When I first came across the title ” The Goa Project”, I was pretty excited for two reasons because I had never been to Goa before and I was very sure there will be a lot of fun-loving people around to interact with. I was not disappointed at all. Goa is a place which is perfect for Unconference as the city is well known for its informal nature. I was surprised to see a few of the speakers in casual attire and that set the tone for the 2 day event.

I left from Coimbatore on Wednesday afternoon along with Anil and Gopal of Mypromovideos. Though we were in different compartments, we managed to spend quality time together setting our expectations for the event. We also managed to watch a movie in the train ( Thanks to sub-titles – we could not hear a thing). We reached Goa at 4 in the morning and we set out to meet our friend Sabarish who was already in Goa along with Vinay and Sibi from Coimbatore.

I was informed by Anil and Gopal about the Mixer party that evening. When we reached the venue we were really surprised by the atmosphere. Loved the way the venue was perched on a rocky terrain that leads down to the seas.

One more astonishing fact was the number of people who were from Tamilnadu. You casually talk to your friends like ” Dai. Ennada panalam? ” ( Hey. What next)  and half a dozen people look back at you and ask ” Neenga Tamilah ” ( Are you Tamil) with a welcoming smile. That’s how we got acquainted with Naren, Hari, Shanthakumar, Balaji and a lot of other people. Back here in Coimbatore when i go to certain parts of the city I feel a little left out as there are a lot of people who speak Hindi. Here I am 900 kms away from Tamilnadu and there are a lot of people speaking Tamil. That served as a ice breaker and we got along with a lot of people really well.

After the mixer, we went straight to the beach along with our new friends and went for long walks until 1.a.m. We were lucky to get a good accommodation right on the Bogmalo beach. We were like 157 steps away from the beach. Are you thinking that i am making this number up? Nope. You should have attended the session ” Couch potato to 100 km”. You can know more about the speaker here.

The Keynote speakers were cool and the especially the one by Arjun was inspiring. Really admired the grit and determination of the youngster and I am sure when i hear Summer of 69 again, I will get reminded of his adventures.

The Success of Lucia, the first ever Kannada crowd funded movie and the keynote of Director Pawan Kumar deserves a special mention. This was one of the biggest takeaways of the event for me as the power of the people and the power of social media when rightly used can create magic was explained in a interesting manner. Really looking forward to watching the movie soon.

Anil and Gopal finished their respective sessions and we were happy to see the packed house for both the sessions despite a few glitches during the same.We explored the venue a bit and had dinner next to pool a little far from the actual dining area.

The second day events started a little late and I tried Google Glass for the very first time. A gentleman was kind enough to lend us the Glass for some time and he also helped us with the tit bits about the Glass. We left early that day even before the party got started and from the pictures i see, I guess the second day’s party was rocking. We headed to a casino called Deltin Royale and had a sumptous dinner. We also tried our luck with the games and ended up losing more money than we actually won. However, this case does not hold true for our good friend Balaji who was lucky not once not twice but thrice.

The success of the Event was in bringing all these people together under one roof and let them do their networking and getting along their way. As always there is always a scope for improvement in every event and I am sure TGP will come back even stronger next year.

Cheers 🙂