» ANZA Technology Network in conjunction with ADVANCE present a panel discussion on Start Up Funding
Alternatives - October 5th 2005

Bootstrapping or Venture Backing
What is the best option for technology entrepreneurs?

In Silicon Valley the traditional growth path for many technology entrepreneurs is via venture funding. In contrast, Australian entrepreneurs are notorious bootstrappers who build their businesses on the smell of an oily rag. Each path represents unique challenges to the entrepreneur as they build and scale successful technology businesses.

This panel of seasoned Australian entrepreneurs who have vast experience in Silicon Valley will explore the issues and provide insights from both sides of the argument. Not only will this be a lively debate, but it will be a celebration of Aussie entrepreneurship here in Silicon Valley.

Date of Event: Wednesday, October 5th 2005, 6:30pm – 9:00pm

Location: Stanford University, Palo Alto. (Specific directions will be provided to registrants).

Registration: This is a free event however pre-registration is required.

Register at: http://www.anzatechnet.com/conference2005/reg_all/panel_reg1.jsp

Panelists

Moderator: George Foster, Professor, Graduate School of Business, Stanford

Back to top

Panelists Bio’s

Larry R. Marshall, PhD
Chairman, Intersymbol, & AOC Tech.

Dr. Larry R. Marshall is a serial entrepreneur with 6 successful startups to his credit over the past 16 years in Biotechnology, Photonics, & Semiconductors, with several profitable acquisitions and one IPO. He is currently Chairman of Intersymbol, a semiconductor processor company, and AOC Tech, a cable equipment company.

He previously served as CEO (& founder) of Translucent developing optical gain in Silicon for interconnects, which was recently acquired after a successful partnership with a large public semiconductor corporation. Prior to Translucent, he was CEO (& founder) of Lightbit manufacturing unique optical processors for Telecom Regenerators and Biotechnology chips. Prior to Lightbit, Larry was VP of Iridex, where he enabled the company’s IPO, and co-founded spin-offs Iriderm, and Iridex OEM Group. He was CEO (& founder) of Light Solutions where he rolled out the first visible semiconductor lasers, and formed Iridex. Prior to Light Solutions he ran Business Development, and formerly Technical Programs at Fibertek, where he rolled out the first 1540nm parametric laser. Larry's primary focus is studying new markets, and then developing appropriate technologies to leverage new products into those markets.

Larry holds 18 patents protecting numerous commercial products, and has over 100 publications and presentations. He is Chairman (emm.) of Advanced Solid State Photonics, an Advisory Board member to Laser Focus World, and holds Board positions on Arasor, and Photon Engineering. Larry was born in Sydney Australia, received his BS Honors from Macquarie University (Sydney), and PhD from the Commonwealth Center of Excellence.

Gower Smith
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Zoom Systems

Gower has created shareholder wealth in 6 technology businesses in the Asian region including 4 successful start-ups. These included Computerland, a retail business, Australian distribution for Apple Computer Products (www.apple.com), Archives Computers, a successful networking and software company, which was sold to Impact Systems in 1987, and Boomerang Imaging Supplies which was sold in 1997. Gower led the turnaround of Impact Systems (publicly listed business) which was acquired by Gestetner, and he became responsible for Asian region marketing operations for Gestetner (www.Gestetner.com), a $1.5 billion company. He relocated Zoom Systems to San Francisco in January 2000 to capitalize on a significant global opportunity.

Back to top

Adrian Turner
CEO Mocana

Adrian Turner has more than 15 years of international business experience. Prior to founding Mocana, Adrian was responsible for west coast Business Development and Alliances for Kenamea; was responsible for Marketing and Business Development for Evite.com - which grew to 14 million users during his tenure before being acquired by what is now Interactive Corp (NASD:IACI) and had P&L responsibility for developing infrastructure to support Philips Electronics' (NYSE:PHG) connected consumer and business devices. Adrian began his career in Australia with News Corporation (NYSE:NEWS).

Adrian holds a business degree in Marketing and Finance from the University of Technology in Sydney Australia and has completed the Executive Program for Managing Growth Companies at Stanford University.

Adrian is also on the Board of Directors of Advance (http://www.advance.org/).

Back to top

Geoffrey Yarranton
Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Yarranton has over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology
industry both in Europe and the US. He spent 16 years at Celltech
Therapeutics in the UK where he led their research activities. During
that time he led a 'joint venture' between Celltech and American
Cyanamid (later Wyeth) that developed the first approved antibody-drug
conjugate, Mylotarg. Dr. Yarranton also designed and developed the
bacterially-produced PEGylated anti-TNF antibody Fab fragment (CDP870)
currently in Phase III studies for the treatment of rheumatoid
arthritis. In 1998, Dr. Yarranton joined Coulter Pharmaceutical where he
led the team that refiled the BLA for Bexxar, a radioiodinated antibody
for the treatment of relapsed and refractory Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
Following the acquisition of Coulter Pharmaceutical by Corixa, Dr.
Yarranton became site director of the South San Francisco site and
joined Deltagen in May 2002 as Executive Vice President of Research and
Development.
Contact: gyarranton@kalobios.com

Back to top

» Social Networking 2.0 How mobile devices are changing the way we connect and Interact

Date of Event : Thursday, October 13 2005, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Registration Time : 6:00 PM
Location : Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP - Palo Alto

Presentation Overview

How mobile devices are changing the way we connect and interact.
The mobile device and the wide spread availability of internet access is creating a new paradigm shift in the way we communicate and interact on both a social and business. For instance if you are considering starting a blog, you should visit www.rabble.com. They challenge the bloggers to go mobile: “You're still blogging from your PC? That's so last year!” Social computing embraces the idea that technology systems and devices are finally at a point where they can be adapted to enhance the way we live, not the other way around. In so doing, they may in fact influence how our lives may be shaped in relation to our social environment. Join us for an informative and spirited discussion of this fast growing phenomenon.

