Speakers

CONFERENCE CHAIR

Mark Fihn, Publisher & Editor-in-Cheif – Veritas et Visus

Mark Fihn currently heads his own consulting company called VeritaVis, where he supports the flat panel display industry based on his expertise related to notebook PCs, Tablet PCs, touch technologies, the LCD TV market, and display related human factors, including high resolution and wide aspect ratios. Veritas et Visus is part of this consultancy, enabling Mark to reach a broader audience in association with his research activities. Prior to VeritaVis, Mark worked for 3 years at the market research firm DisplaySearch. He additionally participated for 15 years in computer system and LCD-related procurement at Texas Instruments and Dell Computer while living in the United States and Taiwan. He has been active in many display-related areas, most specifically in publicly championing industry-wide adoption of high resolution displays, notebook LCD standardization, and video sub-system integration. Mark was educated at St. Olaf College (Northfield, Minnesota), the American Graduate School of International Management, (Phoenix, Arizona); St. Edward’s University, (Austin, Texas), and in the University of Texas at Austin’s doctoral program in International Business. Most recently, Mark has been an active supporter and lecturer at the DisplayMasters degree program in the UK, contributing course lectureships at Cambridge University, Dundee University, and The Nottingham-Trent University.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Jon Epstein, President – Omek

Jonathan joined Omek full time after serving as advisor to the company, and board director, over a span of more than three years. Jonathan’s experience as an entrepreneur includes the successful launch and sale of several companies in the fields of media, gaming, and technology. Prior to joining Omek, Jonathan served as CEO of Double Fusion, the leading independent in-game advertising firm. Prior to that, he helped establish the digital media and gaming practice at United Talent Agency. Jonathan was a co-founder of GameSpot, which was sold to ZDNet, and was president of GameSpy, which was sold to IGN Entertainment, where he ran the company's media division before its sale to Fox Interactive Media. He sits on a number of boards of entertainment and technology companies. Jonathan holds a degree in physical sciences from Harvard.

 

Mike McSherry, Swype Co-founder & CEO – Nuance

Mike McSherry is the Co-Founder of Swype. Mike is an experienced internet and mobile entrepreneurial executive. He was the co-founder of both Amp’d Mobile and Boost Mobile.

At Amp’d Mike was the SVP Emerging Technologies and was involved in all strategy, service and platform strategies. At Boost, Mike led the product management and data services team and was a key founder in both the Australian and US launches. Prior to Boost, Mike co-founded and sold ZIVO which was the largest Interactive Agency in Australia/New Zealand and one of the largest in Asia. Mike started his technology career at Microsoft serving in multiple product management roles.

Recently Swype was acquired by Nuance for $100 million.

 

Dr. Paul E. Resta, Ruth Knight Millikan Centennial Professorship & Director at the Learning Technology Center - The University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Paul E. Resta holds the Ruth Knight Milliken Centennial Professorship in Instructional Technology and serves as Director of the Learning Technology Center at the University of Texas at Austin. His current work focuses on the research and development of web-based learning environments, computer-supported collaborative learning strategies and tools, and online teacher professional development.

He served as President of the International Council of Computers in Education and is the Founding President of the International Society for Technology in Education. He currently serves as President of the International Jury for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Education. He also serves as Chair of the Association for Teacher Educators National Commission on Technology and the Future of Teacher Education.

Resta has received a number of awards including The Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education (SITE) Lifetime Achievement Award; the U.S. Distance Learning Association Award for Outstanding Achievements in Higher Education; Electronic Learning Magazine’s Educator of the Year Award; and The U.S. Department of Education’s National Institute of Education Award for Outstanding Leadership in Furthering Educational Research.

He serves on national and international advisory boards, including: Chair of the National Laboratory for Education Transformation, International Laboratory of Advanced Education Technologies, and the Conference Chair of the 2012 Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education’s International Conference. He has produced numerous articles, book chapters, and books on educational technology. Recent books include: Toward Digital Equity: Bridging the Divide in Education, Allyn and Bacon; Information and Communication Technology in Teacher Education: A Planning Guide, UNESCO (book translated into seven languages); Teacher Development in an E-Learning Age, UNESCO, in press.

 

CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

Bill Curtis, Senior Fellow – AMD

Bill Curtis is lead architect for the human-computer interface program and a key contributor to several other platform design initiatives. Mr. Curtis has developed many profitable and long-lived products and is a named inventor on many patents covering a broad range of technologies.

