வணக்கம் தோழா / नमस्ते दोस्त / Hello Buddy!

लोकाः समस्ताः सुखिनो भवन्तु

Lokāḥ Samastāḥ Sukhino Bhavantu
May all beings find happiness and freedom. May my actions help bring joy and liberation to everyone.

I am Balakumar Muthu, an International Award-winning Entrepreneur, TEDx fellow, and Technologist, who received the Top 50 Asia Innovation Award from SingTel in Singapore, Top 100 Startups Award from NASSCOM, Java Master Award & Duke's Choice Award from Sun Microsystems and BenQ Siemens Germany, and Red Herring Asia Award for technology innovation.

With over 17+ years of experience in IT/Software Consulting, with a particular focus on Japanese companies and strong expertise in Design & Product Engineering, UI/UX Web Design and Development for various B2B / B2C startups, SMEs, Enterprises, and several Fortune 500 companies. I specialize in architecting, designing, and building web applications to address both technology and business challenges across various domains, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), E-commerce, Online Marketplaces, Social Networking Services (SNS), Blogging platforms (CMS / Wiki), Usability/Branding, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Apps in Ed Tech, Retail Tech, Prop Tech, Med Tech, and Logistics Tech.

As an entrepreneur, my journey began in 2007 when I founded LoveLogger, the world's first private social blogging platform for pairs, which received a massive response from Hong Kong, Japan, China, and South Korea, accumulating over half a million users before its exit. It was featured in many prestigious internet magazines, including Yahoo! Japan, MSN Japan, Infoseek, Japan.Internet.com, Livedoor.com, Sina.com and various other popular Asian publishers. I have also launched a couple of other successful startups, sold a few, and had a few fail.

An avid Travel & Culture Photographer, documenting my journeys at CasualWalker.com, which is ranked as one of the Top 75 Travel Blogs in India. Additionally, I am a Travel & Culture Media Reporter and have been selected as the Official Honorary Reporter for the Korean Culture and Information Service of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

I enjoy meeting new folks and replying to all emails, so feel free to drop me a line and say hello to balakumar.muthu@gmail.com

Awards & Recognitions, I have received


Selected at Google India - Interview as one of the Top 5 Finalists out of 16,000 + people applied. Created Google Kids – a search engine for kids prototype for demonstrating during my Google India Interview.

My Startup was selected as one of the "Top 100 Startups" to get showcased at NASSCOM Product Conclave (NCP), Asia's largest platform for Product and Startup Companies to connect with Software Product leaders.

First Prize Winner of "Java Master Award " contest, conducted by Sun Microsystems and BenQ Siemens Germany.

Received Sun Microsystems Duke's Choice Awards - 10 Year Celebration of Java Technology and Sun Microsystems appreciation for my contribution to the early versions of Java Platform.

My Previous Startup LoveLogger, the world's first Collaborative Blogging & Private Network for Pairs, which received a great response from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and China. LoveLogger was awarded the “Asia's Top 50 Apps 2011 Award” (winner lists) from SingTel, Singapore and the Winner of "Red Herring Asia Award" for Technology Innovation. It was also featured in many popular magazines & portals from Japan, Korea, and China. This product was launched even before the current popular pair apps like Pairy, Between, Hey, Cupple.

TEDx Fellow and Mentor for NurtureTalent Startup Boot Camp at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

Selected as the Official Honorary Reporter for the Korean Culture and Information Service of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

I started tech blogging in 2002 during my early college days and listed as the 'Top 10 Tech blogger' by 'Blog Street India' and rated as the 'Top 50 Tech Blogger' by 'Blogs Top List'. My Tech blog is also listed as Favorite Blog lists at their Official Sun Microsystems Web Blog. My Tech blog posts have also been featured at Google Blogoscoped.com, Netscape.com, Java.net, Webpronews, Planet Mozilla, Linux Toy and few other popular blogs. Made my own blogging site at Yahoo! Geocities as geocities.com/i5bala (screenshots) in early 2002.

Early contributed member of World Wide Web Consortium (W3.org), W3C HTML 5 Working Group and Internet Society (ISOC) India Chapter.

Wikipedian contributed to more than 100's of Wikipedia pages in various topics in the Computer/Internet Technology category. Contributing writer of DeveloperIQ Magazine on the latest Web Technologies.

Curator of Casual Walker a Travel & Culture - Photography journal and guide, focuses on a wide range of visual stories - connecting Travel, Traditions, Indian Temples, Art Galleries, Culture, Events, Museums, Yoga & Vedas, Foods & Eats, Indian Dances, Wild Life, Hotels & Stays, and Nature and Living. It is ranked as the Top 75 Travel Blogs in India.

Co-organizer of Mozilla Firefox Party India, for the most early release of Firefox 2 and the IdeaCamp Pune. Regular to Tech meetups from BarCamp, BlogCamp, WikiCamp Unconferences to Sun TechDays, BEA Dev2Dev Days, Oracle Developer Forum, Google Developer Days and many other tech conferences. Attended Sessions with David Axmark, CoFounder & VP of MySQL and with Richard Stallman [RMS], GNU Founder Lectures.

Designer of DevCamp India Unconference Official event brand and WikiCamp conference India event brand, participated by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales.

Being a big supporter of Linux - Ubuntu & Open source movement, organized the "Ubuntu Dapper Drake T-Shirts Contest" to create more awareness and interest for the early versions of Ubuntu Linux.

My Expertise & specializations


I specialize in most aspects of Web business, including strategy, creativity, design, development, and its growth. My strong expertise and experience include front-end development, UI/UX web design and usability, branding, content management systems (CMS), e-commerce, software as a service (SaaS), cloud computing, social networking services (SNS), Amazon Web Services (AWS), enterprise apps in Ed Tech, Retail Tech, Prop Tech, Med Tech, Logistics Tech, and Food Tech, web security, firewall, user onboarding, typography, product prototyping, SEO, and Linux & open-source technologies.

