TiECON East, the premiere entrepreneurial conference, was held at the Westin in Waltham, MA on May 31 – Jun 1, 2012.  Titled “Invent your Future”, the conference focused on technologies that are creating new opportunities.  Since the focus was on the future, it was very appropriate that TiECON added a panel featuring young entrepreneurs who at a very young age had already established successful companies.  A panel titled “New Breed of Entrepreneurs” featured young entrepreneurs with Pawan Deshpande, CEO of Curata, serving as the moderator.  Pawan is the son of one of the founding members of TiE, Desh Deshpande. Panelists Shakeel Avadhany, CEO, Levant Power, Varun Ganapathi, Co-founder, EyeApps and Jay Meattle shared their entrepreneurial journey and described their vision for the future. Varun Ganapathi is a graduate of Wayland High School and currently doing his PhD at Stanford.  Shakeel Avadhany is a MIT graduate, while Jay Meattle graduated from Tufts University. Pawan Deshpande is an MIT graduate.

TiE Challenge held “Pitchfest” a pitch competition to select start-ups to be part of their TiE Challenge Accelerator program. Five companies, Biena Foods, Cellanyx Diagnostics, Delightfully, Likelii and Ministry of Supply won the Pitchfest.

TiECON 2012 closed with yet another special event where it featured successful TiE members from different chapters celebrating their accomplishments. The members, Chet Kanojia from TiE Boston, founder and CEO of Aereo, Inc.; Dr. Kalai Kalaichelvan from TiE Ottawa, founder of EION; Dolly Oberoi from TiE DC, founder and CEO of C2 Technologies, Inc.; Swapnil Shah from TiE Boston, CEO and co-founder of FirstFuel; and Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai from TiE Boston, inventor and systems scientist who invented EMAIL shared their tales.

These new dimensions were wonderful enhancements to the traditional panels that TiECON presents each year.

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