Conference: Cloud Computing Futures and Roadmaps Track

Vijay Bhagavath is in technology equity research at Deutsche Bank Securities, working on names in the telecom, wireless, and data networking coverage universe. Prior to DB, he was in the CTO Office at Siemens Communications and also a telecom analyst at Forrester Research and a senior staff at AT&T Labs / AT&T Bell Labs. His 15year work experience spans the breadth of IT hardware and software landscape.  He has 20 US patents awarded, is a CFA Level 2 candidate, and holds the Series 86/87/63/7 registrations. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Univ. of Texas and a B.E. (with distinction) from Osmania Univ. 

Robin is a software entrepreneur and investor. He invests in cloud computing applications, open source, virtualization, and security sectors in enterprise software.

Prior to joining Mayfield in 1999, Robin was a founder and/or key member of several successful software startups including CATS Software, Infinity Financial Technology, acquired by SunGard (SDS) and Risk Management Solutions.

Robin earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A.S. dual degree in industrial engineering and economics from Stanford University.

Robin has been recognized as the Top Open Source investor by Infoworld magazine and is a frequent speaker at technology and venture industry events.

Ping joined Accel in 2004 and focuses primarily on Information Technology Infrastructure and Digital Media platforms. His specific areas of interest also include cloud computing (see below), datacenter virtualization, distributed data management/storage, internet datacenter scalability and gaming. He currently is an investor/Board Member of BitTorrent, Cloudera, Ludic Labs, Mu Dynamics, Raptr, Verivue and YuMe; and he is actively involved in Imperva. Ping was also responsible for Accel’s investment in Reactivity (acquired by Cisco) and Mochi Media (acquired by Shanda).

Prior to Accel, Ping worked at Juniper Networks as a Senior Product Line Manager for their flagship M-series router products, as well as Director of Corporate Development. Ping was actively involved in Juniper's multi-billion dollar acquisition of Netscreen Technologies and led all subsequent security and routing product and R&D integration activities. He also served as a strategy consultant for Mckinsey & Company, advising technology clients in their growth strategies.

Ping has extensive international experience as well. At Singapore Telecom, he served directly for the executive management team in operating and investing in Asian growth opportunities. Prior to SingTel, Ping worked at Goldman Sachs Asia, transacting technology IPOs and M&A. Ping continues to be active internationally by working closely with Oak Pacific Interactive (Xiaonei) and IDG-Accel China Fund.

Ping holds an A.B. from Harvard University, with honors, and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Recent presentations and articles:
# GigaOM: The Future Is Big Data in the Cloud - Oct ‘09
# Presentation: CLOUD COMPUTING: BIG DATA IS THE FUTURE OF IT - Oct ’09

As a General Partner at Gemini, Adi draws on his start-up, VC and scientific background to make seed investments.  Since joining Gemini in 1999, he has specialized in seed investments in the areas of enterprise IT software and systems, and financial software. He was the first VC in Itemfield, sold to Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA), Diligent sold to IBM, and Traiana sold to ICAP. Some of the world’s leading VCs joined Adi in investments including Sequoia, Accel, Foundation, Matrix, Battery and Lightspeed. Adi was also CEO of Sphera, sold to Parallels. Adi sits on the boards of a number of Gemini portfolio companies including CloudShare, dbMotion, Neocleus, Metrolight,  OpTier and TaKaDu. “Boards have a tendency to delay decisions to the last possible minute – but we try to supply adequate financing in a timely fashion - even with uncertainty.  For example, a few years ago, one Gemini company was facing a major Board decision to support the company or to shut it down.  The company had changed markets three times and did not have an enormous technology barrier – just strong management and a good idea.  I felt that the caliber of the management was different – and I felt that they could do what they said they would do, which is to re-define themselves.  They had a domain expert and identified a set of customers that their technology could serve. They needed a bridge loan and the Board was delaying the decision.  We convinced the Board to support the company.  Less than 6 months later, they had a viable product in the market and a further investment from Sequoia.” Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, Adi held business development and marketing positions with Nexus Telecommunications (NASDAQ:NSUSF), joining as one of the company's first employees.  Nexus develops wireless technologies for messaging and location services. “Working at Nexus was the best kind of start-up experience.  You felt it was a privilege to work there.  You could do what you were good at with none of the politics or bureaucracy of a big company.  People worked all the time – often straight through the weekend – and they were brilliant.  I’d venture to guess that more than 20 of my colleagues at Nexus went on to start or lead new companies.   I learned two very important lessons there.  1. Know what you don’t know.  Admit it and hire people that are better/ smarter/ more experienced than you to do the things you don’t know how to do.  2. Everyone is better than you at something – figure out what that is and learn from your colleagues what you don’t know.” Prior to Nexus, he was an engineer at ECI Telecom (NASDAQ:ECIL), a Global provider of networking infrastructure solutions, in the early days of the company’s SDH (a standard for communicating digital information over fiber-optic cables) business unit.  His team developed the first SDH system.  Earlier in his career, Adi served in the Israeli Navy as a project engineer for Naval Underwater Systems. Adi is a graduate of the INSEAD MBA program. He holds two degrees from Ohio State University, a BSc with honors in Electrical Engineering and a BA with distinction in Mathematics.  He studied for over two years towards a M.Sc. in vision-computer science at the Weizmann Institute but ultimately decided that business, not academia, was his true calling.  Adi is a frequent speaker in Israel and Europe on VC and high tech topics. Adi was chosen by Yale University as a Yale World Fellow. See what Adi has to say on Gemini's blog and on his personal blog.  

