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PROTO…showcasing the best Indian tech startups
| Tags: chennai event |
If you are a tech startup, a venture capitalist, a wannbe tech entrepreneur or just somebody who thinks that there is more to Indian technology than BPOs & call centers, you must book your date with Proto. Proto is a first of its kind event, that will showcase the best of Indian startups under one roof. It is being held in Chennai on 21st/22nd Jan,07. The idea for Proto is inspired by Demo, the annual bash in Silicon Valley, that is fast becoming the Mecca for launching emerging technological innovations.
Proto’s tagline is ‘Create..Collaborate..Contribute’. This is derived from the three distinct dimensions that characterize any technology ecosystem, viz. the Creators (entrepreneurs), the Collaborators (VCs) and the Contributors (technologists/professionals). Thus the event is likely to be a meeting ground for people from these communities.
So how is it going to work? Proto is planned as a day long event where 30 chosen companies will get 10 mins each to show their product to a select panel comprising VCs and technologists. Off course, the emphasis is less on a marketing style presentation and more on demonstrating live, the product they have built or are building. The companies that want to showcase their products will have to undergo a rigorous selection procedure, before they are allowed in the select lot. Priority will be given to those companies that are actually seeking funding from VCs, angel investors etc., as this is a terrific opportunity to make a good impression before such an audience. Its likely that both the participating startups as well as the VCs will be charged a (nominal) entry fees to ensure greater involvement. I think this decision is in the right direction. And the startups could be from any area- web based services, consumer hardware, mobile, Web2.0, ecommerce, IT enabled services etc. (I have used the collage for the Indian startups’ logos from Dina Mehta’s blog post on Indian Web2.0 companies).
Off late, I have been interacting with a few VCs/equity investors myself. My sense is that VCs (in general) are not too happy with the available investment climate in India (specially amongst the smaller startups). Its almost as if, there is ‘just too much VC money,chasing too few good investment opportunities‘. And if there is even an iota of truth in the above assertion, then this is a VERY GOOD occassion for the VCs to come face to face with the best Indian startups. Its not just a one-time encounter; this could be a precursor for many similar or related events in the future. This also imposes responsibilities on Indian startup entrepreneurs to create products, that are promising enough to be looked at seriously by the equity partners.
Proto is being organized by the same bunch of guys who organized Barcamp Chennai and BlogCamp. That group is being spearheaded by Vijay Anand, who is himself a tech entrepreneur and works for the TeNET-IIT Madras program.
Here’s hoping that Proto acts as a catalyst in spurring innovation led entrepreneurship in this country. I’ll surely be there, irrespective of whether the product my startup is building, makes it to the privileged 30 list or not.
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23 Comments | Add your own
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1. Vijay Anand | October 12th, 2006 at 11:27 am
That’s a very well written post Amit, that carries the essence of the event quite nicely in its entirety.
Just a clarification. I work with TeNET, and NEXGE is just one of the companies that I get hands on with. But otherwise… very well said.
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2. amit | October 12th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Vijay,
I have corrected the post about your work realted details.
amit
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3. Dina Mehta | October 12th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Amit .. wonder where you got that graphic from!!!
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4. Rajiv Renganathan | October 12th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
This is breaking news! 
Must be an exciting event. Hope to catchup with the event thru’ blogs and demo videos.
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5. amit | October 13th, 2006 at 3:40 am
Dina,
I got that image from your blog only. My apologies for missing out the attribution.
amit
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6. Dina Mehta | October 13th, 2006 at 4:17 am
appreciate the attribution Amit!
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7. Vijay Anand | October 13th, 2006 at 5:15 am
Thanks Amit.
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8. Rajesh | October 13th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Great to know about this!
Vijay, I guess you should provide a facility for readers to submit their email address on the event website.
Rajesh.
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9. ujj | October 13th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
blogcamp was superb, expectations are going to be even higher for this one. All the best Vijay!
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10. india 2.0… | October 14th, 2006 at 3:02 am
Indian DEMO!…
The Indian startup community and ecosystem is really growing rapidly in the past few months. After the series of barcamps in Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune, now a group of really interesting folks who did the first barcamp in Chennai ar…
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11. Vijay | October 14th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Thanks Rajesh. I have forwarded your request to the team and we’ll figure out a way to keep everybody informed.
Thanks Ujj. It was a lot of other folks who were driving blogcamp, but thank you. I’ll pass the message along.
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12. Bhasker Kode | October 16th, 2006 at 2:57 am
Hey all, nice post Amit . The content @ webyantra seems to be getting only better . and i can notice the marketer side of Mr.Amit Ranjan a lot more …8 ) …All the best .Looking forward to proto ‘in ; )
Keep Clicking,
Bhasker V Kode
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13. Vijay | October 20th, 2006 at 5:37 am
I look forward to meeting you there as well Bhasker.
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14. chakpak | October 23rd, 2006 at 4:50 pm
is the demo only for products ? or would pure dot-coms like chakpak.com allowed ?
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15. Vijay | October 26th, 2006 at 5:46 am
Chakpak, its mostly for products. But if the service is something truly innovative - take Riya for example, which in essence has a very neat algorithm behind it, then yes, we would look at it.
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16. atul kumthekar | November 1st, 2006 at 12:37 pm
the link to ‘demo’ (www.demo.com) is not working
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17. VentureWoods » Prot… | November 13th, 2006 at 6:52 am
[…] You can read more about Proto here, here, here and here. […]
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18. Himanshu Sheth | January 3rd, 2007 at 7:04 am
Hi,
I really think this is a good break for the entire technologist community(for the people who have ventured on their own and also those who want to be their own like me
Great work Amit and also I hope that this will be better than DEMO as Vijay has specified on http://thoughtsprevail.blogspot.com/2006/12/protointhe-wait-is-over.html
Hoping you meet you all there…
The Demo link is working now and was not working few days back.
I did see this on Dina’s blog and it was very good coverage
This is one more feather in the cap of these guyz..Keep up the good work!!!!
-Himanshu
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19. www.webyantra.net»B… | January 23rd, 2007 at 10:18 am
[…] In this previous post, I had said that Proto is India’s first staged event at showcasing technology startups. I am happy to report that the event lived up to its expectation. In a span of eight hours, 27 companies held the stage for 8 minutes each, presenting to an audience of 325 people, all of whom paid money to witness the show. At the end of the day in his concluding comments, Atul Chitnis, remarked that it was a striking achievement that such an event was held in India at all. In hindsight, I would still maintain that while Proto was no Demo, what we witnessed at the ICSR auditorium in Chennai on the 20-21st of Jan, 2007 was a first of its kind event in India and a pointer to the shape of things to come. […]
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20. Interview: SaffronConnect… | February 11th, 2007 at 6:31 am
[…] WebYantra.comOctober 12, 2006 : PROTO…showcasing the best Indian tech startups […]
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21. Ajay | May 14th, 2007 at 11:13 am
How can i get an invitation into this program. not as a startup company or anything but as a visitor?
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Amit Ranjan is a cofounder of SlideShare. Based out of N. Delhi, he is a prime mover on the Indian tech startup circuit. His professional life is a mashup of disparate roles- startup guy, blogger, podcaster, product manager & tech entrepreneur. He closely tracks the Indian consumer internet space...more
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