Global Newsletter – May 2020

 
In the past months, we’ve dealt with unprecedented changes and adopted new ways of life and work. Technological improvements have immensely helped the virtual lifestyle we’re getting accustomed to day-by-day. 

TiE community thrives on Networking and mentoring. During these times when in-person meetings are a thing of the past TiE Chapters across the world rapidly modified the approach to full-fledged virtual assistance for our entrepreneurial community. 

In the past 6 months, TiE Chapters have cumulatively hosted 500+ virtual events; 3100+ subject experts and speakers; helplines for entrepreneurs; with thousands of attendees (members and non-members). Here are some of the key highlights that we’ve managed to accomplish –

1. Launch of the TiE Smart card, a TiE micro-website on your phone as an App for Charter Members; gives you the option to network with all CM’s across the globe without sharing emails or mobile numbers, let’s you do group chat on various topics of your interest, check out your chapter and global events, access to special deals, offers and sponsors all at one place and easily accessible. If you have not downloaded the same, please reach out to your chapter ED’s or admins, they will be able to help you with the same.
2. Launched 10 Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to connect with CMs from across the world, who have similar business interests. Current sectors covered- Alternate Funding, Education, Emerging Tech, Fintech, Gaming & Media, Healthcare, Hospitality & Tourism, Manufacturing, Social Entrepreneurship, and Sustainability. If you’d like to know more, please reach out to your chapter admins or log in from your TiE smart card.
3. Free membership access of the Opportunity Network (ON) till the end of 2020 for now – a network of 30,000 leaders and deals worth over $200 billion. ON is an online network to trade your products or services, raise or make investments with https://maidthisfranchise.com, merge or acquire business outside of TiE membership, with HNIs across the world. 
4. TiE Angels program, for a nominal fee for all CM’s, gives the option to co-invest with other fellow charter members who invest locally into startups in their geography. TiE Global Angels in the US or TiE India Angels in India are the two platforms that facilitate angel investment through an App, with all information available on your phone. If you have not registered yet please do register for TGA (http://tiny.cc/xskxsz) and for TIA (http://tiny.cc/TIA).
5. Existing programs have become stronger with participation from across chapters. TYE had 23 chapters and 400+ teams, TiE Univ had 15 chapters, and about 75 teams, TiE Women has 26 chapters and 2000+ applicants. CM Retreat which became virtual this year had 400 charter members participating.
6. TiE Global Summit (TGS) this year is also going virtual, we expect 20k plus attendees, the dates are 8^th to 10^th of Dec 2020. More information is in the TGS section.
7. TiEcon Silicon Valley, which was organized virtually this year and saw a participation of about 8000 attendees. 

This and a lot more updates from the past few months from our chapters in this newsletter.

Regards
Mahavir Sharma
Chair, TiE Global
[email protected]

TiE Global is excited to announce TiE Global Summit 2020 (TGS), co-hosted by TiE Hyderabad. The 3- day summit is going to be our largest-ever virtual summit for entrepreneurs. Global leaders with excellence in entrepreneurship and management will come together to inspire 20,000+ entrepreneurs and ecosystem enablers. From December 8-10th, TGS will be packed with 55+ hours of non-stop engagement of entrepreneurs.

True to the essence of its “Entrepreneurship 360” theme, the summit caters to the end-to-end needs and challenges of entrepreneurs at large. TGS offers 100+ panels, 50+ TED-like keynotes, 250+ curated startup pitches, and 25+ workshops powered by 300+ global speakers and 200+ investors.

TGS will empower entrepreneurs, worldwide, with real takeaways through 1-on-1 networking/mentoring sessions made possible by a powerful matchmaking engine. Participants will benefit immensely from the knowledge sessions by corporates, governments, incubators, and enablers of the world. Visit www.tgs2020.org to register for the summit and get the early-bird benefits.

TiE Seattle and TiE Global hosted the Global Finals for TYE in July. The organizers and judges were impressed by the hard work and perseverance of all the participating high school student teams.

For the global finals this year, we hosted Vivek Ranadive as the keynote speaker to inspire TiE Young Entrepreneurs. Vivek is the Founder & Managing Director, Bow Capital | Chairman, CEO & Governor Sacramento Kings. Charlotte Yarkoni, (head of Commerce & Ecosystems at Microsoft Cloud AI) also spoke to the students. Her charter covers end-to-end customer journeys for enterprises, developers, startups, and students and answers the question when do you need house cleaning?. Charlotte organizes premier student enrichment programs including Microsoft Imagine Cup to help support innovation through Microsoft for startups and scale-up programs around the world.

This year we had 23 teams that participated in the competition. We divided them into 4 Tracks and hosted the semi-finals on July 17th. We selected 2 teams from each track that went into finals.

