Blog

A weekend in California - San Fran + Cerebrate Silicon Valley #4

qasim — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:06:51 +0000

I just returned to Toronto after a lovely weekend in California where I caught up with old friends, paid a visit to the San Fran GigaOm office and attended a fantastic retreat/un-conference called Cerebrate.

It was all too quick and I hope to get back to the Bay Area soon but the main point of this trip was to join my friend Rajesh in meeting some interesting new people through spending two nights at the Mount Madonna Centre for the 'Cerebrate' event he now organizes twice a year. This was the 4th Cerebrate held in Silicon Valley - the event originated in India with the aim of bringing a diverse selection of 'achievers' from various backgrounds together to actively participate in spontaneous presentations and discussion.

Rajesh was clever in not sending attendee bios (let alone names) to any of us until a couple of days before the event - which made carpooling feasible but left us all in the dark as to what we could expect of the weekend... Being someone used to researching topics and people before meetings, the event took on a personal/social air and I opened myself up to whatever it was going to be.

Around 3pm on Friday I linked up with a Frenchman in town from Malaysia at our pre-determined Metro station rendez-vous and twin hounds raced past just as Ankur Jain arrived in his mustang convertible to pick us up. The 2 hour drive took us past Stanford University, a slew of tech campuses and Google's famed Mountainview neighborhood before climbing through dense fog to arrive in the Redwood forest overlooking Monterrey Bay which would be our home for the next couple of nights. Intrigued to pile out of the car to discover a Hanuman temple amidst the trees, I hit the bell at its entrance; ringing out a confident tone through the forest and marking the start of our time at the Centre with poetic license.

We quickly found the other dozen attendees and joined the troupe on our way to an early supper in the main hall - where the local resident community of Ashtanga Yogis had prepared a meal; as they would for the rest of our stay. From dinner we convened in a central room within the building Rajesh had rented for Cerebrate (which also housed shared sleeping quarters, bathrooms and a small kitchen stocked with tons of tea) and began 25 minute personal introductions; which immediately transcended handshake-hellos and gave us insight into each other's lives. By the time introductions broke for the night the majority of us were happily engrossed in conversation - already feeling quite familiar and keeling over with laughter as humerous anecdotes were related one after the other (and jet-lag fast-forwarded my late-night giddiness by 3 hours!)

After we had introduced ourselves Cerebrate simply consisted of spontaneous talks on topics determined whilst we related our introductions - we each spoke for about 10 minutes and answered questions quite informally. In fact, asides from introducing ourselves and speaking freely on some things we were all interested in, there really wasn't much programming to the event - which is something that made it all that much more personal and effective. Given that the venue provided us with close quarters and our introductions began straight-away, the weekend was simply a slightly-directed means to get to know one-another without purpose...

By its end, Cerebrate had facilitated over 30 hours of talking between 17 people who otherwise may not have ever met each other. Before leaving Mount Madonna we all sincerely delayed our departures - lingering on with the common sentiment of joy at having quickly become actual friends with people who were strangers just days before. Additionally, I was keenly aware that I would love to work with a number of these new friends.

Again, when the drive back to San Francisco was over and Ankur and I had discussed a variety of topics (including the need for Venture Capital and Incubator programs in Africa), and Benjamin had continued his Metro past Powell street, we parted ways committed to staying in touch and confident that we would like to help each other in whatever way we can; including working together.

If you're able to attend a future session of Cerebrate, I highly recommend seizing the opportunity! :)

Announcing the launch of my new company, GetFilmi

qasim — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:31:39 +0000

Background
The Indian Cinema industry was born in the 1890s and has produced a wealth of films (now turning out well over 800 titles per year) that often defy conventional genre classifications. The vibrancy of life in India is both represented and made surreal on the Silver Screen and, as the country moves rapidly into the digital age, its means of storytelling is evolving whilst narratives adapt to changing audiences.

Over the past 100+ years, tens of thousands of Indian films have been buried in history because of the typically fast release cycle within India, and poor international distribution. Meanwhile, an ever-increasing number of Indian people are living globally in Diaspora communities and Indian films are becoming more appealing to international audiences of all cultural backgrounds.

Our Mission
GetFilmi (http://www.getfilmi.com) attempts to make watching Indian Cinema online an easy and enjoyable experience. We're a web-based video-on-demand service that curates a selection of films which can be watched online for free no matter where you are in the world!

How Getfilmi Works
To use Getfilmi, people register to become members of the site, and then login from their PCs, Macs or other internet-connected devices to instantly begin watching an unlimited number of films provided on the site.

All of our films are currently free to watch and can be navigated in multiple ways - by category, through our dynamic recommendations (displayed at the bottom of each film), or via the dynamic listing of films by each artist (found on individual film pages.)

