David Allen

David Allen is an independent consultant and advisor to technology startups, VCs, private equity, and financial services corporations. He has extensive experience as a technology leader, most recently as CTO at Visa. He has also had key roles with several of the most notable high-volume, high-availability service providers in the financial services industry.

Allen was Visa's first Chief Technology Officer and was responsible for the technology strategy, enterprise architecture, technology planning, and innovation for the world's largest processor of electronic payments. Prior to Visa, he held senior technology management roles at Instinet Corporation and Reuters, where he led global product development and architecture. He has also been a management consultant at many Fortune 500 firms. Allen currently serves on the advisory board of a number of both startup and established technology firms.
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Julian Bleecker

Dr. Julian Bleecker is a Research Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication and Assistant Professor in the Interactive Media Division at the University of Southern California. He heads the Mobile and Pervasive Lab, a near-future think tank and research and development lab focused on application development, device prototyping, and scenario design for mobile and pervasive media. His areas of expertise include media and entertainment, mobile designed experiences, location-based media, and social software. Dr. Bleecker's past and current clients include MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Scholastic, Sun Microsystems, Volvo Cars, Barnes & Noble, MCI, The National Building Museum, Continental Airlines, The New York Sun, and TheStreet.com.

Dr. Bleecker has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, an MS in Engineering from the University of Washington, and a PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where his dissertation was on technology, entertainment, and culture.
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Ray Everett-Church

Ray Everett-Church is a recognized pioneer in privacy and security risk management. Called the "dean of corporate privacy officers" by Inter@ctive Week Magazine, he has a significant reputation for innovative privacy leadership, and helping companies transform privacy risks into business opportunities and competitive advantages. Throughout his consulting career, Everett-Church has worked with an array of clients including America Online, Pharmacia, Pfizer, Kimberly-Clark, Intuit, Aventis, Household/HSBC, Microsoft, the National Association of Home Builders, Napster, Ericsson, and Comcast. He was also part of the team that created TurnTide, a revolutionary anti-spam technology that was sold to Symantec in 2004 for $28 Million.

Everett-Church was a co-author of Internet Privacy for Dummies (2002) and Fighting Spam for Dummies (2004). He is a frequently sought commentator by major news media outlets, an expert witness in privacy-related lawsuits, and a frequent lecturer and trainer in privacy best practices. He also serves on several advisory boards for established firms and start-up ventures. Everett-Church holds degrees from George Mason University and The George Washington University School of Law.
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David Farber

David Farber is the Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, holding secondary appointments in the Heinz School of Public Policy and the Engineering Public Policy Group. In April of 2004, he was appointed the Chief Scientist for the National LamdaRail - a major initiative of U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies to provide a national scale infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking technologies and applications.

Farber was named in the 1997 edition of the UPSIDE's Elite 100, as one of the visionaries of the field, and was named in the 1999 Network World as one of the 25 most powerful people in Networking. In 2002, he was named by Business Week as one of the top 25 leaders in eCommerce. He co-founded Caine, Farber & Gordon Inc. (CFG Inc.), which became one of the leading suppliers of software design methodology. His consulting activities include Intel and the RAND Corp among others. He is also on a number of industrial advisory and management boards.

Farber is a Fellow of both the ACM and the IEEE and was the recipient of the 1995 ACM Sigcomm Award for life long contributions to the computer communications field. In 1996, he was awarded the prestigious John Scott Award for Contributions to Humanity (specifically for Seminal Contributions to Networking). Farber graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology and received an honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology where he also serves as a Trustee.
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Cliff Figallo

Cliff Figallo is founder of the SociAlchemy consultancy practice, which specializes in implementing successful social applications on the Internet. He is currently working with TAP-IN, a Web site development company serving local health and human resources needs and Trilogy Integrated Resources. Since 1986, when Figallo became Director of the seminal and influential online community called The WELL, he has been at the forefront of the online social movement. He has served as online community designer/manager for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), AOL, Salon Media and Cisco Systems. His core expertise is in adapting online tools for the specific needs of target populations, and in using online methods to attract those populations to interactive spaces. Figallo is the author of two books: Hosting Web Communities and Building the Knowledge Management Network.
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Joseph Fink

Joseph Fink is CEO of Fink Retail Consultants LLC. Currently Fink is helping several retail companies evaluate their ERP and POS systems. During his career, he has held senior executive positions for national and international retail and manufacturing companies including Nautica, Guess, General Nutrition Centers (GNC), as well as technology companies that serve the retail industry. Fink has over 20 years of business experience in retail store systems, e-commerce, distribution center management, supply chain management, transportation management, inventory management, reengineering, cost control, IPO's, and team building. Fink has a BS from Robert Morris University and received his MBA from Tulane University.
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Alex Lange

Alex Lange brings 20 years of hands-on experience in leading technical and operational strategy, software development, e-Commerce operations, and enterprise architecture in high-transaction environments. As VP of IT and Chief Architect at Art.com, he was a major contributor to its explosive growth into a multinational, $100M+ company.

