Speakers @ LeWeb'08
Here are the biographies of LeWeb'08 speakers. We hope you'll *LOVE* the program around those amazing personalities who will share their passion on stage during the 2 days of conference.
Chris Anderson
Curator
TED
Chris Anderson is the curator of the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Conference, an influential annual conference. Anderson, who is British, was born in Pakistan in 1957.[1] His parents were medical missionaries and he spent most of his early life in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan before going to public school in England. In 1978 he graduated from Oxford University, with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
A brief career in journalism followed, including working for a pirate radio station in the Seychelles. In 1985, with meagre personal funding (£10,000 is the official story[2]), he launched a publishing company devoted to hobbyist computer magazines. Future Publishing (based in Bath, UK) began publishing Amstrad Action, and rapidly grew to publish over 20 magazines. In 1994 Anderson moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and continued to launch magazines including PC Gamer, MacAddict and Business 2.0, and websites such as the games portal IGN.com. Future grew to more than 130 magazines and more than 1500 employees. It floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1999 and at its peak had a market capitalization above $2 billion.
In 2001 Anderson left Future to work full time on TED which had been acquired that year by his private not-for-profit foundation, The Sapling Foundation.
Eric Archambeau
General Partner
Wellington Partners
Eric Archambeau is currently a General Partner at Wellington Partners, a pan European venture capital firm with offices in London, Munich, Palo Alto and Zurich, with a focus on online services, software and consumer electronics. He is serving on the Board of Directors of a number of technology and internet companies including the professional social network company Xing and the innovative online media companies amiando, Goom and TravelHorizon.
Prior to Wellington, Eric was a General Partner at Benchmark Capital where he played a key role in launching the firm's European activity. He joined Benchmark from Atlas Venture where he was a General Partner in Silicon Valley.
Before becoming a venture capitalist, Eric was a repeat entrepreneur in Silicon Valley where he co-founded Trading Dynamics (acquired by Ariba) as initial CEO. He was also a co-founder and board member of eGroups (acquired by Yahoo!) and was the co-founder, President and CEO of RightPoint Software which merged with ePiphany.
Eric is also an active Venture Philanthropist. He is one of the founders of Social-Impact International, a social business accelerator with local operations in India and Costa Rica, helping social entrepreneurs worldwide to increase their social impact and to reach their full potential. Eric founded the Social Entrepreneurship department at INSEAD where he is currently serving on the Board of Advisors. He was also previously a founding member of the Ashoka Support Network for Ashoka's operations in Western Europe.
Nikesh Arora
President, EMEA Operations & Vice President
Google UK Ltd
Nikesh Arora is President, EMEA Operations & Senior Vice President, Google. He is responsible for Google’s business across 28 offices in the European, Middle Eastern and African markets with a team of over 2500 people. When Nikesh arrived in December 2004, Google EMEA had less than 500 employees across 10 offices. 
Before joining Google, Nikesh was Chief Marketing Officer and member of the Management Board of
T-Mobile. Prior to that he worked at Deutsche Telekom, where he founded T-Motion PLC, a mobile multimedia subsidiary of T-Mobile International. Prior to T-mobile Nikesh was part of the asset management team at Putnam Investments focusing on tech and telecom on a global basis. He has also held a finance and technology management position at Fidelity Investments.
In July 2007, Nikesh was appointed to the board of Aviva PLC as an independent Non-Executive Director. He is also a Patron of the NSPCC Stop Organised Abuse Board.
Nikesh received a MS in Finance from Boston College and a MBA from the Northeastern University in the United States.
Michael Arrington
Co-Founder & Editor
TechCrunch
Biography coming soon...
Linda Avey
Founder
23andMe
Linda has over 20 years of sales and business development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry in San Francisco, Boston, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. Prior to starting 23andMe, she developed translational research collaborations with academic and pharmaceutical partners for Affymetrix and Perlegen Sciences. Linda also spent time at Spotfire helping scientists understand the power of data visualization and at Applied Biosystems during the early days of the human genome project. The advent of high density genome-wide scanning technologies brought huge potential for significant discoveries. However, the lack of sufficient funding to enable adequate studies prompted Linda to think of a new research model. These ideas led to the formation of 23andMe. Her primary interest is the acceleration of personalized medicine, using genetic profiles to target the right drug to the right person at the correct dose. Linda graduated from Augustana College with a B.A. in biology.
Aapo Bovellan - Head of Product Management
Nokia
Aapo is part of the team behind the Ovi product strategy and management of Ovi.com, Nokia Ovi Suite and the Nokia Account. After joining the company in 2003 he was instrumental in pushing its mobile gaming strategy forward, including extending the N-Gage platform across Nokia devices. He’s a pretty hardcore online gamer himself and likes to get immersed in Japanese role plays. That’s when he’s not at work asking tough questions in the interests of improving the Ovi user experience – something he’s known for doing.
Jonas Birgersson
CEO
Labs²
In 1995, Jonas Birgersson founded Framfab together with four friends. As CEO Birgersson lead the fantastic development, from a small “incubator company” in Lund with five employees to Europe’s largest Internet Services Company with at the most 2,850 employees in 13 countries with 60 offices, and a market cap lof more than $1.6 billion. His visions to the world around him, together with the company’s innovative ability to deliver IT solutions, made Framfab a well-respected and prosperous global corporation. Among Framfab clients are: 3M, AstraZeneca, AXA, British Telecom, Commerzbank, Danske Bank, Electrolux, Ericsson, France Telecom, Ikea, JP Morgan, Kellog’s, Lego, Nike, Packard Bell, Orange, Saab, Volvo Car Corporation.
Birgersson began his mission at a grass roots level. In 1987 to 1991 he lead a local non-profit organization in Lund from 15 members to 1,556 and during the next 4 years he helped the volunteer membership in SVEROK (The Swedish Role-Playing & Conflict Resolution Association) to grow from 3,000 members to 25,000. The organization was partly funded by the Swedish government and this also lead to several assignments for the Swedish government and later for Sweden’s largest telecommunication operator Telia. Birgersson helped to lay the ground for Telias Internet portal strategy in 1994 and later continued to work with Telia Research to define Telias Voice over IP strategy in 1996 to 1997. Throughout this time Birgersson came to be known as the IP evangelist at Telia and other telcos in Europe.
In 1998, Birgersson founded “Bredbandsbolaget” known as “B2” or “The Broadband Company”, Scandinavia’s most aggressive and innovative Broadband company. Their business idea is to offer broadband network access that can manage both present and future media & communications at a fixed, low-cost rate for unlimited use. Their network that is based upon Ethernet to the home enables Internet access, television broadcasts, phone communication and video over a single IP network. In 1999 B2 was awarded the largest vendor financing deal in history by Cisco and the network has already been deployed in more than 350.000 homes throughout Scandinavia. Other investors in B2 include Intel, the Carlyle Group and Investor.
Jonas Birgersson is one of Europe’s most popular speakers on the IT business. His ability to communicate in a convincing and charismatic fashion is legendary. He is best known for his aggressive and visionary observations about the “Network Economy” where he boldly states:
“All eyes are pointed at Scandinavia… we are a test market for the entire world. We could challange the U.S. on broadband, just like we did with the wireless technology.”
Thanks to his great insight in the network economy and technical trends Mr. Birgersson has been invited to hold speeches at more than 400 events since 1995. These include The World Economic Forum (Davos, Switzerland, Mexico City and Washington DC) in his role as “Global Leader of Tomorrow” and “Tech Pioneer”, numerous broadband conferences throughout the world, frequent visits to Universities in Sweden and abroad, Australian NetQuest 2001, Umeå Forum 2001 panel together with Emanuel Castel, TV meets the web 2001 in Amsterdam and meetings with foreign government agencies and departments. Birgersson is also an advisor to the Swedish Government on their broadband strategy. Thanks to Birgersson the office in Lund has been frequently visited by prominent people such as the Prime Minister, the Minister of Industry, the President of Berkeley University, the President of Finland and the Vice President of Mexico.
