Andrew Banks is one of the 'Sharks' on the television series Shark Tank Australia. An Australian entrepreneur, investor, film producer and talent & learning expert, Andrew began his career as an actor. His core business activities have been involved with building and growing companies in the recruiting, training and HR outsourcing space.

Together with Geoff Morgan, Andrew founded Morgan & Banks in early 1985 and grew the company to become the dominant recruitment force in Australia and Asia with a 17% market share before merging with TMP/Monster.com in 1999. In 2005 Andrew launched Talent2 International, which focuses on HR Outsourcing and Executive Search and Selection, with a team of 1,600 professionals operating in 20 countries; it was acquired by Allegis Group in 2014.

Spending time between the US and Asia Pacific, Andrew now focuses on advising clients around senior executive talent and Board appointments; he is a US Film Producer as Lila 9th Founder (Syrup/Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter) and an investor in a few "start-ups" leading to involvement in Shark Tank Australia on Network TEN.

Jim is the Managing Partner of the Boston office of Parker, Ibrahim & Berg, LLC (PIB Law), and is the Chair of the Firm’s Intellectual Property and Patent Group. As a patent attorney, his practice focuses on patent preparation and prosecution in a wide variety of mechanical, electrical and computer arts, as well as opinions and IP portfolio counseling, for clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups. While at PIB Law, Jim started and manages the firms “PIB e.l.i.t.e.” program, which is geared toward helping entrepreneurs grow their business (without the fear of massive legal bills). Prior to PIB Law, Jim was also a partner at a prominent AmLaw 100 law firm with international presence, and has been recognized as a New England Super Lawyers “Rising Star.”

Outside of his legal practice, Jim is an active entrepreneur himself. As founder and CEO of Behmke Ventures, LLC, Jim has started and helped start a number of successful businesses, including being a founding member of PianoArc, LLC, a 2015 Edison Award Gold winner for innovation in entertainment (prior to his joining the Edison Award Steering Committee). Jim is also the inventor on a growing number of issued and pending patents.

Jim graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, and then continued to receive his Juris Doctor from Franklin Pierce Law Center (now the University of New Hampshire School of Law).

Shravan Bharadwaj works with new enclosure technologies, novel materials and processes at Apple. He has worked as a lead in technical manufacturing operations, successfully launching several of Apple’s flagship products. Shravan also invented several advanced manufacturing processes, using robotics and smart automation to drive technical innovation in high-volume manufacturing.

Previously, Shravan worked in design engineering in the United States, India and Japan. His research work focused on smart materials, dynamic systems and mechatronics.

Shravan received his Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Technology from National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India. He is a hobby artist and enjoys conceptual art, sketching and digital creativity.

Sandhiprakash (Sandhi) Bhide is the President of Anwaya Consulting LLC which specializes in consulting and advising Internet of Things (IOT), private equity, hedge fund, and other financial institutions and as well as other professional consulting firms on IOT and digital transformation. Most recently, Sandhi worked as the Director of Innovation/CTO/GM of a $2M internal IOT platform startup at Intel. He developed key strategies beyond product group roadmaps, and advised executive staff on future opportunities and investment areas. He has 35+ years of recognition as an innovator/visionary in leading the strategy, development, implementation of new innovative and profitable products/businesses through acute understanding of the interplay between technologies, UX, and innovative business models. He is considered a recognized expert on Multimodal and Adaptive Interfaces, Context-Aware Computing, Sensors, and end to end IOT systems (semiconductor, platforms, ecosystem, energy harvesting, value chain, AL/ML/DL, analytics, security, UX and other technologies) and digital transformation. His recent focus areas are: IOT and smart (cities, lighting, homes, buildings, retail, offices, healthcare, industrial, energy etc.), wearable and ambient computing, smart/advanced sensors, M2M, & Smart Objects/nodes.

Sandhi has BE in Electronics and Telecommunication from University of Pune, India, MS in Computer Science from University of Wyoming, and Executive MBA in strategic management from University of Oregon. He is a sought out speaker at many IOT conferences worldwide and holds several patents in IOT and high tech. He is also a founder, coordinator, singer of “Soor Aur Saptak™” (Notes and Octave) Bollywood Music Charity Group which has raised over $110K over six years through benefit concerts for the Seva Foundation (Berkeley, CA) to help restore eyesight to hundreds of blind/visually impaired/financially disadvantaged pediatric patients in rural India.

