Reporter: Zhang Qidong, Yu Wei; Video: Bonnie Wong, Yu Wei; Supervising Producer: Calvin Zhou, Zhang Yuwei; Senior Producer: Larry Lee, Liu Baijia; You can also watch this video on Youtube.

With more than 1,000 attendees gathered at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association (HYSTA)'s annual conference became a Mecca for anyone wanting to share knowledge and insights into entrepreneurship, technology and success in business.

HYSTA, an organization that promotes entrepreneurialism among Chinese professionals in Silicon Valley, kicked off its 14th annual conference on Saturday. David Chao, co-founder and general partner at DCM, is the new president of HYSTA.

"It is the first conference we started in San Francisco," said George Hu, vice president of HYSTA and chief operating officer at Salesforce. "Compared to previous conferences, I think it is a more targeted conference this year as we have strongly focused on entrepreneurship."

The theme of this year's conference is empowering the next generation of entrepreneurs. Among HYSTA's distinguished keynote speakers and panelists sessions are executives from leading technology companies such as Andrew Ng, chief executive officer of Coursera, Ken Gullicksen, chief operating officer of Evernote, and Sean Maloney, former executive vice president of Intel.

"Our vision and hope is that out of today's conference, we are going to find a group of entrepreneurs that are inspired to go on to create their own great companies, with strong connections to China or hopefully Chinese leadership," Hu said.

"Our hope is that the seeds for some of those businesses are planted right here today," he added.

Founded in 1999, HYSTA has evolved and grown into one of the largest and most influential professional organizations in the Bay Area.

Zhou Wei, the former president of HYSTA and CEO of Centrillion Biosciences, said giving back is the key contributor to HYSTA's success.

"I remember when HYSTA's first started, there was not much experience in our community in entrepreneurship," Zhou said. "Now, many of our members have successfully built their companies and many of them became investors. Those people have come back to help the next generation of entrepreneurs."

Robin Li, CEO and co-founder of China's largest search engine Baidu, and Lu Qi, president of Microsoft Online Services Division, both made keynote speeches at HYSTA's 2012 annual conference.