The agenda for 2015 MIT-CHIEF is subject to change. This page is updated on a daily basis.
Please note that all the events during 2015 MIT-CHIEF will be in English except the Pitch to ZhenFund Special Event, which will be in Chinese.

Saturday, 16 November 2013
08:00 — 09:00	Registration   32-LOBBY
09:00 — 09:10	Welcome Address   32-123 Hang Chen 陈航 | Co-President, MIT-CHIEF
09:10 — 09:25	Opening Remarks   32-123 Victor Zue 舒維都 | Chair, MIT Greater China Strategy Working Group
09:25 — 09:55	Keynote Session 1   32-123 Iqbal Quadir | Founder and Director, Legatum Center at MIT
09:55 — 10:25	Keynote Session 2   32-123 Hugo Shong 熊晓鸽 | Founding General Partner, IDG Capital Partners
10:25 — 10:40	Coffee Break
10:40 — 12:00	Panel 1: Emerging Technologies & The Future   32-123
12:00 — 13:30	Lunch
13:30 — 14:45	Panel 2A: Health Care and Biotechnology   34-101 Panel 2B: Social Responsibilities & Innovations   32-123
15:00 — 15:30	Keynote Session 3   32-123 Dixon Doll | Co-Founder and General Partner, DCM
15:30 — 17:30	Business Plan Contest Finale   32-123
19:00 — 19:30	VIP Dinner Speech   TBA
19:30 — 22:00	VIP Dinner & Networking (by invitation only)   TBA
Sunday, 17 November 2013
09:00 — 09:30	Keynote Session 4   32-123 Weijia Victor Wang 王维嘉 | Chairman, Mtone Wireless
09:30 — 10:00	Keynote Session 5   32-123 Zhihao Peter Zheng | Vice President, Tencent Inc.
10:00 — 10:15	Coffee Break
10:15 — 11:25	Panel 3A: Venture Investment   32-123 Panel 3B: Start-up Development   34-101
11:30 — 12:00	Keynote Session 6   32-123 W. Christopher Fang 方威凯 | Worldwide Vice President of Medical Affairs, Johnson & Johnson, DePuy Synthes Spine & Trauma

Welcome Address

Hang Chen 陈航 Co-President, MIT-CHIEF Ph.D. Candidate, Department Of Chemistry, MIT View intro » Hang is a third year PhD student in the Department of Chemistry at MIT. He graduated from Chu Kochen Honors College in Zhejiang University with a B.S. in physics. In last two years at MIT-CHIEF, Hang served in the Operation team and the Contest team. In addition to MIT-CHIEF, Hang is serving as the co-president of MIT Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) for the Chinese community at MIT. As an entrepreneur, Hang is founding a clean tech startup, PolymerGreen, with his partners. They use proprietary technology to convert waste plastic to fuel. They have been selected to various showcases and won several awards, including MIT IDEAS Global Challenge (Prize Winner), Future Energy (finalist with pitch), MIT-Clean Energy Prize(semifinalist with showcase), CMU-Summit New Venture Competition(First Place), CleanTech Open, etc.

Opening Remarks

Victor Zue 舒維都 Chair, MIT Greater China Strategy Working Group Delta Electronics Professor of EECS, MIT View intro » Victor Zue is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. In the early part of his career, Victor conducted research in acoustic phonetics and phonology. Subsequently, his research interest shifted to the development of spoken language interfaces to make human-computer interactions easier and more natural. Outside of MIT, Victor has consulted for many multinational corporations, and he has served on many planning, advisory, and review committees for the US Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the National Academies of Science and Engineering. Victor is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, and a Fellow of the International Speech Communication Association, and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He is also an Academician of the Academia Sinica.

Keynote Session 1

Iqbal Quadir Founder and Director, Legatum Center at MIT Professor of the Practice of Development and Entrepreneurship, MIT View intro » Iqbal Z. Quadir is a long-time champion of the critical role of entrepreneurship and innovations in creating prosperity in low-income countries. He is an accomplished entrepreneur who, 20 years ago, saw the potential of mobile technology to transform low-income countries. Quadir realized in the early 1990s that the ensuing digital revolution could facilitate the introduction of telephone access throughout Bangladesh. To make this vision a reality, he established a New York based company, Gonofone Development Corp (meaning “phones for the masses” in Bengali), which later became Grameenphone. Grameenphone is now Bangladesh’s leading telecommunications operator providing access to over 35 million subscribers irrespective of their geographic location or economic standing. From 2001-2004, Quadir was a Fellow and Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, focusing on the democratizing effects of technologies in low-income countries. He co-founded the journal Innovations (MIT Press) and, in 2005, moved to MIT where he founded the Legatum Center in 2007. Quadir founded Emergence BioEnergy to produce decentralized energy, and in 2010 co-founded Money in Motion, a start-up company to provide mobile phone-based banking services. He sits on the Advisory Council of the World Wide Web Foundation. Quadir’s work and thinking has been cited in nearly 30 books and both profiled and published in numerous publications. He was awarded the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Swarthmore College (2011), holds both an MBA and an MA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a BS with honors from Swarthmore College.

