TiE to focus on India as a centre for innovation

["Irfan Khan" <khania2@super.net.pk>]

TiE to focus on India as a centre for innovation

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 08, 2003 03:11:25 AM ]

NEW DELHI: The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a non-profit group that 
seeks to promote entrepreneurship by offering mentoring and 
networking possibilities to people of the Indus region, has organised 
a conference on converting India into a centre of innovation.

Finance minister Jaswant Singh and Planning Commission deputy 
chairman K C Pant have been roped in, while the star speakers on the 
conference theme would be management guru C K Prahlad, McKinsey MD 
Rajat Gupta, Silicon Valley Bank chairman Ken Wilcox, Sycamore 
Networks chairman Desh Deshpande and WorldTel chairman Sam Pitroda.

TiE operates in nine countries through 39 chapters.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting of TiE’s global board of 
trustees here today, chairman Kanwal Rekhi said that the organisation 
has catalysed the success of 50 odd enterprises, apart from the well-
known example of KB Chandrasekhar’s Exodus, which was one of the 
first companies to spot and exploit the potential in hosting ‘mission-
critical’ corporate Websites.

He sought to downplay TiE’s role in providing funds and stressed the 
importance of guidance and networking. “Get a bunch of smart people 
together, things are bound to happen,” AJ Patel, another trustee 
explained.

Current chairman of TiE’s India chapter, Xansa’s Saurabh Srivastava 
pointed out that the current slump in the US did not automatically 
spill over to India — cost cutting in the US actually translates into 
fresh business opportunity for Indian firms. Entrepreneurship thrives 
in hostile circumstances, explained Rekhi.

TiE is a non-profit organisation. In fact, chartered member of TiE 
spend substantial sums of their own money to pursue TiE’s goals. TiE 
hopes to promote a muscular capitalism in India that would help 
realise India’s potential for entrepreneurship and innovation.

TiE would like to see India put its energy-sapping Pak problem behind 
and find its true place in the comity of nations. TiE has a chapter 
in Lahore — “they are in awe of what has been achieved in Bangalore” 
— and does not discriminate between entrepreneurs from Pakistan and 
those from India while extending guidance and assistance.

However, TiE steers clear of politics, Purnendu Chatterjee, another 
trustee clarified. McKinsey head Rajat Gupta, another member of TiE’s 
global board of trustees, took part in the meeting via telephone.


source: 
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?ar
tid=33762964