"Math and science are the engines of innovation. With these engines, we can lead the world." - Dr. Michael Brown, former Nobel Prize winner for medicine.
It is a critical time for the U.S.: our standard of living will change unless we change our way of living and produce more workers trained in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). We all must take part. Come hear a panel discussion on STEM efforts in the U.S. and Austin's role in shaping a better future for our country.
Pre-Registration offer ends 09/14/2012
https://ricemba.wufoo.com/forms/stem-education-event/
Topic
The most important resource fueling growth of the global knowledge economy is a STEM-trained and experienced professional. Georgetown University recently reported that the U.S. economy is already demanding many more STEM professionals than are currently supplied, and though only 5% of U.S. jobs today are in STEM fields, this figure should rise to more than 30% over time. As the Austin/San Antonio corridor continues to grow we are acutely experiencing this shortage.
This panel discussion will feature various regional and national voices experiencing and working to address this challenge. Panelists will present perspectives on advancements in STEM education in K-12, higher education, and non-traditional education models. It will also look at investment in this space and the challenges and demands of various technology sectors. The panel will explore critical innovations that are needed to advance STEM education, and whether Austin has the right combination of resources to adequately meet the demands of the economy moving forward.
Panelists
Joel Trammell is currently the Austin Technology Council Chairman, CEO of CacheIQ, Inc and co-founder of NetQOS Inc. Mr. Trammell was also a 2006 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award winner and the Austin BusinessJournal's 2005 Private Company Executive of the Year. Mr. Trammell's achievements in information technology span two decades and also include... read more
Jeff Sandefer started his first business at age sixteen. After earning an MBA he founded Sandefer Offshore, an oil and gas company that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profits in less than five years. He then ran Sandefer Capital Partners, a half-billion dollar energy investment fund... read more
Jeremy Robbins is a Policy Advisor and Special Counsel in the office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Director of the Partnership for a New American Economy, the bipartisan coalition of more than 450 business leaders and mayors making the case that smarter immigration laws will help our companies better compete and create American jobs. One of the Partnership’s primary legislative agendas is to reform our immigration laws to... read more
Allyson Peerman is AMD’s Corporate Vice President of Public Affairs, responsible for the company’s Government Affairs, Community Affairs, and Corporate Responsibility efforts worldwide. In her role as President of the AMD Foundation, Peerman provides strategy and tactical counsel for AMD’s successful games-based learning initiative... read more
Dr. Timothy P. Scott is an associate professor of science education policy and currently serves as associate dean for undergraduate programs in the College of Science at Texas A&M University. Dr. Scott also holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Department of Biology. His research focuses on teaching and learning in science and student success. Dr. Scott is co-director of... read more
Date: Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Time: 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Location: AT&T Conference and Education Center
Salon C, third floor
1900 University Avenue, Austin, Texas 78705
Registration Fees:
Pre-Registration (Offer Ends Friday, September 14, 2012): $25.00
General Admission: $30.00
Student pre-registration with valid student ID: $5
Student walk-up registration with valid student ID: $10 (space permitting)
Register Here
https://ricemba.wufoo.com/forms/stem-education-event/
Monday, September 10, 2012
Monday, August 06, 2012
Rice Alliance Austin Chapter - Distinguished Professor Event
It is Rice Alliance - Austin Chapter's great honor to have the opportunity to host this event in Austin, TX. Please join us for food, beverages and a presentation by James M. Tour on Carbon Nanotechnology.