Other than being elected Global Leader of Tomorrow by World Economic Forum Mr. Birgersson has also been awarded Business entrepreneur of the year by Junior Chamber International 1998, Web guru of the year 1999, Swedish entrepreneur of they year 2000 and numerous other awards.
July 4th 2000 Christoffer Brown-Humes of the Financial Times wrote that “Mr. Birgersson is the best known of Sweden’s young IT entrepreneurs with a face that is better known to the average Sweden than the bosses of Volvo Ericsson.” His passion for the broadband business attracts attention as Doreen Carvajal of the International Hearald Tribune whrites on May 20, 2007,Mr Birgersson "has been a forceful proponent of a free and open Internet". Mr. Birgersson has appeared on CNBC, CBS, CNN and various European television channels, most probably every business paper in Europe and most certainly every magazine in print in Scandinavia. He has also been a columnist for Sweden’s 3rd largest newspaper.
Birgersson has held various positions in the last 12 years including CEO of Framfab (founder) until November 2000, from Dec 2000 Deputy Chairman of Framfab, member of the board at B2 (Bredbandsbolaget, Founder) where he was Chairman until October 2000, and most recently CEO of Labs2 since November 2000.
During the last 12 years, Birgersson has also held the strategic lead of a group of people working on concept, software and hardware development that will help the IP convergence forward. With clients such as Ericsson, BT, Telenor, Orange, Blu and B2 (Bredbandsbolaget) and major partners Cisco, Microsoft, HP and Ericsson. Birgersson and the group have had great insight to the technical development. A few of the major milestones that the group has accomplished under the lead of Mr. Birgersson are:
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Creating the world’s first product launch over the Internet, the Volvo C70 in September 1996.
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Starting in 1997 the Content Management Tool (CMT) software and the concept developed by the group has transformed more than 50 large corporations such as Volvo, Ikea, Saab and AstraZeneca to the network economy.
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In 1999 the group defined the standard for true broadband, i.e. 10/10 & 100/100 Mbit Ethernet to the home (Swedish Broadband Company / B2)
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In the spring of 2000 the team launched a service infrastructure platform (BRIKKS) for mobile and broadband Internet services, a concept and software that has now been adopted by some of the leading Scandinavian Service Providers.
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In 2004 (1 December) they set a new standard for broadband connections to the home, as a world first to launch 1 Gbps (1000 Mbps) as a commercial service.
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In 2005 a successful sale of B2 to the Norwegian Telcom Telenor with a great return on investment to all mayor shareholders (with a valuation of more than 1 800 € per broadband user).
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Establishing a de facto standard for Video on Demand in Scandinavia with more than 90% market share (with the BRIKKS MEDIA SYSTEM / BMS).
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In 2006 as Chairman of ViaEuropa (probably the worlds first and leading communication operator of true open networks) took the decision to build the worlds first citywide Gigabit to the Home + Wifi 540 Mbps network, in Lund Sweden.
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In 2007 RELAKKS became the worlds premier supplier of anonymous broadband connections, giving a large group of customers unfiltered IP-access over encrypted connections worldwide. And through innovation frustrating the attempts from undemocratic forces to block communication.
Lorenz Bogaert
Co-Founder & CEO
Netlog.com
Biography coming soon...
John Buckman
Founder & CEO
Magnatune.com
John Buckman is founder and CEO of Magnatune.com, an online record label that strives to be fair to both recording artists and customers alike, and which was recently named as one of the "Top 20 Music Download Sites" by Time Magazine. Considered a solid example of a Creative Commons-backed business model, Magnatune provides international web-based distribution to hundreds of recording artists and features an innovative on-demand licensing tool for commercial music licensing. In 2006, John founded Bookmooch.com, an online community for exchanging used books. His past accomplishments as a programmer and entrepreneur include having founded email software company Lyris in 1994 which was sold to JL Halsey in 2005. Buckman is also a well-known figure in the open source community and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He successfully applies both open source and Creative Commons-based principles to ensure the entire Magnatune catalog is heard by the widest possible audience. John divides his time between London and Berkeley, California and is married to classical and electronic musician Jan Hanford Buckman.
Mike Butcher
UK & Europe Editor
TechCrunch
Mike Butcher has written for UK national newspapers including the The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times and magazines including The New Statesman. He is a former editor of New Media Age 
magazine, the leading new media weekly in the UK, and The Industry Standard Europe. In 2000 he was nominated as NetMedia’s European Internet Journalist of the Year. In 2004 he was voted ‘One of the 100 Innovators of the UK Internet Decade’ by GfK NOP, the fourth-largest custom research business in the world. In July 2008 Mike was put at No. 47 out of the Top 100 people in London’s creative industry the UK by The Independent newspaper and The Hospital Club. In August 2008 TechCrunch UK was named the best “Web 2.0 and business blog” in the UK, by the readers of Computer Weekly magazine. He has appeared on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 and Bloomberg, commenting on technology and new media.
Marc Canter
CEO
Broadband Mechanics
Marc is a leading advocate for open social networking and open standards which will allow small software developers to 'mesh' in with the BigCo platforms. Marc has recently written a book "How to build the Open Mesh" which is a treatise on the principle and areas to focus on to facilitate an on-line distributed international world of inter-connected pieces. Marc's comapny - Broadband Mechanics offers a social networking and publishing platform called PeopleAggregator - and has built systems for Bell Canada, theTimesofIndia, Mondadori, Acteva, RadioOne, the Sac Kings, GTChannel, Cyama and others. In an earlier life Marc founded MacroMind - which became Macromedia - so Marc has been in the software business for 25+ years. Marc can always be relied upon to ask the hard wuaetions others are afraid to ask.
Jeff Clavier
Founder & Managing Partner
SoftTech VC
Based in Palo Alto, California, Jean-Francois “Jeff” Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups. Since 2004, Jeff has invested in more than 40 consumer Internet companies in areas like social media, communities, search, gaming or consumer infrastructure, almost exclusively in Silicon Valley. With over 20 years of operational, entrepreneurial and venture capital experience, Jeff is able to add relevant perspective and value to his companies as they grow from inception to maturity, and hopefully, success.
In 2007, Jeff was recognized as one of the 13 “Web 2.0 King Makers” by (late) Business 2.0, and in 2008,
BusinessWeek named him one of "The 25 Most Influential People on the Web". He is often noted for his investments in categories such as “passion-centric communities” or online gaming, or for having sold five of his Web 2.0 startups to the likes of Yahoo, AOL or Hearst Interactive.
In September 2007, Jeff announced the formation of SoftTech VC II, L.P. – a $12M seed fund backed by a mix of institutional and private investors that will invest in 40 to 50 consumer Internet companies over 3 years. During its first year of activity, he fund has closed 20+ investments, most of them still operating in stealth/pre-launch mode.
A popular speaker and moderator, Jeff appears at dozens of industry events per year. Ranging from local Silicon Valley keynotes or panel discussions to international conferences, he shares his passion for building Internet startups, angel and VC investing, innovation and entrepreneurship. Jeff has produced a number of technology conferences and is a founding co-chair of the SDForum Search Special Interest Group.
Believing that you have to practice what you invest in, and vice-versa, Jeff started Software Only in 2004, one of the early venture capital blogs where he primarily covered social media, search, online communities and investing. After a few years of active posting, Jeff switched to micro-blogging, and a less time consuming production, mostly using Twitter.
