Invited Talk
Friday 23 September 2011, 12:00 - 13:00
The Random Walk down Venture Capital Land
Dr. Luís Miguel Campos
Chief Executive Officer / Head of R&D Department
PDM Group, Portugal
Download MONAMI 2011 Invited Talk Slides
Reference: L. M. Campos, "The Random Walk down Venture Capital Land", Invited talk in the Third International ICST Conference on Mobile Networks And Management (MONAMI'11), Aveiro, Portugal, 21-23 September, 2011.
Abstract
We live at a remarkable era, where the confluence of two distinct factors, namely, the ubiquitousness of mobile devices and uninterrupted network connectivity makes it possible for the first time in the history of mankind to connect all human beings at all times. This will change in unpredictable ways, the current models used to finance companies, regardless of size and geographical location.
In this talk, we will describe the different paradigms to entrepreneurship on both sides of the Atlantic, both on a conceptual level as well through a set of concrete examples experienced by the speaker over the last 20 years. We analyse the advantages, short term and long term, of each of the paradigms, highlighting both, success stories as well as (many) unsuccessful ones.
When a new technology emerges, multiple incarnations suddenly appear (think of the "Cambrian Explosion"). Over time, some will disappear (think of the "Ordovician-Silurian extinction event"). Some will merge. And when the dust finally settles, only a few of the original incarnations will survive (think of "Intel / ARM", as opposed to all other extinct architectures).
There is no "sufficient condition" for success to take place, but there is at least one "necessary condition" for it to happen. To be there! Based on the evidence, we speculate that unlike common expectations, technological success, both for Investors and Entrepreneurs, depends on chance as much as any other factor.
Biography
Dr. Luís Miguel Campos has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, both from the academia and business sides. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the PDMFC Group (www.pdmfc.com), where he leads the Research and Development department and supervises the launch of new products. He has helped launch eight start-ups between 2001 and 2010. Some have grown to over 10 MEuros in less than five years. Some have failed. All have taught him something. He worked for the European Commission as an expert evaluator in the area of Information and Communications Technologies within the European Research Framework Program. He participated and/or led six European Research Projects in the last four years, some of which have resulted in successful products which are now available in the marketplace.
Dr. Luís Miguel Campos received his bachelor in Electric and Electronic Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico from Lisbon Portugal and his Masters and Ph.D. in Computer Science rom University of California Irvine. His research background is in Grid Computing and Autonomous Software Agents. He authored over 25 research publications during his very-short years of academic work. Dr Luis Miguel Campos is a recipient of both the Fulbright Scholarship (US), University of California (US) and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal).