Must be the money: Corporate Venture Capital
The legend of Silicon Valley is based on the few companies that ascended from their humble roots with nothing more than a dream and a modicum of money. This mythology heroizes the daring financiers who knew enough to fund the Ciscos and Intels when success seemed a remote possibility. To these moneyed entreprenerds, corporate venture capital must sound about as appetizing as franchised fine dining.
"The independent venture industry has generated enormous wealth, so naturally corporate America is interested in emulating its success," says Josh Lerner, organizer of this Harvard Business School conference. "But transplanting the venture model to the corporate environment is a tricky endeavor. Unlike independents who have one goal - making money - corporations display a schizophrenia in their investments."
Case in point: Analog Devices, a manufacturer of integrated circuits, started a corporate venture program called Analog Devices Enterprises in 1980. Funded by Amoco, ADE had invested US$26 million in 11 firms by 1985. In the same year, Amoco ceased funding the project, and 10 of the firms in the portfolio were terminated or sold off at bargain-basement prices. Attempting to mimic the independent venture model caused ADE to run up against its own divided loyalties. Fund managers were expected to simultaneously invest in relevant technologies, acquire firms of interest to Analog Devices's management, and generate profits for Amoco. No easy task.
Focusing on VC case studies (such as Analog's and more successful examples), Harvard's Corporate Venture Capital will distinguish corporate funding from the more familiar independent model. It's a suit soiree where the buttoned-down set can play daring financiers for a couple of days - and then go back to work.
Registration: US$3,500. Contact: +1 (617) 495 6226, fax +1 (617) 495 6999, or send email executive_education@hbs.edu.
The Current Roundup
16-18 March Telemedicine and Distributed Medical Intelligence Conference; Vail, Colorado.... 20-21 March Sixth Winlab Workshop on Third Generation Wireless Information Networks; New Brunswick, New Jersey.... 23-26 March PC Forum; Tucson, Arizona.... 25-27 March @d:tech.97; Chicago, Illinois.... April 1-3 Gigabit Networking; Washington, DC.
16-18 April European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks; Bruges, Belgium. Europe's biggest brains will dissect the advances in neural networks - computational systems that filter and organize information based on a human cognitive structure. These scientists will mind-meld with synthetic brains, presenting papers on the links between cognitive networks and other areas of scientific research, such as statistics, biology, data analysis, psychology, evolutive learning, and bio-inspired computing. Registration: BF20,500 (US$638). Contact: +32 (2) 203 4363, fax +32 (2) 203 4294, send mailto:esann@dice.ucl.ac.be email, or find it on the Web.
25-29 April Computer Game Developers Conference; Santa Clara, California. Demo or die is the mantra at this gathering of the top guns in the computer gaming industry. Showing off their wares at the CGDC, companies such as Borland, Broderbund, and the Total Entertainment Network find that life springs eternal. This supergeekathon is an opportunity to network with people and games, to trade secrets, and to claim your place among elite programmers, designers, and product managers. Registration: US$1,195. Contact: +1 (415) 905 2702, send email cgdc@mfi.com, or find it on the Web.
8-10 May Culture and Democracy Revisited in the Global Information Society; Corfu, Greece. Sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing, this freedomfest aims to draft a working statement about the future of democracy. A group of international theoreticians will endeavor to answer the myriad questions engendered by networked culture: What does a sustainable information society entail? How can people remain in control if global culture is not rooted in their own culture? How is democracy affected by the increasing power of liberal market forces? Click to Corfu and find out. Registration: US$300 before 31 March, $400 after. Contact: +32 (8) 172 49 76, fax +32 (8) 172 49 67, send mailto:jberleur@info.fundp.ac.be email , or find it on the Web.
8-11 May The High Frontier Conference; Princeton, New Jersey. Orbit the universe with world-renowned Star Trekkers Freeman Dyson and John Lewis, swap extraterrestrial resources, erect advanced space stations, and learn how to mine an asteroid. Sponsored by the Space Studies Institute, this is your chance to kibitz about space technologies, programs, and concepts with some pretty far-out folk. Contact: +1 (609) 921 0377, fax +1 (609) 921 0389, or send email ssi@ssi.org.
Out on the range
30 May - 1 June InterFoto 97; Moscow. Contact: send email interfoto@aol.com, or find it on the Web.... 11-13 June International Conference on Consumer Electronics; Rosemont, Illinois. Contact: +1 (716) 392 3862, fax +1 (716) 392 4397, or find it on the Web.... 15-18 June Global Networking 97; Calgary, Alberta. Contact: +1 (403) 493 4760, fax +1 (403) 493 5380, or find it on the Web.... 24-27 June inet 97; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Contact: +1 (703) 648 9888, fax +1 (703) 648 9887, or find it on the Web.
