Вебинар №15

Первая тема: Securing Financial Investments in Silicon Valley

Первый спикер: Hank Torbert, Private Equity Investor; President at Alta Max

Hank Torbert is an innovative leader with over 20 years of experience developing and executing cross-functional strategies to maximize revenue growth, expand EBITDA, and increase shareholder value. Skilled at pulling the levers of finance, strategy, innovation, and operations. Resourceful problem solver with a proven track record building and expanding early-stage to billion-dollar companies in the utilities, energy, manufacturing, technology, transportation, and financial services sectors.

Specialties: corporate strategy, business development, operations management, corporate divestitures and restructuring, investment selection and analysis, due diligence and financial engineering 


Вторая тема: Monitoring Industry Trends: When is it Time to Pivot; Exit Plans

Второй спикер: Tien Wong, Founder, The Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forum; Private Investor; CEO, Opus8

Tien Wong is a tech entrepreneur, CEO, and angel investor. He is Chairman & CEO of Opus8, Inc., a private investment and strategic advisory firm specializing in tech investments and fundraising for alternative investment funds and companies seeking to raise capital. Opus8’s Phoenix Fund makes early stage investments in remarkable fintech, proptech, healthtech, and martech companies that are disrupting their markets and changing the world. Tien is Chairman of Lumious, a Virginia-based EdTech company which provides advanced tech training, mobile e-learning, and software development to Fortune 500 customers. He is also Chairman of Lore, a national provider of IT and business process outsourcing services to commercial and government clients. 

Tien has made direct investments in over 25 early stage companies and VC funds. He has been an investor/shareholder and mentor to several successful companies including Parature (exited to Microsoft for $100 million+), Transactis (exited to MasterCard), DataRPM (exited to Progress Software), LiveLook (exited to Oracle), TerraCycle, and TopBox, among others.
Tien has assisted several dozen leading venture capital and private equity fund managers in raising institutional and family office capital. Some of these clients include Morgan Stanley, Mitsubishi Corp., TPG, Ares, StepStone, Thomas H. Lee, K1, and US Venture Partners.

In 2012, Tien created the Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forum, a now-global community of over 20,000 founders, CEOs, angels, VCs, CXOs and other business leaders. The community hosts bi-monthly live Forums with upwards of 600 attendees, as well as monthly virtual online Forums and pitch events with several hundred attendees. Events feature VIP guests, speakers, exciting presenting companies, and the best CXO to CXO networking on the East Coast.

In 1991, Tien co-founded and served as Chairman & CEO of CyberRep, Inc. until its acquisition in 2003 by a “Fortune 500”company, which was then acquired by Xerox. CyberRep was one of the world’s largest privately held CRM outsourcing companies, operating 9 customer interaction centers throughout the USA with over 2,300 employees and $80 million in revenue. Today, the CyberRep business units comprise about $2 billion in revenue as divisions of Xerox and Conduent. CyberRep garnered multiple prestigious awards including Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine’s MVP Quality Award and Customer Interface magazine’s ACCE (Award for Call Center Excellence), as well as INC. magazine’s 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000’s “Inc. 500” recognition as the 51st, 53rd, 72nd and 408th fastest growing private company in the USA, respectively. CyberRep was profitable for 11 consecutive years and was backed by Allied Capital Corporation, a $5 billion investment company.


Посмотреть запись вебинара №15

Вебинар №14

Первая тема: Early Customer Engagement for Startups

Первый спикер: Mikita Mikado, CEO at PandaDoc

Бывший инженер Микита Микадо — уроженец Беларуси. В погоне за американской мечтой он переехал в США, чтобы основать свою компанию. Сначала Микита основал свой бизнес, связанный с веб-дизайном, затем занялся разработкой систем контент-менеджмента, потом переключился на разработку решений для специалистов, задействованных в продажах. Микита со-основал компанию Quote Roller — это программное обеспечение, позволяющее создавать и работать над коммерческими предложениями. Эта компания затем трансформировалась в Pandadoc. Pandadoc позволяет бизнесам вести более эффективный виртуальный документооборот, избегая использования бумажных распечаток. Компания является завидным работодателем и имеет рейтинг 4.9 из 5.0 на сайте Glassdoor.


Вторая тема: What Russian Entrepreneurs Need to Understand about Silicon Valley?

