A Viareggio - Conferenza su Innovazione, Imprenditoria e Ventura Capital in Europa e Silicon Valley (http://www.pgi.vc) Giugno 27-30

Valto Loikanen

GrowVC

Valto Loikkanen is a serial entrepreneur who has started several companies across Europe and the US in the web and mobile fields. At the age 24, Valto started and grew his first company VTG Worldwide, selling
custom mobile phone covers, from the ground up into an international
business turning over 84 million FIM.

Forward thinking and always seeking the next big web and mobile success, as a serial entrepreneur and startup advisor, Valto got fed up with the lack of transparency and openness in the startup funding
process. Web 2.0 companies often need only small amounts of money to
grow, due to the cost-effective nature of their business models, and the
investment market hasn’t historically been suited to raising small
amounts of capital. Valto saw that with Web 2.0 taking hold, lack of
transparency no longer works in helping the Internet’s shining stars
find their grounding.

Wanting to battle these challenges, Valto founded Grow VC to apply the principles of web 2.0 to the area that has historically been shrouded in mystery – VC funding. He aims to bring a better, fairer
environment for technology startups seeking funding.

Michael ‘Monty’ Widenius

Open Ocean Capital (formerly with MySql)
@montywi

The MySQL database was developed by Monty between 1981 – 1995. In 1995 the MySQL AB company was founded around the product, which released the product Open Source. The MySQL database quickly became the standard
database for Web development, and in year 2000 was the most popular
open source database in the world, with millions of active users. The
business and operations grew rapidly, and in 2008, MySQL AB with about
500 employees, was sold to Sun Microsystems for 1 B USD. Monty is
currently working on developing the Maria Storage Engine – the future
core of the MySQL database product.

Ignacio de la Vega, PhD

International Center for Entrepreneurship, ie business school
@ivegama

Director of the International Center of Entrepreneurship, Instituto de Empresa, work which he combines with his business, teaching and consulting. He is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management
at the Business School since 1989.

And BA Honors Degree in Law, Master in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Harvard-Tufts), also has different degrees of other universities such as Harvard Law School,
Basson College and the University of Marseilles.

The career of Ignacio de la Vega has always been linked to the field of entrepreneurship from different areas: As an entrepreneur, has participated in the implementation of numerous business ventures. It has
also been Director of New Projects, and therefore responsible for
developing corporate projects in various Spanish companies and
multinationals.

It has also contributed to business development from the Administration, as Director General of Commerce, Consumer Affairs and External Promotion and IMADE Manager.

Brian Wong

Digg
@brian_wong

Brian is an 19-year-old BCom graduate from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. He began his career by creating the world’s first automated categorized Twitter discovery tool:
Followformation.com. Followformation was featured in Mashable, The
Huffington Post, Fast Company.com, The Examiner, The Georgia Straight,
The Vancouver Sun, and recently on the popular internet television
channels Building43.com and Intruders.tv. Followformation has been
touted as one of the best Twitter user discovery tools, and recently
crossed its 400,000th follow milestone.

Brian has spoken at the Tweethouse in Los Angeles and in Austin, TEDx Miami, the F5 Expo in Vancouver along with Malcolm Gladwell, and was recently lauded in the Vancouver Sun as “a budding internet visionary”.

Since graduating, Brian has travelled to multiple international cities to meet with world-class VCs and entrepreneurs, forging his own path through the social media space through restless learning and
growing. Along with his travels came an opportunity to work at one of
the tech world’s hottest companies, Digg.com. Brian is now based in San
Francisco, helping to develop key partnerships for Digg. He recently
launched Digg’s latest Android mobile application, helping grow Digg’s
rapidly rising mobile presence.

Joe Fernandez

Klout
@joefernandez

Joe Fernandez founded Klout to measure influence across the social web in early 2008 after spending nearly 3 months with his jaw wired shut and depending completely on social media for communication. Fascinated
with how one could now instantly broadcast their questions, opinions and
ideas to the people who trust them the most, Joe started Klout to help
businesses understand the impact of the individual.