Previously, Lange was a Managing Partner and Chief Architect of e-Business Development for IKON Technology Services, and prior to that held senior technical positions at Federal Home Loan Bank and Wells Fargo. His earlier experience included both enterprise and world-wide projects at companies such as GE Capital, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Charles Schwab, Xerox and Levi Strauss. Lange is an active member of the Silicon Valley CIO Community of Practice (CIO Cop); he attended the University of California, Irvine.
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Thede Loder

Thede Loder is co-founder and CEO of Octoble, Inc., an Internet venture focused on electronic marketplaces and efficient marketer-consumer communication. Loder is an experienced entrepreneur, consultant, researcher, and technologist. In 1995, he helped design, build, and launch the popular Match.com consumer dating service. He also co-founded Leverage Information Systems in 1996.  Leverage became the first commercial app server company to open-source its product line. Loder led Leverage to an acquisition by Diamond Technology Partners (NADAQ: DTPI) in 1999. At Diamond, Loder co-led the build-out of Diamond's west coast practice. From 2002-2004, Loder studied artificial intelligence (multi-agent systems) and conducted research in information economics as a fellow in the Socio-Technical Infrastructure for Electronic Transactions (STIET) program at the University of Michigan. His work has been presented at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), AdTech, O'Reilly, WISE, ACM e-commerce, the Federal Trade Commission, and the ITU. He has two patents pending in related technologies.

Loder holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Rochester and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
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Betty Ray

Betty Ray is a ten-year veteran of online communities, and got her start as an online producer at Minnesota Public Radio, managing community discussions with radio personalities. She moved to San Francisco in 1998 to ride the crest of Internet Bubble 1.0 as a community consultant, but instead, ended up starting her own company called Soul Pants, producing cartoons with products and services for sale within the narrative, and built a community around that. For the past seven years, she has been integrating content and community as the Senior Editor and Director of Community at Live365 - the world's largest user-generated Internet radio network.
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Roni Rosenfeld

Dr. Roni Rosenfeld is Professor of Language Technologies, Machine Learning, and Computer Science at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His current research interests are in computational molecular biology, molecular evolution, human-machine speech communication, and the use of speech and language technologies to aid international development. He has also performed research in statistical language modeling, machine learning and speech recognition. Dr. Rosenfeld has published over 100 scientific articles in academic journals and conferences. He is a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, and a recipient of the Allen Newell Medal for Research Excellence.

Dr. Rosenfeld received a BS degree in Mathematics and Physics from Tel Aviv University, and his MS and PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon.
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Chris Shipley

Chris Shipley is a leading technology and product analyst. Best known as the executive producer of the DEMO Conferences for IDG Executive Forums, Shipley has helped technology companies bring more than 1,000 new products to market since 1996. As a founding partner and global research director of Guidewire Group, she consults with emerging technology companies in the U.S. and Europe to identify emerging market opportunities and accelerate products to market. Fortune Small Business Magazine placed Shipley on its "Top 10 Minds in Small Business," the San Jose Business Journal named her a "Woman of Distinction," and she has often been cited as a leading influencer by Marketing Computers magazine. Shipley has covered personal technology since 1984, and has worked as a writer and editor for a variety of technology and consumer media. She is currently authoring a book on the social impact of technology-driven change. Shipley holds BAs in Literature and Communication Arts from Allegheny College.
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Dan Siewiorek

Dr. Dan Siewiorek has been involved in designing and implementing over 60 computer systems ranging from wrist watch sized wireless sensors to room-sized multiprocessors. Dr. Siewiorek has continually reinvented his research thrusts working on Multiprocessors in the 1970's, Design Automation in the 1980's, Rapid Prototyping and Wearable Computing in the 1990's, and is currently working on context aware computing. Throughout his career, Dr. Siewiorek has also been a consistent innovator in the area of fault tolerant and reliable system design. Each cycle has extended from basic research to prototype system to commercialization within existing companies or in six start-up companies. He has served as a consultant to several commercial and government organizations (NSF - National Science Foundation, NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology, NRL - Naval Research Laboratory, NRC - National Research Council), in addition to serving on multiple technology advisory committees (United Technologies, AT&T, Teradata, Combustion Engineering).

