Here is the press release that IIT Madras is releasing for the BrainJam session I’m conducting on 29th Oct at 6:30 pm. BTW, its a free, open event and everyone is welcome to attend.
IIT Madras Hosts BrainJam on Entrepreneurship
C-TIDES, the Entrepreneurship cell of IIT Madras, is hosting an engaging UnConference on “IDEA: A Beginning of Entrepreneur’s Journey” by Mr. Kiruba Shankar, a serial entrepreneur, a columnist and an author. Being from an engineering background, Mr. Kiruba has initiated several entrepreneurial ventures like Business Blogging, F5ive Technologies, Vaksana Farms, Verdure Books along with authoring books like Wikipedia: A beginner’s guide, Copy Right & Left and Crowdsourcing Tweet.
This highly acclaimed UnConference would primarily involve adrenaline filled, highly energetic brain jamming session where the audience are encouraged to openly share their entrepreneurial ideas/thoughts in less than a minute. Along with this thrilling extempore, the speaker would also spice up the session by sharing his entrepreneurial success story. He would also be drawing upon excerpts from the lives of the leading entrepreneurs and business leaders. Kiruba will touch upon how they came across their eureka moment of entrepreneurial idea, what mistakes they made, what to learn from them and how they scaled up their business.
The UnConference will be held on the 29th of October 2011 from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. at Central Lecture Theatre, IIT Madras. This is a free, open-invite event and interested person can register by sending an email to activities@c-tides.org
For more information, please contact:
Sunny Purswani
Student Head
C-TIDES, IIT Madras
+91-9940574165
sunny.purswani89@gmail.com
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I vividly remember the first meeting with Jigyasa Giri & Pratibha Jain. It was a couple of years ago when they had invited me home for a wonderful spread of absolutely yummy home-cooked meal. The recipe for each of the food item was taken from their best selling, award winning book, ‘Cooking at Home with Pedatha’. The book went on to win the prestigious ‘Gourmand’ Award for the ‘The Best Vegetarian Book in the World’ in 2006.
The success of their first book encouraged them to publish their second book titled ‘Sukham Ayu’, a carefully researched book which is the quintessence of an ayuvedic diet. The book is a wonderful collection of recipes consisting of simple, vegetarian dishes with the goodness of Ayurvedic insights.
From left to right : Pratibha Jain (standing behind the podium) is a Ph.D in Languages and runs a language translation service. Jigyasa Giri (with the mic) is a Kathak dancer and choreographer. To her left is Latha Menon, documentary and adfilm maker and wife of Rajeev Menon, famed cinematographer and film maker. Next to her is Andrea Jeremiah, model, Jazz musician, singer, theatre personality and actress. Right most is me, singularly representing the male community, having been overpowered by a very eloquent, multi-talented, beautiful women.
When my turn came to speak, it was rather easy for me. I spoke from my heart. Not only was I impressed with Jigyasa’s and Pratibha’s passion for food and their ability to author books, I was quite impressed with their marketing ability. While writing a book is tough ( oh, just ask me!) , getting the book marketed is even tougher. I personally think that both of them did an outstanding work in using the Internet to get the word around.
They were also living my dream. I always wanted to document my grandmothers’ lives so that their rich experiences and fond memories can be passed on to my daughters and their kids. It always remained a wish list and when I meet someone who walked the talk, they instantly gain my respect.
The book is based on extensive research done at KARE, a health retreat in Pune. Dr.Prakash Kalmadi, Founder and Medical Director at KARE was so impressed with their first book, ‘Cooking at Home with Pedatha’, that he invited the authors to his retreat to start work on an Ayuvedic cookbook.
Just before the event was about to start at the Landmark bookstore in Nungambakkam, an old friend bumped into me. He happened to be there at the bookshop and when he learned that I was there for the book launch function, he asked me, “What’s the connection with you and cooking?”. He caught me off guard and I sheepishly replied, “Eating”!
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One of my goals for 2009 is to get better at public speaking. While many say that they have enjoyed my talks, deep inside me, I know I could’ve done much better. Way better. My heart always cringes when I miss an opportunity to deliver a knock-out performance (and not just a good performance). I think there’s a sea of difference between a good performance and a Knock-out performance. My ex-boss calls it “hitting the ball out of the park”. �
The Entrepreneurship Cell at IIT Bombay is organizing the annual The Entrepreneurship Summit on 7th Feb. The event hosts Eureka’08, Asia’s biggest business plan competition. I’ve been invited to be a mentor and look forward to sharing my expertise and helping the folks out.
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Conversation with students of MSU, Chennai, July 4th, 2008
The Michigan State University annually organizes a Summer Study Abroad Program and this time, select students are visiting South India. Their focus is on ‘Culture, Politics and Globalization’ and I’ve been invited to share my views. Technically, this isn’t a “speech” as in podium et al. It’s a more friendly coffee room discussion. It’s informal and I like it this way. Usually turns out much more interactive and productive. The program is organized by the wonderful Swarna Rajagopal, who taught at MSU and currently heads the Chaitanya Consultancy.