Previously Joe provided data solutions to the Real Estate industry as Director of Innovation and Research at OnBoard Informatics. In 2003, Joe cofounded Evalulogix and helped over 5000 school districts meet
their special education reporting mandates for compliance with NCLB and
IDEA.

Joe grew up in Las Vegas and attended University of Miami and Oxford University.

Franco Tecchia, PhD

VRMedia

Franco Tecchia is a Computer Science Engineer with primary specialization on Software Engineering and Data Networks. He received his degree from the University of Pisa in 1998 with a diploma thesis on
Advanced Scene Graph Management for Real-Time Simulators. From 1998 he
collaborated with PERCRO Laboratory (Scuola Superiore S. Anna – Italy),
where he is the head of the Visualisation Systems group, in the context
of many national and international research activities including the
European Projects VIRTUAL, PURE FORM, CREATE, and the NeO ENACTIVE. In
the period from 2000 to 2005, following the activity of several EU
projects, he has also been employed several time as temporary research
fellow at University College of London – UK, working also on real-time
rendering of animated complex environments and crowd rendering. His
research interests include real-time computer graphics, virtual and
augmented reality and software engineering for interactive applications.
He is also a founder of VRMedia S.R.L (www.vrmedia.it), an Italy-based
company developing solutions for Virtual Reality and 3D on the web.

Priscilla Scala

PeopleBrowsr
@priscillascala

PeopleBrowsr is a deep visual dashboard into several web communities. It’s both a social network aggregator and a cross-network application. As a web product manager, Priscilla works on: Studies and focus groups,
Benchmarking, UI and design, Communication and PR, Events, Demo and
Presentations, Company blog editing and Forum management. PeopleBrowsr
has been part of: TechCrunch 50 San Francisco, Google DeveloperDay
Sydney, PubCamp Sydney, MySpace DevJam, BarCamp Sydney, Sydney Facebook
Garage, The Online Social Networking and Business Collaboration World.
Priscilla has also worked for Inter-View -Paris, performing
international qualitative studies. CafeBabel.com as a web journalist,
IBOCO Sas – Paris, working on brand image, launch of new products,
promotions, creation of gadgets, brochures, in store communication, PR
and press. For Pollini Spa – Fashion Group Alberta Ferretti – Milan,
working on PR with international journalists. Priscilla works between
Sydney, Paris, and San Francisco. She graduated from IAE de Paris – La
Sorbonne Paris, the Università di lingue e comunicazione IULM-MI. She
enjoys skiing, kite-boarding, scuba diving, traveling, reading and
writing.

Pascal Borghino

Yahoo France

Pascal Borghino is the Principal Service Architect at Yahoo in their platform technology group where he overseees mobile, system tools and abuse. As an architect, he validates the needs of a RDBMS, helps to
decide the best fit for the needs and helps to validate the
data/schema/queries throughout the project. In addition, he’s a trainer
and coach who provides trainig worldwide in French and English in
similar issues and has trained teams in the United States, Canada,
Brazil, France, the United Kingdom, India, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and
other locations. He is also a Community Manager at Yahoo! where he
organizes that database community to help them with their projects.

Chris McCann

Startup Digest
@cmccann7

Chris McCann is an entrepreneur, writer, and general activist in the entrepreneurial community of Silicon Valley and San Luis Obispo. He has led the entrepreneurial programs at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, started
Innovation Quest an alumni led incubator at the University, and is the
founder of the [Startup Digest].

Danielle Morrill

Twilio
@daniellemorrill

Entrepreneurial firestarter and professional disruptor.

Experiences range from serving burgers at McDonald’s to advising Fortune 500 customers on their supply chains, starting my own web design company to joining my 3rd startup.

I lead the marketing efforts for Twilio, the cloud communications company revolutionizing the way companies build phone and SMS functionality into their products with our ridiculously simple API.

My passion for process is a passion for helping people be more human through effective use of technology. I love to learn, teach, share, observe, and find patterns. I build community wherever I go.

Shirley Lin

YoXi123
@shirleylinc

Shirley X. Lin, founder of YoXi123, a Silicon Valley startup in social game development and publishing, founded in Jan. 2010. “YoXi”, pronounced as “you-shi”, is a popular Chinese word for “game play” or
“play game”. Previously she co-founded WooMeOver, a social network
connecting jewelry lovers and jewelry designers. Prior to that, she
worked in various startups including V.P. of Operations at Kavayi
Software, an online baby-book creator, and founder of Cajava, a video
sharing site. Before she became a serial entrepreneur, she was Sr.
Manager at Tandem Computers, later acquired by Hewett Packard, where she
managed the ServerNet System Development department. Prior to Tandem,
she was the Section Manager at Tymnet, a wide-area network, which was
acquired by MCI. Before Tymnet, Shirley was the project lead at Ford
Aerospace, NASA, Johnson Space Center in Houston, on the Space Shuttle
related programs. Shirley holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Texas
A&M and a B.A. in History from National Taiwan University.

Shirley is very active as an evangelist and activist in the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and social gaming communities. She runs the Entrepreneurs RoundTable group and is the founder of Social Gaming 101
and APWT (Asian Professional Women in Technology). She has organized
numerous events in all three tracks to bring speakers and networking
opportunities to the developer and technology communities. Most
recently she organized a Social Gaming 101 event. Per popular demand,
Social Gaming 101 will turn into a series of events related to the
social game space. She is also well known as the “hub” for connecting
people in the Silicon Valley technology space.

Paul Papadimitriou

Driving Left
@papadimitriou

At the confluence of marketing, communications and business development, Paul Papadimitriou delivers intelligence on online media, its impact on how brands & individuals communicate and the ongoing
redefinition of social norms through new technologies.

Using his multi-ethnic background, he strives to bring a culturally sensitive analysis to digital influence.

Paul speaks to businesses, public audiences and individuals alike, helping them seizing the opportunities of the new media engagement & building digital strategies, bringing his more than ten years of
experience as a lobbyist and business consultant.

He also does market research for clients interested in Japan, the Philippines and lots of other APAC & European territories.

Aside from contributing for Mobile in Japan, a community he founded, Asiajin and his own blog, Paul helps organizing conferences around the world, from Tokyo 2.0 & the worldwide [Re]Think series of events to
the Internet & Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines
Summit.

He holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva & speaks several languages.

Paul is a Swiss, a Greek & a Finn. He has homes in Tokyo, Manila, Limassol, Athens & Geneva.

IdaRose Sylvester

Silicon Valley Link
@idarose

IdaRose Sylvester, has over 15 years of experience in management consulting, strategy development, business plan and pitch development, and market research. She has extensive experience in web 2.0, enterprise
2.0, consumer tech, telecom, video and semiconductors. She has
supported hundreds of companies, from seed stage startups to Fortune 500
companies. Her passion is helping small businesses grow to the next
level, and helping entrepreneurs realize their objectives, by crafting
strategy, and serving in advisory and interim executive management
roles. She currently serves as US Channel Manager for a UK video
company, and serves several clients in project and advisory roles. She
manages Silicon Valley Link’s strategic partner program and market
research team.

Mike Prasad

GirlGamer.com
@mikeprasad

Web geek with random experience specializing in social and application platforms. Currently working on three startups with goals of world domination. Social Media & Brand Consultant at Fatburger
Corporation. Board Member at Black Card Circle Foundation. Brand &
New Media Director at Kogi BBQ. Head of Technology & Brand Advisor
at Black Card Circle. Co-Founder & CEO at GirlGamer.com.
Co-Founder at BullSpot.com.

Mary Vincent

Green Star Solution
@maryvincent

Mary Vincent is an Entrepreneur and Founder of Green Star Solution, a Global Business, Technology and Innovation Firm.

Mary speaks on Green IT, Green Software, Green Business, Sustainable and Low Carbon Food, and Environmental Entrepreneurship, operates the Clean Tech Facebook Group, and publishes a green business blog called
Clean Tech and Green Business. Mary founded the following businesses:
Green App Store, an online green electronics store, Gratitude Gourmet, a
sustainable food website, and co-founded the Green Software
Unconference Silicon Valley. Mary partnered on a Facebook Application
called Green Facts and is a Stakeholder Advisory Group Member of the
WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol, developing a new standard for product and supply
chain GHG Accounting and Reporting.

Previously, Mary worked at Sun Microsystems and DHL, creating and managing global Java engineering, operations, customer and compliance programs. Mary has an MBA in Electronic Business and served in the US
Peace Corps in Hungary.

Chris Cinelli

Stanford University
@chriscinelli

Born Cristiano Cinelli, Chris grew up in Italy, where he received a degree in Software Engineering cum laude from the University of Pisa. After working in Italy for a few years, Chris moved to the US where he
graduated with a Master in Business Administration from Brigham Young
University.

Moving to Palo Alto, California after graduation, he worked as a consultant for Google.  Here Chris improved the semantic matching between Adwords advertisement and Google queries on the Italian
localized version of Google.  Around this same time, he also became
founder/strategist at AlleStelle, where he created a Facebook social
application that has attracted 1.5M+ users.

Chris is currently working for Stanford as a Software Engineer and Product Manager on Papervine, a network for scientists “where papers find you”.  Related to his work at Stanford, he is presently serving as a
mentor for a group of students learning Python and Google’s App Engine
cloud framework.

Passionate about continued personal growth and motivated by a desire to help others, Chris is very active in the technology community in Silicon Valley.  This led him to compete in Random Hacks of Kindness
where his team won by developing an application that reassures family
and friends of a person’s well-being after a disaster.   He is also one
of the technology advisers of Partners for Growth & Innovation.

Chris also enjoys serving the community outside of the tech domain all around the San Francisco Bay Area by preparing food for the homeless, doing electrical work for Rebuilding Together, and being a
micro-finance lender on Kiva.

Paolo Privitera

Digitix Corp / Doochoo / PonySafe
@pppaolo

Paolo is a young technology entrepreneur and visionary, specializing in structuring progressive business models that capture the moment and stay on top of the future. He pursued a Master Degree in Computer
Science from the University Ca’Foscari of Venice, while holding the
position of Director of Technology at Apindustria Vicenza (the largest
SMB Industrial Association in Italy). His entrepreneurial experience
began during graduate school, when he founded Digitix in 1999, his first
company offering web development services to SMBs in Italy.

Since when he moved to the US in 2002, he has worked offering strategic consultancy in Information Technology to many companies, Italian Trade Commission and Italian Chamber of Comm. of Los Angeles,
Big Apple Radio in NY, Sendia (now SalesForce) and many more. While
attending an Int’l Marketing program at UCLA, in 2004 he founded Digitix
Corp, offering web dev, tech and growth strategy services to several
start-ups (SpeakCorp, CTpermits, KeyPLe, etc) and world renowned
companies (La Murrina, Illy, Luxottica, Ferrari, H-Art, MDM/VEGA Science
Park, etc).

With his 15 years of experience in web tech at the service of 100+ businesses, he joined eBonza (safe e-payments) in 2008 as stockholder and CTO, and GreenPrefab (LCM platform for the sustainable building) in
2009, offering support for both the business and technical strategy.

Very active in the Silicon Valley, attending at networking events, connecting together experienced entrepreneurs, investors, computer scientists, start-up rookies, and working to create an “Int’l
Accelerator and TT Center” in the Bay Area, for Italian and world
companies.

Aldo Gnocchi

Universität St. Gallen (HSG) Grad and community manager Social Media Insights
@aldognocchi

Aldo Gnocchi, born in 1982 in Biel Switzerland is fascinated in IT and technology since the age of 7.

After the obligatory school time Aldo Gnocchi made an apprenticeship as a merchant at AMAG (Automobile and Motor AG – incorporation ) in Biel combined with a general qualification for university entrance. Then
he studied business administration at the University of Applied Science
in Olten (Switzerland) where he had the opportunity to study one
semester abroad in Hong Kong.

After graduating he continued with a master in arts at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) in marketing, services and communication management. During his studies Aldo Gnocchi worked for BNS Group, Orange
Communication, UBS (Global Wealth Management) and several other Swiss
companies.

Since Aldo Gnocchi was a kid, he was interested in IT and technology and had access to computers and the internet. Very soon he begun to use the internet as a tool to communicate, research and connect to the whole
world. The experience in regard to IT helped him to set up his own
consulting business during his studies. He consulted several companies
in Switzerland with a focus on social media marketing.