Prior to founding SoftTech VC, Jeff spent more than 16 years in the enterprise software world as an entrepreneur, senior executive and venture capitalist. Throughout his career, he was exposed to global markets leading development teams in Europe and on Wall Street, designing products sold internationally and investing in software infrastructure startups across the U.S. and Europe.
In 2000, Jeff became President of RVC Capital, the firm managing the Reuters Greenhouse Fund with $600M invested in 82 companies, including Yahoo!, Verisign, Phone.com and Infoseek. He joined the venture arm of Reuters from the company’s product development division, where he was leading a 250+ staff in Paris, London and New York, and was responsible for the Risk Management and Desktop products. Jeff joined Reuters through the acquisition of Effix Systems, a Paris-based startup company he helped develop in 1989 while still in school.
Jeff was born, raised and educated in France, earning a MS in Computer Science and a research degree in Distributed Computing. He has been happily living in Silicon Valley since 2000 with his wife Bernadette and their two children. When he is not busy working, Jeff likes to spend time with his family and friends, cook, collect wine and wander around Outland on his hunter. He also skies, hikes, dives and plays golf so poorly it is not even funny.
Paulo Coelho
Author
Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August 1947. He has led a very intense life. Before he became internationally known and a worldwide bestseller, he had to overcome many obstacles. As a teenager, he had to face the brutality of electric shock treatment in the psychiatric hospital where his parents, who took his rebelliousness as a sign of madness, interned him three times between 1966 and 1968. As a member of the esoteric underworld, he was put in prison for alleged subversive activities against the Brazilian dictatorship and subjected to physical torture.
Later, Paulo joined forces with rock star Raul Seixas and, as a hippie, was very much part of the age of "love and peace" and "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll". Together they composed 120 songs (between 1973 and 1982) that revolutionized Brazilian rock music; some of which are hits today. Hérica Marmo has described that period of his life in his book, The Magician's Song: Paulo Coelho's Musical Career, published in 2007. Hippie, journalist, rock star, actor, playwright, theatre director and producer of television programs, this whirlwind life came to an end in 1982, during a trip to Europe. In Dachau and later in Amsterdam, Paulo had a mystical meeting with "J", his new mentor, who persuaded him to walk the Road to Santiago de Compostela, a medieval pilgrim's route between France and Spain.
In 1986, at the age of 38, Paulo Coelho walked the Road to Santiago, and it was there that he reconverted to Christianity and found again the faith bequeathed to him by the Jesuit fathers of his school years. He would later describe this experience in his first book, The Pilgrimage, published in 1987. The following year, his second book, The Alchemist, established his worldwide reputation. The novel has already achieved the status of a universally admired modern classic. This story, considered to be timeless by many, is set to enchant and inspire whole generations of future readers.
Subsequent books were Brida (1990), O Dom Supremo: The Gift (1991), The Valkyries (1992), Maktub (1994), By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994), The Fifth Mountain (1996), Love Letters from a Prophet (1997), The Manual of the Warrior of Light (1997), Veronika Decides to Die (1998) and The Devil and Miss Prym (2000). Among his recent novels are Eleven Minutes – bestselling fiction title worldwide in 2003 –, The Zahir (2005), Like the Flowing River (2006), The Witch of Portobello (2006) and The Winner is Alone (2008).
He has received numerous prestigious international awards. The critics have praised his poetic, realistic and philosophical style, and the symbolic language that does not speak to our minds, but to our hearts. He has been a member of the prestigious Brazilian Academy of Letters since 2002.
His followers value and esteem him for his awareness of the problems in the world, his spirituality, his probity of character, his wisdom, but most of all, for his ability to speak to everybody. Paulo Coelho is an advocate of multiculturalism through his work with UNESCO as a Special Counsellor for Intercultural Dialogues and Spiritual Convergences. The author was appointed a United Nations Messenger of Peace in September 2007 and this will allow him to continue to promote intercultural dialogue and to focus on the needs of children.
Paulo Coelho has recently received the 2009 Guinness World Record for the Most Translated Author for the same book (The Alchemist). Moreover, he holds the Guinness World Record for the Most Translations (53) of a Single Title (The Alchemist) Signed in One Sitting (45 minutes). The record was achieved as a result of an international book-signing held at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2003.
The man behind the author loves reading, travelling, computers, the Internet, music, football, walking, and practicing Kyudo – a kind of meditative archery. He has always been interested in cinema and is at present working on his first film project called the Experimental Witch. Every morning, he wakes early and, after a two-hour walk, shoots 24 arrows using one of his three bows. He and his wife Christina Oiticica divide their lives between Rio de Janeiro and Europe.
Ferhan Cook
Co-Founder
Any Screen Productions
During 1998 to 2000, Ferhan worked for the leading interactive agencies IXL and Razorfish, as VP Interactive Television and Acquisitions consultant. Between 2001 and 2005, Ferhan Cook co-founded a very successful businessl networking website and newsletter named, Broadband Bananas, focussing on Interactive TV and Broadband TV, boasting 25,000 members worldwide.
Any Screen Productions is now the publisher of a fast growing website and newsletter for the Mobile Advertising Community www.mobiadnews.com. MobiAd News is read by over 60,000 industry professionals each month, and is the definitive market resource dedicated to Mobile Marketing and Advertising.
Any Screen Productions launched the first ever Mobile TV Screenings and Awards (2004-2008) at MIPCOM, world's leading audiovisual content show each year in Cannes France. As head of the
Ferhan Cook, has been the designer and co- producer of the highly successful MIPTV and MIPCOM Digital Conferences on Mobile, Broadband and Social Media, for the last 5 years, now attended by some 4000 TV Broadcasters and New media professionals, during the world's largest TV Content Markets, MIPTV and MIPCOM.
Ferhan has also been a Jury member for the Global Mobile Content Awards Korea, for 2007 and 2008, Interactive Emmy Awards, for 2005 and 2007, India's FICCI Frames 2007 -Gaming Awards, MEFFY Mobile Entertainment Awards, 2007. Ferhan has also been the founder and co-chair of the first IAB UK, Mobile Advertising Council, 2007-8.
.Ferhan is a sought after international speaker , moderator and jury member for digital media events and competitions, worldwide.
Brian Cox
The School of Physics and Astronomy
University of Manchester
Biography coming soon...
Thomas Crampton
Now a blogger on Asia and digital media, Thomas Crampton worked as a correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times for more than a decade, reporting from five continents, writing a column on Asia and covering Asian politics, economics and culture. Prior to his most recent posting - feature writing from Paris on media and technology - he covered the 2004 US presidential election, reported on the 1997 Asian financial crisis from Thailand, the SARS outbreak from Hong Kong, the civil war in Sudan, rebel fighting in Sri Lanka, Taiwan's largest earthquake, the 2004 US hurricanes and the Cannes Film Festival. Currently based out of China, he is working with the founder of a major media company on entrepreneurial ventures.
Georges-Edouard Dias
Team Leader, Internet & e-Business
L'Oreal
Georges-Edouard DIAS is currently heading L’Oréal E-Business group, a position that he has occupied since 2001. With his team, he is supervising the worldwide development of L’Oréal proprietary .net platform, which hosts in France currently more than 150 web sites from all L’Oréal brands in Europe, Asia and Northern America. The team is equally responsible for corporate interactive communications as well as setting content partnership with leading web portals such as MSN or Sina.com in China, and has launched an ambitious project of developing a common worldwide CRM architecture, based on Siebel 7.7, with a pilot already running in Korea and France, and further instances currently being implemented in China and Brazil. Dias was previously VP of Interactive Development at L’Oréal USA, where he defined L’Oréal’s policy related to electronic commerce and launched the first selling sites in L’Oréal’s history.
