Dec 5 2014
Breathe Local, Think Global – December 6, 2014 at Pasadena Convention Center

Breathe Local, Think Global.

DEC 6TH, 2014 @PASADENA CONVENTION CENTER

Together with Pasadena City Manager’s Office, PlusYoou is excited to invite you to the 3rd annual SoCal Innovation Forum (SIF) on December 6, 2014 at Pasadena Convention Center. Themed “Breathe Local, Think Global“, SIF aims at bridging Chinese capital with innovative startups in a global context, and facilitating cooperations between entrepreneurs, investors and incubators from both the U.S and China.


WHAT TO EXPECT

 6 TOPICS PANEL DISCUSSIONS

Panel discussions on topics of big data, healthcare, gaming and entertainment

 10 TOP-NOTCH STARTUP TEAMS

Two demo sessions with 10 top-notch startup teams from SoCal

 50+ INVESTORS FROM TOP CHINESE ENTREPRENEURIAL ORGANIZATIONS

Over 50 investors from top chinese entrepreneurial organizations such as Great Wall Club and Feimalv will be attending

 600+ ENTREPRENEURS, INVESTORS AND PROFESSIONALS

Networking opportunity with more than 600 entrepreneurs, investors and professionals from southern california, silicon valley and China

 EXPERIENCE EFFECTIVE NETWORKING POWERED BY BIG DATA TECHNIQUE

Applying big data technique, your interests and needs will be collected through Eventbrite, and your seat on the event day will be arranged accordingly. Get ready to dive in conversations with your seating neighbors and build connections!

 SPECIAL GIFTS SPONSORED BY STAR STARTUPS

Startups such as Bezalel, Mypetmyart, Acton, Gesso, etc. will bring their most popular products to share with the audience and pay back to the community.

 


 

SCHEDULE

 

09:00-9:20 am    Opening Remarks

09:20-9:40 am    Keynote Speech

9:50-11:00 am    Panel #1: Breathe Local, Think Global

11:10-12:10 pm  Startup Demo Session I

12:10-01:40 pm  Lunch + Legal Workshop

01:40-02:20 pm  Panel #2: Women 2.0: Lean in Startup Community

02:30-03:20 pm  Panel #3: Distruptive changes in healthcare  (Room A)

Panel #4: What’s the next big thing in gaming (Room B)

03:30-04:20 pm  Panel #5: Hollywood Going Digital  (Room A)

Panel #6: How to make the most out of Big Data (Room B)

04:30-05:30 pm  Startup Demo Session II

 


SPEAKERS & VIPs

More than 100 industry leaders, entrepreneurs and investors from China and the U.S. share insights on startup ecosystem and investment opportunities in both countries. Confirmed speakers include:

Keynote

HANS TUNG

Hans is the Managing Partner of GGV Capital. He focuses on mobile Internet, cross border ecommerce, online education, and gaming industry investments. Hans was the early investor of XiaMi and involved in Hugo Barra, the former Head of Android Product Management at Google to the team. He also led investment of Forgame (HKSE: 0484), Wish, Curse, FlightCar, Totspot, Mafengwo Travel, Vancl.com, eHi Car Rental, Domob Mobile, 51fanli etc. Hans was one of six venture capitalists from China named to the 2014 Forbes Midas List. He was also recognized by The Founder and CBN News magazines as a Top 10 most entrepreneur-friendly VC in China.

 

“Breathe Local, Think Global”

ANDY WILSON

Andy is the founder/CEO of Rexter.com, an industry leader in professional relationship management (PRM); Founder/Co-chairman of Innovate Pasadena, aiming to advance the East LA innovation hub; Founder of Momentum Capital, leading more than a half dozen SoCal tech startups. As a seasoned senior executive in the software and technology fields, Andy served as SVP of Yahoo!, Overture, Bowne & Co, Williams Lea, etc.

 

BIN ZHAO

Chairman of technology committee of YY Inc. (NASDAQ:YY) since 2013 and CTO of YY Inc. from 2008 to 2013. Bin founded NeoTasks, LLC in 2004 and served as its Chairman and CTO until 2008. He has over 20 years of experience in technology development and management. He served as the senior consultant at Tencent, senior engineer at WebEx Communications Inc.

