TWIP has Twitter

Now you can follow TWIP and Ninth Prime Technologies on Twitter

http://twitter.com/9thprime

Do so tomorrow afternoon, after 3 PM

The TWIP Concept

The most essential part of TWIP is the real time collaboration. Everybody should see what everybody else is doing in a a split second. In order for that ho happen, you need a server. A central authority. A point with which all users synchronise.

Most of all, you need that to preserve coherence. Another big word, right ? Coherence means that all users do the operations in exactly the same order. Let’s say user A draws a red line and sends a message to user B (so B can have it drawn as well). User B, less than a second after, draws a green line on top of the red line. Now, without preserving coherence, user A will see the green line underneath the red line and user B will see the green line above the red line. This would happen because each user would get the message from the other user with a certain delay. And we wouldn’t fix that, the whole collaboration thing would suck, as we’d have no way of knowing that the same data is available on all computers. Fortunately, we have a way to fix that and this is done by a server, a  central authority. Think of it as a commander who keeps the privates in attack formation. The thing for you to remember right know is coherence, as being essential.

Next there is the question of extensibility, scalability. Let’s say we fix this whole coherent method of synchronisation. A text editor. Or a picture editor. Or for a piece of software for editing programming code or 3D models. We’ll put a lot of work into the sync engine and into the application itself, but what about all the other apps ? So we thought it’d be waaaay cooler to have this synchronisation engine avaialable onto which we could build. Or anyone else for that matter. There would be no point in our trying to develop all these collaborative apps, when there are a of really intricate, exciting pieces of software available. All they need is the collaboration scheme.

So this is how we thought about the Framework. Basically, this would be the synchronisation engine onto which to build. Think of it like a programming interface or an API. Regardless (almost regardless) of application a few simple rules should be respected and the collaboration would come right in !

Then, we thought we’d do everything in Java, so it would be portable on any OS, both on the client side and on the server side. This even opens the perspective of making a mobile version of TWIP, but let’s no get ahead of ourselves.

Java opens more doors for our project. Like the transparent application distribution. This means that all the apps are stored on the server-side, and when a users wants a new app, it automatically downloads and plugs in together with all the TWIP resources on the client system.

As far as the server is concerned, it has four major roles:

1. Handling the real-time synchronisation (keeping the client apps in line, as previously discussed)
2. Storing an online version of the data (so users can have access to only one resource, instead of keeping individual copies on their computer)
3. Managing users and users rights.
4. Managing the apps stored online and making them available to users.

Look at the diagram below to get a better picture of the whole relationship between the clients and the server:

TWIP Client-Server Overview

On the server-side, synchronisation also means the server must keep an updated version of all the data. So the server must constantly read the messages received from clients and change the stored data accordingly.

Right now, I and my team-mate, Cristi, are working on the Framework and on the synchronsation schemes.

What would be really useful to us would be having your feedback. Tell us how collaboration would work for you. Tell us what you need and what you’d think is cool as far as team work is concerned.

Give us the top three applications you would use in a collaborative fashion, with your friends. Ask your friends. Leave a comment or two

NovaTech and Istanbul

Due to the fact that we got the first prize at ICUBE with the TWIP project, part of our reward was a trip to Istanbul, to another business plan competition – NovaTech. Of course, this was the next level – if ICUBE was organized at a national level, NovaTech was regional: Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Israel, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland (and I’m almost sure I missed one). The stakes were higher. The competition was better trained. Had a lot more experience. The jury was to be more exigent and… the prize fund was significantly more substantial.

But what I truly cared about was the experience. The people I will meet there. The things we’ll talk about…

So one October morning (Sunday, the 5th, really early in the morning), I and Claudiu were on a plane from Bucharest to Istanbul.  The flight took 55 minutes. It was so short that before I finished my coffee, we were already landing (and I almost spilled the coffee on me). But that in itself is a story. We get to Istanbul and the the guys from BIMT (Bulgarian Institute for Management and Technology). Actually, the organizer who came to meet us at the airport was Denitsa Ezekieva and she was a really good host to us. We stayed at the Armada hotel – which was really nice.

In the evening, we visited the old part of Istanbul. The next day we rehearsed our presentation. In the afternoon, we had a consultation session with one of the collaborators from the context. He gave us a few good pointers and hints, regarding what to emphasize in our presentation.

