Abe Oye!

Its been an amazing journey from Barcamp Bangalore 2 to Barcamp Bangalore 6. I remember Rajiv telling me about some need for volunteers for something called Barcamp. This was when I was in my final year of engineering I guess. I was clear that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and Sujai and Rajiv were the only entrepreneurs that I knew, and Rajiv had said, you’ll like it. So I responded to the mailing list and got invited to a meeting. I reach late for the meeting (at CCD Indiranagar 100 Ft Road), and find a hyperactive mustached guy talking enthusiastically to a bunch of guys. I later find out that his name was Kesava. And since that day, Kesava has been more than a friend, nothing of a philosopher and a quite a guide to me.

Thats how it all started, and since then I have had the privilege of being one of the organizers* of every Barcamp thats happened in Bangalore. I must acknowledge that the people I have met here. We usually read about inspiring people, I have had the privilege of working with them. To name a few - Arpit, Aditya, Jace, Arun, Puneeth, Kallol, Pradeep, Akash, Shourya, Aashish, Nishant and the rest of our lot. Man, they are all such amazing people.

BCB (The First) was a super hit and BCB2 kind of lived up to the expectations of the crowd. The ThoughtWorks office was like the coolest place to host a BarCamp in. Then came BCB3, Jace had this idea of cross pollinating various segments of the society together at Barcamp. We debated this for a month . Honestly, no jokes here! Arun, Jace and Akash did some extraordinary work and ported the website to MediaWiki. He also initiated an absolutely ass-kicking brainstorming session in which we listed down everything that we could think of in the Internet, Mobile and Society Domains. He then went on to create FreeMap diagrams of the same and posted it on the site. I must say, BCB3 involved the maximum effort. It was also because, sponsorship was a problem and nobody wanted to sponsor the Venue. Finally we got IIM and things moved Gracefully. BCB4 saw a great team member leaving in the form of Arpit. He had single handedly managed several tasks and now he was leaving for his MBA. We aslo had a great team member in the form of Aashish Solanki coming in. He has been the champion of all design related activities of BCB preparations ever since. After acknowledging the efforts involved in organizing a BarCamp, we decided to keep the venue static. Aditya, the lean mean networking machine was always full of ideas and contacts without whom we couldn’t have reached far. It was Aditya who introduced Mansi to the team after BCB3 I guess! And her presence has been indispensable since she joined. When BCB3 ended, the Mobile and Society crowd were very happy. Internet was so just the same and everyone complained about the venue. But having gone through the pains of finding a venue once, we were very glad that IIMB offered us to continue having Barcamps in their campus. I am sure the junta doesn’t mind it much this time around. Oh and I completely forgot Collectives. That was the theme of BCB4. It received a mixed response. Come BCB5 and Collective based discussions were moved to a Forum. We had a tough time generating enough enthusiasm in people to user the Forum though. We also debated having a code jam but dropped the idea for the sheer amount of effort required to carry it off well. The star of BCB5 was Nishant Baranwal, Mansi’s brother. This dude managed all the finances like a pro. Srini Yelandur cracked off an amazing deal with Google. And then came the recently concluded Barcamp Bangalore 6. (NOTE: I am writing a quick post, and my intention is not to talk about what everyone in the org committee did, but to put down whats coming in my mind immediately. I would love to acknowledge the amazing efforts of Pradeep, Shourya, Saurabh Laddha, Saurabh Minni, Kunal, Jayanth and everyone in the team whom I have surely but accidently missed out). Basic intention is to speak my heart out on acknowledging the amazing folks who are just like my family now!

BCB6 has been my most enriching experience. I have never witnessed so much participation in a BCB before. And the feedback session too was awesome.
* Now ofcourse, there is nothing like a distinction between an organizer or a participant. But there are a group of participants who invest their time and energies to organize the event and take care of the nitty gritty details. I am referring to this set of people here.