@jyri

Jyri Engeström is an internet entrepreneur. He cofounded Jaiku, which grew into the leading European microblogging service and was acquired by Google in 2007.

At Google Jyri was responsible for mobile applications including Mobile Calendar and the Gmail Mobile client, and spearheaded Google’s efforts in social media, starting up Google Buzz, Google Profiles, and Google Latitude. He left Google to become an angel investor and start his own new company Pingpin. Prior to Jaiku Jyri worked as Senior Product Manager, Internet Handhelds at Nokia. A sociologist by training, he is noted for coining the term ‘social object’ to refer to photos, bookmarks, and other shareable Web content. He blogs at zengestrom.com.

@CJDorobek

Christina Dorobek is the leader of LevelUp's local business initiative. Christina works closely with Boston merchants to leverage mobile technology and game mechanics to create loyalty and engagement.

With over 10 years of experience, Christina previously led the Center for Women & Enterprise in New England helping women start, run and grow their businesses. In her spare time she can be found drumming her face off in Rock Band, reading over the latest In-Style, and eating ice cream straight out of the carton.

@RJPinnell

Born and raised in Austin, Texas, René Pinnell is the CEO & Co-founder of Hurricane Party Inc., a company dedicated to the idea of offline social networking. Our first app Hurricane Party helps friends find, share, and create spontaneous parties. Our latest app Forecast is a fun and simple way for...

...friends to share where they’re going. It’s like Foursquare for the future. After graduating from Capital Factory’s early stage accelerator Hurricane Party Inc. went on to be voted “Hottest Startup at SXSW” by Tech Cocktail and has been featured in many top publications including The Washington Post, Tech Crunch, and The New York Times. In a previous life René wrote, directed, and produced for film, television and theater. His work has played internationally at such festivals as the Montreal Comedy Festival, the Bradford International Film Festival and London’s Raindance Film Festival. From 2004 to 2007 he directed and produced 30 episodes of the acclaimed comedy show “Backpack Picnic,” as well as the MTV Pilot “Meet the Bulldogs.” Most recently René Pinnell co-directed “The King of Texas,” a feature documentary that premiered at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival and was distributed internationally on DVD by Watchmaker Films.

@reedcontent

Rob Reed is Founder and CEO of MomentFeed. The company offers an integrated solution for managing analytics and campaigns for Facebook Places, foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter, and other location-based services (LBS) platforms. MomentFeed is a venture-backed startup based in Los Angeles. 

Rob is a journalist, marketer, and entrepreneur. He spent 10 years on the pro leisure tour i.e. writing about snowboarding, luxury travel, and automotive culture for National Geographic Adventure, Elite Traveler, and Men's Journal magazines. He authored a book on the history and people of snowboarding (The Way of the Snowboarder, Harry Abrams Books), which was published in 2005, and later started MaxGladwell.com (@maxgladwell), a leading independent blog on social media, sustainability, and geolocation. Max Gladwell has been syndicated on Mashable, The Huffington Post, Treehugger, and more than 100 other blogs.

Rob also worked in cleantech for several years as SVP of Marketing for Earth Biofuels, a publicly traded energy company. He collaborated with Julia Roberts, Willie Nelson, and Morgan Freeman to promote biodiesel fuel as a clean alternative to petroleum, specifically in our nation's school buses. Rob successfully lobbied for biodiesel legislation (tax incentives and mandates) with California Senator Dean Florez during the 2007 session. Rob lives in Malibu.

@borisbogatin

Boris Bogatin founded NearVerse to create LoKast and build the proximity Internet, and heads up the company as the CEO. LoKast is a mobile app for enabling social networking and Internet interaction within physical places and events.

Using LoKast, users join digital spaces set up for their physical places, can instantly communicate and take and share any media together with others right where they are, receive promotions and special give-aways from the physical place and event hosts, and engage in interactive experience set-up to enhance their time there. Boris has led NearVerse to also package a best-of-breed technology platform for proximity Internet, with 2 omnibus patents on over-IP proximity networking and location identification tech, which is used to power LoKast.

Previously, Boris helped start LightSquared and was the VP of Corporate Development and Technology Strategy for the company. Boris helped grow LightSquared from a $200 million company at its start into a U.S. wholesale, all-LTE wireless network powering the wireless offers of some of the biggest Internet and consumer companies in U.S. Boris graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with finance, operations management, and systems engineering degrees. In his spare time, Boris teaches his 3 year old son calculus and spends time in the physical world (mostly as an excuse to do primary research).

@natalykogan

Nataly is an experienced entrepreneur, early-stage investor, and product development executive. She is currently the Vice President of Consumer Product and Experience at WHERE, the leading location media company whose flagship location discovery application is used by more than 4 million people. At WHERE, Nataly oversees the consumer product and runs the UX team (known as the UX Ninjas), working to create the most engaging and fun experiences for users.

Prior to WHERE she was a Senior Program Manager with the Future of Social Experiences Labs at Microsoft, where she worked with small, agile teams to build innovative social, location-based, and real-time applications. Before to Microsoft, Nataly founded a media company, whose flagship site, Workitmom.com, is the largest online community for working moms. Nataly spent five years as a Managing Director with an early-stage venture firm in New York, where she led investments in software and Internet services start-ups, including Constant Contact and Scanbuy. She started her career as a Business Analyst with McKinsey & Company.