Bob Senior, President-isiQiri

Bob Senior is President of isiQiri US. An international business development expert, Bob has more than two decades of operational experience in the sphere of advanced man machine interfaces. He has founded and served in executive management positions in public and private touch-screen companies world-wide, and has an outstanding track record in initiating, developing, and closing B2B business in the global technology sphere.
An experienced board director, Bob has served on the board of several successful international companies including FlatFrog Laboratories, digitalvision Ltd (acquired by Getty Images) and Trunk Archive. Bob was Executive Vice President, Noise Limit Inc, CEO at Taktio A/S (now FlatFrog), Co-founder and Managing Director of Touch International, Vice President WW Sales MicroTouch Inc, Managing Director and Vice-President (EMEA), MicroTouch Systems Ltd (acquired by 3M touch systems). Bob has also worked in senior positions at Apple, NCR and Poqet Computer. He holds a B.Ed/Physics degree.

Dan Simpkins, CEO & President - Hillcrest Labs

Dan Simpkins is CEO of Hillcrest Labs, which he founded in 2001. Under its Freespace brand, Hillcrest is the leading provider of inertial motion sensing solutions. Hillcrest's award-winning products include the Loop pointer and the Kylo browser for TV. Prior to founding Hillcrest, Dan was vice president and general manager of the SALIX Switching Division of Tellabs, Inc. The division was established in 2000 when Dan sold VoIP leader SALIX Technologies, the company he founded in 1990, to Tellabs for $300 million. In 2010, Dan was recognized by The Gazette of Politics and Business as one of the top 25 CEOs in the Washington, D.C. area. Hillcrest was recognized in 2010 and 2011 as one of the “Exceptional 53” companies in the state of Maryland.

Dan is a former executive in residence for New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the country's premiere venture capital firms, and is an advisor to LaunchBox Digital, an early stage investment firm. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, has authored papers on both technical and business subjects, and is a member of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Dan has ten issued U.S. patents in the fields of interactive television and telecommunications.

Dan earned a bachelor's of science degree in electrical engineering with distinction, and a master's of engineering degree in electrical engineering, both from Cornell University. He currently serves on the Cornell Engineering College Council, an advisory group to Dean Lance Collins.

 

Dave Nolte, Senior Vice President of Engineering – OcularLCD

David Nolte joined the Ocular team as Senior Vice President of Engineering in 2010. David has over 30 years of experience that includes multiple leadership and executive management roles at Motorola and Emerson Network Power. Leadership positions in engineering, business strategy and advance manufacturing engineering have provided David the knowledge and experience to lead the Ocular engineering team. David also has experience managing multi-million dollar delivery programs and is well versed in finding, training and managing top-quality technical teams. David holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronic Engineering from DeVry Institute of Technology and has completed several courses at Motorola University.

 

David Carey / VP-Technical Intelligence

David's focus is on UBM TechInsights' leadership in technical intelligence initiatives with an emphasis on market-leading Teardown Analysis for a global served client base. David has over 25 years of experience in technology benchmarking, manufacturing processes, system design, and technical cost analysis.  He is also a Contributing Editor for EETimes, authoring many of the media group's "Under the Hood" columns. Before TechInsights' 2007 acquisition of Portelligent he served as that company's co-founder and President. David graduated cum laude with a B.S. and M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 1983 and 1985 respectively, and is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and IEEE. He is the named inventor on over 15 US and European patents.

Geoff Walker, Principal Analyst - IMS Research

Geoff, has more than 20 years experience with touch technologies, prior to IMS Research he was most the Marketing Evangelist and Touch Industry Guru at NextWindow, a supplier of optical Touch Screens. Prior to that, he was Global Director of Product Management and Business Development for Elo TouchSystems, a $400M manufacturer of Touch Screens, Touch Monitors and Touch Computers. Previously Geoff operated his own consulting business for seven years (Walker Mobile, LLC, focusing on Touch Screens, displays and mobile computers), and has also worked for Handspring, Fujitsu Personal Systems, GRiD Systems and Hewlett-Packard.

A widely-published author with more than 50 articles on Touch, Geoff is a frequent speaker at Display and Touch industry conferences giving 10 talks in the last 18 months.

Geoff holds BS-Electrical Engineering and BS-English degrees from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and is an active member of the Society for Information Display (SID). He is located in Silicon Valley and can be contacted directly at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

 

Gerald Morrison, External Research Manager - SMART Technologies

Dr. Morrison is an Electrical Engineer who has worked for SMART Technologies for more than a decade. During that time he has held many roles in development, research and management. All of his roles have related to the development of new interactive touch technologies and products. He is currently the External Research Manager and is actively working with individuals, universities and other external organizations in developing interactive and collaborative technologies. Dr. Morrison has published several papers in conference and journal publications and is listed as inventor or co-inventor on several patents and patent applications.

