Crowdsourcing for the Entrepreneur:
Unlocking the Power of Online Communities
Saturday, June 11, 2011
at the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, California
Registration and Continental Breakfast:
8:00 a.m. Baxter Lecture Hall
Program:
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at Baxter Lecture Hall
Networking:
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at Baxter Lecture Hall
Cost:
$40 on-line registration fee; $50 at-the-door; $10 for students with full-time student ID and free for Caltech students (must show ID at door). Caltech students can now register online.
On-line Registration closes at 5:00PM on Thursday, June 9, 2011. There are no refunds for no-shows.
Event Preview
Crowdsourcing, as a method of leveraging the massive pool of online users as resources, has become a viable set of techniques, tools, and marketplaces for organizations and entrepreneurs to drive innovation and generate value. It is applied effectively in a variety of explicit/implicit, and systematic/opportunistic models: collective intelligence (Wikipedia, Yelp, and Twitter analytics); collaborative filtering (Amazon’s product and Netflix’s movie recommendation engines); social tagging (del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Digg); social collaboration (Amazon’s Mechanical Turk); and crowdfunding (disaster relief, political campaigns, micropatronage, startup and non-profit funding, etc.)
An entrepreneur can utilize crowdsourcing tools for funding and monetization, task execution, and market analysis; or implement crowdsourcing as a technique for data cleansing and filtering, derived intelligence, etc. However, leveraging crowdsourcing also requires an entrepreneur to navigate a complex landscape of questions. How is it different from outsourcing? Is it truly cost-efficient? What motivates individual contributions? How to grow and sustain an active community? How to ensure quality or service level? What are the legal and political implications? Join us for a program which explores such questions, and the use of crowdsourcing to match specific needs to an available community.
Producers
Stan Tomsic
Chairman, Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum
Partner, ACODA Technology & Investments LLC
For the past eight years, Stan has been a partner of ACODA Technology & Investments, LLC, a firm specializing in strategic assistance, business consulting, investments and mergers and acquisitions, for technology and services companies.
Stan’s experience in the technology and software industries spans over 25 years. Prior to ACODA, Stan held executive and management positions with Candle Corp., MVS Software, Inc., Goal Systems International, Inc., Arkhon Technologies, Inc. and Sentryl Software, Inc. He co-founded MVS Software, Inc. and helped make the company the leader in automated operation products. After its acquisition by CA, he was founder and CEO of Arkhon Technologies, Inc. which developed cutting edge software products for the automated network and systems management market. He was later recruited by the venture firm Wies, Peck and Greer to join Sentryl Software as Executive Vice-President, where he was instrumental in bringing the company’s products to profitability and in its acquisition by Fujitsu Corp.
Stan is a Pasadena Angel and serves as a member of the board of directors and advisors for several technology and software companies, is Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum, and is an active member in the Technology Council of Southern California, Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and Entretech.
David Chou
Architect
Microsoft
www.microsoft.com/bizspark
Michael M. Krieger (Click to see bio)
Ph.D., J.D., UCLA Computer Science
Willenken Wilson Loh & Lieb
www.willenken.com
Michael Krieger has practiced high technology business and intellectual property law for more than 20 years. A member of the Los Angeles firm Willenken Wilson Loh & Lieb, his practice focuses on strategic counseling, litigation and preventive methods to both secure and exploit clients’ patents and other key IP assets. With degrees in mathematics (B.S., Caltech; Ph.D., UCLA) and law (UCLA), he was on the MIT Mathematics and UCLA Computer Science faculties and also a Fulbright Scholar prior to practicing law. This technical background led to early involvement with encryption, domain name/trademark, and open source issues as well as IP litigation for content providers and patent holders. His clients have ranged from start-ups to industry leaders, as well as counseling for the tech transfer arena and the United Nations as well as other international technology initiatives. He also serves as an expert in technology litigation.
Nikhil Jain (Click to see bio)
Founder/CEO
OnGreen
www.OnGreen.com
Nikhil’s expertise revolves around building businesses and teams from just an idea phase with a specialization in internet/web technologies, software and green businesses. Nikhil brings diverse experience in various industries in several roles including management consultant, business advisor and C-level positions. A serial entrepreneur with the mindset of a management consultant, Nikhil has helped his clients succeed through careful planning, analysis and execution. Nikhil has held the position of COO in a business advisory and management consulting firm where he advised clients in various industries such as hospitality, renewable energy, real estate, healthcare, financial services, nutrition and social networking and helped with funding requirements, private placements, business process redesign, business planning, devising marketing, business development and go-to-market strategies, mentoring entrepreneurs, structuring MBO’s and LBO’s and consulting to executive management. Nikhil has consulted to various Fortune 500 clients in industries such as retail, utilities, manufacturing, healthcare and helped with implementing multi-million dollar projects and advising on mergers and acquisitions.
Nikhil currently sits on the Mentoring Committee of the Los Angeles Business Technology Center and the Executive Committee of the Caltech MIT Enterprise Forum. He is the Founder of OnGreen, Inc., which is on its way to becoming the world’s largest clearinghouse and marketplace for greentech. Nikhil has a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MBA in Finance from USC’s Marshall School of Business.
Date
Saturday morning, June 11, 2011
Location
Registration and Continental Breakfast:
8:00 a.m. at Baxter Hall, Caltech
Program:
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at Baxter Lecture Hall
Networking:
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon at Baxter Hall, Caltech
Cost
$40 on-line registration fee. $50 at-the-door. $10 for students with full-time student ID and free for Caltech students (must show ID at door). Registrations are taken on-line up to 5:00pm on Thursday, June 9, 2011. There are no refunds for no-shows.
