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.

Podtech, the Silicon Valley based podcasting startup has recently launched a India centric podcasting channel. The channel went live a couple of weeks back and is picking up momentum slowly. Podtech is sourcing its Indian content from a bunch of Indian bloggers/writers (that bunch, incidentally, includes my own insignificant self as well), who will contribute audio, video and textual content to them on a regular basis. The channel hopes to provide Indians (whether in India or abroad) a comprehensive coverage of news & views related to technology, entrepreneurship, trends in internet & ecommerce, tech events etc in a podcasting format.

When I was first approached by them, my spontaneous (internal) reaction was – “Podcasting in India?? Who’s going to listen to podcasts here?”. I would have thought that podcasting is in a very nascent stage in India. And video blogging (something that most serious podcasters are slowly drawn into) is just non-existent. So what is the inherent rationale behind Podtech’s move to launch this channel?

I think this is like the proverbial “glass half empty/full” situation. The pessimists would say- “since it is almost non existent, it has no potential and is not worth pursuing”. The optimists, on the other hand would stick out their neck and say – “because it does not exist in this country and it is an emerging Web2.0 trend worldwide, it will happen some time pretty soon here as well. Let me get in and become the early bird, that catches the worm”.

Well, the latter viewpoint seemed to prevail on me and that’s why I have joined their contributing team. From a personal standpoint, there are a couple of reasons that have motivated me in doing so. Firstly, it gives me the opportunity to explore a completely untried medium (voice/video). Secondly it gives me a perfect excuse to walk upto some of the movers & shakers in the Indian tech landscape, introduce myself and initiate a conversation with them, while coaxing them into a podcast interview.

In Silicon Valley, podcasting is a veritable industry. Many podcasting startups have recently got funded and they have very aggressive plans. People are betting big on this space, and these companies are starting to attract some highly talented people. Robert Scoble (who needs no introduction) now works for Podtech and his podcast, called ScobleShow, is the piece de resistance on Podtech’s website.

While on podcasting, here are a few other Indian podcasting sites/channels that merit being discussed here.

PodMasti– This site is run by Bangalore based Ruchita Gupta, (who I happened to meet at the Bangalore Barcamp in April, earlier this year). Her site is probably the most visited Indian podcasting site as on date and she has been featured in many publications. Her podcasts though (as the name PodMasti suggests) are mostly about Bollywood and stories/gossip related to it.

Podbazaar– This site is run by Sujatha Jagannathan, who is based in the US. Podbazaar has podcasts from different contributors and the topics for its podcasts are quite widespread, ranging from arts, religion, spiritituality to health, tech etc.

(Both the above sites though are run by individuals and hence it would be improper to compare them to Podtech, which is a complete podcasting company. I have not included the Kamla Bhatt Show in the above list, since Kamla is also on Podtech’s contributor list. Her radio/podcast shows are quite popular).

Sunil Gavaskar’s cricketing podcasts on Yahoo– this is a section on Yahoo’s Indian portal that features podcasts from the “little master” about cricket. Gavaskar, incidentally is a very gifted commentator and backed up by some high voltage outdoor advertising, I would assume that this must be a pretty popular channel.

It’ll be interesting to see which is the first company to launch a complete podcast based business in India. I predict it’s going to be a good while before that happens.