Keynote Session 2

Hugo Shong 熊晓鸽 Founding General Partner, IDG Capital Partners View intro » Hugo Shong has been Founding General Partner of IDG Capital Partners since 1993, also of IDG-Accel China Growth Fund and IDG-Accel Capital Fund since 2005 and 2008 respectively. In 1993, backed by Patrick J. McGovern, founder and chairman of Boston-headquartered International Data Group (IDG), Mr. Shong formed China’s first technology venture capital firm, IDG Capital Partners which was to invest in a string of China's most successful internet companies such as Baidu, Tencent (QQ), Sohu, Ctrip, and Soufun. As an award-winning journalist, Mr. Shong also launched and published over 40 magazines in China and Vietnam, including the Chinese editions of Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, National Geographic, Men’s Health and Robb Report, along with the Vietnamese editions of PC World and CIO magazines. Mr. Shong completed the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program in the fall of 1996. He conducted graduate studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy 1987-88 and earned his MS degree from Boston University’s College of Communication in 1987. He studied Journalism at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from 1984 to 1986 and he received a B.A. degree from Hunan University in 1982. A recipient of Distinguished Alumni Award at College of Communication, Boston University, in 1998, as well as Boston University Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2004. He has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Boston University since 2005, and also a board Director of WPP plc since 2013.

Panel 1: Emerging Technologies & The Future

Technologies such as the Internet, solar power and nano-materials have once been considered as futuristic but eventually become accessible, prevalent, and integral to everyday life. We believe that the next generation of technological breakthroughs will change our lives even fundamentally. In this year’s MIT-CHIEF, we proudly present a new panel session: Emerging Technologies & The Future, bringing together visionaries in different fields to discuss the social and commercial impact of emerging technologies. We expect this panel session will stimulate interdisciplinary dialog, cross-sector collaboration, raise the awareness of state-of-the-art scientific and technical progress, and inspire the audiences to trace the future path to a better society. We will also examine the opportunities and challenges facing entrepreneurs and investors on those frontiers.

Dirk Ahlborn President and CEO, JumpStartFund Interim CEO, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies View intro » Dirk Ahlborn is the President and CEO of JumpStartFund, an online crowd-funding and crowd-sourcing platform that grows new ideas, collaborates with existing companies on their inventions from inception to product launch, and specializes in technology transfer, as well as patent development from federal labs. Some of JumpStartFund's projects-in-progress include the Hyperloop, an Elon Musk concept that employs 800 mph aluminum pods for high-speed transportation. A serial entrepreneur with experience in almost every element of business, Ahlborn was the Entrepreneur-In-Residence from 2009 to 2012 at the Girvan Institute of Technology, a non-profit, public-benefit corporation in California, originally chartered with NASA to foster the growth of high-tech startups. Previously, Ahlborn made his mark wearing a variety of developmental hats at such companies as Advanced Turbine Designs, Inc., Ronda USA, Inc., his own company, Rika Italia, as well as his own Diva Srl. He has helped to create, design, manufacture, market and distribute products all over the U.S. and Europe. Ahlborn began his professional career as a broker and investment specialist at Bankgesellshaft Berlin, AG, and holds credentials in banking and insurance from the Organization of German Industry and Commerce. He lives in Los Angeles.

Elaine Chen Senior Lecturer, Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship View intro » Elaine Chen is a seasoned product development executive with a unique background spanning product development and product management. She co-teaches 15.S16 with Brian Halligan at MIT Sloan- a special seminar in management focusing on entrepreneurial product development and marketing. Elaine is deeply passionate about all aspects of bringing a product to market, from market sizing and analysis through customer research, ideation, user experience, design, development and release to product life cycle management and planned obsolescence. She has brought over 20 hardware and software products to market, in industries spanning robotics, haptics, CAD, consumer electronics, web, mobile platforms and more. She has built and grown several technical organizations from the ground up. She is a co-inventor on more than ten patents, and has managed IP portfolio strategies for several startups. Elaine has spent her entire career in startups and small companies. She really appreciates the speed, innovation and breadth of experiences that this type of environment has to offer. She loves that you never get pigeonholed; you are free to wear as many hats as you are comfortable wearing and can contribute to your maximum personal potential (and then some)! She says, "You learn something new every day, and that is priceless." Elaine served as Vice President of Product Development at Rethink Robotics, which is technically her fifth startup. Prior to Rethink Robotics, she has served at the VP level in engineering, product development and product management roles in several other Boston area startups, including Zeo, Zeemote and SensAble Technologies. She is also the founder and principal at ConceptSpring, a consulting business focusing on helping startups develop product strategies to bring their ideas from concept to market. Elaine is an active member of the MIT community and is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. She holds a BS and an MS in mechanical engineering from MIT.

