TiECON Flash: U.S. Dept of Commerce & TiE in Partnership to Promote Exports

TiE Silicon Valley President Venk Shukla kicked off TiECon (The Indus Entrepreneurs annual conference) by stating that “wealth creation through entrepreneurship” was TiE’s principal mission (or reason for being).  Also, that TiE was “deeply ingrained in Silicon Valley” through its members which are at start-ups, established companies, VCs and private equity firms.

[Note: While the overwhelming majority of TiE members are of Indian origin, Shukla did not once mention that in his opening remarks.  The take away here is that an entrepreneur that is not of Indian descent is welcome at TiE if he or she wants inspiration and guidance on their entrepreneurship path to success.]

Venk introduced Antwaun Griffin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Domestic Operations U.S. Department of Commerce -International Trade Administration, who made a surprise announcement:

The U.S. Dept of Commerce and TiE have entered a partnership to promote TiE U.S. member companies products and/or services that are sold abroad. Neither the details or the extent of the promotional partnership were disclosed and no on-line references could be found. However, the Silicon Valley Export Assistance Center was referenced by Mr. Griffin as the place to go for additional information.  There one finds this description of the mission of this U.S. governmental agency:

“The U.S. Commercial Service is the trade promotion arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. Located across the United States and in U.S. Embassies and Consulates in nearly 80 countries, our global network of trade professionals connects U.S. companies with international buyers, providing them with market intelligence, trade counseling, business matchmaking, and advocacy/commercial diplomacy support.”

One would expect TiE to be very soon listed as one of the agency’s strategic partners in Silicon Valley to promote U.S. exports.

From multi-decade TiE executive, ICC volunteer, and good friend Vish Mishra: “As I mentioned to you Saturday afternoon, this partnership developed rapidly and it was fitting for it to be announced at TiEcon 2014. We thank TiE’s own Arun Kumar, the Director General of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service, for providing his full support for the partnership. And special thanks to Antwaun Griffin, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Domestic Operations,  for personally appearing on the TiECon stage and announcing the partnership and it’s goals.  We very much look forward to your coverage as this partnership program progresses.”

Indeed, we will be following this partnership closely and updating this post as new information becomes available.

Stay tuned for an in depth report on the TiECON Internet of Things (IoT) track on Friday as well as a summary of the Breakthrough Thinkers session on Saturday afternoon which was very enlightening.  We’ll also cover the very entertaining closing keynote by Sanjay Poonen of VMWare  on Innovation needed for the new “Mobile-Cloud Era.”  He said innovation will be needed in products, process and people (engage employees and customers).  Much more to come……………………………………