Intel Capital [1] , Central and Eastern Europe, Russia & Israel

Shlomo Caine is Managing Director of Strategic Investments of Intel Capital, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia & Israel.

With a bachelor's degree in Physics and Mathematics, and an M.Sc in Materials science, Shlomo started his career at Tadiran Electronics in Israel, working on Hybrid microelectronic components and devices. In 1982 he joined the start-up team of the first Intel Fab outside of the US - Fab8 in Jerusalem, where he continued to work in a variety of engineering and manufacturing positions.

In 1994 Shlomo accepted the position of startup manager for Intel's Fab14 in Ireland, responsible for building, staffing and running Intel's first offshore quarter micron facility, a position he held until 1999 when he returned to start up the Intel Capital activities in Israel. In 2002 Shlomo started covering investments in Western Europe and finally in late 2004 he assumed responsibility for Intel Capital’s investments in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia in addition to Israel.

He obtained the first overseas investment Sun Microsystems ever made for his Russian company ELVIS+. back in 1993 and later raised over USD 30 M investment capital from western VC in his Netherlands based TrustWorks during 1998-2002, which is still unique a company originating from Russia. Alexander was the Founder and strategic leader of one of the first and leading Russian ISP ELVIS Telekom, which was sold to Telenor/Nextra in 2000. He is the Founder and investor of the Dutch based Mobile services Cost management Company EzWIM (www.ezwim.com [1]). In the past, as former President and General Manager of the Soviet Space Agency (NPO ELAS), he was one of the top technical executives responsible for the design and implementation of satellite and spacecraft software, as well as computer and data communication systems for the Soviet defense industry. He was the youngest national program leader for national programs like on-board computer systems and low-orbit data communication system of the Soviet "Star Wars" response.

Currently Alexander serves and has served as a board member, investor and/or as the advisor of several innovative companies like Magnifire (now F5), SWSoft, SJLabs, Start-Telecom, NavMaps and S-Terra. As Chairman of the companies, he is also actively involved in ELVIS+ and EzWIM. In his current activities he partners with several top tier VC and corporate investors and helps USA, Russian and European emerging technology companies to define the best strategy to go to market and to identify and match their technologies with their business opportunities.

Alexander has authored over a hundred international publications and over thirty inventions and patents; he has been a featured speaker at numerous international conferences, including Interop, World Economic Forum, Catalyst , High-Tech Forum, ETRE, Infosecurity, etc. and has been interviewed and profiled in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes ASAP, the New York Times, Financial Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and others. He was named by independent agencies as the most influential person in the Russian IT and Internet industry during 1994-98 and again in 2000-2001, 2003. He was named "Technology Pioneer" by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2000, while at the same time the technology achievements of his TrustWorks were recognized and received the award for 'Technology of New Millennium'.

He donates a lot of time for public activities through advisory board of Stockholm Challenge, membership in ISDEF (www.isdef.org [1]), Counsel of Advisors and his leading role in Foresight Russia.

Through all his past and current activities, Alexander is aiming to bring and to place Russian originating technologies and entrepreneurs on the World High-Tech Map using his knowledge, experience, industry authority and connections. The great potential and unique platform of the European Tech Tour has convinced him to donate his time and to be the President of the Russian Tech Tour, which was held in September 2004. Dr. Galitsky divides his time as a Partner in Russian Technologies Venture Partners (www.rt-tech.ru [1]) and as investor though his privately owned Dutch based investment company AV Galitsky Holding BV.

TECHINVEST [2]

Serhiy Loboyko is an often quoted expert of the Ukrainian high-tech industry and one of its strongest advocates. Serhiy is regularly asked to advise the Government on the development of the hi-tech industry, and he is a frequent speaker at international conferences.

Mr. Loboyko is a Co-founder and Managing Director of the pioneering Ukrainian venture capital firm TECHINVEST [3]. TECHINVEST managed to multiply investments of its first investment partner 2.5 times during 2004-2005.

Together with Tim Draper, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson [4], Serhiy Loboyko is working on establishment the first in Ukraine $50 mln technology venture fund DFJ Techinvest [5]. DFJ Techinvest, an affiliate of DFJ Network, will invest in seed/early stage global companies based on Ukrainian technologies.