Dias interactive career commenced when he was promoted as project manager in charge of launching L’Oréal corporate web site in 1997, an important change from his previous positions in the group that were mostly marketing focused; from product manager at Garnier International when he joined L’Oréal after he graduated from HEC in France in 1983, to VP of Marketing at Vichy International before he was moved to corporate.
Stephane Distinguin
FaberNovel
After graduating from ESCP-EAP, Stéphane Distinguin joined Deloitte & Touche (1997), first in London within the High Technology group, then in Paris.
In 1999, he co-funded Up&Up, an early stage venture capital firm. He so contributed to the development of start-ups focused on software edition or environmental technology issues.
In 2003, he funded faberNovel, a company dedicated to innovation and its implementation. In a range of 5 years faberNovel has employed 30 people and built solid references intervening as designer and developer of new concepts for products and services; growth and diversification by innovation strategies expert on behalf of industrial groups (RATP, SFR, Orange, L’Oréal, Gaz de France, La Lyonnaise des Eaux, JC Decaux…)
faberNovel initiate and test internally projects on emerging technologies, usages or methodologies: the most promising result in the development of innovative companies. This excubation model allow faberNovel to diversify through the creation of digitick, af83, Chugulu games, C4M Prod, DoYouMultimedia, Persistant Labs, SpinMedias, eXoPlatform, bearstech, Tarpipe….
faberNovel strengthened its position in the Silicon Valley in January 2007 when it created its American subsidiary faberNovel Inc. based in San Francisco, keeping a constant contact with the vanguard of ICT, design, and environmental technology.
Deeply involved in the French entrepreneurial ecosystem, Stéphane is president of Silicon Sentier: a Parisian association regrouping a hundred of ICT start ups. This association is in charge of currently developing two major projects for a more ubiquitous and connected Paris: “le Quartier Numérique”, a living lab in Paris 2nd district, and “la Cantine”, one of the first European co-working spaces.
Helen Fisher
Visiting Research Professor
Rutgers University
Helen Fisher, a Biological Anthropologist, is a Research Professor and member of the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. Her forthcoming book on mate choice, WHY HIM? WHY HER? Finding Real Love by Understanding your Personality Type, will be published in January, 2009 by Henry Holt. It studies mate choice in 40,000 men and women via the Internet dating site, Chemistry.com, a subsidiary of Match.com. She has written four other books: WHY WE LOVE: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love (Holt 2004); THE FIRST SEX: The Natural Talents of Women and How They are Changing the World (Random House 1999); ANATOMY OF LOVE: The Natural History of Mating, Marriage and Why We Stray (WW Norton 1992); THE SEX CONTRACT: The Evolution of Human Behavior (William Morrow l982). Her books have been published in 18 languages. Dr. Fisher has been on the national and international lecture circuit since l983 discussing the evolution, biology and future of human sexuality, romantic love, and marriage, adultery and divorce, as well as personality and mate choice, gender differences in the brain and behavior, and current anthropological trends in business, sexuality and family life. She appears regularly on TV and radio, nationally and internationally and has written blogs for Chemistry.com and other Internet sites. For her work in communicating anthropology to the public, Helen has received the American Anthropological Association's "Distinguished Service Award."
Lucas Gadowski
Founder
Team Europe Venture
In 2002 Lukasz Gadowski founded Spreadshirt.com (currently ~300 employees worldwide, backed by Accel Europe) and was the co-founder of the Social Network “StudiVZ” (sold to Holtzbrinck in 2007, today Germanies largest website). At the beginning of 2008 Gadowski moved from the Spreadshirt Board of Directors to the Supervisory Board, where he is now chairman.
Lukasz is an active internet investor since 2006 and has a portfolio of over 60 internet companies across
geographies and stages (for example imagekind.com, rapleaf.com, panfu.de, zlio.com, dawanda.de, amiando.com, imedo.de, toksta.com, apomio.de, epuls.pl, netzathleten.de).
Since 2007 he was involved in the creation of numerous Internet companies, for example Brands4Friends.com, MisterSpex.com, Absolventa.com, Triphunter.com, Playnik.com as well as Kaeuferportal.de. For these ventures Oliver Jung (AdInvest, Zürich) is an important partner.
In September 2008 Lukasz launched ‘Team Europe Ventures’ which combines his existing portfolio. Within the new entity he plans to scale and expand his activities – among other towards investments in later stages and more international focus.
Lukasz was born in Poland and grew up in Germany. Today he lives in Berlin.
For more information about Lukasz and Team Europe Ventures, please visit the web site www.teameurope.net.
Steve Gillmor
The Gillmor Gang
Biography coming soon...
Jacques-Antoine Granjon
Ceo & Co-Founder
vente-privee.com
CEO and co-founder of vente-privee.com (established in 2001, over 800 employees), born in 1962 in Marseille, graduated in 1985 at the EBS (European Business School) of Paris, founder of COFOTEX S.A. in 1985 – 23 years of experience in the wholesale industry.
Robin Good
New Media Innovator, Explorer, Independent Publisher
Master New Media
Robin Good from Sharewood is a small independent web publisher focusing on communication skills, media literacy and new media technologies. Based in Rome, Italy, Robin Good has become not only a well-read publisher (with nearly 1 million unique visitors every month across its four-language edition
daily magazine) but also an on-demand technology advisor especially in the areas of visual 
communication, online collaboration and professional web publishing. From small start-ups to Microsoft, many have relied on Robin's unique, ahead-of-the-times vision of what could work best in the development of their tools and services. From his humble beginnings as an Experimental and Interdisciplinary Arts major at San Francisco State, Robin Good has had a career that has spanned many disciplines. His past careers include serving as a visual communication and media production consultant, advisor, and coach - having had many previous stints in corporate advertising. Other endeavors include identity design and art direction as well as a successful string of prestigious appointments as an on-air video producer, information designer and radio format director. But the turning point in his life has been the decision to make blogging his professional career. Thanks to his ability to test and experiment ahead of others Robin Good turned his love for sharing his personal discoveries into a way of life that since 2005 has turned into a full blown business. Robin's motto - "be smart, be independent, be good" - reflects his passion for learning and desire to help those who want to achieve economic independence via the intelligent use of new media tools.
Jeff Hansen
General Manager - Services Strategy / Live Mesh - Microsoft Corporation
www.mesh.com
Nick Heys
Founder & CEO
Emailvision
Nick is an entrepreneur with over 25 years experience in multi-channel direct marketing, including three years as Marketing Director at The Franklin Mint and five years as an independent consultant specialised in mail order and database marketing services. Since founding Emailvision in 1999, Nick has taken the company from start-up to a leading public email marketing software company.
Reid Hoffman
LinkedIn
Founder
Reid was LinkedIn’s founding CEO for the first four years before moving to his role as Chairman and President, Products in February 2007. While CEO, Reid built the company to over 9 million members and profitability. He now drives product and business strategy for LinkedIn.
Prior to LinkedIn, Reid was Executive Vice President of PayPal. At PayPal, Reid was in charge of all business relationships: business development, corporate development, international, government relations, and banking/payments infrastructure. During his tenure at PayPal, Hoffman was instrumental to the acquisition by eBay and was responsible for partnerships with Intuit, Visa, MasterCard and Wells Fargo. Reid also has held management roles in large technology companies, including Fujitsu Software Corporation and Apple. Currently, in addition to LinkedIn, Reid serves on the Board of Directors for SixApart and Mozilla Corporation. Reid graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a BS in Symbolic Systems and from Oxford University with a Master’s degree in philosophy.
