Expert Panel
The highlight of SVOD-2007 will be the presentation of the best fifteen private companies from Russia, Ukraine and other FSU contries. 15 innovative projects will be pre-selected by the SVOD Expert Panel for presentations to the audience of US investors and potential corporate partners. Companies presentations will be judged by our distinguished Panel of Judges
- Alexei Andreev, Managing Director and EVP, Harris & Harris Group
- Anna Dvornikova, Founder & CEO, Entana Corp.
- Nathan Bach, Marketing Manager, Dionex Corporation
- Sergey Burkov, Head of Moscow R&D Office, Google
- Stas Khirman, Co-founder and CTO, Skyrider
- Slava Kritov, Networking and Security Technologist, Symantec Corporation
- Alex Miroshnichenko, Serial Entrepreneur
- Igor Plotnikov, Director of Engineering, Cisco Systems
- Olga Potapova, Founder, CEO and Scientific Director, Cureline, Inc.
- Maxim Shekhovtsov, Ph.D., Director of Venture Fund, Allianz ROSNO Asset Management (Allianz SE)
- Evgeny Zaytsev,M.D., Ph.D., Partner, Asset Management Company
 | Alexei Andreev Managing Director and EVP, Harris & Harris Group Alexei Andreev, Ph.D. is a Managing Director and Executive Vice President at VP Harris & Harris Group since 2005. Prior to joining Harris & Harris Group, Mr. Andreev was an associate with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a venture capital firm, where he was exclusively focused on nanotechnology and material science investment opportunities. While at DFJ, he played an integral role in sourcing and funding of Solicore, D-Wave Systems, Intematix and EoPlex, where he served as an active Board Director or Observer. Previously, he worked for TLcom Capital Partners, a London-based venture capital fund backed by Morgan Stanley. Prior to that, he was employed by Renaissance Capital Group/Sputnik Funds, a venture capital fund in Moscow, Russia. Before he started his business career, Mr. Andreev was a researcher at the Centre of Nanotechnology, ISAN (RAS), in Troitsk, Russia where he was focused on optical and electrical properties of Quantum Dot heterostructures in strong magnetic fields. Mr. Andreev received his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Theoretical Physics of Moscow Steel and Alloys Institute led by Alexei A. Abrikosov (recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics 2003), where he was a recipient of the Scholorship for Outstanding Young Scientists of Russian Academia of Sciences, the Scholarship from the International Center of Fundamental Physics and Soros Scientific Foundation. Mr. Andreev also received a B.S. with honors in Engineering/Material Sciences from Moscow Steel and Alloys Institute and with an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a director of the American Business Association of Russian Professionals. |
 | Nathan Bach Marketing Manager, Dionex Corporation Nathan Bach, Ph.D., is currently a marketing manager at Dionex Corporation, a manufacturer of chromatography equipment.Nathan devoted many years to business development and marketing working with small and large biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. He successfully represented in the US off-shore companies looking for development of American market and helped local start-ups to expand in global markets. Nathan provides his clients with market analysis, helps them with formulating business strategy and vision, focusing on building value. He orchestrates co-development and licensing activities, helping to capitalize on companies’ technology. His experience includes drug development, genomics, proteomics, and chromatography equipment. Nathan holds M.Sc. in Biochemistry from the Moscow State University in Russia and Ph.D. in Immunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He authored 20 papers in peer-reviewed scientific magazines and one patent. |
 | Sergey Burkov Head of Moscow R&D Office, Google Sergei Burkov, Ph.D. is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded and led three startup companies. Dulance is the next generation shopping search engine. Bilbo Innovations, Inc. invented and brought to market STEP ON IT! computer pedals. Invincible Data Systems pioneered transparent disk and e-mail encryption. It was later acquired by VASCO Data Security (NASDAQ: VDSI). Dr. Burkov is a former research physicist who held appointments at top American universities, including Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Burkov obtained Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics and M.S. in physics with Honors, from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. |
 | Anna Dvornikova Founder & CEO, Entana Corp. Anna is a Founder and CEO of Entana Corp., an entrepreneurship and venture advisory firm that focuses on providing business strategy, planning, fundraising, and positioning services to the early-stage technology start-ups. It also provides a part-time executive management and angel financing. Anna is also a Co-Founder of Kovalsky Art Gallery, a contemporary art boutique that gives art lovers around the world unique access to some of the most famous Russian artists. The gallery specializes in art from the mid 20th century onwards with an emphasis on post-impressionism, avant-garde, primitivism, expressionism, and abstract art. Previously, Anna was a Co-Founder and the VP of Business Development at BKP Security, a government IT security company. Prior to that, she was a Foreign Advisor at the international law firm, Coudert Brothers. Before moving into private business, Anna held academic research positions at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (Stanford University) and the Moscow office of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies (Harvard University). Anna has her J.D. from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and her Master of Laws degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. Anna is an active member of the Board of Directors of American Business Association of Russian Professionals (AmBAR). She was 2005 AmBAR President and Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the first Silicon Valley Open Doors (SVOD-2005) Technology Investment Conference. |
