Design Experience Humanist User-Centrologist

Jerome Nadel

In his role as EVP Marketing & User Experience at Sagem Wireless, Nadel is responsible for bringing innovative user-centric mobile devices and services to market.

Beginning his career at the IBM Human Factors Lab and then in Unisys’Corporate Human Factors Group, Nadel became Worldwide VP Marketing for a multi-national technology start-up, where he supported an acquisition by another international technology leader, Gemplus, ultimately serving as VP Marketing there.

At Gemplus, his key mandate, and success, was driving technology partnerships and promoting usability of mobile data services. Coming back to his passion, Nadel joined Human Factors International as CXO, where he helped transform the firm’s core usability services into businessoriented user experience strategy and design.

Athlete Educator Optimist

Aape Pohjavirta

Aape Pohjavirta is a windsurfer who was pushed into the world of digital media (because of his young age) in the late 80’s. He is currently CEO and founder of Sendandsee Ltd.

Aape began his career as a trainer and has recently returned to this same topic with mobile elementary education services that will help us in changing the world – for better.

He has worked as a salesperson, channel developer, team leader, inventor, innovator, venture capitalist, and polarizer in international companies and projects and his achievements include a few world firsts – commercial wireless communication system with PowerBooks, NMT-telephones and HP9000s, a professional-level Desktop Video editing workstation built from standard components, the mobile magazine concept, and an environmentally responsible racetrack.

Regardless of his long tenure in the ICT industry Aape despises technology because it is never ready and too difficult to use. Aape’s focus and passion has been, is, and will be on making technology work for us not the other way around. Aape loves his family, friends, nature, sports, food, and good times – and life.

Advocate Catalyst entrepreneur

Shaherose Charania

Shaherose is passionate about open innovation in mobile and telephony startups. She is currently a founding team member and VP at Opinno, an open innovation network of entrepreneurs, incubation spaces and investors. Recently she lead new consumer products at Ribbit (acquired by British Telecom). Previously, she was Director of Product Management at Talenthouse and before that at JAJAH (acquired by Telefonica/O2) as the Director of Product Management and Marketing. She began her career in Silicon Valley at TiE Global overseeing governance and operations of 40+ entrepreneurship centers.

In parallel, Shaherose is perhaps best known as the CoFounder and CEO of Women 2.0, an organization for women-led startups in Silicon Valley. She has led its growth to include tens of thousands of participants, hosting monthly educational and networking workshops engaging entrepreneurs and investors from top Venture Capital firms and Angel circles. She has seen over 300 early stage startups through Women 2.0 and is experienced in building solutions to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Shaherose holds a B.A. in Business Admin from The University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business and completed an international exchange program at ESADE in Barcelona, Spain.

Champion Connector Innovator

Leila Chirayath Janah

Leila first developed the idea behind Samasource while working as a management consultant at Katzenbach Partners (now Booz & Co.), where her clients included global leaders in the outsourcing and telecom sectors and a number of prominent non-profits.

Along with Professors Thomas Pogge and Aidan Hollis, she founded Incentives for Global Health and helped produce a plan for incentivizing the development of new drugs for neglected diseases. As an undergradudate, Leila authored background papers for the World Bank’s Development Research Group and Ashoka on equity and social rights.

Leila is a recipient of the Rainer Arnhold and TEDIndia Fellowships, and serves on the San Francisco board of the Social Enterprise Institute. She is a former Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Program on Global Justice and the Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Australian National University. When she’s not running Samasource, Leila blogs on Social Edge and tries to keep up with her Twitter account.

She holds a B.A. from Harvard University.

Realizer Tinkerer Visionary

Nicholas E. Heller

Nick Heller is responsible for New Business Development across EMEA at Google. He is based in Zurich, Switzerland and is focused on new product incubation and exploratory efforts in technology, meta-data licensing, strategic partnerships, special projects, and alternative distribution for existing and new business initiatives. He was formally leading the Media & Publishing team at Google in the European Strategic Partnerships group.

Nick has a rich history of working within the media industry, primarily across mobile, television and online. Prior to joining Google, he worked for MTV Networks UK & Ireland, where he created the digital strategy and led new cross platform social networking initiatives. In 2006, he published a paper on the growth of mobile advertising, and continues to be a passionate advocate of the mobile medium. In 2002, he founded Degrees Of Separation, a tech consultancy and eBusiness network, linking blue chip organizations throughout North America with specialized software development firms. Prior to 2002, he worked in fixed income trading for RBC Capital Markets, located in Toronto, Canada. He holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario, and an MBA from the University of Cambridge.