Date: Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Time: 6:00 - 9:00 PM
6:00 - 6:45 PM: Networking and Refreshments
7:00 - 8:00 PM: Presentation by Dr. James M. Tour and Q&A
8:00 – 9:00 PM: Optional Networking
Location: AT&T Conference and Education Center
Salon A, third floor
1900 University Avenue, Austin, Texas 78705
Registration Fees: (registration is limited)
Pre-Registration (Offer Ends Monday, August 20, 2012): $20.00
General Admission: $25.00
Students: $5.00
Register Here
For more information, please follow this link:
Date: Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Time: 6:00 - 9:00 PM
6:00 - 6:45 PM: Networking and Refreshments
7:00 - 8:00 PM: Presentation by Dr. James M. Tour and Q&A
8:00 – 9:00 PM: Optional Networking
Location: AT&T Conference and Education Center
Salon A, third floor
1900 University Avenue, Austin, Texas 78705
Registration Fees: (registration is limited)
Pre-Registration (Offer Ends Monday, August 20, 2012): $20.00
General Admission: $25.00
Students: $5.00
Register Here
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Small Business Health Care Option
Are you a small business owner who wants to provide health insurance for your employees but can't seem to find an affordable plan? Perhaps, you want your business to remain competitive in Austin and attract the best employees while keeping your current employees from exiting through that revolving door? Or, maybe you are a small business owner who just wants to do the right thing for your employees by offering a health plan? If you answered "Yes" to any of these questions, the solution is TexHealth Central Texas. TexHealth Central Texas is a local, non-profit organization dedicated to helping small businesses provide health benefits for its employees and owners at the lowest possible price. Wednesday, July 25th at 9AM or 6PM.
Register at www.austinsmallbiz.com.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Seminar: Designing the Future of Your Business
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Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Leadership Austin Recruiting Events
During the Essential Class recruiting season, Leadership Austin is hosting a number of receptions at which potential applicants can learn more about the program, speak to past participants and Leadership Austin Board members about their experiences, and get guidance on the application process. RSVP to a recruiting event below, or find additional program information in the Class of 2013 Recruiting Packet.
Wednesday, May 9
5:30 - 7:00 pm
National Instruments (11500 North Mopac)
RSVP for May 9
National Instruments (11500 North Mopac)
RSVP for May 9
Wednesday, May 23
Tuesday, June 5
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Pursue Your Passion, says Bijoy Goswami, Austin’s Bootstrapping Guru
BY SUSAN LAHEY
Special Contributor
originally published on Silicon Hills News on April 10, 2012
Read on Susan's website.
Bijoy Goswami has a strange role in Austin startups. With his wild mop of hair and ubiquitous jeans and t-shirt, the bootstrapping guru has a rock star quality to him. He’s written a book used by Leadership Austin and made a movie. He’s known for his mental models of how the universe works. He incorporates his spiritual journey into everything he does and has officiated at the weddings of four of his friends as a member of the Universal Life Church.People are usually inspired by his message and dazzling intellectual display, though some are disgruntled that among all the talk of journeys and anecdotes of successful bootstrapping was no concrete, five-point plan.
But Goswami isn’t about the five-point plan. He’s passionate about the bootstrap method of starting a business as a road to enlightenment. Greatly condensed, his bootstrap message is:
“I don’t know what your resources are. I don’t know what your idea is or who your customers are. I don’t know what obstacles you’re facing. But if you want to be an entrepreneur, you don’t have to wait for somebody to give you a lot of money. You can look for the right person to embark on the entrepreneurial adventure with you, build something with the resources you have, tweak it until customers are willing to buy it and begin the sometimes painful, arduous but exciting journey of birthing a business. Along the way, you will find answers, work out problems, experience emotions, grow immensely and discover yourself.”
“I don’t know what your resources are. I don’t know what your idea is or who your customers are. I don’t know what obstacles you’re facing. But if you want to be an entrepreneur, you don’t have to wait for somebody to give you a lot of money. You can look for the right person to embark on the entrepreneurial adventure with you, build something with the resources you have, tweak it until customers are willing to buy it and begin the sometimes painful, arduous but exciting journey of birthing a business. Along the way, you will find answers, work out problems, experience emotions, grow immensely and discover yourself.”
Of course, when he says it, there’s a fugue involved, and Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey, James Madison the fourth President of the United States, Apple’s Steve Wozniak and Southwest Airlines, just for starters. When he says it, many people leave feeling as if their struggles and fears are just part of the progression of something brave and exciting.
