Speakers

Ty Ahmad-Taylor, Vice President Product Development, MTV Music/Logo Group

Ty Ahmad-Taylor began his career at the New York Times in their graphics department, working in National and International news. While there, he covered the Waco, TX standoff, the Los Angeles riots, the Gulf War, the Oklahoma City bombing and other large news events from a visual perspective, using schematics, databases and cartography. In 1995, his last year at the paper, he wrote articles on the emerging Internet, special effects in cinema, and the video game industry. From the Times he moved West to join the @Home Network. Ty became the Creative Director of @Home in 1997, and led their efforts to create next-generation portals for broadband and interactive television. After a year sabbatical in 2000, where he took cooking and French lessons, he returned to technology, working as the Chief Creative Architect for MetaTV, an iTV concern based in Mill Valley, CA, just north of San Francisco. While there, Ty generated user interface patents, and led the design of interactive television portals for Comcast, Cox, Echostar and other MSO and satellite operators. He then began working at Comcast Cable Corporation as the Director of Strategic Planning in their broadband group, where his mandate included devising and executing Comcast's wireless (GPRS, UMTS and WiFi) strategy, and interactive content and applications. Ty moved on to become the Senior Director for Cross-platform applications at the company. His job duties encompassed interactive applications that straddle distribution channels (television, web and mobile), such as video search, games and music.

He is currently the Vice President for Product Development at MTV Music Networks and Logo in New York City, working on their music websites and lifestyle websites as well as the infusion of online community throughout their properties.

Ty has over 11 years of experience in designing for broadband, 10 years in interactive television, and 17 years in information design. He has lectured at Digital Hollywood, CES, Milia, AIGA conferences, HOW Design Conferences, Seybold Seminars, as well as the Poynter Institute for Journalism in St. Petersberg, Fla. He holds over seven patents in the fields of television and web product development.

Ty lives in New York City, though he is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area.

Kristie Bouryal, Executive Director and Executive Editor,
Nielson Business Media, Online

Kristie Bouryal has 15 years of experience spanning multiple media. As executive director and executive editor of Nielsen Business Media, Online, Bouryal leads editorial efforts across dozens of digital properties. She develops content menus for distribution, identifies digital partnership opportunities and creates new digital products in concert with key brand stakeholders.

As director of cooperative content services at the Associated Press, Bouryal focused on creating products and services to mobilize, link and monitor content across the news cooperative. Earlier she was deputy director of U.S. newspapers online, part of a team helping newspapers grow their new media businesses. She joined the AP in 2005 as assistant chief of bureau for Pennsylvania.

Earlier Bouryal was director of news coverage and editorial at ABCNEWS Digital where she oversaw programming, synergy and editorial integrity across products. She was also manager of news and programming for ABC News Radio, where she founded the Affiliate Services Unit and a portfolio of service offerings to serve top-market network radio affiliates. Prior she served as a field producer for major domestic and international news events.

Bouryal is a graduate of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Brad Burnham, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures

Brad Burnham is both an experienced operator and venture capitalist. His first experience with venture capital was as a member of the founding team of a mainframe software company in 1984. From 1985 until 1990, Brad was a marketing and business development executive for AT&T Computer Systems. In 1990, Brad founded Echo Logic, a Bell Laboratories spin out. As the first AT&T "venture," Echo Logic was the catalyst for the creation of AT&T Ventures, an independent venture capital partnership formed by AT&T in 1992. When Echo Logic was sold in 1993, Brad joined AT&T Ventures as an Executive In Residence. He became a Principal in 1994 and a General Partner in 1996. At AT&T Ventures, Brad was responsible for 14 investments including, Argon Networks, Audible, Avesta Technologies, Classic Sports Network, Multex Systems, Physicians Online, and Paytrust. Brad currently serves on the boards of Passlogix, Indeed and Tacoda Systems. Brad has a BA in Political Science from Wesleyan University. Brad is married with two kids and lives in New York City.

