NetSquared Mumbai Local Group - A beginning…
by Royston Olivera on Apr.09, 2011, under Miscellaneous
The launch meetup for NetSquared’s Mumbai local group was held on April 3, 2011 at Nasscom Foundations Mumbai office.
The meetup group comprised of techies, social media enthusiasts and a few entrepreneurs.
We started of by introducing each other which was followed by a presentation by Amit Deshmukh about NetSquared and its local groups.
Sourabh presented the idea of a food bank over a crowd sourcing platform. This involved restaurants and caterers logging the amount of surplus food into the application via. Mail, SMS, tweets and the application automatically identifying NGO’s around it that need the food packets. Prashant Pandit from Nasscom Foundation gave a small brief about their software donation program that assists NGOs to procure software at subsidised rates.
Moving ahead the session was thrown open to the group to chalk out the action items for NetSquared Mumbai. The group discussed the need for non-profits and NGO’s to come ahead with their real world problems that the local group members would solve by leveraging technology. The discussion also involved the mention of various initiatives like FundACause, Ads4good and Akshaya Trust. At the end of 90 minutes of rich discussion I am sure each one of us had some food for thought to take home and agree with the fact that a lot of work can be/needs to be done in this intersection.
NetSquared Mumbai local group is open to all who are interested and excited about working in the intersection of Social Impact and Technology. Follow the links below to join us, share your ideas and get updates on upcoming meetups.
Meetup.com: http://www.meetup.com/NetSquared-Mumbai
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=group_187476864627669
Twitter Handle: @net2_mumbai
Hoping to meet more like minded people for the next meetup 
April 9th, 2011 on 10:01 PM
As much as I was looking forward to make a difference and coming to the launch of NetSquared Mumbai, at the end moment something came up and all my plans went for a toss.
So, thank you for this post.
The idea of the food bank seems absolutely gold to me! Its no secret that a LOT of food must be getting wasted in restaurants and on a daily basis. Considering the no. of restaurants that’s a monster quantity of food.
If we can channelized all that food to people who cant even afford a meal, fantastic!
Though I guess many restaurants may be already doing that, but to streamline the process using technology is taking it to a new level.
The scope is our imagination!
Really looking forward to the execution part!
Good luck!
April 13th, 2011 on 1:27 AM
hi royston,
thank you for the post. look forward to meet you guys soon.
regards,
saurabh