NEWS: At 22, Indian American runs innovative software firm

[Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>]

At 22, Indian American runs innovative software firm
by Sukhjit Purewal, India Abroad News Service

San Diego (California), Feb 10 - While his classmates at the University of
California were figuring out what to do after college, Sameer Samat was
already running the company he co-founded, Mohomine.

Mohomine develops content aggregation tools across vertical markets and was
launched in January 2000. Initially, the company's focus was Internet, which
continues its exponential information growth. But now Mohomine is looking to
Fortune 500 companies that need help bringing structure to their technology.

"We automate the process -- we apply our technology inside their
enterprise," Samat explained.

San Diego-based Mohomine -- a knowledge-mining platform that automates the
process of finding, extracting and classifying information -- has raised
$5.1 million in capital and has 50 employees. Neil Senturia, founder and
former CEO of ATCOM/INFO, which sold for $100 million to CAIS Internet, is
Mohomine's CEO.

Samat, 22, and his partners raised $1.1 million during their midterm in
November 1999 for his company, six months before he graduated with his
computer science degree.

"There is no way to describe it except it was intense and crazy," Samat,
also Mohomine's chief technology officer (CTO), told IANS. "I was running
from a midterm exam to someone's office to make a presentation and then back
for the next exam."

Samat, confident the company is in the right place at the right time,
credits young trailblazers in the technology sector, who paved the way
before he and his friends and co-founders started out on their journey.
"Everyone gave us a chance because they wanted to hear what we had to say,"
Samat said, "We never faced a lot of resistance. It was very refreshing."

In San Jose, Samat met Sean Brady and later Josh Dammeier. They met the
fourth founder, Chris Harris, on the first day of college. All four had
parents who worked in the computer industry and were addicted to computers.

Working on the Internet in the summer of 1999, they realized they there were
no adequate tools with which to track down source codes. So Samat and
friends decided to build a custom directory with subcategories that would
automatically be linked to categories in appropriate places. The site they
came up with was -- Source bank.

The press note Samat wrote read, "We really didn't know if it was going to
be interesting to anyone else -- but we built something for our needs."

"The very next day the phone started ringing and didn't stop with offers to
purchase the site," Samat said and that is when the four decided to raise
money and start their company.

Samat said he would eventually like to return to school to do graduate work
in computer science as he still has learning to do, but sees himself
remaining with Mohomine.

"I really believe in this company. The vision is solid," Samat said. "I'm
having so much fun being around smart people I really feel that this company
is going to be around for a long time."

--India Abroad News Service