Drew Houston, 28 Year Old Founder & CEO of Dropbox, One of the Fastest Growing Companies, to Deliver Keynote at TiEcon 2011

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- (http://www.myprgenie.com) -- TiE Silicon Valley announced today that Drew Houston, Founder & CEO of Dropbox, one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley, will deliver the 2nd day opening keynote speech on Saturday, May 14th at TiEcon 2011. Houston will discuss his experiences in building a service that has reached 25M consumers around the world in less than 3 years.

TiEcon 2011 will take place at the Santa Clara Convention Center, May 13-14. Each year, the conference brings together a diverse and dynamic group of leaders from business, technology, venture capital, and media for two days of education, inspiration, and networking.

"We are very excited to have Drew Houston speak at our annual conference, TiEcon. Drew was named to the elite list of Twenty Something Entrepreneurs by Business Week and his experience in building an Internet power house in such a short time will be an inspiration to thousands of entrepreneurs at this year's conference," said Vish Mishra, President of TiE Silicon Valley.

Drew Houston is CEO and Co-Founder of Dropbox, and has led Dropbox's growth from a simple idea to a service relied upon by millions around the world. Drew leads all of Dropbox's activities, and is actively involved in its business and product decisions. Dropbox has the backing of Sequoia Ventures and Accel Partners. Dropbox, since its launch in 2008, has grown to 25 million users in 175 countries, making it a truly global phenomenon.

Before founding Dropbox, Drew attended MIT where he studied computer science. He took a quick leave from school to form Accolade, an online SAT prep startup, and also worked as a software engineer for Bit9. After graduating from MIT, Drew recognized that people needed a way to bring their files with them without sending email attachments or carrying USB drives. He began writing a solution to this problem in early 2007 before showing an early version to Arash Ferdowsi in Boston. The two of them then began working on the project that would eventually become Dropbox.

"I am delighted to speak at the world's largest conference for entrepreneurs and am excited to share what we've learned in building a fast-growing company serving millions of people," said Drew Houston.

TiEcon 2011: Innovation Reigns will feature session tracks and keynote speeches focused on key market segments: Cloud, Mobile, Social, Energy and Life Sciences. Other keynotes at TiEcon 2011 include: Steve Case, Co-Founder of AOL and Chair of the Startup America Partnership; Vinod Khosla, Founding CEO of Sun Microsystems/ Founder of Khosla Ventures; Drew Houston, Founder and CEO of Dropbox; Sal Khan, Educator and Founder of the Khan Academy; David Ferrucci, Lead IBM Watson Scientist; and Marissa Mayer, VP of Location and Local Services at Google.

TiE 50, the 3rd annual awards program to recognize the "Top 50 Emerging Companies," will be a prominent part of this year's TiEcon conference. Selected from thousands of nominations from all over the world, previous winners have gone on to achieve great success.

Register for TiEcon 2011 today by visiting www.tiecon.org.

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About TiE

TiE is a global, not-for-profit, non-political, and non-religious organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurs across its international network. Sponsored by top Venture Capital Firms and Fortune 500 corporations, TiE's network has grown across 56 chapters in 13 countries. (tie.org)

Media Contact:  Amanda Day, 408-567-0700, [email protected]

SOURCE TiE Silicon Valley