Chartering a Revolution

Published: 16 December 1999 y., Thursday
Vikas Bhushan, a 33-year-old doctor, had a business idea: to Webcast medical school lectures and classes worldwide on the Internet. However, he and his three other physician cofounders weren't sure if a medical degree would be enough to get them started. Then Mr. Bhushan joined the Los Angeles chapter of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TIE); six months later, Medschool.com was officially established. Mr. Bhushan, Medschool.com_s CEO, still belongs to TIE, attends the monthly meetings held at the Sheraton Hotel in Cerritos, and plans to pitch his site to influential VCs who attend TIE's annual conference in May. He_s following in the footsteps of other Indian entrepreneurs who have founded successful companies -- such as Hotmail, Cybermedia, Junglee (which have all been acquired for millions), and Exodus Communications (Nasdaq: EXDS) -- with the help of TIE. "We members joke about how we belong to the Indian Mafia," Mr. Bhushan says. TIE now has more than a thousand members nationwide, many of whom have played a powerful role in shaping today_s technology. According to an official at the University of California at Berkeley, nearly 9 percent of the 4,000-plus high-tech companies started in Silicon Valley since 1995 were Indian-led; many of those were funded with help from TIE. Its 200 senior, or "charter," members, including Vinod Khosla of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sycamore Networks (Nasdaq: SCMR) Chairman Desh Deshpande, and Exodus Communications cofounder K.B. Chandrasekhar, have personally invested more than $100 million in young companies and paved the way for $400 million in venture capital investments. The close-knit group was founded seven years ago by 20 of Silicon Valley_s top Indian-born entrepreneurs who had been invited back to their home country to talk about their successes. None of the group members knew each other before the trip, but according to Kanwal Rekhi, president of the Silicon Valley chapter, "we saw how we could put that to positive use by becoming mentors for younger people so they would not have to fight as hard as we did." The name IndUS was chosen to signify that its members are from both India and the United States. From Silicon Valley, TIE has spread nationwide with seven chapters in Boston, New York, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Seattle and Vancouver will get theirs in February and TIE has also spread overseas to London and three cities in India. TIE is open to anyone with roots or interest in the Indus region (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and more recently also including the wider region of Southeast Asia). The charter members --entrepreneurs, corporate execs, and senior professionals who've made it big -- are welcomed by invitation only and pay $1,000 in annual dues and commit time to mentor general members.
Šaltinis: Redherring.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.

Facebook Comments

New comment


Captcha

Associated articles

The most popular articles

Joint Statement on Greece by EU Commissioner Olli Rehn and IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Mr. Olli Rehn, European Union Commissioner, and Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following joint statement on Greece. more »

World Bank Supports Urban Development in Bhutan

The World Bank today approved a $12 million IDA credit to Bhutan, designed to improve infrastructure services in parts of the capital city of Thimphu where no formal services are currently available. more »

Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy high on the agenda at events in Spain

Fisheries ministers and stakeholders alike will be discussing the future shape of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy at two major events in Spain over the next days. On 2 and 3 May, in La Coruña, the Commission and the Spanish Presidency are organising a large stakeholder conference on the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. more »

IMF’s Regional Outlook Shows Asia Leading Global Recovery

Asia is leading the global recovery and the region’s contribution to global growth will continue to exceed that of other regions in the next two years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said today in its latest Regional Economic Outlook (REO) for Asia and the Pacific. more »

EBRD supports development of green energy in Poland

The EBRD is supporting the modernization of the electricity distribution network and the development of renewable energy sources in Poland with a PLN 800 million loan (equivalent to approximately €205 million) to the Energa energy group in order to help the company strengthen its power grid. more »

Baltic Development Forum 2010

At the beginning of the summer this year, Vilnius will become the capital of the Baltic Sea region. On 1-2 June 2010, the city will host the Baltic Sea States Summit and the Baltic Development Forum (BDF) Summit. more »

Visit Lithuania by a Hot Air Balloon at the World EXPO 2010 in Shanghai

Visitors of the World Expo 2010, which will open in the Chinese city of Shanghai on May 1st under the slogan “Better City, Better Life” and will last for 184 days until the end of October, are kindly invited to get into a hot air balloon at the Lithuanian Pavilion. more »

SEB Bank Group Lithuania Result

According to preliminary data, unaudited net loss sustained over the first quarter of the year 2010 by SEB Bank is LTL 59,4 million (EUR 17,2 million) and that by SEB Bank Group is LTL 80,3 million (EUR 23,3 million). more »

Globalisation fund unemployment aid - a good tool, but far too slow

European Globalisation Adjustment fund (EGF) aid must be delivered faster and more simply to unemployed workers hit by the financial crisis or globalisation, concluded the Budgets and Employment committees after evaluating the fund on Wednesday. more »