Panel: Challenge of the Start - Launching New BPCs
Panel: Funding Your Successful Competition
Panel: Attracting Participants and Creating Teams
Panel: Optimal IT Solutions for BPCs
Panel: Improving Quality of Plans through Judges and Mentors
Panel: Helping Teams Raise Their own Money
Panel: How to Create Successful Alumni Companies
Challenges Facing Participants: Group 1,2,3,4
Panel: Incorporating the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem into a Nation's Development Strategy
Panel: The Entrepreneur's Vision On Leveraging the Entrepreneurial Support Network
Panel: The Role of Financing in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Panel: Public policies and legal structures: The Role of the Government in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
Panel: The Role of Educational Institutions and NGOs in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Panel: Challenge of the Start - Launching New BPCs

Sharon Bamford (Chief Exec - Scottish Institute for the Enterprise)

Sharon M Bamford is CEO of The Scottish Institute for Enterprise , (SIE), a UK government initiative that embraces all 13 of Scotland 's universities. It's primary objectives are to stimulate an interest in enterprise, embed enterprise education and create sustainable businesses within the science, engineering and technology student population.

Having started 5 companies ranging through international project management consultancy, drilling simulation in the oil and gas industry to Montessori pre-schools; lectured  in entrepreneurship at the Robert Gordon University, managed an incubator facility, nurturing 14 young high tech start-up and spin-out companies and Director of the University of Edinburgh's flagship £100 million science park development, she is able to identify with the often conflicting agenda's of government, universities, SME's and investors in the economic development arena.

In her 'spare time' she mentors young companies for the Princes Scottish Youth Business Trust, is an Advisory Board member of Technology Ventures Scotland and the University of Edinburgh student entrepreneurship society and is visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship at ESC Clermont Ferrand, France.

Markus Wolf ( Netzwerk-Nordbayern , Germany )

Markus Wolf studied business administration with the majors marketing and international management. He finished his studies as best of class and gained some foreign experiences in the USA and Switzerland .

In 1998 he founded an internet startup witch he sold in 2002 to an international media company. After that he worked for the defacto group (600 employees) in the department of strategic development.

Since 2003 he works for netzwerk-nordbayern as project manager for the Northern Bavarian Businessplan Competition ?Germanys most successful business plan and entrepreneurship network.

Additional to the project management he builds up the Lithuanian Business Plan Competition (Verslo Plano Turnyras) in Vilnius as a consultant for about 9 month.

Currently he is also member of the SUN & SUP project. Target of these EU project was to work out suggestions how to improve Start-Up development on an EU-wide basis. He represents one of the SUPs (service providers) and presented the conjointly developed ideas on several meetings for e.g. in Vienna , Barcelona and Paris .

Additional Markus is a doctorate student at the HHL Graduade school of Management , associate lecturer at the universities of applied sciences in Schweinfurt and Ansbach and acting partner of the wt-consulting-group.

Silvia Torres de Carbonell (IAE - Endeavor - Argentina)

Silvia is a Full Time Professor at IAE Business School, Austral University, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, founder and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the same School, and Managing Director and Board member of Fundación Endeavor Argentina, an international non- profit organization with the mission to pioneer a new approach to global development. Since 1999, she is the Director of the Argentinean GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) research team, and has been recently elected as a Board member at the global level of GERA , the organization that leads the GEM Project. She has been also the Coordinator of the International Development Bank-IAE Cooperation Regional Program for Small and Medium Sized Firms Training.  Last year she was the promoter and a founding member of the IAE Business Angels Club, the first business angels club in Argentina .

As an entrepreneur, she has been co-founder, President and CEO, of Villa Alpina, a water cooler and water bottled company. She has been member of the Board of different companies during the last 15 years.

She has a degree in public accountancy from the Argentinean Catholic University and a post grade degree in Advanced Management Executive Program. Among others, she has completed the Entrepreneurship Development Program at MIT, Sloan School of Management, and the Colloquium on Participant Centered Learning at Harvard Business School .

Silvia was born in Buenos Aires . She is married and has three children.

Jorge Herrera (Genera UC-Univ. Católica-Chile)

He holds a B.A. from Universidad de Santiago de Chile , and an M.B.A. from The Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He is currently a full time professor at the Business School at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Executive Director of Entreprenuership Programas at the university. Member of the board of Genera UC, business incubator. His main tasks include the coordination of both business incubators at the university and the leadership of the business plan competition, Emprende UC. He also works as an independent marketing consultant, specializing in branding strategies. He has co-founded two companies and has been executive en several corporations, such as Telefónica CTC Chile and Coca-Cola.

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Panel: Funding Your Successful Competition

Jason Fuller (MIT $100K)

Jason is the current co-lead organizer of the MIT $100K competition, and a Doctorial Candidate in the Langer Lab at MIT. He has been involved as an officer in many entrepreneurial student groups at MIT and Cambridge University including MIT TechLink, MIT Venture Capital and Private Equity Club, and Cambridge University Technology and Enterprise Club. Jason's background is in Engineering and Immunology and he has been worked for two multinational companies and a number of startups.

