investment firm! As requested by them, the name of the company is still a secret, and they’ve promised to launch the fund at one of the OCC Kolkata happenings!! They have also promised to have a cake-cutting ceremony on the day of the launch at OCC!!

Not to mention, there were a lot of mini-discussions with different results for different people, while they worked on their laptops, sipping on to coffees and munching sandwiches.

If not anything, you are at least doing the work that you would have anyways done otherwise!!

What’s next??

What’s next?? Yes… Next is the next OCC. Now it will keep on happening. Every Wednesday & every Saturday.

For this Saturday, the venue is going to be one of the CCDs in or around Park Street. We’re still contemplating which one to go for. Suggestions about this are welcome. To know the venue, follow either me or Sumit on twitter.

Once we crowdsource a definite venue, it will get fixed & come what may, if you walk in on one fine Wednesday or Saturday, you shall definitely find at least a bunch of few enthusiastic chaps to sit and work with

So, more of it this Saturday! Catch you there!!

Update: Please do join the OCC Kolkata mailing list here: http://groups.google.com/group/occ-kolkata

Update: Please follow the hashtag #occkol on twitter for updates on the timing, venue

The first BarCamp here in Kolkata

// January 2nd, 2009 // 3 Comments » // BarCamps, Events

Although officially WiCampKolkata was the first BarCamp-based unconference in Kolkata, but I didn’t really think it was as unconferency. I would call that the first WiCamp in Kolkata, being a part of a series of them being held by Pavan throughout India.

Now, what we have tomorrow is the first BarCampKolkata. There is a nice percentage of people coming from IIT Kharagpur and quite a lot of regular BarCampers and startups from Kolkata and other cities are joining in.

The concept has pulled off for the first time in Kolkata and I am really excited about the BarCamp happening in my own city, thanks to the extensive efforts of a second year IIT-Kh student, Ramkumar.

I am really looking forward to have some fun and enjoy the fun and networking in the camp. Hope to see you there folks. To register, you visit the wiki on http://www.barcampkolkata.org/

OCC-Kol became OCC kAdda 2.x, I joined my first job, etc…

// September 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // BarCamps, Events, Gadgets, Life, Open Coffee Club, iPhone

The blog-lethargy is back..

There’s been a lot since I last blogged.

Now, I just got 1-month old at my first job at Convonix and I am enjoying it like anything. I find the environment much better and more flexible than those conglomerates around. Convonix has just grown out of the startup phase a short time back and is now over 4 years old. The learning curve is definitely going to be steeper and more diverse than what it would have been had I been with one of those biggies. Although there are some aspects I will miss out on, viz. large-teamwork and exposure to systems & operations of a company that is huge, but the diversity that I am in for here at Convonix clearly covers up for what I am going to miss.

Pulling off Open Coffee Club in Kolkata, which is now OCC kAdda 2.x, was a great experience in itself and it is really gratifying to see the shape that it is taking in Kolkata. Even more gratifying are the efforts of Amitabh right out of Bangalore, towards co-ordination of the kAddas.

The next kAdda is supposed to be held at the Oxford Bookstore, Park Street tomorrow(21st Sept 2008) at 12 PM. To be there check http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1103922/ and to join the Google Group you may visit http://groups.google.com/group/occ-kolkata.

Meanwhile, my desperation for the iPhone has been killed by the helpless Airtel & Vodafone. They have still not got their 3G licenses and they might have to pay premiums to acquire them. So, they priced the iPhone 3G as high as you must be already knowing, also banking on the Indian market trends of initial sky-high prices.

While my want for the iPhone 3G was already turned down, I evaluated my options, and zeroed in on the HTC Touch, but ended up buying the Nokia E61i after the Touch that was ordered for me by The Mobile Store guys had some issues with its packaging PLUS my friend recommended not to go for the Touch, because of his confirmed reports of service issues(he is a Dopod user). So, now my new 20-day young E61i is something that I am intrigued to use after having used Nokia 3315 for 2 years and LG RD3330(Reliance) for another 2 years.

With regards to events, here in Mumbai, we have been meeting up every week to plan the next BarCampMumbai4 which is happening on the 4th & 5th of October. The next meeting is tomorrow in IIT. For more about BarCamps & BCM4, check http://barcampmumbai.org

OCC KAdda 2.0 is here

// August 7th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Business, Entrepreneurship, Events, Open Coffee Club, Technology

Keeping in mind Kolkata’s “Addas“, Amitabh Choudhury & 100rabh Minni devised a new term for OCC Kolkata. The OCC KAdda. And since it is the second OCC in Kolkata, it can be called OCC KAdda 2.0. Sounds cool, ain’t it?

