Flowchips

I was first of all surprised to see an IEEE invite for a presentation from a bio-technology company. I decided to attend the presentation since it raised many questions in me as to how and what EE can contribute in a bio-technology venture. I also thought that the Flowchips company must be a big entrepreneurial success and that they want to share what they have achieved.

it took a while to search down the street where the company is located. There was no sign nor even a bill-board in the name of Flowchips anywhere in the vicinity of that address. But since the address was too clearly printed in the pamphlet to be a hoax, I went inside TGM enterprises building since thats the company sitting in the address of Flowchips.

the presentation was arranged in a small conference room which can seat about 6 people. This may be one of the war rooms for a typical start-up firm. The organizer, naturally, did not expect more than a handful of 5 to attend this after-work, dinner-time presentation. He was pulling chairs from other rooms as the small room started getting crowded. Around 30 EE guys from different companies in and around Chandler/Tempe/Phoenix turned up.

the most stunning part of the presentation was the presenter himself. When I read the pamphlet, I had imagined a 40 year old IIT techy geek who has had a start-up brainwave in bio-technology and ended up tasting success unassuming; that he is using it as a recruitment tactic; blah blah. Tilak Jain, the founder manager of Flowchips, happened to be a 25 year old PhD student at ASU !!!!! Now, believe me. It was tough to believe for me too. My eyes and ears cannot fail so blatantly. And so, I believed that he is happening.

Tilak went onto explain how he started Flowchips. He studied EE at undergrad and got interested in bio and is now doing PhD in bio-engg at ASU. He won an entrepreneurship competition at his univ and as a result, got some funding and backing from univ to see his idea take shape.

he bombasted us with his ideas for bio-chip micro-arraying and asked us feedback on how to implement them and also for new ideas. He extended his hand for joint technology and finance support. It was truly a fluent and thoroughly practiced show. Kudos, Tilak.

TGM enterprises is another small-customer oriented electronic packaging and testing start-up by another brilliant business-techy person. He has given some space in his facility for Flowchips to take root. Tilak and TGM guy gave a tour of the facility there. Tilak has managed to build a very basic set up with only the minimum bio-tech apparatus(incubator, mini-clean room, bio-chip array scanner, etc) . He had hunted for them and purchased them from the throw-away yard-sale of bigger companies. He told us he bought a machine that costs $20,000 for a price of $600 !!!!

what more can I say about this ambitious and hard working entrepreneur and his venture. he made me feel nothing within 5 minutes of talking. Do visit http://www.flowchips.com/ . Extending all my support, whatever that can be. Congrats and good luck , for you have a long way to go Tilak.