 

Gerry Seidman, CEO and Founder – Tactonic Technologies

Gerry Seidman is CEO of Tactonic Technologies which develops pressure sensing Multi-Touch and pressure imaging components, products and solutions from traditional touchpad sizes to arbitrarily large form factors using their proprietary seamlessly tileable sensor technology.   Mr. Seidman has more than 25 years experience both developing technology for and managing startups in areas spanning computer graphics, user interfaces, CAM, distributed systems and mobile.   In the mid ‘90s, his  interest in the question of what would be needed to develop applications that allowed people to concurrently work together beyond simply screen led to his forming Internet Access Methods/IAM, which developed a suite of Real-Time Interactive Collaborative User Interface and Distance Presentation tools and frameworks.

 

Gideon Shmuel, CEO - eyesight

Gideon joined eyesight with 20 Years of experience in the Telecoms and Enterprise Software markets. Gideon has been involved in growing technology organizations and running and establishing the business activities and operations of several companies across international markets. Most recently Gideon performed the role of VP Sales at cVidya Networks. Prior to that Gideon had a number of executive roles in a number of countries in Olista, Top Image Systems, LCR Telecom and Esprit Telecom.

Ian Weightman, President - IMS Research

Ian Weightman is the president of IMS Research. Having been involved with IMS Research since its foundation, Ian has extensive experience across the company, and is a long-standing member of the IMS Research Board of Directors. Ian is based in the company’s US headquarters in Austin, Texas, and oversees many of the company’s research groups as well as having executive management responsibility for the IMS Consultancy team and company's Conference Division.

Ian has built a reputation as an insightful consultant, helping companies to improve their profitability by finding and developing new markets for their products. This will continue to be a focus area for Ian, who also has 17 years of experience in market analysis. He has authored numerous IMS reports including set-top boxes, digital television, home networks, semiconductors and sensors, as well as creating databases for set-top boxes, televisions and broadband access. Ian is a frequent speaker and moderator at conferences, and has presented at ANGA, the Bluetooth Summit, CES, Digital Hollywood, CSTB Moscow, IP Trends, SID, SMPTE and TV3.0.

Ian holds a degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Aston University, England. He started his career at Texas Instruments where he worked in various technical marketing roles, achieving the position of European strategic marketing manager for ASIC products prior to joining IMS Research.

 

Jeff Bier, President & Founder of the Embedded Vision Alliance – BDTI

Jeff Bier is co-founder and president of Berkeley Design Technology, Inc. (BDTI), the industry’s most trusted source of analysis, advice, and engineering for embedded processing technology and applications. Jeff oversees BDTI’s benchmarking and analysis of chips, tools, and other technology. Jeff is also a key contributor to BDTI’s consulting services, which focus on product-development, marketing, and strategic advice for companies using and developing signal processing technologies.

Jeff is a recognized industry expert and sought-after speaker, frequently presenting talks on signal processing applications and technologies. Jeff is also a frequent contributor to InsideDSP, an online newsletter dedicated to digital signal processing technology. Jeff earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from Princeton University and U.C. Berkeley.

 

John Doherty, Founder & VP of Advanced Product Development - Motion Computing

As a founder and vice president of advanced product development at Motion Computing, John Doherty brings 23 years of consumer and commercial product development and managerial experience to Motion Computing. He retired from Dell Computer Corporation after more than seven years managing the development of notebook computer and peripheral products.

Prior to joining Dell, Doherty held various engineering and management positions during his 15 years of work at Apple Computer Corporation.
Doherty graduated from California State University at Fullerton with a degree in physics.

 

John Feland, CEO and Founder - Argus Insights

John Feland is the award winning founder and CEO of Argus Insights. With background in both industrial and component-level design, carrier influences, and OEM collaboration, Feland brings his expert knowledge and perspective on product design to to Argus Insights,

In 2009-2010, Feland was the Executive Director for Stanford University’s ME310 Design Innovation course. In 2008, Feland served as Chief Technologist for SK Telecom America’s R&D Group. Prior to SKTA, Feland led Synaptics’ marketing division to help handset manufacturers integrate next-generation capabilities. Feland was the principle architect for the Onyx Concept Phone, the world’s first capacitive multi-touch mobile experience. Feland holds an S.B. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

 

Jonathan Josephson, IP Founder - Quantum Interface

His global patents for the use of motion for selection and attribute control are at the core of many human interfaces beginning to show up in multiple industries today His diverse background includes music, engineering, architecture, and governmental policies, processes and codes throughout energy, building and accessibility sectors. Jonathan volunteers for several Non-Profit Organizations, including the Lockhart,TX Youth Soccer Association, Motion for Life, and the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, and loves his wife of 18 years and three children. His passion is to change the world through the power of revelational vision, understanding, and innovation.