Carl Dietrich Co-Founder, CEO and CTO, Terrafugia View intro » Carl Dietrich is the Co-founder, CEO and CTO of Terrafugia. He earned his SB, SM, & Ph.D. from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His technical background includes, rocket propulsion, aircraft design & fabrication, as well as plasma physics & fusion energy. His Ph.D. research demonstrated a 3X improvement in particle confinement in an inertial electrostatic confinement device. In 2000, he was recognized by the MIT Aero/Astro Department as the youngest of sixteen alumni who have shown “extraordinary accomplishment.” He is the author or co-author on three issued patents and three pending patents. In 2006 he won the $30K Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for Invention. As an aerospace industry entrepreneur, Carl grew Terrafugia through the successful development and flight testing of two airworthy prototype vehicles and built a $30 million order backlog for the launch product. Carl has been recognized with “40 under 40” awards from the Boston Business Journal and Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine. In addition to his work at Terrafugia, Carl helps develop the certification standards for light sport aircraft and general aviation aircraft on ASTM committees F37 and F44 respectively. He has been a private pilot and aircraft designer since high school. Carl’s mission is to enhance individual freedom through the more effective utilization of personal aviation.

John Leonard Associate Department Head for Research, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering, MIT View intro » John J. Leonard is Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering and Associate Department Head for Research in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is also a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligencen Laboratory (CSAIL). His research addresses the problems of navigation and mapping for autonomous mobile robots. He holds the degrees of B.S.E.E. in Electrical Engineering and Science from the University of Pennsylvania (1987) and D.Phil. in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford (1994). He studied at Oxford under a Thouron Fellowship and Research Assistantship funded by the ESPRIT program of the European Community. Prof. Leonard joined the MIT faculty in 1996, after five years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and Research Scientist in the MIT Sea Grant Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Laboratory. He has served an associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering and of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation. He is the recipient of an NSF Career Award (1998), an E.T.S. Walton Visitor Award from Science Foundation Ireland (2004), and the King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Transactions on Robotics Paper Award (2006).

Kevan Weaver Director of Technology Integration, TerraPower, LLC View intro » Dr. Weaver is the director of technology integration for TerraPower, where he is responsible for identifying, developing and maintaining U.S. and international joint programs and relationships that support TerraPower technology development. TerraPower is a nuclear energy technology startup company based in Bellevue, Washington, and its goal is to provide the world with a more affordable, secure and environmentally friendly form of nuclear energy. Before joining TerraPower, Kevan worked at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) for more than nine years in various capacities, all related to the development and use of advanced nuclear reactor concepts. This included work on everything from studying the use of reactors for producing process heat rather than electricity, to developing surface power fission systems for NASA, to co-chairing international committees on next generation nuclear energy systems. With much of his career in advanced reactor design and analysis, Kevan collaborated with fellow researchers on Generation IV nuclear energy systems, the Generation IV International Forum, and the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. His experience has allowed him to focus on some of the critical technical challenges facing the Traveling-Wave Reactor, such as the development and testing of advanced nuclear fuels and materials. His technical background includes reactor physics, reactor design, fuel cycle analysis, radiation spectroscopy, radioisotope production, and reactor operations. In addition, Kevan is the author/co-author of more than 90 publications and technical reports in nuclear science and engineering, and is a co-author of a new textbook on fast spectrum reactors. Kevan received his BS degree in Physics from Brigham Young University, and PhD degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Utah.

Panel 2A: Health Care and Biotechnology

This panel strives to bring leaders from both China and the U.S. to discuss the latest trend in the industry, especially the burgeoning business potential of health care information technology (such as EHR, Digital Health) and human genomics research. In particular, we aim to provide insights into how the advancement of these technologies can improve the quality of care for patients, and enhance the cost-effectiveness in the health care system. The panel will also examine the opportunities and challenges faced by start-ups from the perspectives of investors and entrepreneurs.

Patrick Angelastro Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Management, ImpactRx, a Symphony Health Solutions Company View intro » Mr. Angelastro has been a member of ImpactRx’s executive team for the past eleven years. During his time with the Company, he has orchestrated many of its new business initiatives, including the launches of specialty, as well as global, mobile physician research panels and their related product offerings. Mr. Angelastro has served in a variety of operating roles at ImpactRx and his current responsibilities include leading the Company’s product management and marketing activities. Mr. Angelastro has twenty eight years of marketing, finance and general management experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Before joining ImpactRx, he was a Brand Director at Roche where he managed a major brand re-launch in the US and was a member of the brand’s global strategy team. Mr. Angelastro has also held senior management positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb in both its US and international operations. He has an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and is a Certified Public, and a Certified Management, Accountant.

Lucas DiLeo President, Broadland Advisors View intro » Mr. DiLeo brings a 20 year track record of starting-up companies, advising start-ups and managing business ventures in the US and abroad. As President of Broadland Advisors, Mr. DiLeo works with clients and partners around the globe to develop new ventures, plan new business lines and enter overseas markets. Mr. DiLeo presently serves as advisor to Chinese research institutions as well as start-up biotech companies in the US. He is advisor to a health beverage company in the EU and is developing energy ventures with Texan investors. In addition, he works with foreign governments on technology and economic development initiatives. Prior to establishing his own firm, Mr. DiLeo was a senior executive with a Boston based management and development firm where he helped found companies in the entertainment, food services, tradeshow and property sectors; he has also been involved in interactive entertainment, education and on-line financial services ventures. Mr. DiLeo was one of the founders of the Boston World Trade Center where he played a prominent role in building ties between Boston’s tech community and those of foreign nations. Mr. DiLeo is a member of MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service which advises start-ups founded by the university's students, faculty and alumni.

Alan Jiang Director of Asia R&D Strategy, Sanofi-Genzyme R&D Center (GRDC) View intro » Alan graduated from Shanghai Medical University, China where he then worked for the National Institute for Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products (NICPBP, now NIFDC), and CFDA in Beijing. Later, he came to the U.S. where he completed his graduate studies in Molecular Biology and continued his postdoctoral training in Hematology and Oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Alan began his career with Genzyme in 2001. His early tenure at Genzyme was in Disease Biology Research focusing on Oncology and Genetic Diseases. He led a research team in the Functional Genomics group working on various projects from drug target biology, identification, and validation to drug repositioning. In addition, he acts as Scientific Advisor for the business development team on therapeutic licensing opportunities and Genzyme ventures. Alan later joined the R&D Strategy group for the Sanofi-Genzyme R&D Center (GRDC) where he is currently Director, Asia R&D Strategy. His responsibilities include the development of Genzyme Asia/China R&D strategy and activities. In addition, he is a member of the GRDC Translational Medicine team and focuses on strategic implementation of pharmacogenomics into early clinical development.

Deniz Kural Co-Founder and CEO, Seven Bridges Genomics View intro » Deniz Kural is the Co-Founder and CEO at Seven Bridges Genomics, a leading cloud-based genomics platform that has won many entrepreneurial awards, such as Best of Bio-IT World 2013. He oversaw the scaling of the team from 1 to ~60 people to date, attracting top talent in business, science, and engineering towards the mission. Deniz received a B.A. (Mathematics) from Harvard University. He was an undergraduate fellow at the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, at Nowak Lab. He also worked at the George Church lab, which invented the first direct genomic sequencing technology. He then brought his expertise to work on the 1000 Genomes Project during his PhD program at Boston College, to resolve challenging algorithmic problems for today's dominant Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies. He is renowned for his invented computational methods on structure variation and mobile element detection. Having realized the great promise of NGS for future Personalized Medicine, Deniz also identified enormous difficulties to scale genomic data analysis. He started current venture, to provide big data solution for doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and thousands of researchers international wide. Deniz is passionate about reproducible science, social computing, read/write genomics, and scaling & simplifying existing systems. He can be seen learning about new algorithms and discussing new user interface paradigms for genomics research.

Yingrui Li CEO, BGI Tech View intro » Yingrui Li, born in 1986, is now the CEO of BGI Tech. He was recommended to Top Life Sciences Department at Peking University by excellent performance at national Biology Olympiad Competition training team in 2004. In 2006, he came to BGI as a trainee as well as a sophomore. From then on, he committed himself in the research of algorithms and data structures, computer programming, mathematical statistics, modeling methods, data mining techniques and genomics analysis. The bioinformatics analytical platform based on the next-generation sequencing of BGI was constructed with his great contribution and leadership. In the past few years, he led BGI research team to initiate and engage a number of national projects, including Yan Huang Project, 1000 Genomes Project, Yan Huang Whole Genome Methylation, Cancer Genome Project and so on. The research team led by Yingrui actively make progress of genome research, platform development and biotechnology application. By far, he has more than 60 papers published in high-impact journal including Nature and Science. At present, Yingrui Li is leading BGI-Tech, the premier scientific partner worldwide. He incorporates the one- stop total solution to deliver the best service of cross-platform trans-omics research.