Dr. Siewiorek holds appointments in the Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is Director of the Human Computer Interaction Institute. He has graduated over 50 PhD students and authored eight textbooks and over 400 peer reviewed publications. He holds a BS from the University of Michigan and a Masters and PhD from Stanford University, all in Electrical Engineering.
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Scott Stevens

Dr. Scott Stevens is a senior systems scientist in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute as well as faculty in the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Stevens has been involved with pioneering multimedia research and development for thirty years, beginning with his development of interactive video applications for an experimental system delivering compressed video to the home. In the early 1980's, Dr. Stevens performed interface design research on the world's first educational, interactive videodisc system. In the late 80's and early 90's, his research team created the concept of intelligent multimedia as they developed the world's first digital video CD-ROM. He has written over sixty professional papers on multimedia and is a holder of three patents related to digital video and Synthetic Interviews, with a fourth patent pending.

Dr. Stevens was the founder of the IEEE Computer Society International Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems and Chair of its 1996 Conference in Hiroshima, Japan. In 1999, he was the Chair for two international multimedia conferences: IFIP Semantic Issues in Multimedia Systems in New Zealand and ACM Multimedia in Orlando, FL.
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Scott Thompson

Scott Thompson is senior vice president of product development, technology and operations at PayPal. Thompson oversees all aspects of global payment systems, including product roadmap, architecture, information management and operations. Prior to PayPal, Thompson was executive vice president of technology for Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa, formed to oversee global technology for the organization.

He was also CIO of Barclays Global Investors and a Partner with Coopers and Lybrand, delivering information technology solutions to leading financial services clients such as Wells Fargo, Putnam Investments and MassMutual Insurance Companies.  Thompson received a bachelor's degree in accounting and computer science from Stonehill College.
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Dalibor F. Vrsalovic

Dr. Dalibor Vrsalovic is a renowned leader in the research and development of formative parallel and distributed systems, and has been a consultant to a number of government and industry organizations. He also held faculty positions at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Zagreb. Dr. Vrsalovic managed a number of commercial organizations ranging from small start-ups to large global organizations. He co-developed patents in security and workload distribution on the Internet, and has experience in running a business that designed, implemented, and operated worldwide online systems for a number of elite customers, including GE, Sony, Allstate, Virgin Group, and the American Stock Exchange. He simultaneously managed R&D, operations, and sales in China, India, Japan, Australia, UK, and USA. Dr. Vrsalovic joined Intel Corporation as VP and CTO at the New Business Group. His last position at Intel was VP and GM of Advanced Technical Sales. Prior to joining Intel, Dr. Vrsalovic was the SVP of Internet technology at AT&T. Before joining AT&T, he was Chief Scientist and Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems/SunSoft. Dr. Vrsalovic holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, an MS in Computer Engineering, and a PhD in Computer Science, all from the University of Zagreb.
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Barry Wellman

Professor Barry Wellman studies networks: community, communication, computer, and social. His research examines virtual community, the virtual workplace, social support, community, kinship, friendship, and social network theory and methods. Based at the University of Toronto, he directs NetLab, teaches at the Department of Sociology, does research at the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, the Knowledge Media Design Institute, and the Bell University Laboratories' Collaborative Effectiveness Lab. He is also cross-appointed member of the Faculty of Information Studies.

Wellman is the Chair-Emeritus of both the Community and Information Technologies section and the Community and Urban Sociology section of the American Sociological Association. He has been a Fellow of IBM's Institute of Knowledge Management, a consultant with Mitel Networks, a member of Advanced Micro Devices' Global Consumer Advisory Board, a keynoter at conferences ranging from computer science to theology, and a committee member of the Social Science Research Council's (and Ford Foundation's) Program on Information Technology, International Cooperation and Global Security. Wellman is the co-author of more than two hundred articles, co-authored with more than eighty scholars, and is the co-editor of three books. His co-edited Social Structures: A Network Approach has been named by the International Sociological Association as one of the "Books of the Century."
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Kevin Werbach

Kevin Werbach is a leading expert on the business, policy, and social implications of emerging technologies. Werbach is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is also the founder of the Supernova Group, a technology analysis and consulting firm, and the organizer of Supernova, a leading executive technology conference. Werbach was formerly the Editor of Release 1.0, a renowned monthly report published by Esther Dyson. He has also served as Counsel for New Technology Policy at the Federal Communications Commission, where he helped develop the US Government's Internet and e-commerce policies. He is frequently quoted by leading media outlets, and is the author of numerous academic and popular publications on information and communications technologies.
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