Later this month Stanford University will host the sixth annual Global Technology Symposium, which will bring together a collection of esteemed investors, entrepreneurs, politicians, educators, and business executives to discuss the changes affecting the world’s economic situation. This year’s event runs from Thursday, March 26, 2009 – Friday, March 27, 2009, and will focus (appropriately) on Entrepreneurship and Investment in a Turbulent Economy. Tickets run $795 apiece for the three day event, and we’ve got five of them to give away. If you’d like one, leave a comment below letting us know why you need to be at the GTS, and we’ll pick the best responses (be sure to use your real Email address).
Included among this year’s speakers are Sheryl Sandberg, Reid Dennis, Steve Jurvetson, Lip-Bu Tan, Bill Draper, Tina Seelig, Vish Makhijani, Dan’l Lewin, Pitch Johnson, and T. Boone Pickens (you can see a full listing here).
The GTS is also holding a Global Pitch Competition at the Plug and Play Tech Center, during which seven startups will have the chance to pitch their companies to a panel of VC judges and the event’s attendees. After the presentations, the panel will select one of the startups as the winner of the Global Technology Symposium Winner’s Certificate. For more details on applying to take part in the Global Pitch Competition, check out this page.
We’ll be attending the event, and will also have the chance to sit down for an interview with T. Boone Pickens, which we’ll post following the symposium. If you have any especially compelling questions you’d like us to ask, leave them in the comments.
Update: The winners have been chosen.
I am looking for a change in direction of my career and life but with the current job market I feel trapped in my current industry. I believe exposure to the ideas and technologies that will be discussed in the GTS I’m seeking. Additionally, these types of opportunities are exactly why I moved from the Midwest to California.
Thanks for your consideration.
-Tim
I took a shot in the dark a couple months ago and decided to venture out on my own after working for some very successful companies and feeling fairly stable about my career. I felt like now was the right time for me in my life to explore some ideas that I’ve always had floating around before it was too late. Now in this time of economic crisis I’m finding there are a lot more challenges and hurdles in building a web based business than I expected. I’m very much interested in attending this conference as a learning opportunity. I would love to hear what these “experts” in their respective fields have to say about this economy and its effect on small / medium businesses as well as how downturns in the economy effect strategy and business expansion. More importantly, I’m very interested in the Global Pitch competition. I feel fairly soon I’ll be in the position where my business will need to go that route of securing funding and I’d love to see some of the ideas and startup trends coming out during a shaky economy and how VCs respond to their ideas.
Greetings, I am entrepreneur launching a new venture called ASK Silicon Valley, which is an international forum for entrepreneurs and innovators. One of the reasons for launching ASK Silicon Valley is to be a force for positive change in the world’s economy.
The GTS sounds like it would be a perfect venue to learn more and to connect with people regarding this new venture. So I feel a need to be there!
Thanks for your consideration in sponsoring me/ASK Silicon Valley!
Wilson Farrar
I really believe that the pressure that comes from harsh economic times drives people to find creative ways to do business that they otherwise never would have imagined. I would really like to attend GTS because I think it is a great opportunity to find out how entrepreneurs, government, and business professionals in general are thinking about solving the most pressing issues that have come about from the current economic conditions and how technology will play a role in providing opportunities.
Thank you for your consideration.
I’m a new entrepreneur with an idea that will change the world; but I can’t reveal it unless you send me to the Global Technology Symposium.
Matt.
I am mentoring 3 startup teams at my former engineering college. I am interested in attending the GTS to get an expert overview of the current technology/innovation landscape, particularly advice on how to build a successful technology business with minimal resources. In addition, i would like to network with the GTS participants for new business models and partners/investors for my students’ startups. Finally, i am a tech junkie and would love to attend such an event focused on innovation and the next big thing.
Thanks for considering me – Ajay
Receiving one of your tickets would mean I can upgrade my airfare/seat location and my hotel room.
I need to be at the GTS to observe, network and report on discussions (or lack of discussions) around business / revenue / pricing models and targeted paths to profit. I am a huge fan of value propositions . . . the good, bad, ugly and then those rare game changers that really stand out.
Thanks for your consideration to enhance my level of comfort.
Thanks for giving free GTS tickets. This opportunity will change some people’s lives. I hope I can be one of them.
Working in security industry for almost a decade, I have friends and colleagues as security experts in all the security areas. We often discuss the trend in security industry and potential startup opportunities. For example, mobile computing is getting more and more attention. What can we do to ensure the data security and privacy for mobile users? Cloud computing is becoming the industry standard. What can we do to provide security for both industry and regular users of cloud computing?
We have some initial thoughts and drafts on what we can do. Attending GTS will greatly boost our sight on technology developments, market requirements and venture investment trends.
Thanks for your kind consideration.
This is a great time for economic and business renewal. I am stuffed full of digital age ideas, frameworks for action, and prototypes that I feel I must share with influential people. No better place to do that than on Stanford Campus or hanging with interesting people over a bite of food somewhere along University Ave… Richard.
First off, what a great competition.
