DEMO: The Launchpad for Emerging Technology

Errol Arkilic, Ph.D.

Program Manager
The National Science Foundation

Errol Arkilic joined The National Science Foundation in October 2003. He is one of 10 Program managers in the Small Business Innovation Research program at NSF, where he focuses on IT and security technologies. Before joining NSF, he was president and CEO of StrataGent Life Sciences - a venture-backed startup in Silicon Valley. Prior to StrataGent, Errol was president of Phasyn, Inc., a developer of packaging technologies for optical components, and manager of product engineering at Redwood Microsystems, both in the Bay Area. He holds a doctorate from MIT.

Marc Benioff

Founder, Chairman and CEO
Salesforce.com

Marc Benioff founded Salesforce.com in 1999 with a vision to create an on-demand information management service that would replace traditional enterprise software technology. Benioff is regarded as the leader of what he termed "The End of Software," the now-proven belief that multi-tenant, on-demand applications democratize information by delivering immediate benefits at reduced risks and costs.

Under Benioff's direction, Salesforce.com has grown from a groundbreaking idea into a publicly traded company that is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services.

Prior to launching salesforce.com, Benioff, a 25-year veteran of the software industry, spent 13 years at Oracle Corporation from 1986-1999. In 1984, he worked as an assembly language programmer in Apple Computer's Macintosh Division. He founded entertainment software company Liberty Software in 1979 when he was 15 years old. Benioff received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in 1986.

Michael Buhr

General Manager
StumbleUpon

Michael Buhr is the General Manager of StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com), an engaging and entertaining way of discovering relevant and interesting web content for consumers.

Buhr lead the acquisition of StumbleUpon by eBay Inc in early 2007 and has been at eBay since Dec 2003. His eBay experience includes being a member of eBay Inc's Corporate Strategy team and leading a number of Product Management teams in the eBay Marketplaces organization including user messaging, API's and developer platform, seller products and tools, and eBay Stores.

Prior to joining eBay, Buhr was at Palm (Handhelds), leading their prosumer and business product and marketing teams, and at Lipstream Networks (a VoIP service provider), which he co-founded, leading their marketing, product and business development teams. He also has years of marketing, product and business experience from Adobe, 3DO and Apple.

Buhr received his BSc EE from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario Canada.

John Jordan, Ph.D.

Executive Director
Center for Digital Transformation
Smeal College of Business
Pennsylvania State University

John Jordan teaches information technology and innovation and entrepreneurship in the MBA program at Pennsylvania State University. Before coming to Smeal, he combined business and technology research with client responsibilities in the Office of the Chief Technologist at Capgemini, the Center for Business Innovation at Ernst & Young, and the Applied Technology Group at Computer Sciences Corporation. Prior to entering consulting, he won teaching awards at Harvard University and the University of Michigan.

Jordan received his doctorate degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan, an MAR from Yale University, and a B.A. in Political Science and History from Duke University. His research focuses on emerging technologies and their impact on business strategy, design, and practice. His Ph.D. dissertation, on the wide use of engineering images and metaphors in society in early 20th century America, was published by University of North Carolina Press. In addition to placing articles in American National Biography, Technology and Culture, and other professional publications, he has written a monthly emerging technologies newsletter since 1997 and reviewed books for both Harvard Review and Upside. Jordan has also been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Investor's Business Daily, and The International Herald Tribune.

Guy Kawasaki

Founder and Managing Director
Garage Ventures

Guy Kawasaki is a co-founder of Truemors, a Web site dedicated to democratizing information by spreading information offered by citizen journalists, and a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, a seed-stage and early-stage venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley. He is also a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine.

Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Kawasaki sits on the boards of BitPass, FilmLoop, and SimplyHired and founded various personal computer companies.

Mitchell Kertzman

Managing Director
Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

Mitchell Kertzman is a managing director at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He has more than 30 years of experience as a CEO of public and private software companies. Most recently, Kertzman was chairman and CEO of Liberate Technologies, a provider of platform software for the delivery of digital services by cable television companies. Before joining Liberate, he was chairman of the board and CEO of Sybase, Inc. Mitchell was founder and CEO of Powersoft, which merged with Sybase in February 1995.