Serhiy Loboyko is board's member of several successful technology companies originated from Ukraine. Among them are: IT company "United Software Corporation [6]", which became an approved vendor of IBM; nano-technology company "APowerCap Technologies [7]", which develops breakthrough ultra-capacitors technology.

In 2005, Serhiy Loboyko initiated the Ukrainian High-Tech Competition [8] for selection of promising technology projects for venture investments.

In 2003, Serhiy Loboyko organized the first international research of Ukrainian IT-export industry [9] with Market-Visio [10] (Gartner Group) and Ukrainian Software Consortium [11] of over 30 leading IT-export companies.

In 2000-2001, Serhiy Loboyko worked as an advisor for Glushkov Cyber Center Institute [12] in Kyiv, a division of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine [13] (NASU). He, jointly with the former scientists of the NASU, started his venture entrepreneurship activities by setting up a successful technology firm specializing in export production of Silicon and Silicon-Carbide mono-crystals.

Also, Serhiy Loboyko worked as an advisor to the local offices of UNDP [14] and Soros' Foundation [15] (2000-2001), Ministry of Economy of Ukraine [16] (1999-2000), the World Bank [17] (1998-1999), BARENTS Group [18] (KPMG), (1997-1998), Credit Suisse Fist Boston [19] (1997-1998), National Institute of Strategic Studies [20] (1996-1998), Secretariat of the Parliament of Ukraine (1995-1996), as well as local governments and business organizations.

Serhiy graduated cum Laude with a Master's degree in Economics from Lviv State University, Ukraine. He also holds a certificate in technological entrepreneurship from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA.

Since 1998 Albina Nikkonen is an Executive Director of RVCA. The main goal of RVCA is to promote formation and development of venture capital industry in Russia. Albina Nikkonen is one of the organizers of the first Russian "fund-of-funds" Venture Capital Innovation Fund which was established in 2000 under the Government Decree. The main goal of VIF is to promote the appearance of venture funds with national capital in Russia. Also she is the Founder & Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Russian Venture Fair. Mrs. Nikkonen previously worked as a Deputy Manager of the Provisional Science Group PULSE at the USSR Academy of Science and the State Committee for Science & Technology.

Serge Plotkin
Venture Partner, Opus Capital

In Opus Capital Serge sources and evaluates investment opportunities and contributes technical assistance to portfolio companies. Serge is also an associate professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he has served since 1989.

Together with Opus Capital General Partner Dan Avida, Serge co-founded Decru in 2001 where he served as chief technology officer and vice president of engineering. Serge has published more than a hundred technical papers and has been issued seven patents. He is currently the vice chair of the Security in Storage Workgroup P1619/P1619.1, IEEE standardization committee, which is tasked with creating a standard for storage encryption, and is the editor of the IEEE1619 standard.

Serge obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT and BSc and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering from Ben Gurion University, Israel. Before his studies at MIT, Serge served for five years as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces.

Hans has more than 25 years of management experience in Advanced Technology, Account Management, International Business Development, software engineering research, market management, technical support, international sales, services management, customer training, and embedded software product development, at companies such as Lucent, AT&T, Philips, Origin, TNO research,VERITAS Software and Symantec.

Hans expertise areas are in Security, Storage, Telecommunication, IT infrastructure and embedded software solutions. He has an extensive track record in creating "bridges" between different companies, different (country) cultures and between (software) technology and business.

At Origin he successfully established an embedded software services activity in Santa Clara California, and setup an Independent System Integrator (ISI) relationship with Philips TriMedia. Prior to that he was responsible for international business development of embedded software services. He also established the first ever AT&T 5ESS account in the newly created country of Ukraine.

Hans has both an MS in mathematics and an MBA in telecommunication. He spend more than 10 years working at AT&T Bell Labs in the Netherlands and has successfully out-sourced a group of (embedded) Software Process consultants from Philips Research to Origin. Hans has written and published many articles on Telecommunication, Computers and Audiology and has over 18 software patents in his name.

Today he is the senior director of the Technology Scouting Group in the office of the CTO at Symantec located in Mountain View, California. In this role he scouts out 3rd party disruptive technologies that are or should be of interest to the company, this work has led to the acquisition of Jareva, Ejasent and Relicore by Symantec.