Panel 2B: Social Responsibilities & Innovations

We brought about this topic since we know that the business is not only about making money nowadays – the sustainability of business ensures the long-term profitability of the corporate and connects the society and human beings. Business and social development would no longer be separated from each other; instead, the world of society and its people would be within an ecosystem, where the values and practices are interwoven with the social aspects, with ‘bigger’ vision and ‘higher’ purposes, to propel healthier economic development. In this panel, we will discuss the corporate social responsibilities, high-impact technologies that resolve social problems, social innovations and entrepreneurship, impact investment and specifically, the current status, difficulties and future of social business in China. Through the discussion of these topics, we hope we could bring higher awareness of sustainable models to entrepreneurs, and discover innovative solutions to social problems in China today.

Scot Frank Co-Founder and CEO, One Earth Designs View intro » Scot Frank is the co-founder and CEO of One Earth Designs. Scot received Bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. He holds three patents: one for a novel breast cancer diagnostic tool and two for solar energy. His background includes founding three companies, working in IBM’s India Research Laboratory, leading MIT Development Lab’s China program, and advising renewable energy projects for the Clinton Global Initiative and Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room. Scot has been listed by Forbes as a 30 Under 30 Entrepreneur, and named an Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader, BMW Foundation Young Leader, Earth Hour Innovator, Unreasonable Fellow, Cordes Fellow, ECSEL Fellow, and Make a Difference Venture Fellow. Since childhood, Scot has had a deep passion for using technology to drive social and environmental change. He started his first company when he was in middle school. Today, he seeks out every opportunity to learn more about the world and build empathy between people. With One Earth Designs, he aims to change the way people around the world use energy.

Amir Alexander Hasson Founder and CEO, Oxigen USA, Inc View intro » Amir is an accomplished entrepreneur with expertise in international business development, management, strategy, finance, IT, FinTech, mobile applications, telecom, and distribution. He has started three companies, raised over $5m from venture investors, and built networks impacting the lives of millions of people in the USA, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He was born in Chicago and completed his Bachelor’s with Honors from the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University. He worked in marketing and production at leading new media companies in New York City during the “.com boom” and spun-out a human-powered portal for the holistic health industry, webreathe.com. He then received his Master's in the Management of Technology from the MIT Sloan School of Management. During the course of his study at MIT, Amir co-conceived and patented DakNet, a novel store-and-forward "drive-by" WiFi technology for rural connectivity. He worked with engineers at the MIT Media Lab to lead the development and deployment of WiFi networks in rural India, while managing business development for Media Lab Asia, an R&D lab started by MIT. Based on this MIT research, Amir spun-out First Mile Solutions, which developed and implemented wireless Internet solutions for public and private organizations in developing countries. Amir led First Mile Solutions to profitability, managing product development and projects for NGOs, telcos, and multilateral institutions such as the United Nations Development Program in countries such as Cambodia, Rwanda, and Paraguay. Amir then founded United Villages, Inc., a VC-funded company that later acquired First Mile Solutions and now operates rural India's first mobile phone supply chain, enabling thousands of retailers to procure and manage their inventory of products and services through UV's proprietary mobile platform. UV has been recognized as one of Top 20 Most Impactful Companies by Investors' Circle. Amir has published several papers and has spoken at over 30 events internationally. He is the inventor of two issued and two pending patents and has been interviewed and cited by major media organizations including CNN, the BBC, the New York Times, and Le Monde. Amir was featured as one of the Top 25 [Entrepreneurs] Under 35 by Red Herring Magazine in 2006 and one of the Top Young Innovators (the "TR35") by MIT Technology Review in 2010. He has participated in several Aspen Institute and Aspen Institute India "roundtables" and was sponsored as a Fellow in the inaugural 2009-10 Aspen Institute First Movers program. Based in Cambridge, MA, Amir now serves as the Founder & CEO of Oxigen USA, Inc, a subsidiary of Oxigen India, which is India's largest payment solutions provider that took over UV in 2012. Amir also serves as an Entrepreneur In Residence for the MIT Trust Center for Entrepreneurship, as a Reviewer for IEEE Communications Magazine, as a Member of the Young Entrepreneurs Council, and as a Mentor for the Harvard University iLab.

