An easy to read list of all the Mentors at X|Media|Lab Wellington
Tom Duterme
New Business Development, Google (Mountain View)
Tom is a New Business Development Manager who assesses new business opportunities for the company. Prior to joining Google, he helped to launch two companies in the Internet and consulting spaces in China, playing the role of CTO and sales manager for both ventures. While in China, Tom also helped multinational corporations negotiate significant market entries there in the form of domestic acquisitions and joint ventures. Tom graduated with a degree in physics from Macalester College after which he accepted a scholarship to attend a university in Beijing to improve his Mandarin. He also has an MBA from MIT Sloan. Tom is fluent in Mandarin and French, and has lived in China, Japan, France, Belgium, and the U.S.
Chris Adams
New Media Pioneer; Co-Founder, Participant Productions (Los Angeles)
Chris Adams is an internationally recognized new media pioneer, entertainment industry executive and social entrepreneur with nearly twenty years of experience in creating and developing partnerships, programming and relationships between media, entertainment and online brands.
As a media strategist, Chris works with clients to create and execute on partnerships and initiatives that have deep impact and measurable outcomes. To achieve greatest possible success, Chris focuses on the intersection of media and audience – helping to bring brand visibility to consumers, reach the greatest constituency possible and create multi-platform initiatives that engage and excite individuals. Current clients include Comcast, the largest cable and broadband company in the US, HBO, Glam.com, Facebook.com, one of the fastest-growing internet companies on earth, for which he helped to create and is producing “Facebook Diaries,” the first-ever hybrid user-generated video/reality TV show to be distributed across a multi-platform including Facebook.com, Ziddio.com, and Comcast VOD and linear television. Past clients include: Amazon.com, Lycos.com, and many others.
Prior to launching his own consulting company, Chris co-founded Participant Productions in 2004 with Jeff Skoll, eBay’s first President. Participant’s vision is to create entertainment that inspires audiences to make social change. In this capacity, Chris developed and executed on the business plan, was intimately involved in finding and hiring all initial executive personnel and managed the company overall. Participant’s first slate of movies –“Syriana”, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon; “North Country”, starring Charlize Theron; “Good Night and Good Luck”, starring David Strathairn and George Clooney, and the documentary “Murderball” – were nominated for 11 Academy Awards. Chris also proudly identified and helped to develop former Vice President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth”.
As a writer, Chris has been published in The Washington Post, The Denver Post, Triathlete Magazine, SPORT Magazine and wrote on Columbia TriStar’s hour-drama The Net (distributed by USA Network). He leveraged this experience into a robust consulting career performing business development and marketing services for Amazon.com, Lycos.com, Pop.com and other online companies in the late 1990’s. He went on from there to help start the wireless application development company, Xpherix which sold to Remoba in 2005.
Chris also serves on the Board of Directors for The Young Storytellers Foundation, which is dedicated to developing literacy, self-expression and self-esteem through the art of storytelling.
Suresh SeetharamanFounder and President, Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation (Bangalore, New York)
Suresh Seetharaman is the co founder and President of Virgin Animation and Virgin Comics. Virgin Comics is a character entertainment company creating original IP for worldwide audiences. It creates content for the entertainment industry for the production of Movies, Animations, Games and Merchandise.
In 2005, Sharad Devarajan and Suresh Seetharaman teamed with Gotham Chopra to invent new mythologies and spark a creative renaissance in Indian character entertainment. Joined with the visionaries Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur, they formed Virgin Comics under Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin group of companies. The objective of Virgin Comics/Virgin Animation was to create a platform to showcase the enormous creative talent that has been dormant in the Southeast Asian countries. Virgin Comics believes in the vision that East has the potential to culturally revolutionise the entertainment industry.
Suresh is also the co founder and Chief Operating Officer of Gotham Entertainment Group, South Asia’s largest comic book publisher. He oversees the company’s international operations, including production, distribution, promotions and sales.
Suresh Seetharaman’s experience also includes positions as Senior Vice President and Executive Director of Clarion McCann and National Creative Director of J Walter Thompson India. Suresh is also the Founder Director of Creative Works, a creative hot-shop that has developed and built many of today’s leading brands in the Asia-Pacific region.
www.virgincomics.com
Noah FalsteinPresident, The Inspiracy (San Francisco)
Noah Falstein is the President of The Inspiracy, a consulting firm providing game design and interactive production expertise for entertainment and for serious games.