Второй спикер: Chris Tara-Browne, President and co-founder at Unfurl

Chris Tara-Browne is a Board Member/executive/entrepreneur who really enjoys building great teams, organizations and products for the automotive, food & beverage, coffee and education spaces.

Promoting integrative approaches that work in both for-profit corporations and not-for-profit organizations.

Building unity of vision and purpose, facilitating unified thought, supporting a culture of accompanying one another in unified action a sustainable process oriented organization comes into being and intended, as well as unforeseen, outcomes emerge. 

Examining together with the teams I work with to find the right people and by accompanying them, promoting a humble posture of learning and making sure the right balance of “doing” and “being” is constantly preserved.

Chris grew up in Sebastopol, CA and graduated from San Francisco State University in 1992 with a major in Music Production and a minor in Religious Studies and Philosophy.

After six years of managing music acts in San Francisco he moved to Novosibirsk, Siberia to help promote the interests of the Baha’i community in post-Soviet Russia. There he established the coffeehouse chain Traveler’s Coffee where he was founder and CEO for over 17 years, establishing over 100 coffeehouses in six countries.

Currently Chris is the one of the founders and President of Unfurl (San Mateo, CA) and the vice-chairman of the board of directors for Bauman College & Bauman Wellness (Berkeley, CA).

In 2015 Chris moved from Novosibirsk, Russia to Santa Rosa, CA with his wife Sveta and two sons Daniel (14) and Alex (19).


Посмотреть запись вебинара №14

Вебинар №13

Первая тема: Pitching for Tech Entrepreneurs: Early Lessons from the Front Lines

Первый спикер: Edwin Bodensiek

When Mid-Atlantic powerhouse Miles & Stockbridge named Edwin Bodensiek as its Chief Experience Officer in 2016, he became the first person among U.S. law firms to hold the role. The firm’s client experience model was later published as a case study in the 2018 book «Innovations in Client Experience» by Wilmington’s Ark Group. Ed previously served as head of brand and communications for Select Medical (NYSE: SEM), a public company with 43,000 employees. In 2011, while Ed was building an in-house marketing agency for the healthcare giant, the company’s CEO asked him to help design a sweeping change management effort around patient and employee experience. That became the Select Medical Way, the defining touchstone of how the $5 billion company continues to do business today -– with human-centered decision-making and culture at its core.

Ed founded Cravety to help organizations reach business goals through an experience-led strategy. Ed frequently consults on the future of marketing, user experience, and talent branding strategy, and is a sought-after public speaker, trainer, and facilitator. He is the co-founder of the Baltimore/Chesapeake network of the Customer Experience Professionals Association and Hacking HR Baltimore.

Ed’s background includes communications and marketing leadership roles with the Fulbright Scholar Program, Johns Hopkins University, and JA Worldwide. Ed was also appointed director of outreach and communications for the U.S. Department of the Treasury by the President of the United States.


Вторая тема: Accessing the Human Capital of Silicon Valley

Второй спикер: Jean-Marc Frangos, Executive Fellow at INSEAD; Executive in Residence, Plug and Play Tech Center

Jean-Marc Frangos is a Silicon Valley Corporate Innovation thought leader and startup advisor. He is a regular mentor to Silicon Valley and global entrepreneurs, for whom he provides strategic and market development advice. From his experience as the Open Innovation leader at BT (British Telecom), Jean-Marc is a recognized digital tech innovation expert with experience in areas such as 5G, TV over IP, Virtual Reality, IoT and Cloud Technologies. 

Jean-Marc designed and ran several corporate incubators at BT, successfully leading 9 cohorts at BT Infinity Labs in partnership with TechHub in London. He is presently an Entrepreneur in Residence for world-renowned PlugandPlay TechCenter at their headquarters in Sunnyvale and coaches startup teams to pitch for investment and to sharpen their commercial approach for early market success. He served recently on the World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer Selection Committee and on the Access to Market Committee of the Scale-up Institute in the UK. He is an advisor to the board of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley, an executive advisor to Fujitsu Open Innovation Gateway, and a distinguished executive fellow with INSEAD.

As a Corporate Venturing pioneer, Jean-Marc partnered with Sequoia Capital and Hambrecht and Quist to set-up an investment vehicle for BT. He created and operated methodologies for large organisations to identify, select, invest and work with startups. Jean-Marc also advised Fortune500 customers on their open innovation strategies as part of BT. He focuses now on sharing his experience as an innovation consultant. 

