Gideon mentors globally for Google Launchpad and is himself a serial entrepreneurs with 3 successful exits via public listings on NASDAQ and 4 others via successful M&A transactions. He has been involved in building numerous companies, growth initiatives, funding from Venture funds and the public. 

Gideon Marks brings a unique perspective from his long and successful track record leading technology companies in financial, business and corporate development roles.

Gideon brings more than 30 years of experience. During his career he took three companies public on NASDAQ and led four other companies to successful acquisition. He has also been involved in building numerous companies from scratch to various stages of maturity.

Gideon has also worked with growth initiatives, achieved funding from venture capital funds and the public.

Currently a mentor at Google Launchpad, Plug and Play, US MAC, 10X Innovation Lab, Mind the Bridge and other organizations.

His topics on startups cover:

1. Leadership and team building

2. Pitching your story

3. Funding options

4. Traction and competition

5. Business models

6. Negotiation

7. Ethics and values

8. Silicon Valley and Israel ecosystem

In his spare time Gideon helps his children run an app for dog owners called DogLog.

FinTech, Innovation Leader. Senator at the World Business Angels Investment Forum (Global Startup & Woman Leaders Committee). Expert for the EU European Innovation Council. Recognized as one of the TOP10 Women in FinTech 2020; Top 25 Women Leaders in Financial Technology 2019 and the Top 100 Women in FinTech globally. I am building cooperation models between Corporates and FinTech | Tech partners, particularly with regard to the Open Banking, Payments, Conversational AI and digital transformation projects as well as driving innovation in the European banking ecosystem. Translating future-oriented ideas into a viable digital value proposition. Facilitating access to private (VCs, BAs) & public (EU) funding for innovative European SMEs. Having worked for both banks and fintech startups she connects the two worlds now.

Seasoned FinTech executive (C-level and NED roles). 20 years of experience in the European banking and payments industries, with a focus on CEE (PwC, Citigroup, T-Mobile, PayTel, mBank). Particular expertise in the field of innovative payment solutions, digitally enabled financial products (open banking, conversational AI), acquired in the strategy, innovation, product management, and sales-related roles. Introduced one of the first online payment gateways in the CEMEA region as well as the first digital wallet and the mobile payment platform. Managed the implementation of the first mobile banking apps and the first local mobile payments initiative.

FinTech Mentor & Advisor (PwC Collider). Featured in the TOP10 Women in FinTech 2020 (FinTech Magazine, Aug 2020); TOP 25 Women Leaders in Financial Technology of 2019 (The Financial Technology Report); Women in Fintech Powerlist 2019 (Innovate Finance March 2020); TOP 100 Women in FinTech 2019 List (Lattice80, March 2019); „Most Influential Women in Payments (Cashless.pl, 2020, 2019). Keynote speaker at FinTech | Digital | Payments conferences and events. Co-Author of The PAYTECH Book and The AI Book published in 2020 by FINTECH Circle & Wiley. FinTech Lecturer (University of Warsaw, Warsaw University of Technology). Senior Lecturer at the CFTE (Conversational AI in Banking; Open Banking and Platforms in Finance).

Advocate for diversity and fairness in business. Goodwill Ambassador for the European Women Payments Network. Supporting financial inclusion as well as social entrepreneurship | startups. Passionate about Art & Design.

Justin heads up eBay Commerce Innovations is an innovation studio focused on building new platforms, products, and businesses that augment and enhance the shopping experience on- and off-eBay.One such project is catch.app which carried the mission of finding a way to help eBay address the millennial customer group

Some of my most important responsibilities leading Commerce Innovations have been to set the vision and to establish this new function and team. Now, we are an end-to-end, agile team encompassing product development, design, retail & merchandising, marketing, and analytics & business insights. My team is fully responsible to conduct user research, identify customer needs, ideate solutions, validate product-market-fit, and build, launch, and iterate on the minimally viable products (MVPs). Furthermore, we also own, operate, and scale the new innovations, or at times, spin them out as new ventures.

Of our numerous projects, we have launched a few notable ones to date:

eBay BlitzDeals: https://blitzdeals.ebay.de/

- A gamified, short-form auction shopping format where everything starts at 1 euro; the platform goes live as scheduled events

NHS PPE Portal: https://nhs-ppe.co.uk/

- An invitation-only portal for personal protective equipment, created pro bono for the UK National Health Service to distribute PPE to their network of smaller healthcare providers

Angelo is a founding partner at HP Tech Ventures, where he leads investments and partnerships in AR/VR, Gaming/eSports, and AI. He is on a number of boards, including at AdHawk Microsystems, Mobalytics, Mojo Vision, and Parsec Gaming. He also advises numerous startups and is a frequent speaker and judge at industry conferences, including Augmented World Expo, NASA, StartX, StartupGrind, SXSW, Web Summit, etc.

