FROM BIG TECH TO STARTUPS: TALENT CONNECT

The tectonic shifts in the tech space particularly with regard to hiring and market sentiment have been unlike anything we’ve ever seen in the past 2 decades. The hiring freeze by Big Tech presents both a challenge but also opportunities, including exploring the possibility of working for startups (many of which are still hiring) or tinkering with ideas to launch one’s own startup.

However, the shift is not a small one and comes with quite a few crucial considerations. So we’re bringing together Big Tech talents, founders from startups actively hiring, and panelists who’ve made the leap from Big Tech to the startup scene for an evening of creativity, inspiration, and insightful conversations.

For Hiring Startups to register: https://airtable.com/shrWZ6DKdr3CgWZdf

ITINERARY
6:00 pm : Check-In/ Light & Easy
6:30 pm : Panel Kickoff
7:15 pm : Short Pitches by Hiring Startups
7:45 pm : Happy Hour

​*If you're a founder of a startup actively hiring and would like to pitch your startup to the attendees as well as have a booth during the mixer, you can fill in this quick form: https://airtable.com/shrWZ6DKdr3CgWZdf

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We are excited to meet you in less than a day @ Hacker Dojo with our amazing panelists moderated by Carin Gan from CoffeeSpace to talk about:

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- Personal journey into startup.
- Advice for people wanting to build a startup: Challenges and learnings from building a startup.
- Advice for people wanting to join a startup: How to evaluate startups, what should they know etc.
- Market sentiment and trends for startups in the upcoming year.
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Panelist 01 - Ashwani Wason, Very Good Security is an amazing enterprising engineering leader who, by symbiosis of Strategy, People, and Technology, has consistently realized vision of startups, medium-sized private, and multi-billion dollar public companies, building and growing teams across multiple geographies, for $100MM product-lines deployed worldwide.

Panelist 02 - Sean Murphy, SKMurphy, Inc. helps technology firms with new product introduction, focusing on early customers and early revenue. He founded SKMurphy, Inc. in 2003 and has worked with bootstrapping startups for the last two decades. Prior to that he held technical and management positions in engineering and marketing at firms like Cisco System, Advanced Micro Devices, 3Com and several startups. Sean founded the Bootstrappers Breakfast in 2006 to facilitate roundtable discussions for entrepreneurs to have serious conversations about growing their startups.

Panelist 03 - Samuel Ekpe, Grupa 3x founder with background in engineering, product and strategy. Since age 13,he has been driven by technology and the power to improve the lives of people. One thing that drives him is innovation and building truly revolutionary products that moves the world forward. He wakes up everyday thinking about how to build and empower people to build the next big thing.

Panelist 04 - Puneet Kohli, Careerflow is an early-stage startup builder for AI-enabled tools to help job seekers land their dream jobs faster. He has a long history working in technology starting with building mobile games and apps for the BlackBerry 10 platform, moving onto working in large firms like a NY-based hedge fund, Amazon, and recently as a Sr Machine Learning Engineer at Apple. Apart from work, Puneet has keen interest in mentorship activities, public speaking, video games, and participating in hackathons!