TieCon 2002: Innovating for Success

The IndUS Entrepreneurs of TiE as the organization is known, kicked off its annual conference in the general locale of its birth, in Silicon Valley USA as over 2000 people gathered at the Westin Hotel/Santa Clara Convention Center to focus on “Innovating for Success” and much more for two days on June 14 and15, 2002. And since the TiE Silicon Valley is the “mother ship” aged ten of the various chapters or offspring if I may (that are now spread out over four continents), what happens at this annual event in Northern California is followed by investors, entrepreneurs and the technology world with much interest.

And this year was no different except for the lack of a few frills that many of us had become accustomed to in the past, when some people guided by the spirit of free enterprise with origins in the Indus region of South Asia were riding a tsunami of prosperity in the United States. That tsunami is currently in recession as few stock portfolios and incomes have risen dramatically this past year. But from TiEcon 2002 one came away with the impression that if the technology market does eventually turn around, TiE members and others who made the attempt and invested close to $400 for registration to this conference, will be well positioned to reap the benefits.

The welcoming remarks were given by Kailash Joshi, the current TiE Silicon Valley President along with Vish Mishra and the President-Elect of the Chapter, Sridar Iyengar. This was followed by the introduction of Murthy,the keynote speaker by Desh Despande. Narayana Murthy, the Chairman of one of India’s biggest success stories Infosys Technologies gave a moving speech in which he traced the humble origins of Infosys and how it struggled to establish itself in India. He was very appreciative of the TiE organization and the Indian-American community in Silicon Valley for showing their country of origin the road to success. “The struggle for India’s economic freedom started in the Valley”, he said. He also stressed on his vision to create “build to last” companies.

Next Raj Judge did a great job introducing Larry Sonsini and Vinod Khosla for their Dialog Segment which was very illuminating. And the “Outlook for Innovation” segment that followed featuring Geoffery Moore, Atiq Raza, Gordon Bell, Scott Cook and Ned Barnholt was also both informative and quite entertaining in segments. Atiq Raza is a Pakistani-American success story that many in this valley would like to emulate.

Another segment titled “Entrepreneurship-New Wine or New Bottle” followed next.

During a well-arranged lunch, Dr. R. Glenn Hubbard, Chairman Council of Economic Advisors, The White House presented the official policy of the current administration on a number of topics. It is unfortunate that due to a problem with the distribution of sound in this very large room, a number of people could not hear Dr. Hubbard.

After lunch, the conference was segmented into three separate presentations. As it is not possible for one reporter to be at all the segments, I was able to catch the “Competing Against Giants” segment moderated by Jerry Borrell featuring Alnoor Shivji, Rajeev Madhavan, S. Singh Mecker and Andy Rubin on the panel. Another segment that was interesting was on the topic of “Tapping Global Markets” in which the panel of Asheem Chandna, Zia Yusuf, Larry Huffman and Joe Prang presented many words of wisdom. “Innovation and Intraprenuership in Large Corporations” featured Moderator Vince Barabba along with Tomitaka Todafusa (Sony Corp.) Tariq Khan, K.C. Venugopal, Chris Wong and Ken Klein.

As stated earlier, it was not possible to be at the numerous venues at this conference where a whole lot of activity was going on. But a number of individuals were seen busy engaged in business and small talk. I ran into Nick Gandhi of Nishcorp Inc. who said that the software industry was picking up slowly. Naeem Raza, President and CEO of Sunflower Systems who invited me over to their company exhibit. Sunflower provides a user-friendly Enterprise Asset Management System. I also ran into Adnan Hassan of Firexchange of Washington DC. Adnan happened to be a fellow alumnus of Karachi Grammar School.

This was just a small glimpse of what was going on. I wish that I could have made it to “Social Entrepreneurship” segment moderated by Lata Krishnan or Day 2 of this conference but that was not possible this time. New Age Guru Deepak Chopra was featured late Saturday and the entertainment segment featuring Bali Brahmbhatt was difficult to pass up.

In conclusion one is always amazed and reassured that not only is innovation, entrepreneurship and cooperation very much alive and well at TiE but that South Asian politics is still being kept at bay and does not appear to be interfering in the conduct of business here. In 1998 I covered this conference after the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan. In 1999 I believe that the war in Kargil was a problem. And today? One wishes that there could be a business deal made in the India-Pakistan problem context in which much “innovation” would certainly come in handy. And as TiE may soon become The International Entrepreneur (because it appears to be widening its scope well beyond the Indus region) let us hope that what divides us today can be bridged via the path of free enterprise.