Noah has been designing and producing award-winning games since 1980. He was among the first ten employees at Lucasfilm Games (now LucasArts Entertainment), The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. He was project leader for the classic arcade game Sinistar, the PC titles PHM Pegasus and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and co-designer of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. He has had the privilege of working with a wide range of notable game developers, educators, writers, and filmmakers, and has even led brainstorming sessions with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
In the listing of the top-rated games of all time by www.mobygames.com, the premiere site for professional game credit information, Falstein was a contributor to 4 of the top 5 games on the list.
Noah’s company, The Inspiracy, provides startup assistance, original design, and design review for clients on five continents, ranging from corporate training (Cisco, Microsoft) to medical education (Hopelab, Health Media Lab, Medical Cyberworlds) to entertainment (LucasArts, Disney, DreamCatcher, MicroForte).
Marcelino Ford-Livene
General Manager, Interactive Content, Services and Advertising Development, Intel Digital Home Group (Los Angeles)
Marcelino Ford-Livene is currently the General Manager of Interactive Content, Services and Advertising for Intel’s Digital Home Group. In this capacity, he leads and manages the organization charged with developing new interactive content experiences and advertising business models on Intel’s platforms in the digital home entertainment marketplace.
Before Intel, he was a senior member of the development and planning team at TV Guide. Before TV Guide, he held senior positions at the FCC. He served as Special Counsel for New Media Policy, and most recently as Senior Counsel and Director of Media Strategic Analysis for the FCC¹s Office of Strategic Planning. Other positions include Vice President at NetNoir, Inc., Director of Business Development for iBlast, and as an Associate at Hill, Farrer & Burrill in Los Angeles, CA. He sits on the Television Academy’s Executive Committee and is a Co-Governor of the Interactive Media Peer Group. He is also the Division Chairman of the Interactive Media and New Technologies Division for the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Entertainment and Sports Industries. Ford-Livene holds a B.A. in Economics from UC San Diego and a J.D./M.B.A. from the University of Illinois.
Sean Kauppinen
Vice President, TriplePoint (San Francisco)
Sean Kauppinen has represented videogames and gaming hardware since 1995, working on more than 400 titles in his career. He is responsible for consulting, business development, branding, and for providing strategic counsel to a wide range of clients, from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups, while handling international operations for TriplePoint.
Previously he served as Head of Product PR for Sony Online Entertainment, and held PR and marketing management positions at Ubisoft, bleem!, 3dfx, and Golin/Harris. His career began with Morgen-Walke Associates where he worked on IPOs and provided investor relations counsel for technology, and consumer product companies. Kauppinen holds a BA in Cinema Writing and Directing from San Francisco State University.
Alvin Wang Graylin
CEO and Co-founder,
mInfo Inc (Shanghai)
Mr. Graylin is the CEO of mInfo, the leading Mobile Search Service in China providing natural language search services to users throughout China via SMS, WAP, IM and embedded client applet. Mr. Graylin is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and business leader with over 15 years of management experience, seven of which are in Greater China. Mr. Graylin co-founded mInfo in early 2005. He is intimately knowledgeable about the wireless search and mobile marketing space in China. Mr. Graylin has rich entrepreneurial experiences prior to mInfo, having also been the founder and CEO of two other technology start-ups in the US, one in personalized e-marketing and the other in online financial tools for consumers. In the mid-90’s Mr. Graylin helped establish the Intel organization in Shanghai, and grew Intel’s consumer business in China from $50M to $300M over a three year period. He also led Asia Pacific marketing for Intel Online Services in the late’90s. Additionally, Mr. Graylin ran the global Enterprise and Consumer business units at Trend Micro in 2001-2003 (while based in Taipei), and security products/services business at WatchGuard Technologies (based in Seattle), with respective yearly revenues in excess of US$200M, US$100M and US$80M. He delivered sizable double digit revenue growth for all three businesses units. Mr. Graylin began his career at IBM designing next generation processors for the AS/400 mini-computer family. Mr. Graylin earned an MS in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School. He graduate top of his department with a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington. Mr. Graylin was born in China, educated in the US, and honed his professional skills in the global marketplace. He is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese
Gao Li (Daisy)Deputy Director, Suzhou Industrial Park Science & Technology Development Center Deputy General Manager, Suzhou International Science Park (Suzhou) Ms Gao has more than 8 years of experience facilitating the entrance of international businesses into the China market, and establishing themselves in Suzhou, China.
As Deputy General Manager of Suzhou International Science Park (SISPARK), on behalf of the Suzhou Industrial Park local government, Ms Gao is responsible for promotion of the hi-tech, digital media and creative industries. Ms Gao leads the team that selects the right projects from China and abroad that are interested in expanding into Suzhou – providing a one-stop service for business set-up, policy and business consultancy, property renting, business incorporation, talent training and recruitment, business matching, funding and venture capital support.
