Featured speakers, mentors, investors & start-ups

Below are featured speakers, investors, judges, sponsors & start-ups. The final content and schedule will be determined via crowdsourcing our prospective attendees, and are therefore subject to change.

	Bill Reichert, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures Bill Reichert has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and an operating executive. Since joining Garage in 1998, Bill has focused on early-stage information technology and materials science companies. He sits on the Boards of CaseStack, WhiteHat, ClearFuels, cFares, and ThermoCeramix. Prior to Garage, Bill was a co-founder or senior executive in several venture-backed technology startups, including Trademark Software, The Learning Company, and Academic Systems. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and the World Bank. Bill earned a B.A. at Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. He was a founding board member and a Chairman of the Churchill Club, and a Charter Member of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. Currently he is the Chairman of the Small Fund Roundtable of the VC Taskforce and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
	Dave McClure, Startup Advisor, Angel Investor, Master of500 Hats Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for almost twenty years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, blogger, & internet marketing nerd. He is an advisor or investor for Mint, SlideShare, TradeVibes, TipMobile, Oortle/PhotoPhlow, 750 Industries, KissMetrics, Spock, TeachStreet, Eventvue, RichRelevance, Mashery, Simply Hired, HealthUnity, & Canopy Financial. His current passion is helping startups with internet marketing, product strategy, and startup metrics. Before coming to Silicon Valley, Dave barely graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a BS in Mathematical Sciences Engineering and a minor in frisbee, billiards, & foosball. His interests include microfinance and economic innovation, entrepreneurship and venture capital, ultimate frisbee, cartoons and animation, and an ever-growing collection of funny-looking hats
	Mike Cassidy, CEO of travel exploration site Ruba Mike Cassidy has been the Co-Founder and CEO of four start-ups: Ruba, Xfire, Direct Hit, and Stylus Innovation. Ruba helps travelers all over the world share their favorite places and experiences. Xfire helps gamers play online with their friends much more easily. Xfire is also an instant messenger and peer-to-peer file download system designed just for gamers. Xfire has over 10 million registered gamers in over 100 countries. Viacom/MTV acquired Xfire for $110 million. Direct Hit was a revolutionary Internet search engine whose customers included MSN, Lycos, AOL, and dozens of others. Ask Jeeves acquired Direct Hit for $500 million. Stylus Innovation’s flagship product was the award winning computer telephony software Visual Voice. Mike is on the Board of Advisors of Jazz at Lincoln Center and is on the Visiting Committee Board of the MIT Media Lab. Mike studied jazz piano at the Berklee College of Music. Mike has a BS and MS in Aerospace Engineering from MIT. He graduated from Harvard Business School.
	David Ellis, Software Engineer (Internationalization), Facebook David has drawn on his background in computational linguistics (research in academia and industry) to help build a community-driven translation tool. This technology allows Facebook to continue grow at an incredible pace worldwide, and is available to developers on Platform, including external sites via Connect. David had earlier worked on the News Feed team, and continues to dabble in natural language processing, engineering recruiting puzzles and a variety of other efforts. He holds a BA with honors in linguistics from Brown University, and has published often (in journals, conferences, book-chapters, along with a pending patent).
	Josh Elman, Platform Program Manager, Facebook Josh focuses on new initiatives and programs for developers on Facebook Platform. Previously, Josh was Head of Product Management at Zazzle, where he led the development of Zazzle’s marketplace and commerce platform. Prior to Zazzle, Josh worked at LinkedIn, where he helped grow the business network from 200,000 to 3 million users. Josh began his career at RealNetworks, where he led the development team through three versions of RealPlayer. Josh holds a bachelor’s degree in symbolic systems from Stanford University.
	Max Engel, Product Lead, MySpaceID Max Engel helps create an open platform that gives developers access to the MySpace social layer. The initiative embraces standards such as OpenSocial, OAuth, and OpenID to provide a robust identity platform to the community. Previous to MySpace, Max was at Yahoo!, initially with the Games team working on community tools for developers and players, and then later became a member of the Yahoo! Open Strategy initiative where he worked on their application platform and OpenSocial implementation. He holds a BA in Psychology from Yale University.
