Speakers
Tyler Bell Director, Product of Factual Tyler Bell is the Director of Product for Factual, an LA-based startup that is, amongst other things, creating a global coverage of the world’s POI and Places. He previously taught archaeology at the University of Oxford and, more recently and topically, was the Product Lead for Yahoo’s Geo Technologies Group. He writes about semantic- and geo-technologies for O’Reilly Radar at http://radar.oreilly.com/tylerb/ Back |
||||||||||||||||
Amber Case CEO of Geoloqi Amber Case is founder and CEO of Geoloqi, Inc. Case has been featured in Forbes, WIRED, and many other publications, both in the United States and around the world. Her main focus is mobile software, augmented reality and data visualization, and reducing the amount of time and space it takes for people to connect. Case founded Geoloqi.com, a platform for next generation location, out of a frustration with limits of existing technologies. Case has spoken at TED on technology and humans and was featured in Fast Company 2010 as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology. She’s worked with Fortune 500 companies at Wieden+Kennedy and on major applications at Vertigo Software. She is @caseorganic on Twitter. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Cheryl Cheng Operating Partner of BlueRun Ventures Cheryl drives marketing strategy, messaging and business development for BlueRun Ventures. Cheryl works closely with the entrepreneur community to identify investment opportunities that are a strategic fit for both BlueRun and the entrepreneur. She also supports BRV portfolio companies in their marketing strategy, execution and business development needs and focuses primarily on the mobile and consumer internet ecosystems. Cheryl brings new products and brand marketing experience from Clorox and Sharper Image to help entrepreneurs develop their go to market strategy and plans. Cheryl has a B.A. from Stanford University and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Neil Crist Founder and CEO of Venuelabs Neil is founder and CEO of Venuelabs, a storefront analytics company that transforms mobile, social and location-based consumer activity into actionable business insight. One of the first of its kind, Venuelab’s innovative monitoring, analytics, and marketing software provides specialized capabilities specific to retail and storefront marketing, operations, and customer service. A product manager by trade, Neil has been the driving force behind the company’s vision and growth, now tracking over 135,000 storefronts for many of the world’s most well known brands. Neil is a Board Member of the Location Based Marketing Association, and was recently named as an honoree of the Puget Sound Business Journal’s 40 Under 40. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Di-Ann Eisnor VP of Partnerships and Platform of Waze Di-Ann Eisnor, VP of Partnerships & Platform, runs US operations and is crafting the cartography of “live mapping” for the crowd-sourced navigation and real-time traffic start-up, Waze. Diann is also founder and chairman of Platial, and founded Eisnor Interactive which was bought by Omnicom back in 2001. Di-Ann is a neogeography pioneer and serial entrepreneur employing all means to increase the world’s citizen mappers. Diann has spoken at BigThink, SXSW, TEDxSiliconValley, LeWeb, GeoLoco, SocioLoco, MWC, Signal, AppNation, State of the Map, Web 2.0, Where 2.0, MIT, Columbia University, Stanford University, and others. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Kevin Fliess GM and VP of Products of Room 77 Kevin is General Manager and Vice President of Products at Room 77, based in Mountain View, California. Room 77 is a hotel search engine that scours the web for the best hotel deals on over 200,000 properties in order to save consumers time and to help them make better purchase decisions. Room 77 also has unique insight on over 1,000,000 hotel rooms, which the company leverages to help travelers score a better room at the hotel prior to arrival. Previously, Kevin was CEO and co-founder of TravelMuse — a social trip planning solution — which was acquired in 2010. Earlier he ran product marketing worldwide for SAP’s Emerging Solutions product portfolio. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Gary Gale Director, Places or Nokia Location and Commerce I’ve had a lifelong love affair with maps since discovering the Harry Beck map of the London Underground on the back of the London A-Z street atlas at an early age. I now live in Teddington in South West London with my family and work in London, Berlin, Boston, Chicago and Sunnyvale as the Director of Places for Nokia. I’m the co-founder of WhereCamp EU, the chair of AGI W3G and sit on the AGI Council. Prior to Nokia, I was at Yahoo!, leading their UK Geo group, releasing GeoPlanet and Placemaker and the geo backbone for Flickr and Fire Eagle; I’ve also worked at Digicon, the European Space Agency Research Institute in Rome, Italy,the BBC World Service, Reuters, Factiva and Network Associates. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Mike Ghaffary Director of Business Development of yelp Mike Ghaffary is the Director of Business Development at Yelp. Prior to Yelp, Mike was the Director of Business Development at TrialPay, where he led partnerships with Facebook and a variety of other companies. Before that, he was the co-founder and VP of Business Development at Stitcher, and VP at Summit Partners. He is also co-founder of BarMax, the most expensive iPhone and iPad app, and previously worked at the Boston Consulting Group and MSC Software. Mike holds a BS in Computer Science and a BA in Political Science from the University of Southern California, a JD from Harvard Law School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Indy Guha Senior Associate of Bain Capital Ventures Indy joined Bain Capital Ventures (BCV) in 2007 and invests in early and growth-stage ad-tech and e-commerce companies. He works with BCV portfolio companies such as BloomReach, TellApart and SquareTrade. Supporting those founders is his favorite part of the job. Indy was an early Product & Engagement Manager at BloomReach, working on key go-to-market issues such as traffic attribution and pricing. Previously, Indy was a consultant at the Monitor Group, working with tech companies on product launches and M&A. On the weekends, you can find Indy enjoying the Bay Area on foot, bike, or kayak. He lives in SF¹s Hayes Valley neighborhood with his wife and offers free coffee at Four Barrel to anyone who wants to get together and talk about great tech ideas. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Phil Hendrix Founder and Director of immr Dr. Phil Hendrix is the director of immr (www.immr.org), a research and consulting firm he founded to help clients bring innovative new products and services to market. Phil works with clients to uncover customer needs, optimize product/service features, achieve competitive differentiation and accelerate market acceptance. He is also an analyst in GigaOM’s analyst network, focusing on mobile and location-based services, in particular. Before founding immr, Phil was a partner with DiamondCluster and a principal with Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman). Previously, he was a professor at Emory University and the University of Michigan, where he taught courses in research, buyer behavior and marketing strategy. Phil received his PhD in Marketing from the Graduate School of Business, University of Michigan. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Kipp Jones Chief Architect of Skyhook Wireless Kipp Jones, as the Chief Architect and Privacy Czar, oversees all aspects of data architecture and privacy for Skyhook’s software and systems. This spans areas that include indoor and outdoor data acquisition, consumer data privacy, spatial and temporal data analytics, and operational optimization. Prior to joining Skyhook, Kipp spent more than 15 years developing technology and strategy for a number of early stage companies. His technology focus has been centered on large-scale information management. Kipp received his BS in Computer Science from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, an MS in CS from Georgia Tech and is currently ABD on his CS PhD from Georgia Tech. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Holger Luedorf VP, Head of Business Development of foursquare Holger is VP, Head of Business Development foursquare. He has held positions in internet and mobile services since 1998. Before joining foursquare, Holger worked at Yahoo Mobile as a Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, responsible for all of Yahoo’s strategic partnerships with global OEMs. Prior to Yahoo Mobile, Holger worked at T-Mobile International and Red Message. Holger holds a German Diplom in Business and Japanese from Hochschule Bremen and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Rich MacKinnon CEO of Mifft Private Mobile Feedback Rich MacKinnon is a parallel entrepreneur. He’s the CEO and founder of Less Networks, an incubator and skunkworks. At this year’s South by Southwest, he launched one of his newest ideas, Mifft Private Mobile Feedback. He’s also the co-founder of the Austin Wireless City Project and often credited with bringing WiFi to that city. He’s been fortunate enough to experience start ups from idea to exit and knows that he prefers garages and couches to cubicles and boardrooms. In his spare time, he’s neck-deep in traffic issues while serving as one of Austin’s seven transportation commissioners. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Dave McClure Founding Partner of 500 Startups Dave McClure is founding partner at 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund and incubator program in Mountain View, CA. He likes to hang out with entrepreneurs, and occasionally invest in startups foolish enough to let him. He has been an investor in over 250 companies including Mint.com, Twilio, Wildfire Interactive, SendGrid, TaskRabbit, SlideShare, Mashery, CreditKarma, KISSmetrics, and MakerBot, among others. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and worked with PayPal, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twilio, Mint.com, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. He used to do real work like coding or marketing, but these days he mostly does useless stuff like hanging out on Facebook and Twitter. Dave also plays ultimate frisbee, if his knees let him. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Ben Parr Columnist and Commentator of CNET Ben Parr is a respected technology commentator and journalist, web entrepreneur and aspiring world changer, startup advisor and recently completed his first sci-fi thriller novel, Desel. He is the co-founder of The Peep Project and a technology columnist and commentator for the popular technology news website CNET. Previously, he was the Editor-at-Large of Mashable, the world’s largest independent digital news website focused on social media and web technology. His previous experience includes project management for Facebook applications and content management in the web health space. Ben’s work has been featured in media such as Fortune, Fox News, CNNUSA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Washington Post, Toronto Sun, CBS News, Del Spiegel, Business Insider and The New York Times. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Damien Patton Founder and CEO of Banjo Damien Patton, Banjo Founder and CEO, is a serial entrepreneur and problem solver who developed Banjo in 2011. Not satisfied with the hurdles that hinder people from connecting across social networks on a mobile phone, he felt he had no choice but to tackle the problem himself. A trailblazer in the mobile industry, Damien speaks frequently at conferences on subjects ranging from social media to location-based technology and is currently serving as a mentor for the Harvard Innovation Lab Silicon Valley Immersion Experience Program (IXP). Damien’s diverse background includes NASCAR Chief Mechanic, Desert Storm veteran and crime scene investigator (no joke). He cruises the Bay Area on his Harley, loves Boston and never misses a chance to see the Dropkick Murphys. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Marc Prioleau Managing Director of Prioleau Advisors Marc is the Managing Director of Prioleau Advisors. Whether through brilliant foresight or lack of imagination, he has worked in the location and local services market for over 15 years. He enjoys the recent surge in interest in LBS because it makes him more interesting at parties. Prioleau Advisors provides strategic and M&A advisory services for the location and local search markets. The core tenet of Prioleau Advisors is that successful M&A is rooted in deep understanding of the market dynamics, strategies and people involved. We are surprised to find these elements frequently lacking in M&A and try to fix that in our space. Prior employers have included Trimble Navigation, SiRF, deCarta and CloudMade. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Nancy Ramamurthi VP, Product Management & Marketing of TripIt As the vice president of product management and marketing at TripIt, Nancy is as a brand evangelist, helping people discover the free TripIt app and making it easy for travelers to organize and share trips no matter where they book. She is also a product craftswoman, working with the team to hone and sharpen every aspect of TripIt to solve traveler problems with smart, easy-to-use and truly useful technology. Nancy has a passion for building new global businesses that make people’s lives better. She has had a variety of management, product and consumer marketing roles over 18 years at TripIt, eBay, Yahoo!, Coca Cola, Pfizer and Kraft. Nancy received her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and a BA in Government from Georgetown University. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Victoria Ransom Founder and CEO of Wildfire Interactive As founder & CEO of Wildfire (www.wildfireapp.com), Victoria led the company to profitability in just one year and has built the company to tens of thousands of customers and eight offices worldwide. Clients include brands and agencies such as Facebook, Pepsi, Unilever, Sony, AT&T, Ogilvy, Publicis, and Digitas. Wildfire is a two-time winner of the fbFund; investors include Summit, Facebook, Accel Partners, and the Founder’s Fund. Victoria has been featured in several publications and was named one of the ’25 Women to Watch in Tech’ for 2011 & 2010 and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for New Zealand. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Clara Shih CEO of Hearsay Social Clara is the CEO of Hearsay Social and is a pioneer in the social media industry as an engineer, celebrated author, and thought leader. She developed the first social business application, Faceconnector, kickstarting the social CRM movement. She is also author of the New York Times-featured bestseller, The Facebook Era, which is now used as a marketing textbook at Harvard Business School. Clara, who also sits on the Starbucks Board of Directors, previously served as a marketing executive at Salesforce.com, where she led the company’s social networking initiatives. Clara holds a BS in Computer Science and Economics and an MS in Computer Science from Stanford, as well as an MS in Internet Studies from Oxford, where she studied as a US Marshall Scholar. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Mark Silva SVP Emerging Platforms of Anthem Worldwide Mark Silva is SVP Emerging Platforms at Anthem Worldwide, a division of Schawk, Inc. Mark is best-known for leading the digital marketing firm he co-founded, Real Branding, representing brands at Anheuser-Busch, ABC/Disney, Darden, PepsiCo and Unilever. The digital division of Anthem Worldwide focuses on the intersection of Brand Strategy, Brand Development and Brand Deployment across all channels with award-winning work that drives big brand results. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Robert Sprogis Commerce Product Manager of ISIS Mobile Commerce Robert has been working in the wireless space for over eight years, having served as VP of Your World Games, a company devoted to the development and publishing of location aware wireless gaming content. While with Your World Games, Robert was directly responsible for managing all software development efforts as well as the distribution of the gaming content, pre-iphone. Robert left Your World Games to serve as founder and CEO of MoLo Rewards (Mobile Local). MoLo Rewards operates a solution to enable coupon and loyalty use with a mobile phone in conjunction with NFC/RFID technologies. Robert left MoLo Rewards to help Isis Mobile Commerce, the AT&T VZW and T-Mobile joint venture establish a commerce solution with an emphasis on offers and loyalty. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Tyler Sterkel Co-Founder and CEO of MondoWindow Tyler is a specialist in web and online media management, museum exhibit development, and history and archaeology public education. With a decade of experience creating interactive properties for museums like the Smithsonian, the de Young, and others, as well as project management and localization at Macromedia, Tyler brings inspirational geo-curation to MondoWindow. His experience in the museum world, which has recently gone through complete disruption thanks to the spread of the mobile Internet, stands him in good stead as he takes on in-flight entertainment, the next sector to be upended. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Blair Swedeen SVP, Strategy and Business Development of Placecast Prior to joining Placecast, Blair founded Partenza Consulting, a strategy and business development consultancy advising leading players and investors in the mobile industry. Blair also launched the mobile content product line for NAVTEQ, the leading digital map company now owned by Nokia. Before joining NAVTEQ, Blair was a Director and Quantitative Analyst at UBS Global Asset Management where he led development and operations for the firm’s global equity valuation platform and supported the development and launch of the firm’s first long-short global equity hedge fund. Blair has more than twelve years of experience in business development, strategy, and product management in mobile content and applications, digital advertising and analytics. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Owen Thomas President of Ditherati Communications Owen Thomas is an editor, writer, and media gadfly. Ditherati, his daily selection of quotes from the digital universe, has been sending up the digerati since 1997. As Gawker Media’s Valleywag, he kept the technocracy of Silicon Valley honest. Most recently, he was the founding editor of the Daily Dot. He’s also worked at NBC, Time Inc., and VentureBeat. Back |
||||||||||||||||
Hermione Way Founder of Newspepper.com Hermione is active in promoting entrepreneurship and encouraging more women to become involved in technology. In a very short space of time she has become a leading figure in new media and internet startups in London and globally. In addition to her wide-ranging online broadcasting activities, she is currently Video Director of TheNextWeb.com, founder of her own startups Newspepper.com & TechFluff.tv and has launched a world-wide competition called Startup World to find the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg! Back |
||||||||||||||||
Emily White Director, Mobile Partnerships of Facebook Since September 2010, Emily has been Director of Local and most recently Mobile Partnerships at Facebook Inc., a social networking company. Prior to joining Facebook, Emily was at Google Inc. running the North America Online Sales and Operations channel from 2001 to 2007 and the Asia Pacific & Latin America businesses from 2007 to 2009. From 2009 through 2010 Emily ran the Local and Commerce monetization businesses. She serves on the board of Lululemon, a public yoga-inspired clothing retailer, Meltwater, a private reputation management company, and the National Center for Women in I.T., a non-profit coalition working to increase the participation of girls and women in computing and I.T. She received a B.A. in Art History from Vanderbilt University. Back |
||||||||||||||||