 | Stas Khirman Mr. Khirman brings more than 20 years of experience in the software industry as an architect, manager, visionary, and inventor; he was behind the development of a number of standards organizations and participated in the early definition of the VoIP protocol. Mr. Khirman holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Kiev. |
 | Slava Kritov Networking and Security Technologist, Symantec Corporation Slava Kritov is currently with Symantec Advanced Technology Group working on technology evaluations for M&A and OEM licensing purposes, strategic partnership projects and research in networking, content aware storage and application performance management. Slava graduated from PhysTech with the firm intention to be a rocket scientist but later changed his mind and started to work for Apple, which enriched his horizons enough to attract him to UN Freenet project providing free internet to people in need. When the supply of altruism had burned away he joined Genesys in San Francisco hoping to get rich quickly. This process took six years and did not yield demonstrable results; however the experience of working in an international company later acquired by French guys had left deep imprints and prompted a lot of deep thought. To recover from management addiction, Slava joined a small startup in the valley, but later preferred the lavish Veritas offices to a cube with a phone that rings every minute. Slava has extensive experience with networks and business applications, as well as various security and reliability aspects of hard-, soft- and wet- ware and reads Cryptonomicon before going to bed. |
 | Alex Miroshnichenko Serial Entrepreneur Alex Miroshnichenko is currently working on a number of startup projects which are in too early stages to be named. Most recently he held a CTO position at Acronis Inc, a Russian based leader in the disk imaging, backup and virtualization management software. He was CTO/VP of Engineering at Powerfile Inc. He spent 12 successful years at VERITAS Software Corporation where he held a number of research and development and senior management positions, including the Senior Director of the Advanced Technology Group. Prior to joining VERITAS, Alex worked on optical storage solutions at QSTAR Technologies, Inc. Alex graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology with a Masters of Applied Physics. |
 | Igor Plotnikov Director of Engineering, Cisco Systems Igor Plotnikov, Ph.D. works on network security at Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) after the acquisition of his second startup MI Secure. Before he served as VP of Engineering at F5 Networks. He joined F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) as a result of its acquisition of uRoam, Inc. a pioneer in the SSL VPN market. Before co-founding uRoam, Dr. Plotnikov worked for Netscape Communications on key products like CoolTalk and Netscape Conference. Prior to Netscape, he held the position of scientist at InSoft, which was acquired by Netscape in 1996. Early in his career, he was a co-founder and chief engineer at Stoik Software, Ltd., a private Russian company dedicated to image processing software development. He received his physicist-engineer diploma with honors from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology followed by a Ph.D. in Physico-Mathematical Sciences from the Institute in 1988. |
 | Olga Potapova, PhD Olga is an expert in drug R&D and leading edge biotechnology. Prior to founding Cureline, Inc (www.cureline.com) and Cureline Clinical Consulting Partners (www.CCCPtrials.com) in 2003, she worked in Cancer Research including positions at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Pfizer /SUGEN. Her research experience includes development of molecular diagnostics and translational medicine. At Cureline, Olga manages major international collaborations for pharmaceutical and biotech clients with clinical and research centers worldwide. She received an M.S. in Physics from the Leningrad Polytechnic University and Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics/Biochemistry from the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. |
 | Maxim Shekhovtsov, Ph.D. Maxim Shekhovtsov has a more than 10 years of professional experience of investments in high-tech companies. Mr. Shekhovtsov started his career in investment banking, held investment positions in Centre Invest Securities, ING-Barings and other investment firms. In a leading telecom and radio technology holding “RTI-Systems” he was an advisor for innovation and venture projects. In Sistema-Venture (the captive venture fund of the largest high-tech holding in Russia – JSC “Sistema”) he was a vice-president responsible for venture funds and investments. Mr. Shekhovtsov was also a director of Centre for innovation development in JSC “Sistema”. Maxim Shekhovtsov was an initiator of establishing of Council of Innovation and Science at JSC “Sistema”. He invested in high-tech companies including IT, communications, multimedia and new materials. Mr. Shekhovtsov is a co-founder of venture capital division at Allianz ROSNO Asset Management (a part of Allianz SE). Maxim Shekhovtsov is author of several researches and public essays on venture capital and innovation industry. He holds Ph.D. from Institute of World Economy and International Relations of Russian Academy of Sciences and diploma in corporate finance from Finance Academy under the Government of Russian Federation. |
 | Evgeny Zaytsev,M.D., Ph.D.
At Asset Management Company, Evgeny focuses on early stage investments in biotechnology and medical device companies. He is a Board Member of a number of private life sciences companies. Evgeny is an active business community leader. He is a founder of the US-Russia Technology Symposium at Stanford University, and the annual Silicon Valley Open Doors technology investment conference. Evgeny is a Board member and past president of the American Business Association of Russian Professionals (AmBAR). |
Dr. Evgeny Zaytsev joined Asset Management Company in 2001 bringing diverse professional experience in operations and biomedical research.
