All Posts in Unconference

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Startups Club, a premier destination for early stage startups announced the kick-off of their year-long event, Demo Day 2016 in Bangalore. Demo Day 2016 will take place across 10 cities and provide early stage startups with the opportunity to attend boot camps, meet investors, secure funding and win prize money.

The 4th edition of Demo Day will be hosted in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Kochi, Ahmedabad and Vizag. Each city will have local startups presenting their ideas and one winner from each city will win prize money of Rs. 1 Lakhs.

These top 10 winners will then participate in the Chennai finale in December 2016, where they will present their ideas to a prestigious panel of Investors, Mentors & Entrepreneurs. The national winner will be awarded with a Grand Finale Prize of Rs. 5 Lakhs plus many tools as support system.

Indian startups are attracting more funding in early stages than ever before. In the first nine months of 2015, around $1.4 billion in early stage investments—the highest ever for the country—has been pumped into startups, according to data from Venture Intelligence, a research firm. Last year, 304 deals saw a total funding of $1.2 billion.

Salma Moosa, Core Organizer, Startups Club said

Demo Day is a platform for a cherry-picked set of startups to pitch to a set of investors to possibly raise funds. Demo Day 2016 promises to be bigger and better, covering 10 cities across India, with over 1500 attendees across locations and participation from around 100 startups. We are confident that early-stage startups will leverage the platform to take their ideas to a larger audience and create a compelling value proposition.

A PAN-India hunt for startups, Demo Day simplifies the process of meeting with investors one on one, to pitch ideas directly, get validated and get funded. For participants it is a platform for sharing ideas, networking with industry veterans and reaching potential Seed and Angel investors.

Visitors can listen to the thought leaders of the ecosystem, network with entrepreneurs and observe the trends in the startups world. More information on Startups Club Demo Day 2016 is available at the following link.

About Startups Club

Startups Club is a premier destination for early stage startups. Startups Club is present across Bangalore, Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Mumbai, with Ahmedabad, Cochin, Delhi, Pune, Vizag & Dublin [Ireland] just launched. They organise startup meetups across the 11 cities regularly. As a part of the meetup, they discuss various topics that are relevant to startups and encourage discussions amongst members based on their experiences. The meetings attract between 30 and 70 members on an average and our member base has grown to more than 6000 plus.

[Image Credit* – Startups Club]

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Swiss Re, in partnership with IBM has announced its plan to host India’s first innovation hackathon event exclusively for the reinsurance industry. The two day event, scheduled on 30 – 31 January, 2016 at Workbench Projects, Bangalore, aims to provide participants with an opportunity to develop user-based apps, utilizing data science, and harnessing cognitive technology from IBM Bluemix suite to address the growing needs of the insurance industry.

Themed My Personal Risk Advisor, the purpose of the challenge is to enable individuals or small business owners to assess their total risk profile and learn about various product offerings. The hackathon is open to students and developer community – all those who aspire to design technology and aims to encourage developers to create innovative applications that can be integrated with digital solutions.

Alok Kumar, Managing Director, Swiss Re Bangalore said

The world, today, is rapidly changing and to keep pace with the risk landscape, we need to continually innovate around how we offer risk protection products. Through this hackathon, we are creating an innovation platform that reinforces our long-standing commitment to bring out new and improved solutions that directly addresses real-world business challenges for the insurance industry.

An entry free competition, the hackathon is a team-based event. The participating teams will go through a short-listing and selection process. Teams can register on the Swiss Re registration site and submit their idea, post which organizing team will notify the short-listed entries.

The last date for online registration is 20 January, 2016. The winners will be rewarded with exciting cash prizes and also be considered for an exciting career placement at Swiss Re Bangalore office.

About Swiss Re

The Swiss Re Group is a leading wholesale provider of reinsurance, insurance and other insurance-based forms of risk transfer. Dealing direct and working through brokers, its global client base consists of insurance companies, mid-to-large-sized corporations and public sector clients. From standard products to tailor-made coverage across all lines of business, Swiss Re deploys its capital strength, expertise and innovation power to enable the risk-taking upon which enterprise and progress in society depend. For more information about Swiss Re Group, please visit Swiss Re

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

BlrDroid is a group of enthusiastic android developers who love creating apps. It also offers a platform for developers & enthusiasts either working within the Android ecosystem or interested in learning more about Android to collaborate and network among each other.

