Congratulations to TiE Boston which celebrated its 10th Anniversary on November 8, 2007. Established in 1997 with Desh Deshpande as President and Chairman and 12 founding members consisting of Radha Jalan, Samir Desai, Ashok Kalelkar, Adi Guzdar, Ramesh Kapur, Ashok Boghani, Rahul Singh, Triveni Upadhayay, Sushil Bhatia, Ashraf Dahod, Dinesh Patel and Jit Saxena, it has now grown to over 140 charter members and 800 regular members. Some of the key highlights of the TiE Boston activities during the past 10 years include the First Annual Conference “Getting Started” and the monthly dinner series in 1998, the first “Getting Started Workshop” and “Biotech and Healthcare Forum” in 1999, opening of its office at 128 Wheeler Road in Burlington in 2000, launch of the first SIG on Wireless Technology Business Forum, the TiE One-on-One mentoring program and the TiE Indus Women Initiative in 2001 with over 50 Charter members and 450 members, Tie Institute in 2002, first sponsor dinner and Annual Conference at the Wakefield Sheraton in 2003, first VC delegation to India and sponsorship of other organizations like SABA of HBS and IBC in 2004, TIE Young Enterprenuers (TYE) – the business program for high school students in 2005,  TIECON East at Hynes Convention Center in 2006 and finally the second VC delegation to India and the TiE Global award for the TYE program in 2007.

At the celebrations, Deloitte and Touche, Highland Capital Partners, Matrix Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale were recognized for their long term sponsorship and support of TiE Boston for the past 10 years. Four TiE member companies went public in 2007. Airvana – Sanjay Verma, Netezza – Jit Saxena, Starant Networks – Ashraf Dahod and Virtusa – Kris Canekeratane. These companies today have a market value of over $25 billion and were honored for the contributions to the society at large.

Over the years, TiE Boston has played a major role in fostering entrepreneurship locally and inviting some of the most distinguished speakers  including Steve Ballmer, Indira Nooyi, Ted Turner, Thomas Friedman, Tom Ashbrook, Senator John Kerry, Governor Deval Patrick, Governor Mitt Romney, Susan Hockfield, Ray Stata, Robert Kraft and many others.

TiE Boston is part of TiE Global which has 45 chapters in 10 counties with over 10,000 members globally. Approximately 6% of all Venture Capital raised today in the US is raised by TiE Enterprenuers. Past Presidents of Tie Boston include Samir Desai, Ashok Kalelkar, Gautam Prakash, Vinit Nijhawan and Raj Alur. For more information about TiE Boston and its activities, please visit www.tieboston.org.

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