Stanford Global Technology Symposium Attn: Alexandra Johnson P.O. Box  9473 San Mateo, California 94403 USA +1 (408) 269 9463 [email protected] www.usrts.org

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On the globalization of talent: "Entrepreneurs are everywhere -- in China, India, Russia . . . If you look at a company that has 15 people, these 15 people reside on five different continents and even more countries . . . Finding the right team and identifying talent at a global level is actually the major factor in dictating the success of that company. "

On globally-integrated business functions: "Companies are started with the thought of being integrated for a global market . . . We establish a sales team in that location, a solution in that language . . . Customers are very global today, so companies must leverage their infrastructure wherever they are . . . That's the key to this whole new level of globalization."

On global business and technology in the coming decade: "It will be very much along the same lines. We see the world being much more connected, much smarter . . . Everybody will be connected through the Web and mobile devices and GPS devices, and all of this intelligence and data will be rapidly analyzed . . . to help people live their lives and make smarter decisions . . . ."

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This Year’s Global Technology Symposium Takes On The Turbulent Economy

by Jason Kincaid on March 3, 2009

Later this month Stanford University will host the sixth annual Global Technology Symposium, which will bring together a collection of esteemed investors, entrepreneurs, politicians, educators, and business executives to discuss the changes affecting the world’s economic situation. This year’s event runs from Thursday, March 26, 2009 - Friday, March 27, 2009, and will focus (appropriately) on Entrepreneurship and Investment in a Turbulent Economy. Tickets run $795 apiece for the three day event, and we’ve got five of them to give away. If you’d like one, leave a comment below letting us know why you need to be at the GTS, and we’ll pick the best responses (be sure to use your real Email address).

Included among this year’s speakers are Sheryl Sandberg, Reid Dennis, Steve Jurvetson, Lip-Bu Tan, Bill Draper, Tina Seelig, Vish Makhijani, Dan’l Lewin, Pitch Johnson, and T. Boone Pickens (you can see a full listing here).

The GTS is also holding a Global Pitch Competition at the Plug and Play Tech Center, during which seven startups will have the chance to pitch their companies to a panel of VC judges and the event’s attendees. After the presentations, the panel will select one of the startups as the winner of the Global Technology Symposium Winner’s Certificate. For more details on applying to take part in the Global Pitch Competition, check out this page.

We’ll be attending the event, and will also have the chance to sit down for an interview with T. Boone Pickens, which we’ll post following the symposium. If you have any especially compelling questions you’d like us to ask, leave them in the comments.

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EE Times: All the world wants to be the 'new' Silicon Valley Nicolas Mokhoff EE Times (02/04/2008 1:16 PM EST)

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Silicon Valley, in terms of innovation and investment opportunities in an ever more global economy, is still relevant. But, these days, it has to fight harder than ever to retain its competitive edge. The primo combination of venture-capital firms, university research and entrepreneurial spirit still predominates the Valley, but there is more competition from all around the globe, including China, India, and Russia.

At Stanford University's Global Technology Symposium here last week, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs exchanged their views on the best VC place under the sun.

"There's an infrastructure here that is hard to emulate in other parts of the world," said Pitch Johnson, founding partner of Asset Management and a pioneer of the venture capital business. "I look at how VCs are approaching investments in other parts of the world, and I see they have a long way to go," he explained. Johnson just returned from Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Abu Dhabi--three growing industrial centers in the Middle East. "The Saudis are investing in their own education system, which should [help create] the right conditions for entrepreneurs. Abu Dahbi is investing outside the country, and VCs are supporting those entrepreneurs, while Dubai is spending on its own infrastructure to become a Western tourist destination." Dubai, a few years back, wanted to build its own Silicon Valley, but failed miserably. Johnson's opinion is that Saudi Arabia might be more successful in building an industrial society than either Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Johnson said that all three countries are investing but do not know how to make capital work. On the other hand, Eastern Europe, especially the Czech Republic, Poland and Russia, are doing everything right to get their economies moving. "Eastern Europe takes a different approach than does Western Europe, which is more aligned to the way we do it I California." Johnson also has more faith in Russia than do most VCs. "There is a Russian association of VCs with about 150 VC company members. The Russian government is encouraging regional VC funds to support entrepreneurs, and the high education level of its people just cannot be ignored."