 

DAVID CARTER

Co-founder and CEO of Zuma Ventures, a LA-based venture studio. David is also the co-founder and strategic advisor of Amplify. David is a serial entrepreneur and has invested and mentored numerous companies. He served as founder, President & CEO of Vertical Technologies (acquired by Zebra (NASDAQ, ZBRA)), Thoughtstar (acquired by iManage (NASDAQ, IMAN)) and S5 Wireless. In addition, David served as an EIR for Wasatch Venture Fund now Epic Ventures. Forbes named David as one of the “12 Entrepreneurs that are Changing LA Forever” as part of Amplify.

 

PHIL HUI-BON-HOA

Serial entrepreneur with a decade of experience taking business from startup to success story. Phil is the cofounder and CEO of Kaleo Software which builds Enterprise Knowledge Network. Phil was the co-founder, investor and CEO of Jetalon Solutions (acquired by Entegris (NASDAQ: ENTG)), the investor and CEO of Neogent (acquired by Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: ORCL)), Head of M&A of IFILM (acquired by Viacom (NASDAQ: VIA)), cofounder and COO of StudioXchange (acquired by IFILM), cofounder and CEO of Fourth Tier (acquired by Keane).

 

JENNIFER ZHANG (Moderator)

Jennifer is the co-founder and COO of PlusYoou, an LA-based non-profit devoted to bridging Chinese capital with the startup community in Southern California. Jennifer is a columnist at Chinese Entrepreneur Magazine and contributor to TechCrunch(China), Sina.com, 36Kr and other major tech publications in China. Prior to Plusyoou, Jennifer gained extensive entrepreneurial and marketing experience in education and mobile technology through her work at a number of incubators and startups in both U.S. and China. Jennifer holds a B.A. of film study at Zhejiang University and a M.A. of public policy at the University of Southern California.

 

Woman 2.0: Lean In Startup Community

ALYSE KILLEEN

Early stage investor at Clearstone Venture Partners. Alyse is the cofounder and co-chair of the Women in Venture group. She is a mentor at Plug and Play Tech Center, in Fintech and Bitcoin Accelerator track. Prior to working in venture capital, Alyse conducted research in the field of Health Psychology and managed operations for e-commerce startups.

 

JANELLE WANG

Designer turned Entrepreneur, Co-founder and CEO of ACTON, a company focusing on developing smallest and lightest smart transportation. Its product, RocketSkates, won 6 world-level awards, sold over 40 countries, and featured in VOGUE, FastCompany, CNN, Fox News and other mainstream media. Janelle is an innovation leader with over 10 years of brand building, strategic product development and design thinking from P&G to Startups.

 

SOPHIA VIKLUND

Founder and Head of Strategic Relations of backCODE. Sophia is a serial entrepreneur in diverse industries as technology, gaming, education and architecture. She is the leading organizer and board member of Innovate Pasadena, organizer of Startup Weekend Pasadena, organizer of Girl’s Geek Dinner in LA, and advisor to The LOFT Institute program. Forbes Magazine named her a Female Founder to Watch in 2012 and 2013.

 

JING ZHOU

Reporter-turned-entrepreneur, founder of Elemoon, a fashion wearable startup that was featured by ABC News, CNBC, International NYTimes and numerous media as “the best new invention for September” (MSN) and “fashion-forward accessory of the week” (Creators Project). Prior to Elemoon, Jing built and sold a mobile ad company. She co-founded the China Chapter of Girls in Tech and spoke at the UN about how to build an ecosystem that supports female innovation.

 

SUE XU (Moderator)

 

Sue is the partner at zPark Capital, an early stage investment firm. She is the founding scientist of GlycoMira and also involved in other Ph.D laboratory spinoffs, including Carbylan BioSurgery, Sentrx Animal Care, and Glycosan BioSystem, and Hair regenerative medicine. She has published over 20 journal articles and invented 3 issued US patents. Sue was also in Innovation Farm Team at Stanford University Office of Technology Licensing and received Post Doc from Stanford University.

Disruptive Changes In Healthcare

GERALD LOEB

CEO of SynTouch LLC, a biotech company was designated a Technology Pioneer for 2014 by the World Economic Forum. Gerald is the Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Medical Device Development Facility at University of Southern California. He published over 250 journal articles, invented 58 issued US patents including the Biochip RFID capsules now commonly implanted in pets.