Collaborator Connector Pioneer

Karim Khalifa

CEO &  Co-Founder of Digital Republic

Digital Republic is the number 1 Digital & Creative Advertising Agency in Egypt. With offices in Dubai, and a client list boasting the biggest brands in the World, Digital Republic is at the forefront of driving mobile and online interactive solutions in the Arab World.

Karim’s personal expertise lies in all that is mobile – with over 12 years experience gained in mobile and ICT, coupled with solid marketing and branding expertise, he has an impressive track record of successful delivery of innovative technology and marketing solutions.

Karim was part of the core team that created the original ‘Vodafone live’ Mobile portal in the UK in 2000 – often considered by the industry as the original blue print for a successful mobile internet experience. Most notably, Karim championed the creation of the mobile advertising industry in Egypt – launching the first comprehensive mobile advertising portfolio in the Middle East in 2008, which was heralded as a best practice case for emerging markets.

Karim also led the delivery of the first 3G network launch in Egypt.

His diversity stems from holding senior positions in multiple industries around the World, including: Vodafone, Lucent, Maersk,  Hilton, and SODIC Real Estate.

Collaborator Filmmaker Teacher

Michelle Halsell

Michelle Halsell is the CEO and a Co-Founder of Missing Pixel bringing over 15 years of experience in building teams and leading projects that explore new technologies and interactive story telling. She has trained filmmakers in New York, IOWA, Boston, and San Antonio as well as assisted the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) with their new media institute and mobile phone exploration in Ghana.

Michelle mentored for BAVC in San Francisco, NBPC in Jackson, Mississippi for the BB King Blues museum, and Scribe Video Center , eSights, eSounds for the Andy Warhol Foundation. Her goal continues not only to expose audiences to the potential of new media solutions, but also to encourage collaboration, exploration, and diversity in the field. Michelle received an Insight Award for Excellence in film and digital media arts for the FaceofMS.org.

Ms. Halsell received her Masters Degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. In 2008 Michelle was invited to participate in the digital braintrust sponsored by NBPC in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Inspired by the work in Africa, in 2009, Michelle completed a website for girls making use of mobile phones and social networking applications.

Cultural bridge Maven Mobilista

Kei Shimada

Kei is the Founder and CEO of Infinita Inc, a leading mobile research, consulting and development firm based in Tokyo. His company is consisted of a team of multinationals and helps clients across the globe create world-class services on connected devices. Their clients include IBM, AOL, Cybird, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Docomo.com, Itochu, Adobe, Gameloft, Qualcomm, Swisscom, and the Embassies of Canada and Denmark in Japan.

Kei was born and raised in the United States and has now lived a little more than half of his life in Japan. After graduating Waseda University, he has worked for Panasonic, Lucent Technologies and Cybird, all leading companies in their respective industries. His passions aside from work, include tennis, snowboarding, traveling, farming and cooking with his wife. He is a gadget lover by nature and is now hooked on the HTC Hero Android phone.

Follow Kei on twitter: @kei_shimada

Enthusiast Maven Mobilista

Tomi Ahonen

Tomi T Ahonen is a six-time bestselling author of hardcover telecoms/tech books who has also released a series of three eBooks in 2009. An independent consultant and motivational speaker in the converging areas of mobile telecoms, internet, media, advertising, credit and banking, social networking and virtual reality, Tomi is based in Hong Kong. He lectures on these topics at Oxford University for which developed the short courses for 3G services, 3G business, mobile-TV and 7th Mass Media. Mr Ahonen is seen annually at about 20 conferences on six continents.

The father of several of the industry’s most used theories, tools and concepts, and a founding member of several industry groups, as well as being the holder of a telecoms competitiveness world record, Tomi Ahonen has been quoted in over 300 press articles, starting with the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Business Week, Economist, etc and is regularly seen on TV; he writes several columns and articles to industry press every year.

Creativity innovation Youth

Allison Mooney

Allison Mooney is Vice President of Emerging Trends for MobileBehavior, an Omnicom company focused on understanding mobile consumers. She leads the agency’s Intelligence and Marketing efforts observing emerging trends in culture and technology to provide strategic direction for companies pursuing innovation. Her creativity and insights have informed the marketing and advertising of Fortune 100 companies, the investment strategies of leading private equity and VC firms, and the product features and positioning for early-stage start-ups.

Allison has a diverse background in trend reporting, digital advertising, youth marketing, and observative research.

