2010 JHTC Event Schedule

The past decade has witnessed a momentous transformation in the way people interact and exchange information with each other. Content is now co-produced, shared, classified, and rated on the Web by millions of people, while attention has become the ephemeral and valuable resource that everyone seeks to acquire. I will describe our research on the interplay between popularity, novelty and collective attention in the Web, as well as the role that attention plays in crowdsourcing.

Speakers/Special Guests

Bernardo Huberman is a Senior HP Fellow and Director of the Social Computing Lab at Hewlett Packard Laboratories. He is also a Consulting Professor in the Department of Applied Physics at Stanford University. For a number of years he worked in statistical physics and dynamical systems and then moved on to study large distributed systems, both human and artificial. In that context he designed and implemented market mechanisms for resource allocation, and investigated the phenomenon of cooperation in large groups and organizations.

Bernardo's research into the phenomenon of the web led to the discovery of a number of strong regularities, which are described in this book "The Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of Information" (MIT Press). Presently, his work centers on the phenomenon of social attention in the design of novel mechanisms for discovering and aggregating information in distributed systems.

Dr. Huberman received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the creators of the field of ecology of computation and edited "The Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of Information" (MIT Press, 2001). Bernardo is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, as well as a faculty member in the Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University. He is co-winner of the 1990 CECOIA prize in Economics and Artificial Intelligence and shared the IBM Prize of the Society for Computational Economics.

Cloud computing is being positioned as the solution for most of the hard web/internet problems (scale, large data set consistency, identity/privacy, monetizing the social graph). Cloud computing is many things – this talk will explore some of the areas where Cloud computing will succeed, and also where some of the harder challenges will remain. This talk will also introduce Microsoft’s cloud offering, Azure, and some of the interesting new concepts emerging, like “data as a service.

Speakers/Special Guests

Matt Thompson As General Manager of Microsoft’s developer & platform evangelism efforts Matt Thompson has the first hand opportunity to both observe and work with many of the area’s top technology companies. His time is split between supporting this influential community of technologists as they adopt Microsoft technologies (including Microsoft’s collaboration platform, SharePoint; and Microsoft's new cloud offering, Azure) and exploring the next generation of platform technologies yet to emerge.

Previously, As Sr. Director of Sun's Developer Cloud engineering organization Matt was responsible for Sun's developer platform in the emerging cloud space. In his previous role, Matt responsible for Sun's developer program and technology outreach worldwide. When not working you’ll likely find Matt off an island somewhere following his passion, underwater photography.

Reputational information helps decision-makers predict a company's or person's future performance based on their past behavior. Our economy is filled with systems that capture and publish reputational information; examples include credit reporting databases, eBay feedback ratings, job references and consumer product reviews . This talk will survey various reputational systems, discuss some lessons about designing and implementing them, and explore how legal regulation can help or hinder the process.

Speakers/Special Guests

Eric Goldman is an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. Before he became a full-time academic in 2002, he practiced Internet law for 8 years in the Silicon Valley, including a stint as General Counsel of Epinions.com. His research and teaching focuses on Internet, IP and marketing law topics, and he blogs on those topics at the Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

The Jewish High Tech Community presents its first High Tech Kumzitz. You may ask - What is a kumzitz?

Well, Kumzitz is derived from the Yiddish words kum (come) and zitz (sit). So we invite all to come and sit and enjoy a spirited discussion with some of Silicon Valley’s leading angels and venture capitalists. Let’s find out what they’re looking for — are you a budding entrepreneur who wants to know how to get these guys (or gals) to invest — or are you an investor (angel, superangel or VC) who wants to meet some high flying, high energy, disruptive startups.

OUR MOTTO IS TO 'EDUCATE, INFORM AND CONNECT''

ALL ARE WELCOME TO JOIN IN A SPIRITED DISCUSSION — AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE JEWISH — ALL ARE WELCOME TO JOIN IN

Speakers/Special Guests

Greg Mathis is a JHTC board member and was moderator for our October 2009 StartUp BootCamp. Greg is a former interrogator (from the Gulf War), recipient of the CIA National Medal of Achievement and the Bronze Star. After his exciting life in the Middle East and Europe he decided to become an attorney (kumzitz!!!!!) and is now with Dorsey & Whitney where he specializes in startups. Greg earned his law degree from the University of Virginia. Greg also serves as a member of the screening committee for the Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival.

Bruce Taragin is the Managing Director of Blumberg Capital. Bruce has 17 years experience as a venture capital investor, entrepreneur, technology investment banker and corporate attorney. Prior to joining Blumberg Capital in 1998, Bruce co-founded and held several senior management positions within technology companies including Charles River Computers. Bruce also structured and managed early-stage technology transactions at Hambrecht & Quist, Mayer Brown & Platt and Bankers Trust Company. A native of New York, Bruce earned his BA in Finance and Communications, cum laude, from Yeshiva University, and his MBA and JD from Fordham University.

Bruce serves as a member or observer on the Board of Directors of DoubleVerify, CaseStack, Insightix, LiteScape, Correlix, Nolio, Revionics and Sweepery. He also serves on the board and the investment monitoring committee of the Jewish Community Foundation of Northern California.

Aydin Senkut is the Founder and President of Felicis Ventures. He was recently named one of the top 25 tech angels by Businessweek and has been investing in promising startups since 2006. His portfolio encompasses over 50 companies including Appjet (acquired by Google), Aardvark (acquired by Google), Brightroll, Disqus, Erply, Imageshack, Inkling, Justin.tv, Meraki, Mint (acquired by Intuit), Mochi Media (acquired by Shanda Games), Outright, Posterous, Powerset (acquired by Microsoft), Plusmo (acquired by AT&T), Practice Fusion, RichRelevance, Sendori (acquired by IAC), Tapulous, and Yume Networks.

Prior to starting Felicis Ventures, he was a Senior Manager at Google, responsible for strategic partner development and account management in Asia Pacific (including Japan). Aydin joined Google in 1999 as its first Product Manager to launch Google's first 10 international sites, its first online search licensing products and its first Safe Search. He then became the first International Sales Manager at Google, responsible for world-wide licensing deals.

As an online marketer, do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with all the different ways you can connect with prospects and customers? What should you be focusing on? And how do you keep up? The rapid growth in social media, like Facebook and Twitter, has changed the modern marketing mix, offering a new, low-cost way to engage customers and prospects in a direct conversation. But the accelerating pace of the real-time web presents entrepreneurs and marketers with challenges as well as opportunities. New tools and techniques can help you manage the real-time firehose and stay on top of the topics and people you care about. Come learn best practices in social media marketing on the real-time web.

Speakers/Special Guests

Dan Olsen is founder and CEO of YourVersion http://www.yourversion.com, a real-time discovery engine startup offering "Pandora for your real-time web content". Dan has 18 years of high‐tech experience with deep expertise in product management, marketing, and developing leading consumer Web products. He worked at Intuit for 5 years where he led product management for Quicken and launched an online brokerage. Dan also led product management at Friendster. Before starting YourVersion, he consulted to many startups, including Box.net, YouSendIt, and Epocrates. Dan is a regular speaker at tech startup events such as the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo. His presentations are posted at www.olsensolutions.com/speaking. Dan holds a BSEE from Northwestern, an MSIE from Virginia Tech, and an MBA from Stanford.

In today’s economic climate, being good or great is no longer good enough. Kevin’s unique approach inspires you and your business to strive for awesome. Attracting and sustaining long-term clientele should be a positive and memorable experience; one that ultimately exceeds your customer’s expectations. Further explained in ROAR!, this is the essential premise of The Awesome Experience. Defined as the convergence of Need, Entertainment and The Unexpected, achieving The Awesome Experience isn’t easy but pursuing it is certainly a worthwhile journey.

All the talk and collateral in the world won’t matter if your message doesn’t speak to your target audience, especially in our current economic draught. Rarely does everyone at a company say the same thing and seldom do they say it in a compelling manner that reaches customers. Kevin addresses these hurdles with his approach based upon a 3,500 year old secret to success and the inspiration of his latest book ROAR! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle (Wiley, April 2010)

Whether you’re negotiating a major deal, interviewing for your first job or graduating college, the benefits of ROAR! and pursuing The Awesome Experience are endless. In a charming and motivational manner, Daum has the insight to create ROARing successes in both the professional and personal realm for anyone looking to succeed.

Speakers/Special Guests

Kevin Daum is a bestselling author, marketer, and Inc. 500 entrepreneur. His sales and marketing approach resulted in more than $1 Billion in sales with a 95 percent pull through rate. With over 25 years of experience in theatre, finance and marketing (an odd but effective combination). As a National Columnist for Smart Business Magazine Kevin teaches companies how to pursue The Awesome Experience for their customers and has authored several books including Building Your Own Home For Dummies and the soon to be released, ROAR! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle (Wiley). For more info visit: http://kevindaum.com/.

In the movie "Groundhog Day", the protagonist (Bill Murray) keeps living the same day over and over again until he gets it right. So it is with the computer industry. In my forty years as a computer scientist, at three startups, and several large well known corporations and universities, I and many of my colleagues have worked on the same general problems over and over again. We often get it right locally, but the same problems keep coming up. In this non-technical talk I'll describe several of these problems and my never-ending quest to solve them. We'll take a look at topics like: computer science theory, programming methodology, programming languages, operating systems, parallel processing, and mobile networking. I'll describe what my contributions were from a historical context, and why these problems recur.

Speakers/Special Guests

Ike Nassi is an Executive Vice President and Chief Scientist at SAP. He and his group explore advanced new enterprise technologies and applications for use in multinational corporate environments. He started SAP's Global Business Incubator, whose goal is to start up new businesses within SAP, and is modelled after the venture capital industry.

He also started the SAP Sponsored Academic Research Program. From September 2009 through January 2010 he was in residence as a Visiting Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Prior to joining SAP, he founded Firetide Inc, a wireless mesh networking company based in Los Gatos, California. At Firetide he served as Executive Vice President and CTO, and was a Chairman of Firetide's Board of Directors. He is now a senior advisor to the company.

Dr. Nassi has also been an industry consultant and entrepreneur specializing in computer and networking technology and products. His consulting assignments have been with several startup companies, startup divisions within established companies, and venture capital firms.

With venture-backed companies experiencing longer times to liquidity due to the turmoil in the capital markets, investor misalignments become exacerbated as a result of stressful management transitions, unanticipated new financing rounds, and new faces at the boardroom table who have acquired investment positions at a discount to the lead investors. Board dysfunction can destroy investor value and bring a company to its knees. At the same time, a well aligned, highly performing board can help the management team build value and avoid some of the common mistakes that venture backed companies make. Pascal will review director fiduciary duty in a practical context and address the difficult dynamics that boards face during stressful times. He will point out common characteristics of effective and ineffective directors and recommend solutions to difficult situations.

Speakers/Special Guests

Pascal Levensohn is the Managing Partner of Levensohn Venture Partners (LVP), which he founded in 1996. In April 2007, he was elected to a four-year term on the board of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and is currently the chairman of the NVCA’s education committee, a position that he has held for three years. Since April 2010, he is also the Managing Director of Presidio Strategic Services (PSS) a division of San Francisco-based wealth advisory firm Presidio Financial Partners. PSS delivers timely solutions to optimize sophisticated family offices and institutions for growth. These services range from customized governance best practices and leadership development programs to empower the next generation of fiduciaries to the implementation of concrete strategies for active or passive investments in operating businesses at a crossroads.

Pascal is a former co-chairman of the Socrates Society Forum of the Aspen Institute (2007-2009) and is currently involved with the Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security program. He is currently a Mentor and member of the faculty in the Kauffman Fellows Program, where he has lectured on venture capital board corporate governance best practices since 2006.

A frequent contributor to leading publications on subjects ranging from corporate governance to global competitiveness and innovation, Pascal has recently given public addresses on cybersecurity and America’s slipping global competitiveness to the Department of Homeland Security (Washington, D.C., March 2009) and the Stevens Institute of Technology (Washington, D.C., January 2010, conference broadcast on C-Span). In addition, Pascal has recently written opinion pieces that have been published in The Wall Street Journal (8/12/09,), the San Jose Mercury News (4/16/09), and he was featured in an article on venture capital in The Economist (4/29/10). He is a featured contributor to the July 2010 issue of Trusts & Estates magazine and is the co-author of an undergraduate textbook, Venture Capital: Theory and Practice, with Professor Mannie Liu of Renmin University of Beijing, published in July 2010 in Chinese. This book is one of "China’s National College Major Investment Textbook Series for the 'Twelfth Five-Year Plan'".

Pascal received a B.A. in Government cum laude from Harvard University and is a graduate of the Lawrenceville School with Academic Distinction (1977). He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a native of Puerto Rico who is fluent in Spanish and French.

Speakers/Special Guests

TBD

Speakers/Special Guests

Steve Perlman is the founder, president & CEO of OnLive and an entrepreneur and inventor devoted to pioneering Internet, entertainment, multimedia, consumer electronics and communications technologies and services. Best known for the development of QuickTime, WebTV and Mova Contour facial capture technologies, he has over 30 years of technology development experience, over 20 years of start-up experience and a track record of bringing media-rich products and services quickly to market. In addition to having founded and operated multiple startup companies, Steve has been a Microsoft division president and a principal scientist at Apple Computer.

Steve’s technology work is built into all iPhones, video iPods, Macs and most PCs, and has been deployed by DirecTV, Dish, Comcast, Time Warner, Charter and Adelphia cable TV and satellite TV networks. Consumer products incorporating Steve’s work have also been retailed by Sony, Philips, RCA, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Fujitsu, Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, Sega and Nintendo.

Steve’s recently patented facial motion capture technology, Mova Contour, was used for the production of the Academy Award-winning photoreal computer-generated face of Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008), and of Edward Norton and Tim Roth in "The Incredible Hulk" (2008).

Steve holds over 100 US patents, and has more than 100 additional patents pending.