 

RICHARD KOFFLER

CEO of Greenwings Biomedical, an incubator of biomedical ventures. Richard has over 25 years of experience as a C-level executive successfully launching and nurturing technology ventures. He is the executive committee member of the Tech Coast Angels, past president of Los Angeles Venture Association and Technology Council of Southern California. He is on the advisory boards of the California Emerging Technology Fund, the Center for Technology Commercialization at the University of Southern California, and the Wells Fargo Center for Small Business and Entrepreneurship at California State University, Northridge.

 

ANANTH NATARAJAN

Founder of Infinite Biomedical Technologies. He was cited by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review magazine as one of the top 100 Innovators and Leaders in Technology in the world under 35 years of age and by the Red Herring magazine as one of “5 Technology Innovators Changing the World.” He is a member of the California Club, the Caltech Associates, the Economic Round Table, the Huntington Society of Fellows, the Huntington Art Collectors Council, and the Pasadena Angels.

NIMA BANAI

Head of Special Projects at Misfit Wearables, a company develops wearable products with sensor technology for the health and fitness industry and has raised over 20 Million funding. Nima is the co-founder and CEO of FluxBand, a portfolio company of Plug & Play Tech Center. Previously, he worked in area of medical grade robotics, spinal implant design, etc.

 

ERIN FLYNN (Moderator)

Principal at Ackrell Capital, LLC. Erin is an early-stage startup advisor with over 12 years of experience in business and corporate development for internet brands. She was the president of Hakansson & Co, an advisory firm that helps digital media companies. She also worked in CondéNet and conducted M&A and corporate development for Concierge.com, Style.com, Epicurious.com, Wired.com and Reddit.com.

 

What’s The Next Big Thing In Gaming

MICHAEL ZHANG

Was president (Overseas) of ZQGame Inc. (300052: Shenzhen), in charge of global strategies, M&A, game publishing, licensing and operation. Michael is a serial entrepreneur in online/mobile gaming, E-commerce and social media business with 18 years of working experience.  He co-founded Ray Flame Entertainment Inc in 2008. Previously, he served as the General Manager of THS International Inc., the world largest MMORPG virtual currency provider.

 

TIAN MU

CEO/Cofounder of Naked Sky Entertainment Inc., in charge of production of all projects and fundraising. One of its games, RoboBlitz, has received numerous accolades, including Finalist for the 2007 Independent Games Festival Competition, “Best Digital Download” Game of the Year in the “2006 Year in Review” by Play magazine, Top 10 Recommended Games for Children and Teens in 2006 by MediaWise.

 

TOM SLOPER

Game producer and designer for over 30 years, having designed and produced games for most major console platforms, and games for PC, Mac, Internet, and IPTV. His credits include Shanghai mah jong, Mechwarrior, Alien vs. Predator, Blast Chamber, Sargon V, Top Gun DS, and Star Trek DAC. Tom is a Professor at University of Southern California, and has worked for Sega, Atari, Activision, and Yahoo.

 

TODD RICHMOND

Director of Advanced Prototype Development at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). Todd is a jack of many trades, master of some, and theorist/practitioner of both digital and analog arts. He is an expert in counter-IED Training System, Geographic Gaming Scenery, and the application of new media to traditional learning and teaching environments.

 

ZIKUN FAN (Moderator)

Associate Producer at Riot Games focusing on international markets. His efforts include bringing League of Legends to players in China and South East Asia markets with local partners, streamlining game operations and building development teams internationally. As a gamer working in the industry, Zikun is passionate about new technology that can bring audiences an entertaining experience.

 

Hollywood going digital

SW SUN

Executive Vice President at Le Vision Pictures USA. He is a Film & TV writer/producer represented by Creative Artists Agency (CAA). His film credits include The Borrowed City (for Zhang Yimou), Untitled Period Heist, Detective B, etc., and TV credits include Dreams of the Gold Mountain, Goodbye, I Love You, Camphor Tree, etc. Previously, he worked at several media companies include SiAn Media, Relativity Media, Enlight Pictures, etc.