There were a lot of good projects in the contest. Did I say good? I mean great. One could see the authours put a lot of efffort in realizing them. We had only worked on TWIP for less than 3 months. There were people there who had been working for years on their projects. In the evening, there was an official dinner party, where we got a chance to network, get to know our competition better and have bunch of laughs and drinks. It was great and there was a lot of information coming our way – professionally, personally, culturally. I (20) and Claudiu(21) were the youngest people in the contest and that was really encouraging – not in the sense that we’d win, but in the sense that we had a lot ahead of us and we got a head-start on this whole business context.

We saw a backtyping keyboard (Grippity). We saw a strong data-ming project (DataStrata). We saw a plan for a flu vaccine (VacciPill). Internal localization systems (ITC). Integration of GPS, mobile devices and photo storage (CiteWalk). Interactive image storing (Imagga). Medical and physical activity monitoring (Softstepper). The list goes on…

This was the PPT we showed at NovaTech

[back then we thought "Infinite Circle" was a better name for our company then "Ninth Prime" ]

Our presentation went great. Just as I imagined it to be. A lot of good questions and a lot of good answers at the end. But there was  a lot of work to be done with our project. We had a lot to learn back then. And we still do

 

The TWIP presentation

 

 

When the end results came in, I was really disappointed. For 10 minutes or so. We didn’t make it in the first three. But the disappointment faded away fast, when I realized that the winners really deserved it; they had a lot more experience than we did and they’d put a lot more work in their projects. Years instead of months, remember? And then the sour turned into sweet when I realized we had made it this far and there was a lot on the road of opportunities ahead of us.

 

Waiting for the final results

That (last) evening we went out in Istanbul. Bengi and Etkin, also participants (and winners!) were our guides (and great hosts) in the city. They showed us through the new, central part of Istanbul. After we got something to eat, we sat down in this… Turkish pub (I’m not sure how they call it) for a beer and a “narghilea” (the thing you smoke – see pictures for details). We exchanged Romanian, Israeli and Serbian jokes and wisdom for the rest of the night with Dror and Jacob (Israel), but also with Marko and Nedelkjo (Serbia) and … well… others.

Smoking "narghilea"

[ Some more pictures you can find here ]

 

We had a plane back to Bucharest to catch in the morning. So at about 3-4 AM we left for the hotel. The next day, we almost lost the plane (due to an extensive duty free shopping spree in Ataturk Airport). In 10 minutes, I and Claudiu went through half of the aiport and through 2 over-crowded checkpoints. One of the officers at a checkpoint asked us “So why are you so late?”. I, with my hands full of shopping bags said “Traffic, traffic”… The guy was like “Yeah, yeah… traffic – duty free, duty free!”. We bearly (and I can’t stress that enough) made the flight in a way that would make even Jack Bauer proud.

We came back to Bucharest. Exhausted. But satisfied & with a lot of information to get settled in our minds. And with a lot of work still to be done.

 

The ICUBE summer

Fast forwarding >>

I got a team – Claudiu and Sofia. And the brief presentation for the TWIP project got qualified for the finals. There where 5 finalist projects, including our own. We had from July to mid-August to do research, improve on our concept and write a damn good business plan.

At the beginning, I didn’t know much about business. And market research. And competitive analysis. And financial plans. But Ioana offered me great support, advice and ideas. I did a lot of reading and piece by piece, the BP came to shape. I, the other participants and Ioana met several times, to chat, exchange ideas, ask questions and so on. Our little get-togethers were not only about business, they were really fun as well.

Only Ioana could tell you how many emails we sent back and forth about every single part of the business plan and about every single idea that went through my mind. She had the patience and the dedication to get me to understand, work and see a wider and wider picture of how TWIP could be turned into business. I started out with a techee idea. Thanks to Ioana, I know had several monetization strategies in mind. And several plans on how to get things moving.

[Here are some more pictures]

On the 17th of August, Ioana collected the final versions of our plans. And we were eager to present them.

When I and Claudiu actually had to present the TWIP business to the jury, I was very nervous. The jury was made up from Radu Georgescu (president of GeCAD), Serban Petrescu (IT&C entrepreneur), Joel Hayes, Ken Lawrence (experienced investors). Obviously, these people had a lot of experience. And I had to convince them that my idea is the best, that it truly had potential, that it was worth our effort and their attention. I tried (and managed, from what I was told) to keep an outer layer of confidence and control. Actually, the presentation went quite smoothly, although at the time I was utterly convinced it was a disaster. I had the strongest feeling I didn’t make my point across, I didn’t make the jury see the actual beauty of the concept, of collaboration.