	John Faith, GM and VP, MySpace Mobile John is responsible for all aspects pertaining to the growth and success of the business unit. Prior to his current role, John contributed to multiple initiatives for the company as Vice President of Engineering including the expansion of MySpace into 29 local versions, the development of MySpace’s mobile product line, the maturation of its post sales production processes, and the delivery of a custom content management system. He was recently named one of the 25 most powerful people in wireless by FierceWireless. Prior to MySpace, John was a software engineer and technical manager at Experian Consumer Direct and GoldPocket Interactive where he developed credit monitoring and interactive television software respectively.
	Lonnie Johnson, President and Founder, Johnson ElectroMechanical Systems, Inc. EntrepreneurTrek is pleased to present Lonnie Johnson as distinguished speaker! Lonnie, the Super Soaker water gun inventor, is a serial entrepreneur with over 100 issued and 20 pending patents. Now, he is working on a solar energy conversion technology that could deliver greater than 40% efficiency and potentially make renewable energy truly viable! Lonnie’s advice for entrepreneurs is simple – take risks, hit the trenches, and refuse to quit. In his 7-year trek of selling the Super Soaker gun, he faced many rejections, including one from Hasbro that eventually bought Larami Inc., the company that first licensed Lonnie’s invention, and did so at a high premium. Lonnie will also share his wisdom on minority and entrepreneurship as well as the latest development on his solar energy research. Come to hear and discuss more about what makes a successful entrepreneur and how you can create impact!
	Cat Lee, Platform Program Manager, Facebook Cat oversees fbFund and the Developer Site. She is responsible for Platform’s marketing initiatives and further expanding the Facebook developer community. Cat joined Facebook from business school, where she led the Wolverine Venture Fund. Prior to business school, Cat worked for Lockheed Martin as a Senior Strategic Planner in the Information Systems & Global Services division and as a Senior Software Engineer in the Space Systems division. She holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.
	Raju Malhotra, Director of Search Product Management, Microsoft Raju’s team is charged with growing Microsoft’s International Search business through product planning, market research, partnerships and local investments. In the last seven years at Microsoft, he has held various leadership positions in consumer as well as enterprise businesses. Prior to joining Microsoft, Raju worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company where his clients included C-level executives as well as venture capitalists in the Silicon Valley. He has also worked as a consultant with Keane Inc. and as a project lead with Tata Unisys Limited. Raju holds an MBA from the Wharton school of business and an undergraduate degree in computer engineering from National Institute of Technology in India. He is an avid bicyclist and a long distance runner.
	Dave Morin, Senior Platform Program Manager, Facebook Dave is responsible for the company’s platform strategy and further expanding the Facebook developer community. Dave joined Facebook from Apple, where he became the Manger of Creation & Collaboration technologies after his tenure as Manager of Student Marketing. Prior to Apple, Dave founded the company Viadi a technology and marketing company focused on building strong brand experiences using the power of the Internet. Dave received a bachelor’s degree in economics and business from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
	Jason Oberfest, SVP Business Development, MySpace Jason is responsible for structuring and negotiating deals to drive revenue and support the launch of innovative new products. He also serves as General Manager of the MySpace Open Platform. Prior to MySpace Jason served as Managing Director of Business Development and Product Management for Los Angeles Times Interactive where he structured deals with leading startups including Netvibes, Aggregate Knowledge, Eventful and Mixx.com. From 1999-2005 Jason served as Vice President of Strategic Planning at Blast Radius, an interactive agency. In this role Jason founded the strategic planning division of the company and led the design and development of media and commerce websites for Sony, Nintendo, Viacom, Warner Music Group, A&E Television Networks and others. Jason worked with AOL from 2002-2005 developing AOL Shopping, AOL Search, AOL.com, and other products. Blast Radius was acquired by the WPP Group in 2007.