Cases describing Jean-Marc’s global open innovation methodology have been published by London Business School, INSEAD and Harvard Business School and taught in business schools around the world. Jean-Marc has been a guest lecturer on corporate innovation at London Business School, Wharton  School, INSEAD, Stanford, Tsinghua, Hitotsubashi and Keio Universities.

Jean-Marc holds a Diplôme d’Ingénieur en Télécommunications from French Grande École Telecom Sud Paris and attended the Advanced Industrial Marketing Strategy course at INSEAD and the Global Business Consortium Programme at London Business School. 


Посмотреть запись вебинара №13

Вебинар №12

Первая тема: International Accelerators

Первый спикер: Daria Lipatova, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Nusa Sentara

Дарья Липатова имеет степень магистра международных отношений Санкт-Петербургского государственного университета (2006-2012). В рамках повышения квалификации проходила программы Babson College в Бостоне, США (2010), Innopolis Foundation в Дэджоне, Южная Корея (2016).  

Имеет опыт работы в российских институтах развития, таких как РВК и Фонд «Сколково», где занималась развитием региональной и международной партнерской сети, открытием представительств на российском Дальнем Востоке и в КНР, а также запуском программ международной акселерации для поддержки выхода российских технологических компаний на глобальный рынок. В рамках реализации проекта создания Московского международного медицинского кластера в инновационном центре Сколково отвечала за создание партнерской сети и внешние коммуникации первого международного участника кластера.  

Дарья является совладельцем и директором по стратегическим партнерам финской компании в области устойчивого развития Nusa Sentara Oy. Продукт компании – Nu Cycle, первая цифровая платформа, основанная на больших данных с использованием технологии искусственного интеллекта для оценки и нейтрализации отходов, признан лучшим технологическим стартапом в Финляндии в 2020 году по версии Entrepreneurship World Cup.  

В рамках филантропии и благотворительной деятельности Дарья входит в попечительский совет фонда поддержки современного искусства MOCT Foundation.  

Дарья является модератором, спикером и продюсером дискуссионных сессий по развитию предпринимательства в рамках отраслевых мероприятий в России и за рубежом, таких как Startup Village, Open Innovations Forum, SPIEF, Wolves Summit, Me Convention by SXSW и других.  


Вторая тема: Jumping Over the Valley of Death and Plugging Your Firm into the International Community of Entrepreneurs

Второй спикер: Eric Hontz, Senior Program Officer, Europe and Eurasia at CIPE

Eric Hontz leads CIPE’s work on Corrosive Capital and is actively developing CIPE’s thought leadership on Constructive Capital, initiatives that sit at the confluence of corporate governance, anti-corruption compliance, the rule of law, and the business and investment climate, with patterns of trade and investment worldwide. Hontz is active in developing the capacity of business organizations in the region to advocate on behalf of member interests and helping these organizations to foster a culture of business growth. In prior roles, Hontz was an associate at a law firm and a vice president at an investment bank, where he reviewed complex alternative investment products. He is frequently featured in media as an expert on economic reform and policy in Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

Hontz holds Bachelor’s degrees in Russian and Political Science from the University of Montana, a JD and an MBA from the University of Maryland and is licensed to practice law in Maryland. Hontz also spent time studying at the Russian State University for Humanities, holds a certificate from the Institute Organization Management for nonprofit management from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and served in the Peace Corps in Severodonetsk, Lugansk Oblast, Ukraine. Hontz sits on the board of the University of Maryland School of Law Alumni Association and is an active volunteer in various roles in Baltimore’s civil society organizations.


Посмотреть запись вебинара №12

Вебинар №11

Первая тема: Lean Canvas: A Holistic Approach to Designing and Launching a Business Idea

Первый спикер: Kellee Franklin, Founder of Mindful Innovation Labs

Kellee Franklin is passionate about big ideas and disrupting the status quo. She has helped numerous clients across industries dream more, think differently, drive change, and produce better business outcomes through her creative consulting approaches. Kellee was a strategic innovation advisor with Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington DC and Seattle where she integrated the use of business intelligence, data analytics and visualization, and design-and-systems thinking to facilitate transformation for senior level executives in the public and private sectors. She was instrumental in expanding the footprint in the Pacific Northwest within the core market areas of Global Health, Global Security, Aerospace/Defense, and Cyber Security/Information Technology before launching her own consulting practice. After her own battle with breast cancer in 2013, Kellee has become a recognized advocate for health systems innovation, patient-centered engagement, and precision medicine.

