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...”

GooglePlex : Inside the Google Headquarters!!

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Time Magazine published the life inside the Googleplex, if you think how Google is able to acheive such GREAT things... just have a look...how Desktop gizmos and lava lamps express Google's laid-back etho and much more... the Google culture sounds quite amazing :)!! >>

U.S. Grants Patent For AJAX !!!

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The patent–issued on Valentine’s Day–covers all rich-media technology implementations, including Flash, Flex, Java, Ajax, and XAML, when the rich-media application is accessed on any device over the Internet, including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes, and video game consoles. The patent, No. 7,000,180 or 180 for short, is entitled Methods, Systems, And Processes For The Design And Creation Of Rich-Media Applications Via The Internet. It contains 83 claims that encompass a wide range of rich-media Net application methods, systems, and processes. I don't know ... how do they got this patent !! >>

Google Page Creator

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Google Page Creator allows to create our own web pages, quickly and easily. Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes. Our web pages will live on at http://yourgmailusername.googlepages.com. >>

Attended an Interesting Session by David Axmark, CoFounder & VP of MySQL :) !!

Last week [18/02/2006], I attended an interesting Session by David Axmark, CoFounder and Vice President of MySQL organized by Indian Institute of Technology [IIT], Madras.

David Axmark, is really C-O-O-L interesting guy to chat with … answered all our questions with high enthusiasm and passion :). He wants more contribution and involvement from India to the OpenSource community. Here are some of the snaps we had in the meet…

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MySQL Internal Architecture

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MySQL Supported languages [nothing is left ;)]

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Some of the Power users of MySQL

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David Axmark, outside the IIT Central Library

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Me, Bharati, Narendran from Midas Communications with David Axmark

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After the session we received a cool MySQL T-shirts.

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At this moment, I would like to thank my friend Arun for inviting me for this wonderful event.

--
Balakumar Muthu


5 Comments:

At 11:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hi Bala,
This is sirish from hyderabad.Can u suggest me a some reference books for MySql and Java.Im a beginner in both.My email ID sirishkumar@gmail.com
 
At 2:26 PM, Blogger Jeevan said...
Cool Blog.:)
 
At 10:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Wonderful blog
 
At 1:41 PM, Blogger Krishna said...
HI Bala,
Your blogs are very good.
I am also using MySql, more interested in OpenSource projects.I didn't know about the seminar. I have attended Sun Tech Days. Did you get the job in Google. Once, I have seen a long blog describing about your experiance in the Google interview.

bye,
krishna
 
At 6:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Yo Man,
read everythin' abt you...havin' same interests..am a tamil guy...from mumbai...did a research project from Cornell univ,NY in C....freakin' out in Mainframes now........keep in touch.....killerislovely@yahoo.com........

Mani

The Google Guys : Audio Excerpts !!

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Listen to the audio excepts of the Google team Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin with the Executive Editor Adi Ignatius of Time magazine. They have talked about the various issues like what "Don't Be Evil" really means, Google and China, about the Microsoft threat. >>

My Exciting Visit to Sun Tech Days 2006 & NetBeans, Solaris Day Chennai, India: Photos !! :)

Last week I have visited Sun Tech Days 2006 conference held in Chennai, India on 7th & 8th. The experience was quite amazing to gather together to meet top Sun JAVA global evangelists, industry experts / leaders and developers and have a face-to-face interaction with them. Being there gave me the feeling of being at Java One :).

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I am posting the photos, I have taken during the wonderful moments in the conference. Hope you too enjoy it, like me !!

After the Welcome note by Bhaskar Pramanik, MD of Sun Microsystems India, The session started with “East Meets West: Software and Innovation” Kiran Karnik, President NASSCOM and Laura Merling of Executive Director, Sun Developer Forum with Matt Thompson, Director, Technology Outreach & Open Source program, Sun Microsystems.

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Laurie Tolson, VP Java Platforms and Karen Tegan Padir, VP Enterprise Java Platforms discuss the benefits of Java SE: Tiger, Mustang, Dolphin, and You!, Java EE and Web 2.0.