Frank Bonafilia is the Executive Director of the Edison Best New Product Awards and Edison Green Awards. He is the co-founder of Edison Universe, a non-profit organization focused on fostering the next generation of innovators (future Thomas Edisons) in the K-12 grade level and using tools like creativity, collaboration and immersion to prepare students to identify new opportunities and create solutions around the opportunities. Frank is a 15-year marketing executive with an award-winning career in financial services, real time data synchronization, retail software and the successful development and launch of profitable new products and services. Early in his career Frank was involved with the Edison Awards when he managed the Sponsorship and Awards Division of the American Marketing Association. In that capacity, he was responsible for the Division’s overall profitability and extension of the Edison Awards brand, which is manifested in the Edison Awards’ current status as an independent organization. Frank holds an MBA from Saint Xavier University and a BA in International Communications from the University of Kansas.

Stephen Carr started his career in polymer engineering at General Motors in 1960 and since then has made contributions widely across many industries and technical areas. He joined the Materials Science and Engineering faculty at Northwestern in 1969 and has made that his home ever since. In addition to a host of roles at Northwestern, Steve Carr has served as a consultant for over 55 concerns, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Professor Carr's research program made important contributions to: 1) the effects of processing on structure/property relationships in flexible or rod-like polymers and their alloys, 2) the origins of piezoelectricity in polymers, 3) structure/ property relationships in electronically conducting polymers, 4) fracture toughness in semicrystalline polymers, and 5) network polymers, especially those found in epoxy resins or in human gallstones. Recently his scholarship and sponsored research centered on attaining a deeper understanding of how engineering students learn and grow themselves.

Professor Carr served as the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Engineering in the McCormick School from 1992 to 2015. Notable advancements made in this time include the creation and deployment of Engineering First®, which drove the evolution of the McCormick education to focus on living at frontiers – both in research and in design contexts. While he was a dean, the size of the undergraduate engineering population at Northwestern increased from 17% to 26%, and the quality of engineering undergraduates rose dramatically, with, for example, the mean V + Q (SAT) scores rising from 1290 to 1490.

Currently Steve Carr is co-director of Northwestern’s Master of Product Design and Development Management degree program, and he is developing coursework related to materials selection as an indispensable part of product design and development.

His formal education includes a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Univ. of Cincinnati and a doctorate in macromolecular science from Case Western Reserve University.

Maria De Capua, MT (ASCP), is the vice president at Porex, a Filtration Group company, with more than 35 years’ experience serving the laboratory business and medical industry. She has held many senior leadership positions at Porex and is responsible with helping drive Porex’s marketing and advertising strategy for the biomedical business. Maria began her career as a medical technologist in hematology and diagnostics at the former Doctor’s Hospital New York City and later held various sales and management positions at the former American Hospital Supply Corp and Porex. Maria is also a member of the University of South Florida Muma College of Business Digital Marketing Advisory Board.

Michael Docherty brings unique perspectives to growth and innovation, having been an entrepreneur, senior corporate executive and venture capitalist. It might explain why he’s passionate about the intersection of corporate innovation and entrepreneurship.

Docherty is currently the managing partner of NextBig, a unique venture creation firm that provides 'company-building as a service'. NextBig works with leading corporations to define disruptive challenges and digital-enabled opportunities, then builds new independent ventures using a shared risk business model. The company leverages a curated network of entrepreneurial talent along with a proven venture acceleration system and deep technical development capabilities. Docherty is also CEO of Venture2, a growth and innovation consulting firm that helps leading companies transform their innovation capabilities.

Michael Docherty is the author of the recent book Collective Disruption: How Corporations and Startups Can Co-create Transformative New Businesses. The book provides established companies with a practical playbook for plugging into the startup ecosystem to fuel and incubate new businesses as entrepreneurial ventures. Docherty holds an MBA degree from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School and BSME degree from Drexel University. He is a frequent speaker on innovation and corporate venturing and an active supporter of the entrepreneurial community.

