OPEN New England

With Pakistan constantly in the news for all the wrong reasons, OPEN and the MIT South Asian Alumni Association (MITSAAA) would like to highlight an area of immense opportunity and hope within Pakistan that OPEN has been fortunate to be involved in.

Last summer OPEN undertook an ambitious plan in conjunction with some professors from MIT's Entrepreneurship Center, to identify existing technology companies in  Pakistan with the best potential to grow into world class leaders in their space, and then mentor, nurture and help finance their growth. On Feb 2, we’ll showcase the results of this endeavor.

What you hear will truly surprise and inspire you!!

The competition was held in November 2007, and the resulting winner, Sofizar and its CEO are highlighted at this event.

And if that’s not all, this first event of the year will bring together our distinguished charter members, entrepreneurs, angel investors and corporate leaders for a truly great networking event.

Finally, there’s a DELICIOUS lunch featuring Pakistani food! All this for $15!!

Location: MIT, Cambridge MA. 

Building 51 (Tang Center), Third Floor, Room E51-345 (Please click for campus map reference)

Parking: Street and metered parking is available on Mass. Ave. and side streets around the Tang Center.

Date: Sat, Feb 2nd 2008.

Time: 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM

Register for this event here:

For a limited time, OPEN is offering a FREE one year membership  to anyone who registers for the Feb 2 event by January 24. This is a great chance to become a member, or to renew your existing membership for a one year period.

Subsequent events will feature 'members only' prices offering savings over the regular admissions rate, and members will also get access to the new OPEN web portal, in addition to exclusive networking opportunities.

Event Details 

Agenda:

11:30-12:00  Registration and Networking.
12:00-1:00    Lunch.
1:00-1:30      Thoughts on the Business Acceleration Plan and Pakistan’s first Angel Network.

Ken Morse, Managing Director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center (See Speaker Bio Below)

1:30-1:50       Entrepreneurship Potential in Pakistan’s technology sector.

Bill Aulet, Entrepreneur in residence and Sr Lecturer, MIT Entrepreneurship Center (See Speaker Bio below)

1:50-2:00       Choosing the Right Legal Structure for International Success.

Arthur I Anderson, OPEN Honorary Counsel and Of Counsel, Fish and Richardson P.C. (See Speaker Bio below)

2:00-2:10       A Pakistani perspective on the BAP and introduction of the winner, Sofizar  .

Imran Sayeed, Sr VP Keane and Sr Lecturer, MIT Entrepreneurship Center (See Speaker Bio below)

2:10-2:40       Introduction to Sofizar

Zafar Khan, CEO, Sofizar (See Speaker Bio below)

2:40-3:00       Q&A and Networking

Details on the Business Acceleration Plan are at http://www.mitcef-pakistan.org/bapstatus.htm

Speaker Bios

KENNETH P. MORSE
Senior Lecturer and Managing Director,
MIT Entrepreneurship Center
 
Ken Morse is a serial entrepreneur, having played a key role in launching several high-tech start-ups, including 3Com Corporation, Aspen Technology, an expert systems company, and a biotech firm. Ken's batting average is 0.833: five of his start-ups went public or were successfully merged; one was a complete disaster. As head of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, Ken is responsible for inspiring, training, and coaching new generations of entrepreneurs from all parts of MIT. Ken has been profiled and quoted in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Economist, and Red Herring.
Since Ken joined the MIT Entrepreneurship Center in 1996, the number of students taking Entrepreneurship Courses has increased from 220 to 1,500 per year while the number of professors and lecturers has grown from two to thirty. He has raised $ 20+ million endowment for the E-Center. Ken was named “Education All Star” by Mass High Tech magazine. Ken serves as an advisor to China Capital Ventures, LLC, Darby Overseas Investments, Ltd., PolyTechnos Venture-Partners GmbH, and SINTEF A/S. He has been an instructor in sales at the Munich Entrepreneur Academy for several years and has taught a global sales strategies workshop in several European cities. Ken, an American, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Cercle Royal Gaulois Artistique & Littéraire (Brussels), and the Quissett Yacht Club. He speaks fluent French and some Chinese. Concurrent with his MIT duties, Ken holds the Chair in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Competitiveness in the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at the Delft Technical University. When he is not helping young companies to succeed, Ken enjoys sailing his wooden boat with his family around Cape Cod

WILLIAM AULET
Senior Lecturer, MIT Entrepreneurship Center
 
Bill Aulet is a highly accomplished business leader with a track record of success over 25 years.  He has raised over $100 million in funding for his companies and directly created hundreds of millions of dollars of market value.  He started his career with eleven highly decorated years at IBM, then the top training ground for high technology executives.  This culminated with being named a prestigious MIT Sloan Fellow in 1993. 

In October of 2005, Bill became a full time Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the MIT Entrepreneurship Center and was appointed Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  In this capacity, Bill has been able to positively apply his knowledge and experience to assist students, new ventures and established firms associated with MIT to become more successful.  He has also taught and worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and executives at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  Bill has also been engaged around the world to do onsite in depth work with a full spectrum of companies ranging from single entrepreneurs trying to launch new ventures to large corporations such as Danfoss, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Mobilink and Saudi Aramco to seeking to more effectively achieve their goals through effective use of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and innovation. 