Jason Jay Director, MIT Sloan Initiative for Sustainable Business and Society Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management View intro » Dr. Jason Jay is a Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of theSustainability Initiative at MIT Sloan. He teaches courses on leadership, strategy, and innovation for sustainable business. He engages students and alumni in hands-on projects with leading companies and organizations. These efforts help build a community of innovators for sustainability that includes MIT students and alumni, faculty and researchers, and partners in business, government, NGOs, and hybrid organizations. Dr. Jay’s own research focuses on how people navigate the tensions inherent in the quest for sustainability, as they simultaneously pursue their own self-interest and the flourishing of human and other life. This work includes deep case studies of cross-sectoral collaboration and hybrid organizations that combine social and business goals. It also includes action research efforts that help people cultivate authentic, effective conversations about sustainability and escape common pitfalls of excessive moral and intellectual certainty. Energy efficiency has proven a useful context to explore these questions; Dr. Jay has conducted an ethnographic study of the Cambridge Energy Alliance, and serves as a research partner and facilitator for the EDF Climate Corps program and its network of companies. Alongside these efforts, Dr. Jay is an active leader of sustainability efforts across MIT. Through the MIT Sustainable Societies Research Group, he brings together scholars from across the Institute to examine the invention, implementation, and transformation required for a sustainable society. He has helped improve the energy and environmental footprint of the MIT campus by founding the MIT Generator and the Greening MIT community engagement campaign, and serves as founding member of the Campus Energy “Walk the Talk” Task Force. Prior to MIT, Dr. Jay ran an Internet startup, traveled around the world, taught kindergarten in a progressive preschool, and worked as a consultant with Dialogos International, where he consulted on leadership development and organizational change for major international corporations and NGO's including BP, the World Bank, and the Instituto Libertad y Democracia. He holds a Ph.D. in Organization Studies from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and an AB in Psychology and Masters in Education from Harvard University.

Jessica Martin Innovation Associate, Acumen View intro » Jessica is an Innovation Associate at Acumen working to scale Acumen’s leadership curriculum through the 23 +Acumen volunteer organized chapters and online channels. She has spent the last year building and testing a suite of courses for a globally accessible online leadership academy, now offering courses in design, storytelling, and lean principles. Prior to joining Acumen, Jessica was an iCats Fellow at Driptech, a for-profit social venture that makes affordable drip irrigation for smallholder farmers, where she worked on building out the company’s international business operations in California and Pune, India. Previously, Jessica was a market strategy analyst at U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management in New York where she focused on in-depth macroeconomic and investment strategy research. Jessica holds a BA in International Studies and Economics from Fairfield University and spent a year in Beijing, China on a Fulbright Scholarship researching the development of China’s environmental NGOs.

Eric Sorensen Co-Founder and Executive Director, Carbon Roots International View intro » Eric is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Carbon Roots International, social enterprise working in Haiti. Before learning the definition of social entrepreneur, Eric’s past job titles included: bartender, farm hand, carpenter, sailor, blog editor, and filmmaker. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Eric’s career took a sharp turn away from the media world toward the world of international development, where he’s been working at the forefront of the sustainable charcoal revolution.

Jinlin Wang CTO and EVP of Engineering, Answers Venture Advisor, TEEC Angel Fund View intro » Jinlin Wang is a Venture Advisor to TEEC Angel Fund, and serves as CTO & EVP of Engineering of Answers, a leading Q&A consumer destination and an e-commerce platform. Jinlin has over 15 years of engineering management experience in building both consumer internet monetization engines and enterprise applications, and has held senior leadership roles at Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle, and PeopleSoft. Jinlin earned his Ph.D. In Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut, and his bachelor and master degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing.

Tao Zhang Co-Founder and Managing Director, China Impact Fund (CIF) View intro » Tao Zhang is Co-Founder and Managing Director of China Impact Fund (CIF), China's first impact fund that is focused on supporting and financing SMEs providing environmentally friendly products and services as well as start-up companies with an environmental value proposition for the country's Base of Pyramid (BoP). Tao is also Co-Founder of ACBridge Capital Advisors, a cross-border Sino-US government and investment consultancy firm where he led a team in advising private equity and venture capital investors, SMEs and multinational companies in the telecom, technology and clean energy fields. Prior to this, Tao served as Global Chief Operating Officer of New Ventures, an impact investing and business accelerator housed at the World Resources Institute that helped environmentally-focused SMEs in six key emerging markets compete in a global economy. In this role, Tao managed New Ventures’ Global Hub in Washington, DC and its Global Network of six Local Centers in Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia and Mexico. During this time, he led the Global Network to nearly double investments into New Ventures companies to nearly $400 million (including two IPOs). Tao received a BA from Beijing Foreign Studies University, an MBA from Wake Forest University, and an MPA from Harvard University as a Mason Fellow. He also completed an executive education program in private equity and venture capital at the Harvard Business School. Tao currently writes for the Wall Street Journal Chinese as a columnist, with a focus on impact investing and enterprise solutions to environmental and social issues.