Previously Angelo was with HP’s corporate strategy group where he focused on M&A and growth strategies. Before joining HP, Angelo was VP Business Development and Strategy at Couchsurfing, where he helped raise $23M. Angelo previously ran a tech sector focused management consulting company for 8 years and consulted to numerous startups, including Groupon and YouSendIt, as well as Fortune 500 companies, including Adobe, Apple, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, and Oracle. He has conducted over 4,000 interviews and managed 100+ strategy and market research projects.

He has lived in the Bay Area for 20 years and helped companies in boom and bust times. He has taught graduate business classes around the world, including at Wharton and Haas, and earned degrees from Northwestern and Wharton.

Carolina helps scale adoption of new technologies across this 300,000 person organization. The challenge is to accelerate going from concepts to end-to-end digital products supporting Nestlé use cases. Strategy + Delivery + Customer focus + Team work. Among other things she heads acceleration of use cases for Artificial Intelligence within the company.  

Can you imagine your life without the Internet? Hell, no! That's why I help businesses build awesome digital products that improve the way we live. And these days, it’s more and more about AI.

Back in Barcelona after multi-year stints in Madrid, London and New York, I joined Nestlé in June 2017 to scale up emerging technologies. The challenge is to accelerate going from concepts to end-to-end digital products supporting Nestlé use cases. Strategy + Delivery + Customer focus + Team work.

Mix of analytical thinker, creative soul, techie and communicator, my background is strategy, development and delivery of technology products and services, both B2B and B2C. I've worked for telco & networks, healthcare, automotive, mobility, and consumer packaged goods industries.

I've also worked in large and small companies, including startups, and have built and led high-performing teams.

In a past life I did a lot of applied research in tech, publishing 70+ papers and 1 patent and pitching in many international conferences and events. I love the thrill of pitching and how on-the-fly questions make you think on your feet, and fast.

Bill Tai has been funding companies as a Venture Capitalist since 1991 and has had 22 companies he backed at the early stage grow to become listed companies. He has served on 8 public company boards from his portfolio.

He is Founding Chairman of Treasure Data (acq by ARM / Softbank), Founding Chairman of IPInfusion (Tokyo:48130) and is a lead seed investor in Canva, Wish and Zoom Video where he was 1st to commit as a backer. He was founding CEO of Internet Data Center company iAsiaWorks (IPO via Goldman Sachs & Morgan Stanley) and Founder of Tradebeam a leader in SaaS based Global Trade Management.

After earning a BSEE with Honors from University of Illinois, he joined LSI Logic, a startup formed by the CEO of Fairchild Semiconductor. He then earned an MBA at Harvard Business School, He established the semiconductor practice for Alex.Brown & Sons, driving IPOs of Atmel, Adaptec, Cirrus Logic, Dallas Semi, Exar, and Zilog before becoming a venture capitalist. He was granted a PhD from Curtin University where he is an Adjunct Professor focused on "Innovation and Economic Development" and Chairman of ACTAI Global - a 501(c)3 uniting Athletes, Conservationists, Technologists, Artists & Innovators supporting 'active conservation' of our environment as partners to 2030Vision, Ocean Elders and Mission Blue, and economic empowerment via entrepreneurship through projects such as the Extreme Tech Challenge.

Author of upcoming "Blockchain is the New Black" Amy is a visionary who speaks to the future of AR/VR and other technologies while working with corporations to adopt today's cutting edge technologies. She lives and breathes Virtual & Augmented Reality, particularly for enterprise, education & entertainment. From healthcare, education, retail, hospitality and entertainment to government and industrial use cases, her goal is to bridge the gap between the leading edge tech and clients ready to adopt solutions in the AR/VR stratosphere.

Amy Peck is the founder & CEO of EndeavorVR, a leading global VR/AR (XR) strategy & consulting firm. Amy is a recognized thought-leader in the space and speaks globally on the future of XR. She has deep connections within the industry and works with Fortune 500 companies, digital media/production companies and tech startups on XR strategy, content, development, product and GTM.

Amy holds several Advisory Board roles:

* Geo.Network, a volumetric geospatial control platform

* VantagePoint, VR Sexual Harassment Training

* XR Marin Leadership Council

* Virtual World Society Ambassador

* AREA (Augmented Reality

Amy is a venture partner at the Capital Region AR/VR Accelerator, a member of the VR/AR Association’s (VRARA) Digital Healthcare Committee and Co-chairs the VRARA Enterprise Committee. She is an active mentor to XR entrepreneurs and member of several Women in Tech & STEM Education organizations.

