Internet Pioneer Bob Metcalfe to Keynote StartupCamp Event at ITEXPO West in Austin

Ethernet Inventor, 3Com Founder and Metcalfe’s Law Author to Headline Early Stage Startup Night

NORWALK, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TMC and EMBRASE Business Consulting announced today that Internet pioneer, venture capitalist and professor Bob Metcalfe will keynote the fourth installment of StartupCamp, Communications Edition, collocated with ITEXPO West, on September 14 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas. StartupCamp4: Comms Edition is sponsored by Gold Sponsors: Rackspace Hosting, StarView, Skype, and by open tok™ by tokbox and Twilio.

“Securing Bob as a keynote speaker is a real coup for the community.”

StartupCamp is a unique forum for early-stage entrepreneurs to pitch their communications offerings to a discriminating audience of potential investors, media, bloggers and industry influencers, who gather for an evening of rich networking. Recent editions have all been standing room only, with more than 500 people crowding into StartupCamp3 in Miami this past February.

Metcalfe’s career is a study in market-changing innovation. Metcalfe did pioneering work in computer networking at MIT while in his early 20s, and received his doctorate in computer science from Harvard University in 1973. That same year, he invented Ethernet while working at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He is also renowned as the author of “Metcalfe’s Law.”

As an entrepreneur, he founded 3Com Corporation in 1979, serving at various times until 1990 as Chairman, CEO, division general manager and vice president of engineering, sales and marketing. The billion-dollar plus networking company went on to become part of HP, in 2010.

Metcalfe joined Polaris as a general partner in 2001, and serves on boards of various companies in the portfolio, and more recently joined the University of Texas at Austin as a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of Innovation.

“Hearing it straight from a ‘Founding Father’ like Bob Metcalfe will be an invaluable experience for those setting out to build the next big thing, but equally for those simply trying to stay ahead in their existing enterprises,” said long-time communications innovator and EMBRASE partner Thomas Howe. “Securing Bob as a keynote speaker is a real coup for the community.”

The fast-paced, “ready, set, pitch” format of StartupCamp will offer five pre-selected early-stage companies the opportunity to validate their pitches in real time, and network with potential investors and partners. Companies developing offerings that enable or are enabled by communications technologies such as voice, SMS and video, that are under three years old and are angel or privately funded, should apply for a ‘pitch slot’ here.

About EMBRASE:

EMBRASE is a boutique consulting firm that provides positioning, corporate development and go-to-market services to companies in communications sector. With its extensive expertise and knowledge in emerging communication and telephony markets, EMBRASE has assisted a cross-section of communications solution and service providers in closing funding, entering new markets and growing revenues.

About TMC:

Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) is a global, integrated media company that helps clients build communities in print, in person, and online. TMC publishes the Customer Interaction Solutions, INTERNET TELEPHONY, Unified Communications, NGN and InfoTECH Spotlight magazines. TMC is the producer of ITEXPO, the world’s leading B2B communications event. TMCnet.com, which is read by two million unique visitors each month, is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries. In addition, TMC runs multiple industry events: 4G Wireless Evolution; Smart Grid Summit; M2M Evolution; Cloud Communications Expo; SIP Tutorial; VIPeering; Business Video Expo; Regulatory 2.0 Workshop, DevCon5: The HTML5 Development Conference; CVx; AstriCon; StartupCamp; MSPAlliance MSPWorld and more. Visit TMC Events for a complete listing and further information.