Dave Chen

Dave works to increase private equity investment in sustainable commerce. Since 2003 he has participated in initiatives to define sustainable economic and energy policies in the Pacific Northwest. Dave chairs the Oregon Innovation Council and is a board member of the SF Fed Reserve Bank, Portland branch. In 2007, he worked with the Meyer Memorial Trust to develop a strategy for market-based mission investing focused on sustainability; that tool is now a core component of the 2% Challenge, a campaign to increase mission-related investments to 2% of all U.S. foundation assets over the next five years. He is co-founder of Equilibrium Capital Group, a private equity investment firm committed to building the leading companies for a sustainable future. Prior to Equilibrium, Dave was a GP at OVP, founded GeoTrust and The Ascent Group and held senior management positions at companies including Mentor Graphics and McKinsey. He has a BA in biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Judy Estrin

Judy Estrin is CEO of JLABS, LLC, formerly known as Packet Design Management Company, LLC. She is the author of Closing the Innovation Gap, published in September 2008. Beginning in 1981 Estrin co-founded three other successful technology companies: Bridge Communications, Network Computing Devices and Precept Software. In 1998 Cisco Systems acquired Precept, and Estrin became Cisco’s chief technology officer until April 2000.

Estrin has been named three times to Fortune Magazine’s list of the 50 most powerful women in American business. She sits on the boards of directors of The Walt Disney Company and FedEx Corporation as well as two private company boards – Packet Design, Inc. and Arch Rock. She also sits on the advisory councils of Stanford’s School of Engineering and Stanford’s Bio-X initiative. She holds a B.S. in math and computer science from UCLA, and an M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Dave Hatch

Dave Hatch is Research Director of Aberdeen Group’s Business Intelligence Practice, where he benchmarks user organizations’ BI strategies, actions and planned technology investments. His research focuses on the collection (DQ, EDI), assembly (data modeling, data access, business rules and KPIs), and delivery (reporting, dashboards, scorecards, analytic tools, portals, On-Demand/SaaS, and software licensing) of information throughout the enterprise. Dave has been involved as a user, marketer, and analyst of BI technologies for 15 years within many industry environments including life sciences, manufacturing, wholesale/distribution, retail, publishing/media, and insurance. Prior to joining Aberdeen, Dave was VP of Marketing for Dimensional Insight, a privately held business intelligence software developer and marketer. Dave holds a BA, Communications degree from the University of Massachusetts.

Greg Gianforte

Greg Gianforte, CEO and Founder, RightNow Technologies
A serial entrepreneur, Greg founded RightNow in 1997 and took the company public in 2004 with one of that year’s most successful initial public offerings. Greg has grown RightNow to more than 700 employees worldwide and more than $100 million in revenue. Greg also founded Bootstrap Montana, a program to help entrepreneurs learn the principles of bootstrapping and provide micro-loans to rural Montana entrepreneurs (bootstrapmontana.org).  Greg has also launched his own blog.

Dr. Elgamal

Dr. Elgamal is a leading expert in computer, network and information security. Also, recognized in the industry as the “inventor of SSL,” Dr. Elgamal led the SSL efforts at Netscape and throughout the industry. He also wrote the SSL patent and promoted SSL as the Internet Security standard within standard committees and the industry. Dr. Elgamal invented several industry and government standards in data security and digital signatures area, including the DSS government standard for digital signatures. Several thousand publications have been written in the space referred to as “the ElGamal Cryptography.” He developed the basic work that has been adopted by about ten companies for commercial products and for several IEEE and ISO standards. This work has also been adapted for the DSS government standard for digital signatures and is the basis for the Elliptic Curve encryption methods recently introduced in the industry. Dr. Elgamal has public company board experience with RSA Security, hi/fn, Phoenix Technology and Tumbleweed. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University and a B.S. in Computer Science from Cairo University.

Kathy Hwang and Charles W. Bush

3strandinnovation
Kathy Hwang works with clients to create strategies to deliver powerful brand experiences through her consultancy, 3Strand Innovation. She has a BS in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MS in Industrial Design from Art Center College of Design. She gained expertise in analytical problem solving and manufacturing as an engineer at General Motors. She has worked with BMW DesignworksUSA as a research and strategy consultant for branding and experience design. Other projects include consulting with Nike and Walt Disney Imagineering.

Charles W. Bush specializes in filling the space between business and design. He recently completed a collaborative degree program between INSEAD International Business School in Singapore and Art Center College of Design. He is currently in California focusing on strategic business innovation. Previous work includes envisioning future customer trends and opportunities for Whirlpool and NTT Docomo and running creativity workshops for INSEAD. Most recently, he has been consulting with India’s telecom giant Bharti Airtel to increase collaboration at executive levels through new uses of environment and software.

Bob Compton

Bob Compton has spent most of his career as a professional venture capital investor specializing in start-up technology companies, primarily medical tech and software. He has served on the boards of over a dozen non-profit organizations, including as a Trustee of the Kauffman Foundation, a $1.8 billion foundation dedicated to accelerating entrepreneurship. Compton’s latest endeavors include global traveler, author, record producer, photographer and film-maker. Two Million Minutes: A Global Examination is his first documentary film which was released this year. The film follows 2 high school seniors in India, China and the U.S. to compare and contrast the high school experiences in each country. How kids spend their time during high school – approximately 4 years, or two million minutes – in each culture is radically different and has profound implications for America’s economy in the decades ahead.

Sudhakar Ram

Sudhakar Ram, Founder and Chairman and Managing Director of Mastek Ltd, has bagged the CNBC Asia’s India Business Leader of the Year award for 2007. Mr. Ram has been the moving force in leveraging the company’s strengths as an IT solutions company, and led its repositioning, focusing on chosen verticals like insurance and government. He has also been instrumental in identifying the futuristic ‘Third Wave’ opportunity for the Indian IT industry.