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Speakers & Expert Judges
Joshua Baer
Founder
Capital Factory, OtherInBox
Joshua Baer helps people quit their jobs and become entrepreneurs. In 2008 he founded Capital Factory, a tech startup incubator and co-working space in Austin, Texas. Josh founded his first startup in 1996 in his college dormitory at CMU and now teaches a class at the University of Texas for student entrepreneurs. Josh is the Chief Innovation Officer of Return Path and was recently recognized as the 2013 Austin Community Leader of the Year and a 2013 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Joshua spends all day worrying about email so that you don’t have to. He is an email marketing pioneer and the Founder of SKYLIST, UnsubCentral and OtherInbox. He has founded or invested in a dozen email startups and you can see his mark on about half of the email messages in your Inbox.
 
Dean DeBiase
Chairman
Reboot Partners
Dean DeBiase is an expansion phase CEO with a track record of scaling emerging growth companies and startups, turning-around organizations and embedding entrepreneurial-grade talent into multi-national corporations. He has built brands in media, social/local/mobile commerce, games and entertainment, cloud and big data, retail and distribution, technology, consumer electronics, Cable TV, cyber-security and Internet services industries—and led global organizations through expansion, turnaround, roll-up, spin-out, M&A and IPO operating phases.
 
Jake Flomenberg
Accel Partners
Jake joined Accel in 2012 with over a decade of experience building innovative software products. He focuses on early stage investments in next generation infrasture and data-driven services and is part of the team responsible for Accel's Big Data Fund. Jake currently sits on the board of Origami Logic, Trifacta, and Sumo Logic. Prior to Accel, Jake was Director of Product Management at Splunk where he was responsible for Splunk's user interface and Big Data strategy. Jake holds a B.S.E. in Computer Science, Electrical Computer Engineering, and Economics from Duke University, an M.S.E in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
 
David Flynn
CEO
Primary Data
David A. Flynn is co-founder and CEO of Primary Data, a stealth mode enterprise software company leading the next evolution in software-defined virtualization technologies. David is a recognized leader in storage innovation. As co-founder of Fusion-io, Inc., he pioneered the use of Flash in the enterprise data center. David served as Project BlackDog's Chief Scientist and VP of Engineering and held positions at Linux Networx and Network Computer Incorporated (NCI), a spin-off of Oracle, developing thin-client solutions. He architected several of the world’s fastest supercomputers, leading the adoption of Infiniband and RDMA based architectures, and holds more than 100 patents.
 
John Gallant
Senior Vice President and Chief Content Officer
IDG Communications US
John Gallant brings more than 30 years of editorial and technology experience to his role as Senior Vice President and Chief Content Officer of IDG Communications US. In this role, Gallant works with the editorial leaders of IDGE’s CIO, CITEworld, CSO, Computerworld, InfoWorld, ITworld, Macworld, Network World, PCWorld and TechHive titles, setting content strategy and ensuring that the brands serve their respective audiences with the best online and print products and services in the industry. Gallant also helps drive IDG's strategic efforts around social media.
 
David Girouard
Founder & CEO
Upstart Network, Inc.
Dave Girouard is founder and CEO of Upstart. Prior to that, he was President of Google Enterprise, where he built Google’s cloud apps business worldwide — including product development, sales, marketing, and customer support. Girouard was also a Product Manager at Apple; SVP of products & marketing at video search company Virage; an associate in Booz Allen’s Information Technology practice; and a software developer at Accenture.
 
Helen Greiner
CEO, CyPhy Works
Co-Founder, iRobot
Helen Greiner is CEO of CyPhy Works, Inc, a company developing flying robots! In 1990, she co-founded iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT) and served as President until 2004 and Chairman until October 2008. iRobot Corporation is the global leader in mobile robots having delivered 10 Million Roomba ™ vacuuming robots and deployed over 6000 tactical mobile robots (PackBot ™ and SUGV™). Greiner holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in computer science, both from MIT. She has awards naming her a demo god, best leader, pioneer, global leader of tomorrow, young global leader, entrepreneur of the year, and innovator of the next century. Her goal has been and continues to be to get robots out of the lab and into peoples hands.
 
