I’m keeping my fingers crossed but, it looks like BarCamp Mumbai2 is…on track. Arpi Agarwal, one of the organizers, wrote in this morning with an update on how things are progressing. SUN Startup Essentials has signed up as a title sponsor and Brainwave is co-sponsor.
Registrations for attendance are at 60 and growing and oh! the date has changed, from October 13 to October 14, which is a Sunday.
Mumbai’s startup unconferencing circuit is the most inconsistent in the country. BarCamps remain pretty much at the experimental stage, except for the OSSCamps, which have been quite regular. MoMo meets are around but the last one had more public relations people than start-ups.
The city’s held its first and last BarCamp on May 13 last year and it was a fairly successful event. There were plans to revisit the event on the same date this year but never took off. Now there are plans for a second shot at getting the event off the ground. The date set is the second Saturday of October. One of the organizers, Arpit Agarwal, dropped into my inbox the other day to say that he has recently re-located to Mumbai from Bangalore and has helped organize three BarCamps there. And the 23-year old software engineer wants to revive bar camping in Mumbai. Lucky for Mumbai. Looking at this guy’s enthusiasm it is not surprising that Bangalore is streets ahead on most things related to start-ups. All the best to Arpit and team behind BarCamp Mumbai October 2007.
Meanwhile, BarCampMU 3, the university leg scheduled for September 29 at KJ Somaiya Institute in Sion has been called off! Their wiki says “due to some internal reasons of our college…probably we have a barcamp next year.” The students must be disappointed.
On to other things. The TiE-ISB Connect NEA-IUV Business Plan Showcase has extended the date for submissions from August 31 to the last week of September. Still time, but rush.
Also read Himanshu Sheth’s update on the second Open CoffeeClub in Bangalore on September 2.
A lot of venture capitalists also happen to be good writers. Many of these incredibly busy people find time to blog and are quire prolific. But most of the VCs who blog seem to be in the US, some in Europe and almost none in India.
Why don’t Indian VCs blog? I know some of them to be pretty good writers and certainly excellent thinkers. I do know that Alok Mittal at Canaan Partners blogs at Venturewoods but that’s about it. The other day while browsing through the Clearstone Venture Partners website, I came across ‘Blog’ next to Rahul Khanna and Sumant Mandal’s profiles. On further investigation, however, I was disappointed to find that neither has started posting yet. Well at least the intent is there.
A couple of VCs in the US say they find it quite useful to connect with start-ups and entrepreneurs via their blogs. If nothing else, blogs can be a great ice-breaker particularly for young entrepreneurs who often find the whole concept of venture investing formidable.
As for me, I’ve met a few interesting people just as people on such blogs. Browse though a few of my favourite reads on blogosphere:
I’d love to see a local name on this list soon.