Putting up #PNCamp has not been easy. And the task is only half-done. Volunteering is like an open-source movement. You learn a lot, give back, and lean upon all your co-volunteers to make things happen. There is no institution behind it, no big brother, no event manager, no marketing agency. Just volunteer passion.
It’s the same energy that put up India’s defining product events in the past.
So who are these folks? Lets get behind the scenes…
The Chief Directors… we call them Program Curators
Bala Parthasarthy is program curator and is putting together awesome sessions for Scale Hacking. He is also allowed some free time to run his own venture ! We promise him a lot more free time after PNCamp is over.
Pallav Nadhani is a scale hacking legend and he is program curator for the Discovery Hacking track. His quick fire responses and ability to dissect any situation is only one of his amazing traits. He’s walked the Discovery Hacking trail and has a story or two for you.
Chief Cheerleaders
Our Volunteer efforts would not be complete without the active support of our Product ecosystem stalwarts. Folks like Vijay Anand, Rashmi Ranjan, Kesava, Dorai, Arpit and many of you who have readily helped to reach out.
The Chief Camper
Sharad Sharma, the person who started it all. He has the most amazing vision for Indian software products, and carries this mission with zeal. He unashamedly says he can’t do it alone, so he turbo charges unsuspecting folks like me and we end up being volunteers. Willing volunteers. We get so badly infected by the Sharad virus that we start encouraging others to become volunteers.
The Chief Choreographer
The one man army who’s known as M Thiyagarajan during the day and Chhota Rajan by night. Ok, that’s stretching it but Rajan is one person who’s easily our one man army. Rajan leads the design of the PNCamp. Rajan’s ability to design a program, think objectively and pull resources to make it happen, is unparalleled.
The Chief Distributor
That’s me, Sandeep Todi, reaching out to all you folks with the audience curation team comprising Aditya, Harrshada, Nakul, Sai, Seema and Vijay. I’m a very responsible person. So for anything that’s going wrong, you can hold me responsible. I enjoy putting fresh ideas and trying the unknown stuff and thinking on my feet. Sometimes these fresh ideas are purely experimental. Sometimes they’re not even half baked. So things go wrong and I look for the villain in our movie so I can blame it on somebody. Trouble is, there’s no villain, only heroes 🙂
The Chief Everything
That’s Avinash Raghava, who is one of guys most well versed with the Indian product ecosystem. Always willing to help, create connects and push for doing things that have never been done before, like the hugely popular Product Nation Round Tables. You name any one part of doing PNCamp that he hasn’t helped with, and I’ll buy you a beer.
The Chief Controller
Dilip T Ittyera, now in his firth startup and previously with a large IT firm, brings you all the goodies. If your Registration didn’t go smoothly, go ahead and blame him. If the arrangements at the venue aren’t up to snuff, you know whom to catch. Be forewarned, he’s one tough guy. If the PNCamp is happening, it’s because he and Avinash went all out to seek support of our sponsors.
The Chief Curators… these are the folks who’ve primarily been responsible for all the chaos. After all, you can’t make a movie without Chaos…
Meet Aditya Bhelande, our Editor. He does more than work on products. He helps people build products. Just as he’s helping to build PNCamp. He’s one of the rare breed who will do anything if he’s convinced about it, and sees it through. Most of us would falter half-way. Many of you will hear from him, the “hand-curtation” is really his editing magic.
Harrshada Deshpande is the Music Director and one of our newest volunteers. If there’s anything beautiful about our movie, its the music she’s produced. Have you seen our awesome website yet? There’s more… the kind of stuff you’re going to see in the coming weeks is entirely her creation. She works on US time, but out of Bangalore, and NOT for US customers. No kidding. Have a call with her at 9pm IST and she’ll come back with a complete set of ideas and mock ups by 9am next day. Awesome!
Nakul Saxena is the Actor-Director-Producer at large. A dependable all rounder, he can act, he can direct and he can even produce. He’s the kind of person who wants to transform from one role to another and does it so fluidly that we find him everywhere all at once!
Sairam is our Scriptwriter. He’s someone all of us turn to. His ability to put together thoughts and communication in a way that is meaningful, impactful and passion-full, is his own undoing. Because if you do something really well, you are destined to do more and more of it 🙂
Sameer Agarwal, the Stuntman. He’s the visionary and the guy who can hypnotize you even on the phone. His vision, design sense and whacky ideas are unmatched in the whole team. It’s what makes us tick. Sameer can jump better than Jeetu, talk better than Big B and dance better than Mithun. So what if these are heroes from the 90s?
Seema Joshi is our Chief Psychiatrist. She can fix all of us mad folks in one stroke. After an hour of meandering discussions, trust her to distil that into objectives and action points. We would be nowhere on a number of things were it not for her extreme clarity and focus on what we need delivered.
Vijay Sharma is Chief Marketeer. the powerhouse that’s probably the combined Klout of all of us. Actually, I’ve never met him but I promise I’ll be able to recognize him within 5 seconds. He’s one of the fastest on the ball and can turn any idea into a plan within that 5 seconds. That’s how I would recognize him!
Each of us has bitten off more than we can chew. Seriously. We’ve got day jobs and companies to run. That should not deter you from talking to us. Click on any of our Linkedin profiles or Twitter handles to reach out.
