DEMO, Mobile
Vinod Khosla Heads Speaker Line-Up At DEMO Mobile
It is difficult to find true contrarians these days in Silicon Valley. But Vinod Khosla is one of those rare VCs willing to back seemingly crazy ideas that turn out to change the world before it is clear how important those businesses will be. These days he is knee-deep in mobile (sitting on the boards of Square and Jawbone, and an investor in early-stage mobile startups such as Cinemagr.am, Ginger.io, and Instacart). I am thrilled to announce Khosla will join us as a keynote speaker at DEMO Mobile in San Francisco on April 17. (Register to attend here. Ttoday is the last day to buy tickets at the early-bird rate).
Khosla venture firm Khosla Ventures manages more than $1 billion in its latest funds. When he was a rainmaker partner at Kleiner Perkins, Khosla led investments in networking companies such as Juniper Networks and Cerent (sold to Cisco for $7.4 billion) as well as Excite. Before he became a VC, Khosla was the first CEO of Sun Microsystems when it still ruled Silicon Valley. Khosla understands how critical it is for founders and investors to get in front of industry shifts, otherwise they risk getting left behind.
I am equally excited about the other speakers and judges we are lining up for DEMO Mobile. They include current Kleiner Perkins partner Chi-Hua Chien, SoftTech VC Jeff Clavier, RunKeeper founder Jason Jacobs, Pixel Qi founder Mary Lou Jepsen, Cowboy Ventures VC Aileen Lee, Google Ventures general partner and Android co-founder Rich Miner, and Firespotter Labs founder Craig Walker (whose last previous companies GrandCentral and Dialpad became Google Voice and Yahoo Voice, respectively).
Applications for DEMO Mobile are coming in at a faster rate than any DEMO event in the recent past, and we’ve already found some incredible products to launch onstage. Please join us. As I mention above, today is the last day to register for the early-bird rate of $595.
Keynote Speakers:
Vinod Khosla – Founder – Khosla Ventures
Vinod Khosla is an entrepreneur, investor, and technology fan. He is the founder of Khosla Ventures, focused on impactful clean technology and information technology investments. Mr. Khosla was a co-founder of Daisy systems and founding CEO of Sun Microsystems where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. One of Mr. Khosla’s greatest passions is being a mentor to entrepreneurs, assisting entrepreneurs and helping them build technology based businesses. Mr. Khosla is driven by the desire to make positive impact through scaling alternative energy, achieving petroleum independence, and promoting a pragmatic approach to the environment. He is also passionate about Social Entrepreneurship. Vinod holds a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from IIT, New Delhi, a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Expert Judges
Chi-Hua Chien – General Partner – Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
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Chi-Hua Chien is a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and he also serves on the board of directors or works closely with the teams at Booyah, Chegg, Chill, GOGII, Inspirato, Klout, Path, Reputation.com, Spotify, Twitter and Zaarly. Before coming to KPCB, Chi-Hua worked with Accel Partners as a venture advisor and associate. Before becoming an investor, Chi-Hua was an early employee or co-founder of several startups and he was the director of marketing at Coremetrics (acquired by IBM), where he led the marketing and inside sales teams and served as interim CFO for Coremetrics through two rounds of venture funding. He also was part of the early teams at MyListo (as a founder) and eCoverage. Chi-Hua has an M.S. degree in industrial engineering, a B.S. degree in industrial engineering and a B.A. degree in economics, all from Stanford University; and he also earned an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Chi-Hua was named one of the Top VCs Under 35 by VC Journal and a member of the Elite Eight VCs To Watch by Forbes.
