Due to a last minute change, I’ll be taking Brandon’s spot on the panel Why Challenge Prizes are the future of Innovation. If you’re at SXSW, come and check it out. Everyone on the panel is fantastic:
Billy Bicket is the Director of NetSquared, a social-technology initiative of TechSoup Global. Billy spends his days working to develop and convene networks of people working at the intersection of technology and social change. In the community, Billy leads a cadre of +60 Community Organizers focused on convening +30,000 entrepreneurial developers, designers, researchers and business people working on developing practical solutions to some of our most pressing social issues. NetSquared powers face-to-face events happening in 18 countires and 63 cities around the world. On the resource side of the equation, Billy works with government agencies, academia, technology companies and philanthropists to develop innovative programs that help partners meet research, development and philanthropic goals. Under Billy’s leadership over the last 4 years, NetSquared’s community-driven approach to innovation has distributed +$300k in cash awards to social innovation projects, and has provided support to +700 projects. He has been instrumental in developing partnerships with luminary organizations such as the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center, USAID, Vodafone, Microsoft and Yahoo!. Learn more about Billy here www.linkedin.com/in/billybicket.
Chris Volinsky is Executive Director of the Statistics Research Department at AT&T Labs-Research in Florham Park, N.J. Chris got his PhD from the University of Washington in 1997 studying Bayesian Model Averaging. He joined AT&T in 1997 and became Director of the Statistics Research Department in 2004. His research at AT&T focuses on large scale data mining: recommendation systems, social networks, statistical computation, and anomaly detection. In 2009, Chris was a member of the 7-person, 4-country team BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos that won the $1M Netflix Prize, an open competition for improving Netflix’ online recommendation system.
Brandon Kessler is the founder and CEO of ChallengePost, a New York City-based start-up that serves as a marketplace for challenges. Prior to that, Kessler founded independent record label Messenger Records which was repeatedly singled out for its early embrace of the internet, and its creative use of grassroots promotions. Before Messenger Records and while in college, he founded a college radio promotion company and a street marketing promotion company. Kessler holds undergraduate and MBA degrees from Columbia University.
I’m on a panel at SXSW
Due to a last minute change, I’ll be taking Brandon’s spot on the panel Why Challenge Prizes are the future of Innovation. If you’re at SXSW, come and check it out. Everyone on the panel is fantastic:
NetSquared/Techsoup.org
Billy Bicket is the Director of NetSquared, a social-technology initiative of TechSoup Global. Billy spends his days working to develop and convene networks of people working at the intersection of technology and social change. In the community, Billy leads a cadre of +60 Community Organizers focused on convening +30,000 entrepreneurial developers, designers, researchers and business people working on developing practical solutions to some of our most pressing social issues. NetSquared powers face-to-face events happening in 18 countires and 63 cities around the world. On the resource side of the equation, Billy works with government agencies, academia, technology companies and philanthropists to develop innovative programs that help partners meet research, development and philanthropic goals. Under Billy’s leadership over the last 4 years, NetSquared’s community-driven approach to innovation has distributed +$300k in cash awards to social innovation projects, and has provided support to +700 projects. He has been instrumental in developing partnerships with luminary organizations such as the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center, USAID, Vodafone, Microsoft and Yahoo!. Learn more about Billy here www.linkedin.com/in/billybicket.
AT&T Research
Chris Volinsky is Executive Director of the Statistics Research Department at AT&T Labs-Research in Florham Park, N.J. Chris got his PhD from the University of Washington in 1997 studying Bayesian Model Averaging. He joined AT&T in 1997 and became Director of the Statistics Research Department in 2004. His research at AT&T focuses on large scale data mining: recommendation systems, social networks, statistical computation, and anomaly detection. In 2009, Chris was a member of the 7-person, 4-country team BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos that won the $1M Netflix Prize, an open competition for improving Netflix’ online recommendation system.
ChallengePost
Brandon Kessler is the founder and CEO of ChallengePost, a New York City-based start-up that serves as a marketplace for challenges. Prior to that, Kessler founded independent record label Messenger Records which was repeatedly singled out for its early embrace of the internet, and its creative use of grassroots promotions. Before Messenger Records and while in college, he founded a college radio promotion company and a street marketing promotion company. Kessler holds undergraduate and MBA degrees from Columbia University.
VentureBeat
Google
Responsible for the $30 Million Googles Lunar X-Prize