Bill Gross
CEO
Idealab
Bill Gross founded Idealab in March 1996 and serves as the company's Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. Bill founded Idealab to create and build successful businesses that capitalize on innovations in areas with significant growth opportunities, including the Internet. A lifelong entrepreneur, Bill started several companies prior to Idealab. In high school, he founded Solar Devices, a firm that sold plans and kits for solar energy products. In college at the California Institute of Technology, he patented a new loudspeaker design and formed GNP Loudspeakers, Inc. After graduating from college, Bill and his brother Larry started GNP Development, Inc., which made a natural language product for Lotus 1-2-3 called HAL. In 1985, Lotus Development Corporation acquired GNP and Bill became a software entrepreneur at Lotus Development. In 1991, Bill started Knowledge Adventure, an educational software publisher that grew to be the third largest educational software publisher in the world and was eventually sold to Cendant Software and is now a division of Havas Interactive, which is owned by Vivendi.
 
David Hornik
General Partner
August Capital
For nearly two decades, David has worked with technology startups throughout the software sector. In 2000, David joined August Capital to invest broadly in information technology companies, with a focus on enterprise application and infrastructure software, as well as consumer facing software and services. Prior to joining August Capital, David was an intellectual property and corporate attorney at Venture Law Group and Perkins Coie. In his legal practice, David represented high tech startups in all aspects of their formation, financing, and operations. Before that, David was a litigator in New York City at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
 
Charles Hudson
Partner
SoftTech VC
Charles Hudson is a Partner with SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups. He is focusing on mobile and gaming investments, and supporting SoftTech portfolio companies on business/corporate development matters. He was also the Co-Founder and CEO of Bionic Panda Games. HIs background includes work at Google and In-Q-Tel with the Central Intelligence Agency. Charles is also the founder of the Virtual Goods Summit and Social Gaming Summit.
 
Stephen Ibach
VP, Digital Partnerships and M&A
Inmar, Inc.
Stephen Ibach is Inmar’s Vice President, Digital Partnerships and M&A. Steve brings 15 years of experience in investment banking, e-Commerce, and technology research. Prior to joining Inmar, Steve held a number of senior leadership positions with Credit Suisse Steve was Vice President, Internet Sector Strategist in Equity Research. In this role, he focused on the key themes across the digital landscape. Steve also served as the head of Product Strategy and Innovation, at Credit Suisse HOLT.
 
Alan Kay
Viewpoints Research Institute
Alan Kay is one of the earliest pioneers of object-oriented programming, personal computing, and graphical user interfaces. His contributions have been recognized with the Charles Stark Draper Prize of the National Academy of Engineering1 “for the vision, con- ception, and development of the first practical networked personal computers;” the Alan. M. Turing Award from the Association of Computing Machinery “for pioneering many of the ideas at the root of contemporary object-oriented programming languages, leading the team that developed Smalltalk, and for fundamental contributions to personal computing;” and the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation “for creation of the concept of modern personal computing and contribution to its realization.
 
Aiaz Kazi
Senior Vice President of Products and Innovation Platform Strategy and Adoption
SAP
Aiaz Kazi is the Senior Vice President of Products and Innovation Platform Strategy and Adoption for SAP, responsible for the platform technology vision, business strategy, platform adoption, and new platform initiatives. His areas of coverage are centered around SAP HANA, SAP HANA Cloud Platform, SAP HANA Marketplace, and across all of SAP's Products and Innovation Platform portfolio including in-memory technologies, mobile, analytics, UX, Integration, and application development. Aiaz is also focused on driving adoption across a broader ecosystem of startups, strategic ISVs, venture capitalists, incubators, universities, students, and developers. He earned his MBA degree from the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Bombay.
 
Frank Keane
Co-founder, Ireland: Gateway to Europe
Head of International Business, MKO Partners – Chartered Accountants
Frank Keane is a co-founder of Ireland: Gateway to Europe, a collaborative initiative to assist US based founders, CFOs, CTOs and VCs considering using Ireland as a base to internationalize and execute international expansion plans. Initiatives such as Ireland: Gateway to Europe, and recent webinars with Silicon Valley Bank, allows Frank, who is Partner in charge of International Business at MKO Partners, along with the other service providers involved, play a key role in explaining to US enterprises of all sizes and stages of development why Ireland is a hot location for foreign investment in sectors such as ICT, Digital Media, Games and Social Media. The presence of Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter in Forbes’ “best country for business” has fostered a trusted ecosystem for talent, innovation, funding and advice.
 
