By IANS
Kolkata : What’s the difference between god and Oracle Corporation founder Larry Ellison? The old joke is that god doesn’t think he’s Larry Ellison. But another genius could be hiding here somewhere, and the hunt will get underway next week when a team of US business experts arrives to propel ‘desi’ entrepreneurship.
The team of American experts led by US Assistant Secretary of Commerce David Bohigian will land in this resurgent eastern metropolis Jan 14 for the first ever India-US entrepreneurship symposium. The idea is to pave the way for potential Larry Ellisons to rise from among Indian entrepreneurs.
The fairytale success stories of modern day US giants like Oracle, Apple and Google will be showcased in the symposium where about 40 Indian entrepreneurs, mostly from West Bengal, will interact with the Americans to deliberate upon ways and means to evolve pro-growth policies and nurture entrepreneurial spirit in the region.
“From Jan 13 to 15, US Assistant Secretary of Commerce David Bohigian will visit Kolkata leading a team of experts for the symposium ‘Driving Entrepreneurial Growth’ (DEG),” US Consul General in Kolkata Henry V. Jardine informed Tuesday evening at American Center here.
The event is jointly organised by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) Kolkata, which is a body of Indian entrepreneurs in the US, the Kauffman Foundation and the US commerce department.
“If you look at the US in the last decades you will find centres of excellence (like MIT or Stanford University), the entrepreneurs, the federal government and the private companies teaming up to create enterprises like Oracle or Apple or Google.
“In India our centres of excellence are yet to do that. How many ideas from IIT or IIM or ISI have translated into successful ventures?” asked Shoummo K. Acharya, TiE Kolkata chapter president. TiE was started by Indian entrepreneurs in USA in 1992.
Oracle boss Larry Ellison had come across a paper called “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks” by Edgar F. (“Ted”) Codd, describing a concept Codd had developed at IBM. Codd’s employers saw no commercial potential in the concept, but Larry Ellison did.
Ellison and his partners won a two-year contract to build a relational database management system (RDBMS) for the CIA. The project’s code name: Oracle. They finished the project a year ahead of schedule and used the extra time to develop their system for commercial applications. The rest, as they say, is history.
“Indians have long been trend-setters in terms of fostering entrepreneurial spirit. The primary goal of this event is to help create conditions to further enhance entrepreneurship at all levels,” said Jardine.
Participants at the two-day event will assist in developing tailored policies with the goal of establishing a pro-entrepreneurial environment. The meet will focus on legal and regulatory infrastructure reforms, capital formation for start-up and growth enterprises, innovation in speciality areas like technology transfer and clustering and education for small and medium enterprises.
“We do need Tata motor plant and chemical hub. But we also need to take forward our SMEs (small and medium enterprises). So the symposium is important to enable us to produce many more successful entrepreneurs,” said Acharya.
The symposium, the first in a series, will have participants from IIM-Calcutta, IIT-Kharagpur, Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) and other centres of excellence and prominent universities.
Bohigian will also lead a delegation of 11 renewable energy companies that will meet local companies to investigate potential opportunities here.
“The companies work in various technologies, ranging from waste-to-energy to solar to biomass. The delegation is part of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, a key initiative for both India and the US,” Jardine said.