Mr. Leinwand is a venture partner in the firm and focuses on technology investments. Prior to this role, he joined JPMorgan Partners as an operating partner in 2004. From 2001 to 2004, he was President and Co-founder of Proficient Networks, Inc. From 2000 to 2001, he was Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering at Telegis Networks, Inc. In 1997 Mr. Leinwand joined Digital Island, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISLD) at inception and served as their Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer through the company's IPO and secondary offering. From 1990 to 1997, Mr. Leinwand served as Manager of Consulting Engineering and Senior Software Engineer at Cisco Systems, Inc. helping to build and engineer service provider and enterprise networks worldwide. He co-authored "Cisco Router Configuration" and "Network Management: A Practical Perspective" and has been granted a patent in the field of data routing. He currently is an Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Berkeley where he teaches the subjects of computer networks, network management, and network design. Mr. Leinwand holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He presently serves on the board of directors of Vyatta, Inc. He is also a board observer to Belair Networks, Cedar Point Communications and Sylantro Systems.

Welcome to Porticor. I'm Gilad Parann-Nissany, Founder and CEO. I've worked on Cloud Computing for medium and small enterprises at SAP (CTO Small Business); and on Cloud Computing for consumers at G.ho.st (http://g.ho.st). Based on the experience in these varied markets, now at Porticor we are working  on Cloud Computing security. All types of applications and data can and should make use of the cloud. Security is the current much-touted barrier to acceptance, and we are working to solve that with rich control and powerful defenses - made simple and usable. The goal is ever to create a ubiquitous computing experience. The future will be a world were security and privacy can be fully respected whenever a user or business entity need it to be, without stopping anyone from participating in the brave new world. See you at Cloud Connect.

Sam Charrington is responsible for the company's overall marketing efforts, including marketing and brand strategy, product marketing and product management. Formerly, Sam was an early employee at Plumtree Software, where he made pivotal contributions in a variety of sales and marketing roles as the company grew from pre-revenue to over $80 million in annual income. Most recently, as Director of Business Development, he was responsible for defining and executing the company's technology partnering strategy. Previously, Sam held sales and marketing positions in AT&T's Business Multimedia Systems organization.

Sam holds a bachelor's degree in computer and systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master's degree in electrical engineering from Northwestern University.

Sunil oversees product development at reQall and contributes to the company’s product vision.
 
Prior to reQall, Sunil worked at France Telecom and Apple Computer. Sunil’s interests include Human Memory Assistance, Information Retrieval, Information Extraction, Information Visualization, Knowledge Acquisition, Organizational Memory, Speech Recognition, and Interface/Interaction design. He has three patents and his research has been extensively covered in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Newsweek, CNN, and MIT Technology Review.
He received his Ph.D. from MIT’s Media Lab, his Masters Degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, and his Bachelors Degree in Cybernetics from UCLA.
 

Maribel has more than 18 years of  professional experience focusing on the telecommunications and networking industry.  Currently she analyzes how disruptive forces such as mobility, collaboration and social software, virtual currencies and Clean Tech will change the future. Most recently, Maribel spent over 10 years at Forrester Research analyzing multiple topics related to the telecommunications, media and entertainment industries including operator network and service strategies, enterprise communications and consumer markets for voice, video and data. She has also held positions at Motorola, International Data Corporation and Shiva.