Recent Trends and Outlook for Entrepreneurship in SE Asia

Speakers

Dennis Fernandez

Managing Partner, FERNANDEZ & ASSOCIATES, LLP

Dennis Fernandez has over twenty-years experience in Silicon Valley and High-Tech Industry, as a patent prosecutor and intellectual property litigator, a venture capitalist, and an engineering manager. He specializes in developing offensive and defensive patent strategies for start-up electronics, software and biotech companies and their investors.

Dennis serves as strategic advisor to leading venture capital firms, including Sevin Rosen, Venrock, Charles River Ventures, and Walden International. Representative clients include Marvell Technology, SiRF Technology, Ayala Corporation, Stanford University, and Northwestern University, as well as various start-up companies acquired by Cisco, Broadcom, Ciena, and Cadence Design Systems.

He also serves on the Editorial Board of the Nanotechnology Law & Business Journal, the Board of Directors of the Association of Patent Law Firms, and the Science and Technology Advisory Council. Previously Dennis served on a consultancy with the United Nations Development Programme on Asian economic development.

Dennis is also an inventor of several U.S. and international patents in the areas of digital television, sensor networks, and bioinformatics. He has an Electrical Engineering degree from Northwestern University, a law degree from Suffolk University Law School, and is a Registered U.S. Patent Attorney.

Madhu Iyer

Advisor to Startups and VCs & Former Chief Data Officer, Go-Jek

Madhu Iyer is a seasoned start up executive, who has been in roles spanning from being on the board of directors at a unicorn startup to being a Chief Data officer. She consults for VCs and private equity firms to advise on their portfolio investments. She also regularly mentors startups on their product, growth and data strategy.

Until recently, she was the Chief Data Officer at a Khosla funded Series B startup in San Francisco Bay Area, in the real estate technology space. She built the marketing, sales ops, data science, analytics and data engineering teams. She also focused on building innovation into the DNA of the startup, exploring and expanding into blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Prior to that, she was the Chief Data Officer and on the board of directors at Go-Jek, an Indonesian transport, logistics and payments startup classified as a Unicorn of South East Asia. She setup the Singapore operations of the company.

Prior to Madhu’s move to SE Asia, she was part of the founding team at Intuit (Mountain View, CA) for their Quickbooks data driven SME lending platform (QuickBooks Financing). The program grew to more than $300MM in SME fundings under her leadership in data.

She has multiple patents filed with USPTO in the fintech space (alternative lending and credit scoring).

Madhu started her career as a senior data scientist with a leading science and engineering think tank in Menlo Park, CA.  She has lived and worked in many different countries (including Australia, SE Asia, but primarily SF Bay Area).

Christina Laskowski

President, Science and Technology Advisory Council Silicon Valley

Christina Laskowski serves as a strategic advisor and management consultant to consumer and technology companies. Her background includes 16 years as a boutique investment and M&A banker where she helped raise more than $2.0 billion serving more than 100 clients; and three years in equity research as a member of the founding branded consumer research team at Hambrecht & Quist, one of the original premier boutique investment banks in San Francisco.Currently, Ms. Laskowski also serves as President of STAC (Science & Technology Advisory Council) Silicon Valley, a 501(c)3 focused on driving economic growth in the Philippines and US through holistic entrepreneurship. After a fulfilling career in investment banking, Christina engaged the reigns full time and in 2009 transformed STAC SV to a strategic advisory organization with proprietary services.  She presented a five year strategic plan to the Philippine President in 2010 outlining steps to cultivate the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Her leadership was instrumental in creating a collaborative community of stakeholders resulting in a country wide movement to support tech entrepreneurs at the local level and the launch of the first three tech angel funds in the country in 2012.Christina is also an active member of the community. She serves as an advisor to The Hinabi Project, an advisory board member to USF’s entrepreneurial program and led the most successful College Night program for NUSD in Marin County. Previously, Christina was regional board member to Women’s Initiative for Self Employment, a non-profit focused on transitioning women from welfare to self–employment.

In 2010, the Philippine President presented Christina with the Golden Heart Award, Rank of Grand Officer.  The same year she served as a Balik Scientist (return Scientist) awardee of the Philippine Dept. of Science & Technology. In 2011, FWN recognized her as one of the “100 Most Influential Filipinas” in the United States.