The reason I would love to win a ticket is so that I could take video footage of the event and present it to our soon to be audience (we are launching our site very soon) who could all do with watching the experts discuss and address the number 1 issue affecting all families today – how much worse can things get and what oppurtunities, if any, are out there in this economic climate.
Thankyou for your consideration.
Well designed site James. Would be interesting to know what you target for your top 3 revenue streams. One appears to be advertising, any others ?
How many on staff to maintain up-to-date relevant content ?
Facebook may be a great source for demographically targeted users.
Perhaps we can touchbase at GTS . . . take care.
Thankyou Chris
I take no credit for the design – which as nice as it is is only the first draft.
Two of our partners are Theo Fels and Faye Richardson who have designed some of the worlds most visited sites, most notibly they did an overhaul and redesign of bloomberg.com.
As for other revenue streams, video advertising is the biggest source by far, but is actually one of 13 different streams.
James, what’s your url?
There is very little doubt that our current financial crisis is by far the worst economic situation our country has been in since the Great Depression.
Yet, there are two key factors that make it quite different. First, our economy today is far more global than it ever has been. This means more people around the globe feel the impact of this crisis. Whether we like it or not, geographies no longer shelter people from halfway around the world from what happens here, today.
Second, and more importantly, I believe we have far more competent set of entrepreneurs and innovators ready to bail us out of this crisis. Just because venture capital is scarce, it does not mean we stop searching for new ideas, new solutions, and new products. As Reid Hoffman wisely put it a few days ago, “we can innovate our way out of this recession.” This is precisely one of the topics that GTS’s speakers aim to address.
As a college student and an aspiring entrepreneur, I think that attending GTS will be a great experience. The opportunity to listen to such a experienced set of speakers is unparalleled and will be very influential! Thanks!
I’d never pay $795 to attend this (especially in these hard times). I’ve always wondered whether attending a conference like this gets you anything more than watching the proceedings on YouTube gets you. Do the people on stage actually mingle with the unwashed masses looking up at them from the floor? Do the attendees collar these guys in the corridors, the bathrooms, the coffee tables … and pitch their ideas at them hoping for a break?
Just curious.
I need to be at GTS in order to learn not only how entrepreneurs can lead the world into an economic turnaround through innovation, but also how the young millenial workforce such as people like myself around the world can help to prevent serious economic and energy crises from happening again through the application of new technologies.
After working at a tech VC in New York I decided to leave the ranks of the stably employed and join a friend’s start-up to lead business strategy. Looking out at the bleak landscape of our economy as we face our public launch I question how we as a start-up can weather these conditions, and how I as a member of this small team can help lead us to success. I feel like I owe it to myself, to my company and the economy at large to make this a success. I am ultimately most interested in thinking about about how entrepreneurs can help improve the economic climate through our successes, helping breath some life into the economy, no matter how small the difference is that we make to start with, through a few jobs created or tax dollars paid, through to becoming stable, strong, and valuable companies.
My company clearly doesn’t have the budget to send any team members to a large conference, we are stretching every dollar of our angel investment as far as possible, but would so value the education that a forum like this could offer. The macro perspectives on the economy, and technology’s role in it’s future, that will be shared at this event, would be invaluable as we establish our place in it. We’re not looking for money – we’re looking for insights. With a young and energetic management team we have the fuel, but we never tire of the wisdom that those with experience have to offer.
Also, the 25th is my 26th birthday, and it would be a pretty incredible present.
As a social entrepreneur working in the global marketplace, I am optimistic about about the future. There is much to be gained by using social media and new technologies in general to empower entrepreneurs and change makers alike. We are much more agile than large corporations and NGOs. I would love to attend the GTS to learn from presenters experience and to share it with our extensive global community.
Q: What happened when the computer fell on the floor?
A: It slipped a disk.
As the founder of likemind Bay Area and a new social networking service company, here’s why I’d like to receive a ticket:
1) I’m always on the lookout to learn as much as I can and share that with people to raise the bar on tech knowledge.
2) I frequently clip parts of your daily email and share with people around the world (driving signup for TechCrunch) – READ: I scratch yours, you scratch mine.
Because I’m dying to find out how they squeeze a “three day event” into two days.
I’m not an entrepreneur, but I believe I was born to be one. I’m an average mid-level manager at a large tech company who has come to a point in my life where I have to make that crucial choice of venturing into the wild (especially in this economy) or staying safe and warm in the embraces of 9-5 corporate life.
In the 5 years I’ve been out of school, I’ve already worked through two billion-dollar plus dot-com companies and two successful exits. However, in all of this, I’ve always played a supporting role and never have had the opportunity to step into the spotlight and call the shots myself.
I think attending GTS will help me get past that final hurdle to starting my own venture. In this time of turmoil, we need to support budding entrepreneurs and business innovation and I believe I can provide that with a little bit of help from Techcrunch.
I’m a student at Harvard Business School (from the Bay Area originally) and am trying to stay plugged into the tech world from a few thousand miles away. The conference is during my spring break and I would love to attend, but after airfare (and heck, tuition) there’s really no funding for that. I’m hoping to work for a consumer technology start-up this summer and this would be a great jump start to both my knowledge base and my search.
