Errol Arkilic is a Founder of M34 Capital. M34 is an investment company that focuses on seed and early-stage projects being spun out of academic and corporate research labs. Typical investments range from $250,000 to $500,000 and usually represent the first outside capital deployed. M34 focuses on turning science projects into companies and does so across a broad spectrum of technologies and geographies. He is also a founder of USRCA.org, a non-profit with a focus on entrepreneur education for science and engineering graduates.
Previously, Errol was the founding and lead program director for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps program. He led the I-Corps effort from its inception until July 2013. Prior to this, he was the lead software and services Program Director for the NSF SBIR program. Before his government service, Errol was founder and CEO at StrataGent Lifesciences (Acquired by Corium International: CORI) and Manager of Product Engineering at Redwood Microsystems. He received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University and his Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Aero/Astro Engineering from MIT.
Andrea Belz is the Director of Innovation Node – Los Angeles. She serves as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California, with appointments in the Marshall School of Business and the Iovine and Young Academy in technology, the arts, and the business of innovation, as well as serving as Visiting Professor of Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. Through her consulting practice, Andrea has guided strategic planning for world-class innovators including Avery Dennison, BP, California Institute of Technology, CVI Melles Griot, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Occidental Petroleum, and UCLA, as well as venture capital firms and university startups. Andrea has taught national classes for the Licensing Executives Society and is the author of The 36-Hour McGraw-Hill Course: Product Development. She serves as Managing Director of Kinetic Intelligence, an intellectual property strategy consultancy, and as an active angel investor, she serves on the boards of Caltech spinoff laser manufacturer Ondax, and telecommunications company Sendify. She holds a B.S. in physics from the University of Maryland at College Park, a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology, and an M.B.A. in finance from the Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business.
Dr. Andrew Bicos works in Boeing Research & Technology. His current assignment is chief engineer for the Aeromechanics integrated technology team. In his role as chief engineer he ensures that the technologies transitioned to the products are technically sound and meet customer requirements. Prior to this assignment, he was the director for the Manufacturing Technology Domain and before that for the Structures & Materials Technology Domain.
Andy joined the company in 1987. His prior assignments include project leadership positions within the Boeing Satellite Systems engineering design and analysis directorate, Delta rocket program mission assurance and two years in Supplier Management. Prior to the Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merger in 1997 he was senior manager responsible for advanced structures R&D for the McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works organization in which he specialized in composites and adaptive/multifunctional structures technology.
Andy has published more than 20 technical papers and articles on innovative composites, adaptive structures, and vibration reduction technologies. He has two patents, one for composite damage detection and the other for a structural damping device.
Andy has received a B.S. degree in engineering and a MBA from UCLA, as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University. He has held positions on the AIAA Structural Dynamics and ASME Adaptive Structures and Material Systems Technical Committees and is a former chairman of the ASME Aerospace Division. He is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA. Andy is currently the chairman of the ASME Aerospace R&T Task Force. He is the Boeing executive focal for ASME and chairs the ASME Industry Advisory Board. Andy is the Boeing executive focal for California State University at Los Angeles and chairs the dean’s advisory board for the College of Engineering, Computer Science and Technology.
Dr. Nan Boden is a Director of Engineering at Google in Mountain View, CA, joining in 2013 to help develop Google’s next-generation data centers.
Nan formerly was the CEO of Myricom, a successful California Institute of Technology (Caltech) spin-off founded in 1994 that pioneered high-performance computer networking. Over the years at Myricom, Nan migrated from the techie world into the business world, serving as Executive Vice President, CFO, a member of Myricom’s Board of Directors, and then becoming CEO in 2010.
Nan earned her PhD and MS degrees in Computer Science from Caltech and her BS degree from the University of Alabama in Applied Mathematics. Nan’s PhD research in “Runtime Systems for Fine-Grain Multicomputers” led directly into her work at Myricom, where she wrote the software that controlled the company’s first products. With the goal of adding formal business education to her business experience, Nan completed her MBA at UCLA in 2011.
In her current role at Google, Nan works at the strategic intersection of technology and business.
Dan Doble is Senior Technology Manager for SABIC Ventures. He has 16 years of experience in the semiconductor, solar and chemical industries in technical and managerial roles. Dan graduated with a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge, a PhD from the University of Nottingham, and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, all in chemistry. Dan focuses on technology due diligence, and management of external joint ventures.
Stephen F. (Steve) Hahn joined Dow in Midland, Michigan in 1982 and has worked in a variety of business and corporate research and new business development functions at Dow prior to assuming his current role in 2007. As Research Fellow, Steve leads Dow’s effort to identify emerging, strategically aligned chemical, materials, water and energy related business opportunities. He is focusing on the North American West Coast region and is currently located in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area of Northern California.
Steve has a B.S. in Chemistry from Michigan Tech and an M.S. in Chemistry from Central Michigan University. He holds 42 issued U.S. Patents, 40 publications in refereed journals, and 6 chapters in scientific reference books. Steve was named a Dow Inventor of the Year in 1990 and 1996, the Distinguished Alumni Lecturer at Michigan Tech in 1996 and 2003, and received the Dow Excellence In Science Award in 1999. He was a Visiting Professor of Chemistry and IPrime Scholar at the University of Minnesota in 2002. He received the American Chemical Society Cooperative Research Award in 2008 and the Council for Chemical Research Collaboration Award in 2010. He has represented Dow on Advisory Boards at the University of Connecticut and at Michigan Tech. Steve is a member of the Academy of the College of Sciences and Arts at Michigan Tech and serves on the Advisory Board for the Global Social Venturing Competition at the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley.