Johannes Eng (Venture Cup Sweden )

Johannes has been working with Venture Cup for two and a half year and during the last year Venture Cup West has doubled their amount of contributions to the competition. Venture Cup started up in Gothenburg , Sweden , but is now spread throughout Scandinavia as one of the biggest BPC's in the world. Only in Sweden there are now more than 1 000 alumni companies, and the successful competition from the founder McKinsey & Company is still growing.

Jasdeep Singh (SparkPLUG; Cambridge University )

Jasdeep is the CEO & co-founder of Cambridge sparkPLUG International. sparkPLUG is a spin-off from the University of Cambridge and was formed as a response to the growing demand for the creation of Business plan competitions (BPCs). It pools together the cream of Business Plan Competition organizers from around the world and consults universities, governments, and private sector in starting and developing BPCs to kick-start and invigorate their entrepreneurship programmes. Previous to this assignment, he was the President (03-04) and then the Chairman (04-05) of the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE). During his tenure, CUE started the not-for-profit BPC alongside its trademark £100K competition. The Global Startup Workshop was also organized the same year at Cambridge where the concept of Globe-c, a portal for seamless network for the whole value chain of the BPC community, was initiated. Jasdeep is presently the Chief editor & co-founder of Globe-c.

José Dapena (CEMA ?Argentina)

He earned his undergraduate degree in Public Accounting in 1993 form Universidad Católica de Cordoba, his MSc in Finance from London School of Economics, and his PhD in Economics from UCEMA . In his professional career he has worked for Liggett Argentina S.A. in budgeting and control ; for Control Federal de Ahorro of the Inspección General de Justicia de la Nacion; in budgeting and control of Organización Bagó, and in the consulting department of Laham y Asociados Consultores y Auditores. He has been Director of the MBA at UCEMA, and is currently professor in Economics and Finance and member of the Board of Directors of Fundación Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires . He runs the Centro de Investigaciones en Management, Entrepreneurship e Inversiones under which the CEMA Entrepreneurship Contest has been launched six years ago, situating the competition as one of the most respected in Argentina .

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Panel: Attracting Participants and Creating Teams

Seena Rejal (CEO SpurkPlug)

Seena Rejal is Chairman and Co-Founder of Cambridge SparkPLUG International (www.e-sparkplug.com), an organisation dedicated to the development of business plan competitions and the wider entrepreneurship infrastructure in universities, regional economies and corporations. He is also Chairman and Co-Founder of GLOBE-C ( www.globe-c.net ), the online forum and resource for business plan competition organisers around the world.

Liz Baylis (Scottish Institute for the Enterprise )

Elisabeth has been working for the Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE) for 2 years now. Her involvement began whilst she was at University where she represented SIE as a Student Intern; since graduating in July 2005 she has gone on to join core team as a Project Executive and the National Intern Coordinator. Elisabeth's areas of responsibility include managing 30 student Interns across all 20 Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Scotland, developing national and international linkages with other student enterprise organizations, project managing aspects of the annual National Student Enterprise Summit and SIE's National Business Plan Competition (including the co-ordination of 20 Local competitions at each HEI), and is Editor of SIE's student enterprise magazine Ignite.  

Johannes Eng (Venture Cup Sweden ) Johannes has been working with Venture Cup for two and a half year and during the last year Venture Cup West has doubled their amount of contributions to the competition. Venture Cup started up in Gothenburg , Sweden , but is now spread throughout Scandinavia as one of the biggest BPC's in the world. Only in Sweden there are now more than 1 000 alumni companies, and the successful competition from the founder McKinsey & Company is still growing.

Darío Caresani

Since 2000, Mr. Caresani has been Director General de Tecnología of the Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. He is also in charge of the Unidad Ejecutora of the Law Nº294, focused on supporting technological and scientific research of the Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires.

He earned a Master's degree in Policy and Management of Science & Tecnology, with a specialization in Technological Management, from Universidad de Buenos Aires. He has experience in design and development of public policies related to productive systems, innovative growth, and high-tech institutions.

He is currently a member of the Consejo Consultivo Nacional for the Law of Promotion of Technological Innovation and has also participated in the Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Institutional Strength Projects of our national provinces.

He is also a Professor of Engineering at the La Plata and Lomas de Zamora Universities since 1991.

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Panel: Optimal IT Solutions for BPCs

Victoria Larke (LaunchPad $100K - Canada)

The Laurier's School of Business & Economics is one of the largest business schools in Canada .  Since starting in her position two years ago, a few months after the establishment of the Schlegel Center for Entrepreneurship, the number of extra-curricular entrepreneurship programs have quadrupled and the number of academic courses has tripled.
Victoria is a Member of the Advisory Board for LaunchPad $100K - run jointly by Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo . The board makes all major decisions related to the competition (i.e. rules/requirements, sponsorship, judging, mentoring etc.)

Victoria is also a member of the LaunchPad $100K Organizing Team: she oversaw student development and maintenance of the competition web site, student marketing/communications activities, and event management

Mikkel Kinnerup (Director Venture Cup Danmark)

Mikkel has been the Managing Director of Venture Cup Denmark since 2004. He has 12 years of experience in IT as technical specialist and self employed IT consultant. Mikkel received a Master in Business Administration and Computer Science, focusing his thesis on the innovation processes. Mikkel also spent a semester in Dallas , Texas and one year with the Danish Trade Commission in Silicon Valley as trade specialist for Danish IT start-up companies.

