RITU JHA-
The Road to TiEcon event July 22 focused on diversity and gender, featuring Fortune 500 board members, former CEO, MetricStream, advisor and author Shelley Archembeau, and entrepreneur, board member, company advisor and seven-time Emmy award-winning journalist Thuy Vu.
BJ Arun, TiE Silicon Valley president, told indica News that featuring such strong and successful women from different ethnic backgrounds were in line with TiE’s efforts to promote role models from underrepresented minorities.
On inviting Amitabh Kant, CEO of India’s government think tank NITI Aayog, to be a grand keynote speaker, Arun said that Kant was one of India’s best bureaucrats and the force behind the highly successful Incredible India tourism campaign.
“More recently he has been the key driver behind the Startup India and Make in India initiatives,” Arun said. “Given our global viewership, Amitabh’s highlighting the virtues of doing business in India was extremely relevant and well-received. “
The moderator for Kant’s keynote, Arun Kumar, CEO of KPMG India and former assistant secretary of the US Department of Commerce, is a highly respected business leader in his own right.
“Featuring such speakers is both inspirational and informative to our audience that comprises of entrepreneurs and top corporate executives,” Arun told indica News.
The TiEcon grand event is on September 2 and 3.
“We decided to limit our virtual events to paid members of TiE since our membership dues are nominal and as a not for profit, we need the revenues to pay our staff to keep the quality programs coming,”Arun said.
“The problem was compounded with many of our sponsors deciding to cut back, or even sit out completely in 2020 due to revenue impact from COVID-19. We plan to do a much bigger outreach/ membership drive,” he said.
Anand Akela, charter member & director, TiE Silicon Valley Board, told indica News: “As you know, the success of any product depends on the quality and the value of the product and robust marking to raise awareness about the product and articulating the value to the target audience. For events like TiEcon, the product is the keynotes speakers, entrepreneurship, and technology tracks speakers and programs like VC Connect, MentorConnect, TiE 50, Bootcamps, and so on.”
Akela pointed put that TiEcon 2020 already has a great line of grand keynote speakers, including Indra Nooyi, CEOs of Zoom, and ServiceNow.
“We are expecting to have many more star speakers join us for the event,”Akela said about the September 2 and 3 schedule. “We have eight technology tracks including the most popular entrepreneurship track that focuses on ‘how-to’, tips and tricks of entrepreneurship. We will have all the
popular programs like VC Connect, MentorConnect, TiE 50, Bootcamps available at the event as well.”
He added: “Hopefully, our strong content and speaker line-up and a robust marketing plan executed by a group of volunteers will help us drive the largest audience ever for TiEcon now that we targeting a global audience.”
Also see
https://indicanews.com/2020/07/24/tiecon-talks-about-what-entrepreneurs-dont/