Andy Gilicinski is an innovation-focused R&D Executive that believes in the power of science to craft market disruption that creates value for business and consumers, and improves sustainability. His 32 year career started at public companies (Air Products, Gillette and Clorox), and his more recent experience is with privately owned Georgia-Pacific and now currently at family-owned SC Johnson.

He began his career as a PhD chemist at the bench, driving science roles as he grew his accountabilities into executive leadership. At Georgia-Pacific, he ran product development for a $5B North America business, then was recruited to SC Johnson, to lead global R&D for Glade air fresheners (SC Johnson’s largest brand). In his current role, Gilicinski co-leads M&A for SC Johnson, driving acquisitions to strengthen innovation and growth across the firm.

Gilicinski’s proudest achievements are market-disruptive innovation launches. These include a fragrance renaissance for Glade (fueling new sources of growth), a new Stainmaster carpet care line (disrupting a stale segment and growing share), launching the GreenWorks natural cleaning brand (tripling the US natural cleaning market in first year), creating a new antiperspirant odor-fighting technology (sparking growth for Right Guard), and developing a novel low-VOC coating resin (driving capacity expansion and market disruption).

He earned his Bachelor of Science degree with High Distinction from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Award-Winning Innovator, Product & Operations Executive, Entrepreneur, Strategist, Leader, Explorer, Listener, Mentor and Coach, Peoria, Illinois USA

Ken is an internationally recognized innovator and product & operations executive who launched Caterpillar’s first hybrid construction machine, regarded as one of the ten most innovative products in the iconic brand’s 90-year history. In addition to receiving a Caterpillar Chairman’s Award for Innovation, Ken is an Edison Award winner and has earned a Platts Global Energy Award and an International Construction Economic Forum Equipment Innovation Award—all Caterpillar firsts. Ken’s contributions to sustainability have been recognized with CALSTART’s coveted “Blue Sky Award,” as the “Top Product of the Year” by Environmental Leader, and by an Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Award. Ken’s product management leadership was honored with a Caterpillar Chairman’s Award for Continuous Improvement, as a five time finalist for the Caterpillar Chairman’s Quality Award, numerous times on the annual Construction Equipment Top 100 New Products list, by Diesel Progress with their “Excellence in Design Award,” and by Better Roads with a “Top 10 Roll-Outs” Award recognizing the best product marketing launches in the construction equipment industry. He and his team were honored to receive a 2015 Chicago Innovation Award and were featured in Forbes, Inc., Crain’s Business, and Fast Company.

Ken was recently (April, 2017) appointed Chairman of the Board of FIT America Inc., a subsidiary of the FIT Additive Manufacturing Group, to extend FIT’s European success to North America. With over 20 years of experience, FIT is the world’s premiere resource for additive design and manufacturing (ADM) and is arguably the worlds largest 3D printer of metals. FIT begins with a low cost partnership or alliance to quickly assess and immediately leverage a client’s ADM opportunities. Then the relationship deepens, perhaps through a joint venture, to fully integrate ADM into a client’s operations. Finally, FIT divests when the client is ready to take flight. FIT’s proven business model reduces a client’s ADM learning curve by years, perhaps even decades, and leaves them fully capable of reaping ADM’s extraordinary potential.

The majority of Ken’s career focused on serving Caterpillar customers, dealers, employees, and shareholders around the world with assignments in North America, Asia, and Europe. He held positions with diverse areas of responsibility including engineering, marketing, product management, dealer development, and leadership.

Ken was Caterpillar’s first corporate Director of Innovation and an Analytics & Innovation Division Director. He developed and executed Caterpillar’s transformational innovation strategy to create value for customers and for dealers while increasing bottom line results for Caterpillar shareholders. He guided his team to bolster the best capabilities from Caterpillar’s innovative history and to broaden the scale of innovation by introducing a new innovation vocabulary and integrating new tools, leaner processes, and external perspectives. Ken built an innovation incubator to drive a global culture of trust, collaboration, and experimentation while generating revenue through new products and services.