David Cancel, Co-Founder and Former CTO, Compete

David has more than 10 years of experience in information technology management. He oversaw Compete's overall technology strategy, from the design of its patent-pending architecture, to the investigation and implementation of new technologies. Prior to co-founding Compete, David served as Vice President of Technology and Chief Technology Officer at BuyerZone. Prior to BuyerZone, he was a founding member of the Lycos Advanced Product Development group (LAPD). In addition, David was Chief Software Architect and a founding member of Bolt.com, a social platform for teens and young adults, and one of the stickiest sites on the internet.

Lauren Cooney, Program Director, Community
IBM CTO Office, Information Management Division

Lauren Cooney joined the Information Management CTO Office at IBM in January 2007 and focuses on strategy, community and evangelism around Web 2.0, Info 2.0, and open source technologies and products. Prior to the CTO Office, Cooney worked on Apache Geronimo as the IBM lead for building community and programs. Before coming to IBM in 2005, she ran dev2dev and led developer marketing at BEA Systems Inc., where she built developer outreach strategy, partnerships, and community programs. While at BEA she started the BEA dev2dev User Group Program and several other successful community and technical programs. Prior to her work in enterprise software, she spent several years in venture capital and entrepreneur consulting groups working with start-up companies, entrepreneurs, and investors on business plans, financial models, and investment strategies.

Steve Fisher, Senior Vice President, Platform Division, Salesforce.com

Steve Fisher is senior vice president of the platform division at salesforce.com. In this role, Fisher leads the team responsible for the force.com platform, salesforce.com's on-demand platform that dramatically simplifies the development and deployment of on-demand business applications.

Steve led the creation of our Force.com Platform, which had its genesis in 2003 with the launch of salesforce.com's Web Services API. Today, more than 50 percent of the 120 million daily transactions on the company's industry-leading service are handled through its Web services API, demonstrating its extensive use and integration with external Web services, enterprise mash-ups and sophisticated business process and workflow applications.

With more than 16 years in the technology industry, Fisher has held positions with Apple Computer and AT&T Labs, where he served on the team responsible for architecting AT&T's VoIP and utility computing strategies. Fisher also founded NotifyMe Networks, an interactive voice-alerting platform application service provider and served as the company's first CEO. He has been named an inventor on 14 patents.

Fisher graduated with a BS degree in Mathematical and Computational Science and an MS in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Chris Fralic, Partner, First Round Capital

Chris Fralic joined First Round Capital in 2006. Chris was most recently VP of Business Development at del.icio.us, which was acquired by Yahoo! in December 2005, focusing on distribution partnerships to integrate del.icio.us across a broad set of browsers, tools and publishing partners.

Chris previously spent 6 years at eBay, and his last position there was a combination ad sales and business development role helping entertainment companies such as Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Music Group, Apple and Netflix reach and connect with eBay users. Chris previously led the Entertainment categories, managing the transaction, platform and supply/demand aspects of the books, movies and music marketplaces on eBay in the United States. Chris had been the VP of Business Development at Half.com, which was acquired by eBay in June 2000. Chris was one of the early employees of Half.com, where he helped develop many parts of the business including fund raising, content licensing, the affiliate program, supply and distribution partnerships, and advertising and sponsorships sales.

Chris has over 20 years of technology industry experience, including significant Internet sales and business development roles since 1996. He was Vice President of Business Development at Nextron Communications, a Safeguard Scientifics funded startup focusing on web site development technology and services. He was Director of Business Development for the Enterprise division of America Online, which provided secure remote access and virtual private network services to businesses.

At Oracle Corporation, Chris was Internet Account Manager for the national industry group responsible for Cable, Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications companies. His focus was on Oracle’s early Internet offerings including Web Application Servers and Commerce Servers for some of Oracle’s largest accounts such as AOL and Time Warner.

Earlier in his career, he held senior sales and management roles in the computer reseller and consulting services industry for companies including The Computer Factory, BusinessLand, ComputerLand/Vanstar, and CoreTech, where he was responsible for over $100 million in hardware, services, and consulting sales.

He currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Leader to Leader Institute (www.leadertoleader.org - formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management.) He has previously served on the Retail Advisory Councils of both NARM and VSDA, the retail trade associations for the music and movie industries, and the Advisory Board of the Library Portal Project of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He has taught graduate-level classes at Temple, Rutgers and Eastern University, and has spoken at numerous industry events including Gartner Group’s Retailvision, Jupiter’s Plug.in, and DigitalHollywood’s Media Summit.