I went home and I slept. I was exhausted and disappointed with myself. The final results from the competition were to be given to us the next day. I tried not to think about it.

That evening, I went out with Ioana and some of the other ICUBE participants. It was really fun and entertaining, although the suspense was killing me.

The next day – we were to be given the final results. There were three prizes. Ioana called on the team in the 3rd place. Then the team on the second place. So far, we were not on the list, which meant of two things: either we got the first prize or non at all. I closed my eyes, for a second – until Ioana unfolded the (BIIIIG) diploma with the winning project’s name on it. I opened my eyes. It said Team Work Interactive Platform.

We had won. Our project had one. But this was to be only the beginning of a long, hard, exciting, trip to BusinessLand.

Besides the money, winning the first place in ICUBE would mean we could participate in the NOVATECH business plan competion in Octobor (Istanbul, Turkey). And that where going to Boston (in February or March, 2009) to talk to some investors about our product. More than everything, it meant a boost of our will to succeed, of our will to make the best our of our project and its potential.

… what followed at Novatech and later on … is another post for another day.

Keep in touch !

Business Plan – The First Draft

I’m having trouble remembering the exact date. But I do think it was at the end of May. Or the beginning of June. The first ICUBE meeting.

I arrived early. Daniel was already there. Daniel participated in ICUBE in 2006. He had a project on how to make irrigations more environmentaly friendly. A very interesting and sought after idea. A lot of technical details. A lot of work. A lot of funding. His team made it to the finals that year and they won. Now he helped with organizing ICUBE.

 Time passed by and a not so many people showed up. Actually, there was only a guy and a girl. No one else. They had a project about using GPS to globally optimize traffic. “Wishful thinking” I thought to myself. What was inbetween strange and sad was that only three people in the whole PUB (Polytechnic University of Bucharest) where interested in both business and technology (be it IT or whatever else). 

About an hour later, Ioana showed up. She has organized ICUBE for the past 3 years. Ioana Ceauşu. She told us what the contest was all about: cool ideas, innovation, entrepreneurship, business plans, market research, financial forecasts and so on. And she brought cookies. It was the first time I heard the term “business plan” – actually it was the first time I gave any attention to it.

I was a little confused. I knew there was a lot to do and I didn’t know where to start. All I had was a techy idea about collaboration. And I had to build around it. The description of product and services. Competitive comparison. Market segmentation. Financial planning. It was a lot of information to absorb. But for some reason, all these terms I never heard before made sense. They had to.

The next day, I got started and wrote a brief description of my project. It was far from being a business plan. But it named the concept, the product, who would use it and what are other solutions to the collaborative problem. And it had a name – Team Work Interactive Platform – TWIP.I liked the name – cause it simply told what the project was about and it had a nifty abbreviation. During the next few days, I kept e-mailing Ioana with a lot of questions about what a business plan should contain, should or shouldn’t say. She was kind enough to answer and that made me feel more certain of myself, as I was walking on unknown ground.

 I sent this description for the preselection at ICUBE. A jury of experienced business people was going to pick the 5 projects that had the most potential.

I knew my idea was awsome. But what would they think ?

The Glimpse …

[ by Bogdan ]

Fast forward a semester in college. Polytechnic University of Bucharest. Computer Science Department. It sounds fancier than it is, trust me.

On the second semester, however, I had the this really interesting maths course. The guy teaching it (Octavian Stănaşilă, to be precise) is in his sixties, but I’m sure it was the only course where it was really hard to actually find seats. That’s because half of the time he taught math and half of the time he taught the philosophy behind the math. He would relate statistics to artificial intelligence, complex analysis with events in real life, differential equations to politics. It was great, really ! The guy was funny and seemed a little bit crazy at a time, but he had a point. He always had a point. He was the genious kind of crazy.

How is this math course related to what was to be my idea for a start-up ? Circumstance, coincidence … probability 

Thursday, 5 PM. That’s when me and my collegues went to Mr. Stănăşilă’s show. Yeah, I’m calling it a show because it was in between math and stand-up comedy.

But one Thursday, during the class a guy (Daniel Rosner) walked in and announced a contest to us. The contest was called ICUBE (http://www.icube.ro/) and it was dealing with business plans for the IT technology. I don’t exactly remember what he told us, cause I was horribly tired, but I remember keywords like: <contest>, <IT>, <idea>, <business>. I didn’t know about business the time, but the IT kinda got to me. In the end, I’m a tech guy.