A former programmer, Kertzman founded Powersoft in 1974 as Computer Solutions. He renamed the company and became a member of the Hummer Winblad family in 1991 when Hummer Winblad invested in the company, which became the leading provider of client-server development tools with its flagship product, PowerBuilder. The merger with Sybase in 1995 was, at the time, the most valuable in the history of the software industry.

Kertzman served as president of the Massachusetts Software Council from 1994 to 1996 and was 1990 chairman of the American Electronics Association. He is founder and former chairman of the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth (MassINC), a think tank focused on issues related to the standard of living and quality of life of America's middle class. He served on the New York State Commission on Industrial Competitiveness and chaired its task force on industrial policy.

Kertzman was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He currently sits on the boards of WaveMaker Software, BSG Alliance, Five9, HubPages, Palamida, Sliderocket, and Widgetbox.

Josh Kopelman

Managing Director
First Round Capital

Josh Kopelman has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since its commercialization. In 1992, while he was a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation - an Internet information company. In 1996, Infonautics went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Kopelman founded Half.com in July of 1999, and led it to become one of the largest sellers of used books, movies and music in the world. Half.com was acquired by eBay in July 2000 -- and he remained with eBay for three years, running the Half.com business unit and growing eBay's Media marketplace to almost half a billion dollars in annual gross merchandise sales.

In late 2003 he helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that created the world's first anti-spam router. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec just six months later. In addition to being an active angel investor, he has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Comcast Interactive Capital - a $350 million venture capital fund affiliated with Comcast Corporation.

Kopelman is an inventor on five U.S. Patents for his work in Internet technology. In June 2000, he was awarded Ernst and Young's prestigious "Entrepreneur of the Year" award for the Greater Philadelphia region. Kopelman has also been recognized as one of the "10 Most Influential People in Philadelphia Technology" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the "76 Smartest Philadelphians" by Philadelphia Magazine, and by the Philadelphia Business Journal as one of 40 individuals younger than 40 who have made the biggest impact on the Philadelphia region.

In 2001 Kopelman and his wife created the Kopelman Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on angel philanthropy to provide "start-up" grants to social entrepreneurs. Josh earned a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude in entrepreneurial management and marketing from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. More information on Kopelman can be found on Wikipedia or his LinkedIn profile.

John Landry

Managing Director
Lead Dog Ventures

With 25 years of experience building world class software and software companies, John Landry manages Lead Dog Ventures, a disruptive new-age business accelerator, providing emerging technology enterprises access to a well-developed network of intellectual, relationship and financial capital. Landry currently serves as chairman and chief technology officer of one of Lead Dog's largest investments, Adesso Systems, where he leads the design and development of Adesso's distributed applications platform.

From 1995 to 2000, Landry served as vice president of technology strategy at IBM, a unique position charged with discovering and evaluating new disruptive technologies emerging from "edge" companies for possible incorporation into IBM's top-level corporate strategies. Landry assumed this position after leading IBM's Internet Strategy task force, a position assigned to him by CEO Lou Gerstner in 1995 to define IBM's e-business strategy across the corporation. This assignment followed IBM's acquisition of Lotus in 1995, where Landry had served as senior vice president of development and chief technology officer from 1990.

Previously, Landry had been the senior technology executive at Dun & Bradstreet, Cullinet Software, Distribution Management Systems and McCormack & Dodge Corporation, the latter three all targets of successful acquisitions in the 1980's. Additionally, Landry has served as chairman of Agility Systems until its acquisition by Dun & Bradstreet in 1994, chairman of Narrative Communications until its acquisition by Excite@Home in 1999, chairman of Anyday.com until its acquisition by Palm in 2000 and chairman of Adjoin Solutions until its acquisition by Computer Associates in 2003.

Landry is a director of several private companies. He holds a bachelor's degree in finance from Babson College, and currently serves on its Board of Trustees.

