Kamran Elahian

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.