Amy's true passion for this technology emerged at Leap Motion where she launched the Enterprise division working with clients across every major vertical including healthcare, entertainment, retail, hospitality, education and government.

It became clear that there was a need to help foster XR development in the commercial arena and more importantly, shepherd these critical early wins. EndeavorVR was conceived for this very purpose.

Amy continues her work with Fortune 500 clients, helping them adopt XR for both internal process and consumer-facing initiatives, including marketing, customer experience, productivity and training. She engages the top content creators, designers, developers and platform partners to bring these solutions to fruition.

Amy’s forte is distilling complex technologies into meaningful solutions across many verticals and business lines, delivering strategy and resources at scale.

Her own personal mission is to see XR accessible to all - fundamentally improving every aspect of our lives and changing the way we work, learn, communicate and play.

Zaza Pachulia is 2- time NBA champion, Angel Investor and now serves on the business team for the Golden State Warriors. He has made extensive contributions to Georgia in developing the country's basketball coaching and camps, such as: Zaza Pachulia Basketball Academy and Basketball Club Dinamo Tbilisi; investing in business projects such as Archi, Snap Fitness, and partnering with Crosty shoes, a Georgian-founded company.

As one of the first 30 employees of Airbnb he led international expansion, opening 12 offices globally in 6 months. He similarly was VP for international expansion with Fiverr. He has taken leadership in other roles in the sharing economy, and is now collaborator, Consultant, Speaker, Investor, Actor, Advisor to Heart-First Leaders, Ceremony Creator, Comedian and Perfumemaker!

Sanjit has been a successful Venture Capitalist, Corporate Executive, Board Member, Speaker and Writer in Silicon Valley for almost two decades. He is currently the Co-Founder and Chairman of U First Capital which provides Venture Capital as a Service to Corporations. Prior to that, he was at Intel Capital where he had an excellent track record of driving 1 Exit every year: DocuSign (IPO 2018), Body Labs (Acquired by Amazon in 2017), VokeVR (Acquired by Intel in 2016), Maginatics (Acquired by EMC in 2015) and Basis Science (Acquired by Intel in 2014). He has been an Investor and Board Member of several companies, including True Fit (AI for eCommerce, raised $100M), Reflektion (AI recommendation for eCommerce, raised $42M), Helpshift (AI-driven Customer Service, raised $39M) and Enlighted (IoT, Acquired by Siemens in 2018). He is also an investor in Mirantis (Cloud Computing), GoodData (SaaS BI) and Arcadia Data (Big Data 2.0).

Sanjit has experience investing in Consumer and Enterprise sectors across several areas: Transportation, Artificial Intelligence, Security, Big Data, IoT, Virtual Reality, eCommerce, etc.

Sanjit has been an Advisor to Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge and Google Launchpad. Sanjit has been on US Govt Innovation Policy Advisory team. He is on Advisory Council of UN’s World Artificial Intelligence Organization. He has also been on University of California President's Innovation Council. Sanjit has the fastest Eng PhD from University of Illinois (2yrs 9mo after undergrad), which he received in 2000 with top research awards. He also attended the VC Executive program at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. He’s an invited Speaker at several top conferences, eg SURGE/WebSummit, TiECon, ShopTalk, McKinsey Leadership Summit, Silicon Valley Open Doors, Global AI conference, etc. He’s a mentor at Stanford and Berkeley’s Entrepreneurship programs. 

Derek Andersen ​is the Founder & CEO of Startup Grind, a 400,000 person entrepreneurial community with 200 chapters in 85 countries run by more than 1,000 volunteers. Startup Grind's mission is to help every entrepreneur in the world. It's core values are giving before you take, helping others first, and making friends. Derek Andersen spent four years in product management at Electronic Arts working on games like The Godfather, Burnout, The Sims 3, and Mirror’s Edge. He left EA in 2009 to start Vaporware Labs, a product incubator which mostly failed but built products including Commonred which was acquired by Income.com in 2012, and Startup Grind. After running Startup Grind as a side project for 2 years, Derek turned his full attention to scaling it from 3 chapters to 200 chapters today. In 2015 Startup Grind will host 1,200 events for 75,000 entrepreneurs. He currently lives in Palo Alto, California but has lived eight years outside the U.S. in France, Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, and the Cook Islands.

Marvin is a free agent roaming the world, doing good, looking for great potential companies. He was a Partner at Micro Venture Capital Fund 500 Startups, running the SF-based accelerator program as well as investing in Seed stage startups. He Invests in Digital Media, Enterprise SaaS, Marketplace, Mobile, AdTech/MarketingTech, Digital Health, Internet of Things, and Fintech startups.

Formerly an experienced client-facing senior executive in the media and technology space in both large and startup growth companies, having managed large multifunctional teams across multiple countries.