Hello,
I am an university student from Japan. I would like to attend GTS so I can stimulate and motivate Japanese innovators.
I am now working for a start-up in Japan and developing a product, event-oriented keyword dictionary (it is like a combination of a Thesaurus and an event handler) and we aspire to break into global market. As we do many entrepreneurs are thinking so too but in Japan there are few chances to get information about entrepreneurship like this symposium.
I would like to get the information back to Japan and make a good environment to support many start-ups (e.g. hold a similar symposium or evangelistic seminars of venture investments in Japan.) It will be good for global economy too because Japan has huge amount of permanent asset and will be able to distribute it to the world.
It’s my “duty”.
I would like to hear good news soon for airplane ticket!
Wataru.
I know the TechCrunch staff has a lot on their plates and after 4 more posts this story will get bumped to the 3rd page . . . so here are my selections for the 5 ticket winners :
1. “tim” – was first to post, lives in CA and could change his life
2. “james barclay” – they appear to be close to launch and this should give them some insight that may justify some tweaks to their approach
3. “VS” – great comments and good opportunity for a young entrepreneur
4. “RW” – comments lead me to believe the drive is there and willingness to take calculated risks
5. “ChrisHopf” – me of course, and I’ll buy each of the above a drink on behalf of TechCrunch before we leave GTS
Hope this helps and no hard feelings to those I didn’t select.
Also, sidenote :
The GTS site states it runs Wed, 03/25 thru Fri, 03/27 (3-days)
Here is Wednesday’s Agenda :
Day 1: Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
1:00 – 4:00 PM Business Plan Competition
Plug and Play Tech Center, Sunnyvale.
5:00 – 7:00 PM Opening Reception
Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA
I am one of the organizers for GTS.
Just a quick note – for all of those individuals who posted comments and who are starting companies and are looking for funding – we encourage you to submit entries for our Global Business Plan Competition. You can enter by emailing your slide decks or business summaries to info@globaltechsymposium.com.
The Business Plan competition will be held at Plug and Play Tech Center on March 25th, starting at 1pm and will feature prominent Silicon Valley VCs and Microsoft execs. This is a great opportunity to get some exposure, develop important contacts, and receive valuable feedback.
We will also provide 2 free passes to the entire 3-day event for the companies selected to present – there will be 6 selected.
Companies will be notified of selection by the end of next week. We hope aspiring entrepreneurs will take advantage of this opportunity.
Thank you,
Alex Gurevich
How has the response been so far ?
I just started my first year at Columbia University and I’m helping our daily newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, to find and analyze new monetization opportunities. I’m trying to get involved with Columbia student groups to build more of an entrepreneurial campus and to create a culture of technology and innovation near Silicon Alley. Stanford has done a marvelous job of encouraging and assisting entrepreneurs on their campus, and I see this Global Technology Symposium can help me to learn from pioneers in the field about how to take on creating such a culture and how to weather these tough economic times. Thanks for this opportunity!
I believe I need to attend GTS in order to hear from these great technologists and entrepreneurs about how we can positively change the future through innovation. Seeing as how I am looking to start my own business, I would find it invaluable to hear firsthand how new technologies can help us weather the economic storm and allow us to come out of it a stronger country.
Thanks for the consideration!
This symposium should be worth attending-or watching-by anyone. Personally, I’d be asking Mr. T. Boone most of my questions. There aren’t many billionaires devoting that degree of their extremely valuable time and energy towards a good cause that will benefit the entire world in measurable ways. I studied a lot of resource management economics in college. Otherwise I’d be asking about how digital security will develop in the future, I’ve learned a lot on This security site.
Hoping to see an update on the selected winners of the 5 tickets.
Some quick stats :
> this post is now on page 6
> tomorrow will be day 8 since original post
> tomorrow there will be 14 days until the first day of the event
> 23 individuals posted an interest (with 2 of those not serious)
> 3 posted since my “selection post” on March 5th
I realize they are free tickets, but on behalf of the interested TechCrunch readers . . . I kindly suggest an announcement soon so that those selected can plan accordingly. Yes, I do realize I may not be selected . . . but this post will benefit those that are.
Respectfully, Chris Hopf
Thanks Chris for stepping up to the plate! I too would like to “+1″ this comment as I know some of us who are interested in going are not local to the Bay Area and once we get past the 14 day mark, airfares may be prohibitively expensive.
TC must have already given ‘em away . . . hey, they are their tickets . . . TC can give to who they want.
Great idea with this post . . . ask for comments, then let the offer fade with no more mention.
That works too. Was worth a try.
Thanks much.
Greetings,
I sent an email both to the editor (about five days ago) and to “tips@techcrunch” about 5 seconds ago, requesting a response from them about the tickets.
If I hear of anything directly I will post again and let everyone know.
You never know, there still might be some lucky winners out there!
All the best
Wilson
FYI – Jason did send me an email yesterday that the winners were already selected, and notified.
There is a small “update” up top that the winners have been chosen.