Prior to her appointment as Deputy Director, Ms Gao was the Assistant Head of Marketing for the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park Development Company (CSSD), responsible for the promotion of investment opportunities across the European and American markets. In this role, Ms Gao’s clients included many Fortune 500 companies, including 3M, Bosh, GE, and Ingersoll-Rand. Ms Gao introduced the first companies from Spain and Austria to set up their business operations in Suzhou.
About SISPARK
SISPARK is a government funded international incubator and campus for hi-tech and creative industries, with more than 500,000sqm built-up area and a total planned built-up area of more than 1million sqm. SISPARK is home to 270 hi-tech companies with over 14,000 employees.
80 kilometers west of Shanghai, the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) is the largest economic and politic cooperation project between the Chinese government and Singapore government. Established in 1994, SIP is one of the most successful and fastest growing economic zones in China.
Helen BaxterManaging Directrix, Mohawk Media (Auckland) Kiwi born and British bred, Mohawk’s MD is an Indie Media Diva. Helen appears fortnightly as Geek Girl on Virtual World for Radio New Zealand, and is a Creative Columnist for The Big Idea & Kiwi FM. She writes the MsBehaviour Files, is Web Mistress for Alt TV, and hosts the g33k show weekly.Helen was founding Editor of KnowledgeBoard.com a global community for Knowledge & Innovation to define ‘KM Made in Europe’ on behalf of the Euopean Comission. Voted ‘Best of the Web’ by the Harvard Business School in 2002. KnowledgeBoard also went on to win ‘Best User Experience’ at the International Information Industry Awards in 2003.
Helen was based in Bristol (UK) for 10 years as a digital entrepreneur, writer, Community Producer, and Internet Training Manager for an ISP. She lectured in New Media at the University of the West of England ‘Mediaworks’ Lab from 1997-1999, after three years of running an online business. She has also appeared as an cyberculture & technology commentator on BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio Bristol, HTV, TVNZ and SKYTV in the UK, New Zealand & Australia.
Sam MorganFounder, Trade Me (Wellington)
Sam is Wellington born and bred. After attending school in Wellington and a brief but unsuccessful stint at university, he started his career as an IT consultant for Deloitte Consulting.In 1999, Sam founded Trade Me – New Zealand’s largest and most successful Internet business. Trade Me now accounts for over half of all of the locally served traffic on the NZ Internet. Sam sold Trade Me to Australian media giant Fairfax for $750m in 2006.
Sam is now the non-executive Chairman of Trade Me, an investor in tech start-ups, such as Sonar6, and is a director of NZX listed company Xero.
Sam also has a portfolio of social investments, from funding the development of affordable medical devices for developing countries to supporting successful microfinance projects in the Pacific Islands.
Brian Seth Hurst
CEO, The Opportunity Management Company; Second Vice Chair, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences; Board Member, Producers Guild of America (Los Angeles)
Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of The Opportunity Management Company, Inc., a strategic consultancy and cross media production company that is driving the next generation of entertainment. Referred to as “the father of cross platform”, Hurst coined the term in 1998 as MD of Convergent Media at Pittard Sullivan, where he launched TV Guide as the first ever cross platform brand.
In 2006, seeing the need for a solid production process for cross media programming, Hurst developed and launched the Rapid Cross Media Initiative to assist broadcast clients in extending their programming to audiences and communities on new platforms. The methodology established a clear workflow for the strategy, planning, budgeting and production of integrated story telling across platforms including broadband, interactive television, games, mobile, social networks and personalized media. It allows for the maximization of assets and the best in class technology vendors to “talk to each other” and be efficiently integrated into the production process. Hurst’s credo, “go to where your audience lives” is transforming the relationship of audiences to programming. Clients have included: Showtime, Lifetime and AOL amongst others. Hurst was on the team that developed the original user experience for TiVo and currently sits on MobiTV’s advisory board.
Hurst was instrumental in the establishment of the Prime Time Emmy® for Interactive Television and spearheaded the initiative that extended Primetime Emmy® eligibility to original programming distributed via broadband.
Hurst served two terms as Chairman of the Producers Guild of America New Media Council (’03-’05) while simultaneously serving on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors. Currently, he is Second Vice Chair of the Television Academy and sits on the National Board of the PGA. Recipient of a 2006 Interactive TV Today [itvt] Award for Leadership in Interactive Television, he was profiled in the April 2007 issue of Emmy® Magazine one of the 10 media executives in the business leading the industry’s digital drive, and in November of 2007 was named to the Hollywood Reporter’s PGA “Digital 50” for the second year in a row.
