Monday, November 16, 2009
5:30 p.m. Registration and Networking (refreshments served)
6:00 p.m. MIT Broadcast Begins
7:30 p.m. Live Panel Discussion and Q&A
8:15 p.m. Closing Remarks Followed by Networking
Registration: Save $10 by pre-registering online for $25. Tickets at the door are $35 cash or check (space permitting) and Students are $10 with ID.
Location:University of Miami School of Business – Executive Education Dining Facility, Aresty Graduate Building, 3rd Floor, 5250 University Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146.
Overview:
The current economic climate doesn’t mean companies can’t succeed. It just means the WAY a company succeeds has its own unique challenges.
Hear the real-world experiences of entrepreneurs from today, the lessons learned going from start-up to success story, and the research and best practices that will help YOU get growing.
The Global Broadcast Panel from MIT Cambridge will include:
Bo Fishback is Vice President of Entrepreneurship for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. His responsibilities include developing and advancing transformative programs that strengthen entrepreneurial engagement in the economy and help entrepreneurs succeed.
Fishback joined the Kauffman Foundation in 2006 as a director in the advancing innovation area, where he studied the country’s best business accelerators and university-based commercialization programs. In 2007, he joined Kansas City, Mo.-based BioMed Valley Discoveries, a translational research and development organization affiliated with the Stowers Institute whose mission is to translate basic biomedical research into applications that improve human health.
Fishback has been involved in a range of entrepreneurial initiatives. He is a founding team member of Orbis Biosciences, a drug delivery and particle fabrication company whose core intellectual property was developed from research conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Fishback also is a co-founder of Lightspeed Genomics, a next-generation genome sequencing company that was spun out of a research program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, Fishback developed the Equity Simulation Tool, OwnYourVenture.com, an educational tool aimed at helping people understand the impact of raising equity financing.
Beyond these ventures, he has worked with a variety of life sciences and high-tech startup companies in varying capacities. Currently, he is on the board of directors for Orbis Biosciences, LightSpeed Genomics, and Infegy, the developer of SocialRadar, a social media monitoring and Web analytics company.
Fishback received his Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical engineering from Southern Methodist University and earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Helen Greiner ’89, SM ’90 is CEO of The Droid Works, a startup company whose mission is to be a “SkunkWorks” for robotics. She is co-founder of iRobot which she transformed, with business partners Colin Angle and Rod Brooks, from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off into a ~$300Million business and the global leader of practical robots. Greiner served as President of iRobot until 2004 and Chairman until October 2008. Specifically, she developed the strategy for and led iRobot’s entry into the military market place. At iRobot, she created a culture of practical innovation and delivery that led the creation and deployment of the PackBot, PackBot EOD, PackBot MTRS, Aware Robot Operating System, and participation in many DARPA, Army and Navy research programs. She also ran iRobot’s financing projects which included raising $35M venture capital and a $75M initial public offering. She was most recently led iRobot’s investment in a deployable Flash LADAR and acquisition of Nekton, a UUV company. Greiner holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in computer science, both from MIT. Helen is highly decorated for her visionary contributions in technology innovation and business leadership. She was named by the Kennedy School at Harvard in conjunction with the U.S. News and World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders and was honored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International(AUVSI) with the prestigious Pioneer Award. She has also been honored as a Technology Review magazine “Innovator for the Next Century,” invited to the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader of Tomorrow, and has been awarded the DEMO God Award at the DEMO Conference. In 2003, she was named one of the Ernst and Young New England Entrepreneurs of the Year and has been inducted in the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame.
Daphne Zohar is the Founder and Managing partner of PureTech Ventures, a Boston-based venture firm specializing in translating breakthrough research from top tier academic institutions into therapies that will impact human health and well-being. PureTech’s senior partners include entrepreneurs and leaders from the highest echelon of pharma, biotech and academia. Ms. Zohar was named one of the world’s top young innovators who will shape the future of technology by MIT’s Technology Review magazine and one of the top “40 under 40″ by the Boston Business Journal.
A successful entrepreneur, Ms. Zohar created PureTech and assembled a leading team to help implement her vision for the firm. She sits on the Boards of Directors of PureTech Ventures, Solace Pharmaceuticals (where she was Founding CEO), Follica Inc. (currently Founding CEO), Enlight Biosciences (a technology development company whose backers include Merck, Pfizer, Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis), and Satori Pharmaceuticals (where she was Founding CEO). She also sits on the Technology Development Fund Advisory Board at Children’s Hospital Boston, the Tufts University School of Medicine Advisory Committee for Drug Discovery and Development, and is an Editorial Advisor to Xconomy, a national technology news blog.
The LIVE Local Panel of South Florida Entrepreneurs will include:
Ken Colwell (Moderator) is the Director of Entrepreneurship Programs for the University of Miami School of Business Administration. He holds a PhD from the University of Oregon. His research interests revolve around university technology transfer and the strategic factors that lead to success for startup firms. His current research focuses on regional economic clusters and other network structures that form due to the commercialization of radical new technologies, and the role of individual action in the emergence and evolution of organizational fields and the development of firm capabilities. He teaches entrepreneurship and new venture planning at the graduate and undergraduate level, and has extensive experience consulting with student teams writing business plans seeking to commercialize university-invented technologies.
Eric Kriss is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Miami School of Business Administration. His varied background spans government, private equity, consulting, health care, music, and entrepreneurship. He co-founded Bain Capital, one of the world’s leading private investment firms, and was the founding CEO of MediVision (#35 on the 1989 INC 500), an eye surgery network. He has led various turnarounds, including MediQual, a health care information firm, and the financial rehabilitation of two Massachusetts cities — Chelsea and Springfield. As the chief secretary in Governor Mitt Romney’s cabinet, Kriss pioneered the adoption of open standards in government IT and led an entreprenurial approach that successfully balanced the $25 billion Massachusetts state budget during a steep recession. Kriss also plays the piano and builds cars; his latest effort is a 1965 AC Cobra roadster replica.
Marty Schultz is a Founder of McGruff SafeGuard (www.GoMcGruff.com), a partnership with the National Crime Prevention Council and McGruff, monitors, filters and controls your kids’ potentially dangerous online activity, including: MySpace, Facebook, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. The Service alerts you to dangerous behavior, such as Internet predators, sexual abuse, drug use, or criminal activity, and provides helpful advice on how to deal with certain issues. The service allows you to conveniently review your kids’ activities using a secure website, or be notified of potentially dangerous situations via cell phone and email alerts. Previously, Mr. Schultz was a co-founder of eSped an educational ASP focusing on school districts providing services for special need students.He was the founder and President of Omtool a company that provided enterprise messaging systems based on faxing to Fortune 500 companies. Prior to Omtool, Mr. Schultz founded a company that enabled Digital Equipment Corp. resellers to sell their software on the new generation of microcomputers. Marty serves on the board of Omtool (NASD:OMTL) and eSped, is on the board of advisors for several software startups and consults with Fort Point Venture Capital.
He holds a Certificate from the Harvard Business School Owner/President Program and earned a B.S. and M.S. from Carnegie Mellon.
