TiE-Boston held its Annual Gala Dinner on Nov. 19, in the beautiful environs of the National Heritage Museum in Lexington. Each year the Boston chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world's largest not-for-profit organization for nurturing entrepreneurship, celebrates entrepreneurs who have reached important milestones along their journey. TiE-Boston seeks to highlight them as role models for startups and businesses in the New England region.

Ramesh Motwane was awarded with the TiE-Boston Crystal Award in Celebration of an Entrepreneurial Journey. Ramesh Motwane came to Boston in 1978 to study civil engineering at Northeastern University. Within two years of graduation, Ramesh had set up his company Eastern Contractors taking it from zero to half a Billion Dollars. In 2006, the company was amongst the News India Times Top 100 privately held businesses owned by Indians in the United States. It also ranked first in the construction business, first in the Northeast region, and fifth in the United States in India Abroad-Ventures International 100 List.

The evening began with a VIP reception attended by TiE-Boston charter members and sponsors of the organization. Bill Warner, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and founder of companies like Avid Technologies and Wildfire Communications was present to introduce the keynote speaker Bill Sahlman. In his speech Bill Warner said he really appreciated the mentoring opportunity offered by organizations like TiE-Boston. Bill recalled that he was a naive early 30s entrepreneur seeking guidance and an infusion of $500,000, when forming Avid Technologies in 1987. He said there were few mentoring opportunities and fewer venture capitalists. Those that did exist worried about his inexperience and thought the sum was too big for his age. He mused that today venture capitalists feel entrepreneurs do their best work before 30 and the sums involved are much greater. He felt it was largely due to entrepreneurship organizations that helped to institutionalize the knowledge gained by other startups.

The highlight of the evening was the keynote by Bill Sahlman, Professor of Business Administration and Senior Associate Dean of External Relations at Harvard Business School. Prof Sahlman began by warning the audience that he would take them on a roller-coaster ride of depression and optimism. He mentioned that the US had $63 Trillion in liabilities including unaccounted social security and healthcare obligations. At its current rate, he felt a recovery could take 10 years and he worried that Congress seemed unable to separate highly skilled immigration from illegal immigration. However, Bill said his optimism came from entrepreneurial gatherings such as these. While he saw the immense costs of healthcare, he also saw the advances being made at the Harvard Stem Cell Research Institute, of which he is a faculty. He noted that such endeavors change the paradigm, they offer the possibility to eradicate a disease rather than repeatedly treating its symptoms. He lauded the efforts of TiE-Boston's entrepreneurial community and urged them to contribute with greater zest to the growth of the region.

Several other important milestones were recognized with awards. A123Systems received TiE-Boston Successful IPO Award for its public offering worth $380 Million. Ric Fulop, co-founder and VP of Marketing and Business Development, A123Systems accepted the award. This year there were multiple awardees for TiE-Boston Successful Exit Awards: Vijay Kathuria, VP of Starent Networks received the award for the company's successful exit to Cisco for $2.9 billion. Navic Networks' Chet Kanojia took the award for guiding the company through an acquisition by Microsoft. Venkat Krishnamurthy's company Oatsystems was acquired by Checkpoint. While Ramesh Kumar got the award for the acquisition of his company Activemedia Technology by 2ERGO this year.

Amar Sawhney of Ocular Therapeutix and Ash Ashutosh for Actifio were recognized with the TiE-Boston Successful Funding Awards for raising capital for business growth, proving that entrepreneurship was thriving in New England despite the economic environment.   

The TiE-Boston Successful Woman Entrepreneur Award was given to Indu Isaacs of Formatech, an innovative pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing outsourcing (CDMO) services business.

Chiman Patel, CEO of WIN Enterprises won the TiE-Boston Successful Self-funded Enterprise Award for building his company from the ground up. WIN Enterprises produces reference designs for Intel and AMD, customized set-top boxes, rack-mount appliances, barebones systems, and other electronic platforms.

The focus of the TiE-Boston's message for the evening was for attendees to get more closely involved with mentoring other startups, entrepreneurs, and students. Continuing with this message, TiE-Boston President, Al Kapoor talked about the breadth and depth of expertise available within the organization in the form of its highly experienced charter members and members. He also urged sponsors to take on a greater role by getting involved in educating members and creating programs that would help those who were on a similar journey as the awardees of the night.

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