He has P&L management experience and was most recently responsible for 100% YoY revenue growth while running a business unit and building new sales channels in EMEA and the Emerging Markets regions for the last ~4 years at Yahoo!.

A 10.5 year veteran of Yahoo! Inc., Marvin has held roles in the various departments of sales, business development, ad operations, and marketing. Most of his roles were regional or global management roles giving him extensive experience across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States in his career at the company.

Marvin presently serves on the boards/advisory boards of several internet advertising and ad technology companies across the globe. He is a frequent speaker at many digital marketing and startup conferences.

A longtime fan, participant, and observer of the digital revolution occurring for the last 15+ years across the world, he is interested in opportunities with top growth companies large and small with a focus on driving monetization and expanding into new international markets.

Kelly is the Director of Content and Marketing Data Science (aka “Hollywood Data Science”) at Netflix, focused on using causal inference and machine learning to grow the Netflix member base and audiences for its titles worldwide. Kelly started at Netflix almost 7 years ago as a statistician working on the initial research around to best promote Netflix Originals within the Netflix service.

Prior to her time at Netflix, built predictive models to understand customer retention at GEICO. She also served in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Georgia, where she helped women entrepreneurs start and manage small businesses.

Martins Sulte is Co-Founder and CEO of Mintos, an award-winning global marketplace for investing in loans. Prior to founding Mintos in 2014, Martins worked for six years in the investment banking industry at SEB, advising some of the largest M&A and Equity Capital Market deals in Northern Europe. Martins has a BSc degree from Stockholm School of Economics, he holds an MBA from INSEAD (France), and is a CFA® charter holder.

As CEO he leads Raisin and takes in particular care of partner bank acquisition, business development, legal and regional expansion efforts. Prior to building and scaling Raisin, Tamaz has spent 10 years with McKinsey & Company, the last 3 years as Principal leading also McKinsey Savings and Investment products Service Line for EMEA countries. He served some of the very largest retail, universal and wholesale banks throughout Europe and in Asia. Tamaz holds a PhD in agricultural economics, graduated with honors in law (both from University of Giessen) and international economics (from Tbilisi State University).

George Arison co-founded Shift in 2013, when he saw an opportunity to use technology, machine learning, and operational excellence to create a transformative way for how cars are sold built around an exceptional customer experience.

George is passionate about building companies and technology products because they allow him to prove out his strongly held view that impossible things are actually possible. In addition to Shift, George co-founded Taxi Magic (now known as Curb), which invented the use of mobile devices for on-demand services. He is an investor and mentor to numerous startups and founders, including Zero, Shipper, Carrot, TravelBank, Eden, Fathom, and Pulsar AI. He has twice been named to Goldman Sachs’ 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs, and has worked at Google and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Born in Georgia, a republic in the Soviet Union, at the height of Communism, George came to the United States on his own in 1992, fortunate to receive a scholarship to attend a prep school in Maine. Afterwards, he studied political philosophy at Middlebury College. In addition to entrepreneurship, George has a deep interest in politics and policy-making. He has started a think tank and ran a political campaign in his native Georgia, and authored a book about Georgia’s democratic transition.

Luke Kowalski is recognized for his loyalty and pragmatism, but he also excels in his ability to work across disciplines. He has executed projects involving legal issues (antitrust, IP, audits, litigation), acquisitions (due diligence, integration, or divestitures), technical standards (document formats), government affairs (EU/USA trade, IP reform, repatriation), and even managed functions like physical security, user interface design and accessibility.

He currently serves as a vp in the corporate architecture group at Oracle reporting to one of Larry Ellison’s EVPs. Before coming to Oracle, he worked for various startups in technical, design, and business roles, as well as for Netscape's Server and E commerce divisions. He holds several patents and professional certifications, serves as an ISO representative for US through ANSI and lectures frequently at conferences and universities. His educational background includes advanced degrees from UTA, Pratt Institute, and Columbia University. He is currently teaching a blockchain challenge lab at UC Berkeley's Engineering School on Mondays and pursuing a distance learning PhD at University of Leicester in his free time. 

Paul is a 3 time entrepreneur turned global VC. Through the multiple funds he has helped create, he has participated as an investor or advisor in the seed/series A rounds of 200+ companies. This includes holdings in billion dollar companies like Uber, Unity & Zappos. He travels around the world to give lectures on startups and is an advisor to governments on their technology and entrepreneurship policy

Tim has spent 10+ years creating startup partnerships and innovation programs for Fortune 500 companies and government. His most recent role was helping stand up Accenture's Ventures and Open Innovation group. He is an active angel investor, having backed 20+ startups and launched the Momentum Engine investing syndicate.