BlrDroid kicks off 2016 with their meetup on 9th January,2016.

Detailed Agenda

  • Registration start at 9:30 AM
  • 10:00 to 11:00 – Android Development at Scale – Lessons from Twitter for Android by Aman Alam
  • 11:00 to 12: 00 – Deep-linking, what, why and how !!  by Ankit Saxena Branch
  • 12:00 to 1:00 – TBD
  • 1:00 to 1:30 – TBD

Event Venue

Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd
#26, Bannerghatta Main Road [Near Gopalan Mall], J.P. Nagar 3rd Phase
Bangalore

RSVPs will close 2 days before the event, at 4 PM so, go ahead and register for the event. You can RSVP for the event here You can have a look at their event calendar here

Other information

BlrDroid Facebook Group : https://www.facebook.com/groups/blrdroid
Reaching out to organizers : organizers@blrdroid.org

[Image Credit* – Twimg]

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Accenture is teaming with Code.org to support global participation in Hour of Code, one of the world’s largest educational events, designed to prove anyone can learn the basics of coding, have fun doing it, then continue learning beyond one hour.

Thousands of Accenture employees around the world have pledged to complete nearly 8,000 Hours of Code during Computer Science Education Week [December 7-13]. This number is expected to grow as Accenture employees commit to an Hour of Code and volunteer to work with teachers and Code.org to help students learn the basics of computer science at local schools and events through fun, game-like online lessons.

Organized by Code.org, the Hour of Code brings together more than 350 partner organizations and tens of millions of students in every country around the world.  The campaign culminates with a massive coding event the week of Dec 7-13, with 191,000 registered participants. The goal of the grassroots movement is to empower every student in every school with the opportunity to learn computer science. By starting early, students will have a foundation for success in any 21st-century career path.

Speaking at the occasion, Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology officer said

We are aligned with Code.org’s mission and vision that exposure to coding is important to the success of every student, regardless of what field they choose to pursue. We must all do more to encourage greater interest in computer science in schools, especially for girls and under-represented students of color. Armed with coding skills they develop throughout their academic careers, students will be much better prepared to fill key roles in the digital businesses of the future.  I am impressed with the passion and energy that our Accenture people are showing in their commitment to this important cause.

Roxanne Taylor, Accenture’s chief marketing and communications officer added

The need for people with STEM skills has never been greater. By 2020, there will be 1.2 million jobs requiring computer-related skills in the U.S. alone. Yet the pipeline of graduates with technology skills is lacking, especially among women. Code.org is helping to reverse this trend by addressing the issue early in the education cycle. We need to get young people excited about computer science long before they enter college. Hour of Code is an amazing campaign that does just that.

As part of its collaboration with Code.org, senior Accenture leaders will join with employees in 186 cities across 56 countries to participate in Hour of Code activities including

  • Paul Daugherty, Accenture Chief Technology Officer, will join Code.org Co-founder and CEO Hadi Partovi at Fort Greene Preparatory Academy, Brooklyn, NY, US
  • Ellyn Shook, Accenture Chief Human Resources Officer, at Oakridge International School, Bangalore, India
  • Julie Sweet, Accenture Group Chief Executive—North America, at The National Center for Children and Families, Washington, D.C., US
  • Emma McGuigan, Senior Managing Director, Accenture’s UK and Ireland Technology Group, at STEM organization, London, UK
  • Jane Livesey, Managing Director, Accenture’s Australia and New Zealand Technology Lead , at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour School in Sydney, Australia
  • Marc Carrel-Billiard, Managing Director, Accenture Technology, Global Technology R&D, at Fremont High School in Oakland, California, US

Hadi Partovi, Co-founder & CEO, Code.org said

Accenture is leading by example in their efforts to support computer science education with a company-wide commitment to help students start learning skills that will prepare them for the best opportunities in any future career path. By not only looking inward into their own organization, Accenture’s support in classrooms & Code.org events around the world will address some of the biggest issues faced by the technology industry, helping make it more diverse, inclusive and available to all people.

