Neil Katz is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and a member of the IBM Academy of Technology. 

Currently, Neil is the CTO for IBM’s new business unit focused on Digital Convergence with a key emphasis on the emerging opportunity in immersive 3d Virtual Worlds.  Neil has technical experience in multiple disciplines in his over twenty five years in the industry that he now leverages in working with key customers and as part of the Digital Convergence EBO.  This extensive experience includes the mobile computing and wireless industries where he has designed and managed everything from mobile handheld devices (he holds patents on the power management system used in today’s ThinkPad computer), to architecting solutions for IBM’s largest wireless telecommunications customers.  In addition to his background in wireless communications and mobile device design he has in depth knowledge in technical areas such as Online games, web 3D, messaging, wide area networking including content delivery networks, and network delivered applications including Software as a Service   Neil has filed over 50 U.S. patents and is an IBM Master Inventor.  Neil holds both a B.S.E.E. and an MBA degree.

Jason DaPonte is Managing Editor, BBC Mobile Platforms.

He is responsible for overseeing the content across the BBC’s mobile web, messaging and A/V offerings as well as looking at emerging areas including mobile broadcasting and out-of-home entertainment and information services.

He is also Chair of the BBC Future Media Editorial Forum.

 Previously, he was Executive Producer for bbc.co.uk, the world’s largest English-language website that covers a range of content from news to entertainment and user generated content. He was responsible for working to shape the overall editorial portfolio and strategy in line with audience needs and emerging technologies.

 As part of this work, he led a change programme across the BBC’s online producers called “Ensuring Excellence.” This programme aimed to build a stronger culture of excellence across hundreds of editorial staff in different production areas. It focussed on how editorial standards, guidelines and training need to change in the rapidly changing environment that is digital media. The programme is part of the corporation’s BBC 2.0 initiative, which aims to fundamentally re-invent and improve the website over the next three years.

DaPonte originally joined the BBC in 2002 as an editor and has also led the corporation’s efforts in the areas of Search & Navigation, which has resulted in a multi-million pound programme of work in this area being recently kicked off.

Before working at the BBC, DaPonte was Producer of Economist.com where he product managed the website and launched the digital brand into various new editorial areas.

Before moving to the UK in 2000, he worked in New York for CitySeach/Ticketmaster where he managed the design and production of a network of city guide websites and at FOX where he was a web producer and production manager.

His early career began with working on the early versions of a number of major American media sites. He is proud to have been a member of the launch team for WashingtonPost.com and worked on an early site for U.S. News and World Report. He also worked as a consultant and freelancer for a number of small start-up companies during the “dot com boom.”
 

The Beijing Capital Recreation District and China Virtual Business Zone is the biggest Government supported digital media industry development initiative in China.

Dr. Liu Yan (David) is the Founder and President of both organizations, as well as CEO of the Beijing Cyber Recreation Development Corporation,  making him one of China’s digital elite.

Dr. Liu is a pioneer of an innovative business model connecting virtual and real world via Internet Technology in China.

The Beijing Capital Recreation District is a massive industry development initiative in Beijing promoting digital media industry convergence, and incorporates China’s first Virtual Business Zone.  The CRD is an integrated Digital Entertainment Industry Centre consisting of eight dedicated technology centres: Mobile Game Center, Online Game Center, Animation Production Center, Cyber Information Center, Cyber Finance Center, IP Exchange Center, Cyber Sports Center, and the Talent Training Center. It also has a ‘Games Theme Park’ open to the public.

Dr. Liu has been working on the area of Information Technology, Telecommunication, Internet and Cyber Recreation for more than 12 years. He has been a senior manager in Motorola, CEO of Putian-SmartComm (one of the subsidiaries of POTEVIO group which is the biggest telecommunication manufacturer in China), Senior Vice President of CITTIC 21CN (a HK listed company, H.241 ) and CEO of China Credit Information Technology Corp.

He is also a the Vice Chairman of China Copyright Council; the Vice Chairman of Beijing Cartoon Association; a Senator of Beijing Shi-Jing-Shan District as well as the visiting professor at Harbin Institute of Technology, one of China’s designated “21C Project” universities, which receive preferential support for development into world-class universities in the 21st century.

Skylake Incuvest & Co is a Korea’s leading principal investment firm focused on private equity investments in the digital media industries. 

Skylake “Incuvests Innovation” globally, investing in early stage companies as well as late stage and post-IPO companies.  Skylake also acts as a gateway to selected overseas technology companies wishing to use Korea as a technology test-bed and develop joint strategic alliances with Korean companies.  Skylake’s CEO is Dr Daeje Chin, Korea’s longest serving Minister of Information and Communication, and formerly CEO of Samsung Electronics.