Chris earned his BS in Finance from Villanova University, and his MBA from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

Nathan Freitas, Co-Founder, Cruxy

Over the last ten years, Mr. Freitas' career has spanned the academic, corporate, and non-profit worlds, solving difficult problems through the thoughtful application of technology. His work has been built into Palm handhelds, on display at SIGGRAPH and JavaOne, included in Wikipedia, and covered in media ranging from Boing Boing and Slashdot, to the New York Times and Howard Rheingold's book "Smart Mobs". He began programming at the age of six on a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, and founded and sold a mobile technology company, ThinAirApps, just eighteen years later. His latest ventures are Cruxy, a user media marketplace, and Mux, the Happy Hungry Videobot, both running on Amazon Web Services. Mr. Freitas also works with a number of non-profit organizations, including Students for a Free Tibet, Agit-Pop and Aspiration Tech.

Quentin Hardy, Sr. Editor and Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, Forbes

Quentin Hardy is the Silicon Valley Bureau Chief of Forbes Magazine. He joined the magazine in March 1999, and has written cover stories on Yahoo, Google, Hewlett Packard, telecommunications, and philanthropy, among others. He is a regular on "Forbes on Fox," a top-rated show on Fox News, and is a regular on CNBC’s “Kudlow and Company.”

Prior to joining Forbes, Mr. Hardy spent eight years at The Wall Street Journal, covering the Japanese financial meltdown in Tokyo and the late-nineties boom in the Silicon Valley. Mr. Hardy also teaches at the Information School of the University of California, Berkeley, and has lectured at Stanford University's schools of Journalism and Computer Science.

Jonathan Levine, Chief Technology Officer of Linkshare, Senior Vice President of International Business Headquarters of Rakuten Inc.

A seasoned technology executive, Mr. Levine is Chief Technology Officer of LinkShare and Senior Vice President of International Business Headquarters of Rakuten Inc. He joined Rakuten in Tokyo as a technology consultant in 2000 and as a full-time employee in 2001. At Rakuten, Mr. Levine fulfilled a variety of roles in technology, marketing and business development. Most recently, he spearheaded Rakuten Ichiba's analytical marketing initiative.

Prior to joining Rakuten, Jonathan was a high-level consultant helping small companies establish and implement their technology strategies. He also has led technology, internationalization and software development teams for a variety of small and large companies including IBM, Lotus Development and PointCast. Early in his career, he developed software for Oracle, IBM and Martin-Marietta.

Mr. Levine holds three patents and is co-author of the books Making Sense of Java and Teach Yourself E-Commerce Programming with ASP in 21 Days. Mr. Levine has both a B.A. in Psychology and B.S.E. in Computer Science from University of Pennsylvania.

Sandor Marik, Director of Marketing, CondéNet

Sandor Marik is Director of Marketing at CondéNet, an online unit of Condé Nast Publications. He is responsible for search marketing, content distribution and other marketing programs for the company's premier online properties, including Epicurious.com, Concierge.com, Style.com, Flip.com and Wired.com.

Before joining CondéNet, Sandor oversaw search marketing campaigns at Countrywide Home Loans, the leading residential lender in the US, and helped Countrywide become one of the top mortgage advertisers online. He also worked at RoadLoans.com, a popular auto finance Web site, and Word of Net, a pioneer in online marketing measurement. Before moving to the United States to pursue an MBA, Sandor covered information technology and communications at Hungary's leading daily business paper.

Dave McClure, Master of, 500hats

Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over fifteen years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, and internet marketing nerd. He is currently an advisor or investor for Mint Software, Spock Networks, Mashery, Simply Hired, HealthUnity, and Canopy Financial. Dave is also a board member for microfinance accelerator Unitus, advisor to non-profit Kiva.org, and leads user groups & conferences on technology, entrepreneurship, venture capital, and microfinance.

