Monday, July 25, 2005

Community

Big tent attitude permeates Asian-focused trade groups

By Patricia Resende

When Biogen Idec Inc. and Elan Inc. recently pulled the plug on a promising new drug to fight multiple sclerosis following the death of a patient, just months after Merck & Co. pulled its blockbuster pain killer Vioxx off shelves, it sent the companies' stock prices downhill. It also placed the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration under the microscope.

The promise of new drugs such as Biogen's Tysabri and its withdrawal is just one topic that will be discussed by researchers, scientists and executives at the Monte Jade Science and Technology Association of New England's annual meeting.

"Biotechnology in the post-genomic era," is the topic for the meeting, set to be held Aug. 19 at the conference center in the New Research Building at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Thomas Finneran, president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council is on the roster to keynote the event and executives including Biogen Idec's Martin Scott and William Hayes are also part of the program.

Staying on top of issues facing those in the biotech community and bringing together executives and scientists from Taiwanese descent has always been part of the association's effort.

Launched in 1992, Monte Jade New England is one of 15 Global Monte Jade chapters scattered throughout the world that acts as a portal between the Taiwanese government and industry to connect with industry counterparts in the United States.

Monte Jade, named after the highest mountain in Taiwan was started by scientists and researchers from Taiwan who wanted to network locally and share ideas with people who had common interests.

Historically, the association in New England was geared toward information technology, but as other associations such as the Massachusetts Network Communications Council and the Massachusetts Software Council have shifted focus, so has MJNE.

Jeng-Shin Lee, chairman of MJNE and deputy director of the Harvard Gene Therapy Initiative, an organization founded in 1998 to promote use of gene transfer technology, said the association has had to shift its industry focus to reflect the economic trend.

"We have gone through some soul searching in recent years in trying to define our identity," Lee said.

MJNE now plans to mix IT with biotech while fostering team building and entrepreneurship.

"We're just finding ways to mix these expertises together," he said.

The group hosts monthly seminars on various topics of entrepreneurship to stimulate discussion among people, whether they are from academia or the private sector.

Although most of its 200-plus members are of Taiwanese descent, Lee said the group has spent less time on reaching out to a specific population.

"As the group grew we started networking and bring in people who we know," Lee said. "Eventually the expertise of people started to broaden as well as their backgrounds. We are no longer limited to those of Taiwanese descent.

"Now, we are wide open and welcome anyone who shares our same vision."

Monte Jade is not the only association in town originally formed to target the Asian population and then shift to include all industry professionals, regardless of backgrounds.

The New England Chinese Information and Network Association (NECINA), founded nearly 10 years ago by networking computing professionals, has also in theory dropped the "C" from the association and has opened up its focus from just telecom to software, networking, semiconductor, venture capital, and biotech.

Monte Jade considers itself a peer association to NECINA and the two groups plan to join forces for NECINA's 2006 Business Plan Competiton.

Daryl Luk, president of NECINA, said the group aims to foster entrepreneurship and leadership and serves as a bridge between American high tech companies and those in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

"Our members are mainly Chinese but we are not limiting to just Chinese because our focus is to include all professionals in IT in all of the New England area," Luk said. "Our mission is really to promote leadership and entrepreneurship and, second, provide NECINA as a platform to facilitate information exchange and promote business opportunities."

Luk came from Hong Kong with a mechanical engineering degree from Taiwan National Chung Kung University and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University. The executive is also director of product applications development at Needham-based Parametric Technology Corp. (PTC).

NECINA plans to organize three to four major conferences covering various technologies or business topics, according to Luk. This year, the group is organizing an Open Source Business Conference, an event focused on opportunities between China and India, and other events on various topics including RFID (radio frequency identification), wireless technology, and health care IT.

This coming year is a special year for NECINA, which will be celebrating its 10th anniversary.

A third, and the oldest group in the Bay State focused on connecting technology professionals in the United States and China is the New England Association of Chinese Professionals.

NEACP is in its 26th year of operation and is considered the largest.

So how do you choose which to join?

"The three of them are more or less the same," said William Lee, president and founder of eMembrane, a nano-biotech company in Providence, R.I. "My thought is that MJNE is smaller in size and (therefore) easier to manage. Communication between members is much more dynamic compared to NECINA because of its size."

Still, William Lee said his choice to join MJNE was because he knew Jeng-Shin Lee and knew of his efforts to promote entrepreneurship within the organization and reach a younger population.

As for expanding outside its target population, William Lee, who was born and raised in Malaysia but speaks Chinese and four other languages, said it's always good to expand and to have interracial and international members in an association.

Patricia Resende is a freelance writer based in Bristol, R.I.