Dale is a thought leader on the future of media consumption in an interactive and “many-screen” world of increasingly rich media interfaces. 

With an extensive background in Broadcast Design and branding, he was creative director of on-air design and branding for the three CBS Sports Winter Olympics broadcasts in the 1990s. Having his roots in the rich media approach to design in TV and film, he has pioneered a unique spatial approach to designing navigation systems for Interactive TV and connected screens. The work begins to blur the line between television, games and web, a concept he calls "New Television."

Dale was a part of the research team that developed the visionary gestural interfaces that first appeared in the film Minority Report, and is now leading development work in the rapidly emerging world of gestural navigation for screens at a distance. Screens have always defined unique spaces, and, particularly with advancements in stereo 3D projection and advanced AR, information can occupy these spaces. Spatial context is becoming increasingly important in design that is no longer flat: space and place are the new frontiers of design. 

Dale has an MFA from California Institute of the Arts, where in 1981 he taught the first course in Motion Graphics offered to designers in the United States. He served on the founding advisory board of the digital content direction at the American Film Institute, and was an active participant in the development of advanced prototypes for Enhanced TV at AFI for many years. Dale received one of the first ITVT Interactive TV Leadership Awards and has won four Emmy awards.

Dale was co-founder of interactive agency Schematic, which recently merged with three other agencies to become global powerhouse Possible Worldwide where he currently serves as Chief Interaction Officer. 

Shekhar Kapur is one of the world’s great filmmakers and activists of the imagination: across disciplines, across cultures, across media.

His first English language film, Elizabeth, was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture. He is a founder of Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation with Richard Branson and Deepak Chopra, a venture now involving 150 artists and writers in Bangalore and New York who are successfully creating new characters for multi-media exploitation in the international marketplace. Virgin Comics writers include John Woo, Guy Ritchie, Nicholas Cage and Dave Stewart.  Shekhar brought the idea of the hit West End / Broadway show Bombay Dreams to Andrew Lloyd Webber, co-creating the story and co-producing the show. His versions of the Ramayana stories are currently being made into mobile games in Mumbai.

Shekhar recently returned to the UK to direct The Golden Age, bringing Melbourne’s own Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush back together in the sequel to Elizabeth. This highly anticipated film is now in post-production and due for release in late 2007 (hint, hint: it’s a trilogy).

Shekhar has directed some of the most celebrated, successful, and controversial films of the Indian film industry to date. Perhaps the most notable of Shekhar’s Indian films are three very different pictures: Mr India, which is widely regarded as India’s greatest ever mainstream film for kids; the critically acclaimed and box office success Masoom; and one of India’s most famous films, Bandit Queen, which has now attained cult status (music by the immortal Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan). Bandit Queen caught the attention of the worldwide film community when it became the rage at the Cannes Film Festival.

After Elizabeth, Shekhar directed the film version of the best-selling book The Four Feathers for Paramount / Miramax. Shekhar has also co-produced films such as The Guru in the UK with Universal Studios and Dil Se in India and continues to work on a variety of projects. Amongst other things, he is currently co-producing the animated musical A Suitable Cockroach with Prana Animation studios in India, and producing an Indian feature film entitled Mantra.

Shekhar has also been an award-winning director of commercials; a leading actor in Indian film and television; and a talk show host for three seasons of On The Other Hand for Channel 4 in the UK.

He is currently working on pre-production for his forthcoming feature film, Paani, a story based in 2025 where a city of 20 million people has gone to war over water.

Shekhar is also an Advisory Board member to the Media Development Authority (MDA), Singapore.

Shekhar is a regular speaker at the World Economic Forum and runs a very successful website www.shekharkapur.com on media, culture, arts, and international politics.

A preview of The Golden Age can be found here

Marcelino Ford-Livene has a wide range of business, operational and creative experience in the interactive and traditional media industries.