From 2005 to 2006, Dave launched & ran marketing for job search engine SimplyHired.com, and its evil twin SimplyFired.com. From 2001 to 2004, Dave worked at PayPal (acquired by eBay in 2002) as Director of Marketing, where he founded and ran the PayPal Developer Network program. Prior to PayPal, Dave was a database consultant and programmer for several companies, including Microsoft and Intel. In 1994 he founded Aslan Computing, an internet and e-commerce firm that was later acquired by Servinet/Panurgy in 1998.

Oren Michels, CEO, Mashery

Oren Michels brings more than 15 years of experience to his job as CEO of Mashery. Michels has a proven track record with experience across multiple industries. Previously, Michels was vice president of business development at Feedster, where he negotiated partnerships with AOL, Real Networks and Mitsui, and oversaw the company's activities in China. Prior to Feedster, Michels was president of Colt HR, a leading provider of outsourced benefits administration software and services to the mid market. He also co-founded WiFinder, an international provider of directory services for wi-fi public access hotspots; served as president of winebid.com, where he managed the company’s growth and helped establish it as a leading online wine auction market; served as COO of two manufacturing companies; and as CEO of The Groundlings, an entertainment production company in Hollywood.

Michels began his career as a software designer for Hughes Aircraft and has been a consultant to companies in the management, financial, marketing and information technology industries. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurial studies from UCLA's Anderson School.

Scott Rafer, CEO, Lookery

Scott Rafer has been helping Internet publishers and users jump on What’s Right Now! since 1995. Today, that means delivering services for social publishing and discovery. Scott is CEO of Lookery, as well as co-founder of Mashery and chairman of Winksite. Lookery is an ad network and user-targeting service that is supporting the growth of social applications starting with Facebook. Mashery manages API and developer programs on behalf of web services providers including Facebook app providers. Winksite helps publishers large and small assemble active mobile communities around their brands based on the content they already syndicate. Just before all that, he was CEO of MyBlogLog until Yahoo! acquired the company in January 2007. Before MyBlogLog, Scott tried to build blog/RSS search companies in both 1998 and 2003. Before the first dotcom boom, Rafer led the Internet products group at Kodak Hollywood, worked in investment banking at Needham & Company, and graduated from the Management of Technology program at UPenn. Please check out http://blog.lookery.com for the latest.

David S. Rose, Managing Principal, Rose Tech Ventures

Described as “the Father of Angel Investing in New York” by Crain’s New York Business and a “world conquering entrepreneur” by BusinessWeek, David S. Rose is an active investor in Web 2.0 technology companies, a serial entrepreneur and an Inc 500 CEO. He founded and chairs New York Angels, one of the most active angel investment groups in the country.

In 2001, after careers in real estate development, Internet technology and the US government, David founded Rose Tech Ventures, which has provided capital and management expertise to over four dozen promising early stage companies. He is CEO of Angelsoft, which operates the international standard collaboration platform for early stage equity investing; Chairman of Ambient Devices, the premier bit-trickling wireless network; and a member of the boards of KoolSpan, CE Interactive, Panjiva, Pond5 and Magnify Networks. He also serves as an active early stage investor in companies including BioScale, eJamming, Zero-G, Now Public, Storm Exchange, Design2Launch, and over three dozen other startup ventures. An early investor in Mashery, he has been involved with API-focused companies since 1988.

David has a BA from Yale and an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School. He is a graduate of the New York City public school system and Horace Mann High School.

Jeremy Zawodny, Technical Yahoo!, Yahoo! Inc.

Jeremy has been with Yahoo! for over eight years. His Yahoo! career started with several years on the high-traffic Yahoo! Finance site, where he worked to make MySQL part of the site's core infrastructure in large batch operations, as well as real-time feed processing and serving content directly on the site.

He went on to become Yahoo!'s MySQL resident guru, working closely with Yahoo!'s many engineering groups on application design, architecture, database support, tuning and troubleshooting. He then spent 9 months working as an evangelist on the influencer marketing team in Yahoo! Search and helped to launch the Yahoo! Search blog and the Yahoo! Developer Network. He then spent a year as a founding member of Yahoo!'s Technology Development team before moving back into the Developer Network and leading the integration work on Yahoo's acquisition of MyBlogLog.

He is also the author of “High Performance MySQL” (published by O'Reilly in 2004) and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Bowling Green State University. He blogs at http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/