Dr. Larry Cornett
Larry is a Silicon Valley product executive with experience in designing, defining, and building consumer products at several of the biggest and best technology and Internet companies; including Apple, Yahoo, eBay, and IBM. He is currently the founder of Brilliant Forge, which provides product and design advisory services to Fortune 500 companies and startups.
Most recently, Larry was the Vice President of Consumer Products for Yahoo! Search. Before that, he was a Director at eBay, where his team focused on multiple products for Tailored Shopping Experiences, Platform, and International sites. Earlier in his career, he was a designer at Apple Computer, where he worked on the Finder, OS, and International software; and IBM, where he worked on database and development tools.
Larry received his Ph.D. from Rice University, where he designed and developed a coaching system for training software users. He holds multiple patents, which include design work on web-based products and hardware solutions.
Lauren Cotugno
Lauren has over 20 years of hands-on technical IT experience in highly-scalable transactional systems for a range of customer environments, from large-scale enterprises to small-scale start-ups. As a Global Product Manager, Product Owner and Distinguished Engineer at Unisys, and most recently as a Technical Consulting Services Portfolio Manager at Hewlett-Packard, Lauren has been at the forefront of defining public, private and hybrid cloud computing environments for her customers.
She led the creation of an operational solutions center of excellence at Unisys focused on application scalability consulting, working with 3rd party application partners to collaboratively identify and remove bottlenecks to enterprise performance and scalability of their applications. Her career has spanned roles in development, support, systems engineering, architecture, engineering management, technology strategy and product management.
She holds multiple patents in areas such as networks, I/O, operating systems and cloud computing technologies. She is an author and frequent speaker at technical conferences, particularly in the areas of optimization, IT architectures, IT infrastructure and cloud computing.
Dr. Michael Geist
Michael is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. He also serves on the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Expert Advisory Board, the Canadian Digital Information Strategy’s Review Panel, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Advisory Board.
Michael has a Bachelor of Law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, Master of Law degree from Cambridge University in the U.K. and Columbia Law School in New York, and a Doctorate in Law from Columbia Law School. His awards include the Ontario Library Association’s Les Fowlie Award for Intellectual Freedom (2009) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 2008.
Dr. Dave Goodwin
A professor at the University of Waterloo and Director of the Digital Arts Communication Department, Dave is an active researcher within the newly established Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research. He is also principal research investigator for Christie Digital Systems and a digital branding consultant to Quarry Integrated Communications.
As co-investigator on a Social Sciences and Humanities research grant, he develops new ways to bring technology to market. And he has also consulted with companies and groups such as RIM and the Carnegie Mellon Foundation’s Institute for the Future of the Book in the past.
Dr. Paul Hofmann
Paul is Vice President Research at SAP labs in the heart of Silicon Valley. His background is entrenched in research as Senior Scientist and Assistant Professor at outstanding European and American Universities (Northwestern University, U.S., Munich Institue of Technology and Darmstadt Institue of Technology, Germany) and he is an expert in computer simulations and graphics (Ph.D., research and teaching in Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos Theory), authoring numerous publications and books, including a book on SCM and environmental information systems as well as performance management and productivity of supply chains.
Paul joined SAP in 2001 as Director for Business Development EMEA SAP AG. Paul has created the Value Based Selling program for SAP in EMEA. Prior to joining SAP, Paul was Plant Manager at BASF’s Catalysts Global Business Unit. After joining BASF, Paul headed the development of object-oriented production planning and scheduling software for BASF’s plants in its IT division. He implemented SAP’s Business Suite in BASF’s Chemicals Division.
Paul received his Ph.D. in Physics at the Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany, after completing his Bachelor in biotechnology and a master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Vienna.
Doug Montgomery
A former partner with Ernst & Young LLP, Doug has a wealth of experience as a public accountant, with a focus on providing compliance and management advisory services to technology and manufacturing clients.
After choosing to retire early from Ernst & Young in 2002, he spent six years as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer with DBG, where he implemented management processes and methodologies and led all financing initiatives.
Doug is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University with an Honors Bachelor of Administration degree.
Dr. Wayne Oldford
Wayne is a professor at the University of Waterloo and the Director of the Centre for Computational Mathematics in Industry and Commerce. He has consulted privately on statistical and computational problems with many organizations, including Dupont, AT&T Bell Laboratories, and the U.S. Federal Reserve Board.
Wayne was a co-founder of the International Association for Statistics and Artificial Intelligence. He has been active in many national and international organizations, including the Council of the International Association for Statistical Computing.
Kirk Roberts
Kirk has been working in software and online services for more than 20 years. And as an executive with Open Text Corporation for 14 years, Kirk guided the company’s growth from $10M in revenue and 100 employees to over $900M in revenue and 4,000 employees. During that time, he held a variety of management positions, including Corporate Executive Vice President.
Prior to joining Open Text, he founded one of Canada¹s first online Internet service providers, NirvCentre, which was successfully sold to Open Text in 1996.
In a previous life, he was Executive Director of the Ontario Environment Network and has volunteered for The United Way, The Guelph Jazz Festival along with a number of environmental, social service and policy organizations.
Kirk holds a degree in Bachelor of Environmental Studies and Political Science from the University of Toronto.
