TiE - Fostering Entrepreneurship Globally

Guest Blog from P K Agarwal, CEO, TiE Global

In the heart of the Silicon Valley lies the world’s largest non-profit organization whose mission is to foster entrepreneurship globally through the promotion, networking, educating, and mentoring of Entrepreneurs.

TiE was founded in 1992 by a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and senior professionals with roots in the Indus region. With presence today in 57 cities, in 14 countries around the globe, supported by Kauffman Foundation, TiE enhances the virtuous cycle of wealth creation and giving back to the community with its focus on nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs.

TiE supports the innovation agenda and promotion of entrepreneurship by putting on some of the World’s largest conferences called TiECon in cities all over the globe, including places such as Silicon Valley, Boston, Atlanta, Delhi, and Chennai.

TiE Entrepreneurial Summit (TES), Asia’s largest summit of its kind, brings together over 3,000 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, policy makers, academia, industry, thought leaders and other stake holders involved with the development of Entrepreneurship. TES focuses on unlocking entrepreneurial energies to power the fastest growing economies in the region. TiE has many global Initiatives currently underway.

One of those is Global Deal Connect, a highly anticipated platform that will connect startups anywhere in the TiE universe with capital from some of the largest Venture Capital and Angel Fund investors around the world. TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TYE), a Business Plan Competition and educational program aimed at educating and mentoring high school level students has become the gold standard for nurturing entrepreneurship in youth.

A few weeks ago, TiE launched itsThe All-Asia Business Plan Competition providing College level students in Asia the opportunity to present business plans to TiE’s network of Charter members, which consists of accomplished entrepreneurs, Venture Capitalists, and community leaders. The participating teams receive one on one mentoring, feedback, and guidance as they ready themselves to compete in this three level competition. The program starts with local competitions, held at the Chapter level. The Chapter level winners will advance to the TiE All-Asia Global Finals held in Delhi, India; the Grand Prize being a guaranteed spot in the Finals of the Rice University Business Plan Competition – the world’s largest business plan competition, with winners receiving over $640,000 in equity investments, cash and prizes.

This year’s All-Asia Business Plan competition is being hosted by 17 TiE Chapters spread throughout India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Tokyo, and Australia.

Here we are in the middle of Global Entrepreneurship Week, and as we reflect on another great year of partnership, TiE is proud to partner with Microsoft BizSpark to offer its network of Entrepreneurs the opportunity to try out this amazing software platform and build solutions, and fast-track the success of their young businesses.