She has presented on global trends and innovations to audiences all over the world, from C-level executives in the U.S. to youth marketers in Hong Kong, and was recently named to Mobile Marketer’s “Mobile Women to Watch” list. She is a founder of SoundCtrl, a music and technology event series, and sits on the Advisory Board for YPulse, a youth media and insights company.

Allison regularly writes about mobile trends for Advertising Age and serves as a Contributing Editor at PSFK.com.

Enthusiast Strategist

Kazi Islam

Kazi Islam is the CEO of Grameenphone IT, a technology company focusing on innovation on mobile and communication. Kazi Islam returned back to Bangladesh after 18 years of living and working abroad. Kazi has extensive experience in industries such as IT, Communication, Media, Energy & Utility, Automotive and Consumer Electronics. His core focus is creating technology based solutions and services for developing countries through partnership with global technology companies to make positive impact on socio-economic conditions.
Kazi worked in multiple Fortune 500 companies including IBM and Ford. At IBM he worked as a Business Strategy Consultant in IBM Global Business Services. His professional experience includes working in 3 different continents where he lived and worked in countries like USA, England and Japan.

Big media Early bird Sailor

Ulrich Hegge

Managing Director (Burda) Media Innovation Lab & Managing Director Burda Information Services

Hegge has been an active part of the German and European Internet scene as an entrepreneur as well as a manager in the publishing industry since the early 90’s. After finishing his law studies Hegge was responsible for starting up the first German newspaper on the Web, the “Schweriner Volkszeitung” and at Gruner+Jahr “stern.de”, the website of the Stern magazine. In 1997 he became a member of the management board of G+J’s Electronic Media Services GmbH, being responsible for the content management of all G+J websites. As a co-founder of wunderloop and after several successful years as its CEO he became part of the publishing world again in June 2009 as Managing Director of Hubert Burda Media’s Media Innovation Lab. As such he oversees the digital efforts of the existing media brands as well as pursuing new opportunities for revenue and content-driven services.

Communicator Strategist

Richard D. Titus

Richard is the CEO of Associated Northcliffe Digital (www.and.co.uk) the digital consumer division of A&N Media (a subsidiary of LSE: DMGT). He overseesa 100m+ international portfolio of businesses including UK sector leaders; Jobsite, Findaproperty, Globrix, Motors.co.uk, dating site aggregator Allegran and the online travel, mobile and television businesses of Teletext. His portfolio extends into six countries with 38.4m global unique users.  Richard is charged with the operation of the businesses and growth of the diverse AND portfolio and the larger consumer digital strategy.

Previously, Richard led one of three BBC future media divisions as Controller Future Media, A&M and Mobile. In this role he is responsible for the strategic, editorial and technical delivery of its mobile products and services (including the GMSA award winning mobile iPlayer) as well as a portfolio of pan-BBC product groups and support of its Audio and Music content on digital platforms including more than 50 regional and national radio stations. He assumed this role after leading an overhaul and redesign of the BBC’s Internet, mobile and IPTV services – with a combined audience greater than 50 million unique users a week. Managing 180+ people across several divisions he provided thought leadership, strategy and delivery of the BBC’s Future Media & Technology division’s audience facing products and services.

Richard has founded or co-founded seven firms in his diverse entrepreneurial career including Razorfish LA and Schematic, an Adweek top 10 interactive agency where he served as President and Vice Chairman before its 2007 acquisition by WPP. Richard is a frequent public speaker on the impact of innovation and digital products and services in the technology, media & entertainment sectors. Outside technology, with his filmmaker wife, he has produced feature film and television projects including two Sundance Film Festival selections; 2002’s On_line and 2006 environmental documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? and is the proud owner of the UK’s first Tesla Motors Roadster – all electric automobile.

Hub Outreach producer

Beverly W. Jackson

Beverly Jackson is a senior marketing professional at The Recording Academy, the producers of the GRAMMY Awards. She is a founding member of the Digital Strategy Team, playing a key role in the recent record breaking viewership increases which incorporated social media into the iconic television broadcast.

Beverly specializes in sorting through digital clutter to identify the most relevant and useful tools for community engagement and utilization to increase market share and generate revenue. At the Academy she uses her diverse business experience, love of music and passion for social media to help reshape the marketing strategy and brand message.

While serving in leadership roles at Tribune Interactive and J. Walter Thompson (a WPP Company) she was actively involved in creating new online businesses, focusing largely on digital media platforms related to content development and social networking.

As a National Urban Fellow she deepened her passion for cause- related issues such as education and training, climate change and civil rights.  Combining technology and a natural curiosity, Beverly pushes through existing boundaries and finds unconventional ways to rethink and approach complex business and societal issues.  She has worked on projects for the X Prize Foundation, the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund and other non-profit organizations.