New Media Course , Chennai, July 4th till Nov 4th, 2008
Right after I finish the session with MSU students, I have to tackle the T.Nagar traffic to head to the SRM University‘s city campus to take my first class of the New Media course. My students are the Journalism students who are pursuing their Post Graduate Diploma. This course is spread over 4 months and I teach every Friday
It’s the second time I’ve been invited as a visiting faculty. The first time was to teach SriLankan Tamil Journalists who did their journalism course here. Thankfully, the new course is at their city campus in T.Nagar and unlike the last time, I don’t have to travel 80 kms each day to teach at their main campus in Kattangalathur.
India’s Premiere Entrepreneurship Event, Delhi, July 18 & 19, 2008
This is one event I’m absolutely looking forward to. With over 500 entrepreneurs, CEOs, VCs, Technologists in one place, it’s an event one wouldn’t want to miss. Along with Amit Somani, the Head of Search at Google India and a guy who oozes passion for product innovation, I’m organizing the Innovation BrainJam. This deserves a separate post but in a nutshell, its an exciting & pulsating shorter version of an unconference.
I’m also speaking at the event. I’m sharing the stage with Mahesh Murthy, a successful entrepreneur and investor. He is CEO of PinStorm and founder of SeedFund. We are talking on ‘The Art of Marketing The Startup‘.
The iCommons Summit, Sapporo, Japan. July 29- Aug 1, 2008
Imagine collecting 300 of the most passionate folks in Digital culture and free knowledge sharing from 64 countries and you can imagine the kind of energy and spirit buzzing around. The event brings together activists, change agents and new world social entrepreneurs to chart and reflect on a positive path for a more fair, more just, more creative world in the Information Age.
I’m wearing multiple hats here. As a speaker, I’m participating in the Video Lab and the Open Business sessions. As a Podcaster, I’ll interview some of the best minds at the event. As a journalist, I’ll cover the event for the Business Standard and The New Indian Express. More importantly, I hope to garner insights and ideas that I can bring back to India and share it with everyone.
The Asia Brand Summit, Mumbai, Sept, 25th & 26th, 2008
It’s a ‘by invitation’ event that aims to get together CEOs and Brand & Marketing heads. About 250 from India and another 250 from various countries. It’ll be a congregation of people behind some of the world’s most successful and sought out brands. The theme of Asia Brand Congress is “Communicating A Brand That Connects, Engages And Inspires Audiences” and I’m absolutely convinced that the online space plays a substantial role. I’ve been invited to sit on the ‘Advisory Panel’ and hope to actively contribute to the event. More importantly connect up with leading minds and soak up on inspiration.
Web 2.0 & Beyond Conference, Mumbai, October 16 & 17, 2008
I’m speaking on ‘Corporate Blogging and How can Businesses Benefit from it’, a topic that I’ll comfortably rattle out even if you wake me up in the middle of my sleep. It’s also a topic that I’m passionate about and I hope to impress the folks on the power of conversational marketing and online community building.
If you are coming to any of these events, do touch base with me. I’m available at 98415 97744 adn Kiruba at Kiruba.com. It’ll be good catching up.
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Tomorrow, the Diya hall at Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore will have the highest concentration of Intelligence and wealth per square inch. Thankfully, the Law of Averages in the form of my presence, will ensure that it’s brought down by half!
A select panel of 10 CEOs have been invited by NASSCOM for an exclusive round table with Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect. Or better known as the man who took Bill Gates’ place when he retired.
The invitees are:
1. Sharad Sharma, CEO Yahoo! R&D who is also the Session Chair & Moderator.
2. Ramalinga Raju, Founder & Chairman, Satyam Computers
3. Biren Ghosh, CEO Kahani World Inc.
4. Ashish Gupta, CoFounder and Managing Partner, Helion VC
5. Rajiv Mody, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Sasken Communications
6. Anand Deshpande, Founder Chairman and Managing Director, Persistent Technologies
7. Kiruba Shankar, Blogger, Columnist, CEO, Business Blogging, Founder, F5ive Tech.
8. Mohan C M, Chief Scientist, IBM India
9. Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman and Managing Director, Microsoft India
10. Ram Narayanan, Vice President, Yahoo! R & D
The discussion is going to be on the topic, ‘Is the Rise of SaaS an Opportunity for India?’ To me, the coincidence couldn’t have been any higher. Exactly the day before I got the invite (which was two weeks ago), I had scheduled ‘SaaS’ as the subject for my column in Business Standard for next week. I’ll just advance it now. I shouldn’t have any problem getting the best quotes!
Being a blogger, I’m the natural choice for being the guy who documents the meeting discussion. With such brilliant minds around, I’m going to be one busy ‘note taker’.
The round-table with Ray brings up my memories of a similar meeting with Kevin Turner, the COO of Microsoft. It took place almost exactly one year ago.
One of the big reason why I’m eagerly looking forward to the meeting is because I’ll get to meet 8 of the 10 people for the first time. The only people who I’ve met before are Sharad and Ravi Venkatesan. It’s always interesting connecing up with new people who have accomplished a lot in their life. (which has been the motivating factor for me to start Cerebrate.)
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Email:Kiruba @ Kiruba.com
Phone :+91-44-42733619
Mobile : 98415 97744
Snail Mail :(Home)
Virugambakkam,
Chennai, INDIA
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