Stéphanie Hospital
Vice President Marketing and Business Development
Orange Audience and Online Advertising Division
Stéphanie leads the Audience Development Strategy on Mobile, TV and Internet as well as heads up the
corporate development activities for audience and advertising. Her responsibilities include channels and services development, partnerships and acquisitions, online marketing and audience measurement. Previously, Stéphanie served in senior management roles within Orange Labs and Wanadoo, the former France Telecom listed internet company.
Stéphanie Hospital begun her career at Arthur Andersen Business Consulting. As a manager, she led on several assignments covering strategy formulation, organisational designs, and new ventures launches in the Internet, Telecom and Media sphere.
Stéphanie Hospital graduated at Grenoble Ecole de Management, one of Europe's top management schools.
Joi Ito
CEO
Creative Commons
Joichi Ito is the CEO of Creative Commons . He is a co-founder and board member of Digital Garage and the CEO of Neoteny . He is on the board of Technorati and helps run Technorati Japan . He is the Chairman of Six Apart Japan the weblog software company. He is the board of a number of non-profit organizations including The Mozilla Foundation, WITNESS and Global Voices. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan and was an early stage investor in Six Apart, Technorati, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Last.fm, Rupture, Kongregate, etology Inc and other Internet companies. He has served and continues to serve on various Japanese central as well as local government committees and boards, advising the government on IT, privacy and computer security related issues. He is currently researching "The Sharing Economy" as a Doctor of Business Administration candidate at the Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. He maintains a weblog (http://joi.ito.com/) where he regularly shares his thoughts with the online community. He is the Guild Custodian of the World of Warcraft guild, We Know.
Daniel Kaplan
CEO
Fondation Internet Nouvelle Génération (FING)
Daniel Kaplan, 46, is the founder and CEO of the Next-Generation Internet Foundation (FING). FING is a collective and open Research and Development project that focuses on digital innovation and its interaction with economic and social change. He is also chairman of the European Institute for e-Learning (EifEL).
Since the 1990's, Daniel Kaplan has been deeply involved in the Internet’s development and evolution. He was VP-Membership of the Internet Society worldwide, and contributed to the creation of ICANN. He served in the European Commission's e-Europe's Experts Chamber, as well as in the French Prime Minister’s Strategic Advisory Board on Information Technologies (CSTI),
Mr. Kaplan has written or directed 15 books and public reports on the internet, mobility and ubiquitous networking, ambient inteligence, e-inclusion, e-commerce, e-education and electronic media. FING: www.fing.org
Phillip J.Kaplan
Founder & President, Products
Adbrite
Philip founded AdBrite, the largest privately-held ad network by pageviews (source: comScore). AdBrite is backed by Sequoia Capital and was recently named the 34th fastest growing private company in 
America by Inc Magazine, with $32 million in revenue three years after founding. Prior to founding AdBrite, Philip founded several businesses including PK Interactive, a software company that developed Web-based applications for Fortune 500 clients including Toyota and Mead Paper. Philip's personal sites, including Fuckedcompany.com and others, have earned accolades including Yahoo! and Rolling Stone's Site-of-the-Year, and #6 in TIME Magazine's "Best of 2000." Philip is the bestselling author of F'd Companies (Simon & Schuster). He is on the board of advisors for Syracuse University and lives in San Francisco, California, USA.
Amit Kapur
Chief Operating Officer - MySpace
In this role, Kapur is responsible for spearheading the development and implementation of all global business operations for MySpace. He also oversees the growth and expansion of MySpace partnerships across the Developer Platform and popular features including MySpace Mobile and MySpaceIM with
Skype.
Kapur, joined MySpace in 2005 as the company’s first business developer hire. In this early role, Kapur led the advance of the MySpace Mobile product through solidifying landmark partnerships with AT&T (then Cingular) and Helio. Kapur was also responsible for numerous business expansion initiatives such as company’s initial globalization strategy and deal negotiations across various partners.
In 2006 as Vice President of Business Development, Kapur was integral to key business relationships and deals for MySpace including the landmark monetization deal with Google, the strategic product partnership with Skype to create a new instant messenger client, and the company’s first music licensing pact with Sony BMG. Before joining MySpace, Kapur worked in the strategic planning and business development group at NBC-Universal. Kapur received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
Travis Katz
Managing Director International MySpace - Fox Interactive Media
Travis Katz is Managing Director of MySpace International, the leading social networking and lifestyle portal on the Internet, and Fox Interactive Media (FIM). In this role, he oversees the roll-out of MySpace and other Fox Interactive Media properties outside of the United States including the recent launches of MySpace in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Since MySpace’s inception in January 2004, the site has grown exponentially, with an average of 3o0,000 new users signing up daily and, according to comScore Media Metrics, nearly 122 million monthly unique visitors worldwide. By integrating web profiles, blogs, classified listings, entertainment content, photo galleries and user forums, MySpace has created a community where users can do everything from plan their weekends to connect up with friends to discover new music.
Travis joined MySpace from Fox Entertainment Group, where he was the Director of Business Development, focusing on launching new cable channels (including Fox Reality Channel and Fox College Sports), as well as mergers and acquisitions including the acquisition of Turner South, Scout Media and IGN. Travis was also a principal author of the interactive strategy which led to the formation of Fox Interactive Media, and played a leading role in the acquisitions of a number of the FIM properties.
Prior to joining Fox, Travis spent several years at McKinsey & Company, and managed global policy development at the World Bank. Travis holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a B.A. from Stanford University.
Klaas Kersting
Gameforge
Biography coming soon...
Taewoo Danny Kim - Full-time blogger & author of Meconomy
Taewoo Danny Kim is one of the leading IT/Web 2.0 bloggers in Korea behind TechnoKimchi (English) and qOoOp Media and Taewoo's log (Korean) and blogs. He's also known as the very first full-time blogger in Korea. His passion is about informing the rest of the world about the "cool digital things" happening in Korea. He's been featured on numerous media, such as CNN, SBS, and several other newspapers. As an influential blogger, he has attended many conferences as press himself, such as Web 2.0 Expo, State of Play, and Supernova.
Danny is also the author of Meconomy, a book on the economic analysis of Web 2.0 and crowdsourcing. Prior to becoming a full-time blogger, he worked for Samsung SDS as a researcher and is currently helping Openmaru with global marketing for Springnote, an online wiki-based note-taking service. Danny holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering degrees in computer science from Cornell University.
Masashi Kobayashi
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
Infinity Ventures
Masashi Kobayashi founded Infinity Ventures in Dec. 2007. He focuses on early stage investments in the Digital Media sector, as well as organizes the leading Venture Conference "Infinity Ventures Summit" (formally New Industry Leaders Summit) from Nov. 2004 to date.
Prior to founding Infinity Ventures, He was a partner of the leading Japanese venture capital firm "Globis Capital Partners". He was responsible for early & development stage investments in the Digital Media & Software sectors. He was well-published on a lot of Newspapers and Online Medias, and Magazines as the leading Venture Capitalist in the Digital Media sector. His reprehensive deal is GREE ,the leading mobile based social networking and entertainment service.
Previously, He was a Director of RecycleOne, GREE, Interactive Brains, Interscope (acquired by Yahoo! Japan), Ariel Networks (acquired by Works Applications), VirtualeX(acquired by Simplex Technology), etc.
In 2001, he started his venture capitalist career as an associate at Apax Globis Partners ,created as an affiliate of Apax Partners. In 2004, he was on the fastest track and was promoted to the partner of Apax Globis Partners. In 2006, he joined Globis Capital Partners as one of the founding partner of "Globis Fund Ⅲ(JPY 18 billion ).
Prior to Apax Globis Partners, he was a management consultant for Arthur D. Little, focusing on Telecommunication, Information Technology, Media, and Electronics sector.
Masashi Kobayashi received a B.S. from the University of Tokyo.
