PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA, (NEWSWIRE) December 7, 2009 – Silicon Valley Open Doors (SVOD), the only Silicon Valley annual investment conference that brings together Russian-speaking innovators with the prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms, leading technology, business media and the top US technology companies is poised to celebrate its fifth year of being in business. This year’s Open Doors Conference will be held at the Computer Museum in Mountain View, CA on December 9th and 10th.
This year’s theme RE-INVENT! is driving a very exciting Agenda exploring re-invention as it affects the startup process on multiple levels — technologies, business models, financing, monetizing and team building.
“We are very pleased and proud to be able to attract such high caliber participants,” said Ms. Anna Dvornikova, SVOD President. “This year, we have an extraordinary lineup that is going to make our Fifth Anniversary even more special.”
Among SVOD 2009 speakers and participants are: Vinod Khosla, Founding Partner, Khosla Ventures, Charles Giancarlo, Managing Director, Silver Lake, Steve Blank, Serial Entrepreneur; Founder, Epiphany; Lecturer, Stanford University, Graduate School of Engineering, Sergei Beloussov, CEO, Parallels, Ron Conway, Founding General Partner, Angel Investors LP, Jason Pressman, General Partner, Shasta Ventures, Adam Lashinsky, Editor at large, Fortune magazine; regular panelist and business commentator for Fox network programs, Esther Dyson, Director, 23andMe, Principal, EDventure Holdings (sold to CNet), NASA Advisory Council Member, Jeff Crow, General Partner, Norwest Venture Partners, Vivek Mehra, General Partner, August Capital, Ping Li, General Partner, Accel Partners, Kittu Kolluri, General Partner, New Enterprise Associates, Franklin Pitch Johnson, Founding Partner, Asset Management Company, Peter Loukianoff, Partner, Almaz Capital Partners, Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures, Pavel Pogodin, Partner, Sughrue Mion LLP, Dmitry Dubograev, Partner, Femida LLP, Leonid Gozman, Board Member, RUSNANO, Mikhail Chuchkevich, Director, Project Office, RUSNANO, Dmitry Vasuytinsky, Managing Partner, Allianz Asset Management, Yan Ryazantsev, Investment Director, Russian Venture Company, Bo Parker, Managing Director, Center for Technology and Innovation, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote, Vlad Shmunis, CEO, RingCentral, Sequoia-backed company, Matthew Trevithick, General Partner, Venrock, Eric Buatois, General Partner, Sofinnova Ventures, Vish Makhijani, COO, Zynga, Vimal Solanki, Vice President, McAfee, Evgeni Utkin, CEO, Kvazar-Micro, acquired by Sitronics, voted the Best Ukrainian Entrepreneur, Greg Shenkman, General Partner, Exigen Capital, formerly CEO of Genesys, sold to Alcatel for $1.9B, Mike Selfridge, Northern California Region Manager, Silicon Valley Bank, and Jeffery Black, CEO, EXT/NewsWire and PartnerVision Ventures, former CEO, HOTELS.com and GM, AltaVista (Yahoo).
This year’s SVOD Business Plan competition will feature 20 companies whose products and services continue to re-invent seemingly established areas like travel (Evature) and home entertainment (eMazeU), as well as the sustainable green technologies (PTP Group Americas.) The winners of the SVOD Business Plan competition will receive a traditional Golden Lock Award, as well as a free NewsWire Press Release to be announced on TIME SQUARE’s “Breaking News.”
In addition to the traditional SVOD Business Plan competition, AmBAR www.ambarclub.org and RUSNANO www.rusnano.com are announcing a competition for the best Nanotechnology plan. “Using SVOD as a platform to spread the word about RUSNANO and its mission, as well as means of tapping into a huge reservoir of the intellectual power of the Russian-speaking constituency in the Silicon Valley is “a no-brainer,” said Anatole Chubais, RUSNANO CEO (or Gozman, or Urinson) “Our goal is to seed and sponsor Silicon Valley-like entrepreneurial communities all over Russia. From this perspective, the relationships that we develop at SVOD are going a long way towards our objectives.”
About AmBAR
AmBAR is Silicon Valley-based non-profit association of high-tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, engineers, lawyers and other business professionals. Started as an organization of technology-minded expatriates from Russia, Ukraine and other FSU countries, AmBAR has grown into a large professional network to include innovators and entrepreneurs of all origin exchanging ideas and business contacts. Today AmBAR’s membership base is well over 2,500 business professionals.
AmBAR’s mission is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and business contacts among technology entrepreneurs, business professionals, and investors. AmBAR is dedicated to accelerating access to capital for innovative projects and developing technology partnerships between the FSU countries and the United States. AmBAR also provides educational programs, seminars and conferences that help entrepreneurs to refine their business plans, advance their product development and marketing efforts.
About SVOD
Silicon Valley Open Doors (SVOD), the only Silicon Valley annual investment conference that brings together Russian-speaking innovators with the prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms, leading technology, business media and the top US technology companies.
The conference is hosted by the American Business Association of Russian-speaking Professionals (AmBAR), the largest non-profit association of Russian-speaking entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, engineers, lawyers and other business professionals headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
About RUSNANO
The Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) was established in 2007 by the Federal law ? 139-FZ to enable Government policy in the field of Nanotechnology.
To accomplish this task, RUSNANO co-invests in nanotechnology industry projects that have high commercial potential or social benefit. Early-stage investment by RUSNANO lowers the risk of its investment partners from the private sector.
RUSNANO participates in building nanotechnology infrastructure, which includes the nanotechnology centers of excellence, business incubators and early stage investment funds. RUSNANO provides scientific and educational programs that are required for its investment projects to succeed, and also supports the popularization of nano science and nanotechnology. RUSNANO selects promising spheres for investment based on longer-term foresight created by the leading Russian and world experts.
To assist the Russian nanotechnology industry advance to the global market and strengthening of its international links RUSNANO develops partnerships with the leading nanotechnology centers in the world and organizes the annual Nanotechnology International Forum in Russia.
Contact Information
info@svod.org
Anna Dvornikova
President, AmBAR
555 Bryant Street, Suite 161
Palo Alto, CA 94301, USA
Tel (650) 278 – 0431