Ladies and Gentlemen,
The finally awaited moment is here – well, atleast the first of it. The nominations are open for companies that do want to submit their products for evaluation, out of which 20 companies will present before an esteemed audience – the creme de la crop, the movers and the shakers of the IT industry from and around India on the dates of January 18th and 19th 2008 in Chennai, India.
If you are a company that wants to make a nomination, head to the website at http://www.proto.in and click on the nominate link, on the right hand side, enter the details and hit submit. A copy of the nomination form will be mailed to you. But should you require a copy, in case, do write to me and someone from the Proto.in team will be sure to respond to you at the earliest.
As always, there is an entry fee attached to this. But you wont have to make a payment till you are confirmed to one of the 20 finalists who will be taking on the stage.That said, we also do request you to kindly make an evaluation of the product yourself, and with your peers and only submit products that are complete and ready for demonstration so as to not take the time of the organizers or have any disappointments. There is nothing that i would hate to see than for your team and company not being able to make an impact because of an unpolished demo or product which isnt able to convey the solution that you have built with such commitment.
If you do have any queries on this regard, do let me know and in the meantime, I strongly encourage you to take a visit to the site, and cruise around so that you get a good understanding of what Proto.in is about and what we are hoping that you will benefit from.
I would also, at this time, like to clarify that entering into Proto, and showcasing your product as one of the 20 might not be the only criteria for funding, as much as that is one of the activities that happens around the stage. Investor firms might decide to sit back and watch as you evolve from that snapshot on the stage to a few months before they decide to make a deal, depending on the growth that you are showing. I wanted to make sure that expectations are set right in terms of those who would be nominating.
Of the crowd that attends Proto.in, there are segments of people from the VC and Angel Investment Community, Heads of Mergers and Acquisitions, Our Friends from the Media (Print and broadcast), Executives from Large corporates and SMEs who are exploring partnerships, Professionals who are looking for prospective companies to be a part of, and pool of bloggers looking to get a glimpse of the next big thing to happen out of this region. We can assure you that it is the liveliest gathering of all your well-wishers from the ecosystem, if you are to be an entrepeneur.
There are a few other invited guests from the Industry who are to visit us this edition, from abroad and the names are yet to be revealed. We will disclose them as the days close in, so that the excitement still remains.
Thanks again for your attention and time, and I look forward to seeing you at the event. Good luck and Be in touch.
Regards,
Vijay Anand
Key Organizer – Proto.in
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Satpal, Bipin,
Will email you guys. You should also touch base with Amit Ranjan. He has been in dire need of a team to put together some activities that can help build a community of entrepreneurs locally. He has been one of the lone men in the NCR region helping us out.
Amit, can you touch base with this gentlemen?
I am open to working with Satpal should an opportunity arise to host it in NCR. I am sure I can find more committed guys for the same. Do ping me at bipin.p.singh@gmail.com
Vijay ,Thanks for a very postive and inspiring reply. I would definetly like to volunteer myself for any initiative to build the ecosystem.Unfortunetly I am not able to attended proto for some professional and personal reasons.But I am postive regarding organisaing this event in NCR region.
Vijay,
I would love to. I’ve been a bad juggler of schedules so far. Will try and catch up this time…
Watched your podcasts (all 3 editions) of previous event…Inspirational stuff, boy.
Keep going…
if you take any organization that moves events across cities or across countries, there is a standard rule. Be involved in the previous event organization so that you learn the ropes and can do it better, and also help the next line of people who are organizing it the year after. This is the way it happens with the Olympics, the creative commons summits, and even with TiE Conferences. I am sure the TiE Delhi guys would echo that, for the TiE Summit that is happening in Delhi, the bangalore guys are already part of it, so that when TiE Summit happens in bangalore next, everybody is well aware of what to do.
This needs to happen with Proto as well. That’s basically what is required. We have been slowly building a network in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad.. but we still dont have a critical mass of people. There is a team of 10 to 12 people who commit three months of their lives towards every edition of Proto, thinking, working and dreaming about the upcoming edition. If you believe you can get a team like that together from your city and nominate your city for the next edition of Proto, i am more than willing to consider. This in infact, a request that everyone should share and contribute towards the ecosystem that we are trying to build.
My only hesitation would be to ruin a good thing, by hastily moving it across cities, in the desire for scale. When economic returns are not the motive, the only goal i would like to preserve is that the interests of the startups are taken care of, and that remains the priority for this ecosystem that we are building.
I, for one, have absolutely no biases towards chennai. I am quite clear on that front. it’s just lack of other options.
Darren,
I am certainly up for that option and that is something i very much want to do. We wanted to try the upcoming edition in January, but given that Mumbai has been flooded repeatedly for the last two years during those dates, we werent sure.
That said, for the July edition, should you be interested to host it in Mumbai or any other city for that matter, It would be easy on the team as well, if you get involved with this edition itself, so that we ease into the responsibilites. truth be told, It being held in Chennai again, since we could find the critical mass of folks – who have atleast been with us through one edition – to take it to a different city.
That said, I’d like the next edition to be hosted in a different city. Any takers? If so, this is a good time to get involved.
Krish, you should atleast fly down and attend one event 🙂 It would really help to get a fix on what this is about and on what visions and agenda this is run, so that we arent doing that in the name of organizing. Operations are smoother that way.
As for the hotbed, cities downsouth are definitely on a better scale than the cities in the north, but the activities in India are too spread out to start a competition for “the hotbed city” yet 🙂
I hope that answers all questions. Thanks for the open feedback guys. Much appreciate it. I am seriously awaiting nominations for the next city.