Byron Haigh serves as Principal at DoCoMo Capital, Inc. He has more than 20 years experience in the Telecommunications and startups space, with consulting experience in the biggest Telcos across the globe and entrepreneurial experience in leading European and US startups. His strength is coordinating startups with corporations in international environments. His focus is consumer Internet, ecommerce as well as converged communications. He brings a quantitative approach as well as qualitative strategic assessment to startups, which is based on his analytic and humanist educational background.
Byron sourced Docomo Capital’s investment in Muzy and 500 Startups.
Previously Byron was a founder and partner with Maroon Analytics, a strategic consultancy firm created by six University of Chicago MBAs, with HQ in Singapore, and offices in Barcelona and Chicago. His area of expertise has been the telecommunication industry, and specifically, it’s content strategy. He has worked with Telefonica, Vodafone, and Orange in Europe, and Claro, Vivo, TIM, and Telcel in LATAM. Byron has assisted Telefonica in the development of their corporate venture arm in Silicon Valley. He also sourced some of their first investments and completed the due diligence of Quantenna, Kyte, and Eventful. Byron has also helped other International Telcos expand their business development activities in Silicon Valley. He established partnerships with the following startups: Hiplogic (mobile storefront), Telenav (LBS), Twilio (voice API and VOIP), Zong (mobile payments), Playerx (games), Groovemobile(music).
Previously, Byron has had 10 years experience working as European sales manager in several internet startups, including Iconmedialab, Aspiro, Airborne Entertainment and Jadestone. Byron offers 20 years of experience focusing on consumer internet and mobile innovation in three continents: Americas, Europe, and East Asia. Byron holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an MA from Columbia University in New York, and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in New York
Hemai Parthasarathy is the Scientific Director of the Thiel Foundation and its program to support early-stage, radical science-based companies, Breakout Labs (www.breakoutlabs.org). She is responsible for establishing the scientific priorities of the program, evaluating submitted proposals, and monitoring the progress of portfolio companies against their milestones.
Hemai brings a deep commitment to scientific innovation and communication to Breakout Labs. She served as the North American Editor for Nature and was a founding editor of PLOS, the open-access publisher of PLOS ONE. Before joining the Thiel Foundation, she consulted for research institutes, non-profits, and biotechnology companies on the development and communication of their scientific portfolios. She holds a Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Willem Rensink is part of the Shell GameChanger team. The GameChanger team identifies and incubates revolutionary ideas to proof of concept. GameChanger provides a flexible supportive partnership role as well as funding both for internal Shell people as well as external entrepreneurs or University researchers. We provide the funding to bring to concept early stage ideas to redefine the future of energy. Ideas can address challenges in the traditional Oil&Gas Petrochemical industry as well as Renewables and Cleantech. Before joining the GameChanger team, Willem Rensink was part of the Shell Biofuels R&D group. He joined Shell from the Cargill Biotechnology Development Center where he was involved in industrial biocatalyst development. Prior to that, he held positions at the J. Craig Venter Institute and Syngenta Biotechnology. He received his PhD from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and an MBA from Texas A&M University.
Jenny Rooke brings a combination of strategy, operating, and investing experience to her work with life sciences companies, specializing in research tools, diagnostics, and synthetic biology. Dr. Rooke’s investing roles include Managing Director and founder at 5 Prime Ventures, Venture Partner at Fidelity Biosciences, where she also served her Kauffman Fellowship, and previously with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery group. She held multiple executive positions at U.S. Genomics, a venture-backed biotech start-up advancing single molecule detection technologies for diagnostics, biodefense, and research. Previously, Jenny was a management consultant with McKinsey & Co., where she advised leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies on business strategy. Jenny earned her Ph.D. in genetics from Yale University and her B.S. in physics from Georgia Tech.
Keith Rosema is the Executive Director of the Innovation Lab at Vulcan Inc. The mission of the Innovation Lab and Proving Ground is to find technologies and ideas inspired by the Vulcan ecosystem and turn them into commercial products and businesses.
Before coming to Vulcan in November 2014, Keith was the Director of Research at Intellectual Ventures Laboratory where he managed technology startup projects and intellectual property discovery. His projects included innovation in energy production, communications, photonics and disease diagnostic and intervention technologies. Prior to joining Intellectual Ventures, Keith helped lead Blue Origin, a private space launch company. Keith was the co-founder and CTO of the encryption company Disappearing Inc, winning the 2001 SIAA Codie award for software innovation. Before Disappearing Inc, Keith led engineering for a special Stephen Spielberg project, “Starbright World”.
Keith started his career as a Caltech applied physicist and planetary radar astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Deep Space Network and Arecibo Observatory. His work on near-Earth asteroid radar properties supported spacecraft missions, dynamics modeling and early warning for potential Earth impacts. He continues to maintain a foothold in the astronomical field and is a consultant on several Hubble Space Telescope projects.
Yannis C. Yortsos was appointed dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering in 2005. He is the Chester F. Dolley Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and also holds the Zohrab A. Kaprielian Dean’s Chair in Engineering.
Yortsos is well known for his work on fluid flow, transport and reaction processes in porous and fractured media, with applications to the recovery of subsurface fluids and soil remediation. He has been actively involved in the peer review of the Yucca Mountain Project for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste.
Yortsos joined the USC faculty in 1978 and chaired the department of chemical engineering from 1991 to 1997. He has been part of the senior leadership team at USC Viterbi since July 1, 2001, and served as interim dean for a year before his appointment to the position.
An invited scholar at several institutions in the United States and abroad, Yortsos has received many honors for research, teaching and service. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and serves as the Secretary of Section 11 to the National Research Council. He is an associate member of the Academy of Athens and received in 2014 the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. Yortsos also serves on the executive committee of the Engineering Deans Council, and completed his tenure as member of the Executive Committee of the Global Engineering Deans Council.
Yortsos received his B.Sc. from the National Technical University, Athens, Greece, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, all in chemical engineering.