About Code.org

Code.org is a public non-profit dedicated to expanding access to computer science and increasing participation by women and under-represented students of color. After launching in 2013, Code.org organized the Hour of Code campaign – which has introduced over 100 million students to computer science to date – and partnered with 90 public school districts nationwide to expand computer science programs. Code.org is supported by philanthropic donations from corporations, foundations and generous individuals, including Ballmer Family Giving, Google, Infosys Foundation USA, Microsoft, Omidyar Network and others. For more information, please visit Code.org

[Image Credit* – NYTimes]

|In: Entrepreneurship|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Web Summit, the planet’s largest and most influential tech and startup event, is launching its Indian edition as SURGE 2016. Aimed at the tech and startup communities in India and internationally, SURGE 2016 will be held in Bangalore on February 23-24, 2016.

Paddy Cosgrave, CEO of Web Summit, announced the event along with Vikram Ahuja, founder, Byond Travel outlined how SURGE will act as a catalyst in supporting the startup community in the country and the region.

Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder of Web Summit said

Web Summit is now the biggest and most influential startup gathering in the world. In recent years, we’ve seen a significant rise in the number of Indian startups attending our global conferences. India is increasingly producing globally competitive startups that have disrupted markets and the way we live. Bangalore is a significant part of the global startup ecosystem and we think it is the ideal venue for SURGE 2016.

In its first year SURGE 2016 is expected to attract more than 4,000 attendees, including startups, investors, media and speakers, from India and beyond. The Web Summit flagship event, held in Dublin for the last five years has seen growth from 400 attendees to over 42,000 from more than 134 countries in 2015.

Vikram Ahuja, founder Byond Travel, said

Bangalore is leading the way for the rapidly developing startup ecosystem in India. It’s great that SURGE is coming to Bangalore. I am sure SURGE will be an important part of the startup ecosystem in India within a very short space of time.

In the past, Web Summit has hosted some of the most influential speakers including Da Vinci Code’s Dan Brown, Tinder’s Sean Rad, Instagram’s Ed Catmul & Tour De France Winner Chris Froome along with 30,000 attendees, over 2000 start-ups, 1000 investors and 650 speakers.

Paddy Cosgrave added

100’s of Indian startups and founders have been to our events in recent years, principally to Web Summit in Dublin. This year 80 Indian startups came to our RISE event in Hong Kong.

Attendee numbers are rising fast and we expect to have several thousand entrepreneurs, investors, media and speakers at SURGE, including 500 of the most exciting startups from across the region. We already have 300 startups and 2,000 attendees registered.

They have been telling us for some time that Web Summit should come to India and we have been blown away by their creativity and innovation. India has arguably the most important and accessible startup ecosystem in the world right now and we want to support it by giving them a world-class event where they can gather, network and grow.

Speakers already confirmed for SURGE

  • Nicolas Brusson, Co-Founder & COO, BlaBlaCar
  • Sachin Bansal, Co-Founder & CEO, Flipkart.com
  • Rohit Bansal, Co Founder & COO, Snapdeal
  • Ambarish Mitra, Founder & CEO, Blippar
  • Greg Moran, Co-Founder, Zoomcar

Investors already confirmed for SURGE

  • Dave McClure, Founding Partner, 500 Startups
  • Subrata Mitra, Partner, Accel Partners
  • Saul Klein, Founder, Seedcamp
  • Bharati Jacob, Managing Partner, Seedfund

For more information about Web Summit please visit this link In order to register for the event, please visit SURGE 2016 Registration Page

About Web Summit

Web Summit is a global technology conference hosted annually in Dublin. It was founded in 2010 by Paddy Cosgrave along with Daire Hickey and David Kelly. In 2014, more than 22,000 attendees from over 100 countries flew to Dublin for Web Summit. Speakers have included the founders and CEOs of Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, Skype, Tesla, PayPal and Oculus VR.

In addition to Web Summit, the team runs a series of founders events, which have been described by Bloomberg as “Davos for Geeks” and are regular gatherings that include 150 CEOs of the world’s leading technology companies.

In 2015 Web Summit has hosted a number of international events including Collision and RISE, based in the US and Hong Kong respectively. Over 50,000 people have attended Web Summit events across the globe in 2015.

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

After the successful completion of its flagship conference Apps India 2015, Brite Exhibitions has announced the launch of Incubation India 2015. A conference of its time where startups and incubation are the new whiz kids of the resurgent emerging India. Incubation India is the first of its kind niche conference attracting delegates from the startups/VC/incubation business eco-system to be held on 2nd December 2015 at Hotel The Grand, New Delhi.