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Mustang

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Dolphin

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Project GlassFish

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Design of Cool Java ME Applications for Consumers and Enterprise Users session by Chuk-Munn Lee of Sun with Tai of Nokia Forum

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Devices Supporting J2ME Technology

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Live Demo of the Cool J2ME Game

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Oracle Technical session by Sameer Vaishmpayam, Oracle

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Java SE for Real-Time System: A Deep Dive session by Peter B. Kessler

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Web-tier Programming Codecamp: AJAX Session by Sridhar Reddy

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Oracle Keynote: SOA & The Agile Enterprise by Roel J Stalman, Senior Director, Oracle.

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Shuffling for 'Refer a friend contest‘ to get iPod shuffle by Raghavan "Rags" and Roel J Stalman

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People do everything for “Java Jacket Give-Away” :) …

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Some Sing…

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Here he is the winner with cool Java Jacket !!

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Scripting Language Support for Java by A. Sundararajan

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Power Lunch packed with Really Hot Spicy, Fresh and Cool dishes ….

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Some of the Master Minds from my company, starting from the second from left: Prasanna V, Prasanna Kumar, Venkatesh, Moorali.

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Munching popcorn and Thinking how technology could evolve… ;)

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Mark McLaughlin, from Agitar session on Unit Testing

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Cup of coffee with Brew Master, session to know the how history happens over a cup of coffee.

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In the evening we are enthralled by a music feast by Drums Sivamani, Gattam Vikku Vinayakram, Mandolin Rajesh.

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Sun Java Molded plate

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Organizers of the Sun Tech Days 2006

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Me and my friend Chiranjeevi with Chuk-Munn Lee Senior Developer Consultant and Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems

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Me and my friend Chiranjeevi with Peter B. Kessler GCC Project Lead and Sridhar Reddy Java Technology Evangelist at Sun Microsystems

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Gift’s I have received for my questions A Java Powered cool T-Shirt, Duke Doll and a Sun 10 Bucks!! :)

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Complimentary gifts to everyone who attended the Sun Tech Days 2006, a Sun blue bag, Java Solaris T-Shirt, A Java powered pen.

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Signature prints of the some of the top Sun JAVA global evangelists:

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Solaris and NetBeans Day

Sun Tech Days 2006 had a 2 Bonus Tracks NetBeans & Solaris Day on 9th February. It’s a one day session about NetBeans IDE and Solaris 10 OS.

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Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris, Changing the Game session by Peter Karlsson

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A Short Movie about the Companies powered by Sun Solaris OS

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NetBeans IDE for Java EE Development session by Sivakumar T

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Multithreaded Solaris Application APIs and Tools session

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Sun Studio 11, The Ultimate Tool for Solaris session by Peter Karlsson

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Solaris Security APIs and Tools session

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After the NetBeans and Solaris session everyone got a copy of Solaris 10 and NetBeans CD and cool T-shirts.

I just LOVED and Enjoyed the whole session… 3 days just went like some 3 hours :)… The whole event was quite well organized and all the people are quite friendly …

I would like to thank all the people out their at Sun Microsystems for conducting 'Sun Tech Days 2006', the premier technology conference at Chennai, India. Thank you Sun !! :)

--
Balakumar Muthu



10 Comments:

At 9:21 AM, Blogger Suresh S SCJP1.4 said...
hi

that was cool.
 
At 12:22 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
i too attended...it was great fun for 3 days...i am web/mobile open source developer from chennai and it was great to have such an event in chennai
 
At 2:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Forever the Java Geek :-)

Hi Bala.. hows life? nice post
 
At 2:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
kool man... feel like i missed that... importantly the AJAX session
 
At 5:15 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Very Informative. Guess, I Missed IT :(.
 
At 6:55 PM, Blogger Vikram said...
Pity i missed it.

Bet you must have loads of fun Bala.
 
At 2:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Nice photos! Good work.
 
At 3:47 PM, Blogger Mohanraj said...
Very good informative, I missed it.
 
At 1:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Thanks for the nice comments. And thanks for posting the pictures!
 
At 6:18 PM, Blogger Lavnish said...
Hi man
i happen to attend the tech days 07 @ hyderabad ..
i couldn't gather snaps to share it with friends ...
but sure it was informative
:)


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