The first OCC was an awesome experience and I met really amazing people. It’s now time for us Kolkatans to gear up for the second one in town.

It is happening again at Oxford Bookstore, Park Street. Here is the venue on maps: http://linkbun.ch/m53

If you are an entrepreneur or any other startup-related professional or even a student who is keen to do something on your own in future, make sure that you are there at 12 PM this Sunday, 10th August, 2008.

See you there!!

Open Coffee Club kicks off in Kolkata

// July 28th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Business, Entrepreneurship, Events, Open Coffee Club, Technology

It’s been long since I posted anything out here, thanks to all the OCC preparations.

OCC stands for Open Coffee Club, which was founded by a London-based entrepreneur, Saul Klein. To know more about what is the original philosophy behind Open Coffee Club, you should check out the following posts on Saul’s blog:

• http://localglobe.blogspot.com/2007/02/opencoffee-club.html
• http://localglobe.blogspot.com/2007/03/opencoffee-club-structure-vs-free-form.html

We pulled up the first OCC meet out here in Kolkata at Oxford Bookstore this Sunday. For a first OCC meet, it had an exceptionally amazing amount of energy, interactions, networking and bonding among the seven of us present out there. Two veteran entrepreneurs, two about-to-startup entrepreneurs & 3 wannabe entrepreneurs.

The discussions ranged from introductory to fact-identifying to debative ones. We went on for four & a half hours with a lot of useful chitter-chatter, and most importantly, we did not follow the so-called agenda that was set. That is what is an OCC meet is supposed to be. The meeting is supposed to take its own course.

I would rather call it an OCC mashup. A meeting sounds highly formal. Isn’t OCC supposed to be synonymous with informal..

Ohk. So the next OCC mashup is expected to take place on the upcoming Sunday, supposedly at the same place. We will keep you updated.

Also, folks in Mumbai are now enthusiastic to start off with OCC once again, and hopefully the OCC scenario can really rekindle again.

If you are an entrepreneur or OCC sounds interesting to you, you can catch up with us on our Google Groups. Visit the following links to join them:

• http://groups.google.com/group/occ-kolkata/
• http://groups.google.com/group/opencoffeeclubatmumbai/

Hope to see you at the next meet!!

Also read:

Angsuman’s blog post on yesterday’s OCC meet.. oops sorry mashup

WiCampKolkata was cool! Kolkata is now alive!!

// July 20th, 2008 // No Comments » // BarCamps, Entrepreneurship, Events, Technology

The start wasn’t that very pleasant for me though. I was asked to submit my camera in the security counter. Have never seen that happen in a BarCamp. It could have been mentioned on the wiki that we cannot carry x,y & z and could save some time and hassles.

Anyways, there were better differences than that to be written about. Firstly, it did not follow the conventional method of dynamic barcamp scheduling(as I would call it ). Pavan Soni, the lead planner who has successfully conducted WiCamps in other cities earlier and is also conducting WiCampKochi in the week to come, was anchoring throughout the camp, discussing various facets of innovation and inviting the session-takers.

The attendance was much more than I had expected at the WiCampKolkata. When I had registered on its wiki, there were only 13 people on it and that was only 5 days before the camp. The day the camp was held, the wiki had 96 registrations, and almost 100-110 people turned up.

Like I said, there was no wiki on the spot to register sessions. The few sessions that were registered on the online wiki were the only ones that were taken apart from a session by Myshkin about his entrepreneurial venture Anaemedia, a pathbreaking product to curb the number of anaemia-triggered deaths in India. He had started in 2005 and the product is still under development.

A notable session was Ram NK’s, about his experience of leaving a really cushy-comfy position in the UK and starting up RangDe, a non-profit peer-to-peer MFI he started with his wife earlier this year.

Overall the camp was cool, the attendees were diverse and a good boost to open communities in Kolkata. I am looking forward to a lot of action out here.

I will be attending WiCampKolkata

// July 14th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // BarCamps, Events, Life, Technology

The BarCamp scenario in this metropolitian has not really been happening till now.

I’m not sure but I guess that there have been more than one BarCamp in Kolkata in the past, but the fire still does not seem to have alighted.

A few folks from Wipro have got together and un-planned three Wipro Innovation Camps within this month of July. The first was in Gurgaon: WiCampGurgaon two days back on July 11, i.e. 2 days back. I will be attending the next one, WiCampKolkata on July 18. And the last one follows in Kochi: WiCampKochi on July 24.

I’m attending this one after seeking special permission from my doctor, since I have jaundice. It feels good to be able to catch on to atleast some action after being in a house arrest since the last 30 days and missing out on two Mumbai Startup Saturdays & most likely to miss the BarCampAhmedabad.