Category: Other

This article was written in response to the story appeared on Telegraph FACTS: 1.  I organised an event titled "Tech Mission London 09" on 8th June 2009 hosted by Stewart Townsend of Sun Microsystems in London. If there were any deficiencies of the event, then I am the one who should be blamed for such an outcome. I am yet to hear a single negative comment from startups and investors who attended the event. 2. This was the first time that Northern StartUp 2.0 held an event outside the North West, and it formed a critical part of its geographical…

I have been glued to internet media channels and Twitter since yesterday morning to hear the end of LTTE and Prabhakaran. As the media was regugitating the same story over and over combining it with propaganda from pro-LTTE websites and old information from the UN and others, my frustration continued to grow. I came to the conclusion that the only way to get to the bottom of this story is to actually speak to the Sri Lankan Army. Around 12:30 hrs UK time on Sunday the 17th May 2009, I telephoned one of my school friends from Sri Lanka, an…

Northern StartUp 2.0 is becoming a much discussed topic these days within the tech entrepreneur community in the North of England. Among those who have spent few hours trying to understand, why a 41 year old man is so excited about Manchester and the tech scene is none other than Mr. Imran Hakim who is perhaps best known as Mr. iTeddy, since he appeared on our TV screen requesting funding for a startup from a tough looking bunch of business angels, known as BBC Dragons. Whilst these two characters are trying to work out the next steps in collaboration, it…

My analysis of Twitter is: It is the best tool after e-mail (and ofcourse after edocr.com) Twitter is here to stay for a while, and have a good chance of being bigger and more influential than Facebook, YouTube, etc, especially from a business perspective I have lately been frustrated by: Inability to build a holistic view of each of my Twitterers Inability to track tweets exchanged with each of my Twitterers Inability to set a strategy and actions for each Twitterer, both from NS20 and edocr perspectives Inability to view full details of each of my Twitterer on an spreadsheet…

In Feb 09, Phil Tapsell of TechVenture Solutions Ltd and Tom Cheesewright of The Lever Ltd joined Manoj on voluntary basis to steer NS20 forward, especially with respect to marketing and business development activities respectively. As you would have expected, one of the first activities of the team was to refine the vision, mission and strategy of Northern StartUp 2.0. Your comments and thoughts are most welcomed. Our Vision A thriving community of technology startups in Northern England, with access to all of the knowledge, services and capital that they need to grow rapidly. National and international recognition of the…

Imran Ali just pointed me to a blog post by Paul Graham of Y-Combinator titled "Can You Buy a Silicon Valley? Maybe". Even before I finished reading the second paragraph I knew I had to respond to it. So here I am reading and responding to Paul Graham. If you agree or disagree with what is written below, please do not hesitate to leave a comment.  I do not buy Paul’s argument that having a first-rate university in a place where rich people want to live will create a Silicon Valley. If you take Manchester (UK) as an example, University…

Tonight’s StartUp4Slaughter is Ash Mokhberi of DistinctID Since the launch of the internet users have had to repeatedly submit registration information to websites and create multiple usernames and passwords. With the launch of social networking sites and sites such as ebay, we have all started to build profiles of our identity on the internet. Whether it be a profile of personality and life experience or a profile used to identify credibility and trust among others. To this day the profiles or identity’s we build about ourselves online are restricted to their website of origin, forcing us as users to rebuild…

Twitter is everywhere these days and I must admit, it is my favourite tool next to e-mail and of course edocr. It is truly a remarkable marketing tool that I use everyday for both edocr and Northern StartUp 2.0. I also use twitter for user/customer engagement, news and collaboration. What is also amazing is the number of applications that have sprung up using Twitter API. In order to understand twittersphere, you need to understand what is out there. On this regard, I will be making an attempt to publish short articles on interesting Twitter Applications I find. To start with,…

Just a quick blog post to let you know that there are only 16 tickets remaining for tomorrow’s event. You can still buy a ticket at http://www.nwstartup20.co.uk/jan09. Act now to avoid disappointment later. Tickets at door are priced £40 irrespective of your status. \ "Thriving as a Tech StartUp in an UpStart economy – Beating the economic blues", is our first Northern StartUp 2.0 event of 2009 at new venue Horwath Clark Whitehill, Manchester, UK. The doors open at 6pm. Speakers and panelists include:   1. Mike Butcher, Editor, TechCrunch UK and Ireland. 2. Ed French, Venture Capitalist, Enterprise Ventures.…