The cloud offers game-changing opportunities for start-ups to large enterprises, if entrepreneurs and enterprise leaders know how best to harness its power. A panel of cloud computing experts shared their wealth of experience to a full house at the special event on Innovation in the Cloud: How Cloud Computing is Changing the Landscape of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, organized by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) in partnership with China America Innovation Network (CHAIN).

In this featured panel discussion at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for Stanford's Entrepreneurship Week 2012, the panel shared insights on cloud computing technology changes, enterprise transformation, business model innovation, investor strategies, and market opportunities, with more than 200 Stanford students, faculty, entrepreneurs and Valley professionals.

The panel was composed of serial entrepreneur Jim Dai, CEO of CalmSea, IT expert Sam Ghods, vice president of technology at Box.com, marketing expert Ken Oestreich, senior director of cloud and virtualization marketing at EMC, and investor Cindy Padnos, founder and managing director of Illuminate Ventures. Robert Scoble, startup liaison officer at Rackspace and a technical evangelist, moderated the discussion.

The panelists acknowledged that users had grown to accept everything could be virtual, and cloud is radically changing the face of enterprise strategy, processes, and outcomes. Cloud computing can dramatically decrease timelines and investment costs which encourages flexible growth and experimentation by rapid iteration. This shift, together with cloud computing’s cost effectiveness, strongly favors the way start-ups work.

For entrepreneurs, one piece of good news is that cloud allows smaller firms to compete with big players in new ways. This trend has also prompted the rise of micro VCs, with typical investments of $100,000 to $500,000. While SMEs continue to embrace cloud-based services, how large enterprises adapt and evolve the cloud market will remain interesting.

Stanford Entrepreneurship Week 2012 takes place February 27 through March 7. This collection of over 30 events is hosted by the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN), a federation of programs, student groups and organizations supporting entrepreneurship in the Stanford community.

Steve Hilton, senior advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron, will join Stanford as a visiting scholar at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Hilton, who will also be a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, will arrive in May and spend his year on campus teaching, researching and writing.

“We look forward to having Steve Hilton in residence at FSI starting later this spring,” said Coit Blacker, FSI’s director. “Lively and engaging, Steve is certain to bring a fresh perspective to many of the issues and challenges that are of ongoing concern to our faculty, fellows and students.”

As Cameron’s top advisor, Hilton’s primary responsibility is the development and implementation of domestic policy. He specializes in the promotion of enterprise and economic growth, public service reform, family policy, decentralization, and government transparency and accountability.

Hilton will focus on innovation in government, public services and communities around the world while at Stanford. He will work with a wide range of centers and organizations across the university, including FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and The Europe Center; the Graduate School of Business' Center for Social Innovation; the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society; and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.

"I'm delighted to be joining the academic community at Stanford and greatly look forward to an exhilarating and productive year,” Hilton said. “It will be a huge pleasure to be able to focus on our most pressing social and governmental challenges."

Before Cameron’s election as prime minister in 2010, Hilton served as his chief strategist and developed the ideas associated with the modernization of the British Conservative Party.

Hilton previously ran Good Business, a corporate responsibility consulting firm, and is the author of Good Business: Your World Needs You. The book makes the case for businesses to play a more direct and active role in advancing social progress.