Desinerd

Opdrage Venture Partners are a New Delhi based boutique Management Consulting and Capital syndication firm focusing on seed and early stage ventures.

I have been the geek-in-residence for Opdrage for quite sometime and its time to talk about it a bit more. Here at Opdrage, we aim to build things that are solid and last … it does not matter what is the focus area, as long as it is a solid capitalist business. This is a very much Y-combinator approach to businesses in my view, Paul Graham would be proud :).

My mentor Kris Nair also the founder of Opdrage is very clear about his approach to it, and I have learned a lot of things from him about his experiences (NDA guy, marketing guru, and much more). A lot of coffee and crazy amounts of fun define how one becomes a part of something like Opdrage. Helping out startups to *start* *get funded* , helping people put money into the *right startups* is all that happens in a routine day here.

So if you have a killer idea (like mine here), mail in to me or Kris at opdrage (contact@opdrage.com) and make it all happen. Believe me, the next google killer is going to be in an Indian garage …. its all happening here.

I stood, to look over my fallen countrymen. It used to be all about the nation before i turned into stone, a mere statue to the stuff happening in our America today. We fought for what was right and ours … but our children today have forgotten those values.

It was the war for independence, I lead my army with the only possession that i really cared about …. my hand-made notebook. I promised to look over them till the end of time, all we needed to think about today was the nation to be born …. Howe, the British general was too busy fighting off his *british* enemy general Carleton, such were the British …. I knew we would make some early inroads …

It was a bright sunny Philadelphia morning …. we had planned our assault and our information said that the British were only twice as bigger. Should be easy, as the assault started i realized standing on the hilltop that we had been fooled … there were British troops all over the horizon much more in numbers than us. But we were in it, and fight we did …. very few survived … some remembered our fight to the death … in due time, America was born, and i was a statue looking over the graves of the thousands who fought for the *nation* besides me

http://wiki.linux-delhi.org/twiki/pub/Main/InderprasthaWorkshop/ip-june7.ppt

Today i participated in ILUG-Delhi’s workshop, it was interesting to the end that i figured out how important it is to break down information into chewy bits.  I was supposed to give a presentation on  “building social networking applications using python”, i made the wrong assumption about the people present there.

But then one has to learn the hard way to do better the next time. I do look forward to taking part in more such events, ILUG-Delhi does require some more technical talks though tad bit more basic to start off with. For more information about ILUG Delhi hit

http://wiki.linux-delhi.org/

Its quite a quiet community right now, hopefully it can grow in the future to challenge the bengaluru group … jokes apart … Indian Open Source needs a lot more work, the current state is too individualistic (i can be easily accused of being one here). People should not be required to know / be chacha,bhatija to take part in such events in my view, the community feeling is missing i feel. Thats the only reason OSS has not taken off exponentially in India, the formation of an elite brahminical class it seems was inevitable like any other of our systems. It seems they are unable recruit the right kind of foot soldiers to carry on the torch into the bright bright Indian future …..

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/05/30/brazil.tribes/index.html?iref=topnews

(CNN) — Researchers have produced aerial photos of jungle dwellers who they say are among the few remaining peoples on Earth who have had no contact with the outside world.

A very random story on this picture, njoi

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Vellan and Tipsy were sitting, happily looking at Bela their *ummm* hot wife, well this is one of the few surviving matriarchal societies (isolated from society, now you know why). If you do notice, there is a slight smirk on Bela’s face … thats is where the story starts.

Bela , Vellan, Tipsy the happy amazonian jungle family are young adults in their highly ‘consumer’ist economy. Spending some food to barter cool leafy summer wear is now-a-day very common, all the elders think this is crap but then societies evolve. Today is Bela’s birthday and the young guys want to impress her (after all an eventful night is at stake), there is a rumor that strange looking birds have been flying around … .so the bet between Vellan and Tipsy is to catch that bird. In all possibility we can say that this was one bet well beyond their reach, turns out Bela got Wimpy, their neighborhood food guy to take her out for the night. The so called researchers spoilt some amazonian’s wet dream …. nice guys finish last they say

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Another picture story by my gurl, Maitrayee

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It was a beautiful summer’s day and the ocean was placid…just right for a lazy day on the beach. Tsanto and her surfer friends were disappointed as the sea dozed and occasionally snorted. Teenage hormones and tame activities don’t go together! So they clowned around…made a couple of human pyramids on the sand and tossed the ball around from one towering team to the other. They certainly were creative where the author cannot always be! The midday sun blazed its brightest and they were just about to head out for a swim when they heard a shout. A hand glider above them was steadily losing altitude and a boy was desperately trying to get it to land on the beach. It seemed unlikely as the glider was still too high…the boy’s frantic cry floated out over the ocean…I can’t swim…I can’t….Tsanto and Joakim hastily made plans…why not take the pyramid out to the sea…and pluck him out of mid-air!! Brilliant but risky. The current a little further out was strong and they had to catch him at the right time. The boys formed the pyramid, balancing on the slimy ocean floor…some of the girls floated a little further off just in case. Well, the boy caught on, let go of the glider and Kenzy just managed to grab his arms…the glider floated on serenely…its shadow soft on the water before it crashed into it.