Global entrepreneurship comes to India

Mumbai: TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Mumbai chapter will host global South Asian thought leaders and entrepreneurs for a two-day conference on global entrepreneurship during TieCon India 2004 (www.tieconindia.org) to be held in Mumbai on December 17 and 18, 2004. TiE Mumbai is one of 43 chapters world-wide of TiE Global, a not-for-profit organisation born in Silicon Valley in 1992 to support, nurture and encourage entrepreneurship. TiE has a membership of over 10,000.

The speakers at TiEcon India 2004 will address young and established entrepreneurs, a range of professionals, venture capitalists, corporate chiefs and seniors, captains of industry as well as management and technical students at the two-day conference to be held at the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Centre in Powai, Mumbai. The event will explore the concept of entrepreneurship across a spectrum of sectors from IT to films, social to emerging technologies, corporate to rural, political to innovative. CNBC TV-18 will be the media partner for TiEcon 2004 while Connexions from Rediff.com will be the online partner for the event.

The key speakers for the event include: management thinker C K Prahalad, Harvey C. Fruehauf Professor of business administration, University of Michigan; Dr Bala S Manian, founder, entrepreneur, biotechnology and instrumentation companies and the inventor of technology that was used to create special effects in movies such as Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; Ram Shriram, founding board member-investor, Google Inc (via video conference); Ramesh Venkataraman, partner, McKinsey & Company, Mumbai; Sam Pitroda, founder-chairman, C-Sam Inc, WorldTel Ltd and the inventor of the digital diary and the electronic wallet; Rakesh Mathur, CEO, BeanStalk Technologies and co-founder of Junglee.com; Kishor A Chaukar, managing director, Tata Industries Ltd; Shekhar Kapur, award-winning international film director; Abhay Havaldar, principal, General Atlantic Partners; Vineet Rai, CEO, Aavishkaar Micro Venture Fund, founder of GIAN and incubator for rural ventures and innovations; Dr Mihir Parikh, University of Central Florida and Laura Parkin, executive director, Wadhwani Foundation.

A new initiative of the two-day conference will be a 'mentoring clinic' where participants will get an opportunity to interact one-on-one with mentors — entrepreneurs and businesspersons of standing who will demonstrate on site the practical application of TiE's mission of mentoring new entrepreneurs to discuss opportunities and challenges unique to their business model.

Nishith Desai, president, TiE, Mumbai chapter said," TiE is all about successful people creating successful people. The goal of TiEcon 2004 is to incubate ideas, foster new thoughts and support the growth of new enterprises for which we offer global connectivity. All corporates and industry leaders need new ideas, concepts and thinking for their future growth. They need to step out and seek talent from within and more importantly outside their organization. It is an ideas conference. It will provide a great opportunity for industry leaders, young engineers, business executives and students from business schools and engineering colleges to 'think entrepreneurship'. This event will be an ideal platform to share experiences, encourage debate, provide information on trends and best practices, respond to queries and above all inform young entrepreneurs of what it takes to succeed globally.

"TiE's mission is to ensure that our organisation and its successful members help create and foster more successes — individual entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs — to benefit the global economy. We believe that the young Indian is well equipped and informed to take advantage of global opportunities - what they need is a mentor to ignite that inbuilt passion and drive to succeed."

Mumbai, he said, being India's most entrepreneurial city, was the right place to host this event. Where else can you find so many people who came only with dreams in their heads and found the right environment to turn them into reality, he asked. The sponsors for this event include Hexaware Technologies, Hexagram, Onward Novell India, Kotak and Herman Miller.