At the same time, Goswami doesn’t just pump people up with empty expectations. These days, he says, we’re moving into a period of “Entrepreneur Porn.”
At the same time, Goswami doesn’t just pump people up with empty expectations. These days, he says, we’re moving into a period of “Entrepreneur Porn.”
“It’s like ‘I’m so cool, I’m an entrepreneur,’” he says, sucking in his cheeks and raising an eyebrow for effect. “But the truth is it’s hard fucking work. It’s a lifelong thing. And it’s even harder because most of the stories that are told are wrong. People are seduced by the story of entrepreneurship but entrepreneurship will destroy you. It will break you down. It will get you in touch with your false ego. You’re going to be transformed.”
Goswami was formally introduced to bootstrapping in the 1990s while a student at Stanford. But he was informally introduced to it long before.
Goswami was formally introduced to bootstrapping in the 1990s while a student at Stanford. But he was informally introduced to it long before.
He was born in Bangalore, Southern India, to a Hindu father and a Catholic mother, a duality he said set up a theme for his life. When he was in 4th grade, his parents moved to Taipei, Taiwan. He attended Catholic schools, then American schools–his mother’s idea. To afford it, she became a teacher at the school. His parents, he said, have always embraced the idea of adventure and possibility—from their intermarriage, to leaving India for Taipei, then Taipei for Hong Kong International School.
“My parents are fellow travelers on a journey… they travel all the time. Their life has been about an opening up of possibility rather than a closing down. That’s a great gift they gave us. From (my mother’s) perspective, Taiwanese schools were more rigid. They were about a stifling of creativity. She wanted her boys to get an American education. “
Goswami attended high school in Hong Kong where he met his “partner in crime” Desmond Chu, with whom he began bootstrapping. They’d get a shipment of Korean shoes and sell it to friends.
Goswami attended high school in Hong Kong where he met his “partner in crime” Desmond Chu, with whom he began bootstrapping. They’d get a shipment of Korean shoes and sell it to friends.
“Des was a total entrepreneur and we were living in the most free market in the world,” Goswami said. “I think that’s when I got the first inkling of the ‘Power of Two’ another model that explains the exponential growth in potential when you have two people working on the same goal. In school, Goswami served as president of the class, then president of the school, always with Chu as vice president.
From Hong Kong, he went to Stanford in the Silicon Valley when it was just emerging as the Silicon Valley.
That’s where he fell in love with bootstrapping as a path. By the time he’d arrived, venture capital had become the dominant story. But he would go out of his way to hear Scott Cook talk about the Valley’s bootstrapping history, including his own company, Intuit.
“They couldn’t get funding, so they didn’t get funding. They had to figure out how to make it work. For a while they sold printing paper for checks to survive. There was just something about that that resonated with me.”
“They couldn’t get funding, so they didn’t get funding. They had to figure out how to make it work. For a while they sold printing paper for checks to survive. There was just something about that that resonated with me.”
When he finished school, he needed a sponsor to stay in the U.S. and found one with Trilogy, a company that had been bootstrapped by some people from Stanford. But they needed to send him to a town he’d never heard of called Austin, Texas.
“Austin is the city of self discovery,” he said. “It’s all about letting go of what you were holding on to before and picking up new things. No one judges you here. It’s like, ‘I can love yoga and do two-stepping?’”
“Austin is the city of self discovery,” he said. “It’s all about letting go of what you were holding on to before and picking up new things. No one judges you here. It’s like, ‘I can love yoga and do two-stepping?’”
The rest of his story is a merging of many things. First, his spirituality.
By the time he was 20, he was an agnostic if not an atheist, which meant “a separation from my mother on the one issue that mattered to her.” This was the beginning of a model he constructed about the way people live. First, they receive ideas about the world from the external—parents, school, a mentor, an employer. Some people stop there.
Others wind up releasing everything they’ve been taught. Laying it all down, deconstructing it. That’s the next phase.