He is the General Manager of Interactive Content and Advanced Advertising Development for Intel’s Digital Home Group. In this capacity, he leads a team charged with developing new interactive content and advertising technology on Intel’s connected CE platforms. Prior to Intel, he was a senior member of TV Guide’s development and planning team. He has also held senior positions with the FCC. He served as Special Counsel for New Media Policy and as Senior Counsel and Director of Media Strategic Analysis for the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning. He is a former Vice President of NetNoir, Inc., served as Director of Business Development for iBlast, and worked as an Associate with Hill, Farrer & Burrill in Los Angeles. In addition to serving as Secretary of the Television Academy, Ford-Livene is the Division Chairman of the Interactive Media Division for the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries. He also sits on the Board of LA36. He holds a B.A. in Economics from UC San Diego, a JD/MBA from the University of Illinois and has completed an Executive MBA Leadership Program at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

Priya enjoys crafting simple, fun, addictive tools to enable conversations and experiences underpinned by robust business models.

Her expertise lies in developing and managing the complete customer experience for products and services. Over the past ten years, she has built and led product development teams. Her teams have shipped – BBC iMP (iPlayer), BBC Mobile portal, Trusted Places, Project Kangaroo (initial proposal), the Digital Wellbeing Showroom, Sugarscape (Hachette Filipacchi) and significantly increased Flirtomatic’s user revenues. She has worked in various capacities as senior interaction designer, implementation manager, creative director, innovation executive and head of product. Prakash is a RSA fellow with a MA in Interaction Design from Royal College of Art and holds patents for iPlayer. When not working, she dreams of starting her own social enterprise. She recently joined Nokia as Creative Director for Consumer Experience.

Mat Costello’s best-selling and award winning work across all media has meshed game play, technology and story. He is the writer and creator of groundbreaking TV, novels, nonfiction books, and games in both US and UK.

Costello wrote the critically acclaimed classic game The 7th Guest. Since then, he has scripted dozens of best-selling games such as Shellshock-Nam ’67 (Guerrilla Games and Eidos), Bad Boys 2 (Empire) and 2005’s Doom 3,winner of an unprecedented five awards at E3 including the Game Critics Award: ‘Best of E3’.

Just Cause, co-written for Eidos, debuted as the #1 game for Xbox 360 in the UK. Named ‘Best Adventure Game’ at the 2006 E3, it premiered on the US best-seller lists as the #2 Xbox 360 game.

Costello’s current games for the next generation of consoles include Pirates of the Caribbean 3 for Disney, a major new game for Eidos and Rage a new game for ID Software.

Costello’s acclaimed horror novel Beneath Still Waters was filmed for Lions Gate and Filmaz for world-wide release, and his new novel, Out of Time, has been optioned by Electric Entertainment (The Patriot, Independence Day), with Peter Winthers producing.

Isaac Kerlow is a visual creator who continues to pioneer the use of digital and computer technology to produce creative content.

Prof. Kerlow was recently Artist-in-Residence at Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, China, and is the Festival Director for SIGGRAPH 2010’s Computer Animation Festival in Los Angeles.

Prof. Kerlow just completed People–Coral–Mentawai, a documentary short about earthquakes and tsunamis in West Sumatra’s Mentawai Islands. He is currently in production with Mayon: The Volcano Princess, a documentary produced by the Earth Observatory of Singapore about the people living around the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines. Recently he completed the Creative Direction of Draconika (祥龙腾飞系南洋), a large-scale animatronic Dragon Float that won the Audience Award at Singapore’s 2009 Chingay Parade, and also completed the development and preproduction for Holy Night! a Spanish computer-animated feature film.

Prof. Kerlow is also the author of several best-selling books, including the successful 4th edition of The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects published by Wiley and translated to Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, and Korean.