So what works and what does not outside Silicon Valley? In Russia, while the innovation and technology come out of the universities, the regulatory picture and rules of the game are still being written. "The rule of law is under development; you have to navigate that, said Johnson. "There is much more capital available in Russia than there was five years ago--what's missing is a legal framework, regulations."

"In China," he continued, "investments are across the board. But here, too, the culture is very different. Replacing a CEO is a big deal--it's a matter of losing face, and there may be relatives working for the company." In Silicon Valley, things happen very fast--CEOs get replaced when needed. Culturally, in Russia and in China, it is very different. So much so that, in Russia "entrepreneurs are afraid to lose control to VCs," added Johnson.

"I have a hypothesis that we don't understand Russia very well," he continued. "The country will evolve into something different, and we have to stay there to take advantage of the pool of strong science. Many want to start companies, but [what they really] need is marketing expertise. My thumbs are up for Russia--I am far more optimistic than how newspapers describe the scene there." On the other hand, Johnson fears that China could change on a dime with political screws tightening the entrepreneurial spirit. As for India: "India has a lack of order but can do very well; I prefer India over China for entrepreneurship rising there."

Back to India

While Silicon Valley remains a magnet for entrepreneurs, one VC is worried that there is no longer a direct correlation between foreign students coming here for an education and staying in the U.S. to develop their entrepreneurial ideas. "In my observation, 15 out of 18 MBA students who graduated lately are going back to India. This was not the case five years ago," said Ann Winblad, co-founder and managing director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

Winblad said that Silicon Valley has a strong commitment to companies--the average new company is seven years old. "Here, companies go for the brass ring; others around the world want to build and sell as fast as possible. It's really about building businesses in Silicon Valley." However, she adds that "we have depended on math and science graduates, who are now diminishing--something is amiss here today. Our competitive edge is ours to lose." She called for government programs to strengthen education and support R&D, otherwise "we might become low-wage workers for others around the world."

Dmitry Vasyutinsky, managing director, Allianz Rosno, a Moscow-based investment firm, was more optimistic: "Silicon Valley has all the ingredients and is not a static place. Some are trying to replicate the Silicon Valley model elsewhere--some ingredients can be [transferred], but not 100 percent." Vasyutinsky said that "we don't believe in [investing in] projects just for the Russian market, if competitors come in they will play globally."

One VC--DFJ--has engaged entrepreneurs globally. Draper Fisher Jurvetson is 23 years old and has expanded around the globe by partnering with funds, giving its name to 22 funds that manage $6 billion of investment money. "We are 135 professionals, so we are one or two people away from any technology on the globe," said Don Wood, managing director of DFJ.

For instance, Sergey Romashov, managing director of DFJ VTB Aurora, a US/Russia venture fund, is pioneering the VC business in technologies in Russia. VTB, which does investment, commercial and consumer banking, is the second-biggest bank in Russia, and the Aurora funds are being managed by partners Romashov in Moscow and Alexandra Johnson from DFJ's offices in Silicon Valley.

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Angel capital and the HotorNot approach
Guy Kawasaki 02.04.2008

I have seldom moderated a panel with better-qualified members than this:

• Andy Bechtolsheim. Andy has a heart-stopping track record. First, he was a co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Then he founded Granite Systems (gigabit Ethernet switches) which Cisco bought. Then he founded Kealia (server technology) which Sun bought. He is an angel investor in Magma Design Automation (electronic design automation). Oh yeah, he was also the first investor in Google when he wrote a check for Larry and Sergei in 1998—before they had a bank account to deposit it in. To put it mildly, he the uber angel investor of angel investors. He is currently the chief architect of Sun.
• Ron Conway. Ron is the "godfather of Silicon Valley." He is the former managing partner of Angel Investors LP. He has invested in over 500 startups and has personal investments in RockYou, Twitter, Plaxo, Digg, and DanceJam. He is also an advisor to FaceBook. Oh yeah, he was also an early investor in Google.
• Dr. Ian Sobieski. Ian is a founder and managing director of the Band of Angels Fund. This is a $50 million fund that receives approximately 100 pitches per month. A screening committee then selects three companies to present at the Band's monthly meeting. The Band has invested in 240 companies and has had more than forty profitable acquisition exits and nine IPOs.

The Global Technology Symposium hosted the panel on February 1, 2008 in Palo Alto, California. The panel's premise was simple: Why bother impressing venture capitalists when (a) it takes less money to start a company and (b) there are plenty of angels who will fund early-stage deals? Here are some of highlights:

• You can't reach these angels by sending them an email out of the blue.
• They want to read a one-page executive summary and not much more.
• They decide whether they like a company in the first thirty seconds— think HotorNot, not eHarmony.
• They don't rely upon business plans for due diligence.
• They seldom serve on boards or do "heavy lifting" for a company.

By contrast, most entrepreneurs are sending long emails with big attachments to angels they don't know; they are sweating over long business plans and fifty-slide PowerPoint presentations; and they're looking for "value-add" investors who will mentor them. This is all wrong—if you don't believe me, watch the video. Even if you do believe me, you should watch the panel anyway just to hear Andy's decision-making process for writing a check to Google.

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Stanford GTS 2008
Thoughts from the identity age -- By Phil Libin (www.vastlyimportant.com)

I just spent two days at the 2008 Global Technology Symposium at Stanford, a worldwide investment and emerging technologies conference, with an emphasis on Russia and other developing markets. I don't think I've ever written this about a conference before: it was great.

Useful content, a chance to meet many of Silicon Valley's founders, and all around excellent coordination. What's really amazing, especially for an international event, is that every single person who got up on the stage knew how to speak and present. The audience is usually comatose ten minutes into a talk at any of these events and I came prepared to nap; it never happened. The caviar reception at the end was a nice touch.

Has anyone that knows me ever heard me gush about a conference before? Alexandra Johnson, the principal orchestrator of GTS, should be immediately put in charge of every other industry conference on the planet. She might even make CES bearable. If they have a GTS next year, I'm bringing more of the Evernote crew.

Don't try to run, Sasha.

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March 19, 2007 (Palo Alto, CA) – The Stanford Global Technology Symposium, the West Coast’s premiere conference on technology investing in emerging markets and the only investor conference endorsed by Stanford University, concluded successfully last Friday in Palo Alto, California.

The Symposium, now in its fourth year, continued to attract many of Silicon Valley’s foremost names to its speaker roster.  Speakers from the venture capitalist world included Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Aaron Gershenberg of SVB Capital, Mark Gorenberg of Hummer Winblad.  Pitch Johnson of Asset Management Company, Deepak Kamra of Canaan Partners, Vani Kola of New Enterprises Associates, Ray Layne of Kleiner Perkins. Also speaking were representatives from Deloitte & Touche, EMC, Hitachi, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Sitronics, Tata, Turner Broadcasting, Unilever, and other prominent corporations, as well as government and academic representatives such as Tom Campbell of the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley, Professor Channing Robertson of Stanford University, and Valery Shantsev, Governor of Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod Region. 

The phenomenally successful fourth Symposium built upon the momentum of the previous three years by focusing not only on companies in Russia, as before, but also in surrounding technology corridors such as China, India, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Switzerland, and Ukraine. Alexandra Johnson, president of the Symposium’s organizing committee, said, “Silicon Valley has grown increasingly aware of investment opportunities in emerging markets, and the diversity of speakers at this year’s event reflects this newfound international perspective.”

