Microsoft Canaan TechSparks 2010: We thank them all

When you embark on a new initiative, it is not possible without support flowing from all over. We have been blessed with the support of these few who made the event possible.Sponsors

Microsoft and Canaan Partners have been generous with title sponsorship. It is a moment etched in our memory and as we would look back years later, these two would remain rock solid in our thoughts as the first ones to encourage us to do something bigger. Girish Joshi initially guided us on the program and he was a catalyst in getting in the program together. Alok Mittal and Harish Gandhi from Canaan Partners readily agreed to lend us support and also provided intellectual fodder for the program by participating in keynote, panel discussion, and jury.

Mumbai Angels were the real angels for us in being a co-sponsor. They also pitched in with their contribution and Prashant Choksey is part of the panel and the jury.

ESDS is one of the fastest growing companies. An inspiration for someone to think it is possible. Operating from tier II city Nashik, Piyush is full of optimism about the company's growth. The company has preferred to operate in smaller cities because of availability of power and Internet as good as the metros. Piyush extended his arm of support by being a co-sponsor.

OrangeScape is one motivation for someone who wants to think big. With innovative product on cloud, using the PaaS (platform as a service) model, founder & CEO Suresh Sambandam and co-founder & CTO Mani Doraisamy are aspiring to build India's own Google with local style. To top it all, they feature on the list of top 10 PaaS companies in the world. Gartner and Forrester have included them in their ratings on the top companies in the world. The press is just heaping accolades on them. They were kind enough to sponsor t-shirts for the event, a memorabilia you would keep for sometime.

Partners

We were simply bowled over when we inked the deal with CNBC-TV18 Young Turks as their online partner. Shereen Bhan, executive editor, CNBC-TV18, further delighted us by accepting to host the grand finale of TechSparks. And CNBC-TV18 gracefully accepted to be our media partner.

DARE, true to its name, has been egging on the entrepreneurial community to dare with its contribution to the entrepreneurial spirit in print. We are happy that DARE is our print media partner.

Guidewire Group as our knowledge partner provided access to their G/Score to evaluate startups. This further strengthened our conviction that the process of choosing our top 5 is beyond bias and subjectivity. The jury's decision is further helped by the G/Score.

redCode, as technology partner, has provided all the technology infrastructure like building the website www.techsparks.in and keeping the steady update of content.

ODigMa would provide the social media support for TechSparks. They would help us reach the more wider audience that are hooked on to social media.

Biztech2.com and Management Paradise are our online partners. Meroevents and Ayojak have provided registration support for us.

And with these partners lending us support, we made the event possible. The event's success is attributed to YourStory audience, people from afar who lent us moral support and encouraged us to carry on, and the YourStory team who sweated it out day and night.

As Time magazine rated YOU as the person of the year in 2006, we are simply not there if you are not there to grace the event and be part of the celebration of technology entrepreneurship.

We thank you all for raising our bar and we would keep doing so with all your support in future.