Nataly graduated with High and University Honors from Wesleyan University. Nataly lives in Boston with her husband and daughter but is forever a New Yorker at heart.

@schneidermike

@SchneiderMike is Senior Vice President, Director Digital Incubator for Allen & Gerritsen, ranked by Advertising Age as one of the Top 50 Independent advertising agencies in the US. The DInc is an emerging technology lab responsible for building products and engaging digital experiences rooted in ROI while helping define "what's next" for the agency and the industry.

Mike has spent his career solving problems using technology with a focus on marketing and analytics. He began his career building enterprise class database driven applications and data warehouses. Opportunities to get his hands on world-class technology projects & management consulting opportunities brought him to organizations like Ernst & Young & Oracle. In 2004, he took his CRM and analytics expertise to Hill, Holliday where he built the database marketing practice and also ran the digital technology practice. His client roster includes: Cognos, CVS, Dunkin Donuts, Fidelity Investments, Dell, Gillette, Georgia Pacific, Hannaford, Liberty Mutual, LPL, MFS, Pfizer and Sears.


Mike has crafted paid, owned and earned media strategies, built award-winning communities, designed and implemented B2B and consumer segmentation, content management and customer relationship management solutions. He also writes for several blogs including a technology and social media blog called Digital Before Digital. He was recognized in 2010 as a Boston Business Journal 40 Under 40. He is currently writing Location Based Marketing for Dummies with Aaron Strout, CMO of Powered Inc. He is the host of a new web show called Tech Interruption. http://techinterruption.com.

@nitzans

Nitzan Shaer is Managing Partner and Co-founder of High Start Group, a firm focused on helping startups and Fortune 500 companies create and launch breakthrough products.

Before High Start Group, Nitzan founded the Mobile Product Group at Skype, where he led the development and marketing efforts to bring Skype to mobile phones. Previously, Nitzan successfully managed the development of three global products in the Mobile and Embedded Division at Microsoft. Nitzan also led venture investments as Entrepreneur in Residence at Flybridge Capital Partners and was Chief Operating Officer and Board Member at Mobivox.

Before High Start Group, Nitzan founded the Mobile Product Group at Skype, where he led the development and marketing efforts to bring Skype to mobile phones. Previously, Nitzan successfully managed the development of three global products in the Mobile and Embedded Division at Microsoft. Nitzan also led venture investments as Entrepreneur in Residence at Flybridge Capital Partners and was Chief Operating Officer and Board Member at Mobivox.

Nitzan is an active angel investor, and served as board member or advisory board member at Alternative Investment Exchange, Consumer United, and Assured Labor. He is also a frequent speaker on mobile commerce and product innovation.

In addition to his business endeavors, Nitzan is active in pro-bono work, including as mentor and judge at the MIT $100K, Commission Board Member at Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Board member at the Wellesley Children’s Center, and is active with the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge.

A former Captain in the Israel Air Force, Nitzan was first in his class at the Air Force Academy, is an honors graduate of Technion, and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Nitzan frequently speaks on product innovation, mobile commerce, and entrepreneurship.

@AsifRKhan

Asif R. Khan is a veteran tech start-up, business-development and marketing entrepreneur with more than 15 years experience. He currently works as a consultant, educator and speaker to the location-based marketing services community as founder of the the Location Based Marketing Association (The LBMA)

Prior to launching The LBMA, Asif worked with companies as diverse as Limited Brands, IBM, Baxter Pharmaceuticals, Molson-Coors, Communispace, BestBuy, American Airlines, ScotiaBank, and Sears. You can listen to Asif’s weekly podcast - This Week In Location-Based Marketing - every Monday at 10am EST.

An avid technology evangelist, Asif holds degrees in economics and management sciences from the University of Waterloo, blogs at www.asifrkhan.com and can be found on Twitter at: @AsifRKhan and @TheLBMA

@genexerjv

John Vajda is Product Manager at Untappd and loves exploring the world of beer. His goal in life is to try every beer at least once while visiting as many breweries and pubs as possible. Combing his love for technology, social media, location based services, and product management with beer is a dream come true. In 2009 he founded and was CEO of RedPint thereby inventing the concept oft the Beer Check-in. Untappd acquired RedPint in June 2011.

John is a certified Scrum Professional as well as a PMP certified project manager, and has over 7 years of experience in project and product management in software, eCommerce and web development. He has worked for Oracle, PayPal, eBay and most recently with Rue La La where he "daylights" as a Product Manager and Business Analyst.

John has a strong entrepreneurial spirit and enough rebelliousness sprinkled with audacity to think Untappd can truly disrupt the beer industry with their service. John & Untappd have been written about in Mashable and TechCrunch as well as Technorati.

@davidspinks

David is the Director of Product Marketing and Community at Zaarly, which is a marketplace where you can name your price for anything, and receive offers from people and companies nearby. David is an NYC-based entrepreneur with several successful businesses, communities and projects under his belt, as well as a well-known blogger and thought leader on web trends, social media, community building, and digital marketing. Prior to joining Zaarly, David co-founded BlogDash, a leading technology solution connecting brands and digital journalists. He’s also the founder and organizer of several other brands and digital properties, including Under 30 Professionals (u30pro), The Community Manager, and The Ask Summit.