TiEcon 2005 Lifts the
Global Entrepreneurial Spirit
By Ras H. Siddiqui
L to R: Thomas Friedman, Talat Hassan,
Sridar Lyenger, Safi Qureshey, Apurv Baqri and Eric Schmidt
Often billed as the “Largest
Entrepreneurial Conference in the World” for good reason,
The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) annual conference or TiEcon
2005 this year, once again demonstrated to over 2000 attendees
the reason why it matters to people globally.
With 42 Chapters in nine countries TiE has established itself
as a serious networking base for people who originate in South
Asia but are found in all parts of the world. And in the process
of encouraging new entrepreneurs, TiE has been able to gather
quite a number of people who have already “made it”
in the hi-tech world of business so that they can encourage
others to follow in their footsteps without having to reinvent
the wheels they used to succeed in the business world.
This year’s “TiEcon 2005 Energizing The Global
Entrepreneurial Spirit” was held at the Santa Clara
Convention Center on May 13 and 14 in the heart of what is
known as the “Silicon Valley” around the globe
for its innovations. The “Mother Ship” of TiE
or its original chapter formed here in 1992 hosted an event
that could only be described as “inspiring.”
With keynote speeches by the likes of Dr. Eric Schmidt (CEO
of Google), Vinod Khosla (of KPC&B) who made how to change
the world his focal point, with Steve Ballmer of Microsoft
addressing the conference via a video broadcast, the keynote
speeches by John Foley of the Blue Angels, Bruce Chizen of
Adobe and Daniel Rosenweig of Yahoo, Marc Benioff of salesforce.com
and the musings on “Democracy and Sustained Economic
Growth: Freedom and Empowerment,” plus last (actually
first) but not least a virtual flattening of a round world
by New York Times columnist and writer Thomas L. Friedman
along with panels populated by a number of business luminaries
made this TiEcon a huge success.
The banquet dinner themed “Like that?!” closed
the conference on a high note as cultures crossed, blended
and horizons expanded because artful nourishment cannot ever
be separated completely from the world of business.
Since it is not possible to include the entire activity of
a two-day conference in one report, one had to concentrate
on its opening and the Press/media luncheon which set the
tone of the event. A few observations that were made also
have to be included.
L to R: Zafar
Jafri, Riaz Haq and Javed Ellahie |
With the reception area buzzing,
much activity heralded the welcoming speeches including those
by Tie Inc. Chairman Apu Bagri and President Sridar Iyengar
we were soon to encounter the Friedman factor.
Thomas Friedman set the mood with his keynote address during
which he shared the reason behind the writing his latest book
“The World is Flat” and some of its visionary
content. He said that it all began when he researched the
issue of “outsourcing,” a term that has became
a hot topic in America especially since the last Presidential
election. He continued with the observation that while he
was sleeping, something really big was happening in the globalization
story. He said that it occurred to him that the global economic
playing field was being flattened and that the American population
was not ready enough or aware of this fact.
With jobs in America now competing with those in India and
China as examples, Friedman made some ominous statements that
one cannot but accept. Due to the communication revolution
which he presented chronologically and dissected for his listeners,
much pragmatism has been reborn. He said that the main problem
that we face here in the United States today is not just we
are not prepared for this kind of future but that “nobody
has told the kids (here).” “There is no such thing
as an American job in a flat world,” he said.
And if Friedman was being both philosophical and visionary,
Dr. Eric Schmidt of Google was all business. Straight and
to the point he expanded on a number of points especially
on how companies experience growing pains and need to adjust.
After the phenomenal growth that Google has undergone recently,
let us say that people were listening to him carefully. “A
certain amount of patience is required,” he said.
Out of the 27 panel presentations held in six parallel sets,
we can take just one as an example to report on here. On the
topic of “How I Raised my First Round” (of money
that is), Allen Beasly, Jorge Del Calvo, Dr. Talat Hassan,
Purnendu Ojha and Safi Qureshey shared their personal experiences
on how some corporate success stories were born. The panel
was conducted by Matt Marshall, columnist for the San Jose
Mercury News.
“We started the company after eight years,” said
Talat Hassan. She pointed out the fact that it was this experience
that went behind the Statistical Process Control tools developed
by her company for use in hi-tech manufacturing. Safi Qureshey
was asked how the three founders of AST handled the initial
challenges of starting up 25 years ago. Safi emphasized that
all three founders of AST were immigrant engineers and faced
many interesting issues which they wisely faced by valuing
individual decision-making. “We never took a vote,”
he said.
Both Safi and Mrs. Hassan revealed the importance of finding
starting capital by taking out loans and using lines of credit
against one’s homes while waiting for outside investment
in your efforts. That most of us would think twice and not
proceed with such a venture is another story, but entrepreneurs
are a rare breed overcoming huge odds to succeed.
The media luncheon was unique as the TiE’s “Emerging
Stars” program was reviewed here and quite a number
of companies and their representatives were recognized. The
format was interesting in the way that the media and businesses
were purposely mixed at each table. Lucky for this reporter,
seated on table #4 were Sriram Viswanathan of Intel Capital,
a couple of representatives from Billeo, Inc. certainly an
emerging company, Clare Henjum, a public relations rep. for
a company called SalesBrain which concentrates on a field
called “neuro marketing” and last but not least
Cyber Crime Writer Deb Radcliff who has given the investigative
reporting of crimes over the Internet a great deal of valuable
help and coverage. One could only imagine who was seated at
the other tables and what other interesting conversations
were taking place.
In closing TiEcon 2005 may have cut on the frills but appeared
to be similarly or even better attended in comparison to last
year. And if one can make this annual conference a barometer
of the current state of health of the high-technology industry
here in the US, it appears that the bottom has passed and
that things are finally moving up.
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