VENKAT MANAKKAL
path: EUGENE MALLOVE > NUWIKI CONTRIBUTORS > LARRY ABRAHAM > PAUL MACCREADY > VENKAT MANAKKAL

Speaker, 2006

Dot Bomb Survivor, Now Mr. Fixit

Concerning the future of the tech marketplace, visionary Venkat Manakkal cuts through the clutter to forecast a world of anonymous exchange of value that'll allow a bazaar-style robotic market to develop: network services such as viable, self extending wireless networks, spam-free email, denial of service free Internet, to a real-world cyber bazaar for laptops, BMWs, peanuts, and oil.

Alert: If that robotic free market bazaar sounds bizarre, just attend Venkat's presentation -- he's a pro at explaining his ideas in user-friendly, non-techie terms.

Venkat spent the post dot bomb era studying why it went wrong and how it can be fixed. Since 2000, he's run rayservers.com, specializing in secure, encrypted servers and laptops. Venkat recently joined forces with former Cypherpunk Sandy Sanfort, to serve the growing rayservers clientelle.

Venkat's self-education was sparked around age 11, when he started reading electronic engineering textbooks. He then graduated to playing with hi-fi and ham radio equipment, vacuum tubes, and early computers. Venkat studied mechanical engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and ended up with a Masters in manufacturing while working on the Intelligent Multi-Chip Module Analyzer in the Computer Science Department. Thereafter, he worked for about a decade as an engineer in the dot bomb era, holding a myriad of titles. Venkat then spent time at the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department at Cornell, running a Linux parallel processing cluster and teaching a course: The Linux Supercomputing Environment.