Steve Mollenkopf, CEO, Qualcomm to give Grand Keynote at TiEcon 2014

TiEcon, the largest entrepreneurship conference, will focus this year on four industry focused tracks, Internet of Things, Big Data, Cloud Infrastructure, and Healthcare. (Please register through this link as my guest https://www.123signup.com/register?id=dbnfb&ref=4182698 and enter promo code tievalue to get a $100 discount).

Steve Mollenkopf, President and CEO of Qualcomm, will give grand keynote address, on day 1.  With a background in electrical engineering, Mollenkopf holds patents in “power estimation and measurement, multi-standard transmitter system, and wireless communication transceiver technology.”  He has spent his entire 20+ year career at Qualcomm.  Previously, he led the chip set business at Qualcomm and helped make Qualcomm the world’s largest mobile chipset supplier and global leader in LTE technology.  Mollenkopf also led the company’s largest acquisition of Atheros, purchased at $3.1 billion, a deal that helped expand Qualcomm’s business beyond smartphones and enabled and speeded adoption of Qualcomm’s technologies and platforms in new segments.

Qualcomm logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Qualcomm makes over $25 billion each year, in revenues, powering world’s smartphones and tablets.  Qualcomm may not be a lean and mean startup, but it is a technology driven company.  Mollenkopf is entrepreneurial in nature and a self-proclaimed gadget freak.  Entrepreneurs at TiEcon will be waiting to hear Mollenkopf’s perspectives on opportunities in mobile space.  Will he share any new industry leading innovations in the pipeline, at Qualcomm?

TiEcon 2014 is shaping up to be fantastic entrepreneurship focused conference, with awesome panels and speakers.  Please register through this link as my guest https://www.123signup.com/register?id=dbnfb&ref=4182698 and enter promo code tievalue to get a $100 discount.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Other Life Science focused events

1) Register for Health Tech Forum annual conference on May 20, at www.healthtechnologyforum.com.  With a theme of “Pathways to Sustainable Health”, the conference will bring together physicians, entrepreneurs, payers, and providers with an aim to empower quality of health.
2) Michelle Chen from DNAtrix, Inc. will talk on “Developing Oncolytic Virus to Treat Glioblastoma” on Tuesday, April, 29, 8:30am.  This is a free event – all are welcome – http://www.bio2devicegroup.org.
3) Dr. Sarvajna Dwivedi, founder of Pearl Therapeutics will talk on Tuesday, May 6 at Cubberley, PA www.eppicglobal.org.  Pearl Therapeutics was acquired by Astra Zeneca last year, for $1.15 B and was a winner of TiEcon’s TiE50 awards, two years in a row.
4) Feel free to send me an email for details on any of these events at wd_darshana at hotmail dot com.  You can also follow my updates on Twitter @DarshanaN.  Also, do check out (in JOBS category on this blog), my job opportunities that include many Quality Engineering jobs in CA and MA and hot Software Embedded Engineer job and more.

 

 

 

Healthcare Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, CA

Life Science Industry gearing up for Innovation:  Code-a-thon (Health Technology Forum), TiEcon, EPPIC event

Code-a-thons are fun and also highly productive live events that bring together developers, designers, innovators and entrepreneurs, brimming with new and exciting ideas on applications and tools for any given problem.  Health Technology Forum in San Francisco was formed with a mission to improve healthcare through technology.  In 2013, HTF organized a very successful code-a-thon that focused on serving the needs of the underserved populations. This year again, HTF has organized a code-a-thon to precede (by about a week to 10 days) its annual conference focused around the theme of Pathways to Sustainable Health, on May 20, at Parc 55, Wyndham Hotel, SF.  Additionally, HTF has proposed a series of events to follow the weekend code-a-thon challenge, including a unique second phase to enable the winning team to be placed on-site at one or more safety-net hospitals.  

DC Health Week Code-a-Thon 13109 (Photo credit: tedeytan)

So how do code-a-thons help spur innovation?  These short and focused events often result in the rapid development of breakthrough concepts and working prototype applications.  Code-a-thons highlight a problem in need of a solution.  This spotlighting of the problem, with clarity around its challenges and opportunities, helps the problem to remain the primary focus of innovation, and not the technology.  This is a good mental discipline for enthusiastic bright innovators who tend to fall in love with their own idea, and often fail to pay heed to the needs of the market.  The ideas and technologies that come out of code-a-thons often lead to creation of actual products that can be deployed in the marketplace.  Further, if these innovators would receive coaching from stakeholders within the hospital centers then it is inevitable that the positive impact will be enormous and immediate, in creating new innovative solutions, for sustainable healthcare. Few can argue that our healthcare system needs an overhaul, and something that will greatly impact the transformation in the healthcare system is the impact that Big Data will have.  For instance, Big Data can help empower patients to be in charge of their own health.  From providing access to their medical records, to enabling continuous health monitoring, it will help inform and empower patients to be proactive managers of their own health.  Similarly, mounds of clinical and epidemiological data can lead to greater insights in diagnosis and therapeutics of various diseases.  The requirements of this particular code-a-thon will be centered around developing and designing the prototype of an app that supports the collection and communication of health care data about key diseases and behaviors. Please stay tuned for more information, and sign up for the code-a-thon and for the annual conference at www.healthtechnologyforum.com and follow them on twitter @healthtechforum.  You can follow me on twitter @DarshanaN.

Additionally, mark your calendar for 2 other interesting life science events.
May 16, 17 is #TiEcon 2014, the largest entrepreneurship conference, at Santa Clara Convention Center, CA.  The Healthcare Track on Day 2 will feature panels on exciting topics like “Harnessing Healthcare Data”, “Engaging Patients of the Future”, “Where the VCs are Investing in Healthcare” and more.  Register by May 1, for  www.tiecon.org through the link http://tinyurl.com/kr2hkcw as my guest and enter promo code tievalue to get $100 off.
May, 6 EPPIC event – EPPIC frequently spotlights success stories of local entrepreneurs and on My 6 at Cubberley in Palo Alto, will host Dr. Sarvajna Dwivedi, Founder of Pearl Therapeutics which was acquired last year, by Astra Zeneca for $1.15 B.  Register at www.eppicglobal.org.
http://www.bio2devicegroup.org is a group that meets every Tuesday, in Sunnyvale and hosts speakers on a wide range of healthcare topics.  Pre-registration required for “Second Tuesday of the month meetings” and all other meetings are free and open for walk-ins.  For information on any of these events, feel free to send me an email at wd_darshana at hotmail dot com.