Reviews & Sharing
Members can write reviews of the films they watch by typing in comments underneath the description on each film page. All of the films on Getfilmi feature widgets to help members share the films they enjoy with their friends on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

Ratings, & Recommendations
Members can rate films on the website by clicking on our star rating system found on each film. Ratings help power our recommendation engine and the more films get rated the more accurate our film suggestions will become.

Contact
If you'd like more information about GetFilmi, please visit http://getfilmi.com/contact, where you'll find an email form plus our Press section which has an RSS feed you can subscribe to.

The Epic Life of A Birthday Cake Mario

qasim — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:32:46 +0000

Just got back from a wonderful sushi dinner with some friends to celebrate Anis' birthday - I suggested Nami, my fave sushi joint down the road, to her husband Jalal and it proved to be a wonderful time in their back room with tons of food, beer and sake :)

Photos from my weekend in NYC

qasim — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:56 +0000

I just got back from a few nights of visiting friends in NYC - here are some shots I snapped whilst there.

My Festive December 2011 Mixed Set (recorded live)

qasim — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:27:16 +0000

Qasim - December Mix by Abdul SmoothTracklisting

Yoshinori Sunahara - Cross Wind Take Off
Poor Righteous Teachers - Rock Dis Funky Joint
MF DOOM - Doomsday
Border Crossing - The Invitation
K-Os - 4 3 2 1
DJ Andy Smith - C'mon & Get It
Quade - Dry Spell
Helmut Zacharias - Naturally Stoned
Def Cut - To the Beat
Maestro Fresh Wes - Conductin Thangs
Dreadsquad & Lady Chann - Money Ah Dem God
EPMD - Run It (Sinden Mix)
Kerri Chandler - Nigerian Travel
DRC Music - Lingala (w/Bokatola System + Evala Litongo)
DJ Mujava - Mugwanti/Sgwejegwele

Depeche Mode - Violator (Short Film)

qasim — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:56:23 +0000

A timeless album, which has been on repeat on my sound system today :)

Winter 2011 begins in Montreal - Photos from this past weekend.

qasim — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:50:54 +0000

Speaking at the Toronto Drupal Business Summit on Dec 2, 2011

qasim — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:03:28 +0000

I will be speaking with Mark Kuznicki from the Moment about how we worked with Microsoft's Azure platform for a digital solution to share 2011's GovCamp event with people around the world who couldn't attend the event in person.

* You can find out info about the event and register here:

http://drupalsummittoronto.drupalgardens.com

PS - My talk is at 2pm

introduction.io, My new project, is Live!

qasim — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:55:13 +0000

After years of pondering, months of planning and endless hours behind computers trying to make this happen, I'm glad to announce that our latest product, introduction.io is live!

What is it?

introduction.io makes is simple for anyone to have a website showcasing their creativity.

Our service lets you focus on presenting your creative work best – you don't have to worry about hosting, code, or anything complicated and we offer a suite of features which give you tons of flexibility.

The Back-Story

Being a creative individual usually involves an interest in different types of creative expression - for me personally this has meant starting a record label, whipping up interview videos with people I find interesting, constantly photographing and more. For years I had been tiring of having all the media I create in various projects being stored all over the web and wanted a single place to showcase the best examples of it.

Towards 2010 I began working on this problem and in a couple of months I began seeing it as a platform for anyone to use - knowing that a ton of colleagues and friends would find having a site like mine useful. Applying experience from client work involving bespoke media handling, intranets and project portfolio functionality, this Design Guru project has been in development full-swing for the past few months and we literally *just* went public!

What it Does

An Introduction is your own online portfolio website, comprising of Projects which contain images and video, located at your own custom URL!

There are many ways to create your portfolio online – from building your own website to signing up for any number of website creation tools. However, it can become time consuming and cumbersome to have to edit code and create an aesthetic reflective of the entire identity of your creative work. introduction.io reduces the stress involved in getting your portfolio online by taking all the hosting, code and design planning/implementation weight off your shoulders.

Try it out!

You can visit the site, choose a plan from http://www.introduction.io/pricing and sign up for free - all accounts come with a free trial month, so you won't be charged during your first month of use and can cancel whenever you'd like.

See an Example

Check out http://qasim.introduction.io to see a glimpse of what's possible - I'm still moving some media around and plan to make my Introduction a constant work-in-progress :)

Read through the main site at http://www.introduction.io and its support section for more information and please drop us an email to email@introduction.io if you have any questions or would like to say hello!

I'm sure you're going to have a ton of fun using the service and can't wait to see your Introduction! :)

Cheers,

Qasim - Principal at Design Guru
http:/qasim.introduction.io

Seb, Laura and Ada in Toronto pt2 - the Journey to Lahore Tikka House

qasim — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:27:20 +0000

On their second day in Toronto, I met up with the trio of touristas at the Harborfront Centre and then took them to Gerard Street Bazaar for kebabs!