We started the iWeekend India tour with two important innovations.

First, instead of selecting just one idea on Friday, we selected two ideas which resulted in two projects being born in each iWeekend instead of just one. In doing so, we minimized idle resources, increased choice for the participants and made the teams more manageable.

Second, instead of aiming to launch a fully developed version of the application, we decided to focus on the fundamentals: the business, marketing and design aspects of the product rather than hurrying to launch a first version of the product which usually has to be reprogrammed. We now leave the programming to be done after the event by the entrepreneur utilizing the resources he has at hand.

The first iWeekend India tour brought together entrepreneurs of varied profiles, academics and experts in tech startups. We can certainly say that we made our small contribution towards “India’s startup revolution”. Here are the main highlights of the 3 iWeekends in India last month:

*First iWeekend in India

Bangalore, 12-14 March 2010*

Hosts: NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore

Organized by NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore

Sponsor: Qualcomm Ventures

Number of participants: 40+

2 ideas selected on Friday:

WikiPaisa by Deven Shah

KickOffers by Vinayak Rajanahally

Moderator: Surya

Mentors: Mohan Sundaram, Dev Avadhani, Premkumar Srinivasan, Shridhar Lolla

Panel of mentors and experts present at the final presentation on Sunday: Anurakt Jain of DFJ (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Mohan Sundaram, Dev Avadhani, Premkumar Srinivasan, Shridhar Lolla, Bipin Chandran

Summary of iWeekend Bangalore by Mohan Sundaram on the NSRCEL blog: http://nsrcelblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/iweekend-at-nsrceliimb-12th-march-to-14th-march-2010/

Feedback from the winning entrepreneurs on the NSRCEL blog: http://nsrcelblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/iweekend-winning-entrepreneur-feedback/

Special thanks: Bipin Chandran, Editor of Entrepreneur India magazine who spent the whole weekend with us.

*iWeekend Delhi

19-21 March 2010*

Hosts: Amity Innovation Incubator, Amity University, Noida

Organized by TiE Delhi

Sponsor: Canaan Partners

Number of participants: 40

2 ideas selected on Friday:

GSM enabled monitoring device by Vinay Chaddha

Security surveillance service by Vishal Sharma

Moderator: Pradeep Chopra

Mentors: Alok Mittal and Harish Gandhi of Canaan Partners

Panel of mentors and experts present at the final presentation on Sunday: Harish Gandhi of Canaan Partners, Anurakt Jain of DFJ, Geetika Dayal of TiE Delhi

Special appearance: Surya of NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore

*iWeekend Ahmedabad

26-28 March 2010*

Hosts: CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad

Organized by CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad

Number of participants: 40+

2 ideas selected on Friday:

ShoppersMob by Abhisek Sarda

Gymwalla by Tarun Markose, Nikhil Kumar Verma and Sahil Khan

Moderator: Alay Desai

Mentors: Roshan Shah of Gloscon, Chirag Patel of Net4Nuts

Panel of mentors and experts present at the final presentation on Sunday: Chirag Shah, Tanvi of GVFL (Gujarat Venture Finance Limited), Anil Joshi of Mumbai Angels, Pranay Gupta of CIIE

Special appearance: Bipin Chandran, Editor of Entrepreneur India magazine.

We appreciate the support of our sponsors Qualcomm Ventures and Canaan Partners.

Thanks to all the mentors and moderators for the value they brought to the event.

And a very special thanks to the team that made it all possible: Surya of NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore; Manish Joshi of TiE Delhi; Aditi Gupta and Pranay Gupta of CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad.

Sponsors Ahmedabad:

Sponsors Bangalore:

Sponsors Delhi:

Legal support for iWeekend India: Hitesh and Nitin of http://www.wiseassist.net/

Design and Image work for the website: Juan Rueda of http://www.gira.biz/ (Malaga, Spain)

Webcast and live streaming: Siddharth Shah and Gautam Seth of http://dreamcast.in/

Special announcement: Suraj Nair, one of the participants of iWeekend Bangalore, is now part of the iWeekend India team.

Suraj will be coordinating with all those who would like to contribute to this initiative in some way. He can be contacted at suraj@iweekend.org

Last but not least, thanks to all the participants for their enthusiastic participation and continued support to iWeekend and to the new-born projects. The entrepreneurs have our best wishes and full support to survive and thrive in the external world.

iWeekend will be back in India in November.

Probable new destinations: Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Calcutta.

Until then, keep playing and remain loyal to doing interesting things!

This post is in Spanish and English (please scroll down for English)

Me siento especialmente orgulloso de anunciar la llegada de iWeekend a mi país natal.

Vamos a organizar 3 iWeekends en la India en 3 fines de semanas consecutivos: el primero en Bangalore, el Silicon Valley de la India, en las fechas 12-14 de Marzo. Este evento se organizará en NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore, una de las escuelas más prestigiosas del país y del continente Asiático.

El segundo iWeekend se organizara en la capital Nueva Delhi en las fechas 19-21 de Marzo. Llegamos a la capital gracias al apoyo de TiE Delhi (The Indus Entrepreneurs). TiE nació en 1992 en Silicon Valley y es la red de emprendedores más grande del mundo (con más de 13,000 socios y 54 sedes).

El tercer iWeekend se organizará en Ahmedabad en el Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) de IIM Ahmedabad, la escuela de negocio más difícil de entrar en todo el mundo según The Economist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Management_Ahmedabad) durante las fechas 26-28 de Marzo.

Como novedad, en estos 3 eventos, desarrollaremos 6 proyectos, 2 en cada evento. 50 emprendedores seleccionados podrán elegir entre 2 proyectos. Además, nos enfocaremos más en desarrollar una primera versión ligera de código, es decir, nos enfocaremos más en la parte de negocio, marketing y diseño que en programación. Una gran oportunidad para los emprendedores mas techies de ampliar sus horizontes en dos días intensivos, trabajando con gente de otros perfiles.

Vamos a ver que tal sale el experimento en la India. Mantengan un ojo en iWeekend.. ya somos bien conocidos por dar unas cuantas sorpresas.

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English translation:

I am feeling especially proud to announce the arrival of iWeekend to my native country.

We will be organizing 3 iWeekends in India during 3 consecutive weekends: the first one will be in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, during 12-14 March. The event will be organized in NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore, one of the most prestigious schools in the country and the Asian continent.

The second iWeekend will be held in the capital New Delhi during 19-21 March with the support of TiE Delhi (The Indus Entrepreneurs). TiE was born in 1992 in Silicon Valley and is the largest network of entrepreneurs worldwide (with over 13,000 members and 54 branches).

The third iWeekend be organized in Ahmedabad during 26-28 March at the Center for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) of IIM Ahmedabad, the business school considered to be the most difficult to enter according to The Economist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Management_Ahmedabad).

By now, you must know that iWeekend stands for innovation and experimentation. As a novelty in these 3 events, we will be developing 6 ideas, 2 in each event. 50 select entrepreneurs will be able to choose from 2 projects to work on during the weekend. In addition, we will focus more on developing the first lightweight version of the product, that is, we will focus more on the business, marketing and design than on programming. It’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs, especially the techies, to expand their horizons in two intensive days, working with talented people of diverse profiles.

We will see how the experiment goes in India. Keep an eye on iWeekend.. we are already well known for giving a few surprises.