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Jeff Clavier – Founder & Managing Partner – SoftTech VC
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Jean-Francois “Jeff” Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups. Since 2004, Jeff has invested in 110+ consumer internet startups (Fund I, Fund II, Fund III) in areas like social media, monetization, search, gaming or B2B/B2C web services. Prior to founding SoftTech VC, Jeff spent more than 16 years in the enterprise software world as an entrepreneur, senior executive and venture capitalist. In 2000, Jeff became President of RVC Capital, the firm managing the Reuters Greenhouse Fund with $600M invested in 82 companies. He joined the venture arm of Reuters from the company’s product development division, where he was leading a 250+ staff in Paris, London and New York, and was responsible for the Risk Management and Desktop products. In 2007, Jeff was recognized as one of the 13 “Web 2.0 King Makers” by (late) Business 2.0. BusinessWeek named him one of “The 25 Most Influential People on the Web” in 2008, and one of the “Top 25 Angels in Tech” in 2010. He was also nominated in the “Best Angel” category at the Crunchies in 2009 and 2010.
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Jason Jacobs – Founder & CEO – RunKeeper
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Jason Jacobs is the founder & CEO of RunKeeper, a mobile fitness platform that enables runners and other fitness enthusiasts to get motivated, stay motivated, and improve their results over time. Starting with a mobile app for runners, RunKeeper has built a large, passionate global user community, and recently opened up the platform so users can tie all of their health and fitness activities across a broad range of categories together in one cohesive experience. Prior to founding RunKeeper, Jason worked for 10 years in small, high-growth technology companies, always longing for the day when he could start his own. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from Babson College, where he was an Olin Fellow. |
Mary Lou Jepsen – Founder & CEO – Pixel Qi Corporation
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Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen is the CEO and Founder of the Pixel Qi Corporation, a high tech startup doing things in display technology that many believed were impossible and delivering them into high volume mass production. She is also a member of Innovation Board of MEDCO, one of the largest pharmacies in the world, serving 65 million people. Previously she co-founded One Laptop per Child and served as its CTO and the chief architect of the $100 laptop. She has also been on the faculty of the MIT Media Lab, was the CTO of Intel’s Display Division and was the CTO and a co-founder of MicroDisplay Corp. She has received numerous awards for her work including: Time Magazine inducting her into its “Time 100” as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, The Edwin Land Medal from the Optical Society of America, and the IEEE ACE Award for top emerging technology. She holds a Sc.B. in Electrical Engineering (with honors), an A.B. (req) in Art and a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences all from Brown University, and a S.M. in Visual Studies from the MIT Media Lab.
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Aileen Lee – Founder – Cowboy Ventures
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Aileen Lee is founder of a seed-stage focused fund currently called Cowboy Ventures. She is also a partner at KPCB, which she joined in 1999. At KPCB, she has focused on working with mostly consumer-oriented digital companies, including Callaway Digital Arts, Dollar Shave Club, One Kings Lane, Plum District, Rent the Runway, True & Company, and RMG, where she was founding CEO for two years. Prior to that she has worked with companies like ShopKick, Zazzle, Bloom Energy, Blue Nile, Friendster, Good Technology and Tellme. Aileen has a Bachelor of Science from MIT and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. |
Rich Miner – General Partner – Google Ventures
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Rich Miner is a general partner at Google Ventures and came to Google through the acquisition of Android, a mobile platforms company that he co-founded. During his early years at Google, he helped lead the development of the Android platform and ecosystem. Prior to Android, Rich was a Vice President at Orange. He was also a Vice President at Wildfire, another company he co-founded which developed a voice-based personal assistant, and which was acquired by Orange. Rich received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. |
Craig Walker – CEO & Co-Founder – Firespotter Labs
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Craig Walker brings 15 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur in the communications space to Firespotter Labs, a start-up focused on making complex telephony products easy to use. Products in the Firespotter family include ÜberConference, Nosh, NoshList and Jotly. In past lives, Craig was CEO of Dialpad Communications, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005 (now Yahoo! Voice), co-founder and CEO of GrandCentral Communications, acquired by Google in July 2007 (now Google Voice), and Entrepreneur in Residence at Google Ventures. He was also a technology venture investor at Sterling Payot Capital and TeleSoft Partners and a corporate attorney at top-tier law firms in Silicon Valley, where he represented companies ranging from early stage start-ups to Cisco Systems. Craig is a graduate of UC Berkeley (BA), Georgetown University (MBA) and Boalt Hall School of Law (JD).
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