Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande
Founder and Chairman
Sycamore Networks, Inc.

Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande is co-founder and chairman of Sycamore Networks, Inc.

Dr. Deshpande co-founded Sycamore Networks in 1998 with the vision of creating next-generation optical networking technology that will revolutionize the backbone of the public network. Sycamore has already received numerous awards. The company was named one of the Top 25 Hot Start Ups (Data Communications), Hot 100 Private Companies (UPSIDE), Top 100 Companies of the Electronic Economy (Red Herring), and both Cool Companies for 1999 and Top 10 Picks for 2000 (Fortune).

Sycamore's products received the SuperQuest Award at SUPERCOMM '99 with Williams Communications; the Communications Equipment Award in the Top Ten Hottest Technologies for 1999 from UPSIDE; and the Top Ten Hottest Technologies from Telecommunications.

Prior to co-founding Sycamore Networks, Dr. Deshpande was founder and chairman of Cascade Communications. Between 1991 and 1997, Cascade grew from a one-person startup to a company with $500 million in revenue and 900 employees. Cascade was named one of the "Top 25 Very Cool Companies" (Forbes, 1996). In June of 1997, Cascade was acquired by Ascend Communications for $3.7 billion.

Prior to Cascade, Dr. Deshpande co-founded Coral Network Corporation in 1988 and was with the company until 1990. Previously, he served in various management positions for Codex Corporation, a subsidiary of Motorola, and taught at Queens University in Kingston, Canada.

Dr. Deshpande has garnered many top industry honors. In 1999, both Red Herring and Massachusetts Investor's Digest named him one of 1999's Top Entrepreneurs and Dr. Deshpande was named the 1999 Mass High Tech All-Star in the telecommunications industry. The Massachusetts Telecommunications Council named him Industry Player for 2000. In 2001, the International Institute of Boston presented Dr. Deshpande with the Golden Door Award, an honor reserved for U.S. citizens of foreign birth who have made outstanding contributions to American society. He has also been the subject of numerous business and trade press articles.

Dr. Deshpande holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in India, an M.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick in Canada and a Ph.D. in Data Communications from Queens University in Canada.

David Kestenbaum became unreasonably obsessed with small things at a young age. He studied quarks as an undergraduate at Yale University and in his graduate work in physics at Harvard University where he received his Ph.D. in 1996. David's thesis detailed part of the discovery of the top quark. David received a journalism fellowship from the American Physical Society the same year, and won the Evert Clark award for young science journalists in 1997. His work has appeared in Science magazine, The New York Times, The New Republic and other places. David spent a year as a reporter for Science, before moving to National Public Radio in 1999. He loves his job.

Walter Gilbert, Ph.D.

Dr. Gilbert is a renowned scientist who won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980 for developing DNA sequencing technology. He has held professorships at Harvard University in the Departments of Physics, Biophysics, Biochemistry, and Biology, and since 1985, in Molecular and Cellular Biology (formerly Cellular and Developmental Biology). He presently holds the Carl M. Loeb University Professorship. Dr. Gilbert received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Cambridge University in 1957, a M.A. in Physics in 1954, and a B.A. in Chemistry and Physics in 1953 from Harvard University. His current research interests include molecular evolution and intron/exon gene structure.

Dr. Gilbert was a co-founder of Biogen, Inc. and served as its Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer from 1981 to 1984. In 1992, he was a co-founder of Myriad Genetics, Inc., and serves as Vice Chairman, and in 2001, he was a co-founder of Myriad Proteomics, Inc., and serves as Chairman. In 1994, he founded Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp., of which he is a Director, and in 1996 Paratek Pharma-ceuticals, Inc., of which he is Chairman. In 1999, he was a co-founder of Pintex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and serves as Chairman. Since 2001, he has been a partner in BioVentures Investors. He participated in the establishment of the Human Genome Project. He received an "Entrepreneur of the Year" award in 1991 from the Institute of American Entrepreneurs.