Release
Business-Higher Education
Roundtable of the Capital Region
Technology Entrepreneur and Visionary
Gururaj Deshpande Featured at Business-Higher
Education Roundtable Strategic Forum on
Advancing Innovation in Tech Valley
Contact: Catherine Herman (518) 437-4980
ALBANY, N.Y. (November 18, 2005) - The Business-Higher Education Roundtable (BHER), an alliance of area academic and business chief executives, today held a regional strategic forum on accelerating the process of turning innovative ideas into products, high-growth companies, and regional prosperity. The forum is part of a BHER Innovation in Tech Valley series. The series engages global experts with area leaders in discussion of next-stage strategies to advance Tech Valley's global competitiveness.
Technology entrepreneur and visionary Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande was the featured speaker at the BHER forum, which was held at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Before an audience of more than a hundred leaders in business, education, the arts, healthcare and government, Dr. Deshpande discussed how to build a more innovative, entrepreneurial culture and economy and to foster the leadership needed to accomplish those goals.
Dr. Deshpande is chairman and founder of Sycamore Networks, Inc., a leading provider of intelligent optical networking products for telecommunications service providers worldwide. Prior to co-founding Sycamore Networks, Dr. Deshpande was founder and chairman of Cascade Communications Corp., an innovative supplier of advanced data networking equipment that grew into a global market leader in just six years. An educator as well as an entrepreneur, Deshpande also created the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to serve as a catalyst for innovation and entrepreneurship by supporting research and collaboration among entrepreneurs, young companies, and MIT students, alumni, and faculty.
"The region does relatively well in starting small companies but we need to scale them up from the $1 million - $10 million range to the $100 million range and beyond if the region is truly to prosper," says BHER Co-Convenor, Michael D. Marvin, chairman emeritus of MapInfo Corporation. "This would diversify our bedrock economic sectors-government, higher education, and health care - and strengthen all aspects of life in Tech Valley. Dr. Deshpande's insights and experience can help us take this important next step."
"The future of the U.S. economy depends on innovation," said Dr. Deshpande. "Strategic collaboration between businesses, universities, and government is critical to advancing innovation across all sectors of society. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to share my experiences as an entrepreneur at this forum sponsored by the Business-Higher Education Roundtable."
"The story of success in the Capital Region is the story of strong ideas, collaboration, and partnerships that work," said Joseph L. Bruno, New York State Senate Majority Leader. "We have the ingredients for global success right here, with government, higher education, and entrepreneurs coming together in groups like the Business-Higher Education Roundtable to foster innovation."
"Stronger links between higher education and high tech as well as other sectors of the economy can accelerate the region's development into a globally competitive center of innovation," said BHER Co-Convenor, Kermit L. Hall, president of the University at Albany. "The Deshpande Center at MIT provides a powerful model for us to examine." Hall noted that the forum grew out of work done by the BHER Entrepreneurship Committee - co-chaired by Guha Bala, president of Vicarious Visions, and Thomas Haas, president of SUNY Cobleskill-and the Committee's insight that development of a pervasive entrepreneurial mindset would be critical to a strong future for all sectors of activity in the region.
Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute who hosted the forum,
said, "Access to intellectual capital
is a fundamental ingredient of economically
successful regions around the world. Research
higher education institutions, working
collaboratively across all sectors, often
have provided the engine for sustainable
economic growth. Desh Deshpande's
global success epitomizes this linkage,
and we are delighted to have his input
in this important strategic initiative
for the Capital Region. Jackson serves
along with Dr. Deshpande on the MIT Corporation
(Board of Trustees), and co-leads the BHER
Information Infrastructure Committee with
Frank Schmeler, chairman and chief executive
officer of Albany International Corporation.
The Business-Higher
Education Roundtable (BHER) is a non-partisan,
non-political alliance college and university
presidents and business executives in
a five-county area collaborating to advance
the region's
economic growth and quality of life. Both
visionary and catalyst, the group works
to build the region's competitiveness
at all levels.
BHER Members
Co-convenors Kermit
Hall (UAlbany) and Michael Marvin (Chairman
Emeritus, MapInfo Corp.); Harry Apkarian
(TransTech Systems, Inc.); Guha Bala (Vicarious
Visions); James Barba (Albany Medical Center);
Gabriel Basil (Schenectady County Community
College); Murray Block (Interim, Excelsior
College); Steven Boyle (St. Peter's
Health Care Services); William Dake (Stewart's
Ice Cream Co.); Steven Fischer (Mechanical
Technology Inc.); Philip Glotzbach (Skidmore
College); James Gozzo (Albany College
of Pharmacy); Thomas Guernsey (Albany
Law School); Thomas Haas (SUNY Cobleskill);
Daniel Hogarty, Jr. (First Niagara Financial
Group); Shirley Ann Jackson (Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute); Susan Lehrman
(Graduate College of Union University);
Fr. Kevin Mackin (Siena College); Thomas
J. Marusak (Comfortex Corporation); Elliott
Masie (The Masie Center); Andrew Matonak
(Hudson Valley Community College); George
McNamee (First Albany Corp.); Joseph
Moore (Empire State College, SUNY); Jeanne
Neff (The Sage Colleges); Deborah Onslow
(WMHT Educational Telecommunications);
James Reed, MD (Northeast Health); Carl
Rosner (CardioMag Imaging Inc.); Frank
Schmeler (Albany International Corp.);
Craig Skevington (Flow Management Technologies);
Robert Smanik (Ellis Hospital); R. Mark
Sullivan (The College of Saint Rose);
James Underwood (Interim, Union College)