Bangalore: Ram Shriram, the angel investor who counseled Google's founders during the earliest days, and Managing Partner, Sherpalo and Board member, Google will be delivering keynote address in Headstart and Compute 2008 conference to be held from 18th to 20th January at the JN Tata complex, IISc, Bangalore.

The event is being organized by the Association for Computing Machinery's Bangalore chapter (ACM), a widely recognized premier membership organization for computing professionals, delivering resources that advance computing as a science, and Kick Start, an association of entrepreneurs and technology enthusiasts in Bangalore.

Headstart is a unique kind of forum that will bring together all the key players in the innovation lifecycle like academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, marketers, large companies, venture capitalists and customers, which is essential to accelerate the pace of innovation in India. Also, 100 corporates, 200 entrepreneurs and investors, 1000 high profile and select attendees will discuss about how India is driving the growth of a silicon Valley like ecosystem in India, especially in Bangalore. Compute 2008 is ACM technical conference, which will host 400 top professionals who will discuss on various topics like service oriented computing, High performance computing in distributed environments, Information management, and Pervasive systems etc.

In India some of young Innovators might have breakthrough ideas in their minds. But they may not know how to materialize it. They may not have access to technology or perhaps they are finding it difficult to explore the opportunities to make it a successful marketable product. Also these future technology leaders are missing the link to get connected to the funding world to materialize their venture. Obviously, These are the pragmatic challenges for any budding or prospective entrepreneur. Hence, a common forum to fill the gap between entrepreneurs or innovators and other key players in the innovation lifecycle is surely the need of the hour.

The question comes to mind whenever Innovation and entrepreneurship is discussed is where are we now? Kallol Borah, founder of Aumega Networks and one of the members of organizing committee said, "Currently India accounts for only $25 Billion market of the total $1 Trillion software and services market. India is still lagging in research area. India produces only 40 PhDs papers when compared to U.S. where it is 2000 and in China it is 3000. Add to that is India has chunk of only $1.3 Billion as VC funds compared to US, where it is $25 Billion. Furthermore, Industry funding for research in India is mere $0.4Million(Rs.1.24 Crore) in IIT Bombay, while it's $150Million in MIT, in U.S. So, clearly this shows that India has a long road ahead to reach the pinnacle."

Speaking about how these kind of conferences help in bringing changes C.Mohan, an IBM fellow, and one of the key members of organizing committee said, "Techies need not become a business planner or manager to move up in his career. He can also stay technical and create new things. The events like this will definitely going to ignite young minds around us."