Dan'l Lewin

Corporate Vice President, Strategic and Emerging Solutions
Microsoft Corporation

Dan'l Lewin is corporate vice president of strategic and emerging business development, responsible for managing worldwide strategic business relationships with venture capitalists and emerging venture-capital-backed businesses, as well as managing the business relationship with leading global industry partners such as SUN, Adobe, Intuit, and BEA to ensure their applications interoperate with and run well on the Microsoft platform - for the benefit of the companies' common customers. Lewin is based at Microsoft's Mountain View, Calif. campus.

A 25-year Silicon Valley veteran, Lewin was most recently CEO of Aurigin Systems Inc., an enterprise software company focused on intellectual property asset management. He also spent 18 years as an executive, leading sales and marketing divisions for companies including Apple Computer Corp., NeXT Inc. and GO Corporation. In addition, Lewin has served as a consultant for emerging companies, venture capital firms and corporate joint ventures. Lewin holds a bachelor's degree in politics from Princeton University.

Bill McAleer

Managing Director and Co-Founder
Voyager Capital

Bill McAleer brings to Voyager more than 30 years of business experience and 18 years of senior executive and equity financing experience in the information technology industry.

McAleer has participated on the boards of 18 companies, including 13 portfolio companies, focusing on software and services, digital media, and wireless. Seven portfolio companies were sold for exits, and he currently participates on the boards of Attenex, Melodeo, and Yapta. He also sits on the board of Avocent (NASDAQ: AVCT), a public technology company with more than $500 million in revenues.

Prior to co-founding Voyager in 1997, McAleer was president of e.liance Partners, a consulting firm that advised information technology companies on strategy, venture financing, and corporate partnering.

He served as vice president of finance, chief financial officer and secretary of Aldus from 1988 to 1994, when the company's revenues grew from $39 to $240 million. He was responsible for global finance, legal, operations, and acquisition activities, including completing the merger with Adobe in 1994. He also served as a senior executive with Westin Hotels from 1979 to 1987.

McAleer is active in several industry organizations, including serving as a director for the Washington Software Alliance. He chairs the Advisory Board for the University of Washington Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He also serves on the Advisory Board for Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Business and as a member of the Cornell Council. He has been a featured speaker at industry conferences and panels. McAleer earned a B.S. and an M.B.A. from Cornell University.

Mike Ramsay

Venture Partner
New Enterprise Associates

Former Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder
TiVo

Mike Ramsay joined New Enterprise Associates in 2007 as a venture partner focusing on NEA's expanding consumer investing activities. Ramsay co-founded TiVo in 1997 and served as CEO and chairman until 2005. Prior to starting TiVo, Ramsay was senior vice president of the Silicon Desktop Group for Silicon Graphics (SGI).

He had previously been president of Silicon Studio, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Silicon Graphics focused on enabling applications development for merging interactive digital media markets.

Prior to SGI, Mike Ramsay held research and development and engineering management positions at Hewlett-Packard Company and Convergent Technologies and earned a first-class B.S.E.E. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Scott Sangster

Director, Strategic Planning and Development
Walt Disney Internet Group

As director of strategic planning and corporate development for the Walt Disney Internet Group, Scott Sangster identifies new media growth opportunities, works with company management to develop related strategy, and manages the evaluation and execution of acquisitions that help Disney meet its strategic objectives.

Prior to joining Disney, Sangster founded and managed a venture-backed Internet business, served five years as a management consultant to media and technology companies, and oversaw the launch of one of the first online banking services.

Sangster graduated from The American University in Washington D.C. and holds a MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

The Walt Disney Internet Group's suite of properties includes Disney.com, Family.com, Movies.com and mDisney mobile entertainment. WDIG is an industry leader in online virtual worlds for children and families, with offerings including Disney's Club Penguin, Disney's Toontown Online and the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean Online and Disney Fairies. Additionally, WDIG's Disney Mobile phone service is the first comprehensive mobile phone service with applications specifically developed to meet the needs of children and parents. WDIG, which is headquartered in North Hollywood, Calif., has operations in Asia-Pacific, Europe and across the Americas.