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| Home > Outreach Services > TiE – ISB Connect |
| Technology Track Summary |
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Participants
| Track Chair |
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Sudheer Koneru (SumTotal) |
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Kalyan Manyam (PhoneLinx) |
| Moderator |
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Sudheer Koneru |
| Keynote Speaker |
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Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala (IIT, Madras) |
| Panellists |
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Pradeep Gupta ( Dataquest) |
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Srini Koppolu (Microsoft) |
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Vani Kola (NEA Indo-US Ventures) |
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Raj Gollamudi (Bluestream Ventures) |
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Joga Rao (Computer Associates) |
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Ajit Deora (Light Speed Ventures) |
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Srikanth Sundararajan (Persistent) |
The Track Chair, Mr Sudheer Koneru, the Managing Director of SumTotal, introduced the panel members to the audience and invited Mr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Professor at IIT-M, on stage to give the key note address. Mr Jhunjhunwala enthralled the audience with the achievements of the TeNet team of IIT Madras in reaching out to the rural areas with the latest technological innovations. His initiative has spawned more than 10 companies in the past with a focus on development of the rural sector.
The next talk was given by Mr Pradeep Gupta from Dataquest, on the innovations that can be achieved in the fast changing world. He also touched upon the important fact that R&D now is increasingly sourced from outside giving rise to the possibility of outsourcing of R&D in the future. Mr Srini Koppolu, Managing Director, Microsoft IDC, gave an enlightening talk on technological changes from the perspective of Microsoft.
All the panelists were then invited on stage and the session was opened up for a discussion. Panelists included Ms Vani Kola of (NEA Indo-US Ventures) Mr Ajit Deora of LightSpeed (VC), and Mr Srikant of Persistent among others. Mr Kalyan Manyam and Mr Sudheer Koneru moderated the discussions. Mr Ajit Deora stressed the fact that entrepreneurs should sell out smart; there is no need for them to be logical and rational. One will make mistakes but it’s important to have fun while building a company. Several questions on open source posing a threat to technology, taking new innovations to markets, venture capital funding, and innovations related to wireless technology were discussed.
In answer to a question on opportunities in open source, Mr Srikanth Sundararajan said that companies like SpikeSource that use open source to provide custom solutions and services to SME are doing well, so there are opportunities in open source. Demand will increase in the e-governance and education sector. Three big enterprise software companies IBM, Oracle and SAP have open source strategies and have done buyouts in this field also. Mr Raj Gollamudi added that open source has commoditised software, and though it is possible to build services around open source, the results are mixed: JBOSS was recently acquired by RedHat for $350 mn. On the other hand, MySQL has high adoption among the open source community, but low revenues. Mr Koppulu said that the community aspect of open source is great but things can get messy as many times companies don’t follow the clean license practices.
Answering a question on whether skills or attitude should be given more weightage while building a team, Gupta used an example from cricket to state that in a world where technology changes rapidly, skills become irrelevant fast; attitude is key. Mr Gollamudi added that “you should surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.”
The perseverance of an IIT professor who took leave for a year to study Marketing and other aspects of a business in order to be better able to handle questions asked by VCs like "How will you sell it?", "Whom will you sell it to?" stood out as an example for other budding entrepreneurs. The emerging idea revolved on the value that a VC brings to a business, and also on the question that every VC asks before committing to fund a venture - "Will this business become the market leader in the long run?”
The discussion was an enriching experience for all participants. Budding entrepreneurs who participated in the track were inspired by the opportunities that were discovered during the course of the session. |
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