Kellee is a sought-after public speaker and she has served as a member of a TEDx salon speaker selection committee. She has been a scholarship recipient to the Wisdom 2.0 conferences for her entrepreneurial work in mindful business. Kellee has used her adult learning expertise to redesign classroom experiences for graduate and executive-level education programs in the United States, including at Seattle University and the University of Washington, and Thailand. She is an advisory board member at Seattle University’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center and a conscious business mentor with Fledge at the Seattle-HUB. Kellee enjoys spending time outdoors, traveling to new places, watching sports, taking in an Indie film, and solving the world’s problems over a good meal.

Kellee holds a Ph.D. in Human Development with an emphasis in Organization Behavior from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.


Вторая тема: Minimum Viable Product: a VC’s Take

Второй спикер: Ash Rofail, Founder of ICAgile; Partner at Openner.vc

Ash Rofail (Ph.D.) is the General Partner of Openner Venture Capital and Chairman of Santeon Group In (a Publicly Traded Company) and a nationally recognized business and technology leader with 6 published books, several artificial intelligence patents, adjust professor at the Johns Hopkins University and a frequent speaker at conferences and international panels.

In 2015, Ash received the distinguished award of Most Influential Executive in Washington DC by SmartCEO Magazine across all industries and companies with Headquarters in Washington DC Metro area.

Ash started his technology career in the software industry over 30 years ago with influential positions such as Chief Architect at Microsoft ERP systems, Technology Advisor for White House (George W Bush Administration) and Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest Federal Consulting practices in DC with over 1000 employees reporting to his organization which he sold for $75m to British Aerospace Engineering (BAE.)

In 2001 Ash launched his first company which he grew to a multi-million-dollar technology platform and within 3 years has taken the company public, a few year later Ash started his 2 nd company grew in 4 years to become the largest Healthcare Enrollment Platform in the United States valued at over $300M. Since then Ash led several M&A transactions in Media, Healthcare, FinTech and Enterprise Software.

Throughout his career Ash built all his companies and ventures organically without raising capital; focused only on the fundamentals and the discipline of building sustainable ventures. It’s that mindset that drives Ash to not only financially invest in start-ups, seed stage and growth stage companies but to also focus on the other disciplines required for business to succeed
and reach an exit.

Openner Venture Capital funds startups that demonstrate innovation, improves the quality of living for individuals, creates job opportunities and enriches communities and foster growth and prosperity for individuals and communities.


Посмотреть запись вебинара №11

Вебинар №10

Тема: How to Raise Money

Спикер: Anastasia Green

Anastasia Green is Partner at GetFundedTools.com. Get Funded Tools creates Pitch Decks, blurbs, and fundraising strategies that get you on more calls with investors.

In the past, the CEO of multiple startups across SaaS, HR-tech, consumer, and game verticals. International speaker and startup mentor at 500startups. Impact investment evangelist.

In the past Anastasia:

  • Drove product vision and technical development of the software for the Golden State Warriors, Luxottica, Sunglass Hut that resulted in award-winning products and tens of millions of newly engaged users. The GSW virtual assistant has been recognized as “the most engaging AI-virtual assistant” by Mark Zuckerberg. Recognized by Forbes.
  • Launched social game platform Social Seeds, bringing 20M new users and 400% revenue growth. Successfully exited in 2018.
  • Designed customer experience and orchestrated the launch of iOS app Waky that organically generated more than 6M active users in the first six months post-go-live. Recognized by Entrepreneur and Mashable.
  • As the first startup evangelist of Ukraine built a community of 600+ entrepreneurs and investors that resulted in 10+ deals closed by 908.vc — one of the first Ukrainian venture studios.

Посмотреть запись вебинара №10

Вебинар №9

Первая тема: Entrepreneurial Landscape and Ecosystem

Первый спикер: Tien Wong, Founder of The Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forum; Private Investor; CEO at Opus8

Tien Wong is a tech entrepreneur, CEO, and angel investor. He is Chairman & CEO of Opus8, Inc., a private investment and strategic advisory firm specializing in tech investments and fundraising for alternative investment funds and companies seeking to raise capital. Opus8’s Phoenix Fund makes early stage investments in remarkable fintech, proptech, healthtech, and martech companies that are disrupting their markets and changing the world. Tien is Chairman of Lumious, a Virginia-based EdTech company which provides advanced tech training, mobile e-learning, and software development to Fortune 500 customers. He is also Chairman of Lore, a national provider of IT and business process outsourcing services to commercial and government clients. 

