With BarCamp Chandigarh, the entrepreneurial community in Chandigarh got a new place to fuel its hunger to share their innovations, business ideas and perceived future technologies with others looking forward to pitch in with their inputs and feedback.
BarCamp Chandigarh, the first event of its kind, was organized by Fountainhead School of Business and supported extensively by OMBS group and Morpheus Venture Partners. What makes the event unique is that that there is no audience but only participants. Everyone who joins in has to be an active participant and not just a passive listener. There are people who volunteer to help organizers in one way or the other, then there are others who help spread the word about the event, and last but not the least, those who bring in something to share through a presentation, a session or a workshop.
An interesting mix of 70+ enthusiasts, including professionals from the industry, 20+ entrepreneurs and over-excited students from various prestigious colleges, like UBS (PU, Chandigarh), Thappar College (Patiala), HImachal Pradesh University (Shimla), Punjabi University (Patiala), joined in to be a part of the event.
The event started with an ice-breaking session, where everyone was supposed to introduce someone, whom he/she just met, and the best introducer walked away with a prize.
Then with a tea break the event started with various sessions by participants on a variety of topics. Some of the most interesting sessions were as follows:
“Entrepreneurship is a personality type” by Sameer Guglani of Morpheus Venture Partners
Once wanna-be film-maker turned accidental entrepreneur, Sameer Guglani of Morpheus Venture Partners, who joined in with his wife (Nandini) and 8-month old daughter, is a renowned serial entrepreneur in the country, with more than 40 companies in his portfolio. He spoke about entrepreneurs to be “misfits” in the society from a very young age itself, with everybody nodding in acceptance. According to him, they are the people who make their own rules and bring in the revolution in the society. He also shared his experiences from his life.
“Personality Development” by Anoop Luthra
He spoke about his own story of, how a boy from a small village of Punjab, with zero confidence level, turned the world around him upside down and turned into a confident public speaker. He shared his experience with everyone, whle bringing smiles to everyone’s face.
“Web development with Java” by Amit
A Java enthusiast who left his job a few months back, to promote Java and make a career in Java, gave away extremely useful information on the language.
“Nanotechnology with Automobiles” by Mukul Sharma
Mukul, 3rd year mechanical engineering student from Punjabi University (Patiala) and an automobile passionate, gave an insight on the possible revolutions in automobile industry by the use of nanotechnology.
“Data Portability” by the Rishabh Verma
Nobody would have noticed a 14-year old entrepreneur coming in to attend the barcamp. But when he spoke about “Data Portability”, everybody listened to him with their mouths wide open. When he finished with his sessions, barcampers had less queries about the topic and more about the presenter!
After a lunch-break, where people could be found exchanging cards, taking numbers and shaking hands, the participants were even more energetic with the following sessions:
“Websites, Social media and Blogging” by another entrepreneur, MohitAneja
The entrepreneur who got up at 6am after years, walked in with his entire team and took the energy levels to the next level. He stressed upon the need to maintain ones identity in the online world through website, blogs, social media, as today your future employer will check out your orkutprofile before he takes a decision, or your current boss might just fire you because you said something offensive about the company to your facebookfriend.
“Legal issues for start-ups” by Ankur
Ankur is a law graduate and has started his venture “Coraza”, which help start-ups take care of the legal issues
“Theory of constraints, Landmark Education and Holistic Healthcare” byAnuj Mittal
Entrepreneur Anuj Mittal of Kneev, who joined in late as he came all the way from delhi just to be a part of the event, shared insights about 3 topics he is very passionate about. “Theory of Constraints” which was introduced by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt in 1984, gurantees to provide solutions to every single problem, no matter how big or small it is, by making you look in the right direction.
Those who couldn’t join the event physically were connected virtually and following the proceedings of the event on tweeter with the participants continuously tweeting about the barcamp Chandigarh on the net.
The event was concluded with an exciting feedback session, where participants thanked Fountainhead School of 
Business for organizing the event and concluded that they would like to have such session more often and with more variety of topics to be covered.
The credit for the high energy levels through-out the day goes to the audience which was equally participating and forthcoming when it came to sharing with others. BarCamp Chandigarh proved to be the next milestone in making Chandigarh the next Silicon Valley.