So after the course ended, I went and had a chat with Daniel. I told him I had a really cool idea, about some sort of…uhm… (?)software. He asked me what it was. I said I didn’t remember (I really didn’t, too tired). He gave me his business card and I told him I’d write him an email when it all came back.

I woke up that night and I remembered the idea. I didn’t have a name for it. It didn’t have a clear shape. But it emphasized concepts like real-time, cooperation, collaboration, several users, extensible data types. At first, I thought this platform would be useful for educational purposes. But then I thought I could be used for several other things.

… I didn’t have a team and that was kind of a problem … cause I had only 4 days to come up with one … and with a somewhat solid concept …

I sent an application to the ICUBE contest. In a week’s time, there was going to be a preliminary selection of the subscribed projects. Something told me I had to give it my best…

… Daniel told me there was going to be a meeting of all those interested before the submission deadline…

… and it was there I met someone who has changed the way I see life & business.

[ to be continued ]

… before the spark

[ by Bogdan ]

When I first thought about this concept I had absolutely no idea about business. In the fall before my first year of college (2007, that being), I went to this IT conference. It was mainly about open source technologies and how they can change education. It’s a nice idea and everything, but it there was a lot of talking and no facts. No on-going projects. No concrete results. No actual improvements or anything to work with.

… and that’s just plain annoying. 

And then I thought about …

… all these schools which have computers and networks … but that don’t have the right software, they don’t make the best out of the hardware.

And I thought… what if you could actually have a software which brings value to the educational process? What if software could make classes cooler and more fun and more productive?

What can computers provide and a blackboard cannot ?

Connectivity between users. Collaboration. Real-time, that is. Like, everybody working together. Sharing small contributions. Not like chat or e-mail. But as actually doing a puzzle together.

[ All these things went through my mind as I sat there, annoyed and bored out of my mind, looking at all those people yapping on about how things should be, could be or would be - if someone else did all the work]

[ Getting back ]

Ok. So what would this synchronized, real-time collaboration mean ? How would it be useful?

People (especially kids!) could draw. They could work on essays. Do reserach for papers. Presentations. Mind-maps and brainstorming. Linking stuff together. Lateral thinking. Diagrams. Schematics. Equations. Chemical formulas. UML. All that was just streaming through my mind.

It’s not like I’m working on something and you’re working on something and when we’re done we exchange the results. No, no, no. It’s like – for every small update or change – we both know about it, we both see it !

And there’s great potential in that – it’s like we’re thinking together. No just the two of us. But a whole team. A classroom of students. A group of programmers. More teams – team leaders and team members. All this scenarios unfolded…

Google had already done it – of course. Google Docs. But for some reason – the first thing that came to mind was Doodle. The Yahoo Messenger plug-in thing. Yeah. It’s pretty stupid. But when you want to be creative, you gotta start stupid.

I had (and still do) all this ideas about how many things people can do in synchronious collaboration. At first, I had no idea where to start. But but but – I knew that the power of such a platform would be in its ability to but together as many apps as possible. Not 2. Not 3. Not 15. As many as the users asked for. As many as the developers could come up with. So that was my first task on the to-do list: making this whole thing easily extendable.

If you want to add something – don’t recompile, don’t even restart the platform. This whole process of adding new apps should be interactive. And (?almost) in real time.  Just like everything else.

Damn, the very thought of such a thing made me forget about how bored I was..

… the best part is, I needed such a platform. As a student. As a programmer. As a random guy who had things to share and people to share them with.

Oh and one more thing. It should be persistent. The users should be able to save. To resume. To restore these collaborative sessions, regardless of their being blueprints for airplanes or sketches for how a new website should look like.

(… the ideas just kept coming and coming together …)

 

At the end of the conference, I gave them my feedback. I told everyone how sad is when everyone is talking and no one is actually doing anything. For education. For the development community. For the open source community. I told them I’d rather work for a corporation which actually does something (evil, massive, proprietary software) than contributing an “open” community which does nothing. I even told them about my idea and they thought it was really cool – but I doubt they would remember it today.

Anyways, that’s how I got the idea. I had no name, no plan and I had bigger plans at that moment – I was focusing on getting this job as a research & development programmer (and I got it ).

But the whole synchronious collaboration concept got stuck in my mind. Deep.