Jason Lemkin
Managing Director, Storm Ventures
Co-founder/CEO, EchoSign
Jason M. Lemkin is a Managing Director at Storm Ventures, a $500m early-stage VC enterprise-focused VC firm. Prior to Storm Ventures, Jason served as CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, the web’s most popular electronic signature service, from inception through its acquisition by Adobe Systems Inc. in 2011. He then served as Vice President, Web Services at Adobe, where he oversaw the growth of EchoSign and Adobe Document to $100,000,000+ ARR in 2013. Prior to EchoSign and Adobe, he co-founded one of the only successes in nanotechnology, NanoGram Devices, which was acquired for $50m 13 months after founding. The technology, built into implantable power cells, has gone on to help extend the lives of thousands.
 
Howard Lerman
CEO
Yext
Howard Lerman founded Yext in 2006 with a single goal: to build an impactful, great company with super talented people. Along the way, Yext has re-invented three industries: pay-per-call advertising, business listings synchronization, and today, the local marketing cloud. With over 200 amazingly talented employees serving over 200,000 customers, Yext is on its way to realizing Howard’s original vision. Yext is Howard’s fourth software company. Howard is a proud graduate of TJHSST and barely graduated from Duke University.
 
Aaron Levie
Co-founder & CEO
Box
Aaron Levie is co-founder and CEO of Box, where he has lead Box's visionary product and platform strategy for over 9 years. Launched in 2005 with co-founder and CFO Dylan Smith, Box helps make businesses of all sizes more productive, competitive and powerful by connecting people and their most important information. As one of today's fastest growing companies, Box has over 20 million users at more than 200,000 businesses worldwide. Aaron studied at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California before leaving to found Box.
 
Michael Lopp
Rands in Repose
Michael Lopp is a Silicon Valley-based engineering leader who builds both people and software at companies such as Borland, Netscape, and Apple. While he's not worrying about staying relevant, he writes about pens, bridges, people, poker, and werewolves at the popular weblog, Rands in Repose. He currently works as a Director at Palantir in downtown Palo Alto with the most important institutions on the world's hardest problems. Michael has written two books. His first book "Managing Humans, 2nd Edition" is a popular guide to the art of engineering leadership and clearly explains that while you be rewarded for what you build, you will only be successful because of your people. His second book "Being Geek" is a career handbook for geeks and nerds alike.
 
Danielle Morrill
CEO & Cofounder
Mattermark

Danielle is CEO & Cofounder of Mattermark. Mattermark provides intelligent sourcing, research and tracking tools to help investors measure signals of growth for more than 200,000 startups from around the world. She is a Summer 2012 graduate of Y Combinator, and was formerly Director of Marketing and the first employee of Twilio, the cloud communications company.

 
Bubba Murarka
Managing Director
DFJ
Bubba Murarka is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, where his current responsibilities include leading early stage investments in consumer internet and mobile technology companies. Prior to joining DFJ, Bubba led product development for Facebook for Android and started the Facebook Home project. At Facebook, Bubba also led business development deals with key strategic partners including Microsoft, Netflix,Yahoo, Dentsu and Terra Networks. Previously, Bubba spent seven years in technical and product roles at Microsoft, where he acted as group program manager for Bing's Bay Area development team, delivering components of Windows, MSN Toolbar with Windows Desktop Search and early versions of Bing Social. He started his career at Microsoft in Seattle as part of the original threedegrees team focused on social products.
 
Matt Ocko
co-Managing Partner
Data Collective
Matt Ocko, co-Managing Partner of Data Collective, has three decades of experience as a technology entrepreneur and VC, in the US and globally. His investments prior to DCVC include Cotendo (AKAM), Zynga (ZNGA), Facebook (FB), XenSource (CTRX), UltraDNS (NSR), FlashSoft (SDNK), Fortinet (FTNT), Aggregate Knowledge (NSR), Virtuata (CSCO), DataMirror (IBM), Couchbase, Ayasdi, Kenshoo, D-Wave Systems, MetaMarkets, Uber, AngelList, and many others, including multiple additional acquisitions by Google, Facebook, Netapp, and other Fortune 1000 tech companies. Matt founded and was VP of R&D of Da Vinci Systems, a pioneering e-mail software vendor with over 1 million users world-wide prior to its acquisition. He is an inventor on over 40 granted or in-process patents in areas as diverse as enterprise hardware and social games. Matt has been active in helping develop China's venture capital and technology regulatory framework for two decades.
 