Kaiser Kuo
Group Director of Digital Strategy
Ogilvy China
Kaiser joined Ogilvy as Group Director, Digital Strategy, in January 2007. In a horizontal role spanning all of Ogilvy's disciplines, he heads the ongoing effort to maintain Ogilvy China's lead in digital, identifying cutting-edge tech companies for strategic partnership and investment opportunities and keeping the Ogilvy team abreast of trends in the fast-changing world of digital media.
Prior to joining Ogilvy, Kaiser served as China Bureau Chief of Red Herring magazine, a leading Silicon Valley-based technology business magazine, where he covered the business of technology in China and elsewhere in East Asia. He continues to write extensively about the technology scene through on his blog, the Ogilvy China Digital Watch (http://digitalwatch.ogilvy.com.cn).
Previously, Kaiser was a Creative Director for two wireless companies, Mobile Internet Games and Nasdaq-listed Linktone, where he created successful mobile game concepts; and as Editor-in-Chief for the multi-city online guide ChinaNow.com.
Kaiser serves on the board of advisors of both startup companies and established Internet companies, and belongs to the Global Business Network's group of "Remarkable People."
Kaiser is a regular on the conference circuit, frequently asked to speak and moderate panels on China-related topics ranging from the Internet, telecommunications, and technology innovation to the music industry and cultural scene.
Kaiser holds a BA in Political Science from U.C. Berkeley and an MA in East Asian Studies from the University of Arizona.
Born in upstate New York and raised in Arizona, Kaiser is nonetheless a self-described "lifer" in China, having spent over a dozen years in China; he now lives in Beijing with his wife and two young children. Co-founder of China's first and most successful Heavy Metal band, Tang Dynasty, Kaiser remains active in the music scene, performing and recording with his band Chunqiu. When he's not playing music or enjoying family life, he chronicles his life in Beijing in the popular back page column of English-language magazine that's Beijing—a column called "Ich Bin Ein Beijinger."
Dr. KF Lai
CEO & Co-Founder
BuzzCity
Dr KF Lai is co-founder and chief executive officer of BuzzCity, a developer of global wireless 
communites and consumer services. Established in 1999 in Singapore, BuzzCity today operates the world’s largest wireless community - mygamma.com - for two distinct audiences: the newly connected emerging middle class in developing markets and the blue collar sector in developed regions. These "unwired" consumers are accessing the mobil e Internet on their phones due to widespread and affordable wireless access. Prior to founding BuzzCity, Dr Lai worked as an applied researcher in laboratories funded by the Singapore government, specializing in pattern recognition and text retrieval. He graduated with First Class Honours in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore and obtained his Doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Maurice Levy
Chairman & CEO
Publicis Groupe
Maurice Lévy is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s four leading communications organizations. Under his stewardship, Publicis Groupe has been transformed into a global powerhouse of top creative advertising and marketing agencies and is today a pioneer in digital and online communications.
It includes three of the world’s top advertising networks (Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett and Publicis), two leading global media buying and consulting groups (Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia) and a host of world-class marketing services companies. A major strategic link with Japan’s Dentsu was announced in 2002 and in early 2007 the friendly acquisition of Digitas, a leading force in online communications. Publicis Groupe is today present in 107 countries with a full range of services. It is quoted on the Paris Euronext.
Maurice Lévy holds the distinctions of “Commandeur” of the French Légion d’Honneur and of the Ordre National du Mérite. He is a past President of the Jury of the Cannes Advertising Film Festival, served on the French Government Commission to combat Drug Addiction, and was a member of the Advisory Committee of the Banque de France. He is on the Board of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Since 2002, he is co-chair of the French-American Business Council. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of The Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the World Economic Forum Foundation Board in Geneva, and has been on the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank since June 2006. Since 2005 he has been in a personal capacity a co-founder and administrator of the ICM (Institute for Cerebral and Medullary Disorders) and President of the Association of Friends of the ICM.
He received the Benjamin Franklin Award from the French American Foundation in 2004 and in the same year the Scopus Award from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In January 2008 he was honored with the International Leadership Award by the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) in New York for his commitment to promoting tolerance and diversity.
In 2006, Mr. Lévy was asked by French Finance Minister Thierry Breton to chair the Commission on Intangible Assets, which delivered its findings and recommendations in November '06.
Born in 1942, he is married and has three sons and six grandchildren.
Dan'l Lewin
Corporate Vice President for Strategic and Emerging Business Development
Microsoft Corporation
Dan'l Lewin, corporate vice president for Strategic and Emerging Business Development (SEBT), is responsible for Microsoft Corp.'s global relationships with startups, venture capitalists and the business relationships with industry partners such as Adobe Systems Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM Corp. Based in Silicon Valley, Lewin also has executive and site responsibility for the company's operations in Mountain View, Calif., which currently employ 2,000 people.
The SEBT includes three groups: the Emerging Business Team, the Local Software Economy (LSE) and
the Strategic Relations Group, whose common goal is to support software startups and established companies working on the Microsoft platform while helping develop and grow local software economies worldwide. Through the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program, the Interop Vendor and Secure IT Alliances, and the LSE's Microsoft Innovation Center program, Lewin's groups help accelerate startup success in more than 60 countries and help partner companies offer security-enhanced and interoperable products and services.
Lewin has spent more than 30 years as a Silicon Valley-based executive leading sales and marketing divisions for companies including Apple Computer Inc., NeXT Inc. and GO Corp. Before joining Microsoft, he was CEO of Aurigin Systems Inc., a startup that pioneered intellectual property asset management, and he has consulted for emerging companies, venture capital firms and corporate joint ventures.
Lewin serves on the boards of the Churchill Club; Software Development Forum; American Electronics Association; Santa Clara University Center for Science, Technology and Society; and the Tech Museum of Innovation, where he serves as chairman of the Tech Museum Awards program. He holds a bachelor of arts in politics from Princeton University.
Didier Lombard
Chairman & CEO
France Telecom Orange
Appointed as the France Telecom Group’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer on February 27, 2005,
he is also a director at Thomson and Thales and a member of the supervisory board at Radiall and ST Microelectronics.
Didier Lombard joined the Group in 2003 as Senior Executive Vice President, in charge of Technologies, Strategic Partnerships and New Usages for France Telecom.
Between 1988 and 2003, he worked with the French ministry for research and technology and the ministry for the economy, finance and industry, and was then founding chairman of the French agency for international investment.
He began his career in 1967 at France Telecom’s CNET (currently Research and Development Division), where he worked on developing new products for France Telecom on satellites, electronic components and wireless systems.
Didier Lombard is a graduate from École Polytechnique and École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications.
Matthias Lüfkens
Associate Director
World Economic Forum
Associate Director at the World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org); Founder of the In Your Pocket city guides (www.inyourpocket.com) print and online city guides to 50 European cities; formerly deputy editor in chief with EuroNews television and freelance correspondent for AFP, The Daily Telegraph and Liberation, in the Baltic States from 1991 - 1996.
Morten Lund
Lund XY Global Venture
‘Archangel’ investor, startup ideologist and visionary, Danish serial entrepreneur Morten Lund has
founded or co-invested in more than 40 high-tech start ups in the last decade, most famously Skype, the VoIP star snapped up by eBay for $2.6 billion in 2005. At 36 years of age he is one of the most active seed investors in Europe, with an eye for turning existing business models and distribution methods on their head. His portfolio features over 80 companies spanning the Internet, telecoms, health and alternative energy.
Lund has established a category of investments in his portfolio entitled WILD – Worldwide Investments and Involvement in Life Development - through which he is investing in water purification, marine energy systems, landmine detection and hunger and obesity. Lund is a special member of Clinton’s Global Initiative (http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org), a professor at Reykjavik University and frequent speaker at international conferences. With more than 40,000 monthly visitors his blog has more readers than the local newspaper.