Venture Cup | Danmark is a leading player in terms of technology transfer and entrepreneurship. The yearly business plan competition brings together high-achieving participants from universities and business schools in Denmark . The goal of Venture Cup | Danmark is to help participants to turn their research and business ideas into professional business plans with support from an extensive network of venture capital organizations, corporate managers, advisors, science parks and academics.

Markus Wolf ( Netzwerk-Nordbayern , Germany )

Markus Wolf studied business administration with the majors marketing and international management. He finished his studies as best of class and gained some foreign experiences in the USA and Switzerland .

In 1998 he founded an internet startup witch he sold in 2002 to an international media company. After that he worked for the defacto group (600 employees) in the department of strategic development.

Since 2003 he works for netzwerk-nordbayern as project manager for the Northern Bavarian Businessplan Competition ?Germanys most successful business plan and entrepreneurship network.

Additional to the project management he builds up the Lithuanian Business Plan Competition (Verslo Plano Turnyras) in Vilnius as a consultant for about 9 month.

Currently he is also member of the SUN & SUP project. Target of these EU project was to work out suggestions how to improve Start-Up development on an EU-wide basis. He represents one of the SUPs (service providers) and presented the conjointly developed ideas on several meetings for e.g. in Vienna , Barcelona and Paris .

Additional Markus is a doctorate student at the HHL Graduade school of Management , associate lecturer at the universities of applied sciences in Schweinfurt and Ansbach and acting partner of the wt-consulting-group.

Gustavo Daniel Céttolo (CEMA - Argentina)

Senior Lecturer at the UCEMA MBA Program and the Universidad Nacional de Rosario on the topics of Entrepreneurship and Managing Entrepreneurial Organizations. Since 2002 he has led the UCEMA Business Plan Competition, one of the oldest BPCs in the country. He received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1992 from Universidad Tecnologica Nacional. In 1998 he received his MBA from University of CEMA and in 1999 he participated in an MBA Exchange Program at the Anderson School at UCLA, where he specialized in Entrepreneurship. Gustavo has also been involved as an Entrepreneurial Organization Consultant at several new ventures in Argentina , Chile , Peru , Venezuela and Costa Rica .

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Panel: Improving Quality of Plans through Judges and Mentors

Silvia Torres de Carbonell (IAE - Endeavor - Argentina)

Silvia is a Full Time Professor at IAE Business School, Austral University, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, founder and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the same School, and Managing Director and Board member of Fundación Endeavor Argentina, an international non- profit organization with the mission to pioneer a new approach to global development. Since 1999, she is the Director of the Argentinean GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) research team, and has been recently elected as a Board member at the global level of GERA , the organization that leads the GEM Project. She has been also the Coordinator of the International Development Bank-IAE Cooperation Regional Program for Small and Medium Sized Firms Training.  Last year she was the promoter and a founding member of the IAE Business Angels Club, the first business angels club in Argentina .

As an entrepreneur, she has been co-founder, President and CEO, of Villa Alpina, a water cooler and water bottled company. She has been member of the Board of different companies during the last 15 years.

She has a degree in public accountancy from the Argentinean Catholic University and a post grade degree in Advanced Management Executive Program. Among others, she has completed the Entrepreneurship Development Program at MIT, Sloan School of Management, and the Colloquium on Participant Centered Learning at Harvard Business School .

Silvia was born in Buenos Aires . She is married and has three children.

Derk Norde (Founder of Fair Ventures & BiD Challenge Netherlands )

Derk Norde (12-02-1974) studied Population Biology at the University of Amsterdam . After his graduation and a 2-year adventure as internet-entrepreneur, he completed a European postgraduate course for environmental management. He was also an adviser for the Dutch Liberal Democrats in Parliament (environmental policy and international development cooperation). In 2003 Derk Norde founded the company Fair Ventures (FV) with John van Duursen. Initially FV focused on building sustainable businesses in developing countries. FV was often confronted with on the one hand the relative simple needs of start-ups that could not be met by a lack of information and on the other the many donor-projects with untapped business potential. Subsequently FV ?in cooperation with the NCDO- developed the Business in Development (BiD) Challenge, an international business plan competition for poverty reduction and profit. After the success of the first edition in 2004/05 the second edition is being held this year with the support of both non-profit and private sector partners.  The BiD Challenge aims to supply a simple and hands-on ‘tool' for private sector development in developing countries. www.bidchallenge.org

Elizabeth Tsai (MIT $100K)

Elizabeth Tsai is a graduating senior in MIT's Sloan School of Management undergraduate program. She has been involved with the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition organizing team since her freshman year, serving previously as the alumni newsletter project manager and alumni events co-coordinator. Currently, she manages the judging sessions as the judging lead. Outside of her involvement in the MIT $100K, Elizabeth founded an MIT local committee for IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience), an international technical internship exchange program. Through IAESTE, she spent her sophomore summer in China interning in the purchasing department of Shanghai Huizhong Automotive Manufacturing. She is also an active member of MIT Asian Christian Fellowship, where she has led a Bible study for two years. In the fall, Elizabeth will join the Dallas office of the Boston Consulting Group.

