Keynote Speakers

Bill Aulet is a highly accomplished business leader with a track record of success over 25 years. He has raised over $100 million in funding for his companies and directly created hundreds of millions of dollars of market value. He started his career with eleven years at IBM, culminating in being named a prestigious MIT Sloan Fellow in 1993. Upon graduation in 1994, Bill became a serial entrepreneur running two MIT spinouts; he first served as the President and CEO of both Cambridge Decision Dynamics, and later also of SensAble Technologies. The latter earned a place in Time Magazine's list of 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies. With a presence in over twenty countries, SensAble also won over two dozen awards and has been featured in Fortune Magazine, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications for its innovative products and strong business foundation.

Joe Chen (陈一舟) is the founder, Chairman & CEO of Renren Inc., the leading real-name SNS in China.

Joe is a pioneer of Chinese internet industry. Before founding Renren, Joe was co-founder, Chairman & CEO of ChinaRen.com, a first-generation SNS in China and China’s #4 portal in 1999. He served as Senior Vice President of Sohu.com after the two companies merged in 2000.

Joe Chen holds BS in Physics from University of Delaware, MS Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and MBA from Stanford University.

Semyon Dukach is the Managing Director of Techstars in Boston.

Prior to joining Techstars, Semyon was a prolific angel investor in Boston and a friend to the startup community.
Semyon made over 75 angel investments, and his philosophy has been to focus on helping his founders at all costs. Prior to becoming a full time angel, Semyon has co-founded several companies including Vert, Pdffiller, Global Cycle Solutions, and Fast Engines, which was sold to Adero in 2000. He is the Chairman of Nasdaq listed SMTP, a director of Terrafugia, and the founder of the Troublemaker Award.

Semyon enjoys flying helicopters, windsurfing, biking and spending time with his family. He received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Columbia University and his Master’s degree from MIT, where he designed the original SNPP Internet payment protocol.

Xconomy lists Semyon as a top Angel Investor in New England, and he is also known for leading one of the MIT blackjack teams in the 90s.

Yasheng Huang is the International Program Professor in Chinese Economy and Business and a Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Huang founded and runs the China Lab and the India Lab, which aim to help entrepreneurs in those countries improve their management skills. He is an expert source on international business, political economy, and international management. In collaboration with other scholars, Huang is conducting research on human capital formation in China and India, entrepreneurship, and ethnic and labor-intensive foreign direct investment (FDI). Prior to MIT Sloan, he held faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. Huang also served as a consultant to the World Bank.

His research has been profiled in many publications, including TheWall Street Journal,The Economist, Businessworld, Le Monde, the Economic Times, as well as in numerous Chinese publications. He also has contributed to the Financial Times, The New York Times, and Foreign Policy. Huang’s published books include Inflation and Investment Controls in China (1996), FDI in China (1998), Selling China (2003), and Financial Reform in China (2005, co-edited with Tony Saich and Edward Steinfeld). His most recent book, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics (2008), is based on detailed archival and quantitative evidence spanning three decades of reforms. Huang shows that private entrepreneurship, facilitated by financial liberalization and microeconomic flexibility, played a central role in China’s economic miracle.

Huang has held or received prestigious fellowships, such as the National Fellowship at Stanford University and the Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Fellowship. He is a member of the Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, a Fellow at the Center for Chinese Economic Research and the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University, a Fellow at the William Davidson Institute at Michigan Business School, and a World Economic Forum Fellow.

Huang holds a BA in government from Harvard College and a PhD in government from Harvard University.

Professor Alex 'Sandy' Pentland is a pioneer in organizational engineering, mobile information systems, and computational social science. Pentland's research focus is on harnessing information flows and incentives within social networks, the big data revolution, and converting this technology into real-world ventures. His work provides organizations with better management tools and better ways to interact with their customers. Pentland is founder and director of the Human Dynamics group, and the Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program. He advises the World Economic Forum, Nissan Motor Corporation, and a variety of start-up companies. Pentland is the World Economic Forum’s lead academic for its big data and personal data initiatives. He is among the most-cited computer scientists in the world, and in 1997 Newsweek magazine named him one of the 100 Americans likely to shape this century. His book, Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World was published in 2008 by the MIT Press. In 2011, he was chosen as one of the world's top data scientists by Tim O'Reilly in Forbes magazine.

Donald R. Sadoway is the John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He obtained the B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science, the M.A.Sc. in Chemical Metallurgy, and the Ph.D. in Chemical Metallurgy, all from the University of Toronto. The author of over 150 scientific papers and holder of 19 U.S. patents, his research is directed towards the development of rechargeable batteries for grid-level storage and environmentally sound technologies for the extraction of metals. He is the founder of two companies, Ambri and Boston Electrometallurgical. Viewed over 1,500,000 times, his TED talk from February 29, 2012 is a narrative about inventing inventors as much as it about inventing technology. In 2012 he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Victor is the Co-Founder of ZhenFund. In addition to being a respected business man, he is also a well-known humanities and philosophy scholar. As such, Victor is also ZhenFund's Director of Entrepreneurial Thought and frequently advises portfolio companies on their mission and vision. He is also a famous collector and lover of rare books.

Prior to ZhenFund, Victor was a Co-Founder of New Oriental Education & Technology Group (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private education in China. He served as Vice President and Chairman of the Board of Directors at New Oriental and established New Oriental's spoken English division. His popular English classes were reported in-depth by Time Magazine in 2000. Victor also hosted a popular TV show called "From Word to the World", which was widely broadcasted on more than 30 channels in China.

Xiaoping Xu, co-founded New Oriental School and has over 10 years of experience with New Oriental Group. Mr. Xu served as Director of New Oriental Group and was responsible for its marketing, public relations, government relations and most recently a specialised consulting arm for Chinese preparing to study abroad. He successfully led New Oriental to the US New York Stock Market in 2006.

He also presided over an advisory board that helped advise management on a variety of issues relating to English Training in China. He has a wealth of experience, contacts and understanding of the English Training industry in China. He serves as Member of Board of Advisors of Idapted, Inc. An inspired angel investor, he has the magic to lift up all Chinese young entrepreneurs to fly. Mr. Xu holds an MA from the University of Saskatchewan of Canada.

Peng Yang is a scholar and NGO founder. Peng Yang is a important figure in the research work of Chinese traditional believes and in Chinese civil society studies. Peng Yang has published 5 books and hundreds of articles in the field of Chinese ancient philosophy and in the civil society development today in China. Peng Yang is one of the founders of two important and influential NGOs (SEE and One Foundation) in China. From 2004 to 2009, Peng Yang worked as Chief Researcher and Secretary General for SEE (Society of Entrepreneurs & Ecology), the biggest non-state owned environment protection NGO in China. From 2010 to 2014, Peng Yang worked as Secretary General of One Foundation, the first non-state owned foundation which was granted the legal public fundraising right and is the most influential non-state public fundraising foundation in China. Now Peng Yang is a full-time fellow at the Harvard University, conducting research work on Chinese traditional religions in China.