Themed Creating value 360o, the Conference will highlight specific areas of growth opportunities and challenges being faced in and by the incubation ecosystem.

Incubation India 2015 event offers an ideal interactive business platform for the key decision makers, Start-ups & young entrepreneurs alike across the Incubation business ecosystem in India [Incubators, Corporate Biz labs, Co-Working spaces, VC’s, Accelerators, Angel Investors, Advisory & Consultancy firms & many more]

The Incubation India 2015 conference will include panel discussions on Creating Value 360o, Initiatives taken to promote the concept of technology and business incubation in India, Marketing & communications strategies for early stage startups, Incubating in Healthcare sector.

Panelists/speakers at Incubation India 2015

Detailed agenda is below

[Click on the image to Enlarge]

Apart from the varied experienced speakers/panelists, the conference has two niche concurrent programs :

  • Biz Zone – An exclusive Business Zone for the ecosystem to introduce their technology and solutions to a focused audience.
  • Startup idea to IPO – A workshop conducted by Rajan Bhatia on behalf of NSE Emerge

Ms. Bunny Sidhu, Project Director, Brite Exhibitions, organizer of the conference said

Brite Exhibitions serves as a representative office and sales agent in India for international exhibition organizers. The young at heart team has combined experience of 50 + years in exhibitions industry. We are a group of professionals, who believe in working with passion to create various niche business networking platforms.

For more information, please refer IncubationIndia

|In: Entrepreneurship|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Ever since the Modi government has come in to power, it has resulted in major changes in the economic landscape. Significant change has come in the way startups have mush-roomed in India. With the government moving in the right direction to make India a ‘Startup Nation’ it has become a boon for investors, entrepreneurs & aspiring entrepreneurs i.e. the entire startup eco-system.

At the recently commenced Economic Times Startup Awards 2015, Nikesh Arora, President of SoftBank stated “We are a country where the demographics are right.And we are at a point where technology is going to allow us to leapfrog tremendous amounts of developments that have happened in the West”. Ankit Bhati, the co-founder of taxi app Ola which won the Startup of the Year award stated “It is springtime for entrepreneurship in India, as young people with ideas build technology-led ventures that are changing the way Indians live, work and play“.

India is on the cusp of an entrepreneurial revolution. However, successful entrepreneurship is the ultimate balancing act. Endless optimism, unwavering courage and dogged determination of founders have to be balanced with thoughtful leadership, intellectual honesty and maturity to overcome gritty challenges. Fueling the passion of entrepreneurship, Delhi chapter of TiE has come up with the 2015 edition of the TiEcon Delhi on 16th, 17th October.

Key Highlights of TiEcon Delhi 2015

TiE the Knot – This exclusive forum will feature high potential companies [tech & non-tech] who have demonstrable products and are looking to raise their first seed investment. Five such high potential companies will be shortlisted and will pitch to a select group of individual investors who will be looking to make on-spot invest commitments in a high impact televised format covered by CNBC TV18. More about it here
Mentoring in Motion – Mentoring in Motion in association with Carzonrent. Get an opportunity to get mentored on the move literally, TiEcon Delhi 2015 gives you an opportunity to pick up the Charter Member and accompany him to TiEcon in a pre-booked cab. Dedicated face time with the Charter Member gives the delegates an opportunity to pitch/discuss and get mentored by some of the best minds. More about it here
Chai with Chartered members – Meet designated TiE Charter Members over tea and coffee at pre-specified lounges in an intimate setting. Hear their stories and get to know them up close and personal. More about it here
Mini MBA for entrepreneurs – The TiE Institute we will be hosting a series of sessions/workshops @ TiEcon Delhi 2015, covering critical aspects in areas such as fund raising, personal branding, attracting talent, building partnerships and so on. The sessions will cover the basics and deliver practical and tangible insights for entrepreneurs which are what is required to succeed rather than just another success story. More about it here
TiEcon Delhi attracted more than 1500 participants last year, and is likely to exceed that number this time, since there is no better opportunity for entrepreneurs to connect with potential mentors, investors and collaborators.

TiE Hackathon

With an aim to support industry-disrupting, and innovative digital solutions and to fuel the thriving Indian entrepreneurial landscape, TiE along with HackerEarth would have a 2-day hackathon. The Themes are for developers to create breakthrough digital technologies, products or business models across three categories. The Hackathon will be a 24-hour marathon of learning, creativity, building stuff, big enough to transform businesses and industries by re-inventing business processes, operational efficiencies and customer service innovations. For more information, please refer this link

Agenda & Registration

TiEcon Delhi is a 2-day event that is scheduled on 16th, 17th October.  You can have a look at the complete agenda in ‘Agenda’ section of TiEcon Delhi. Vani Kola, 2x Entrepreneur & MD of Kalaari Capital would chair TiEcon Delhi. The key highlight is the Fire-Side chat on 17th October with Ritesh Agarwal, Founder, OYO Rooms who is definitely an inspiration to many aspiring entrepreneurs.

There is awesome line-up of Speakers spanning different industry verticals namely e-commerce, e-learning, social entrepreneurship etc. You can expect some excellent tips on Starting Up, Scaling Up, Getting Funded etc.

You can register for the TiEcon Delhi here The registration fees are as below:

If you are an entrepreneur or aspiring to be an entrepreneur or willing to join a early-stage/growth-stage startup than you should definitely not miss the power-packed TiEcon Delhi 2015 You can follow TiE Delhi & TiEcon Delhi here & here.

|In: India|Last Updated:

Unicom Learning, a Global B2B platform for IT industry & KPMG India together presented the 2nd edition of World Business Excellence Summit 2015 at Movenpick, Bangalore recently with the theme Meet Leaders in Business Assurance.

Two contests viz. India Quality League 2015 & IT Manager Olympiad 2015 was held together under the World Business Excellence summit. The contest had several rounds including online written tests, on stage quiz etc. This event saw thousands of QA professionals from 112 companies participating from across the nation.

Mahindra

The Winners

Mrinal Chatterjee & Dipan Lahiri from Tech Mahindra emerged as the winners of the prestigious India Quality League 2015 whereas Samgram Das, Associate Director – IT-IS & Arvind Rao, Director – Development from Team Zyme Techno Camp. Zyme Solutions emerged as the winners & grabbed the Gold.

In the earlier edition of one day conference on World Business Excellence Summit, the best practices used like the Balanced Scorecard, Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, ISO, CMMI, Change Management, People and cultural issues were discussed.

This year the focus was on Lean, Kanban, Scrum Ban, DevOps, Innovation Games & Mind Mapping along with other important frameworks and issues related to quality assurance and change management.

Congratulating the winners Nitesh Naveen, Co-founder and CEO of Unicom Learning shared

I wish all the best to the winners and my heartiest congratulation to Tech Mahindra and Zyme Solutions for having this year’s India’s most knowledgeable quality champions with them.

India Quality League 2015

1st place : Team Dark Horses [Mrinal Chatterjee & Dipan Lahiri] from Tech Mahindra
2nd place : Team Atos Excellence [Samir Umrikar & Ramesh Ramanathan] from @ATOS
3rd place : Team QRM Deloitte [Neetu Kar & Shrikrishna Pandey] from Deloitte Consulting

IT Manager Olympiad 2015

1st Place : Team Zyme Techno Champ [Sangram Das, Associate Director – ITIS & Arvind Rao, Director – Development] from Zyme Solutions.
2nd Place : Team Zyme IT Team from @Zyme Solutions [Santosh Phalle, IT Manager & Binaybhusan Nanda, IT Manager]
3rd Place : Team TechMighty [Pankaj Kumar, Test Manager & Piyush Sinha, Test Lead] from Tech Mahindra

About UNICOM Learning

Unicom Learning is a leading player in the Knowledge Forum industry giving a Global B2B platform for the IT industry founded by Professor Gautam Mitra [Chairman & Co-Founder] & Nitesh Naveen [CEO & Co-Founder]. The organisation holds 150 knowledge conferences (forums) across the globe annually, out of which 100 are held in India. UNICOM has close to 10,000 professionals attending each of these conferences cum training platforms. Over the years, Unicom Learning has gained deep insights with organising knowledge forums in multiple disruptive technology domains like, Agile, Big Data, Cloud computing, Internet of All Things among others. UNICOM Learning’s knowledge partners include KPMG, CISCO, INTEL, Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam among others.  For further information, please visit Unicom Learning

Image Credit – Tech Mahindra