Ken was Global Product Manager for Cat® Large Hydraulic Excavators and an Excavation Division Director. The Product Manager is one of Caterpillar’s eight critical job roles that owns the P&L, ensures customer satisfaction, and develops and executes the product line strategy. Ken led all aspects of this $2.5B+ topline global business from product design and competitive positioning to geographic sales strategies and pricing, from production capacity and order-to-delivery performance to product support and parts. As CEO of the business, Ken guided his team to the best worldwide quality in the product’s 40 year history and restored the product line to profitability and global market share leadership

Ken holds a Master of Science and Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois and completed executive development programs at Stanford University in Stanford, California, The Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Bradley University.

Calvin L. Hodock is former Chairman of the Board of the American Marketing Association, the world's largest professional marketing society. He is a nationally recognized authority on marketing and product innovation. His marketing credentials were earned at the Gillette Company, Bayer, and Johnson & Johnson in senior management positions. He was also partner at Comart/KLP, one of the country's largest marketing service agencies at the time. Hodock currently is on the Board of Directors of NuVim, Inc, a startup company marketing a line of healthy beverages to Wal-Mart and major supermarket accounts on the East Coast.

Hodock is a full time faculty member at Berkeley College teaching marketing courses at their Middlesex and Garrett Mountain campuses. He also teaches an advertising course at New York University and has been a guest lecturer at several colleges, including the Wharton School. During his stewardship of the American Marketing Association, Hodock created the prestigious AMA EDISON AWARD presented annually to American corporations for product innovation excellence. During a twelve-year period, he reviewed Edison submissions for literally thousands of new products and services from America's elite corporations. Some of this material, not available in the public domain, was used in his new book Why Smart Companies Do Dumb Things. He became a heralded new product guru widely quoted in the press as a result of the Edison experience.

Hodock's involvement with the EDISON AWARDS and his book on product innovation have resulted in appearances on Fox Business News CBS, CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg, numerous radio stations in local markets, and print media, including publications like The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, San Jose Mercury. Brandweek, Advertising Age, Promo Magazine, and Marketing News. Numerous universities and professional organizations throughout the country, such as 3M and American Gas Association Financial Forum, have heard his thought-provoking lectures on marketing and innovation strategies. He is now working on another book The Brainwashing of America which focuses on branding.

David has been a technology entrepreneur for most of his career. He has over 30 years of experience as a software engineer, managing software development teams, developing complex systems and delivering products. He has consulted with venture capital firms and advanced technology start-ups, performing technical due diligence and business strategy assessments. In 2013, he left the IT industry to follow his passion for space exploration. David founded Orbital Transports to develop the space logistics and orbital infrastructure technologies needed for the emerging space resources economy, and ultimately to support human settlement of the Solar System. As an advocate of space-related and space-scalable businesses, he also founded the NewSpace Chicago community of space entrepreneurs and others engaged in building commercial space ventures in Chicago. Prior to Orbital Transports, LLC, he founded multiple successful technology companies, including Athena Security, Inc., a network security company, which was acquired by SolarWinds in 2012. He has received 4 patents. He graduated from Northwestern University with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

A love of science and a passion for chemistry propelled a farm kid from Virginia to a satisfying industrial career. Mark Jones is currently Executive External Strategy and Communications Fellow for Dow Chemical, reporting directly to Dr. A.N. Sreeram, Corporate Vice President of Research & Development and Chief Technology Officer. Mark joined the CTO staff in September 2011, do, in part, to his skill in communicating science.

In 2017, he was named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, recognized for his commitment to communicating chemistry. Mark curates and hosts webinars describing successful product introductions with ACS Webinars. Mark is a frequent speaker a scientific meetings on topics of energy, sustainability, biomass conversion, and others. Mark currently serves as co-chair of the National Academy’s Chemical Sciences Roundtable. He is a co-author on the recently released National Research Council reports on “ARPA-E” and “Sustainable Development of Algal Biofuels in the United States”. Mark is a member of the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) Industrial and Environmental Section and is an active member of the American Chemistry Council’s Biobased Chemistry Network. The White House’s Advanced Manufacturing Partnership was a focus from 2013-15, looking both at technology options and improving scale-up of new technologies. He participated in a number of World Economic Forum events, leading discussions around energy and bioproducts. He recently assumed responsibility for next generation sustainability goals associated with innovation at Dow. Mark represents Dow Chemical on the American Chemical Society’s Corporation Associates and the Chemical Heritage Landmark Committee.