Keynote Session 3

Dixon Doll Co-Founder and General Partner, DCM View intro » For more than 35 years, Dixon Doll has influenced and guided entrepreneurs, investors and executives in the computer and communications industries. In recognition of his accomplishments in venture capital, Dixon received the 2013 Special Achievement Award from the International Business Forum. Dixon was also named by Forbes Magazine as one of the top 100 venture investors on its Midas List for four consecutive years. In April, 2005, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) in Washington, D.C. He also served as NVCA Chairman from 2008-2009 and as a member of their Executive Committee from 2007-2009. Under Dixon’s leadership and direction as Chairman, the NVCA developed a widely embraced set of recommendations (NVCA 4-Pillar Plan) to help enhance liquidity in the U.S. venture capital industry. This plan led to the JOBS Bill of 2012 which President Obama signed into law earlier this year. Dixon currently serves on the Board of Directors of DIRECTV (DTV), where he also serves on the Compensation and Nominating/Corporate Governance Committees. He is also the Board Chairman of Network Equipment Technologies (NWK) and the past Board Chairman of Force10 Networks, which was recently acquired by Dell. He also serves on the boards of numerous private DCM companies. In the mid-1980's, Dixon co-founded the venture capital industry's first fund focused exclusively on telecommunications opportunities. Earlier, Dixon was the founder and CEO of an internationally recognized strategic consulting firm focused on telecommunications and computer networking. From 1972 to 1980, Dixon also served as a faculty member of the IBM Systems Research Institute in New York City. He authored the seminal text Data Communications published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1978. It was adopted as a course text by more than 60 colleges and universities worldwide. Dixon has traveled extensively to six continents to serve on advisory boards and give highly sought after lectures and conference presentations. Through their family foundation, he and his wife Carol give generously to numerous educational and philanthropic organizations. He also serves on the Executive Committee and Advisory Board for the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), is a member of the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and also is a San Francisco City Commissioner. Dixon received his B.S.E.E. degree (cum laude) from Kansas State University as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, where he was a National Science Foundation scholar.

Business Plan Contest Finale

We have eight experienced judges for this year's Business Plan Contest Finale:

Gregg Fairbrothers Adjunct Professor of Business Administration, Tuck School of Business View intro » Prior to returning to Dartmouth in 1999, Gregg served in a variety of management and executive positions in the oil and gas industry over 22 years, managing and founding exploration and production companies on three continents. Gregg graduated Dartmouth magna cum laude in 1975 with a BA in Earth Sciences (high distinction). He earned his MS from Rutgers University in Geology in 1977, and received his MBA from the University of Tulsa in 1983.

Anna Fang General Manager, ZhenFund View intro » Ms. Anna Fang is the General Manager of ZhenFund, an affiliate seed fund for Sequoia Capital China, where she is responsible for seed stage investments in the China region. Before joining ZhenFund, Ms. Fang was an Associate at GE China responsible for corporate business development initiatives. Ms. Fang was previously an investment banker at J.P. Morgan. She serves as a member of the board of directors for several internet start-ups in China and is a member of the Advisory Board of Columbia University's East Asia Center. She received her undergraduate degree from Columbia University, and a Master of Business Administration from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Patrick Hale Director, System Design and Management Fellows Program View intro » Patrick Hale holds a B.S. in Geophysical Oceanography from the University of Washington, an MBA from National University and the degrees of Ocean Engineer and S.M. in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from MIT. His professional interests include application of systems engineering in commercial product development, complex naval system design and engineering process frameworks and methods. Prior to joining MIT, Mr. Hale completed a 22-year career in the U.S. Navy, qualifying in both Surface Warfare and Submarine Warfare (Engineering Duty) communities, and culminating in managing the design and construction of submarines in Groton, Connecticut. Following his Navy career, Pat held executive-level systems engineering positions in defense and commercial system and product development organizations, including Director of Systems Engineering at both Draper Laboratory and Otis Elevator Company, where he developed and implemented Otis’ first systems engineering process and organization. Since joining MIT in 2003, Mr. Hale has led the MIT-Industry Partner Systems Engineering Certificate Program, a one-year graduate certificate program under SDM, and since 2004 is now Director of the SDM Fellows program. Mr. Hale has been a member of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) for 15 years, and has served on the INCOSE Board of Directors for 12 years. He served as President for 2008-2009. He currently serves as Secretary of the INCOSE Foundation, a 501c3 charitable foundation. He has published papers in the area of commercial systems engineering in the conference proceedings of both INCOSE and ASME.

