(Pic – Proto.in session in Chennai, India)
Few days back I came across this particular group (in India) – Proto.in (www.proto.in) – which provides a platform for interaction between innovators and investors. Google takes them serious enough to be one of their major sponsors. What the group does is play a sort of match-maker between a small company and a prospective investor. Say if you are a startup which is short on monies but has a demonstrable ‘prototype’ capable of hitting pay dirt, then Proto.in is exactly what the doctor ordered.
In the words of Proto – Proto.in is about giving entrepreneurs a platform to express their visions and showcase their imagination, with a working prototype, for the world to see.
The concept works like an other fund raiser where the contenders gets to showcase its product or idea in something like six minutes and, watch out for this, the use of Power Point Presentation is actually discouraged. If you have a prototype, you better show that and not just some fancy diagrams.
The idea behind six minutes presentation is the famous elevator example where in junior would pitch the idea to his boss (at MkKinsey, so I heard) in an elevator and the boss would give his verdict when the elevator stopped. According to the management gurus, if you can’t sell the idea within this much time, then the idea is not worth it. Take that.
Proto.in is about a year old and has acquired some decent street cred since its inception. Transforming itself into a sort of rendezvous point between startups and VCs for not only funding purposes but potential acquisitions as well.
What I like about the whole idea, the game plan, is that it provides an ecosystem for small companies rich on ideas to exhibit their talent and get all kinds of assistance be it capital, or talent, or even strategic guidance from established players in the industry which otherwise would be quite hard to come by if not totally impossible to get.
My gut feeling is Proto.in engagements would become signature events in the years to come as more and more India companies gear up for fresh challenges and interesting innovations.
Hi, I came to know about this group from your site and i think the idea rocks…. Gives the feel of silicon valley right in India! Hopefully we see something like Google being discovered in these events in India…. Good review over all!
Well, well…
Sorry, that you could not attend Proto.08. You would have loved it. Mundial Communications from South Africa (special guest) was also one the presenting company. We presented our Yambi platform. Yambi is actually the only platform in the world specially meant for the consumer and small businesses worldwide.
Unlike many existing Unified Messaging and Collaboration platforms whose servers are very expensive, but cannot be hosted in broadband or any other dynamic network, Yambi servers can be hosted in any network: dynamic or static, even with simple dial-up connection.
DESIGNED FOR THE CONSUMERS
It is really the world-first Consumer Unified Messaging and Collaboration server. It offers you a unique offline-online experience.
You will agree that the best place to host your data remains your local hard drive. However, as you are not desk-bound at all times, the need exists to access these data remotely or to push it automatically to your mobile device. This has proved throughout the years almost an impossible mission, unless you can afford costly servers like Exchange, Domino etc. But because these servers don’t work on broadband, – despite the fact that broadband has become the preferred internet connection worldwide, – you have to acquire expensive dedicated networks as well.
It is a fact that the majority of Internet users cannot afford this solution. In order to remotely access the data, they are forced to host them on the web only (no off line) often with companies they can’t completely trust. But believe me, not all data are meant to be hosted by a third party.
TOTAL CONTROL
Yambi platform gives you total control over your data and freedom of hosting choice. It can be hosted on your local hard drive, on a remote virtual machine, on any data Centre, on a few of your peers’ machines, even on a memory stick.
SECURE COMMUNICATION CHANNEL
Mundial Communications patent pending technology keeps related servers at all time visible to each other and establishes a peer to peer secure communication channel between servers and their clients; making it possible for an all-time and anywhere multi-point Access/Delivery of your data (Desktop, Web, Mobile Devices)
IMAGINE
Imagine, Imagine Microsoft Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Groove Server and their respective clients, integrated into one Application. Now, imagine the integrated application targeting the general consumer and SME worldwide. Imagine a unified Messaging service for the consumer that is so simple that even Grannies can use it. With the added bonus that all mobile data (E-mail, IM, SMS) are sent and received over IP. Thus escaping the exorbitant charges from the Mobile carries.
Imagine your Outlook or any other mail client integrating all your Mail accounts, Contact management with Presence, secure and archived Instant messaging, shared and group calendar, file sharing, etc with Server-side hosted data.
Imagine … Yambi: an unified messaging platform for the consumer worldwide.
Yambi: your unique and secure PVN (personal virtual network)
Yambi is from now on open on invitational beta. It is a must try application. Please contact me if you need to try Yambi. Leonard Badi