Mark joined Dow in 1990 following a graduate career that had very little to do with his ultimate career path. He followed a degree from Randolph-Macon College with a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado-Boulder where he studied gas-phase ion molecule chemistry - not an area of great industrial interest. A post-doc at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science preceded coming to Dow. His early Dow career was spent in Catalysis, in what is now Core R&D. Mark discovered a family of catalysts useful for conversion of ethane directly to vinyl chloride, and other catalysts for both chlorocarbon chemistry and alkane activation. Moves to Performance Plastics, Hydrocarbons, Chemicals, Energy and Licensing R&D, Ventures and New Business Development and the Energy Storage Devices followed. Mark co-directed the Renewable Chemistries Expertise Center (RCEC) for over a decade. Mark touched many areas of technology, including experience in the processing of inorganic materials, fuel cell development for portable power applications, cellulosic conversion, and broad technology exploration.

Rob Manes serves on the Edison Universe Board of Directors as Vice President, and is also the Director of Business Development for Edison Universe and Edison Awards. Edison Universe is focused on the roots of accomplishment - promoting the core skills and processes of innovation and fostering a deeper understanding of teamwork and experimentation. Edison Awards, often referred to as the "Oscars of Innovation," are about the triumphs of today - honoring invention, recognizing creative achievement and celebrating success. Rob previously served on the American Marketing Association's Edison Awards Board of Directors' Steering Committee. Rob has remained continually active with the Edison Awards for the past seventeen years.

He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1979 with a B.S. in general studies, at which time he entered the consumer products industry. Rob was specifically sought for his expertise in new product launches, sales and marketing. Companies/brands he represented include H.J. Heinz, Borden, Chef America, Inc./Nestle, Tree Top, Chinet (Huhtamaki), Northern tissue, Brawny, and Dixie.

Rob was born in New York where he spent most of his childhood in Long Island. When Rob was five years old, his father died, leaving three children for Rob's mother to raise. When he was 13, the family moved to Kansas City, where as a young teen, Rob was responsible for the family's rental real estate business.

In 1995, Rob drew upon his teenage entrepreneurial roots and started his own brokerage company, Choice Products Group, focusing on authentic Mexican products. In addition, he also developed his own tortilla brand and distributed it throughout the Midwest. In 2007 he sold his firm to a larger brokerage company.

Twenty-seven years ago, Rob joined Big Brothers Big Sisters where he served on the board and began work as a volunteer; that relationship is still flourishing. Rob currently serves on the Business Administration Advisory Board for Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas. The institution has the largest undergraduate enrollment of any college in Kansas.

Rob lives in the Kansas City area with his family.

Deana McDonagh PhD., is Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art + Design at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and faculty at the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology. She is an experienced design practitioner and entrepreneur. She is an Empathic Design Research Strategist who focuses on enhancing quality of life for all through more intuitive and meaningful products, leading to emotional sustainability. Her research concentrates on emotional user-product relationships and how empathy can bring the designer closer to users' authentic needs, ensuring both functional and emotional needs are met by products. She is currently a Research Fellow at Coventry University (UK) and Director of Research for Herbst Produkt design consultancy (USA). She is the Designer Entrepreneur-in-Residence (start-up incubator) at the Research Park (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) where she provides design guidance.

Kevin McGinnis is leading the Keystone Community Corporation, a nonprofit organization leading the effort to build an innovation district in Kansas City, MO. Built on the tenets of placemaking, community development, urban revitalization and inclusive prosperity, the Keystone Innovation District will serve as a catalyst for economic growth in the Midwest. Home to regional anchor institutions, corporate innovators and entrepreneurs, the district itself will be a “living laboratory” bringing the future of the built environment, mobility solutions and connected communities to life through collaborative scale of the research and innovation community.

