TiEcon 2013 Overview – Focus on Big Data, Mobile, SDN & Entrepreneurship

TiEcon 2013, the biggest conference of its kind, with a mission to nurture entrepreneurship, has an impressive lineup of excellent speakers and panels, in the hottest industry segments of Big Data, Mobile, Software Defined Infrastructure, and in Entrepreneurship.

Big Data track will feature speakers that include, Dr. D J Patil http://bit.ly/YYyOxd, data scientist at Greylock Partners, and Rayid Ghani, http://bit.ly/16Ys2iI , Mr. Obama’s Chief Scientist who converted vast amount of data collected through large commercial databases, boutique lists, voter files, and social media sites, into a source of valuable data that galvanized the election campaign and the rest is history.

Mobile track will hold panels on “mobile ecosystems” to “where they are VCs investing”, in this fast growing market.  The track will feature top notch speakers like Anand Chandrasekhar http://bit.ly/10zEJks, Senior VP and CMO at Qualcomm.

With data centers of the future defined by Software Defined Infrastructure, efficiency is bound to get a boost, as resources get divided.  This track will feature speakers like Dr. Guru Parulkar http://bit.ly/10MyHYw, Executive Director at ONRC and Consulting Professor at Stanford University, with discussions around how OpenFlow might enable networks to evolve by giving power to the remote controller, to modify the behavior of network devices.

Entrepreneurship track has some of the biggest names of inspiring self made entrepreneurs, including famous Ronnie Screwvala http://bit.ly/160LYQB, Syntel’s Bharat Desai http://bit.ly/13HmSrQ, Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics http://bit.ly/ZxDn3f, and Manoj Bhargava  http://bit.ly/17KV6dc, CEO of 5-Hour Energy, possibly the wealthiest Indian entrepreneur, in USA.

Vinod Khosla (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Entrepreneurship is not just a buzzword at TiEcon.  Here future successful entrepreneurs will be showcasing their companies, will get access to mentors like Vinod Khosla and Kanwal Rekhi, and get countless opportunities to network.  The participants will likely include professionals from some of TiE’s 500+ startups and 150+ angel investors.  Come and get energized, in an environment where failures are merely stepping stones to success.

Last few days to register for tiecon, before it is fully sold out – http://www.tiecon.org.

Dr. D J Patil – Data Scientist at TiEcon 2013 – Preview

Dr. D J Patil says he failed the first challenging math class in 8^th grade.  But that was before he realized the practical application of math, something that may be amiss in high school math class.  He has since figured out the usefulness of math and transformed himself into nothing short of a math and data whiz.  He says, “Math for me, is one of the most powerful set of tools to understand the physical world and make sense of why things happen.”

 

Upon completion of his Ph.D., Dr. Patil created a faculty position for himself, and worked on characterizing the complexity of weather and demonstrating that it wasn’t as chaotic as everyone had imagined it to be.  Then he became interested in computational social science and worked with the U.S. government as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow.  Among other projects, he also worked on bioweapons proliferation in Central Asia and helped create the Iraqi Virtual Science Library.  Challenging himself further, he decided to work in the industry, and one of first areas he tackled, was on applying data for building new ways of detecting fraud.  He helped build the whole front end security models for eBay and PayPal.  In 2008, he joined LinkedIn and says, “that’s the place where data science finally got formalized”. He began looking for ways to take data and turn it into user-facing products.  LinkedIn’s many data-driven products now include, “People you may know,” “Jobs you may be interested in,” “Groups you might like” and so on.   If you use data correctly, it’s such an amazing multiplier for the user experience,” says Dr. Patil.

Currently, Dr. Patil is a Data Scientist in Residence at Greylock Partners, and is thinking about “the next fun thing to do” and on ways of scaling organizations.  He is also serving as an adviser and mentor to portfolio companies, on how to think about data.   Dr. Patil is known for co-coining the term Data Scientist.  In 2011 he was ranked in Forbes Data Scientist list as #2 behind Larry Page.  In 2012 he along with other notable “Gen Fluxers” were featured on the cover of Fast Company.

Dr. Patil will be speaking at TiEcon 2013.  You can register for the conference at www.tiecon.org .

PS: I am looking to fill exciting job openings for someone with experience in Real Time Biological Digital Signal Processing and in Machine Learning and for Hardware/ Firmware Engineer with Sensor Implementation Experience for mobile health company in SF, CA.  Details for these and other jobs can be found in the JOBS category on my blog, www.darshanavnadkarni.wordpress.com .