From 2003 until 2007, Mr Kim was the COO/CSO, International Business Development & Strategy, NC Soft, a global leader in games publishing.  Concurrently, Mr Kim was also the CEO of Arenanet, a US subsidiary of NC Soft, and publisher of the international No. 1 best seller Guild Wars.  Prior to this, he was the Director of Internet & DotCom Business, Microsoft Korea. From 1997 to 2000, Mr Kim was the International Marketing Manager, Internet & Solution Business for Microsoft Corp, Group Product Marketing Manager and Product Development Manager for Microsoft Korea.

Mr Kim holds an MBA, from the University of Washington, an M.S., Applied Mathematics, from the Korea Advanced Institution of Science and Technology, and a B.S., Applied Mathematics, from Sung Keun Kwan University (Korea).

 

Corey is helping build the world's leading network of 3D virtual worlds. Responsible for business development and strategic marketing at Multiverse, Corey helped pioneer the concept of virtual worlds as a new medium that will support a range of applications, including entertainment, business collaboration, research, education, and simulation.

A featured speaker at industry conferences, Corey also serves on the advisory board for the Austin Game Developers Conference, co-leads a special interest group for the SDForum on virtual worlds, and is an advisor to the Synthetic Worlds Initiative, whose mission is to promote innovative thinking about immersive digital spaces.

Corey brings experience from some of the most influential companies in the high-tech and entertainment industries to Multiverse, including Netflix, Netscape, Zone Labs, Borland, and The Discovery Channel. In 2003, he was invited to contribute to a U.S. Homeland Security task force on Cyber Security.

He also has written and directed a number of short films, and produced commercials and TV specials. An award-winning writer, he has also collaborated with well-known technology expert John Dvorak on multiple books. Corey is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.

Aleks Krotoski is an academic and journalist who writes about and studies technology and interactivity.

In addition to writing a column for The Guardian's Technology section and presenting the Guardian's weekly technology podcast, she blogs on Guardian Unlimited and is currently working towards a PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Surrey, examining the social networks of cyberspace.

Aleks writes about the social dimensions of interactive entertainment, emerging community experiences in virtual worlds and other aspects of social software. She also writes policy, government and industry reports covering media regulation, technological forecasting, demographics, age ratings, education and game industry regulation; she regularly speaks about interpersonal processes in online communities with financial, telecommunications and governmental organisations. Recently, she has worked with Linden Lab (Second Life) to devise their social networking strategy and is the UK Department of Trade & Investment's New Media Sector Champion.

Brian Park is the Managing Director, Strategic Busines for T-Entertainment Co. Ltd.

T-Entertainment is a Korea-based company engaged in the production and marketing of world-class online games, feature films, music, offline entertainment properties, and talent management.  The game division of the company provides internationally renowned 3D online games, Laghaim and Last Chaos, and is currently developing L2 and BonoBono Online.  T-Entertainment also provides Second Life to Korean users with its own brand “sera Korea” through the Second Life Grid Global Provider network with Linden Lab.  The entertainment division of the company produces award winning feature films and music. T-Entertianment also provides talent management for sports and entertainment professionals.

Brian brings seven years of business development and consultancy experience to his role, as well as 10 years experience in system design and programming.  His previous positions include Professional Services with The Nobleman Group; CLI New York; Unisys; and KFBY New York.

Mr. Graylin is the CEO of mInfo, the leading Mobile Search Service in China providing natural language search services to users throughout China via SMS, WAP, IM and embedded client applet.

Mr. Graylin is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and business leader with over 15 years of management experience, seven of which are in Greater China. Mr. Graylin co-founded mInfo in early 2005. He is intimately knowledgeable about the wireless search and mobile marketing space in China. Mr. Graylin has rich entrepreneurial experiences prior to mInfo, having also been the founder and CEO of two other technology start-ups in the US, one in personalized e-marketing and the other in online financial tools for consumers.

In the mid-90’s Mr. Graylin helped establish the Intel organization in Shanghai, and grew Intel’s consumer business in China from $50M to $300M over a three year period. He also led Asia Pacific marketing for Intel Online Services in the late’90s. Additionally, Mr. Graylin ran the global Enterprise and Consumer business units at Trend Micro in 2001-2003 (while based in Taipei), and security products/services business at WatchGuard Technologies (based in Seattle), with respective yearly revenues in excess of US$200M, US$100M and US$80M. He delivered sizable double digit revenue growth for all three businesses units. Mr. Graylin began his career at IBM designing next generation processors for the AS/400 mini-computer family.

Mr. Graylin earned an MS in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School. He graduate top of his department with a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington. Mr. Graylin was born in China, educated in the US, and honed his professional skills in the global marketplace. He is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese

Michael joined the Corporate Development Group at Google in 2005 and is a senior member of the team responsible for all the company's acquisitions and minority investments.

Prior to Google, Michael held positions at the private equity group McCown De Leeuw & Co, focusing in earlyMic stage companies.  Previously he worked in investment banking with Goldman Sachs in both New York and London.

Michael holds undergraduate degrees in Economics and Italian from Emory University and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard.

Si-Bum Kim is one the most highly respected and influential people in Korean animation, combining both creative production and industry policy development.