Prior to taking on a long-term economic development project like Keystone, Kevin served as the chief executive officer of Pinsight Media, a big data and mobile advertising subsidiary of Sprint. He was also founder and managing executive of the Sprint Accelerator, a corporate accelerator and entrepreneurial center located in Kansas City’s Crossroads District. In his 20-year career at Sprint, Kevin has performed in a multitude of functions at various stages of new and emerging businesses – ranging from long distance in the 90s, to Sprint’s partnerships with cable companies, early product innovation leveraging the Internet to its current venture in wireless. His last role prior to leading the spin out of Pinsight Media was as vice president of product where he oversaw all of Sprint’s product platforms and operations. This range of experience has established Kevin as a thought leader in the communications and digital industry.

John Petersen is considered by many to be one of the most informed futurists in the world. He is best-known for writing and thinking about high impact surprises—wild cards—and the process of surprise anticipation and for having conceived of and developed the first national surprise anticipation system in the world for the government of Singapore.

In 1989, Petersen founded The Arlington Institute (TAI), a non-profit, future-oriented research institute where he now edits and publishes FUTUREdition, an internationally acclaimed newsletter that tracks early indicators of potentially significant futures.

Mr. Petersen's government and political experience include stints at the National War College, the Institute for National Security Studies, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council staff at the White House. He is a decorated veteran of both the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars. He has served in senior advisory, fundraising and policy positions for a number of presidential political campaigns and was an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1984. He was twice the runner-up candidate to be Secretary of the Navy.

An award-winning writer, Petersen has written three books. He has also written many articles and papers on different aspects of the future including national security and the military, the future of energy and the future of the media. His current book, A Vision for 2012: Planning for Extraordinary Change, presents a systems approach for preparing for big change whether from the perspective of a government, organization, or individual.

Currently the chairman of the board of the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, he is a former network member of the Global Business Network, a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, and is a former member of the Global Agenda Council of the Geography of Innovation for the World Economic Forum.

Clint is the father of three publicly educated girls; a recovering school board member; and a registered professional engineer in a global engineering corporation. Individually none of these accomplishments are significant but in concert they are a powerful force towards better connecting education and business. Clint is the great grandson of one of the first three professors at the University of Kansas teaching Greek and Latin back in 1865. He is also the great grandson of an attorney that made elixir in his basement and founded the Burma Vita Corporation. This company was responsible for one of the most successful advertising campaigns with roadside jingles for the first brushless shaving cream, Burma Shave. It is not surprising then that Mr. Robinson has dedicated himself to finding ways to improve education and how we sell it. While serving on the Blue Valley School District School Board he helped create and implement the successful Center for Advance Professional Studies (CAPS) which revolutionized how business and education work together for a common goal. Now while providing thought leadership in his industry to the US Conference of Mayors and National League of Cities he is never very far away from the topic of how to create jobs, fill the pipeline, and change the landscape of education forever. His motto is "learn to teach" which means 1) if you can teach it then you know it and 2) there is no value in learning something if you are not willing to teach it to someone else.

Susanne Seitinger, Global Sub-segment Manager for Open Spaces in Professional Systems at Philips Lighting is responsible for leading the strategy around the impact of programmable LED lighting elements to create safe, inviting and responsive urban environments. Her combined background in architecture, urban planning and human-computer interaction is comprised of research and design projects like the Digital Mile in Zaragoza, Spain and Urban Pixels, wireless LED pixels for ad-hoc media façades. LightBridge, a project in honor of MIT’s 150th anniversary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, used new configurations of low-resolution displays and sensor-activated urban screens to showcase the potential of responsive infrastructures in future urban lighting plans. She recently published Light for Public Space which provides an extensive overview of recent city lighting design trends: www.philips.com/lightforpublicspace.

Seitinger received a BA from Princeton University as well as a PhD, MS and MCP from MIT. Her PhD dissertation—Liberated Pixels: Alternative Narratives for Lighting Future Cities—explored the aesthetic and interactive potentials for future lighting and display infrastructures.

Cliff Thomas is a Managing Director leading the business operation for Cisco’s largest Global Enterprise clients headquartered in New York. His team is focused on providing business outcomes leveraging Information Technology to create efficiencies, new revenue streams and enhance customer intimacy.