Keith Rabois
Partner
Khosla Ventures

Keith Rabois joined Khosla Ventures in March 2013. He served as the Chief Operating Officer at Square from August 2010 until January 2013 where he lead the company’s business operations including marketing, communications, business development, distribution, human resources and risk management. Keith specializes in transforming early-stage startups into successful businesses and has deep expertise in the financial services industry and government affairs.
An accomplished executive, entrepreneur and angel investor, Keith has held leadership roles at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide and began his career practicing law at Sullivan & Cromwell. Keith was an early investor in several high-profile Internet companies including YouTube and currently serves on the board of directors of Yelp and Xoom.

 
Gordon Ritter
Founder and General Partner
Emergence Capital Partners
Gordon Ritter is a Founder and General Partner of Emergence Capital Partners. Prior to founding Emergence, he spent over 15 years founding and building companies which pioneered new markets including embedded web-based interfaces, server appliances, "On Demand" services for the SMB market and web-native application development. In 2003, he led Emergence Capital's first investment, which was in Salesforce.com. Gordon was named to the Forbes' Midas List of the top venture capital investors in 2007 and 2012. Gordon currently sits on the boards of seven companies, including the leading cloud life sciences company, Veeva Systems. Gordon invested in Veeva in 2008 when the company had 30 people and $2 million in revenue. He has played a key role in the company's development, and he is currently the chairman of the board.
 
Alex Rosen
Managing Director
IDG Ventures
Alex Rosen is a Managing Director with IDG Ventures. He combines 20 years of venture capital experience with a deep understanding of technology and software, making him a valuable advisor to Consumer Internet and Enterprise IT companies. He currently serves as board director at Expect Labs (anticipatory computing platform), Krux Digital (audience data control software), Minted (design-driven e-commerce), Smartling (translation management platform), Vidible (video content syndication) and We Heart It (mobile social network). He also led IDG Ventures' investments in Indiegogo, Watchguard Technologies, and Flowdock (acquired by Rally). Previously, he was a General Partner at Sprout Group, where he was head of the Internet and Software group. He holds BS degrees in electrical engineering and economics from MIT and an MBA from Stanford University.
 
Jeff Rothschild
VP Infrastructure Engineering
Facebook
Jeff Rothschild joined Facebook in 2005 and as VP Infrastructure Engineering, focused on scalability, availability, and performance. Previously, Jeff was co-founder of Veritas Software, which introduced the first commercial journaling file system and logical volume manager. Veritas achieved $1.5B in annual sales and was later acquired by Symantec for $13.5B. Jeff is on the board of directors of Primary Data and Interana, and serves on the Technology Transfer Committee at Vanderbilt University. He is a member of the venture development team at Accel Partners. Jeff has a BA in Psychology and an MS in Computer Science, both from Vanderbilt University.
 
Julie Sandler
Principal
Madrona Venture Group
Julie is a Principal at Madrona Venture Group, a Seattle-based venture capital firm. At Madrona, Julie leads new investments and is a board observer for several portfolio companies. Prior to Madrona, Julie was a senior product manager on the Amazon Kindle team, and held product roles at TeachStreet.com, and at Microsoft (through her tenure at Accenture). Julie is adjunct faculty at the University of Washington where she teaches a course on entrepreneurship at the business school. Julie holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Psychology from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
 
Erick Schonfeld
Executive Producer
DEMO
Erick Schonfeld is a technology journalist and the executive producer of DEMO. He is also a partner at bMuse, a product incubator in New York City. Schonfeld is the former Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily for the blog. Prior to TechCrunch, he was Editor-at-Large for Business 2.0 magazine. He also launched an online video series with CNN/Money and hosted regular panels and conferences of industry luminaries. Schonfeld started his career at Fortune magazine in 1993.
 
Barry Silbert
Founder & CEO
SecondMarket/Bitcoin Investment Trust
Barry Silbert is the Founder & CEO of SecondMarket, as well as the creator of the Bitcoin Investment Trust (“BIT”), a private, open-ended trust that is invested exclusively in bitcoin and derives its value solely from the price of bitcoin. The Bitcoin Investment Trust enables investors to gain exposure to the price movement of bitcoin without the challenges of buying, storing, and safekeeping bitcoins. In addition, Barry is also one of the most prolific angel investors in the bitcoin space via his personal investment vehicle, the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, with investments in over 20 bitcoin-related companies.
 