 

REX WONG

Over 25 years of experience in Internet, media, gaming, and software. Co-founder of Applied Semantics (the creators of AdSense), acquired by Google for $102MM. Rex is the former CEO, DAVE Networks/DAVE.TV (acquired 2008), cofounder of China Genetics/WonderMilk/HuaXia Dairy, founder of 8sianMedia. He is also the Managing Partner of SpotIdeas Venture Fund.

 

STEPHEN Y. MA

Partner of Early Sullivan Wright Gizer and McRae LLP. Stephen is a specialist in security and entertainment law. He has been recognized as a “Super Lawyer” for Southern California. He currently serves on the Entertainment Law Committee for the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (“NAPABA”), and previously served on the Board of Directors for the Korean-American Bar Association.

 

RICHARD S. MARARSCHI

Product visionary, management, and information technology strategy executive with an extensive track record of building and managing digital media and analytics based services. Richard is the Global Leader for Big Data & Advanced Analytics at IBM. He was the associate partner at IBM Global Business Services, VP of Product Management at Ascent Media Group, Director of Product Management at Yahoo!, and Director of New Products and Strategic Marketing at Sony.

 

PEIYU LI (Moderator)

Peggie is a media entertainment professional of over 7 years, having worked at world class entertainment companies including Nielsen, The Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Fox Networks Group. Currently, she holds the position of Manager of Audience Development at Dreamworks Animation SKG focusing on transforming digital marketing and content development for its multichannel network AwesomenessTV on Youtube. She is also an entrepreneur having created a prototype for a next-gen news aggregation platform called Spicypluck.com which was recognized as the top 35 projects at the 2013 Silicon Valley Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum. (WeChat ID: iLipeiyu)

 

How to make the most out of Big Data

LINGYUN GU

Entrepreneur In Residence and Investment advisor at IDG/Accel Capital Partners. Lingyun is the Founder/CEO of Equinox Decisions Inc., a startup focusing on serving financial institutions using big data driven methods. He was the cofounder and Chief Risk Officer at Turbo Financial Group, a high tech rooted financial service firm. Previously, he served as Machine Learning Expert at ZestFinance, and Quantitative Strategist at Translucent Capital.

 

BRIAN DOLAN

Mathematical entrepreneur, founder and principal of Qurius, Inc, the owner of Nadrudin Consulting. Prioer to Qurius, Brian founded Discovix, a mathematical products company integrating human and artificial intelligences data sets. He has experienced in technology and big data for more than 20 years. He served as the director of research analytics of Fox Audience Network and Director of Data & Analytics of Fox Interactive Media for 4 year and was the senior data analyst of Yahoo and EMC.

 

DMITRI WILLIAMS

CEO, Sensei, and Co-Founder of Ninja Metrics, Inc. Dmitri is a 15-year veteran of games and community research, and a world-recognized leader in the science of online metrics and analysis. The author of more than 40 peer-reviewed articles on gamer psychology and large-scale data analysis, Dmitri’s work has been featured on CNN, Fox, the Economist, the New York Times, and most major news outlets. Previously, he have been a tenured professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

CHEN LI

Founderof SRCH2, a company with solutions to support efficient data management for enterprises.  Dr. Li’s main expertise is in data management, including data integration, search, and big data. He is also a professor of Computer Science at UC Irvine and received prestigious awards such as NSF CAREER and SIGMOD 10-year-best-paper award.  He is a co-PC chair of VLDB 2015.  He received PhD from InfoLab from Stanford, where several companies including Google started.  He also received MS and BS from Tsinghua University.

 

MICHELLE CRAMES (Moderator)

 

Entrepreneur In Residence for Science, Inc, in addition to investing with several large Private Equity funds. Michelle was the founder & CEO of SkuLoop, a software-as-a-service company which was sold to Revionics, the leading provider of end-to-end merchandise solutions. She also founded mobile service GIIV, and Lean Forward Media LLC. She was named as the Forbes Future Capitalist of the year in 2004.

