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...”

My BarCamp Chennai, India Experience and Photos !! :)

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BarCamp is an ad-hoc unconference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction. It's a once-a-year event for geeks to camp out for a couple days with Wifi and smash their brains together. There is no audience. Only participants!! Here are the snaps of some of the moments we had in BarCamp Chennai …

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BarCamp was organized in Chennai on 8th and 9th of March at the famous Ramanujan Computing Center at Anna University Chennai, India. The 2 day BarCamp Chennai focused on Web 2.0 and Next Generation Internet Technologies. The whole Experience was mind blowing and loads of chat, demos, discussion…

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Ramanujan Computing Centre at Anna University


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Track1 Sessions

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Track2 Sessions

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BarCamp Chennai Sponsors

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Unconferencing the Conference: The Making of Barcamp and Keynote by Kiruba Shankar Associate Director, Sulekha

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Narain, CEO, 360 Degree Interactive on Web 2.0


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Muthu of Sun Microsystems about User eXperience Design

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My Friend Bhuvan from CollabNet and Ubuntu Official Server Member on How to contribute to Ubuntu Linux

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Atul Chitnis on Mobile Computing - Moving Beyond PCs


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Ganesh Director, Voice Snap Software Limited about Simplifying Voice Mailing System

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Great Geeks at Work… Don’t Disturb !!

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iPod Podcasting

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Udayan Banerjee, VP of NIIT Technologies on Rich Ruby

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How we built a Web 2.0 Podcast Publishing Platform by Sriram Krishnan Founder,Podbazaar, very interesting!! a live conference from California


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My Friend Madan from CollabNet and SVN Developer


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Podcasts: On the brink of a new media revolution by Sujatha Jagannathan of Podbazaar a live conference from California


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SEO techniques & Google AdWords by Ganesh s by Rupya.com

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My Friend Vamsee Krishna Kanakala about Ruby on Rails


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Adel Anwar, Head-Biz Dev Transindia on User Interface Design


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Vijay Anand about Project InfraNET: India's Future Depends on IT

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Vinu from Netcore about MyToday.com

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Arjun Ram of Taazza

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Ramanarayanan K, Engineering Manager, Adobe on Rich Internet Applications and Flex


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Blogging as a career by Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration

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Live Demo by Prathul Prabhakar, Microsoft Student about the new Microsoft 2007 Office System Suite. Microsoft Office 2007 takes a new look and feel and new great-enhanced user experience.

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Breakout Session Quiz by Aswin, Moyeen, Prathul … and I too got a Cash prize for my answer !! :)


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BarCamp Chennai COOL T-Shirt!!

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I just love[d] and Enjoy[d] the whole BarCamp idea and… it was quite well organized unconference and at this moment I would like to thank Kiruba Shankar, Ganesh and all the BarCamp organizers and Anna University Computer Science department for giving us such a great opportunity to share and learn in an open environment… Thank you guys !! :)

--
Balakumar Muthu



7 Comments:

At 9:59 PM, Blogger Prashanth said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 
At 10:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Was it really my dept who organised it? I really doubt that. RCC is a seperate department in AU. CSE is different :-) RCC is for non CSE students ;-)
 
At 4:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Bala Super.. Enjoy your time out there.. - Rajab
 
At 4:34 PM, Blogger Aswin Anand T.H. said...
I was there and it was awesome :D

dude, i dont remember ur face..can u send me ur photo or tell me where u r in the group photo dat u have posted here :)
 
At 4:35 PM, Blogger Aswin Anand T.H. said...
im still unable to recognise u from ur photo on the blog :(

sorry!
 
At 12:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Balakumar,

Great work. Go ahead. My best wishes. Have you noticed that some of the pictures are not visible in this post?

CT. Subbiah
 
At 9:17 AM, Blogger simplyguru said...
hi bala,

very good dude. your blog is very informative. keep blogging and keep giving us informations


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