Kamran Elahian
Happiness is to have dreams, success is to make them come true!
Team Member Profile
Kamran Elahian, a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist, and a "Global Instigator for Good" will take you on a journey as he shares his successes and failures, “celebrating the art of failure” and studying in-depth the critical elements of iTechpreneurship™, investment in high tech, and the effects of positive change that shape society’s future.
Experienced and reputable entrepreneur Kamran Elahian is currently chair and co-founder of Global Catalyst Partners (GCP), an international technology oriented venture capital firm. He is co-chair of UNGAID, The Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID) - a United Nations global forum that comprehensively addresses cross-cutting issues related to ICT in development.
He founded Schools- Online in 1996 (now part of humanitarian charity Relief International) a charity that works to bring the Internet to underprivileged schools in over 36 countries. In almost 3 decades as a high-tech entrepreneur, Kamran has co-founded 10 companies: CAE Systems (acquired by Tektronix for $75M) Cirrus Logic (IPO at $150M) Momenta, NeoMagic (IPO at $300M) PlanetWeb (acquired by MTI in 2009) Centillium Communications (IPO at $700M) Actelis Networks (a broadband communications systems company) Informative, Entopia, Greenfield Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems in 2006).
Kamran is also a board member of Actelis Networks, Beceem Communications, iKoa and SoundHound. Kamran has an educational background in science, having first achieved his BSc Computer Science and Mathematics and then a MSc in Computer Graphics from the University of Utah. In 2013, Kamran was a mentor for Unreasonable at Sea, a tech accelerator for social entrepreneurs founded by Unreasonable Group, Semester at Sea, and Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
- 1.
How has being in Harbour.Space affected the way you look at education?
As a young boy, I would ask my relatives “Why are you so content with just socializing with one another? Why aren’t you doing something to change the world?” I knew that I had a global role to play and that my journey in life would lead me to broader horizons
- 2.
Why did you join Harbour.Space?
People ask me why I care so much about making a difference in the world. The reality is that the impact of war and violence on the last two generations of our families have led us to believe that if we can empower people through the use of the Internet and communication technologies, we have a genuine chance to give this generation and the generations of the future the knowledge to appreciate and celebrate our differences. Ultimately, my dream is a world without war. It is the only way to bend the arc of human civilization toward unification.