Burton Lee, PhD

Stanford University
@burtonlee

Burton leads Stanford Engineering’s European Entrepreneurship and Innovation weekly lecture series and related partnerships. He also serves as Managing Partner of Innovarium Ventures, a financial,
technical and strategic services firm with hi-tech startup, venture
investment and government clients in Europe and the USA. Dr. Lee’s
professional track record encompasses 15+ years entrepreneurial, senior
executive and advisory experience with venture-backed startups; VC and
private equity funds; angel investor networks; global technology
corporations (GE, HP, DaimlerChrysler AG); federal S&T agencies
(NSF, NIH, NASA) and national governments. His European experience
includes recent assignments and speaking engagements in Dublin (Irish
Innovation Taskforce), Brussels (European Commission), Helsinki, Kiev,
Munich (Ludwig Maximilians Universität), Vienna, Geneva, Prague and
Barcelona. Burton holds a PhD in Mechanical & Electrical Engineering
(Stanford) and an MBA in Finance (Cornell).

Marco Marinucci

Google & Exec Dir., Mind The Bridge
@mmarinucci

Marco Marinucci, Italian, is responsible for Google’s content acquisition activities in several countries. He’s a frequent speaker for the Google Books related activities. Marco’s 15+ years professional
experience spans from a VoIP start up, to artificial intelligence
research, to management of an international Ecommerce business. Prior to
Google, he was the US general manager of Giunti Interactive Labs, the
new media branch of one of the oldest publisher in the world, Giunti
Editore.

He’s also the founder and executive director of the Mind the Bridge foundation, an initiative that aims to link the most innovative Italian start-ups with the Silicon Valley resources.  He’s the managing
partner of the MTB Gym incubator.

He runs the Silicon Valley blog on Il Corriere della Sera (main Italian newspaper) and he’s the founder of the “Venture Camp”, the largest Italian conference  about entrepreneurship and venture capital.

With a real international focus, he lived in Spain, France and Italy before he settled down in California. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and 2 daughters.

Marco holds a master in Engineering with specialization in Artificial Intelligence from the Universita’ di Genova (Italy) and an MBA from Instituto de Empresa Business School, Madrid (Spain) where he’s also a
lecturer on Entrepreneurship. He is the coordinator of the IE Silicon
Valley Week.

Federico Maria Grati

Treedom, Jatrophabook, Agroils
@fgrati

Dott. Ing. Grati is the manager of the Agricultural division of Agroils S.r.l. and charter member from 2006. Federico holds a degree in Environmental engineering and a Master degree in Natural Resources
Management in the University of Florence (2005). He has been working as
researcher at the faculty of Agronomy in Florence with oilseed
production and biofuel chain optimization and as Project Manager for an
NGO based in Florence with projects in Africa before joining Agroils. He
is responsible in Agroils for design, implementation and management of
agricultural supply chains based on Jatropha Curcas and other tropical
oilseeds, especially in Arid areas and Sub-Saharan regions of Africa.
With a strong background in project management, he offers support in
human resources organization and coordination, project management and
agricultural and civil design. He is responsible for Morocco, Tunisia,
Senegal and involved into the management in Algeria, Mozambique.

Aldo Cocchiglia

M31

Aldo earned a degree in Electronic Engineering at the University of Padova in 1979. From 1978 to 1982, was R&D engineer and Manager of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering Department at Photo Engineering.
He launched his first technology start-up in 1982: ECS, electronic
controls and automation systems. In 1984 was co-founder and CEO of
Venture Srl, computerized machine tools. His third start-up was founded
in 1990: Fortune Srl active in the field of biomedical diagnostic
systems. In 1994 it was sold to Tomey, a Japanese Corporation based in
Nagoya. In 1995 he was appointed European R&D Manager of the Tomey
Group, based in Erlangen, Germany. In 1997 Aldo bought Fortune Srl back
and sold it one year later to Nidek Co. of Gamagori, Japan under the
name of Fortune Technologies. In 2001, the company took the name of the
parent company becoming Nidek Technologies, of which Aldo became Vice
President and CEO until March 2008.