	Yumio Saneyoshi, VP of Product, FixYa At FixYa, the world’s largest crowd-sourced product/tech support site with over 15 million monthly visitors, Yumio oversees the product design and service offering, as well as coordinate with the global engineering team based in Israel. Prior to FixYa, Yumio was one of two founding members of Yahoo! Answers, which is the world’s largest Q&A forum serving 13 countries in 6 languages, with over 100 million visitors per month. Yumio’s first job after graduate school was being parachuted into Tokyo and opening up a sales office for an enterprise software company with absolutely no prior sales or overseas business experience. Yumio has a Ph.D. in Business Economics, which is a joint degree from Harvard Business School and Harvard University. His doctoral dissertation focused on incentive theory and organizational economics, which is a surprisingly useful lens to analyze the structures of startups.
	Dan Verser, EVP, R&D, Founder, ZeaChem Dan is an experienced venture manager with deep industry experience in product development in the chemicals and biotechnology sectors. He is co-inventor of the ZeaChem technology. Prior to ZeaChem, he identified and evaluated venture investments for Koch Industries. Prior to that, he was President of Chronopol, Inc., a unit of Coors Brewing Company, where he started up and ran a new polymer materials business based on polylactic acid, a renewable-derived, biodegradable polymer. Before Coors, he was a project manager with Bechtel, where he was responsible for international technology transfer and process design for a major project-financed agribusiness & biotechnology project. Before Bechtel, he was President & CEO of Engenics, a startup bioprocess development company, and held a succession of executive leadership positions at Gould, Inc. Dan has numerous patents, a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton, and an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School.
	Andrew Williamson, Director, Physic Ventures Andrew Williamson is a Director at Physic Ventures, a San Francisco based Venture Capital firm investing in consumer-directed Health and Sustainable Living. Dr. Williamson’s investment practice is focused on science-based companies that are developing technologies and products to enable consumers to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Among the portfolio investments managed by Physic Ventures, Dr. Williamson is a member of the boards of Novomer, Impinj, Halosource, and Chromatin. Prior to joining Physic Ventures, Dr. Williamson spent 10 years leading materials science research and development projects at the Dept. of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. While at LLNL, Dr. Williamson helped develop strategies for identifying and investing in and commercializing new technologies. He also worked as an Executive Management Fellow in the University of California Industry-University Cooperative Research Program to establish industrial alliance programs for new University of California research centers in nanotechnology, micro-fluidics, foods for health and stem cell research. Dr. Williamson holds a BA and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge and a MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
	Kelly Winters, Platform Program Manager, Facebook Kelly focuses on new initiatives and programs for developers on Facebook Platform. Kelly joined Facebook from business school. Prior to business school, Kelly worked for Bain & Company. She holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in biology from UCLA.
	Simon Tisminezky, CEO/ Founder, SpeedDate Prior to founding the company, Simon worked at Elfamed, Inc., a biotech startup, as VP of Commercial Operations. He developed the company strategy and operational plan and secured the first research collaborations with big pharma. He also assisted in raising VC funding for Pharmaron, a chemistry outsourcing company based in China. Prior to the business school, Simon worked at Kalypsys, Inc. as Business Development Manger where he focused on seeking, negotiating, and managing the company’s strategic partnerships. He has an MBA from Stanford, and a BS and MS in Chemical Engineering and BS in Economics from MIT.
	Dr. Tina Seelig, Executive Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program Tina Seelig is the Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), the entrepreneurship center at Stanford University’s School of Engineering. Tina teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the department of Management Science and Engineering, and within the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Tina was recently awarded the 2009 Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, recognizing her as a national leader in engineering educational. She also received the 2008 National Olympus Innovation Award, and the 2005 Stanford Tau Beta Pi Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. In 2004, STVP was named the NASDAQ Entrepreneurship Center of the Year.. Tina earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University Medical School in 1985 where she studied Neuroscience. She has worked as a management consultant for Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, as a multimedia producer at Compaq Computer Corporation, and was the founder a multimedia company called BookBrowser. Tina has also written 15 popular science books and educational games. Her books include The Epicurean Laboratory and Incredible Edible Science, published by Scientific American; and a series of twelve games called Games for Your Brain, published by Chronicle Books. Her newest book, to be released by HarperCollins in Spring 2009, is titled What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20: A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World.