Report on first edition of OCC Kolkata Theme meet - My Journey

This is very delayed report about the first edition of OCC Kolkata Theme meet : My Journey.

In the first edition Angsuman Chakraborty, CEO and Founder of Verbands and Taragana.com, was the guest of the meet. Angsuman was joined by his friends and colleagues. Besides Angsuman, Shantanu Sikdar, CEO of Esine Knowledge Systems private limited and founder of Prepgenie.com was very much present and active participant in organizing the event.

Bijay Rungta, fellow member of OCC Kolkata joined in after completing his scheduled appointments.

During this meet Angsuman emphasized the need for members of OCC Kolkata Chapter to collaborate and address requirements of other members and thus build respective businesses.

As an example Angsuman mentioned about meeting Shantanu in one of the OCC meets and over the years, they have collaborated and solved each others pain-points.

One interesting point addressed by Angsuman was about, systematizing OCC Kolkata as an interactive platform, by appointing dedicated person, for handling the events of OCC Kolkata in return for a remuneration to be paid by members of OCC Kolkata.

Besides providing inputs on improviding OCC Kolkata platform, Angsuman provided first hand demo of Verbands (Social CRM SAAS product developed in India, catering to global requirements).

Release of this product is scheduled during February 2011.

Angsuman has kindly accepted to provide a user license for addressing requirements of OCC Kolkata Chapter.

Besides full-fledged demo of Verbands, discussion proceeded towards possible venues to collaborate.

Pics:
twitpic#1
twitpic#2
more twitpics......

Event promotion partner: Eventnu

This document is work-in-progress.

Theme Meet : My Journey first edition

Event : Theme meet - My Journey
Date: 29th January 2011.
Time: 5:30 to 8:30 PM
Agenda:
1. Welcome
2. My Journey - Angsuman Chakraborty talks of his entrepreneurial journey.
3. Members introduction and networking
4. Snacks

OCC Kolkata member Angsuman Chakraborty addresses following:
• The challenges of a self-funded startup in Kolkata and how we overcame them, lessons we learned
• From Software outsourcing to Verbands, a path to product development funded by outsourcing
• The need for collaboration between startups, the need for organizations like OCC
• Lessons learned while developing a fully indigenous software product in Kolkata targeted for mass market

Venue for this meet is provided by OCC Kolkata member Shantanu Sikdar.
Esine Knowledge System Pvt Ltd.
Salt Lake City, CF 30, Sector 1,
near Swimming pool.

About Angsuman
I am currently Founder and CEO of Taragana Inc.
Previously I worked as Chief Software Architect at DoubleTwist Inc., Oakland, CA.
I am a Sun certified Java Architect and B.Tech (Hons.) from IIT Kharagpur. I have over 15 years of experience in architecting, designing and developing products for Fortune 500 to startup companies.
Before founding Taragana, I have worked mostly in USA (6.5 years in Silicon Valley and NYC) & for 1.5 years in Bangalore & now in Kolkata.
My strength as architect and developer is in developing fault-tolerant, highly scalable, high quality enterprise systems. Since end-1996 I have been developing and deploying on Java platform, with occasional forays in PHP.
More info: http://tech.gaeatimes.com/index.php/about-me/
Twitter: @angsuman & @verbands
LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/in/angsuman (Use angsuman@taragana.com to add me to your network)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/angsuman.chakraborty
Yahoo IM: angsuman
GTalk: angsuman.chakraborty@gmail.com

About Shantanu Sikdar:
Shantanu is CEO of Esine Knowledge System Private Limited (Developers of prepgenie.com).

Online event management support is provided by OCC Kolkata member Vishwa Vivek Garg through his pune based venture EventNu.com.
Further information about EventNu.com is located at http://www.scribd.com/doc/46699460/Online-event-management-solution-eventNu
Vishwa and EventNu team have prepared a sub-domain for OCC Kolkata meet's RSVP. http://occkolkata.eventnu.com/ .

Join OCC Kolkata Chapter (http://groups.google.com/group/occ-kolkata).

kAdda Minutes

Date: 21st June 2009.

As before, only best in the breed attended the meet.

Participants:
1. Sumit Sureka
2. Amitabh Choudhury


Discussions:

1. Sumit details progress of Kitnebaje.com WRT business development, Software system development, Man management requirements.

2. Couple of support calls of kitnebaje.com was attended to while the kAdda was on.

3. Amitabh showed few features of his software application.

4. Potential of participation from Kolkatian in kAdda was a topic that cropped on and off.

Minutes prepared by Amitabh Choudhury.

Next meet: 21st June 2009

We are having a generic meet at Time Vision InfoTech.

Siddharth Goyal, CEO of Time Vision Infotech has come forward to provide space for OCC Kolkata kAdda meet on 21st June 2009. Siddharth Goyal is fellow member of OCC Kolkata Chapter.

This meet is a generic meet and likely to provide route to future theme meets.

Come one and all. Venue details are given below. Do confirm participation at the Yahoo! upcoming site.

Details are mentioned below:

Venue:
Time Vision Info Tech

HA -58, Sector III, Salt Lake City
Kolkata, West Bengal 700097

Date: 21st June 2009
Time: 12:00 PM
Cover charges: INR 60 (adjusted against beverages and/or snacks you order)

Contact: 9432744429 (Amitabh Choudhury)
Alternate contact:9831509501 (Siddharth Goyal)

Confirm participation @ Yahoo Upcoming

OCC Kolkata Chapter

Next OCC meet: April 19th 2009

Details as per below:
Date: 19th April 2009
Time: 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM
Venue:
Aqua Java Med Cafe (http://www.aquajava.in/)
32 Lala Lajpat Rai Sarani
Kolkata, West Bengal 700020
Contact person: Prasanna Pradhan(Area Manager of AquaJava)
Contact numbers:
+91 - 9748009000
+91 - 33 - 40034775
Theme: Online Payment Gateway business scenario in India
Featured guest:
Ms. Jaya Parbat,
Manager Business Development (East)
TechProcess Solutions Ltd.

OCC Kolkata Chapter

Next meet: 15th March 2009

We are having a generic meet at Aqua Java, Wood Street, Kolkata.

Aqua Java members have come forward to provide space for OCC-Kolkata meets.

With this step OCC Kolkata Chapter is getting closer to leap over the hurdle of organizing venue for kAddas.

On March 15th we have the first generic meet at Aqua Java and move on for Theme meets at the venue during later dates.

Come one and all. Venue details are given below. Do confirm participation at the Yahoo! upcoming site.

Talks are on for possibility of video or audio broadcast as Aqua Java is Wifi enabled. Technical details have to be worked out. Its too early to confirm the same.

Wasim is Area Manager and contact person of Aqua Java. In case of difficulties in finding the venue feel free to call him.


Details are mentioned below:

Venue :

Aqua Java

10 Wood Street,

Calcutta - 10.

Date: 15th March 2009

Time: 12:00 PM

Meet type: Generic

Cover charges: INR 60 (adjusted against beverages and/or snacks ordered)

Phone: 033-40013850
Alternate contact: Wasim - +919748406649

Confirm participation @ http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2125113

Next meet: 25th January 2009

This is a theme based meet. Guest of the meet Daniel Lucraft  is a senior developer for Songkick.com.  Daniel is a senior Ruby developer making it easy to find live music happening. Daniel blogs @ http://www.daniellucraft.com/blog/.

Theme includes

1. Comparing startup scenarios in Kolkata, West Bengal and London, UK.

2. Ruby and other technologies.

Other topics: 

New members of OCC Kolkata introduce and promote their projects.