TiE-Boston held its Annual Gala Dinner on November 8^th at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA. Over 100 people including Charter members and Sponsors attended to celebrate another year of successful TiE-Boston activities. The evening’s agenda included a keynote address, comments from the Chief Guest, and an Awards ceremony that honored the accomplishments of Charter Members, who have built great companies and created immense value for the community. It was a moment to thank all the sponsors, supporters, and volunteers of TiE-Boston for another successful year of fostering entrepreneurship.

The evening began with a welcome address from Desh Deshpande, Chairman of A123 Systems and a member of the Board of Trustees of TiE Global. He is also Co-Chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) in the Obama Administration. Desh spoke about the initiatives being taken by the administration to spur entrepreneurship and innovation. He added that each era spurns new industries of its own. Referring to the time when he and others were starting companies in the telecom industry, which was new and relatively unknown back then, he described how those companies became a great success and generated a whole new eco-system. In the same way Desh is confident that new industries will emerge in hither to unknown areas based on new innovation and fuel a new global economy in the coming years. 

Chief Guest, Jack Mollen, Executive Vice President of Human Resources for EMC, spoke about how the amount of data generated is providing an opportunity for a new wave of potential innovation. He pointed out that the amount of information created between the beginning of mankind until 2003 is equal to what the US produces in just two days now! With the world expected to produce 44 times that much in the next 8 years, "Big Data" is the next big thing for new entrepreneurial ventures to consider.

The Keynote address was given by Bruce Johnstone, Managing Director & Senior Marketing Investment Strategist at Fidelity Investments. Bruce spoke on "Bull Market in Fear... US Brand at Risk?" He talked about how the US as a country has lived beyond its means for the past 30 years and how the resulting debt is preventing the country from bouncing back. He included data ranging as far back as 1965 to show how the Federal Reserve, the government, and policies have affected the US economy. He used many cartoons and images to put a comical spin on a difficult and somewhat dismal issue. Throughout his presentation, he offered hope and inspiration by pointing out that the current economy is in much better shape than it was 3 years ago and offering a plethora of ideas that could be the solution to getting the US market to recover.

Jim Boyer of KPMG and Prithvi Tanwar from Foley Hoag (both representing TiE Boston sponsor companies) were emcees for the night and announced the award winners to a room filled with suspenseful excitement and unexpected amazement as names were read. 

 â€œCelebrating an Entrepreneurial Journey Award” for a life time of achievement was given to Ash Dahod, a serial entrepreneur who contributed immensely to the entrepreneurial community and whose life will inspire the entrepreneurial spirit for generations to come. Ash has an exceptionally strong record of building successful companies, capitalizing on his ability to recognize market opportunities and combining it with a keen understanding of technology. Ash founded 4 companies: Starent Networks (2000), NetCore Systems (1996) Sigma Network Systems, Inc. (1992), and Applitek Corporation, later named LANCity (1981); all of them were later acquired by larger corporations such as Cisco and Tellabs.

The Crystal Award for a Charter Member who built his company from the ground up was given to Venkat Kolluri, President and CEO of Chitika Inc. Founded in 2003, Chitika offers publishers & advertisers user targeted, search targeted, and mobile and local ads for websites, blogs, apps and mobile sites. Venkat was also a TiE Star at TiECON East 2011.

The Award for Successful Woman Entrepreneur was given to Saluni Fadia of Abacus Software Division Inc which provides software consulting to Global Fortune 1000 companies. Saluni is part of TiE-Boston's Board and is Director of The Prashant H. Fadia Foundation where she continues to pursue her late husband's dedication to community services.

Awards for 'Entrepreneurial Achievement' went to: Santhana Krishanan and Yash Shah, co-founders of InteQ Corporation, which was acquired by CA Technologies, and Prat Moghe of Netezza, aquired by IBM, for a successful exit for their companies. Niraj Shah of Wayfair.com, Firdaus Bhathena of Ziptr.com, Rama Ramakrishna of CQuotient, and Vasu Ram of Content Raven won the award for successfully closing a round of funding or growth for their respective ventures.

Awards were also given for successfully running TiE-Boston programs to the following; Pravin Chaturvedi for his contribution to the TiE Board and TiE-Boston Program, Triveni Upadhyay for his contribution to the TiE Board and TiE Global, Abhishek Jain for the TiE Angels program, Kevin Wiant for his contribution to Wireless SIG and TiECON East and Ajay Bharadwaj for his contribution to successful networking programs.

Mark Haddad of Foley Hoag and Sam Mawn-Mahlau of Davis, Malm, & D'Agostine were also recognized for being Outstanding Partners to TiE-Boston Programs. Finally, a number of entrepreneurs from the TiE membership community were recognized for their achievements this year: Olivier Ceberio of Resolute Marine Energy and Krishna Ramchandran of Ubersense for winning the Mass Challenge 50K Prize, Dave Greenwald of Relay Technology Management, Michael Sheeley of FitnessKeeper, Chase Garbarino of Pinyadda, Ali Munawar of Novira Therapeutics, Sameer Sabir of MoMelan, and Parker Treacy of First Help Financial for raising money for their ventures.

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