US State Department Led US-India Science and Technology Endowment Board and TiE Partner to Select Startups That Will Qualify for Grants up to $500K

SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- (http://www.myprgenie.com) -- TiE Silicon Valley announced today that it is partnering with United States-India Science and Technology Endowment Board in helping select the startups that can qualify for grants of up to $500K to drive Innovation and Entrepreneurship between the two countries. The US-India Endowment Board will also have a booth at TiEcon 2011 Innovation Expo where prospective startups can come and get more information.

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 announce this partnership with US-India Endowment Board as it fits in with our key theme of fostering entrepreneurship and its cross border focus will also add more value to our members," said Vish Mishra, President of TiE Silicon Valley.

In a bilateral partnership signed in 2009, Secretary Hillary Clinton and India's External Affairs Minister Mr. S M Krishna have focused on the new agenda for US-India "3.0" in which the two countries have established a US- India Science and Technology Endowment Board to manage a fund with individual grants up to $500K for joint research and development, innovation, entrepreneurial and commercialization activities in science and technology. For 2011, the US-India endowment is accepting proposals in the area of "Healthy individual": Preferred proposals would focus on diagnostic / preventive / curative measures to improve health (excludes pharmaceutical development) or food and nutrition products and "Empowering citizens": Preferred proposals would focus on reducing the digital divide in the two countries. This could include information and communication technologies with a social impact in areas such as water, agriculture and education.

As part of a 9 person US Board comprising of Government and private sector representatives, and under US co-chair Mr. Blair Hall, of the US State department, Ms. Talat Hasan and Mr. Gunjan Sinha, active Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and visionaries, have been nominated to the board to help drive the entrepreneurial commercialization of science and technology initiatives in the two countries.

"We are looking forward to our partnership with TiE SV and with their experience in selecting TiE50 winners amongst thousands of companies, we look forward to working with them in picking qualifying startups for the grants" said Ms. Talat Hasan, Board Member US-India Endowment Board.

"The US-India Endowment Board presents an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers in both US and India, to solve some of the most critical problems facing both of our societies through the power of innovation and application of science and technology" said Mr. Gunjan Sinha.

Grant applicants can submit their proposals for grant consideration to the US India Endowment Board on the web at: http://www.indousstf.org/US-India-Endowment-Board.html

TiEcon 2011: Innovation Reigns, will feature session tracks and keynote speeches focused on key market segments:  Cloud, Mobile, Social, Energy and Life Sciences. 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; Marissa Mayer, VP of Product Management at Google; Drew Houston, Founder and CEO of Dropbox; Sal Khan, Educator and Founder of the Khan Academy; and David Ferrucci, Lead IBM Watson Scientist.

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 comprising of 1,800 experienced entrepreneurs and business executives as charter members, 12,000 aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals as members.

About US India Endowment Board

The US-India Endowment Board was established under an agreement between the Governments of the United States of America and India on July 2009, with the objective to promote and catalyze Indo-US bilateral collaborations in science and technology through support of entrepreneurship and commercialization. The US-India Endowment Board facilitates collaborations between US and India through entrepreneurship grants specially in areas that lead to social good in US and India through commercialization of Science and Technology. The US India Endowment Board is managed by its secretariat, IUSSTF (India-US Science and Technology Forum), headquartered in New Delhi. IUSSTF is managed by the Executive Director under the leadership of a bilateral Governing Body and with the support of the India Science and Technology Partnership (INSTP).

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

SOURCE TiE Silicon Valley