Two days at Proto

 

Proto.in is an event that is loosely modelled on the DEMO conference. The idea is to showcase product companies from India. Out of hundreds, 30 companies were shortlisted and asked to demo their stuff. The event was organized by an energetic bunch of people led by Vijay Anand.

We are given 8 minutes (compare to 6 minutes in Demo) to showcase our product. The ground rule was no slides or PPT presentations. (we can all rock the slideshow routine, cant we ? ) Unfortunately, the 8 minute rule as well as the “no-slides” rule was followed by just a handful of companies.

I (netscript aka Vivek) was first on stage and demoed Unsniff Network Analyzer. I emphasised the extensibility aspect of Unsniff. I showed them the Ruby – iax voip analysis script written by our buddy Tim Vincent. I also hit up on the advantages of the visual breakout. 

It was really cool meeting some interesting folks, first Sujai Karampuri from Sloka Telecom. They are developing a low cost WiMAX base station as well as CPE node. I will explore the possibility of a tieup to support a radio module in 3.5G range for Unsniff with them.

I met Gokul who runs an excellent blog focussed on  VoIP, IMS, etc at http://tggokul.wordpress.com/ . He provided amazing live blog coverage of the event ( and I find it hard to blog once a week !) He has written about our talk here. I must sheepishly admit that I have not met him before this event even though Unleash works so much with VoIP and has great plans for IMS. We plan to meet soon.

The main organizer Vijay Anand is involved in a group called Tenet. They seem to involved in a lot of networking research. Unleash plans to work with them going forward. I see a great opportunity here to get support for new protocols and tools via access to that group.

There were a few VCs there too. My “skeptico-meter” for VCs is off the dial at this point. Nevertheless, it was interesting to meet and talk to them. It would be nice if they clearly articulated their long term vision and their ability to put up with long gestation products.

Overall, a couple of very interesting days.

[tags] startups, india, proto, proto.in, entrepreneurship [/tags]

Author: Vivek Rajagopalan

Vivek Rajagopalan is the a lead developer for Trisul Network Analytics. Prior products were Unsniff Network Analyzer and Unbrowse SNMP. Loves working with packets , very high speed networks, and helping track down the bad guys on the internet. View all posts by Vivek Rajagopalan