Most recently, Cliff Thomas was leading business development, route-to-market efforts and sales in the Americas for the Cisco Smart+ Connected Communities (S+CC) initiative, focusing on intelligent urbanization.

Cliff Thomas has 25+ years of experience in the telecommunications industry, including management consulting and a successful venture in technology services. With 19 years at Cisco in various sales, business development and global leadership roles, he brings both breadth and depth to his role as the business leader for the New York Enterprise Operation -- a team focused on entering and scaling new market opportunities.

Cliff graduated from Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and minor in Economics. He also completed additional engineering thesis work on Pneumatic Wave Energy Conversion at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland with a focus on sustainability. Cliff lives in New York with his family.

As President/CEO of Hydra-Stop, Chris oversees all management including Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Engineering, Quality, Marketing and Sales. Prior to joining Hydra-Stop in 2013 as Vice President/General Manager, Chris has held numerous executive positions with Fortune 500 companies in Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Asian Operations, Lean and Strategy. Chris’s most recent position was the Vice President of Lean Operations and Corporate Director of Supply Chain at Klein Tools. Chris has a Mechanical Engineering degree from University of Illinois and graduated from GE’s Corporate Management and Six Sigma training programs. Chris enjoys the process of invention and has several US Patents.

Arpana Verma is an accomplished Senior Executive and Thought Leader, with demonstrated success across the science, engineering, energy, oil and gas, child education, and women empowerment industries. Leveraging extensive experience in product development for nanotechnology companies, she is a valuable asset for organizations in similar sectors, seeking assistance with launching products and providing value propositions to customers and shareholders. Her broad areas of expertise include business development, people management, market research and analysis, strategy and communication. Her exceptional ability to provide nanoengineering solutions, product messaging and positioning enables her to take companies to the next level ensuring increased growth and stability.

Throughout her executive career, Arpana has held leadership positions with NanoMech Industries, BESTOLIFE, and Hyrdotex. In her current position as Chief Science Officer with NanoMech Industries, she is responsible for managing product offerings and identifying gaps in maintaining the best in class products. This provides great understanding of sizing the market potential and strategies to commercialize. She is a key contributor in creating new ideas to grow market share and generating buy-in for product vision, both internally and with key external partners.

Arpana holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arkansas, a MTech in Corrosion Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and a BE in Metallurgical Science and Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Raipur. She is an active member of multiple prestigious associations including the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Corrosion Engineers. Notably, she is the recipient of the prestigious Edison Award for Women Behind Innovation. Her outreach efforts involves participations in Million Women Mentor program and serving on the board of OMNI Nano, a non-profit inspiring next generation scientists and engineers. Moreover, she is the author of one book, six publications, and holds two patents.

Dr. Rebecca Von Der Heide is a Consumer Neuroscientist and Director at the Nielsen Company, an S&P 500 global measurement and analytics company that is active in over 100 countries. In her current role, she leads world-wide consumer neuroscience research for Fortune 100 clients across a wide range of industries (e.g. CPG, Media, Retail, Auto, Finance, and Healthcare). This research uses neuroscience and behavioral methods to understand consumers’ objective, unfiltered response to advertising, brands, packaging, and entertainment content.

In addition to her role as Director at the Nielsen Company, Rebecca is also a corporate member and volunteer for the Network of Executive Women (NEW) and a well-established research scientist in academic circles. She frequently publishes in highly cited scientific journals in the fields of social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience and visual psychophysics. Some of the journals her academic papers have appeared in include: Brain: A Journal of Neurology, Brain and Cognition, Journal of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

Rebecca graduated in 2011 with her Ph.D. in Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience from The Pennsylvania State University and completed two years of postdoctoral neuroscience training at Temple University. She also successfully completed two highly competitive fellowships in neuroscience awarded to her by the National Institute of Health and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Rebecca will graduate from the Executive MBA program at Georgia Tech with a specialization in the Management of Technology in December 2018.

Rebecca was recognized in 2017 by the Edison Awards in "Women Behind Innovation": http://www.edisonawards.com/news/women-behind-innovation-dr-rebecca-von-der-heide/