Alexandra Johnson, President of the Symposium’s organizing committee, said “What the Symposium demonstrates is that real opportunities exist for collaboration between entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and financiers in the emerging markets space.” 

The fifth Symposium will take place on January 30 through February 1, 2008.

This year’s Symposium was supported and sponsored by prestigious organizations, such as, The Polish Trade Council, The Russian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and The Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies at Stanford University, Sitronics, The Region of Nizhny Novgorod, Deloitte, Google, IBM, Mirantis, Baganov International Group and SVB Capital.

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Tech summit looks globally Emerging markets hold deep reservoir of creative talent David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, March 9, 2007 Russian executive Evgeni Utkin posted a photograph of Borat, the dorky, fictional reporter from Kazakhstan, at the Global Technology Symposium Thursday at Stanford University. Next to it he put up a photo of that country's capital city, Astana, with its glittering, modern high-rises. Perception, Utkin said, is frequently at odds with reality, especially when it comes to emerging markets like Russia and former Soviet countries like Kazakhstan busy trying to accelerate their transition from communism to capitalism by promoting their high-tech talent. The Stanford symposium, in its fourth year, is an annual summit meeting for Silicon Valley digerati, business executives and government figures from overseas. Presented by Alexandra Johnson, a Russia-born Bay Area venture capitalist and impresario, the three-day gathering, which concludes today, is a place for investors and entrepreneurs to network, as well as a forum for thinkers about market trends and new technology. With bad news seemingly emerging every day from Russia -- re-nationalization of much of the booming energy industry, murders of journalists and political critics of President Vladimir Putin and rising tension between Putin and his erstwhile soul mate President Bush -- the former Soviet bloc can be a hard sell to American business, several attendees said. Yet U.S. corporate interest in Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and several other countries is running high, despite political and commercial risks -- chiefly because those nations host deep reservoirs of creative technological talent. For Intel Corp., "Russia is the largest software development site outside the U.S.," said Intel Russia President Steve Chase at the symposium Thursday. IBM, too, is keenly interested in Russia, mainly as a place to develop information technology, said Claudia Fan Munce, managing director of the IBM Venture Capital Group and vice president for corporate strategy. "As corporate VCs, we invest in companies and work with other companies that are investing," Fan Munce said, adding "about one-third of IBM's revenue is partner revenue." Big Blue sees Russia as a place to tap creative brainpower and create new technological applications, especially in information technology, she said. "We've all seen the China and India phenomenon for a few years now," said Fan Munce, who said Russia could be next. "IBM has relationships with 30 or 40 universities in Russia. Russia is especially important in the open-source area." Executives allowed that risk-management is a real consideration in emerging markets, where intellectual property protection is often not iron-clad, and transparency in relationships with host governments does not always come up to U.S. standards. But a market that is in transition can be nearly as much of an inhibiting factor, according to Drew Clark, director of strategy for emerging markets at IBM Venture Capital Group. Ukraine has a lot of development talent, Clark said, characterizing the eastern European country as a smaller, less-developed version of Russia, with which it shares a border and rich scientific culture. "There are a lot of bright people there, but they're still lacking the formation of actual companies that VCs can invest in," he said. To some extent, the former Soviet bloc is pursuing a build-it-and-they-will-come strategy. Russia has opened eight tech-focused industrial parks in the past two years, said Valery Shantsev, governor of Nizhny Novgorod, a Russian region 230 miles east of Moscow. One of the parks is in Nizhny Novogod and hosts an Intel plant, he said. Speaking to a Global Technology Symposium audience of several hundred people on Thursday, Shantsev said his region is trying to lure more global businesses by offering tax incentives and fast-tracking of foreign direct-investment projects. All told, the mood at the conference was tempered but hopeful. "I am very optimistic about our country," said Evgeni Utkin, the executive who posted the photo of the comedic Borat to make a serious point about development. "The new Russia is just 16 years old." E-mail David Armstrong at [email protected].   This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Venture Capitalists, Entrepreneurs, Academics, and Policymakers Examine What it Takes to Build an Emerging Company in Today’s Global Markets

Stanford, CA – February 14, 2007 –An upcoming investor conference at Stanford University will explore whether author Thomas Friedman’s thesis that “the world is flat” applies to the technology sector in emerging markets. Are labor and capital truly mobile, as Friedman asserts, or do national barriers still matter?