Bill Aulet graduated in 1980 from Harvard University with honors in engineering.  In 1994, Bill earned an MMS degree in business management from MIT’s Sloan School of Management as a Sloan Fellow.  Bill is a former professional basketball player who is married with four sons and lives in Belmont, Massachusetts.  Bill is a regular featured speaker at management leadership programs around the world on topics such as entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, entrepreneurial marketing, technology innovation, creating sustainable rapid profitable growth, financing strategies and operational excellence.  Bill is also a contributor as an Xconomist on these subjects to the popular and respected blog www.xconomy.com. 

Imran Sayeed
Senior Vice President, Global Industry Solutions, Keane Inc.

Imran Sayeed leads all commercial sector industry practices for Keane, a global BPO and IT Services company with ~14,000 professionals worldwide. Industry practices include Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare, Pharmaceutial, Manufacturing, Retail,  Hospitality & Travel and Energy, and together comprise most of the key business lines and customers for Keane. Sayeed came to Keane through its acquisition of netNumina, a boutique technology strategy and consulting form that he founded and grew from a 15 person startup to one of Computerwold’s Top 100 emerging companies. netNumina won more than 30 of the leading financial services & pharmaceutical institutions in the world as clients, raised more than $25MM from venture capitalists and strategic investors and received more than 20 industry awards for its work. 

Sayeed has over fifteen years of experience in software and services. Previously, as a founder of Open Environment, Sayeed helped pioneer multi-tier client server technology, and grew the company from a 10-person startup to an IPO and leadership in the middleware market.

Sayeed has written and spoken extensively in leading industry conferences and trade journals over the last 13 years on entrepreneurship, e-business, financial services, insurance and technology. Sayeed serves on the Advisory Board of several software and private equity companies. Sayeed also holds a patent on technology for providing secure financials transactions over the Internet that he jointly developed with Citigroup. He is currently a visiting faculty member at MIT’s Sloan School of Management where he teaches in the MBA program on technology business strategy.

Sayeed attended Brown University where he majored in Engineering, and Harvard University, where he did post-graduate work in business, marketing and product development.

Zafar Khan
CEO, Sofizar

Zafar Khan is founder and CEO of Sofizar. He spent two years at a high performance computing startup of Green Hills Software (Avalon Computers) right out of Caltech and got to know the "pleasures" of bleeding edge technologies first hand. Ho secured 3 consumer electronics and advertising patents while working at Gemstar, which grew from a tiny startup to a $30 Billion company during his 8 years there.

Zafar was working at the Hong Kong office of Gemstar when he quit to form his own Shanghai based ATSC products company, along with 3 other alumni of Gemstar. After realizing the difficulty in enforcing contracts(and bill collection) in China, Zafar moved to Pakistan to form Sofizar in 2004.  

Zafar speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and some Cantonese and Ukrainian. He lives in Lahore with his wife and children (SOFIa and naZAR) and travels frequently to Korea and US on business.

Sofizar is a Carlsbad, CA based internet marketing company with development and operations based out of Lahore, Pakistan. Sofizar is aggressively pursuing a very rapid growth path with its experienced management, excellent team and a great track record since its inception in April, 2004. In FY 2007, Sofizar is slated to have over $10 Million in sales and a 800% growth rate. Sofizar's excellence was recently recognized by its recent signing of a deal with one of the largest telecom companies, Korea Telecom. Korea Telecom has been selected by Sofizar to market Sofizar's technology in Korea.

Sofizar also won the prestigious MIT business acceleration plan competition for the year 2007, due to its track record, business plan innovation and growth prospects. Consequently, Sofizar is honored to have two members of MIT Sloan School faculty and one member of Berkeley Haas Business School faculty on its board of advisors.

Arthur I. Anderson

Of Counsel, Fish and Richardson P.C. and OPEN Honorary Counsel

Arthur I. Anderson is a corporate lawyer with 30 years of experience practicing law in  Boston, Massachusetts. He is Of Counsel with the law firm of Fish & Richardson P.C. which is regarded by many to be the leading intellectual property firm in the world with a strong emerging company’s practice. Early clients of Fish & Richardson included Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Belle, Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers. Current clients include Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Intel and Google.  Prior to joining Fish & Richardson, he was a partner with Gaston & Snow and then McDermott, Will & Emery where he served as chair of the Boston office corporate department and was a founder of McDermott’s energy and emerging company practices.

He has represented a broad range of clients from start-ups to public companies providing advice with respect to a broad range of corporate matters including public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, corporate partnering, joint ventures and other strategic alliances, technology and software licensing, distribution arrangements, venture capital financings and equity-based compensation strategies.

One of Mr. Anderson’s new clients is Scrybe, a company founded in Pakistan which has developed an exciting Web 2.0 application which has received a lot of favorable attention in the high tech trade press in the United States and Pakistan.

Since the Spring of 2001, Mr. Anderson has represented the Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs (OPEN) on a pro bono basis. 

Mr. Anderson received his bachelor’s degree, Phi Beta Kappa and with highest distinction from Northwestern University in 1973.  In 1978, he graduated, cum laude, from Harvard Law School.