Between 1995 and 2004 Prof. Kerlow led the group of digital artists and animators at Disney Interactive and multiple initiatives related to producing entertainment with new media at The Walt Disney Company, including 3D computer animation and 24P High-Definition digital moviemaking. While at Disney Interactive Prof. Kerlow oversaw creative and production aspects of over 20 computer games including the successful Animated Storybooks (Hercules, Mulan, Toy Story, 101 Dalmatians, etc.) and action games such as Escape from DeVil Manor, Hades Challenge, and Hercules Action Game.

Prof. Kerlow’s academic career includes being the Founding Dean of the School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) from 2005-08. ADM is the first professional art school in Singapore offering six BFA degree programs, including animation and film. Prof. Kerlow was also the Founding Chairman of the Department of Computer Graphics and Interactive Media at Pratt Institute in New York, and the youngest full professor ever tenured at the institution.

Tom Kennedy is Managing Director of The Playroom and was recently prompted to the newly created role of Executive Director Omnilab Media Group Digital Services  Australia’s most comprehensive media group, specialising in content creation, production, post-production, broadcast, interactivity, duplication, advertising solutions and distribution.

Tom has over 20 years experience in media and technology markets. He has been involved in media industry development and policy throughout his career and has been a champion for the future potential of the Australian content and the digital media industry. He has a wide range of business experience from start-ups to public companies. He was the founder and CEO of several of Australia’s leading digital companies over the past 15 years including, Media Zoo, Hyro Limited, Beyond Online Limited and Brainwaave Interactive. Before joining Omnilab Media he was head of Digital Strategy at Photon Group and Legion Interactive, Australia’s leading mobile marketing service company. In 2006 he won the AIMIA award for outstanding contribution to Industry, and in 2007 he was listed in B&T Magazines Power 40 Digital Leaders list.

His past industry roles include, Chairman of the Digital Content Action Agenda Experts Group 2008, Commissioner, of the Australian Film Commission (AFC) 2002-2008, Past Chairman Internet Industry Association (IIA) 2007, Past President of Australian Interactive Media Industry Assoc (AIMIA) 2004. He has been an advisor to Government in the following areas; member of the Digital Television Advisory Group, member of the Joint Singapore Australia IT Council, member of the Australian Information Economy Advisory Council (AIEAC) and a member of the National Bandwidth Enquiry and a member to the Australian Governments Broadband Advisory Group (BAG).

Alexander Grünsteidl is a Director at Digital Wellbeing Labs, tuning technology to bring harmony into people's everyday interactions with digital products and services.

After witnessing repeated failure to successfully launch well-designed products to market, the company was set up in 2006, to bridge the last mile in product development between the customer retail experience and the user of digital lifestyle products and services. Digital Wellbeing launched the first dedicated digital lifestyle showroom during the London Design Festival 2006.

Alexander’s passion lies in creating expressive, yet simple interactions, for both product and service touch-points, which represent a brand; making the intangible, tangible. He has expertise in user centric design, interface prototyping, interaction architecture, marketing and branding since 1987.

Most recently he spent 8 years as senior interaction architect at IDEO. He has been involved in a spectrum of international projects ranging from expressing brand values through product interactions, service design strategies of mobile Internet portals, to designing user interfaces for medical equipment. He has contributed to projects like the Vodafone Simply mobile phone, Prada in-store interactive experiences, interface rationalization strategy for Merloni white goods, design study of a mobile transaction device for 'Bottom of the Pyramid' field applications with HP in Uganda and the minimal interface for the award winning My-Way Olivetti portable photo printer. Other clients have included – Nokia, France Telecom, T-Mobile, Beeline, Shell, Visteon, BMW, NCR, Lilly, Varian, Roche, Bayer.

Prior to IDEO, Alexander was at the Apple Research Labs in Cupertino, developing innovative interactions for mobile platforms such as the Newton.

Alexander holds an MA in Computer Related Design (Interaction Design) from Royal College of Art, London and a BA in Industrial Design from The Design Academy in Eindhoven.

