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...”

Krunch : Online Compression and Decompression

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Krun.ch is a simple tool that simplifies the process of compressing and sending your files online. Good nifty tool comes in handy while we are in online. Support most of the formats .zip, .rar, .tar.>>

Bitty : Little Browser!!

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Bitty a little browser that can be added to most any Web page, it's like Picture-in-Picture for the Web. It helps to display other web site inside our web page. Just give a try... >>

Google Orkut Invitation Available !!

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I have some Google's Orkut account Invitation, to give away. For those still don't know what is Orkut, it is a community of friends and connects individuals through a social network that grows person by person and make new acquaintances through people we trust. If any one needs the Orkut invitation, just drop in your full name with your email, in the comments . I will send it to you... live and direct... :)

update: still, I have more Google Orkut Invitations, to give away so do drop in !! :)

Swarm : Know Which Websites are People Browsing !!

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Swarm allow us to know which websites are people visiting with a graphical map of hundreds of websites, all connecting to each other. It updates itself every second with where people are going and coming from. Conversely, sites that lose traffic move away from the center and grow smaller. Website traffic is symbolized with thin lines. Each time you see a line appear, it means someone has moved from one site to the other. You can gauge how many people are swarming around based on the number of lines. >>

SpinVox : Convert Voicemail to Text !!

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SpinVox allows us to convert voicemail messages into text messages and sends them discreetly to our mobile phone or email. The message arrives just as if the caller had texted us, displaying the number so we can call them straight back at the push of a button... >>

FireBug : JavaScript Debugger

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FireBug allow us to explore and monitor our JavaScript, CSS, HTML with a debugger, error console, command line, and a variety of code inspectors, Log messages from JavaScript in our web page to the console and to spy on XMLHttpRequest traffic, inspect layout. Really a quite handy tool for Web Debugging. >>

JavaOne 2006 Amazing Photos!!

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JavaOne 2006 conference had a more than 15,000 Java fanatics under one roof, Great stuffs and demos happened everwhere. Check out this most amazing coverage of JavaOne 2006 event... >>

Soundbombs

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Soundbombs is a New-Media-Accessories, a lowtech object for interactive transmission and for integrated sound module makes it possible to record any given sound and then activate it through a motiondetector. Soundbombs can whistle, laugh, belch or recite a poem. >>

How to Build Our Bulletproof Startup!!

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CNN Money has an interesting article on how to build our Bulletproof Startup, it explains with a 16-step guide to help us to turn our real idea into a great company. Great interesting infos to be checked out.... >>

Analys.icio.us : Mapping Word Frequency

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Analys.icio.us allow us to draw a map of words for the URL or to the text we provide. The bigger words are the most used ones. If we move our mouse over a word, we will get a tooltip with the word count. Good way to analysis our sites word usage ... >>

Ten Strangest iPod Accessories !!

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We find wide and wild range of iPod Accessories budding all over the zone... check out this ten strangest iPod accessories... some are really quite strange and not really known to most of us... >>

NETGEAR WiFi Phone for Skype!!

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NETGEAR's WiFi Phone for Skype is the world's first wireless Internet phone that can make free calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world, anytime you have WiFi access, without a PC. All of our contacts are shown right on the phone's color display so we can know exactly who is online. We can even make calls to ordinary phones using Skype-Out for just pennies a minute and no monthly fees. Skype Phone is available only after July 2006. >>

Motorola H5 MINIBLUE

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Motorola H5 MINIBLUE, a Bluetooth headset designed around the way our body works. The tiny headset fits discreetly in our ear and includes a built-in microphone and speaker, so our ear canal picks up your voice. This petite powerhouse packs in battery power so powerful we can chat wire free for up to approximately 7.5 hours using the included portable charging base. Protected in a sleek, metal carrying case, the Motorola H5 MINIBLUE slips easily into a purse or pocket – no one will even know it’s there. >>

Mytago

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Mytago tags are a new version of the common barcodes. Instead of the barcode scanner, we scan tags by taking a snapshot with our phone camera and later get the details of the tag on our PC. The tags are created by us and linked to the the information we provide. >>

Google Notebook

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Google Notebook makes web research of all kinds from planning a vacation to researching a school paper to buying a car easier and more efficient by enabling you to clip and gather information even while you're browsing the web. We can browse, clip, and organize information from across the web in a single online location that's accessible from any computer. >>

NetBeans Magazine Free Issue !!

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To Mark the third annual NetBeans Software Day and the 2006 JavaOne Conference, NetBeans has put together a magazine of highlights that are captivating developers worldwide. This special edition of NetBeans Magazine showcases a wide selection of IDE and extension features, from desktop and web development to plug-in module creation. >>

JavaOne 2006 Final Count Down!!