Jake focuses on investments in systems, components and software. Prior to Lightspeed, Jake was a product line manager for Cisco Systems. He was responsible for launching and managing the industry's first DOCSIS-based cable modems and routers and led his product to win "Best of Show" and "Best Networking Hardware" at Comdex. Previously, he worked in business development for Boston Technology (Comverse) in Tokyo.

Jake serves on the Venture Capital Advisory Board for the Fabless Semiconductor Association. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and a M. Eng. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. At MIT, he earned the Karl Taylor Compton Prize, the highest honor given to an MIT student.

Beth joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in May 2005, to work in the life sciences area. She has been involved with helping their portfolio companies and launching the Pandemic Preparedness & Biodefense fund. She is currently on the Board of Directors of three companies, most recently joining BioCryst. Her primary focus is in novel therapeutics to treat unmet medical needs.

Beth was formerly the Senior Vice President, Global Development, and Chief Medical Officer at Amgen, Inc., the world’s largest biotechnical company. Prior to joining Amgen, Beth was a senior executive in research and development at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Merck & Co., Inc. She began her career in basic and clinical research at the National Institutes of Health specializing in immunology and infectious diseases. In total, she introduced 10 innovative products to market and achieved over 40 regulatory approvals (including new indications and formulations) on a worldwide basis. These products have been successfully commercialized and have provided benefits to millions of patients with grievous illnesses and generated several billion dollars of revenue.

Beth received her B.S. from Barnard College magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa; and her medical degree from the University Of Miami School Of Medicine, alpha omega alpha. Her post-graduate training was completed at Johns Hopkins, George Washington School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. She is a trustee of Barnard College and a member of the Science Advisory Board.

Leon Shklar
Head of technology, Reuters Media

Prior to joining Reuters, Leon headed up the development team for the online edition of the Wall Street Journal at Dow Jones. Prior to Dow Jones, he spent six years at Bell Communications Research and almost as long in the world of dot coms and Internet software. Leon holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. He is a published author ("Web Application Architecture", Wiley, December 2003) and holds two US patents.

Andrew Sviridenko
SPIRIT Founder and Chairman, is a recognized leader in VoIP domain

He has more than 15 years' experience in voice, audio, video and communication software areas. Through multiple brand name products, SPIRIT communication software is now used in over 80 countries and powers over 100 million voice channels worldwide. Today SPIRIT counts among its customers Adobe, Agere, Atmel, Compal Communications, Flextronics, Ericsson, HP, HTC, Kyocera, LG, Marconi, MediaRing, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, NEC, Nortel Networks, Oracle, Paltalk, Panasonic, Philips Semiconductor, Polycom, Radvision, Samsung, Siemens, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and Trinity Convergence, among 200 other communication OEMs and software vendors. Under Mr. Sviridenko's leadership, SPIRIT has become the biggest eXpressDSP-compliant software house in Europe. Andrew is also founder and chairman of SeeStorm, a technology pioneer in synthetic video conferencing.

Rob Theis brings 20 years of operating experience and brings business contacts, relationships and executive management expertise from his leadership positions at explosive growth companies like New Era of Networks, Sun Microsystems, and Silicon Graphics.

Prior to joining DCM, Rob was Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for New Era of Networks (NEON). During his four-year tenure, he held a wide range of executive operational roles - from sales and marketing to corporate development. Rob was instrumental in leading NEON through a successful IPO, multi-rounds of corporate financing and grew the company to $200 million in revenues.

Prior to NEON, Rob spent ten years at Sun Microsystems, where he carried out successful growth strategies in a variety of senior management roles: as Managing Director of Sun's Worldwide Financial Services Group, Rob grew Sun's revenue in the Financial Services sector to over $1 billion; as Director of Sales and Marketing for the Asia Pacific region, Rob managed business operations and achieved a 100 percent annual growth rate; in his early years at Sun, Rob developed and managed Sun's Computer Systems business in the Design Automation, CAD/CAM and Manufacturing markets to $400 million in revenues.

Rob spent his early career at Silicon Graphics as a product marketing manager, where he developed product strategy, marketing programs and launched SGI's workstations, and at McDonnell Douglas Corporation (Boeing) in sales.

Rob was awarded the Honors Scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a BA degree in Economics.