While most kids were grappling with the realities of growing up, Vishal took a head start and started his first company – FACT, soon after finishing school at the ripe young age of 16.

In 1999, he founded Indiagames, then a five member team. Today he leads a global operation with over 300 employees and offices in Mumbai, Beijing, London and Los Angeles.  Indiagames is an award winning multi-platform games company, developing games for wireless, console and online gaming platforms, and works with top game publishers, handset manufacturers, Hollywood studios and mobile operators across the globe.

Vishal is recognized as being instrumental in starting and growing the Gaming Industry in India.

Vishal was part of The Nokia Advisory Council for Games and actively advises Nokia on wireless and gaming technologies and is a much sought after speaker at gaming and wireless technology conferences. Indiagames under Vishal’s leadership was featured amongst Red Herring Asia’s Top 100 companies in 2005.   

Amongst his other achievements and industry recognitions include being featured among the top 40 Indian entrepreneurs by Business Today magazine in 2001; an E&Y Indian Entrepreneur of the year award nomination in 2004 and most recently being listed among the top 50 executives in the mobile content space by the UK based Mobile Entertainment Magazine. This list featured the likes of Steve Jobs of Apple. Vishal also features among the 20 Fab Indians to watch out for in 2006 by The Week magazine.

A K Madhavan, the Chief Executive Officer of Crest Animation Studios Limited is credited with opening the doors for Indian Animation in the intensely competitive and demanding CGI products and services global market.

Madhavan, joined the organization in the year 1999, when the Animation Industry was an unrecognized entity in India and India’s animation competence unacknowledged in the global CGI space. He joined in the capacity of Vice President New Business Development and was entrusted with the responsibility of creating new business opportunities in the global CGI space for the Company.

Madhavan is the Chief Architect of the company’s Vision and Sales & Marketing strategy. He is the key driver of the company’s growth, and has consistently generated more revenues from the international CGI market than any of his contemporaries in the Indian Animation Space.

Madhavan’s leadership, sales and marketing competence, business insights and complete understanding of the global CGI market is the key factor in establishing Crest Animation Studio and India on the global CGI map. The fact that he got the first CGI television series to India from the US market, even when the company or the country had nothing to show to the world market is a testimony to his sales & marketing acumen, belief in the creative and technological prowess of his very talented team.

Crest’s first order was procured by him in the year 2002 and from thereon went to continuously create strategic partnerships with multiple producers of repute in the US and European Markets. The strategic alliances built with global CGI producers of repute are today reflected in the brand image of the company.

In all his sales and marketing initiatives, he has always ensured that the company’s product portfolio increased the value proposition provided to its client and stakeholders alike.

Madhavan is committed to ensuring that India is considered as a High on Value Destination for CGI products and Services in the global CGI space. He leads the Indian Animation Industry in all the government forums including NASSCOM, FICCI etc.

An exemplary Leader, a people person’s and a communicator par excellence he is the most sought out spokesperson for the Indian Animation Industry internationally.

Madhavan has a Masters in Sales & Marketing, and has decades of experience in Sales & Marketing in the IT Industry in addition to Brand Building & Advertising.

At Nokia, Mark is helping drive the next X-Media solutions strategy where his unit creates strategic consumer facing IPR in X-Media.  

He sits on the Global Management Team for Media & Games.  Previous to this Mark headed up  Nokia Games Publishing which released ten titles in 2008 and several in 2009 including the 2008 Meffys Winner, Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep.  He was also responsible for technology strategy and business development, industry relations and industry marketing, partnerships and Nokia internal collaboration and technology roadmapping. He then decided publishing games was much more fun!

Previous to joining Nokia, Mark was a well known entrepreneur and highly respected authority in media technology, frequently hosting lectures and publishing research on the sector. He has a PhD in Computer Vision and an MBA from London Business School.  He is also a Board Member of the EMEA chapter of the Mobile Entertainment Forum.