Advance Asia 50 Summit on in Shanghai

ANZA Technet CEO Viki Forrest will be in attendance at the Advance Asia 50 Summit in Shanghai, March 30-31.

The Summit will play host to 50 established and emerging Australian leaders and alumni from Australia’s universities living and working in Asia. They will meet to exchange ideas and seek practical solutions to the challenges facing the region, and identify opportunities for Australia and the region.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will welcome delegates via video. The Summit will include workshops on important themes such as sustainability, innovation, the economy and thought leadership.

Look for Viki’s Twitter updates from Shanghai. Follow her on Twitter at: @anzatechnet

Australian Government Pledges $83M to Save Tech Innovators

Big story out of Australia, reported in The Australian IT section — the Rudd government will inject up to $83 million into the local venture capital pipeline as a stop gap measure to try and prevent promising tech companies going under due to the global financial crisis. The Innovation Investment Follow On fund is aimed at supporting companies developing technology in areas such as ICT, biotech and clean energy at risk from VC capital drying up due to the economic crisis. Read it in full here.

SDForum’s Global Open Source Colloquium, March 23

SDForum’s Global Open Source Colloquium is a half-day event to address the evolving dynamics and fortunes of open source with speakers and panelists from around the world.

It will be held Monday, March 23, 11:30 am – 6:15 pm at the Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery St., San Francisco.

ANZA members can attend for $85, using the code Open2009 when registering here.

Come learn more about:

• Government initiatives in the US, Europe and Asia
• New and different business models for Open Source
• Global challenges and opportunities

Speakers include Larry Augustin, Andrew Aitken (Olliance) and Sam Ramji (Microsoft). Panel discussions will focus on “Government Initiatives: Opportunities and Challenges”, “Is There Still Open in Open Source?” and a venture panel.

For more information and registration, click here.

Travellr in Private Beta

Travellr — the service that allows travellers to connect with like-minded locals and past visitors to get the most insightful, relevant, and personalized answers possible — is in private beta. If you are a traveller looking for a unique experience, craving local knowledge and enjoy sharing what you know about a place, then this is the kind of service you won’t want to be without when planning a trip and when on the road.

Sign up for the private beta by clicking here.

Travellr is a 2008 ANZA Gateway to the US company from Hobart with global plans.

Can You Buy a Silicon Valley?

Paul Graham has an in-depth essay on his blog on what it would take to start a Silicon Valley somewhere else — anywhere else. With recent buzz about the need for a “Silicon Valley” in Australia, this essay says it will take more than local VCs/angels living in an area who are willing to “give back” to the community, good universities and a decent climate where nerds will “feel at home”.

What will it take? Money — lots of it — but not so much that it can’t happen in Sydney or Melbourne or Portland, Oregon for that matter. According to Graham, “For the price of a football stadium, any town that was decent to live in could make itself one of the biggest startup hubs in the world.”

And how will this work? Read more.