Mr. Juan Manuel Forn , born in Buenos Aires in 1943, is a graduate of the School of Law , University of Buenos Aires . In 1974 he earned an MBA degree at IMEDE (currently IMD) in Lausanne , Switzerland . From 1999 to 2005 Mr. Forn was CEO of Molinos Río de la Plata, a leading Argentine food company, controlled by the Perez Companc family. Currently he is the Vice Chairman of the Board. In the 90's Mr. Forn held several international assignments at Philip Morris International. His last position, based in New York , was regional president in charge of the food and tobacco business in all of Latin America except Mercosur. Between 1969 and 1987 Mr. Forn pursued an international banking career with Bank of America, in the UK , Spain and Argentina , where he became Senior Vice President ( Argentina and Uruguay ). In 2005, Molinos sales reached 1 billion U.S. dollars. The company business is strategically divided into branded products, on the one hand, and crushing and exports of soymeal, sunflower oil and soybean oil on the other. Molinos is the local market leader in vegetable oil, consumer flour, dry pasta, frozen foods, franks and dry-mixes, a strong second in rice, hams and yerba mate, and the second largest exporter in the world of branded cooking oil. Mr. Forn is Vice Chairman of COPAL (Argentine Food Business Association), Vice Chairman of IDEA (Entrepreneurial Development Institute of Argentina) and Treasurer of UIA (Argentine Industrial Union)

Managing Director of Ventures, the most important entrepreneurship competition in Colombia , which is co-hosted by Dinero Magazine and McKinsey & Co. Business Administrator with a Masters degree in International Business Management and Strategic Marketing Management. High skills in project development and marketing. High level of commitment, teamwork, negotiation, adaptability, strict planner and efficient execution. Well-organized and time management and creative. Strict ethics and moral values.

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Panel: Helping Teams Raise Their own Money

Jasdeep Singh (SparkPLUG; Cambridge University )

Jasdeep is the President of Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE). In his tenure, CUE, a student society, has evolved significantly and furthered its presence globally in the area of entrepreneurship. It has started a new green entrepreneurship competition named ?P' for its focus on people, planet and productivity and will host the 7th Global StartUp Workshop. Also, the society now awards prize money of £100,000, highest globally, through three streams of competitions (£100K, £1K, 3P) and has seen an increase of 50% in entries to the business plan competitions. Prior to being the lead organizer, he was responsible for the treasury and the sponsorship in the Year 2002-3. Jasdeep did his bachelors at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and majored in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology. He continued with his masters' degree at I.I.T. Delhi securing All India Rank 1 in GATE 2000. Jasdeep is presently pursuing Doctorate degree in Advanced Chemical Engineering Practice at the University of Cambridge and Massachusetts Institute of Technology through the CMI program. He is on Pochobradsky studentship, a scholarship awarded once in three years to a student studying the area of Combustion science.

Rebeca Hwang (Stanford e-Challenge)

Rebeca currently leads BASES Social e-challenge competition at Stanford University . She is also the Judging chair and co-chair of Stanford Relations for the CaCleanTech business competition. As a former winner of MIT's IDEAS competition and finalist at the 100K competition, Rebeca enjoys promoting the commercialization of innovative business ideas that contribute to solve environmental problems. Rebeca holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT. She is currently pursuing a PhD program in the Interdisciplinary Program on Environmental Resources at Stanford.

Rebeca's work experience is eclectic. She has worked on consulting on fuel cells, on designing energy and water efficient household devices, on inventions and intellectual patents, and on bringing water to poor populations of Latin America .

Lawrence Walmsley (MIT $100K)

Lawrence A. Walmsley is a joint degree candidate between the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the Co-Lead Organizer of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Prior to graduate school, Mr. Walmsley worked as an Investment Banker in New York and Miami . He holds a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University .

Eduardo Garrido (Banco Rio - Argentina)

Eduardo Garrido has an Industrial Engineering degree from the University of Buenos Aires and has earned an MBA from the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid .

Currently, he is the Manager of the Programa Universidades at Banco Rio de la Plata S. A. (Grupo Santander). This program oversees the Premio Emprendedores Banco Rio ­ a business plan competition that works with a network of universities from all over the country. Since joining the bank in 1995, Mr. Garrido has had different management positions, in particular as Manager of Organization & Quality and also Manager of Comercial Operations.

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Panel: How to Create Successful Alumni Companies

Gary Palin (Exec Director Entrepreneurship Education Initiative, NC State University )

Gary Palin is the Executive Director of the NC State University College of Management Entrepreneurship Education Initiative and a faculty member of the Department of Business Management. He brings a unique combination of 27 years experience in both the academic and business communities. He founded the Entrepreneurship Education Initiative at NC State in 1993. Palin's areas of expertise include new venture development, intrapreneurship, and venture growth. Palin is an active member of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, International Council for Small Business, National Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers, Academy of Management , North Carolina Center for Entrepreneurial Development, and the North Carolina Chapter of Triangle Indus Entrepreneurs.

Palin earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Management in 1978 from Providence College and a Masters of Business Administration from Bryant College in 1986. He has served as Director of NC State University's Small Business Technology and Development Center where he assisted hundreds of business launches, expansions, and acquisitions. He has developed executive education programs in business planning, new venture launches, and technology commercialization. He has consulted for numerous entrepreneurial business ventures and also with major corporations such as Texas Instruments, FMC Corporation, and Thomas Register. Palin serves on a number of high growth company advisory boards and is currently involved in several business development projects.

Manuela Croatto (Italian Innovation National Award (PNI))

Manuela Croatto Born in Italy 1961, May 2

Law Degree and Postgraduate management studies

Head of Research Services Division, University of Udine , North-east Italy

Project manager of Italian National Innovation Award

Research Services Division encourages collaboration with industry, and fosters research partnerships between companies and academics for mutual benefit. We attend a professional service to academics and University Departments, providing training, information, advice and guidance on all aspects of research funding. We also take care on Patenting and Licensing opportunities . We assist potential entrepreneurs to transform innovative ideas in Spin off companies.

We organise the Business Plan Competition “Start Cup? and in 2006, the Italian National Innovation Award, PNI , the competition which brings together the winners of the local Business Plan Competitions promoted by the 12 Italian Universities participating in the Award, and which award the best technological start-ups of the year.

In short, the Innovation Awards, launched by the Italian Universities in 2000, are competitions between entrepreneurial ideas with a high technological content.

Rebeca Hwang (Stanford e-Challenge)

Rebeca currently leads BASES Social e-challenge competition at Stanford University . She is also the Judging chair and co-chair of Stanford Relations for the CaCleanTech business competition. As a former winner of MIT's IDEAS competition and finalist at the 100K competition, Rebeca enjoys promoting the commercialization of innovative business ideas that contribute to solve environmental problems. Rebeca holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a Masters in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT. She is currently pursuing a PhD program in the Interdisciplinary Program on Environmental Resources at Stanford.

Rebeca's work experience is eclectic. She has worked on consulting on fuel cells, on designing energy and water efficient household devices, on inventions and intellectual patents, and on bringing water to poor populations of Latin America .

D. Miguez (EMPREAR - Argentina )

Industrial Engineer at Buenos Aires Institute of Technology (ITBA, Argentina), specialized in Management (UCI, USA) and Entrepreneurship (IESE, Spain; MIT, USA; Endeavor, Argentina). Co-founder and President of EMPREAR ( Emprendedores Argentinos Association), NGO that found and runs the ITBA entrepreneurship center, and actually co-funding the Entrepreneurship Consortium. Advisor and mentor of entrepreneurs at the start-up development program which has supported the creation of more than 20 high potential alumni start-ups. Founder and professor of graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurship programs and cathedras at ITBA University and ITBA e-center / EMPREAR. Professor of Strategic Planning and Business Administration. Co-founder of the S.O.L Argentina (Society for Organizational Learning) where he is instructor at Human Dynamics workshops. Director of AGITBA (Alumni Association at ITBA). Judge at Business Plan Competitions (i.e: CEMA; Santander, Banco Rio, Universia; Venture Capital Forums). As an entrepreneur has co-found and ran profit and non-profit organizations.

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Challenges Facing Participants: Group 1

Juan Cordoba (Director of Intellectual Property/Licensing at SBC Knowledge Ventures)

Juan C. Cordoba is the Director of Business Development for AT&T Knowledge Ventures, the intellectual property management and marketing unit of the AT&T family of companies. His responsibilities include licensing the company's intellectual property assets such as software and patents. Prior to working with AT&T Knowledge Ventures, Mr. Cordoba worked with Prodigy, a partly owned company by Telmex, where he led the technology transfer efforts between Telmex and Prodigy. Additionally, Mr. Cordoba was responsible for web enabling the fastest growing division of Lucent Technologies. He also founded his own supply chain management software company targeting the Latin American market while at MIT.

Mr. Cordoba graduated with Honors from the University of Florida , where he majored in Mechanical Engineering. He received his MS in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration on computational heat transfer modeling from Purdue University . He complemented his engineering studies with executive education in International Business Management at Georgetown University , and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT with a concentration in E-Business and Marketing.

Seena Rejal (CEO SpurkPlug)

Seena Rejal is Chairman and Co-Founder of Cambridge SparkPLUG International (www.e-sparkplug.com), an organisation dedicated to the development of business plan competitions and the wider entrepreneurship infrastructure in universities, regional economies and corporations. He is also Chairman and Co-Founder of GLOBE-C ( www.globe-c.net ), the online forum and resource for business plan competition organisers around the world.

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Panel: Incorporating the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem into a Nation's Development Strategy

Johnny Su (Founder and CEO Advantech Foundation / APEC)

Johnny Su is the founder and chief executive officer of the Advantech Foundation, the philanthropic outlet of Advantech Corporation —where he has been a member of the board for eight years. The Advantech Foundation's efforts have even been recognized by the Taiwan Ministry of Economy, which honored the Foundation with the first-ever award for “Best Model for Social Innovation Promotion?in 200 3, also Johnny organized TIC100 mentor group to found the TICa (Talentrepreneur Innovation Collaboration association international) to hold global internship and talentrepreneurship curriculum in Taiwan. He has also had experience at IBM Taiwan , and at the Burroughs Company. Additionally, he has taught entrepreneurship courses at the Yunlin Technology University . Johnny is the recipient of the Social Education Personal Contribution award for Taiwan in 2000, which was given for his contributions to society through the Advantech Foundation and other activities in which he is involved. The ACT100 (Active and Creative Teaching) project is one such activity in which he has played a major role, as it was initiated in 1994 and has included the participation of teachers, principals, and parents from Taiwan , Malaysia, and Hong Kong in an effort to design a learning model and teacher training system to strengthen elementary education. This learning model has also been the basis of the TIC100 Entrepreneur Competition , which was first organized by the Advantech Foundation in 1999, and takes a creative as well as an entrepreneurial approach to learning by inviting potential entrepreneurs to present their business plans and product prototypes to various industry leaders in an effort to promote collaboration and innovation. This year marks the eighth year of the TIC100 , and it is expected that many new ideas and opportunities will arise from the combination of academia and expertise that has come to define TIC100. Johnny also founded the Taiwan Start-Up Competition under the Ministry of Economy, and has been a judge and speaker for a Taiwan cultural development project. His leadership at Advantech and as a societal leader has long inspired the creativity and innovation of those around him, as he has constantly been driven to create a learning environment conducive to the growth and advancement of society.

Derk Norde (Founder of Fair Ventures & BiD Challenge Netherlands )

Derk Norde (12-02-1974) studied Population Biology at the University of Amsterdam . After his graduation and a 2-year adventure as internet-entrepreneur, he completed a European postgraduate course for environmental management. He was also an adviser for the Dutch Liberal Democrats in Parliament (environmental policy and international development cooperation).

In 2003 Derk Norde founded the company Fair Ventures (FV) with John van Duursen. Initially FV focused on building sustainable businesses in developing countries. FV was often confronted with on the one hand the relative simple needs of start-ups that could not be met by a lack of information and on the other the many donor-projects with untapped business potential. Subsequently FV ?in cooperation with the NCDO- developed the Business in Development (BiD) Challenge, an international business plan competition for poverty reduction and profit. After the success of the first edition in 2004/05 the second edition is being held this year with the support of both non-profit and private sector partners.  The BiD Challenge aims to supply a simple and hands-on ‘tool' for private sector development in developing countries. www.bidchallenge.org

Alexandre Araujo ( Sebrae - Brazil )

Graduated in Economics at the University of Illinois (M.S in Economics) and also specialized in Finance at Vanderbilt University and Brazilian Institute of Capital Markets (IBMEC).

In the past ten years, he has been dedicating his professional career to the Brazilian Support Services for Small Business (Sebrae), developing and coordinating programs and strategies to improve Small Business performance and financial services access.

In partnership with a large network, I planned and executed a Microfinance and Credit Union Business Support Programs for several institutions dealing with small business. Technical and financial support was carefully designed and delivered.

He has been engaged in many working groups dealing with information and  regulatory framework improvements to better meet Small Business demands in their access to technology and financial services. 

Sofía Chang (CORFO - Chile )

Sofía Chang, Industrial Engineer has been involved since 1998 in project management and public policy issues to support the development of education and universities.

She has also worked in the private sector as Project Manager for the Cosapi Group in Perú where she has developed ICT solutions for the public and private sectors.

From 2002 to 2005, she collaborated in the southern region of Chile for Intec/Fundación Chile as executive for improving the competitive environment of several clusters in the area. There she also participated in developing a regional business incubation program, a pioneer initiative for the Bio-Bio Region in the south of the country.

Since 2005 under Innova Chile ?Corfo she has been operating as specialist in business incubators, seed capital programs and other public policies tools to support entrepreneurship.

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Panel: The Entrepreneur's Vision On Leveraging the Entrepreneurial Support Network

Mashad (Endeavor Argentina )

He is Chief Operating Officer of Endeavor Argentina , from where he has contributed to develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Buenos Aires and the interior of Argentina . Before joining this organization he worked as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, participating in projects in different countries of Latin America ; and before this was part of Techint, leading projects in the construction industry. Alejandro holds a Civil Engineering degree from the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, and an MBA from IESE, Universidad de Navarra, Barcelona , Spain .

Jose Pacheco (MIT E-Center)

José Pacheco works closely with the Managing Director, Chairman and other members of the E-Center's team to build, develop and sustain the E-Center's research and educational programs, events, publications, alumni outreach, and networking activities. He promotes the MIT Entrepreneurship Center 's courses, programs and activities throughout MIT, manages relations with MIT faculty, students and alumni, as well as entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and private and corporate donors.

J. Altszul (CORE - Argentina)

Jonatan Altszul is the co-founder of Core Security Technologies and the Chairman of its Board of Directors. Core Security Technologies develops strategic security solutions for Fortune 1000 corporations, government agencies and military organizations. The company, founded in Buenos Aires and now headquartered in Boston , offers information security software and services designed to assess risk and protect and manage information assets.

Prior to founding CORE, Mr. Altszul was a member of the Special Projects Group at the Argentine tax agency. This elite group evaluated and developed critical hardware and software security products for the agency in projects with budgets of up to $500M. Before that, in 1989 he founded and, until 1992, served as the CEO of Datyl Systems, a company that developed the first commercial Geographical Information Systems software in Latin America . Also, in 1999, he co-founded Movilogic, a mobile solutions company based in Buenos Aires .

In 2000, while leading CORE as its CEO, Endeavor Global, Inc., a non-profit supporter of entrepreneurship in emerging markets, selected Mr. Altszul as a top entrepreneur of the year. Jonatan Altszul actively supports the development of the High Tech Sector in Argentina .

Mr. Altszul is the proud father of two children, Olivia and Tadeo.

José Augusto Pereira da Silva (Pipeway - Brasil)

José Augusto Pereira da Silva founded PipeWay in 1998 ?unique company from southern hemisphere to produce and operate tools for oil and gas pipeline inspection. Today, almost ten years in this market, PipeWay has conquered important clients in Brazil and in the international market place. Besides, using Brazilian technology (from Petrobras Research Center - Cenpes) and its power of innovation, PipeWay is completely settled in the national market and in Latin America . As strategy of internationalization, PipeWay has partners who play all over the world.

Thanks to creative ideas and enterprising actions, Guto (how is known José Augusto Pereira da Silva) collects many prizes during his career and achieved also the status of enterprising Endeavor. Master in Engineering of Telecom ?Rio de Janeiro PUC University ?Guto is conscious about the importance of the exchange between market and university and practices this concept in business field.

To have an idea of PipeWay case of success the company began operations in a room of 30 m2 with just seven employees, at Genesis Institute, witch belongs to PUC-Rio. Today, PipeWay works in 1.500 m2 , in Rio de Janeiro , where a team of 34 specialists, technical and researchers develop and produce the tools of inspections (PIG, GIP and others), creating new services. PipeWay keeps alive a strong link with many research centers, including Cenpes, of Petrobras. Per year, PipeWay invest 12% of its profits in studies of new technologies. Besides, PipeWay activities are socially responsible and its clients have the mentality to regularly inspect their pipelines, what can avoid environmental accidents.

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Panel: The Role of Financing in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Jose Pacheco (MIT E-Center)

José Pacheco works closely with the Managing Director, Chairman and other members of the E-Center's team to build, develop and sustain the E-Center's research and educational programs, events, publications, alumni outreach, and networking activities. He promotes the MIT Entrepreneurship Center 's courses, programs and activities throughout MIT, manages relations with MIT faculty, students and alumni, as well as entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and private and corporate donors.

Rodrigo Villar (Mexico Managing Director for New Ventures)

Rodrigo Villar Esquivel is the Managing Director of New Ventures México; a program aimed to accelerate the growth of sustainable enterprise through venture capital investment. During the course of Rodrigo's management, New Ventures Mexico has turn into one of the top business accelerators in Mexico regardless of its sustainable focus. Previously, he served as Project Manager for Spangaro Systems Pty. Ltd, coordinating funding activities of hi-tech ventures in Australia . He has occupied several financial positions at Desc, The Dow Chemical Company and Ernst & Young. Rodrigo holds an MBA degree from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and a Bachelors Degree on Accounting and Finance from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.

Pablo Brenner (Prosperitas Uruguay)

Mr. Brenner is a Partner at Prosperitas Capital Partners, the first Venture Capital firm in Uruguay , founded in 2004 and managing a 10 million dollar fund.

Pablo has over 17 years experience in the High Tech Industry. In 1993 he co-founded Alvarion (formerly BreezeCOM) in Israel, bringing the company from a small start up with 2 employees into a $ 120 Million revenue company with 600 employees, going through a successful IPO in NASDAQ in March 2000. At Alvarion Mr. Brenner acted as Vice President of Research and Development at the Tel Aviv Headquarters, and later as VP Latin America being responsible for 20 % of the company's worldwide sales.

Mr Brenner was Director of Technology at Idea Capital (a boutique Brazilian Investment Bank) and Chairman of Taho (a Brazilian Wireless Access Provider). Mr. Brenner has been an active member of International Technical Standards Committees like IEEE 802.11 (today's WiFi) and IETF. Mr. Brenner holds a US patent in “Fast roaming Algorithm's for Frequency Hopping Networks". Currently he is Chairman of the Board for Endeavor Uruguay .

Diego May ( Costa Rica )

Director, IDB / MIF Project focused on Investments in Tech companies

Prior to his current Director position Diego May held the position of Strategic Investment Regional Manager for Intel Capital. In this position he assessed technology companies in the region and served in the board of portfolio companies.

Prior to this Mr. May held different managerial positions with companies in the technology sector in the US and in Latin America such as Verizon Communications and Lucent Technologies. Mr. May also worked with Navigator Technology Ventures ( Boston area VC, part of Draper Labs) assessing the potential of High Tech companies in their early stages.\

Mr. D. May has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge , USA , and an Industrial Engineer degree from Instituto Tecnologico de Buenos Aires in Argentina

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Panel: Public policies and legal structures: The Role of the Government in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Juan Cordoba (Director of Intellectual Property/Licensing at SBC Knowledge Ventures)

Juan C. Cordoba is the Director of Business Development for AT&T Knowledge Ventures, the intellectual property management and marketing unit of the AT&T family of companies. His responsibilities include licensing the company's intellectual property assets such as software and patents. Prior to working with AT&T Knowledge Ventures, Mr. Cordoba worked with Prodigy, a partly owned company by Telmex, where he led the technology transfer efforts between Telmex and Prodigy. Additionally, Mr. Cordoba was responsible for web enabling the fastest growing division of Lucent Technologies. He also founded his own supply chain management software company targeting the Latin American market while at MIT.

Mr. Cordoba graduated with Honors from the University of Florida , where he majored in Mechanical Engineering. He received his MS in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration on computational heat transfer modeling from Purdue University . He complemented his engineering studies with executive education in International Business Management at Georgetown University , and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT with a concentration in E-Business and Marketing.

Valeria Quiroga (FINEP - Brazil)

Valéria Quiroga specializes in Technology Innovation and Industrial Organization. Since 2002 she has been working as an Investment Analyst in the venture capital fund investment unit (INOVAR) at Finep, the Brazilian Agency for Innovation, part of the Ministry of Science and Technology.  Before joining FINEP,  she was a researcher at the business incubator of COPPE/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Valeria has a BA in Economics and an MSc in Production Engineering from COPPE and is currently pursing a law degree at UERJ.  

Catalina Ontaneda (SEAFE-Ecuador)

Catalina is currently the Manager of EMPRENDER , Incubator of Enterprises in Quito , and Executive Director of the Ecuadorian Support Sytem for the Formation of Entreprenuers ( SEAFE) . This system coordinates the creation and sustainability of educational products that promote entrepreneurial capacity on a national level.

Catalina graduated in University ETSU of Tennesse.

She was the Director of Pre-incubation of the Ecuadorian National Network of Business Incubators ( RIEE) and has also worked as financial manager at TEVCOL and as a financial analyst at the Provident Group investment bank.

Her passions are her work and soccer (national selection). Her hobbies are: writing, photography and trekking.

Gustavo Svarzman (GCBA- Argentina)

Gustavo Svarzman is currently the Subsecretary of Production of the Buenos Aires City Government. In addition, he is responsible  for the following governmental agencies: Industry and Commerce, Technology, Employment and Training, and Consumer Protection.

Between 1994 and 2003, Mr. Svarzman pursued several consulting assignments and industry analyses for different public and private organizations (Agreement with the Secretary of Commerce, Di Tella Institute, Argentine Industrial Union-UIA, IDB, Cepal, and others). He has also published several papers related to the economy and commerce.

Gustavo has a bachelor's degree in economics from the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). He has vast experience as a professor .

Before joining his current professional activities,  Mr. Svarzman worked as a consultant and analyst in different industries and organizations, such as Banco Credicoop,

Argentine Treasury Department , and International Economics Center for the Argentine State Department.   

He is fluent in English and convers ational in French and Portuguese.

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Panel: The Role of Educational Institutions and NGOs in the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Mercedes Barcelon (University of the Philippines Ayala Technopark)

Mercedes M. Barcelon is a Senior Manager of Ayala Foundation a corporate foundation of the Ayala Group of Companies in the Philippines . She is the Project Team Lead for the University of the Philippines-Ayala Foundation Tech Project in the UP Diliman campus, a joint experimental facility on technology based enterprises. The Technology Business Incubator (TBI) currently hosts 10 technology startups and is working with multi stakeholders (public and private sectors) including the Philippine Emerging Startups Open Inc., and Philippine Brain Gain Network in helping build an entrepreneurial ecosystem. She holds a Bachelors degree in Psychology and is a graduate of the Asian Institute of Management's Master in Development Management.

Stephanie Dalquist (MIT IDEAS Competition)

Stephanie Dalquist became an Instructor with the Edgerton Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology after studying Chemical Engineering and Technology Policy at the Institute. Her research is on dissemination of technology in developing countries and opportunities for economic development in rural Brazil . With the MIT IDEAS competition, she works regularly with the students who represent the future generation of MIT's engineers and social entrepreneurs.

Ana Muro (B.A. - new venture, Corp. Sustainability)

Ana Muro is researcher at the Instituto de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad Corporativa , were she is in charge of coordinating Corporate Social Responsibility activities. She has an undegraduate degree on Environmental Sciences (Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires ) and she is completing a Masters degree in Sociology of Organizations at the Universidad Católica Argentina . Before she did a Postgraduate Program on Environmental Management and Business Strategy at the Instituto de Estudios para el Management Ambiental (IEMA) -nowadays Instituto de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad Corporativa (IESC)- and a Program delivered by the World Bank: ?Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Competitiveness?. Her current research interests include corporate social responsibility and poverty issues related to business and society. Recent publications include articles in VIII Encontro Nacional sobre Gestão Empresarial e Meio Ambiente na FGV do Rio de Janeiro and Latin American-Business, Environmental, Leadership and Learning Program . She is a member of the International Research Network on Business, Development and Society, that poses critical questions about the role of business in development. The network aims to open spaces for dialogues, debates and action, that contribute to better policy making and practice, and that reflect diverse and underrepresented voices.

Enrique Draier (IECyT-Argentina)

Entrepreneur and investor, is the President of the Institute of Scientific and Technological Entrepreneurship ?IECyT . Faculty, researcher and academic authority in Private and Public Universities . Exercised top business responsibilities in local and international corporations. Founder and Chairman of Trade Associations and non profit organizations related to Technology. Advisor to the Argentine goverment, Canada and other international organizations.

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