Bangalore Barcamp was over this weekend and we had great fun. Interest levels are best indicated by numbers: 382 registered, just over 200 attended day 1 and almost 100 on day 2. When you end at 6.30 PM on a Sunday with many people still hanging around and some speakers not getting a session, you know it was a great hit.
We all started at 7.30 AM so that we have everything in place by 8.30 when the registration was to begin. The first registrant appeared at 7.40 AM and we were still waiting for keys to unlock the conference goodies. By 8.30 AM we had 25 people in from the registered list and 4 in a the waiting list. All flood gates opened by 9.00 AM. But by 9.30 we were down to a trickle and still away from the 200 mark. Next I checked was at lunch and we had around 200 in.
Still a 50% dropout rate makes me think about the fate of the upcoming barcamps. As someone pointed out, this was bangalore after all!
The team behind the efforts including yours truely:
I’ve blogged earlier about Mobile Mondays and BarCamps in India. I believe that such unconference mode forums are key to building Indian Innovation ecosystem.
The premise is quite simple. Upto a few months back the biggest obstacle to building an Indian Innovation Ecosystem was lack of serious risk capital in India. Sure VCs have been around for some time but most were busy doing late stage or pre-IPO deals. By some estimates, less than 5% of the PE money that got invested in India was into early stage deals. This is fixed given several funds such as IDG, Helion etc have announced $ 100 M+ funds for early stage investments in India. Helion partner Sanjeev Agrawal was recently in news for 3 deals he’s about to close soon! So money is a problem of the past.
Now the problem is the lack of a ecosystem platforms; forums where different people can meet and gain from each other. Ideas seldom make money on their own. Great ideas in fact are good ideas built on top of other good ideas. Similarly, a single person seldom is responsible for a success. More often than not, its a team that wins. All these meeting of ideas and people are possible only if good forums exist. TiE has been doing a good job in this respect for some time. But more is needed to build a momentum and to attract aspiring innovators. IMHO, Barcamps and Mobile Mondays can play that role.
Its nice to be able to back up opinion with action and I’ve been able to do that for some extent. Today both Mobile Monday Bangalore and Mobile Monday Hyderabad were held with TCS sponsorship. The last MoMo Bangalore and MoMo Mumbai were both sponsored by TCS. Next up is Barcamp Bangalore where close to 300 people have already registered for 200 seats! Again, we are happy to extend support. Next up are Barcamps Delhi and Pune. Both will be supported by TCS.
Hope to meet more interesting people and have rich conversations all through December.