My Personal Interests


I enjoy travel & photography, rock climbing, simple things — nature, reading. I love philosophy, art, culture, highly interested and passionate about the Indian, Korean & Japanese traditions, trying different flavors of tea, Wabi-sabi, Zen philosophy, making mistakes & learning from them, DIY hacks, and Western movies and Comics.

My Works featured at press / media


My works have been featured & covered by ZDNet Asia, Economic Times, British Council India, Times of India (TOI), Citizen Matters, Yahoo! Japan, MSN Japan, Infoseek, Japan.Internet.com, Livedoor.com, Google Blogoscoped, Netscape.com, Java.net, Webpronews, Planet Mozilla, Linux Toy, DeveloperIQ, Sina.com and many other popular Asian publishers. Java.net published my Java Duke Holiday Pictures from 1000's of submission.

My Travel & Culture Photography


Contact & Reach me


Want to work together, grabbing a coffee, or say hello? Good! personally, I have zero presence on Facebook or Twitter. You can ping and text me:

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Self - made man
the statue I greatly admire & the principle I strongly believe

“... left to his own devices, man will use his god-given talents to be creative, productive, & prosperous. Using free will, he will better his own situation and that of those around him, thereby influencing in a positive way his own destiny...”

Chat with iGod ;)

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What to chat with God? Here is iGod, quite interesting and good workout in flash, seems to be using AIML. Good site to pass some time. >>

Happy 7th Birthday GOOGLE !! :)

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Although, I am late still I would like to wish My wishes and love to GOOGLE on it’s 7th Birthday. Just 7 year but with a lots of “Hot Innovations”, today we can’t think of the WWW with out Google. Thank you Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Interesting Session on Design Patterns

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Last week, I attended an Interesting Session on Design Patterns by my Friend Vijayakumaran. He explained about using Design Patterns in C#, but still it helped me to bursh up my knowledge about design patterns skills. He talked about mostly used patterns with example and it was quite interesting and highly informative.

Personally, this is the last week our team is working with such a Sportive and HIGHLY Nerdy and Fun loving dude like him :) , as he is moving on to different project. I really felt GREAT :) working with him. Keep up the Good work Vijay!! Move ON…

--

Balakumar Muthu


Yahoo! Mail (Beta)

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Yahoo! Mail's next version comes to Beta; there is big difference in its new user interface. Drag-and-drop message organization. Currently the beta version is available only for selected users. Read on the review of PC Magazine about Yahoo! Mail review !!. >>

Microsoft’s IE 7 Copies Netscape Communicator’s Splash!!

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The MS Internet Explorer 7 's new logo literally seems to be copy the splash screen of Netscape Communicator, do you feel the similarities?, what do you feel?

Funny Uses of iPod Nano Movie ;)

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Watch this interesting movie which shows how iPod Nano can be used for other purposes too. Very Co0l one. ;). >>

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Samsung’s Introduces Fashion Phones!!

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Samsung just announced two new "fashion phones" - SPH-S3900 and SPH-S3950. These sliders feature a 1.3MP digital camera, MP3 playback with built-in 150MB internal memory, PDF/JPG/MS Office file viewer, dictionary, and mobile printing ability. Quite useful features.

Opera is now FREE!!

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Opera 8.5, one of my favourite small browser is now FREE for all, no registeration just download it. If Opera has made it before it would be in the place of Firefox. What do you think? >>

Organic HTML

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Watch this Cool Flash movie, just enter your website and look at how the plant grows, good flash work!! >>

Participate :)

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Suunto G6 : Golf Wristop computer

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Suunto G6, allows the golfer the ability to measure their swing, and to improve swing consistency and keep score all in one watch. After every swing we can check the tempo, rhythm, backswing, length and speed of our shot. It helps to keep track of our best shots and improve muscle memory to repeat only the good ones. The watch took more than two years to develop, and a must for all the Golfers . >>

Firefox 1.5 Beta 1

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Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 is released and available for download. I am using Deer Park for the past few months, seems to be quite increase in performance. >>

Google's Blog search

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Google just introduced Blog Search, think most useful tool for the bloggers. Advance search has lots of others features. It works for all blogs too. I just tried my blog and it is listed in the top most . Very Cool Na!! :)>>

Apple's iPod Nano

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Apple's iPod Nano, just .27 inches thin and 1.5 ounces, iPod nano packs a lot into its diminutive design. Up to 14 hours of battery life.A Dock connector that fits an entire ecosystem of iPod accessories. With so many features like these, iPod nano can change the way we listen to music — and more. GREAT job steve jobs!!>>

jPodder Podcasting

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jPodder allows us to subscribe to websites containing audio and to download the files to our system and transfer these to our favorite media player. Moreover it is powered by JAVA, very CoOl !! >>

Steve Ballmer's Scream!!

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Watch this movie where Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer screaming and blowing down the audience, at their company's 25th anniversary celebration. Think that's how they motivate and passionate MS developers!! ;) >>

Apple Mac Tiger Secrets

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Macworld, has a great collection of 20 tips. Quite interesting tips about System Settings to customize Tiger's PDF print services, network with firewire and much more. A must for all Mac users. >>

Partitioning Hard Drive for Linux Installation

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A simple, good tutorial on Partitioning Hard Drive for Linux Installation by Stomfi. Explained in step-by-step, with screenshots. Great for newbies. >>

Java Duke Mouse !!

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Java Duke Mouse, will be given to everyone who register and participate for JavaOne 2005 TOKYO. Cool shiny look and feel design. >>

Tragedy of Bugglet!!

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