 

Michael Klug, Chief Technology Officer & Co-founder - Zebra Imaging

Michael Klug received a Bachelor of Science degree from MIT in 1989 and a Master of Science degree from the Spatial Imaging Group at the MIT Media Lab in 1991. From 1991 until 1997, Michael worked as a Research Scientist at the MIT Media Laboratory, focusing on design and development of 3D displays and holographic systems. During his tenure at MIT, he was responsible for basic technology development, prototype construction and demonstration, proposal generation and program budgeting and renewal, sponsor recruitment, coordination, presentations and demonstrations, and laboratory resource management and establishment of group research goals. He developed the basic technological predecessors of the systems now productized by Zebra Imaging and has served as a consultant to various companies, such as Polaroid Corporation, in related fields.

He is recognized internationally as one of a handful of experts in the field of automated hologram printing technology. At Zebra Imaging, Michael is responsible for overall technology strategy, intellectual property development and management, and integration of R&D, business development, market research, and technology and product trajectories.

 

Michael Woolstrum, CEO - Touch International

Chief Executive Officer, founded Touch International in 2002. With more than 20 years of touchscreen industry experience, Woolstrum has held several top management positions, including President and CEO of touch systems manufacturer TouchSystems, director of worldwide Resistive sales for MicroTouch Systems (now 3M Touch Systems), and founder of the MicroTouch Systems Specialty Products Division.

 

Mike Stinson, Vice President of Marketing - Motion Computing

As Vice President of Marketing for Motion Computing, Mike Stinson brings over 15 years of portable computer marketing experience to the company. Prior to joining Motion, Stinson was the founder of Sabio Digital, a company focused on sourcing notebooks from Asian manufacturers into the white-box channel in the US.

Prior to founding Sabio Digital, Stinson served as the VP/GM of Mobile Products for Gateway. In this position he was responsible for the P&L of products with annual sales of approximately $700M. Stinson was responsible for all aspects of the business and his accomplishments included consistently growing faster than the overall market, innovative partnerships with ODMs to direct ship from Asia to US consumers, reengineering the product line P&L and reducing support costs by 50%.

Prior to Gateway, Stinson was the VP of Product Marketing for Toshiba America, responsible for all portables, desktops, and accessories. Stinson previously held various product marketing roles at Dell Computer Corporation.

Stinson earned a master’s of business administration from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s in Finance from the University of Colorado.

 

Navin Natoewal, General Manager Media Interactions Group – Philips

Navin Natoewal is General Manager of the Philips uWand team. uWand is a direct pointing and gesture control technology for remote controls. uWand offers fluent 3D gesture control and direct pointing capabilities with the same intuitiveness as a multi-touch screen. uWand, a result of 80 man-years of research and development, can be implemented in remote controls and interact with multiple electronic devices such as PCs, TVs, set-top boxes, DVD players and game consoles. Users control the devices simply by pointing in the appropriate direction or making specific movements in all three dimensions.

 

Paul Erickson, Senior Analyst - IMS Research

With over 10 years of technology industry experience, Erickson’s experience has centered on consumer electronics, pay & broadcast TV, and digital content, including DVD and Blu-ray Disc, digital delivery, HD broadcasting and services, digital set-top boxes, IPTV, and digital rights management.  In his role at IMS Research, Erickson focuses on topics such as premium pay-TV content, Internet-delivered video, connected TVs, pay-TV operator ecosystems, and digital set-top boxes.

Prior to joining IMS, Erickson was most recently the Director of DVD and HD Market Research at DisplaySearch / NPD Group, and was featured at the 2009 International CES as an expert panelist speaking at the Blu-ray Disc Association press conference. Additionally, he has performed competitive analysis and strategy within the software industry for IBM and Vignette Corporation, as well as consulted on a number of independent projects for Dell, Compaq, Silicon Graphics and AT&T.

He has been quoted in a variety of industry publications and news outlets, including USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, the BBC, NPR, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, BusinessWeek, Variety, Bloomberg, Wired, Home Media Magazine, PC World, CNET, Video Business, CE Pro and Cable & Satellite International. He holds a B.S. in International Business from Georgetown University, an M.B.A. in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin, and can converse in English, Spanish, German, Mandarin and Taiwanese.