Chris Deering
Chairman, Codemasters; formerly President of Sony Computer Entertainment – Europe (London)
Chris Deering has been involved with film, video and interactive entertainment in Europe since 1982, initially as Vice President- International for Atari game consoles and computers, and subsequently as Executive Vice President and COO for Columbia Pictures International Video, and from 1995 to 2005 as President of Sony Computer Entertainment – Europe (SCEE). At SCEE he lead the team that has sold over 80 million consoles and facilitated the sale of over 1 billion games. Most of SCEE’s original management team, set up by Chris, remains at the core of PlayStation leadership, now including the management of Sony’s worldwide game development studios. Chris now serves on the boards of Codemasters, In Game Advertising, Geomerics, HandHeld Learning Ltd, Jalipo and Wayfinder, and is an advisor for Jetix Europe, PlaySpan and Text Appeal. Chris is also Chairman of the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival.
Hugh MasonPartner, Pembridge Partners LLP (London)
Following training as a documentary TV producer-director with the BBC, Hugh Mason founded and grew a multiple-award-winning broadcast TV production company. Finding himself as interested in the business side of running a creative company as he had previously been making films, Hugh co-founded Pembridge Partners in 2001. Instead of making complex stories about science accessible to non-specialist audiences, Hugh now applies his strategy, ideas and communication skills to help Creative Industries Small-and Medium-sized Enterprises to visualize their futures, set a path for growth and plan their way to success.
Pembridge Partners LLP provides finance and advice exclusively to creative industries SMEs to help their owners build and realize value. Pembridge has raised or invested directly over NZ$60m, since start-up, engaging with over 1,800 SMEs in the UK, Singapore and Netherlands. Hugh specializes in building wealth in the creative sector through public sector programmes, He also is an expert in TV/Film, Design and Online business support.
Richard MacManus Founder and Editor, ReadWriteWeb (Wellington)
Richard MacManus is one of the world’s most highly respected digital media and web technology analysts and strategists.
Richard’s ReadWriteWeb blog is one of the most widely read and influential digital media blogs on the web. In December 2007, ReadWriteWeb was ranked #15 in Technorati’s Top 20 blogs, and #5 on the Techmeme Leaderboard, putting it way above traditional news sources such as the BBC and Wall St Journal.
In June 2007 ReadWriteWeb was named as one of the ‘100 Blogs We Love’ by PC World magazine, who hailed it as the “source for news on the latest Web 2.0 developments”.
Prior to founding ReadWriteWeb, Richard was a researcher, analyst and product developer for leading Silicon Valley and New Zealand companies. He founded the Web 2.0 Workgroup, and the Web 2.0 Explorer blog at ZDNet. Richard was co-founder and Executive Editor of Micro Media Corporation, a multi-channel leadership program in Web and Media 2.0 that operated under the brand name Transmission.
Jason RoksEmerging Technology & Digital Distribution Analyst (Toronto)Jason Roks is recognized across North America for his networking and digital media distribution acumen, and for his ingenuity in predicting and leveraging new directions in Internet and digital communications technologies.
While the digital “fringe” community celebrates Jason as a co-founder of the decade-old file-sharing software pioneer Hotline Communications, Roks’ career has roots in design, creative direction and sculpture. His software and media products have won multiple awards, including Best of Show at MacWorld 97.
Roks is a serial entrepreneur and explorer. His projects include p2p content distribution models; media casting models; terminal and network computing solutions; online communities and social networks; knowledge management systems; metaphors for visualization of metadata; broadband and wireless infrastructures; internet exchanges; ambient television; xmltv; video on demand and iptv. He is currently developing a video Content Management System (vCMS) and what he calls User Generated Distribution (UGD).
Jason provides consulting to software developers, broadcasters, advertisers and entertainment companies in the areas of digital media distribution, content management systems, adaptive business modeling, rights management, online guerrilla marketing, emerging technologies, and the prototyping of innovative technology platforms, services and products.
Roks has been featured in various media, including Wired, Time, Maclean’s, Saturday Night, Yahoo! Internet Life, Shift, Macworld and Silicon Alley Reporter for his insights on new media economies, digital media distribution, file sharing, online communities and social networks, piracy, copyright, and intellectual property. He has also participated and presented at numerous conferences, including the International New Media Festival, Digital Coast Reporter, MB5 New Media Visionaries, KMDI, nextMEDIA, ICE, MacWorld, iWorld, and XmediaLab.
The wide range of roles Roks has played in diverse media and technology organizations include CTO, RealNews.com, Independent World Television; Producer, iSummit07, New Media Business Alliance; Technology & Digital Distribution Analyst, CBC Broadband and Digital Services; New Media Operative, ZED; and Vice President, Business Development, Hotline Communications.