At the heart of Morten Lund there’s something that drives him to go big. To Lund, big money means big power. It means Carl Icahn-style clout and activism. Something makes people listen to Lund. He has the clout, vision and disruptive ideas to fascinate and inspire. He will influence how we live, communicate, work and play tomorrow. http://mortenlund.wordpress.com/
Marissa Mayer
Vice President, Search Products & User Experience
Google
Marissa leads the company's product management efforts on search products – web search, im ages , news, books, products, maps, Google Earth, the Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Google Health, Google Labs, and more. She joined Google in 1999 as Google's first female engineer and led the user interface and web server teams at that time. Her efforts have included designing and developing Google's search interface, internationalizing the site to more than 100 languages, defining Google News, Gmail, and Orkut, and launching more than 100 features and products on Google.com. Several patents have been filed on her work in artificial intelligence and interface design.Concurrently with her full-time work at Google, Marissa has taught introductory computer programming classes at Stanford to more than 3,000 students. Stanford has recognized her with the Centennial Teaching Award and the Forsythe Award for her outstanding contribution to undergraduate education.
Prior to joining Google, Marissa worked at the UBS research lab (Ubilab) in Zurich, Switzerland, and at SRI International in Menlo
Park, California.
Graduating with honors, Marissa received her B.S. in Symbolic Systems and her M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University. For both degrees, she specialized in artificial intelligence.
Olivier Mathiot
Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer
Price Minister
Olivier Mathiot is a graduate from HEC, majoring in Marketing. He was previously Brands Director at CLM/BBDO (his key clients included France Télécom, Dell, Montblanc and Lancel) and Commercial VP at DDB (focusing on Badoit, Noos and Lactel). He is a cofounder of PriceMinister
Dave Morin
Senior Platform Manager
Facebook
Dave Morin is the Senior Platform Manager at Facebook, where he 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 DM Design Studios, a design focused
technology and Internet software company. Dave received a bachelor’s degree in economics and business from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Ouriel Ohayon
General Manager, LgiLab & Editor, TechCrunch France
LgiLab/Techcrunch
35, French. General Manager of LightSpeed Gemini Internet Lab, an israeli VC investing in early stage Internet startups. Ouriel sits on the board of Wikio and Ads-Click. He's also the editor of the french version of TechCrunch and of his personal blog and the founding member of iDrink, one of the main internet social event in Israel. Ouriel graduated from HEC School of Management.
Scott Rafer
CEO
Lookery
Scott Rafer has been helping Internet publishers and users take advantage of the latest technologies and trends since 1995. As CEO of Lookery, Rafer is creating an ad network and user-targeting service that supports the growth of social applications. Earlier, he was CEO of MyBlogLog, which was acquired by Yahoo! in early 2007. Before MyBlogLog, he twice tried and failed to build blog search companies—with Fresher Information in 1998 and with Feedster in 2003. Prior to the first dotcom boom, Rafer led the Internet products group at Kodak Hollywood, worked in investment banking, and graduated from the Management of Technology program at UPenn.
Rafer is also a member of the board of directors and co-founder of Mashery, which manages API and developer programs for web services providers, and is chairman of Winksite, which helps publishers large and small assemble active mobile communities around their brands based on the content they already syndicate.
David Recordon
SixApart
Biography coming soon...
Frederick Henry Saurat
Co-Founder & CEO
The TMS Way Ltd HK
A French National and former founder of “Medinweb” a medical search engine built to qualify medical web sites, developed between 98 and 2001 in Europe and Asia. Frederick Saurat brings 10 years of 
Internet business development experience. In 2005 he started to focus on Mobile and follow the development of Japan QR codes technology and the phenomenal evolution of the SMS business in Asia with the idea to push the online marketing and print publishing one step beyond. In 2006 he decided to develop a “Media to Mobile” platform for ad agencies in Asia and created MobiTMS with David Jacka. In 2008 they create a new company in HK “The TMS Way” to offer to all advertisers the experience accumulated in Asia with the Ad agencies and they launched in September 2008 “TMS Factory” the online self service platform of the next decade, which allows worldwide and local advertisers to build and display ads campaign from Media to the Mobile phone of NorMobs (Normal Mobile Users).
Jennifer L. Schenker
Correspondent
BusinessWeek
Jennifer L. Schenker has been a journalist for 30 years. She got her start in 1978 working for Time Magazine in Israel. Later she worked for daily papers owned by the three largest newspaper chains in the United States, including the Miami Herald. She has been covering the tech industry in Europe since 1985. From 1996 to 1998 she worked for the Wall Street Journal Europe, covering breaking technology news and working as the assistant managing editor of Convergence, the Journal’s quarterly technology magazine. She worked as a senior writer/technology for Time Magazine in Europe and was editor of Time Digital,, a quarterly technology report, from January of 1999 to April 2003. From May 2003 through September 2004 she worked as the International Herald Tribune’s technology writer. From October of 2004 until May 2007 she was the international editor of the Red Herring. She is currently a correspondent for BusinessWeek magazine, covering technology Europe-wide.
Robert Scoble
Video Blogger
Fast Company
Robert Scoble (born January 18, 1965) is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his popular blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft. He is married to Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble. He has two sons, Patrick, from a previous marriage, and Milan. He currently works for Fast Company as a video blogger. He is also the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers with Shel Israel.
Marc Simoncini
Founder & CEO
MEETIC
Marc SIMONCINI is the 45 year-old CEO and founder of MEETIC, and an ESI graduate. He initially founded the Opsion Innovation IT Services company in 1989, which specialised in developing interactive solutions under UNIX. In 1998, he launched the ifrance network in France, Switzerland, Quebec and Belgium successively, selling this network to Vivendi in April 2000. He then intervened as an advisor and business angel in various start-ups before setting off on a totally new adventure, setting up MEETIC in January 2002. MEETIC rapidly became a real phenomenon to say the least. Five years after its commercial launch, MEETIC has established itself as the European leader in online dating, with over 30 million profiles registered since its creation and the highest audience share* in Europe: 19,49% in January 2007 (Nielsen/NetRatings). MEETIC is present in 15 European countries, in China and Brazil and is available in 12 languages. Following, ever since its creation, a clear European leadership strategy based on a quality-first policy, innovative marketing and perfect technological know-how. The company is intent on permanently improving its services and meeting even more fully the various expectations of its European subscribers. . In 2006, MEETIC posted sales of €78.8m and net income of €10.1m.
Biography coming soon...
Antonio Vince Staybl
CEO & Co-Founder
itsmy.com (a Gofresh company)
Antonio Vince Staybl, Austrian, born in Munich in 1969. Before founding Gofresh GmbH, the todays world largest mobile social company with two partners in 2003 , he worked as Marketing Manager at iobox Deutschland - first mover in the european mobile entertainment market, where he launched the first German mobile music co-ops of Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and others. The Co-Founder and CEO of Gofresh was responsible for the launch of the world's first mobile-only music album from Gofresh's own mobile music label. With the launch of itsmy.com in 2006, Mr. Staybl again realized one of his Mobile Entertainment visions: itsmy.com, mobile web's famoust brand and user generated content strongest community with more than 2 . 5 million users and monthly around 500 Million pageviews offers every mobile phone user in the world his own, free personal mobile home incl. all mobile 2.0, interactive UGC, messaging and location based services. itsmy.com operates with a strict mobile only vision. itsmy.biz is since 2008 the US and Europe ' s largest mobile social advertising network. With more than 1 billion served mobile rich media ads. itsmy.TV is the world's largest personal mobile broadcasting service and the most watched mobile social TV channel. Antonio is determined to re-define the future of the "digital world", interactive, MOBILE.