 

Ross Young, Senior Vice President - IMS Research

Young joined IMS Research in November 2009 through IMS Research’s acquisition of Young Market Research which he co-founded in May of 2009. Prior to forming YMR, Young was VP of New Market Creation at Samsung Electronics’ LCD Business, reporting to the LCD CEO, where he tracked, analyzed and assessed the solar market and supported their market intelligence efforts in notebook PCs and TVs. Prior to Samsung, Young was the founder and CEO of DisplaySearch, the leading flat panel display market research, consulting and events firm. Young ran DisplaySearch from 1996 to 2007 and launched most of their product areas and many of their most popular reports on such topics as TVs, monitors, notebooks, large-area displays, glass substrates, production equipment and supply/demand.  He sold DisplaySearch to The NPD Group in Sept. 2005.

Prior to DisplaySearch, Young held marketing positions at OWL Displays, Brooks Automation, Fusion Semiconductor and GCA in the driver IC, automation, resist removal and lithography markets respectively for flat panels and semiconductors. Young also authored a book published by the University of Texas on US-Japan competition in the semiconductor and semiconductor equipment industries entitled Silicon Sumo, has appeared as a display analyst on NBC's The Today Show and other news programs and has been quoted in most business publications. Young has spoken at over 40 different conferences around the world and keynoted more than a dozen. He won NPD's prestigious John Byington award for outstanding creativity and innovation in 2006 and made VLSI Research's Executive All-Star Team in 1993. Young also sits on the Board of Directors at Unipixel Displays and Akhan Technologies. He has also served on the Board of Directors of Westar Display Technologies and the Advisory Board of Illumitex. Young was educated at UCSD, Australia’s University of New South Wales, UCSD’s Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Japan’s Tohoku University.

 

Roy Ramati, VP of Sales & Marketing - Extreme Reality

Formerly Roy was VP & GM Enterprise Division at SanDisk Corp. Prior to SanDisk/M-Systems, Roy was the founder and Co-CEO of Fantine Group, a provider of business development services for technology companies in the European market and a $25M VC. Prior to this Roy was a management consultant at Shaldor-Israel's Top-Management Consulting Firm. Roy holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA, Economics from Tel Aviv University.

 

Rusty Stapp, Director of Major Accounts - Next Window

Rusty Stapp is the Director of Major Accounts for NextWindow. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering Technology from Texas A&M and his MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas. Mr. Stapp has been in the flat panel/touch industry for over 17 years including time with Planar, Eastman Kodak, Clairvoyante and NextWindow. He has been involved in a wide range of technologies from EL displays, OLED materials & displays, TAC & backlight films, subpixel rendering for OLED’s & LCD and optical touch technology.

 

Tom Armbruster, Vice President - Oblong Industries

Tom is charged with driving new business development for Oblong with a focus on our high-end g-speak systems and custom applications built in the Spatial Operating Environment. Prior to Oblong, Tom was VP of Sales and Support at VICON Motion Systems, where he restructured the sales department and grew sales to record levels. Tom holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Western Michigan University.

 

Yoav Hoshen, Senior VP, Business Development – PointGrab

Mr. Hoshen has over 14 years of diverse international business experience in the high-tech industry, including expertise in sales, business development, strategy, marketing, product marketing, entrepreneurship and investments.

Prior to joining PointGrab, Mr. Hoshen was VP Business Development & Sales of EPOS Technologies, a leading provider of advanced digital positioning technologies for the PC environment. Before EPOS, Mr. Hoshen served as Marketing Director of the largest business unit of Comverse Technology, a world leader in multimedia telecommunications applications. Earlier in his career, Mr. Hoshen was Director of Business Development Marketing at Orsus Solutions and Product Manager of ICQ (acquired by AOL). 
Mr. Hoshen holds an LLB from Tel Aviv University.

 

Zachi Baharav, Senior Researcher – Corning

Zachi graduated from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in 1998 with a doctorate in electrical engineering. He spent the next nine years working at HP/Agilent on a variety of projects including digital cameras and microwave imaging. He then moved to Synaptics where he led the exploratory research group and was introduced to the world of touch sensing. After a short stint teaching high school math, Zachi joined Corning's West Technology Center located in Palo Alto, California where his role includes research and business development. Zachi is the author of more than 30 U.S. patents and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
When not spending time with his family or at work, Zachi can be found running on the wonderful trails around the bay area.