Plugging into Asian Networks
BY K. OANH HA
Mercury News

Twice a month for the last few months, a group of 20 or so Asian-Americans—including a Japanese broker, a Korean high-tech consultant, a Singaporean entrepreneur, a Vietnamese venture capitalist and a Chinese banker—has come together to brainstorm, hoping to build a rare pan-Asian coalition among high-tech professionals.

The group, Asia-Silicon Valley Connection or ASVC (www.asvc.org), hopes to be the bridge that will bring together local Asian-Americans and Asians abroad with the dealmakers, power brokers and money wielders in Silicon Valley.

The group is just one of a number of new formal and informal networks aimed at building a formidable pan-Asian bloc in a valley where more than a quarter of high-tech companies are led by a Chinese or Indian immigrant chief executive, according to Dun and Bradstreet.

These younger-generation Silicon Valley heavyweights are proof of the maxim that in fast-forward Silicon Valley, what really matters is where you're heading, not where you're from. It's an emerging attitude that's becoming prevalent among young Asian and Asian-Americans in the area, who are intent on setting aside ethnic and national differences and focusing more on the global picture.

``This is the United Nations of Silicon Valley,'' said Porter Wong, a Chinese entrepreneur and investor who's a founding member of ASVC. ``For the younger generation today, where you came from isn't important. Politics isn't important. What's important is your ideas and your skills.''

Khoa Do, a 29-year-old lawyer at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, had the same idea when he recently co-hosted a lavish Spago dinner to hook up Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs with mainstream venture capitalists and investment bankers.

``The New Economy is global,'' said Do, a Vietnamese-American. ``Why put walls around us, like ethnicity?''

The trend toward building high-tech business networks among Asians of nationalities long separated by differences in language and culture mirrors the national movement to unite them politically.

``Here in California, we're at the cutting edge of building a multicultural democracy,'' said Paul Fong, political science professor at Evergreen Valley College. ``You're going to see just about everybody attempting to build coalitions in the next few years, especially Asian Pacific Americans.''

Two decades ago students and foreign workers from Taiwan, China and India came to Silicon Valley to meet the nascent high-tech industry's demand for labor. But the area's diversity seemed to congregate in blocs. The immigrant professionals networked with others of the same ethnicity, creating groups like Monte Jade (for Taiwanese), TiE (the Indus Entrepreneurs, for Indo-Americans), the Chinese Professionals Association and the Korean-American Professional Society.

The reasons why such organizations exist are simple: Members share common languages and culture. In addition, in many Asian cultures, business is conducted on a personal and informal level.

``As you have more immigrants coming in, they tend to form things based on their own background because they feel more comfortable with one another and speak the same language,'' said Lester Lee, a founding member of Monte Jade in 1990.

In contrast, today's young Asian professionals rally around a common culture—tech. They were most likely raised in the United States, prefer to speak English and consider themselves bicultural. ``There's only so much you can do within your own ethnic group,'' said Lou Nguyen, president and founder of ASVC. ``But with all the Asian presence in Silicon Valley, just think how many times over our power and strength can be magnified if we work together.''

Attitudes similar to that are fostering new alliances, sometimes despite overwhelming historical and political ethnic tensions. The NBI Chinese American Computer Association, founded in 1988 to network Taiwanese entrepreneurs in the computer industry, set a historic precedent when the Taiwanese and Chinese governments both sent delegations to its August conference.

The group is trying to reach out to include members from mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Eventually, it wants to include members of all Asian nationalities, said Mark Shir, the group's honorary chairman. A year and a half ago, the group's members were nearly all Taiwanese. Now, 15 percent are non-Taiwanese. Monte Jade also now welcomes other Asians, said Lee. Chinese, Japanese and Koreans have joined the group.

Asia-Silicon Valley Connection hopes to have a key leader from every ethnic high-tech business organization sit on its board. The group is hosting its first networking event Wednesday and a conference in late October.

Already, prominent Asians have signed on. Alfred Chuang, founder of software company BEA Systems, tennis star Michael Chang and Jonathan Lee, founder of software company Corio Inc. are charter members. Pehong Chen of BroadVision Inc., along with Deepak Kamra of venture firm Canaan Partners, will be keynote speakers at the conference.

For Corio's Lee, a Korean-American who identifies himself as being Asian-American foremost, this is the first organization of any kind that he's joined since immigrating to Silicon Valley in 1974. He's especially interested in mentoring young entrepreneurs, since he didn't have any Asian- or Korean-American mentors.

``As an Asian, you're living in a place where you're not discounted, not looked down upon and there's this great technological opportunity,'' Lee said. ``We have to rise together and grab onto that opportunity.''

And coalescing all the different Asian ethnic associations isn't the end game. Many of these new networks, including ASVC, have two goals: to encourage Asian professionals of different ethnicities to work with one another and to put Asian members in touch with the power and money of Silicon Valley, a world that is still predominantly white male.

When Do of Wilson Sonsini co-hosted the Spago dinner two weeks ago with another Vietnamese-American, John Pham of software company Acropolis Systems, they wanted to help Asian executives get face time with mainstream venture capitalists and investment banking firms such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Crosspoint Venture Partners and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

``The venture capital community is very tight,'' Do said. ``Getting an introduction is half the battle.''

Henry Levan, founder of Carshopnet.com, an online exchange for automobile parts, had his first contact with venture capitalists at the Spago dinner. He's arranging to meet with a couple of them to talk about his business plan. ``There were a lot of powerful people there,'' said Levan, a Vietnamese American. ``Not everybody gets an opportunity to be in the same room with them.''

For more info, please see www.asvc.org .