Tien has made direct investments in over 25 early stage companies and VC funds. He has been an investor/shareholder and mentor to several successful companies including Parature (exited to Microsoft for $100 million+), Transactis (exited to MasterCard), DataRPM (exited to Progress Software), LiveLook (exited to Oracle), TerraCycle, and TopBox, among others.
Tien has assisted several dozen leading venture capital and private equity fund managers in raising institutional and family office capital. Some of these clients include Morgan Stanley, Mitsubishi Corp., TPG, Ares, StepStone, Thomas H. Lee, K1, and US Venture Partners.

In 2012, Tien created the Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forum, a now-global community of over 20,000 founders, CEOs, angels, VCs, CXOs and other business leaders. The community hosts bi-monthly live Forums with upwards of 600 attendees, as well as monthly virtual online Forums and pitch events with several hundred attendees. Events feature VIP guests, speakers, exciting presenting companies, and the best CXO to CXO networking on the East Coast.

In 1991, Tien co-founded and served as Chairman & CEO of CyberRep, Inc. until its acquisition in 2003 by a “Fortune 500”company, which was then acquired by Xerox. CyberRep was one of the world’s largest privately held CRM outsourcing companies, operating 9 customer interaction centers throughout the USA with over 2,300 employees and $80 million in revenue. Today, the CyberRep business units comprise about $2 billion in revenue as divisions of Xerox and Conduent. CyberRep garnered multiple prestigious awards including Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine’s MVP Quality Award and Customer Interface magazine’s ACCE (Award for Call Center Excellence), as well as INC. magazine’s 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000’s «Inc. 500» recognition as the 51st, 53rd, 72nd and 408th fastest growing private company in the USA, respectively. CyberRep was profitable for 11 consecutive years and was backed by Allied Capital Corporation, a $5 billion investment company.


Вторая тема: Articulating MVP

Второй спикер: Anton Trantin, Principal at Angelneers; Tech Entrepreneur and Investor

Anton Trantin is a tech-addicted entrepreneur, product creator, software engineer, speaker, leader.

Being tech-addicted since 2003 started a professional career in 2006 as a Software engineer writing low-level software and drivers for earth-based satellite stations using C++ and ASM stack under RHAS and KDevelop environments.

In 2009 graduated the BMSTU with a Master’s degree in Theoretic physics and nano-technology in radio electronics. I did my thesis on the facilities of a 40m-diameter electron storage ring SIBERIA-2 for the design and construction of the micromechanical gyroscope-accelerometer. Such kind of device is used a lot nowadays in every mobile phone to manage the orientation of your screen.

By 2015 was involved in dozens of tech-projects as a Software engineer and an Architect and was honored with the Appreciation letter for the Intelligent traffic system developed and launched during the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi 2014. During this period of time, I had hands-on experience using in production a huge set of different programming languages: Delphi, Java EE, C#, PHP, C++, Python, JavaScript, Objective-C and still find myself stack-agnostic finding most of the issues in communication and business rather than in the technology itself.

In 2016 graduated from the Innopolis University with a Master’s degree in Software Engineering backed by MSIT SE CMU original program with GPA 4.06 and opened the Innosoft software company specialized in computer vision, ML, and blockchain technology. Since this period of time 200% involved in building our own tech product YORSO (www.yorso.com) as a CEO and ex-CTO.

In 2017-2018 was heavily involved in the blockchain activities as a fundraiser, developer, speaker, judge. I became a member of PulsarVC to lead the track related to decentralized ledgers due to the relevant expertise and network.

In 2019 graduated from the #500Startups & Sberbank acceleration program as a TOP7 team and the best demo day pitch; afterward was honored as a TOP Ocean and Seafood technology at Stanford during Fish 2.0 initiative final.