Si-Bum is the Founder of  Characterline Inc. which creates, manages, and markets IP (Intellectual Property) including characters, animation, comic, cartoons, including licensing and merchandising across print, broadcasting, online, mobile, and theme parks.

Mr. Si-Bum KIM has been active in many areas. Besides of his own business, he was also a chairman of an internet company providing 3D animation creating software in online, and advisor of an IT company producing GPS golf rage finder.

He has been a senior advisor of KOTRA (Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency) which is the government agency to promote international business between Korea and other countries. Now he is an advisor of KOCCA (Korea Culture Contents Agency) which is the Korean government agency charged with the promotion of Korean culture business including character, animation, movie, music, game, etc. He has conducted trainings in many countries including Japan, Taiwan, Denmark, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Mongolia as well as Korea.

Professor Kim has also served as an adjunct professor of business in Hanyang Business Graduate School and now teaches International E-Commerce, International Marketing for Culture Business, Character Planning & Creating at Hanyang University.

He has developed a training program, Leadership Academy; conducts ‘Intellectual Property Marketing’ courses at KOCCA; and is a co-author of two books: Introduction of Cultural Contents and Becoming CEO with Idea and Guts at Twenties.
 

Michael Schumann belongs to a small group of innovators who have opened up the market for virtual worlds in Germany.

For the last seven years, Schumann worked as an entrepreneur and CEO of a renowned marketing and communication agency in Berlin. Schumann initiated and manages “Second Commerce”, Europe’s premium virtual worlds network, providing a communication platform for more than 800 registered companies, and serves on the board of the German Federal Association for the Promotion of Economic Affairs and External Economic Relations (BWA).

 

Bruce Joy is the founder and CEO of VastPark. He has been running businesses for over 15 years.

Writing his first computer game back in 1982, Bruce’s background in the convergent space of media, technology and virtual worlds has led the creation of VastPark.

Built on five years of research and development, VastPark enables users to create and publish highly interactive 3D virtual worlds quickly and easily. It is designed to empower communities to co-create one or more worlds with their users.

Bruce studied media and literature at Deakin University and venture capital at HAAS, University of California, Berkeley. Through his businesses, he has worked with many of the largest brands in the world, including General Motors, Deloitte, Mars, BMW, Fuji Xerox and Linfox.

Keren Flavell is an award-winning interactive digital media producer with 14 years experience in producing content online, with a focus on entertainment and music.

Keren is internationally recognised as a world-leading innovator in reaching audiences through multiple digital media platforms, and pioneering the use of virtual worlds as a tool for the production and distribution of television content made collaboratively with in-world participants. In its first year of operation, Treet.TV has produced over 600 hours of broadcast content and has a monthly audience of 100,000 people.

Prior to co-founding Treet.TV, Keren was awarded the prestigious Gold Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival - Best Entertainment Website for the ABC/Film Victoria Digital Media Fund Accord project Sounds Like Techno.

Keren is a regular guest speaker at International conferences and has lectured in new media production at the Australian Film Television and Radio School, Victoria College of the Arts, La Trobe University and Victoria University.

Keren also serves on the Evaluation & Advisory Committee of Film Victorias Digital Media Fund.

Ken Brady is CEO and Founder of Genkii, a Tokyo-based strategic consultancy focusing on social media and virtual worlds. 

Ken is widely recognized as a leading cross cultural communications specialist in digital media.

Ken’s expertise spans all media platforms: film, television, digital media, publishing; and all three screens.  He is an award winning film maker and writer.

Prior to founding Genkii, Ken was the Director of International Strategies for Centric/Agency of Change in Los Angeles.  Prior to this he was Director of Development for Hollywood producer/director Randal Kleiser (Grease, Flight of the Navigator).

As a writer, Ken’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, webzines, and anthologies including Analog, Writers of the Future, Strange Horizons, Science Fiction World, Ideomancer, Fortean Bureau, Weird Tales, Modern Magic, Rosebud, Talebones, The William and Mary Review, Clonepod, Darker Matter, Frequency, and Midnight Street. His fiction has been reprinted in 8 languages, he’s sold a screenplay to Miramax, has produced an award-winning feature film, and produced and sold a number of stage plays.

Ken has a bachelor’s in political science from the University of Oregon, and an International MBA from Portland State University.

CEO and Founder, Vykarian Studios (Shanghai)
 

Xin founded Shanghai-based Vykarian in 2003 servicing a nascent game outsourcing market.

Four years later, Vykarian now services most major US game publishers including Electronic Arts, Activision, Vivendi and THQ. Prior to founding Vykarian, Xin established an industry first MPEG-4 rapid prototyping studio at iVAST Digital Media and gained his first outsourcing experience developing iTV projects in India and China. Xin’s background includes 10 years of game development experience at Microsoft, Sony, Squaresoft and THQ, in addition to visual effects production in Hollywood for theme parks and music videos. Xin began his China adventure in 2001, and currently lives in Shanghai.