Beverly earned her Bachelor of Science from Howard University in Washington, DC and Masters Degree from Baruch College in New York City.

Catalyst Disruptor Passionista

Jonathan MacDonald

Jonathan MacDonald is a co-founder of this fluid world, a business and marketing consultancy that helps global organisations achieve their full potential in the context of an ever-changing communications and business world:

“We do this by identifying and exploiting new areas of opportunity, by enabling companies to be flexible and agile, and by facilitating continuous learning, understanding and stretching of the mind. Organisations choose us because of our objectivity, broad general knowledge, wide experience and our contagious enthusiasm. With 30 years combined experience, the founders have worked with, and inside, many of the largest brands and agencies in the world, positively affecting strategy, innovation, change and new business.”

Jonathan’s experience, contribution to the industry, entrepreneurial spirit and passion means that he is widely considered as one of the primary strategists and thought leaders in the digital space. He has been a Senior Consultant at Ogilvy (who still regularly use his services), Sales Director of Blyk, Commercial Director of Ministry of Sound, CEO of a Sky TV channel, advisor to British Government on education, the owner of one of the first online music stores, and a Chairman of the Music Industries Association.

Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @jmacdonald
He blogs at: www.jonathanmacdonald.com

Educator Media-Maven Sportsman

Rupert Daniels

Rupert has been seconded to become Head of Content for the 1 Goal charity campaign – the Education Legacy campaign for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He co-founded Y6 Media in 2009 to deliver rich multi-media content that unlocks value for rights holders, sponsors and platform owners alike.

Rupert has a wealth of experience working at the highest levels in Global Sports and Entertainment. He spent 7 years working at FIFA and was a director of the broadcast and media rights team that brought TV rights sales in house and generated over $2.5 Billion USD for FIFA.

Rupert  ran the FIFA TV and Films archive for 5 years, and also produced various well known TV and DVD series’ such FIFA Futbol Mundial, The Beautiful Century, and the multi-million selling DVD, FIFA Fever.

At the 2006 FIFA World Cup Rupert was responsible for global TV and multi-media graphics, Sponsor and Charity broadcast integration, Giant Screens, the Official Film and the Official Music programme. At the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan, Rupert headed up New Media sales and marketing department and negotiated the agreements with Yahoo! to sponsor the record breaking official website, FIFAworldcup.com.

He also helped to create the official mobile sites with NTT Do-co-mo and Korea Telecoms (iMode and Brew).

Analyst entrepreneur Pioneer

Mark Curtis

From mid 2004 Marc has been CEO of Handmade Mobile, building and launching the Flirtomatic service and raising three rounds of investment (seed capital and two VC rounds).

He set up and run four companies in the last 17 years, all (reasonably) successful in innovation in emergent media. His background is in media and communications. He foresaw (a bit) the digital explosion of the 1990’s and set up CHBi, one of the first digital solutions companies in the UK, where among other achievements he lead the team that invented and developed Yell for Yellow Pages.

CHBi was successfully sold to become Razorfish London and he went on to lead and re-organise the 2000 person skills networks of Razorfish as part of the global leadership team.

From 2001 he was one of the founders of Fjord, a digital product and service innovation consultancy based in London (and now Berlin and Helsinki), working on strategic mobile projects for Nokia, Orange and the UK government.

In 2005 he had a book (”Distraction”) published, on the effect of digital communications on society. Most recently Flirtomatic has been the top company in the Library House Essential Mediatech 2008 list. Marc has 5 children, and likes running, cycling, wine, food, books, mountains. Sometimes together.

Communicator Reducer Advisor

Jess Greenwood

Jessica is Contagious’ Deputy Editor, covering the entire spectrum of the most innovative, effective and non-invasive strategies and campaigns in marketing, branding, design, technology and pop culture. She is a regular speaker at new marketing conferences, and has helped to build the Contagious consultancy, offering advice and insight to a number of clients from both agencies and advertisers.

Contagious exists to simplify and to advise. It is the global marketing industry’s early warning system; an intelligence resource for those attempting to stay ahead of all this change. Contagious’ audience comprises both local and multinational advertisers, as well as creative directors, strategic planners, CEOs and new business directors from communications companies around the world.

Jess spent a stint teaching music in France and Italy before returning to London to work as a music producer. One more career change landed her in the advertising industry as Editor of The Reel (a monthly publication showcasing the best global creative in advertising, music videos and short films), before helping to launch the award winning Contagious in December 2005.

Jess is fluent in Italian and French, and is a self-confessed Internet junkie.