Посмотреть запись вебинара №9

Вебинар №8

Первая тема: Accessing Human Capital of Silicon Valley

Первый спикер: Jean-Marc Frangos, Executive Fellow at INSEAD; Executive in Residence, Plug and Play Tech Center

Jean-Marc Frangos is a Silicon Valley Corporate Innovation thought leader and startup advisor. He is a regular mentor to Silicon Valley and global entrepreneurs, for whom he provides strategic and market development advice. From his experience as the Open Innovation leader at BT (British Telecom), Jean-Marc is a recognized digital tech innovation expert with experience in areas such as 5G, TV over IP, Virtual Reality, IoT and Cloud Technologies. 

Jean-Marc designed and ran several corporate incubators at BT, successfully leading 9 cohorts at BT Infinity Labs in partnership with TechHub in London. He is presently an Entrepreneur in Residence for world-renowned PlugandPlay TechCenter at their headquarters in Sunnyvale and coaches startup teams to pitch for investment and to sharpen their commercial approach for early market success. He served recently on the World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer Selection Committee and on the Access to Market Committee of the Scale-up Institute in the UK. He is an advisor to the board of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley, an executive advisor to Fujitsu Open Innovation Gateway, and a distinguished executive fellow with INSEAD.

As a Corporate Venturing pioneer, Jean-Marc partnered with Sequoia Capital and Hambrecht and Quist to set-up an investment vehicle for BT. He created and operated methodologies for large organisations to identify, select, invest and work with startups. Jean-Marc also advised Fortune500 customers on their open innovation strategies as part of BT. He focuses now on sharing his experience as an innovation consultant. 

Cases describing Jean-Marc’s global open innovation methodology have been published by London Business School, INSEAD and Harvard Business School and taught in business schools around the world. Jean-Marc has been a guest lecturer on corporate innovation at London Business School, Wharton  School, INSEAD, Stanford, Tsinghua, Hitotsubashi and Keio Universities.

Jean-Marc holds a Diplôme d’Ingénieur en Télécommunications from French Grande École Telecom Sud Paris and attended the Advanced Industrial Marketing Strategy course at INSEAD and the Global Business Consortium Programme at London Business School. 


Вторая тема: Intellectual Property and Patents

Второй спикер: Nadya Reingand, President & Founder of Patent Hatchery

Nadya Reingand is leading the way in transforming the worldwide industry of intellectual property. Her expertise as an academic, inventor, and business owner has given her the tools to modernize intellectual property in ways few can. Her book “Intellectual Property in Academia” was a 2011 best-seller on university campuses in the US and has helped countless inventors bring their inventions from lab to market. President Reingand has used her abilities to speak out and lead the conversation at international forums on IP to help advocate for the collaboration of multinational academic institutions and present a unique analysis of modern trends. Her expertise is sought worldwide, evidenced by numerous invitations to speak at IP summits in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the US. She has a passion for building partnerships across borders to bring the vast potential of international inventors to the expanding American innovation market.


Посмотреть запись вебинара №8

Вебинар №7

Первая тема: How Silicon Valley Works

Первый спикер: Pavel Cherkashin, Managing Partner, Founder of Mindrock Capital

Pavel Cherkashin is a venture capital executive, entrepreneur, and writer with a successful track record of building billion-dollar companies as a founder, investor and board member.

As the founder and managing partner at Mindrock Pavel is leading the company’s effort to help outstanding entrepreneurs build profitable, lasting, and category-defining IT сompanies with more than $300M invested since 2015. Pavel supported the early-stage growth of legendary companies including Diamond Foundry, FiscalNote, Luminar Technologies, People.ai, SoundHound, VipKid. His late-stage portfolio includes Coursera, Figure Technologies, Lemonade, Udemy, and more. 

Before establishing Mindrock Pavel was with Microsoft, where he led the Consumer & Online department in Eastern Europe. In this role, Pavel turned Microsoft Online Services into a profitable operation, introduced Windows Mobile platform, and implemented the first consumer-oriented marketing strategy for Windows in Russia. 

Previously in 2006 Pavel established and managed offices for Adobe in 12 countries of Eastern Europe. In 3 years his team had built sales, marketing and support infrastructure, including more than 1500 partners across 11 countries, increased sales more than 10 times and becoming “best subsidiary of the year” worldwide. 

Earlier in his career, Pavel has founded several IT companies, including Sputnik Labs (#1 banking CRM in Eastern Europe, now part of TechnoServe Group), AdWatch (leading digital agency, now part of Dentsu/Aegis) and Actis Systems (web-design and new media agency, now part of Wunderman/WPP). 

