This past weekend more than 3,500 attendees flocked Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara convention center to attend the 16th edition of Tiecon, billed as the world’s largest conference for entrepreneurs.
And unlike its peers, Tiecon – which theme focused on the “The Bold Entrepreneur” – has done better this year than last, attracting about 20 percent more people according to the organizers.
The energy at the conference was high and networking opportunities abundant, with more than 150 speakers attending (from entrepreneurs to VCs) in more than 50 sessions.
“This is the year to innovate and start a company. The current macro-economic environment is a unique opportunity for the bold entrepreneur,” said the conference c0-chairs, Shaukat Shamim and Gara Gauba.
For the first time this year, Tiecon organisers honored their top 50 “hottest” emerging startups in 5 segments (Tie50), out of 1,200 nominated and after 50,000 votes!
Tiecon organizers chose VMware CEO Paul Maritz to kick off the self-proclaimed world's largest entrepreneurs conference
VMware CEO Paul Maritz kicked off Tiecon’s conference in Santa Clara, Calif. as the opening keynote speaker.
Maritz started his speech on entrepreneurship by drawing on his own experience, as a young computer graduate freshly arrived in Silicon Valley – on January 1st, 1981 – from South Africa, with his wife, a 9-months old baby and about $600 in cash!
“I’ve walked the path that many of you had the privilege to walk. The fairy tale and an incredible experience that all of us know of being part of a society that fosters entrepreneurs and has given us such tremendous rewards,” said Maritz.
But before joining Intel and then Microsoft as one of its top executive, Maritz had to go through some mainframe years. The computer landscape in 1981 was very different from what we know today.
“The [mainframe] world was dominated by IBM and the 7 dwarfs (Burroughs, Sperry Rand, Control Data, Honeywell, General Electric, RCA and NCR). I have left South Africa to work in the computer industry and in those days IBM was the Microsoft of these days: it was the uncool place to go in those days! Instead I went to work for Burroughs because they had a very cool instruction set,” recalls Maritz.
Today’s cool places to work in Silicon Valley are Apple (still), Google or Facebook, replacing the likes of H-P, Sun or Yahoo. But with unemployment soaring, does it matter really anymore?
And that’s only the main events (that we could fit in the headline!). Yes, we’ll be attending more, like ShoreTel’s event at the Giant’s stadium on Monday, Technologizer’s Tweet up on Tuesday or a meeting with startup ShareThis on Wednesday!
If you think we missed something, send us an email, Facebook poke, twit…
Monday through Wednesday: the Tech Policy Summit is a three-day executive gathering that will focus on the theme of “Accelerating Innovation and Economic Growth.”
Tuesday: attending Google’s Searchology event at the Googleplex to try out the new search engine features; and in the afternoon at Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara for an update on the company’s business (and perhaps EU lawsuit!).
Wednesday: Mark Logic‘s user conference in San Francisco.
Thursday: A conversation with Judy Estrin on Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy at the Computer History Museum.
Friday: TiEcon,the largest conference dedicated to entrepreneurship kicks off in Santa Clara, CA.
Can anyone @IBM fix the WiFi network at #IOD11 ? It's been terrible for the past 2 days and everybody I talked just can't stand it anymore 4 months ago
Posted by TechPulse 360 
Another busy week in the Silicon Valley.