Set to take place from March 7-9 in Palo Alto, California, the Stanford Global Technology Symposium will host venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, professional service firms, and policymakers, who will discuss how to build successful companies in countries such as Russia, India, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine.

Speakers will include:

Panels will focus on topics such as:

“While it is clear that ‘the world is flat’ from a broad economic perspective, emerging growth companies may not be quite so lucky,” said Alexandra Johnson, who is managing director of Landbridge Capital and leads the Symposium’s organizing committee. “Our goal is to help young companies understand the implications of globalization and to find ways to succeed in this ‘new world order.’”

About the Stanford Global Technology Symposium

The U.S.–Russia Technology Symposium at Stanford was founded in 2004 to cultivate a transatlantic network of businesspeople and policymakers interested in Russian technology in response to the Silicon Valley’s interest in international investing and Russia’s desire to diversify its economy beyond oil and gas.  The Symposium has since broadened its focus to the changes affecting the world economy today. Its format encourages substantive and interactive dialogue among participants.

The Symposium is produced in conjunction with Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the International Economic Alliance.  It is the only Stanford-supported investment event that focuses on global emerging markets.  Co-chaired in previous years by former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry and Russian Minister of Education and Science Andrey Fursenko, the Symposium attracts leading experts on trade, technology, and emerging growth industries. The Symposium offers an unparalleled opportunity to gain insight into developments in high technology and the reality of global competition.

For more information, go to http://www.usrts.org.

Editors, note: All trademarks and registered trademarks are those of their respective companies. Additional background information is available at www.roeder-johnson.com.

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Cisco Poised for Russian Venture

By Philip Stafford in London

Published: November 27 2006 02:00 | Last updated: November 27 2006 02:00

Cisco Systems, the world's largest provider of networking equipment, is to announce today a venture with Russia's Sitronics as it looks to extend its fast-growing emerging markets business.

Sitronics is one of the largest IT and telecommunications groups in Russia and is owned by the conglomerate Sistema.

The two companies plan to jointly offer a product in the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Middle East and Africa designed to transfer often outdated public switched telecommunications infrastructure to modern internet-based networks.

Cisco's investment in the venture is not known. The product will use Cisco's main routers and Sitronics soft switches, which can be used to bridge a public switched telephone network and newer internet-based voice services.

The product has been tested in Russia, where it was used to build the network of MGTS, the telecommunications operator.

The decision highlights Cisco's plan to expand its presence in emerging markets to take advantage of widespread deregulation of telecommunications.

The Californian-based company has identified the growth potential in countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, Kazakhstan and India in particular. Revenues for developing regions increased nearly 40 per cent year-on-year; the highest percentage growth rate of any geographical region.

"[The model] developed by Cisco and Sitronics will help telecommunications operators increase their profitability and market reach, as well as help [to] improve broadband penetration which, at present, is about 11 per cent for the regions in question," said Paul Mountford,president of Emerging Markets at Cisco. "It's not where the volume is, but it is where the growth is,"said Mr Mountford. "The GDP growth is 2-3 times the growth of the 'developed' world. It's being driven by oil and gas, and metals and minerals development."

"One of Russia's main assets is intellectual capital and our mission is to sell that intellectual capital," said Evgeni Utkin, chief executive at Sitronics, which had first-half revenues of $699.4m.

The two are also exploring other potential ventures, such as IPTV, wireless broadband and managed services.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

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