Entrepreneur and Philanthropist Desh Deshpande to Receive NACCE's Lifetime Achievement Award
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
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Posted by: Jeanne Yocum
SPRINGFIELD,
MA – OCTOBER 9, 2013 -- The National Association for Community
College Entrepreneurship (NACCE), the nation’s leading
organization focused on promoting entrepreneurship through community colleges,
has announced that Massachusetts entrepreneur Gururaj "Desh” Deshpande, of Sycamore Networks
and the Deshpande
Center for Technological Innovation at MIT, will receive
its Lifetime Achievement Award. The award presentation will be made at NACCE’s
upcoming 11th Annual Conference October 13-16 in Charlotte, NC. Dr. Deshpande
will accept the award from NACCE President and CEO Heather Van Sickle; NACCE is
headquartered in Springfield, MA.
"The NACCE Lifetime Achievement award is
presented to an individual who has achieved entrepreneurial success and played
a pivotal role in the community through involvement and support of civic and
philanthropic activities,” said Van Sickle. "While building a series of
successful technology businesses, Dr. Deshpande founded the Deshpande Center for
Technological Innovation, an organization dedicated to fostering innovation. Through
the Deshpande
Foundation, he provided seed money to start the Center,
which empowers researchers to bring innovative technologies from the lab to the
marketplace in terms of breakthrough products and new companies. He has also been
a major contributor to many entrepreneurial philanthropic causes throughout the
world, including the Merrimack Valley Sandbox Lawrence/Lowell, Massachusetts,
in which two NACCE member colleges participate.”
Dr. Deshpande grew up in India where he studied
Electrical Engineering. In the early 1970s, he immigrated to North America and earned
his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees. In 1984, the Deshpande family moved to
Massachusetts where he founded a number of technology companies, including Cascade
Communications, whose products were important in routing the early Internet. In
1997, the company sold for $3.7 billion. The venture capitalist and entrepreneur
is best known for co-founding the Chelmsford-based Sycamore Networks, an Internet
equipment manufacturer. Dr. Deshpande has also created several other
companies including: Curata, Airvana, A123 Systems, Tejas Networks, Sandstone
Capital, and the Sparta Group. In 2010, Deshpande was appointed to co-chair a
National Council to support President Obama’s innovation and entrepreneurship
strategy.
As a life-member of
the MIT Corporation, Dr. Deshpande’s generous donations have made possible
MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. Since 2002, DCTI has
reviewed 500 proposals and funded more than 90 projects with over $11 million
in grants. The Deshpande Foundation
also has established three other centers to encourage entrepreneurship: the Deshpande
Center for Social Entrepreneurship in India, the Merrimack Valley Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox in Lowell/Lawrence, MA, and the Pond-Deshpande
Center at the University of New Brunswick in Canada.
The
Merrimack Valley Sandbox (MV Sandbox), to which Dr. Deshpande has committed $1
million annually over five years, works to strengthen an ecosystem that
promotes entrepreneurship and leadership in Lowell and Lawrence, MA. The MV
Sandbox coordinates activities between Middlesex Community College, Northern
Essex Community College, UMass-Lowell, Merrimack College, community
non-profits, and the Merrimack Valley business community. The "Campus Catalyst”
program within the MV Sandbox provides entrepreneurial support to students at
both community colleges.
About NACCE
The
National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) is an
organization of educators, administrators, presidents and entrepreneurs,
focused on inciting entrepreneurship in their community and on their campus.
NACCE has two main goals: 1. Empower the college to approach the business of
running a community college with an entrepreneurial mindset, and 2. Grow the
community college’s role in supporting job creation and entrepreneurs in their
local ecosystem.
Founded
in 2002, NACCE is at the heart of the "entrepreneurship movement.” Through
membership, an annual conference and exhibition, regional summits, a quarterly
journal, monthly webinars, a dynamic list-serv, and training resources, NACCE
serves as the hub for the dissemination and integration of knowledge and
successful practices regarding entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurship
education and student business incubation. These initiatives and resulting
actions advance economic prosperity in the communities served by its member
colleges. NACCE is a founding member of the White House-led Startup America
Partnership.
For more information, visit http://www.nacce.com.
Follow
us at @NACCE, like us on facebook.com/NACCE, and join our LinkedIn group.
Stats
NACCE has over 300 member colleges,
representing nearly 2,000 members and approximately 465,000 students.
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