• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Priyanka Vyas

Like-minded people network online. May the `tribe' increase.

Alongside `digital divide', there is `intellectual divide' too — and technology is helping to bridge it in its own way.

Traditionally, professionally networking Web sites such Linkedin and Business Networking International (BNI), which work on providing business references, have been widely used.

However, the concept is now driven with new activities that would amount to learning and fun rather than focusing merely on professional gains. It is now being made relevant even for the student community to achieve professional goals.

One such initiative is `techTribe', a Web site exclusively for networking. Be it students from engineering colleges or professionals from IT companies, techTribe was started with the objective of being a single platform for the tech minded to connect to innovate.

In a span of about four months, around 400 `tribes' have been formed on this platform.

As the name suggests, individuals who register on the site check the profile and the interests of other members and depending on the common ideas and interests that they may share, members within each group discuss technology and the new ways in which some of their ideas can be developed commercially.

The initiative, backed by venture capitalists, not only rewards the tribes that give innovative ideas with commercial viability but also assists them in taking their ideas forward.

Pune-based, Zensar Technologies, in September, tied up with techTribe for its employees to use the platform to meet other professionals. Zensar, which is already affiliated to various colleges, uses this platform to enable students from VIT, Singhad Institute of Technology, to network virtually and also organises events for them to meet.

"We invite mentors from techTribe to conduct workshops for our students. Several students have collaborated with Zensar employees to work on some of the projects. The virtual platform also helps the students to articulate their ideas better," says Shyam Ponappa, Head Marketing Innovation Division, Zensar.

Among those who have applied for grant to the selection committee of techTribe is Avinash Agarwal of Novelle Technologies. With a B.Tech and post-graduation from IIT, Delhi, and a start-up entrepreneur, Avinash has met people on this platform working on his idea to make GIS-enabled technology features accessible and affordable to average consumers in developing countries such as India and China.

"With the high costs incurred on PDA (personal digital assistant) phones, we plan to customise GPS and Real Time Navigation System on the existing Nokia, Sony Eriksson model at a substantially low cost for ordinary consumers. We would also like to add more features such as giving turn-by-turn directions for every route as well as the shortest route to reach from point A to B," says Avinash. TechTribe is now looking at various engineering colleges across the country so as to be a platform for students to collaborate. "With innovation being the buzzword, we want to facilitate an environment for IT professionals cutting barriers of companies and colleges, on a single platform. We will be announcing prizes for some of the tribes that have been selected for the ideas being developed on this platform next month," says Rohit Agarwal, techTribe CEO.

A similar initiative is Pagalguy.com. With participation from colleges such as Symbiosis Centre for Management of Human Resources and Development (SCMHRD), Symbiosis Institute of International Business (SIIB), SP Jain Dubai, Institute of Financial Management and Research (IFMR), Chennai, the platform is used to gauge the trends and requirements in different colleges and to leverage the expertise of faculty of one MBA institute by other students.

This is despite the fact that most students aspiring for MBA courses are already enrolled with some of the best coaching classes. Yet, it has about 40,000 members, 94,000 registered users and two lakh visitors per month.

"Realising the extensive use of the platform, some of these coaching institutes have also tied up with us to provide certain content and participate in some of the online activities such as quiz contests. Also, there have been instances where students who get admission in MBA institutes but are active on this platform, post their ideas, views and experiences for other students," says Eklavya Bhattacharyaa, Manager, Business Development, Pagalguy.com.

Barcamp is another platform where tech people connect to discuss topics such as WiMAX, attracting VC funding and open source. The site also brings people interested in technology trends under a single roof once in three or six months in different cities. Barcamp's `camp' initiatives have helped bring strangers together to form companies and enabled HR managers from IT companies to hire some of these campers.

"There have been instances where at the end of a Barcamp, one may also find 3-4 job offers in hand, or people getting together to form a new company," says Kiruba Shankar from Barcamp, Chennai.

In the last conference that he attended in Mumbai, not wanting to spend much on any of the expensive hotels in Mumbai, he actually used one such professional networking Web site to find accommodation. Besides the conference, through this new medium, he found new business partners and got a contract signed.

priyanka@thehindu.co.in

More Stories on : Human Resources | Internet

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
First things first

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line