Dmitry Balin

As an entrepreneur and database technologist, Dmitry founded a software startup (DB Best) in Silicon Valley at 2002, developed database migration technology, and sold it to Microsoft at 2005. He built a software team in Ukraine from zero to 75+ employees – the only company in Eastern Europe developing a full software product for Microsoft. After the acquisition Dmitry was Director in the SQL Server group at Microsoft, where he led their “Migrate to SQL Server” program generating over $100M annual revenue for Microsoft database business. He’s a frequent speaker on database topics at TechEd, PASS, TechReady, and other conferences.

After leaving Microsoft earlier this year, Dmitry has been developing new database products and is focusing now on his new startup in Web 2.0 space – social shopping marketplace http://www.Pikaba.com, where consumers post their requests for products/services they wish to buy, merchants/service providers place bids on these requests, and social network members provide recommendations and advice (e.g. “where to buy” or “which model to select”). With just launched Russian version of the website (http://Pikaba.ru) he’s planning to capture the rapidly expanding market in Russia and Ukraine.