In 2006 he co-founded and became Director of M31 (www.m31.com), and in April 2008 he became its General Manager. M31 is a company that develops high-tech enterprises, promotes high-tech entrepreneurship and
the rise of value-added ventures.

For the last two years Aldo became the President and the CEO of the three first startups of M31
* Si14 SpA, embedded PCs and integrated electronic systems
* Adaptica Srl, advanced opto-electronics and adaptive optics
* CenterVue SpA, biomedical diagnostic systems for .

Aldo is currently working to establish and launch M31USA in Santa Clara, CA

Shawna Pandya

CiviGuard Technologies
@shawnapandya

Shawna is passionate about the two ‘extremes’ of humanity – surviving and thriving – namely furthering technological innovation and human knowledge and tackling humanity’s grandest challenges to effect positive
social change.

Presently Chief Medical Evangelist for CiviGuard Technologies, a Silicon Valley start-up based at NASA-Ames and incubated by Singularity University. The mission is to save lives in crisis situations by
improving coordination, collaboration and communication between key
agencies, and also between authorities and civilians.

She has been extensively involved with public service and innovation in the past, having served as VP Research for a inner-city free clinic for high-risk youth, Director of Research & Projects for a national
organization promoting space exploration and development, and
Founder/Director of an anti-bullying initiative for school-aged
children.

Graduate of the International Space (MSS ‘07) and Singularity (GSP ‘09) Universities, with backgrounds in Neuroscience (BSc Hons ‘06, University of Alberta) and Medicine (MD Candidate ‘12, University of
Alberta). Published author on telemedicine for the developing world,
space technology spin-offs for medical benefit and neuroArm, the world’s
first intra-operative, MR-compatible image-guided robotic arm for
neurosurgery (conducted pre-clinical and early clinical testing).

Her awards include being named a finalist for the 2009 ASTech “Leader of Tomorrow” award for leadership and innovation in science, technology and entrepreneurship, Rhodes scholarship provincial finalist, two-time
Peter Lougheed scholar and Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation
National Laureate.

Jeremy Clark

FXX

Jeremy Clark has been helping companies to grow and outcompete the field for over 20 years. He is a resolute horizontalist, applying consistent principles and proven process to innovation and growth
strategy projects in many industries. He worked at Strategos, the firm
founded by strategy and management expert Gary Hamel.

Jeremy is a proponent of corporate venturing, a method that embeds entrepreneurial principles and methods within companies. Increasingly, he helps companies to harness the power of new technologies to engage
larger communities and customer groups in company innovation work.

Combining English wit, a University of Chicago education, and a Silicon Valley entrepreneurial spirit, clients consistently rate Jeremy a top-class facilitator and an inspiring teacher. This may explain why
he is a popular speaker on innovation and growth strategy.

Liana Burtsava

Trendylime

Liana is the creator of many successful events: epic “Digital Summer”, “Be Green Forum”, Fotki parties, exclusive Ivy League events and more. She started organizing events during the MBA program at INSEAD
in France and Singapore, where she was elected as a “Social Rep”. She
currently works as a Strategy and Social Media consultant for McKinsey
& Company and prior to that was a Marketing Director at Fotki.com,
one of the largest photo-sharing sites and social media networks. She
brings to the table diverse management experience she gained while she
was working for Philips, Red Herring, Inditex, and RWE. Native of
Belarus, she has done extensive travels and is fluent in several
languages.

Rooly Eliezerov

Gigya
@rooly

As President of Gigya, Rooly oversees U.S. corporate operations and supervises overall product strategy and development along with the CEO. He is a veteran of the Internet advertising and marketing industry, with
a focus on product development. Before joining Gigya Rooly served on
the board of Metacafe, held the position of General Manager at
SmartShopper, and was the VP of Products & Marketing at Hotbar.
Rooly holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Pratt Institute
in New York City.

Rick Bakas

St. Supéry Winery
@rickbakas

During the day I’m the Director of Social Media for St. Supéry winery in Napa Valley and a Certified Sommelier from the Court of Master Sommeliers. At night I’m obsessed with finding the perfect wine and
food pairing.