Having entered the tech startup world in 2004 from a multinational background (Parsons Brinckerhoff and Parsons Corporation with roles in engineering, project management, business development, channel development and operational management) with 3 year stint in the Middle East, Manoj soon realised that he needs to build a strong on-line and off-line presence in order to make an impact within the UK’s techentrepreneur community.
Manoj achieved thought leadership through his blog at www.manojranaweera.com (No. 1 English language blog on finance automation through e-invoicing/EIPP technologies) from 2006 to 2007. At the same time, Manoj founded www.techcelerate.org (then Northern Startup 2.0) to bring together the tech startup community of the North West by creating an environment for entrepreneurs, investors, deal makers and service providers to meet and share experiences in an informal setting.
Being a heavy social networker, Manoj founded www.edocr.com in April 2007 to build a global brand by bringing social interactivity to business documents (dubbed YouTube for business documents). edocr was recognised in 2008 as one of the 20 most promising UK digital startups by UK Trade & Investment and Webmission08. Do read about progress of edocr.com.
Manoj has a MBA from Manchester Business School and a B.Eng (Hons) from Brighton University. Manoj’s profile can be accessed via LinkedIn
Techcelerate:
Founded in 2006 with the help of KPMG, Techcelerate took the bold responsibility to build a sustainable ecosystem for early stage tech companies in the North West of Britain. At the core of this initiative is a series of premier monthly events focusing on the needs of tech entrepreneurs. The growing Techcelerate community of over 2100 consists of entrepreneurs, investors, deal makers and service providers, all helping to create and grow the ecosystem. The community has grown to include influencers as far a field as west coast of America.
edocr.com:
edocr.com provides a highly interactivity environment for publishing and distributing an organisation’s public documents across the Internet. Once uploaded to edocr.com, both the organisation as well as the growing edocr community and visitors who come across the documents start to distribute to friends and colleagues as well as to the world’s most popular social networks such as Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter. At the same time, Google and other search engines ensure that the documents are found easily, giving the organisation significant global market place, which they could not reach out through their document inventory in the past.
Sharp Learning Curve:
ebdex: From 2004 to 2007, Manoj focused on launching an Internet based document exchange for handling purchase-to-payment and supply-to-cash documents such as invoices and purchase orders by interfacing with disparate accountancy and ERP systems, i.e. connecting accounts payable and accounts receivable functions of suppliers and buyers. The operations were suspended at the end of 2007 soon after successfully negotiating £250,000 debt finance, due to technology partner’s inability to deliver a product fit for purpose.
Contact:
- edocr: manojranaweera
- Twitter: @manojranaweera
- E-mail: manoj.ranaweera at edocr.com (for edocr) or manoj.ranaweera at techcelerate.org (for Techcelerate)
- Phone: +44 7769734491
- Skype: ranaweeram