SVASE, The Silicon Valley Association of Software Entrepreneurs

November Dinner Monthly Meeting

Feb. 3rd - The Sunnyvale Hilton - Register at http://www.svase.org/

Information revolution, e-business revolution -- it's a matter of new creative impact across the board. Business itself - its creation, operation and growth - is being carried out in new ways which defy standard operating procedure. And, human creativity is being newly enhanced in the arts, photography, publishing, entertainment, architecture, fashion, design, cultural, and social worlds. Join SVASE as our distinguished panelists explore the confluence of new, technologically-informed business upon the human creative spirit. Our panelists will explore such questions as,

- Is e-commerce encouraging creativity in doing business itself?

- Artistic creativity and business creativity, is there a new synergy?

- What e-business technologies and solutions enhance broad creative endeavor and facilitate business models for it?

- Is artistic pursuit becoming technologized in the digital era? Will we see traditional artistic or creative endeavor anew in the digital era?

- How much is the business world changing and what will drastic change do to creative and time-taking pursuits?

- How are boundaries between types of creative endeavor shifting due to the e-business and information revolutions?

- Will funky multi-colored computers change the world?

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Panelists;

Donna Novitsky joined MDV in 1998, bringing strong enterprise marketing and general management experience to MDV. As vice president of marketing at Clarify, Inc., a global enterprise software company, Donna helped Clarify grow from a start-up with 11 people in 1991 to a leading supplier of "front office" software applications that boasted 1997 revenues of $87M, 500 customers and 450 employees. Prior to Clarify, Donna spent six years at Sun Microsystems in marketing and management, responsible for networking and communication products and the operating system. Donna holds a bachelors from Stanford University in Industrial Engineering and an MBA from Harvard University.

Warren Stringer, CEO, Muse.com. Warren Stringer has over twenty-three years experience in conceiving companies, developing intellectual property, and producing software. He is the primary inventor of Electronic Shrink-wrap (US Pat. 5341429), Virtual Install (US Pat. 5642417), and has designed, coded, or provided technical multimedia expertise for Microsoft, Lotus, Borland, Symantec, Computer Associates, Forbes Magazine and Oglivy & Mather Direct.

Akash Argarwal, CEO, iTheo.com. iTheo.com is taking a leadership role in evolving art on the Web. It is the first online marketplace to deliver business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce solutions to emerging visual artists. Prior to co-founding the company, Akash was director of Business Development at ValiCert, Inc., where he was responsible for identifying and aligning strategic alliances. Previously, he worked as senior product manager for Oracle Corporation, managing a $100 million product line and consulting for numerous e-commerce startups. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Computer Science (with honors) from the University of Kent at Canterbury, England.

Raj Atluru joined Draper Fisher Jurvetson after three years as a Venture Capitalist with TL Ventures where he focused on early stage Internet business-to-business services and applications companies. Prior to TL Ventures, Raj worked for three years in the Leveraged Finance Group and Asian Investment Banking Group of Credit Suisse First Boston, in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. Raj graduated from Stanford University with B.S. and M.S. degrees in Environmental Engineering, and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Raj currently serves on the boards of Digitalwork.com, the Internet's leading aggregator of small business services, Syncra Systems, an application services provider in the inter-enterprise supply chain and collaboration field, and Strategic Weather Services, a company providing long range weather forecasting data and planning applications for major manufacturers, retailers and agri-businesses.

Natalie H. Vania - Founder, Arshiya Ventures, Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellow, Past Stanford faculty, Silicon Valley Venture Enthusiast.