This year, we hosted an entirely virtual pitch competition. And we also gave a $250 award to one team in each of the four tracks. Here are the results – 

Best Elevator Pitch 
Why Q, TiE Delhi NCR – Track 1 
Kid Cental, TiE Tampa Bay – Track 2 
PlasTekk, TiE Philadelphia – Track 3 
Eco Shower, TiE Chennai – Track 4  

Best Execution 
Why Q, TiE Delhi NCR  – Track 1
Off Grid Technologies, TiE Southcoast San Diego – Track 2 
PiezoBoard, TiE DC – Track 3
Mid Fi, TiE Rajasthan – Track 4 

Best Teamwork 
Incandescence, TiE Sydney  – Track 1 
iDentistry, TiE Dallas – Track 2
Ludisology, TiE Chandigarh – Track 3
Chill the Chili, TiE Melbourne – Track 4

Best Lean Canvas 
Vox Populi, TiE Bangalore – Track 1 
Aceso, TiE Vancouver – Track 2 
Metal Kettle, TiE Carolinas  – Track 3 
EdAssist, TiE Boston – Track 4  

Best Customer Validation 
Althea, TiE Seattle – Track 1 
BWI, TiE Atlanta – Track 2
Last Straw, TiE Oregon – Track 3
IUVO, TiE Sillicon Valley – Track 4

TiE Global hosted the 2nd edition of the TiE University Pitch Competition in September. TiE Atlanta and TiE Hyderabad jointly hosted the 2-day program alongside TiE Global. The competition had 13 teams representing TiE chapters from India, UAE, Israel, USA, and Canada. After the semi-final round, seven teams were selected for the finals. Teams presented a 10-minute pitch to an eminent Jury panel and a 5-minute live Q&A. Cash and in-kind prizes worth $99,300 were given out to the 13 participating teams.

The worldwide jury panel for the finals, comprised of VCs and investors, including Bodhi Capital’s Dharti Desai, Silicon Valley Bank’s Priya Rajan, Elevate Capital’s Kumar Sripadam, and Inflexor Ventures’ Venkat Vallabhaneni. Semi-finals judges from across the globe included Craig Abbott, Rakesh Bhatia, Radhika Iyengar, Rama Devi Kanneganti, Doc Parghi, and Sonia Weymuller.

Apart from the top three winners, prizes were announced in various other categories. Silicon Valley’s Ambii and New Jersey’s Volant from New Jersey Institute of Technology jointly received the Best Elevator Pitch award. Similarly, Teams Clean Electric from IIT/BHU, Varanasi representing TiE Mumbai, and Aruga Technologies from Carnegie Mellon University representing TiE Pittsburgh jointly received the Best Technology prize. Frinks, from IIT Hyderabad, representing TiE Hyderabad took the People’s Choice Award. Apart from this, all participating teams walked away with technology and service prizes worth $6000 per team.

TiE Women is continuing to gain momentum even through the current challenges. In the past six months, TiE Women has organized pitch competitions for women entrepreneurs across 26 chapters. This year, each Chapter had the opportunity to select up to 3 runners up and 1 winner. The runners up from each chapter are currently undergoing a virtual accelerator program. Also, the winners from each chapter will have access to a mentoring bootcamp before heading to Dubai for the finals. 

TiE Dubai is the host chapter for TiE Women pitch competition finale. The event will be hosted on January 13-14th, 2021. The winner will get $100,000 equity-free cash prize, access to global VCs, investors, and accelerators. The second runner-up at the global pitch competition will get $25,000 in equity-free cash prize as well.
 
26 chapters have signed up including chapters in India, US, Pakistan, Singapore, Australia, and Dubai. More than 2000 applications have been screened across the participating chapters. Approximately 200 mentors will be a part of this program by culmination. For more details, visit – women.tie.org

TiE Silicon Valley’s flagship entrepreneurship conference TiEcon 2020 was held on September 2nd and 3rd, 2020. The conference focused on the hottest areas of innovation including AI/machine learning, security, blockchain, digital health, and many more. The conference also featured a series of Bootcamps, VC (Venture Capitalist) Connect, and Mentor Connect sessions, creating a complete entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Indra Nooyi, former chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiCo, delivered the grand opening keynote on September 2 at TiEcon 2020. Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami delivered the closing keynote of Day One at TiEcon 2020. Other speakers during the two-day event included Eric Yuan, CEO, Zoom Communications; Fred Luddy, Co-Founder, ServiceNow; Rich Rao, VP Small Business, Facebook; Rob Bernshetyn, Chairman and CEO, Coupa; Om Nalamasu, Sr. VP Chief Technology Officer, Applied Materials; and CJ Desai, Chief Product Officer, ServiceNow. Almost 8000 attendees got a chance to be a part of the virtual event. To watch some of the TiEcon 2020 sessions you can visit the TiE SV Youtube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIfPiU6nfOwLJVnC5xOl7mY9rem928Jzk