This and many other bleeding edge technologies will set the stage for a new era in Social Networking and Personal Publishing which we are referring to as Social Networking 2.0 - and it is going mobile!

Panelists

Jonathan Abrams (bio) - Founder & Chairman, Friendster

Kevin Efrusy (bio) - Partner, Accel

Anu Nigam - Founder, PartySync

Derrick Oien (bio)- co-founder and President, Intercasting Corp.

Hosted by ANZA, CSPA, SiliconFrench, Silicon Vikings and SDForum.

Speaker Bios

Jonathan Abrams

Jonathan Abrams is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, best known for creating the popular Internet service Friendster. Jonathan created this innovative social networking service and founded Friendster in 2002. In 2003, Jonathan raised over $14 million in capital from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, and former Yahoo! CEO Tim Koogle. Previously, Jonathan was the founder & CEO of HotLinks, and worked as an engineer at companies such as Netscape and Nortel. Jonathan holds an Honors B.Sc. in Computer Science from McMaster University.

Friendster was named as one of Time Magazine’s "Coolest Inventions of 2003." Jonathan was named a "Breakout star of 2003" by Entertainment Weekly, and as one of Advertising Age Magazine’s 2004 "Entertainment Marketers of the year." Jonathan has also been honored as one of the world’s top young innovators in 2004 by the MIT Technology Review, and nominated in the software designer category for the 2004 Wired Rave Awards for his work on Friendster.

Jonathan is a member of the advisory board of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs, and has been extensively involved in the silicon valley entrepreneurial community, including past roles such as co-chair of the SDForum Venture Finance SIG, and a judge for the Stanford Entrepreneur's Challenge business plan contest, the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition, and the Stanford-Berkeley Innovators' Challenge.

Kevin Efrusy

Kevin came to Accel in 2003. His background is primarily as an entrepreneur and operating executive. He served two stints as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers where he started Corio, an ASP pioneer which went public on Nasdaq and was acquired by IBM in 2005. Later he served as the first CEO of IronPlanet, an online marketplace for heavy equipment which currently sells in excess of $100M/year of equipment and received investment from Caterpillar, Komatsu, and Volvo. Prior to KPCB, Kevin served as a product manager at Zip2 and a consultant at Bain & Company.

Kevin invests broadly in software and internet businesses, but he focuses on application service providers (ASPs), consumer internet companies, and wireless application providers. He led Accel’s investment in The Facebook, serves on the board of BBN Technologies, and is actively involved in Azul Systems, Datasweep, Riverbed Technology, Transera, and Xensource.

Kevin has an MSEE, BSEE, and BA in Economics all from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he was an Arjay Miller scholar.

Derrick Oien

Derrick Oien is co-founder and President of Intercasting Corp. He directs all operational capabilities to deliver the strategic value of the company to the market. He is fast, comprehensive, professional and possesses the rare ability to translate the strategic into the tactical. Derrick was previously President of VUnetUSA, the digital media division of Vivendi Universal. Prior to VU, he was COO of MP3.com up to and through the sale to Vivendi Universal.

Event Logistics
Location

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
2475 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304
Tel: 650.233.4500
Directions

Registration
Cost

$20 Passport Program Members
$25 SDForum, ANZA, CSPA, Silicon French & Silicon Vikings members
$35 Non-members

Back to top

» VC Connect is going to South Australia! October 19, 2005

VC Connect will provide a wealth of information and resources for ICT companies who may currently be seeking funds or may consider doing so in the future.

Hosted by Australia's leading ICT Venture Capital companies, VC Connect will enable attendees to gain an understanding of the hows and whys of Venture Capital.

VC Connect is where attendees can meet investors, learn how to win VC backing and how to evaluate the right VC firm to meet their needs. Leading entrepreneurs provide inspiration on how to grow businesses and what is involved when you seek capital.VC Connect involves sessions outlining the expectations of venture capitalists; funding strategy; termsheets; building teams and capabilities and providing attendees with a complete understanding of the investment process.

Details of VC Connect South Australia
Date: Wednesday October 19, 2005
Time: 11:45am-7pm
Venue: Adelaide Convention Centre, Hall A, North Terrace, Adelaide
Cost: $200 / $100 Inc. GST (50% discount for entrepreneurs and employees of public funded research institutions & start-ups).
Register at www.slatteryit.com.au/vcconnect or call 02 9929 9511.

Back to top

» The Secrets of Australian IT Innovation Competition

The Secrets of Australian IT Innovation Competition is now in its fourth year and will build on its success in selecting and promoting Australia's most innovative ICT companies and research organisations. The competition is an opportunity for all Australian organisations involved in the ICT sector to present their innovation and technology to a panel of judges drawn from leading research institutions, media, market research organisations and major ICT companies.

Up to three winners will be selected across seven industry categories with prizes as follows:

1st Prize - $7,000 of assistance, 2nd Prize - $5,000 of assistance, 3rd Prize - $3,000 of assistance

For further information view the competition flyer or visit www.itsecrets.com.au.

Back to top