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JavaOne Conference starts on tomorrow at Moscone Center, San Francisco expected for lots of Great new announments and releases!! >>

Received A Most Exciting Prize from Sun Microsystems

Yesterday, I am Highly Honored and received a Most Exciting Prize from Sun Microsystems, for my Java application (J2ME) to the “Sun Duke's Choice Awards”.

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It’s a *** “Hello World(s)!” From Code to Culture: A 10 Year Celebration of Java Technology ***, book :) released to mark the celebration of JAVA in 10 years and A very COOL Squashy Java Duke.

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This book explains, how JAVA technology influence technologists, business, and how it has become the predominate software on the planet. Reading the experience of the people behind the “Green Project” was really Mind blowing and captures each and every moment how JAVA has evolved and still evolving...

Here is some of the Snaps From the Book …

Only JAG can Foreword this Book !!

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Birth of Oak

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What if JAVA Wasn’t JAVA?… We know Oak, but there are some other names too are in the list…

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“Hello World” … the Most Passionate JAVA Community From all over the world, like us


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Duke, JAVA Software Agent created by Joe Palrang


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JAVA Everywhere, Even in Other Planets too… Powering NASA’s Mars Rover !!

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JAVA For Everyone! From Geek to Chic!!

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We have studied lots of books on “How to program in JAVA”… but this is the only book to tell us “how JAVA was programmed” and how it is Evolving… A Must Book for every Java Passionate Programmer. I am highly honored and excited to receive this most Prestigious Book. Thank you.


Desktop of one a JAVA Junkie, Ya! that’s Mine :)!!


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--
Balakumar Muthu




4 Comments:

At 7:46 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
hey!! java kumar...congrats on your gifts..
 
At 10:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
way 2 cool
 
At 12:52 PM, Blogger Suresh S SCJP1.4 said...
any electronic goods did u get
 
At 4:53 PM, Blogger balakumar said...
thanks everyone for your note :)

E3 2006 CNet Coverage !!

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Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3 currently being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center is touted to be the biggest video game convention on the planet. The mother of all conferences in the gaming. This is the show that each year is the turning point or launching point for their entire catalog of new games on the horizon. Several new games are introduced for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and lots more. Check the CNet's coolest coverage of this event. >>

Fairy Tale of OpenSource!!

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Read on this interesting Fairy Tale of OpenSource, by Yutaka Kachi. It explains about the open source movement and Compares software as fruit tree. Translated from Japanese. >>

My Visit to Oracle Developer Forum 2006, Chennai – India !!

Last week 11th May, I attended the Oracle Developer Forum held in Chennai. The presentations gave us insights into Oracle Database 10g Express, Oracle JDeveloper, Oracle SQL Developer, SOA, Rapid J2EE Application Development with Oracle Application Express Edition and we had a lots of live demos.

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Oracle India’s Marketing Manager with his Keynote

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Blair Layton, Senior Manager Oracle AP, on What’s New for Developers in the Oracle Universe

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SOA – Emerging SOA and J2EE technologies: EJB 3.0, JavaServer Faces and BPEL session by Sameer Vaishampayan, Senior Consultant, Oracle

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Manish Palaparthy, Solution Consultant, Oracle on Rapid J2EE Application Development for Forms and Designer Developers

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Rapid Application Development with Oracle Application Express Edition session by Datta Srinivasan, Oracle

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Election Voting Result Application Created with Oracle Express Edition and Localized in Tamil language

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Some of the Oracle Users

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Q&A Session

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Oracle’s Official “Oracle BPEL Process Manager: Services Orchestration Workshop” book Prize I got for my Answer :) and the Question is, which is the Database Company Oracle bought recently, the answer is Sleepycat [I am the only one to answer the question in the hall]…

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Every one of us received Oracle Java Developer CD

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A Set of 3 Oracle Database 10g CD’s

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That’s not all; we also got a Surprise gift :)…

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It’s a very C-O-O-L Sexy Black Leather Oracle Timer

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I would like to thank Oracle for conducting Oracle Developer Forum in Chennai. The turnout for the session was really very big and few have to stand. The session is just a half-day session… could be made in to a one day session. Good Job and well organized…. Thank you Oracle!! :)

--
Balakumar Muthu




At 12:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...
Just Wonderful & Informative, thanks for taking us to a Virtual Tour ;)!
 
At 2:41 PM, Blogger Suresh S SCJP1.4 said...
where was it held . tell me is there anything in bangalore


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