 

VIP(Updating)

Larry Li,founding partner of zPark Venture LLC

Duyu,Director of business development@Huawei Enterprise USA Inc

Ron Posner,CEO@ eChinaCash

Terence Yang,Partner@Yang Venture

Alysee Kileen, investor@March Capital Partners

John Zhang, Co-Founder@ Auctus Global Capital Group

Dev Bhatia,CEO@SRCH2

Vivy Chao,Partner@Yang Venture

Sammy Jiang,partner@Highland Venture

Na Zhang,Manager@AV Venture

John Zhang,CEO@J-Star Corporation

Wenqing Gan,Senior Manager@Mattel

Gracye Chen, Business Development@GoodRX

Wei Liu,Executive Director@Legend Star

Sue Xu,Partner@zPark Venture

Roy Kong,Founder@ US-China Association of High-level Professionals, Partner@zPark Venture

Shawn Chen,Founder & CEO@Sias International University

Tiemin Zhao,Partner@IPV Capital

Hanxiong Lai,Partner@Blue Angel Fund

Peng Wang,Assistant President@Talkweb(SZ.002261)

Qimei Luo,Senior Manager@Letv

Bibige Suode,Director of marketing@Agora

Jing Huang,Cofounder@XIU

Jie Dan,CEO@Yanjiyou Bookstore

Zheng Yi,Cofounder@baihe.com, former Venture Partner@Lightspeed Venture Partner

Nikhil R. Jain,CEO@Oben, former CEO@OnGreen

Dingjian Zhang,Founder@Mypetmyart, CCTV Top 10 Marketing Experts in China (2005)

Jing Wang, Investment Director@Great Wall Club, Chief Investment Director@Great Wall Club, Chief Editor@GMIC

Zansong Yang, CEO@Fei Ma Lv

Na Li, Oversea Director@China Unicom

Jason He,VP@ China Enterprise Council

Jing Shi,President@CAST-SD, CEO@Learning Genie

Paul Orlando, Venture Partner@ Incubator of USC Lioyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Co-founder @AcceleratorHK

Eric Duyshart,Economic Development Manager@City of Pasadena

Miaomiao He, Business Development Officer@North American Representative Office of Shenzhen

Wendy Hua, Oversea Director@Zhejiang Hangzhou Future Sci-Tech city

 

 

 


PARTNERS & SPONSORS

Legal Sponsor

POLSINELLI LLP

Gold Sponsor

       Novaland

Silver Sponsors

Euro America Financial City; JianGong Real Estate, HUAWEI

Enthusiastic Supporters

       ICBC; Hanhai Studio; Peacock Plan

Strategic Partners

Pasadena Convention Center; Innovate Pasadena; TEEC; UCAHP, zPark Venture; Can Do International Inc.; Innov8 America; GWC; China Southern Airline; Fei Ma Lv

Media Supporters

TechCrunch China; China Daily; US China Press; Sing Tao Daily; Taiwan Daily; ICN

Invited Investors

IDG Ventures; Tech Coast Angels; Highland Capital Partners; PreAngel; Pasadena Angels;Light House Capital Management; Legend Star; Lightspeed Venture Partners; Nextplay Ventures

 

                     


 

                               DEMO TEAMS

Slevz, a high quality 3D Profile of the real you that is tailor-made for use in Virtual Reality Experiences;

Vntana, letting artists play multiple venues at once;

5 Million Shoppers, an app that gives Chinese shoppers full access to real time shopping information, and provides them convenient transportation;

Nvestly, makes it easy to find top investors, view their real portfolios and get notified when someone they follow makes a trade;

Surkus, a mobile platform that allows people who run local hot spots and events to “cast” their perfect crowd;

FocusMotion, the complete solution that makes it easy to track and analyze movements with wearables;

Simple Thrill, one of the best music causal game creators with 16 million + players , partnership with Universal Music and Song/ATV;

Srch2, rebuilt search from the ground up in C++, and delivered the fastest, most advanced, most efficient search engine in the world;

Bezalel, the next generation portable charger empowers your phone at anytime, anywhere and most important, all wirelessly;

Modulates, video commerce platform lets you harness the power of Word-of-Mouth marketing with our publishers;

TrepScore, an information management platform that converts highly fragmented data into actionable insights and alerts for both entrepreneurs and investors;

PlusYoou is an LA-based nonprofit organization, which is committed to bridging entrepreneurship resources between U.S. and China. Since 2011, PlusYoou has organized 30+ entrepreneurial events and helped SoCal startups raise over $5 million angel investment. PlusYoou launched its +U Project in June 2014, the first nonprofit incubator program in the Chinese community of Southern California.

 

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