Communicator Innovator Professor

Marc Mielau

Marc Mielau was born in 1970. Since 2008 he has been the Head of Digital Media, International Brand Communication BMW AG, Munich and Lecturer for Designmanagement Muthesius Kunsthochschule, Kiel. From 2005 to 2008 he was the Innovation Manager, Marketing Innovations BMW AG, Munich and from 2002 to 2005 he was the Brand Manager, Corporate and Brand Identity BMW AG, Munich.

His education includes: Studies of Industrial Design, Hochschule der Künste, Berlin (1991), Studies at École des Beaux Arts Toulouse, France, Scholarship of Office Franco-Allemand (1995), and Diploma thesis “Ways of intelligent habitation,” Hochschule der Künste Berlin in cooperation with Bauhaus Universität Weimar. He speaks German, English, and French and he is interested in Technology, Entertainment, and Design. His associations include, the Club of Pioneers, IMD Alumni Network, and TED Attendee.

Always on Engineer Researcher

Amish Patel

Amish Patel is an engineering program manager for the Windows Touch team within the Human Interfaces group at Microsoft working on touch optimized user experiences.  Amish is currently working on a set of thoughts he calls “the touch principles”, which are a set of design guidelines that modern  developers and designers should be considering as we move from conventional mouse and keyboard GUI  toward touch first user interfaces. In addition to this research, he is driving his team toward a vision of every Windows computer in the world to be mobile, connected and touchable!

Background:  Amish is a proud Canadian, born and raised in Toronto and attended the University of Toronto’s computer science and economics departments. Amish started his time at Microsoft analyzing usage patterns and designing interactions for pen based computing on the Tablet PC platform.  Amish later joined the Windows Touch team to deliver the first multi-touch Windows OS in Windows7.

Amish is excited about the rise of touch based computing within an ‘always connected’ world, which in his eyes marks the shift toward more natural and intuitive ways in which humans can better learn, play, share!

Contagious Game Changer Young gun

Jen McCabe

Jen McCabe is CEO/Founder of Contagion Health, a San Francisco health software startup that designs + builds social media, mHealth and eHealth experiential applications harnessing personal ‘microrelevance’ – created when consumers use technology for health, including logging Observations of Daily Living (#ODLs) and personal biometrics.

Contagion’s first product (http://getupandmove.me) is a microchoice bartering platform that allows users to harness the motivational power of their existing social graph (Twitter, Facebook) to incentivise healthier daily behaviours.

Contagion has also built an iPhone app that allows users to rate and map moods, called “hands2gether,” in partnership with Humana’s (HUM) Innovation Center. She likes cigars, Lowland Single Malt Scotch, whiteboarding, and catalyzing new relationships that solidify into fun, functional teams.

As for mobile devices – iPhone devotee but considering cheating on Apple with Google’s Nexus.

Collaborator Filter Hub

David Maher Roberts

David is a digital media executive with a background in both multi-national media businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups. David was appointed CEO of The Filter in September 2007.

David first started as a writer/photographer combo and founded his first media business at the age of 24 launching two national newsstand magazines in the UK – following that he amassed 13 years in magazine and web publishing, serving as Publishing Director at Future, with responsibility for the games portfolio of 10 Magazines, 2 websites and 80 employees – and also as International Publishing Director for Future’s French, Italian, German and Polish subsidiaries.

In 2003, David founded Future Plus, a creative content agency that provides tailor-made content. From 2004 to 2006, he served as Future’s Digital Director for the UK & Mainland Europe and was responsible for 55 website launches including GamesRadar.com, T3.com and TotalFilm.com.

In 2007, David launched iSporty.com (a sports social network) and worked as a consultant for the BBC to help develop its digital strategy.

Half French, David loves classic French movies, Euro-pop-dance… the less said about that the better. Current favorite TV show is Entourage.

For more information visit, please visit http://systems.thefilter.com.

Builder Designer Lecturer

Dawn Danby

Interdisciplinary designer Dawn Danby, recently named by Fast Company as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business, has spent the past decade working on sustainable design. Her projects have ranged from a tree-covered, wind-powered pedestrian bridge on the US-Canada border to closed-loop manufacturing strategies, furniture and food distribution. She currently manages Autodesk’s Sustainable Design Program, integrating ecological and human impact considerations into the digital tools used by 9 million designers, architects, and engineers worldwide.

Dawn co-authored WorldChanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century, won a Royal Society of Arts (UK) fellowship, and was a Metropolis NEXT Generation runner-up. She holds an industrial design degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MBA in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute.