Missing unconferences…are you making a mistake?

Well,to start this article, I would like to clarify that I am referring to UnConference and not Conference.Hence,I would start with some of the basic questions and than jump to the advantages of attending unconferences.

What exactly is an UnConference?
An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers, in advance. To date, the term is primarily in use in the geek community. Unconference processes like Open Space Technology, however, have been around for over 20 years in other contexts.
You can know more about Unconferences here

Which are unconferences happening in India?
Of late,there are a lot of unconferences happening in India.There is BlogCamp, BarCamp, MoMo, Proto,WikiCamp(this is the first time it happened here in March,2007).There may be some more unconferences,which I may have missed but these are some of the best unconferences(which I have also attended) happening in India

What are the advantages of attending unconferences?
Unconferences provide a great platform to showcase innovation and get on the spot feedback of your product/idea.Along with exciting and out of the box ideas,you can meet and network with lot of tech enthusiasts.As we all know “Solo Entrepreneurship is much hyped and hence in order to start,you need soul mates“ and Unconferences is the place where you can find a few like minded soul mates.And not to forget,there could be some VCs in the party as well who could fund your idea

Few days back, just received an email from Prashant Singh(the organizer of MoMo Delhi) where “MoMo was covered by the Sunday Times”.The title of the article was interesting “Recipe for new ideas? Try MoMos“.Some interesting points from the article are given below:

Ask Lomesh Dutta, COO, Wirkle Technologies who attended both the events(BarCamp and MoMo).”For me, it’s the best place to network and keep abreast of the latest developments in my field,” says the young entrepreneur.
Don’t innovators fear their ideas could be stolen? No, say regulars. “Everything that happens at these unconferences are simultaneously recorded. Later they are put up at the wiki site, so no one can really steal ideas from here and claim it as their own,” says Tyagi.
Says Naresh Gupta, MD, Adobe India, “It’s a win-win platform for both individuals and companies. With the traditional model of company and community undergoing a change and with interaction becoming integral for product development, a platform like this could be useful for both.”

You can read the complete article here

Interested to contribute to “UnConference-The Book”?
Now,every person can become an author by contributing to “UnConference-The book”.The cover of the book says “Because the audience is more intelligent than the speaker“.You can find more about the book here and if you wish to contribute , you can check out the WiKi
So, go ahead and contribute to the UnConference Community through the UnBook