Seth Sternberg
Co-Founder & CEO
Meebo
Seth is the co-founder and CEO of meebo.com, the web’s live interaction platform. Prior, Seth attended 
Stanford Business School and launched meebo with Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen after a summer internship at Warburg Pincus. Seth left Stanford to pursue meebo, which serves over 40 million people monthly. Meebo has raised $37.5M from Sequoia Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, JAFCO and Time Warner. Seth previously worked in IBM’s Corporate Development group as an M&A Lead and is a graduate of Yale University, where he majored in Political Science. Seth enjoys tennis and rollerblading and is an avid private pilot.
Kara Swisher
Co-Executive Editor, AllThingsD.com; Blogger, BoomTown; Co-Executive Producer, D: All Things Digital
Kara Swisher currently co-produces and co-hosts The Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital," with Walt Mossberg. It is a major high-tech conference with interviewees such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and many other leading players in the tech and media industries. The gathering is considered one of the leading conferences focused on the convergence of tech and media industries. She and Mossberg are also the co-executive editors of a tech and media Web site, AllThingsD.com, where her new online-only version of the "BoomTown" column appears. Kara Swisher worked in The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau. For many years, she wrote the column, "BoomTown," which appeared on the front page of the Marketplace section and also on The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com. Previously, Ms. Swisher covered breaking news about the Web's major players and Internet policy issues and also wrote feature articles on technology for the paper. She has also written a weekly column for the Personal Journal on home issues called "Home Economics." Previously, Ms. Swisher worked as a reporter at the Washington Post and as an editor at the City Paper of Washington, D.C. She received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and her graduate degree at Columbia University's School of Journalism. She is also the author of "aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web," published by Times Business Books in July 1998. The sequel, "There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future," was published in the fall of 2003 by Crown Business Books.
Itay Talgam
Conductor
Itay Talgam has conducted some of the world’s best ensembles, and studied with and assisted great conductors such as Leonard Bernstein and Claudio Abbado. A native of Israel, he studied music in Jerusalem (and Philosophy in the Hebrew University), Siena, and Tanglewood. Itay’s main interests lie both in contemporary music and in promoting classical music through developing his own innovative approach to the understanding of music-making as a metaphor for a wid erange of social cultural and professional processes.
Yossi Vardi
Investor & Entrepreneur
One of Israel’s early entrepreneurs. For 39 years co-founded, led, and helped build over 60 high-tech companies. Among them : Tekem (1969), one of israel first software houses, Israel Chemicals (chairman 71-74), Alon Energy, Granite Hacarmel, International lasers Technologies, others.
Co-pioneered instant messaging, as founding investor and chairman of Mirabilis Ltd, The creator of ICQ, sold to AOL. Numerous investments went public (answers.com, scopus, 
granite , International Tehcnologies Lasers ) or have been acquired (Gteko by Microsoft ,Tivella by Cisco, Airlink by Sierra wireless, foxytunes by Yahoo, Starnet by IAC, more). Member of the Advisory board of Amdocs.
Served on Boards of numerous state and private corporations including Bezeq, Israel Electric, Amdocs, Advisory board of Bank Israel, served as advisor to the CEOs of AOL, Amazon, Allied Signal, Siemens Albis. Advised the world bank,UNDP .
Extensive government and public career,: Formerly : Director General : Ministry of Development (at age 27), Director General Ministry of Energy, Chairman: Israel National Oil Company,: he is the chairman emeritus of the Jerusalem Foundation.Participated in the peace talks with Egypt, Palestinians, Jordan (led the economic cooperation negotiations), Syria
Awards: Prime minister Hi-Tech award for life achievements (twice) ,Industry prize, Entrepreneur of the year, C-E-O Hall Of Fame, Ramniceanu prize. D.Sc Operation Research Technion.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Host
Wine Library TV.com
Gary Vaynerchuk, self-trained wine expert, is revolutionizing the wine industry. His blog, Wine Library TV (affectionately known as The Thunder Show), boasts a cult-like following resulting from his enthusiastic, unconventional, and often irreverent wine commentary. In the name of “expanding one’s palate”, Gary convinced Conan O’Brien to lick salted rocks and shared samples of dirt and grass with Ellen Degeneres. With a wealth of knowledge and an entrepreneurial spirit, Gary rebranded the family business as Wine Library. Within a five year time period, Wine Library grew from a $4 million dollar business to a $45 million business. What raised Gary’s notoriety even more than his business acumen was his foresight. Inspired by sites such as youtube.com and facebook.com, Gary leveraged technology to reach an untapped audience. His daily 20 minute webcasts caught the attention of a demographic new to wine and eager to learn. Within a short time, beer sales were outpaced by wine. While his youthful following broke down barriers in the wine industry, the business world (and Web 2.0) admired Gary for creating a new generation of branding, focusing on the internet. Gary’s unique identity as both a wine expert and a “real person” has reinvented the concept of wine tasting for a new generation. His first book, 101 Wines Guaranteed to Inspire, Delight, and Bring Thunder to Your World, was released in May of 2008 and is available in bookstores nationwide.
Werner Vogels
VP & Chief Technology Officer
Amazon.com
Dr. Werner Vogels is Vice President & Chief Technology Officer at Amazon.com where he is responsible for driving the company's technology vision, which is to continuously enhance the innovation on behalf of Amazon's customers at a global scale. Prior to joining Amazon, he worked as a research scientist at Cornell University where he was a principal investigator in several research projects that target the scalability and robustness of mission-critical enterprise computing systems. He has held positions of VP of Technology and CTO in companies that handled the transition of academic technology into industry. Vogels holds a Ph.D. from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and has authored close to 80 articles for journals and conferences, most of them on distributed systems technologies for enterprise computing.
David Weinberger
Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard University
Dr. David Weinberger is a co-author of the bestselling book, The Cluetrain Manifesto. His most recent book is "Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder." He is a Fellow at Harvard's prestigious Berkman Center for the Internet & Society. His work has appeared in many publications, including multiple times in Harvard Business Review, Wired, Salon, and National Public Radio. He has been an adviser to presidential campaigns, a strategic marketing consultant, and a philosophy professor.
Fred Wilson
Partner
Union Square Ventures
Fred Wilson began his career in venture capital in 1987. He has focused exclusively on information technology investments for the past 17 years. From 1987 to 1996, Fred was first an Associate and then a General Partner at Euclid Partners, a New York based, early stage, venture capital firm founded in 1970. At Euclid Partners, Fred was responsible for a number of investments, including Freeloader, Multex, PowerCenter Systems and UCA&L. In 1996, Fred co-founded Flatiron Partners. While at Flatiron, Fred was responsible for 14 investments including, ITXC, Patagon, Starmedia, TheStreet.com and Yoyodyne. Fred currently serves on the boards of Alacra, Comscore, iBiquity, Return Path, Instant Information and Tacoda Systems. Fred has a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Fred is married with three kids and lives in New York City.
Susan Wu
CEO
Ohai
Susan Wu is CEO of ohai and Venture Advisor at Charles River Ventures. Susan is an investor, entrepreneur and developer who has been an early innovator in digital entertainment, social media, and
open source software.
Most recently, Susan was a venture capitalist involved in the funding of consumer Internet startups such as Metaplace, Live Gamer, and Conduit Labs. She was also the co-producer of the first Virtual Goods Summit and the Game Developers Conference Startup Launchpad. Previously, she was the CMO of the
Apache Software Foundation, one of the world's leading open source software organizations. She is currently CEO of ohai, an exciting early stage startup focused on revolutionizing the MMO (massively multiplayer online) games industry. Susan received her B.A. from Tufts University and an MBA with distinction from Cornell University.