Jason is a longstanding member of the Canadian Film Centre Lab’s technical advisory council, and sits on advisory councils for a number of start-ups, including illuminated.com . He is an enthusiastic contributor to Toronto’s tech community as a founding volunteer of wirelesstoronto.ca and an avid Barcamper. He studied philosophy and business at the University of Western Ontario.
Rod DruryFounder and CEO, Xero (Wellington)
Rod Drury is founder and CEO of Xero, a Software as a Service (SaaS) online accounting solution for Small Businesses. Xero listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange in June 2007.Rod won a World Class New Zealand award in 2008 and was NZ Hi-Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006 and again in 2007. Rod won the Absolutely Creatively Wellington Award in 2007.
Rod is an experienced entrepreneur and early stage investor passionate about software development and building value.
Angel investments include PlanHQ and a number of number of SaaS startup’s in technology build. Rod was founder and CEO of AfterMail which was acquired by Quest Software in January 2006 and subsequently won Best Exchange Product at TechEd 2006 in Boston.
Rod co-founded USA based Context Connect Incorporated which provides Directory solutions for mobile devices. Rod has international patents in the Directories area.
Prior to this Rod was CTO of Advantage Group where he spent significant time in the USA working with leading international technology companies.
In 1995 Rod established Glazier Systems, one of New Zealand’s leading software development and consulting companies. Glazier Systems was acquired by Advantage Group in 1999 and continues today as Intergen.
In the late 80’s to early 90’s Rod worked primarily for Ernst & Young/Arthur Young, as well as spending several years working on telecommunication billing systems both in New Zealand and the USA.
Through his career Rod has maintained a close relationship with Microsoft and was selected as New Zealand’s first representative on the Microsoft MSDN Regional Director program, holding the role from 1997 to 2000. Rod achieved Microsoft MVP status for his work in the early days of Active Server Pages.
Rod was an Independent Director of TradeMe, New Zealand’s most successful eCommerce Internet site when it was recently sold to Australian Public Listed Company Fairfax. Rod continues on the TradeMe Advisory Board. Rod joined NZ Trade & Enterprise Beachheads Program Advisory Board in August 2006 and is a member of the New Zealand Institute of Directors.
Rod has a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration (BCA) from Victoria University of Wellington majoring in Accounting.Prior to children, Rod enjoyed windsurfing, surfing, mountain biking and snowboarding.
Xin ChungCEO and Founder, Vykarian Studios (Shanghai)
Xin founded Shanghai-based Vykarian in 2003 servicing a nascent game outsourcing market. Four years later, Vykarian now services most major US game publishers including Electronic Arts, Activision, Vivendi and THQ. Prior to founding Vykarian, Xin established an industry first MPEG-4 rapid prototyping studio at iVAST Digital Media and gained his first outsourcing experience developing iTV projects in India and China. Xin’s background includes 10 years of game development experience at Microsoft, Sony, Squaresoft and THQ, in addition to visual effects production in Hollywood for theme parks and music videos. Xin began his China adventure in 2001, and currently lives in Shanghai.
Marcia Lyons
Programme Director of Digital Media Design, Victoria University of Wellington (Wellington)
Marcia Lyons is a world-leading and highly awarded Multi Media Artist, and internationally recognized innovation expert in digital media arts and pedagogy.
As the Developing Programme Director of Digital Media Design at the Victoria University of Wellington, Marcia is responsible for creating the Digital Media Design Bachelor, Masters and PHD programmes.
Formerly, Marcia was the Creator of the Digital Media Fine Arts Program at Cornell University, one of North America’s most prestigious universities.
For more than 15 years, Marcia has been lecturing across the US and Europe, and creating customized e-broadcasting workshops for universities including: L’Ecole du Louvre, Stanford University, Texas A&M, School of Visual Arts, and now Wellington’s Victoria University.
Marcia is the Founder and Producer of C-M.TV, a glocal media content network. As a multi-media artist, Marcia lived and worked in NYC from 1986-2005; her work has been broadly exhibited in the U.S. and Europe.
Marcia is the recipient of the Rome Prize (1996-97); Jules Guerin Fellow Visual Arts; The Banff Center for the Arts Residency for US in Gaming (1997), National Endowment for the Arts (1994), and two Innovative Teaching Awards for Tele-present Broadcasting and Media Arts. Her ongoing research includes: Sensory Broadcasting, and ‘live’ feed database aesthetics.
www.vuw.ac.nz/design
www.critical-mas.tv
Marcia Lyons is an “International Observer” at X|Media|Lab Wellington
4 Comments
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