Pavel holds a degree in computer analysis for satellite imagery and global ecology. He wrote more than 200 scientific and business articles, as well as bestselling books: ”Are you prepared to fight for your customers?” and “EMO.”


Вторая тема: Slicing the Pie

Второй спикер: Robert Smith, Director of I-Corps at George Washington University

Bob Smith is the Director of I-Corps at GW, where he manages the strategic direction of GW’s I-Corps and Global Lean Startup programs. Prior to joining GW, he was the Director of the Innovation Commercialization Assistance Program (ICAP). There he worked with universities, accelerators, and local startup ecosystems throughout the commonwealth, assisting in their new venture development initiatives by providing instruction and counseling programs based on the Lean Startup method of business model development. He is also an instructor with the NSF’s I-Corp program’s DC node. He’s also a Mentor-in-Residence at George Washington University.

Bob has 30+ years of experience in innovation and entrepreneurship. He is currently the Chairman of CollegeFactual.com, a leading college rankings website. He’s held senior management positions at Congressional Quarterly and America Online in business development, marketing and new product development and was the founder and CEO of the first nation-wide online city guide, Digital City. He also launched one of the nation’s first accelerators. As an executive, angel investor and advisor he has helped companies in e-commerce, e-government, identify management, publishing, geospatial analytics, data science and media move from ideas to favorable exits. 

He received a BA from USC and his MBA from GWU. He is a veteran of the US Navy.


Посмотреть запись вебинара №7

Вебинар №6

Первая тема: Raising Capital: How the Lean-Startup Method Can Help Entrepreneurs Succeed

Первый спикер: Kellee Franklin, Founder of Mindful Innovation Labs

Kellee Franklin is passionate about big ideas and disrupting the status quo. She has helped numerous clients across industries dream more, think differently, drive change, and produce better business outcomes through her creative consulting approaches. Kellee was a strategic innovation advisor with Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington DC and Seattle where she integrated the use of business intelligence, data analytics and visualization, and design-and-systems thinking to facilitate transformation for senior level executives in the public and private sectors. She was instrumental in expanding the footprint in the Pacific Northwest within the core market areas of Global Health, Global Security, Aerospace/Defense, and Cyber Security/Information Technology before launching her own consulting practice. After her own battle with breast cancer in 2013, Kellee has become a recognized advocate for health systems innovation, patient-centered engagement, and precision medicine.

Kellee is a sought-after public speaker and she has served as a member of a TEDx salon speaker selection committee. She has been a scholarship recipient to the Wisdom 2.0 conferences for her entrepreneurial work in mindful business. Kellee has used her adult learning expertise to redesign classroom experiences for graduate and executive-level education programs in the United States, including at Seattle University and the University of Washington, and Thailand. She is an advisory board member at Seattle University’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center and a conscious business mentor with Fledge at the Seattle-HUB. Kellee enjoys spending time outdoors, traveling to new places, watching sports, taking in an Indie film, and solving the world’s problems over a good meal.

Kellee holds a Ph.D. in Human Development with an emphasis in Organization Behavior from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.


Вторая тема: Assessing Regulations and Laws

Второй спикер: Robert Cantrell, Founder of Strategy Innovators LLC and Registered Patent Agent at Jimenez IP Law

Robert Cantrell is registered patent agent and innovation coach with experience as an inventor, an intellectual property strategist, and a leader of patent research and analysis teams.

He worked in-house at Walmart legal to support patent prosecution, licensing, and litigation and now work as outside counsel. Robert supports inventors from the inception of ideas to the drafting, filing, and prosecution of patent applications, tapping into my own experience as an inventor on more than one hundred and fifty patent applications in drones, store robotics, data management, artificial intelligence, blockchain, packaging, and transaction security. He is an expert on principles of inventing and technology evolution from which to account both for where the state-of-the-art is and where it will likely be.

Extensive work in innovation sciences allows Robert to look horizontally across many technology disciplines to raise the quality and quantity of inventions produced by innovation teams and, from the results, to draft highly comprehensive patent filings.

CORE COMPETENCIES
Innovation | Patent Drafting | Patent Prosecution | Patent Portfolio Building | Strategic Planning | Leadership | Innovation Workshop Facilitation | Public Speaking | IP Training Curriculum Design | Continuous Improvement | Risk Mitigation | Emerging Technologies | Proposal Drafting | Business Development | Technology Strategy | Team Building | Documentary Filmmaking | Scriptwriting


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