Neal Silverman
Senior Vice President & General Manager, DEMO
Neal Silverman brings more than 20 years’ media and sales experience to his role as Senior Vice President and General Manager of IDG Enterprise’s DEMO—world-renowned launchpad for emerging technology. In his current role Silverman oversees sales, marketing and business development, for the DEMO brand and participates in the selection of the companies that present. Neal has led the expansion of the DEMO brand to China, Singapore, Africa, India, Russia and Brazil. Neal also sits on the Executive Committee for IDG Enterprise and the Board of Storage Network World. Prior to joining IDG Enterprise, Silverman held executive management positions at Fast Company Magazine, US News & World Report and The Wall Street Journal.
 
Ingrid Vanderveldt
Entrepreneur-in-Residence/Curator
Dell, Inc.
Entrepreneur, investor and media personality, Ingrid Vanderveldt (iV) has made “Empowering a Billion Women by 2020”(EBW2020) her mission. By leveraging her business, policy, and media initiatives, Vanderveldt strives to guide motivated women to success and help make their visions a reality by providing the tools, technology & resources. In business, she is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence (“EIR”) for Dell Inc. and the Creator/Curator of the $100M Dell Innovators Credit Fund (DICF) to power entrepreneurs worldwide. Leader of the Dell Founders Club and the Dell Center for Entrepreneurs, Vanderveldt oversees the program that provides access for Dell’s 10M small business customers. Her resources and expertise helps entrepreneurs worldwide build and grow their companies.
 
Warren Weiss
General Partner
Foundation Capital
Warren's passion, and at Foundation Capital, he focuses primarily on investments in emerging software companies — both licensed and software as a service — as well as on those in the Cleantech industry. He currently serves on the boards of CliQr Technologies, Deem, ForgeRock, InterAct, Moxie Software, SilkRoad Technologies, Silver Spring Networks, and Visier. Past investments include eMeter (acquired by Siemens) and MarkMonitor (acquired by Thomson Reuters). Warren was named to the 2012 Forbes Midas List of Technology's Top Investors for his work with Silver Spring Networks. He has been with Foundation Capital since 2002.
 
Stephen Wolfram
Founder & CEO, Wolfram Research
Creator of Mathematica & Wolfram|Alpha, Author of A New Kind of Science
Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, the author of A New Kind of Science, the creator of Wolfram|Alpha, and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Over the course of his career, he has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business. In recent years, Wolfram's penchant for innovation has been applied ever more widely. Building on the deep technology stacks associated with Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha, the advances of A New Kind of Science, and the success of his business endeavors, Wolfram is now developing technology and products in several important new directions. In addition to his direct personal contributions, Wolfram also serves as an advisor and mentor in a variety of corporate, entrepreneurial and educational settings.
 
Michelle Zatlyn
Co-founder, Head of User Experience
CloudFlare, Inc.
Michelle Zatlyn is the co-founder & Head of User Experience of CloudFlare, the web performance and security company. Michelle creates products people love. Prior to CloudFlare, she worked at Google and Toshiba and launched two successful startups. CloudFlare has been selected by the Wall Street Journal as the Most Innovative Internet Technology company, and named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. Today CloudFlare accelerates and protects more than 1.5 million web properties. Michelle holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and a minor in Management, with Distinction, from McGill University. She also holds her MBA from Harvard Business School and was awarded the Dubliner Prize for Entrepreneurship. Michelle is an experienced public speaker, frequent panelist and sits on the Open Internet Advisory Committee for the FCC. She was named one of the Top Women to Watch in Technology by the Huffington Post and one of the Top 15 Women to Watch in Tech by Inc. Magazine.
 
Dr. Michelle Zhou
Senior manager, User Systems and Experience Research group
IBM Research
Dr. Michelle Zhou is a research senior manager at IBM Research – Almaden where she manages the User Systems and Experience Research (USER) group. She is an accomplished computer scientist with over 14 years of industry research experience in leading the research and development of cutting edge, intelligent software and technologies that empower end users to effectively harness massive data and leverage both implicit and explicit social networks to better perform their daily tasks. Her expertise is in the interdisciplinary areas of intelligent user interaction, smart visual analytics, and people-centric information systems. Michelle's work has been incorporated into seven IBM products and solutions, and I have also published over 70 peer-reviewed papers in top venues and filed over twenty patents in the above areas.