#AWE2014
Jon Soberg

Jon Soberg

Jon Soberg has over 17 years of experience as an investor, entrepreneur, and operational executive.  Prior to joining Blumberg Capital, Jon held CEO, COO and CFO positions at several startups, and has built large organizations from the ground up in several companies including Ditech, Broadband Digital Group and Adforce, which had a highly successful IPO.  A CFA Charterholder and adjunct faculty in the Wharton Marketing Department, Jon has consulted for top companies including Toyota, HSBC, Neiman Marcus, Capital Group and Accenture.  Jon started his career in technology at CMU’s Field Robotics Center. Jon earned a B.S in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College, an M.S. in Engineering from Northwestern University, and an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing from the Wharton School, where he is a Palmer Scholar. Jon serves as a member or observer on the Board of Directors of Any.DO, Addepar, Brainrush, CarWoo,CookTasteEat, Coverhound, Credorax, ePetWorld, Kreditech, Mygola, PaidPiper, Paymill, The Fab Shoes, Urbanara, ZipZap, and Zanbato....

Tammi Smorynski

Tammi Smorynski

Tammi joined Intel Capital in 2000. Prior to Intel Capital, Tammi was with J.P. Morgan & Co., focused on leveraged buyout transactions and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to that, she was an Audit Officer at J.P. Morgan & Co. covering a diverse set of investment banking operations from derivatives trading to global custody. She passed the CPA Exam in 1991. Tammi is board observer of Gainspan, Impinj, RF Code, and has invested in and managed exit for Navini Networks (acquired by Cisco) and Crossbow Technology (acquired by Moog). Tammi earned an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA and a bachelor’s degree in Accounting/International Management from Georgetown University. General Interest:  RFID, Sensors, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Robotics, MEMS, and Micro Power Harvesting...

Jason Shih

Jason Shih

DAQRI COO: Jason’s 25 year executive career includes Head of Products & Services at Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown during which time his team built DBConnect in 2000, a client online trading site still in use today.  Previously President/owner of a multi-family investment office in excess of $2B, he has also served as Chief Investment Officer to private families and led sales organizations within the wealth management industry.  Jason holds a B.S.E in Chemical Engineering from University of Pennsylvania and a M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business...

Robert Wang

Robert Wang

Rob Wang is a founder at 3Gear Systems, a start-up based in SF building a lamp that understands your gestures. Prior to starting 3Gear, Rob explored computer vision and human computer interaction for his doctoral thesis at MIT. He created a color patchwork glove and a set of algorithms for tracking a user’s hands in real-time with a webcam....

Włodek Laskowski

Włodek Laskowski

Wlodek is like a Nomad: by day, he is a Partner with VC fund, and by night, he is an active Business Angel and entrepreneur – he is currently leading a great AR start-up called Frozen Chili Studio, whose flagship project creates a Tamagotchi-style AR mobile app, re-defining the famous classic and enabling the launch of an innovative AR platform. Back in 1988 Wlodek never expected to be where he is today, when at 18 years old he escaped from communist Poland to England. Once there, with hard work and strong determination he graduated from the prestigious LSE, upon which he embarked on a successful investment banking career in London. After the City, he joined GE Capital, where as a member of the elite GLDP (Global Leadership Development Program), he worked on top assignments in the US and Europe. Upon leaving the corporate world, Wlodek became an entrepreneur: he co-founded a US-based high-tech start-up Bot Inc. (together with the retired Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet), and led its R&D unit (80+ employees) in Krakow, Poland. After the company was acquired by Ernst & Young Technologies, he established a small investment banking boutique working with both: top-notch European VCs, as well as entrepreneurs seeking exit. Few years ago,  Wlodek co-founded a VC Fund (he called it Nomad of course!), where he is currently a Partner in charge of ICT investments. Although he went to the dark side (VC), he never ceased to be an entrepreneur at heart, and so he gets involved with start-ups as an active Business Angel....

Koki Tsubouchi

Koki Tsubouchi

Koki Tsubouchi is the CEO of ChatPerf Inc. ChatPerf Inc. is a startup of scent technology, was founded in 2010 with a vision to build a scent 4D communication platform. Koki and his team invented the first scent smartphone gadget aimed at bringing to scent lifestyle more fun and easily. He makes a device name “Scentee” that you attach to your smartphone and connect a small cartridge of scent. When you send a message to someone with Scentee, the device emits a small dose of perfume. For example, on Valentine’s Day, you message
‘I Love you’ and then a whiff of sweet perfume hits the person’s nose. ChatPerf also has an open API that allows developers to set the emitting program by themselves. For example, a game developer can let players smell of gunpowder for effective reaction. Once Koki launched the prototype product in Japan’s most famous social funding in January 2013, he got 200% funded in only 6 days and start for mass production. He is featured by TIME as am entrepreneurs a next frontier for smartphone gadgets. Koki would like to show the latest audio jack model that is ready to release in July and demo how it works at AWE2013....

Margaret Martin

Margaret Martin

Margaret Martin, Founder and CEO of Merlin, has over 20 years of experience in leading educational and media technology companies to commercial success. Her experience includes 13 years in the Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Portland, Oregon technology markets. Margaret founded and led several of Atlanta’s first Interactive Media companies and her early work includes development for Turner Broadcasting properties’ TBS, Cartoon Network and TBS Advertising in New York. Margaret founded IQTV, an educational technology company featured at AT&T’s Distance Learning Lab and along with Georgia Tech professors, she founded her first Georgia Tech startup whose product inFusion, an integrated media distance learning tool, is still in use today. Margaret’s extensive breakthrough technology experience paired with her ability to drive revenue has enabled Merlin to grow over the past two years with a small grant and Fortune 100 customer derived revenue.  ...