By the time he was 20, he was an agnostic if not an atheist, which meant “a separation from my mother on the one issue that mattered to her.” This was the beginning of a model he constructed about the way people live. First, they receive ideas about the world from the external—parents, school, a mentor, an employer. Some people stop there.
Others wind up releasing everything they’ve been taught. Laying it all down, deconstructing it. That’s the next phase.
Finally you begin to build a new idea for yourself and of yourself, incorporating as you choose, bits from your past. This could go on forever.
Bootstrapping, especially in Austin, is the same process, Bijoy said. You separate from the security of someone else’s ideas and funds and build something based on your passion, using your own ability to navigate the questions and the issues.
Bootstrapping, especially in Austin, is the same process, Bijoy said. You separate from the security of someone else’s ideas and funds and build something based on your passion, using your own ability to navigate the questions and the issues.
Austin is the best place to do that because it invites people to create not for money or power—both of which are iffy when you start a business—but for the joy of creating a business. For the journey and what you learn from it.
When you’re looking for venture capital, he said, the question is “are you going to build the next big thing?” But in bootstrapping, especially in Austin, it’s “Did you express the thing you wanted to express?”
“It’s not about getting rich…. for bootstraps, getting rich is incidental to getting to do what you’re passionate about.”
Goswami left Trilogy and started his own company, Aviri, but it didn’t take off. A half a million dollars was spent and his cofounder left. So he carried on for awhile on his own, bootstrapping, in that phase of spiritual development like Gotama Buddha when he goes to the forest. No money, no food. The hard part of enlightenment.
He kept it going for awhile and found that other people who were bootstrapping companies kept asking him to have coffee, lunch, breakfast, to talk about their challenges, discoveries and anxieties about bootstrapping. It was then that he started Bootstrap Austin. He thought it would be one meeting. It turned into a regular meetup group. And he met…everyone.
He kept it going for awhile and found that other people who were bootstrapping companies kept asking him to have coffee, lunch, breakfast, to talk about their challenges, discoveries and anxieties about bootstrapping. It was then that he started Bootstrap Austin. He thought it would be one meeting. It turned into a regular meetup group. And he met…everyone.
“He is so well networked,” said Bjorn Billhardt, CEO of Enspire which was a new company with three or four people when Billhardt met Goswami. The two became fast friends and Goswami officiated at Billhardt’s wedding. “He is like the glue that pulls people together. I would say a vast network of my professional friends came through connections initially made by Bijoy. Professional recruiters charge an arm and a leg for just one connection….”
But it wasn’t only his connections that made a difference. It was the bootstrap mental model.
“I was thinking about seeking funding when I met Bijoy and he changed the way I thought about it,” said Billhardt, whose company has grown to more than 50 employees with an office in Berlin and global fortune 500 companies as clients. “It wouldn’t have been possible without Bijoy,” he said. “He lets you just talk it out and that is what a lot of entrepreneurs need. That’s one thing a lot of VC companies provide and professional coaches charge $400 an hour for. Bijoy does a lot of that work for free. He gave me advice to release a product even if it has bugs in it. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas…a lot of entrepreneurs are terribly afraid to do that. But then, Bijoy points out, if you keep a product under wraps, people don’t know about it and they don’t join your company.”
A lot of the work Goswami does—such as helping with RISE—he does for free. He does have a few clients, including Leadership Austin who use his book “The Human Fabric” with each new class of Austin leaders. The book, written with David Wolpert, focuses on identifying your ‘core energy’ and how you can use it to build something—a business or a community. Goswami also leads groups with Leadership Austin and is a cofounder with the organization’s CEO Heather McKissick, of the Austin Equation Initiative which was created to answer the question “What Makes Austin, Austin?”
“Running a small nonprofit is often like bootstrapping a startup,” McKissick said. “Bijoy’s expertise helps us understand how to do that well. In a down fundraising environment, it’s very helpful to have his unique skills and advice.”
He is everywhere. And he knows everyone. But if you ask him what his goal in life is, he’ll tell you, “It’s learning to Be Joy.”
And that’s a whole other story.
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