Ying Lee 李颖 Managing Director, YunFeng Capital View intro » Ms. Lee is the Managing Director of YunFeng Capital, and one of the founding members of its management team. She focuses on investment opportunities in TMT, healthcare, and cleantech. Prior to her current role, Ms. Lee was a Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) in the USA office. She helped start KPCB China and invested in innovative companies, including Autonavi (Nasdaq: AMAP), VenusTech (CGEN: 002439), and Sungrow Power Supply (CGEN). Prior to KPCB, Ms. Lee was the Deputy General Manager of UTStarcom’s IPTV business unit based in Hangzhou, China. She was responsible for product roadmap, marketing, and supply chain. Ms. Lee began her career as a management consultant in the Silicon Valley office of McKinsey & Company, where she worked with board members and senior executives in Fortune 500 companies on product strategy, marketing plans, business process optimization, and M&A projects. Ms. Lee earned three degrees from MIT (a BS in Computer Science, a BS in Economics, and a MS in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science), and was an Associate Editor of IEEE 802.3ah.

Yong Liu 刘勇 Director of Open Innovation and Partnerships, Baidu View intro » Dr. Yong Liu is a researcher, entrepreneur, business writer and venture capitalist. He is now leading Baidu’s open innovation efforts, including strategic investment and partnerships in the US. Before joining Baidu, Dr. Liu set up Lenovo Technology Seed Fund in 2012 and Lenovo Silicon Valley office for M&A/strategic alliance in 2011. In his earlier career, Dr. Liu served Samsung Electronics, co-founded Dict.cn, and acted as an active business writer. Dr. Liu obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Nanjing University, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Indiana University Bloomington. His research areas include pervasive computing and diffusion of innovations.

Michael Ming Quin Partner, zPark Venture View intro » Dr. Quin is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist with rich experience in business growth and market value creation. Michael is actively invested in early stage health care and mobile commerce O2O companies across the United States and China. Previously, he was a partner of Hejun Capital and Oriental Fortune Capital with multiple pre-IPO investment and extensive resources. Michael is a graduate of University of Science and Technology of China.

Charlemagne Quinitio Director of Global Operations, Hult Prize View intro » Mr. Charlemagne Quinitio is the Director of Global Operations at the Hult Prize. The Hult Prize is a start-up accelerator for social good in which is dedicated to launching the next wave of social entrepreneurs through identifying, funding, mentoring, advising and launching new social businesses.  Mr. Quinitio has successfully led the implementation and execution of Hult Prize operations in Shanghai, Dubai, Boston, London, San Francisco and Sao Paulo. Mr. Quinitio started his career in the biotech industry in designing and executing system processes with focus on quality and implementation. Mr. Quinitio has also used his statistical and leadership expertise in the energy consulting sectors specializing on systems implementation and adoption across different stakeholders. Mr. Quinitio has a BS in Bioinformatics and Genomics from UC Riverside and an MBA in International Business from Hult International Business School. Mr. Quinitio currently resides in San Diego, CA.

Alan Song 宋安澜 Managing Partner, Softbank China Venture Capital View intro » Dr. Song has rich experiences in both investment and entrepreneurship. He has in-depth knowledge in a broad range of technologies, and his main investment interests are early middle stage high-tech companies. He joined SBCVC in January 2000. His key role has been deal sourcing, execution, and portfolio management. He serves on the board of directors for over ten high-tech companies. Before SBCVC, he held key positions in various high-tech companies. In 1995, he joined UStarcom's founding team as the Director of Information Technology. In addition, he was the CTO of MDC Telecom, and also a founder and director of GDS. From 1991 to 1995, he was an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut. From 1988 to 1991, he was a post doctorate researcher at the University of Connecticut where he conducted research in the field of computer networks and information systems. Dr. Song holds B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University, and Ph.D. from School of Economics & Management, Tsinghua University. He serves as the special advisor for China Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, and many other organizations.

Jinlin Wang CTO and EVP of Engineering, Answers Venture Advisor, TEEC Angel Fund View intro » Jinlin Wang is a Venture Advisor to TEEC Angel Fund, and serves as CTO & EVP of Engineering of Answers, a leading Q&A consumer destination and an e-commerce platform. Jinlin has over 15 years of engineering management experience in building both consumer internet monetization engines and enterprise applications, and has held senior leadership roles at Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle, and PeopleSoft. Jinlin earned his Ph.D. In Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut, and his bachelor and master degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing.

Elaine Wong Co-Founder and Partner, HAO Capital View intro » Ms. Wong is a co-Founder and Partner of HAO Capital, a China focused Growth Equity Fund with over USD 500 million of assets under management. Ms. Wong has rich experience in working with the boards and management of portfolio companies, assisting in their formation and growth, and working with management to assess/select technology (foreign and domestic) to accelerate the development of the company. Prior to HAO Capital, Ms. Wong was a member of the management of the Carlyle Group US Venture Partners and the Carlyle Group Asia Growth Equity partnership. She was also a Consultant with Arthur D. Little. Ms. Wong graduated from MIT with a degree in Chemical Engineering, and has an MBA from Stanford University. She is currently the President of the MIT Club of Beijing.

Jin Xu Vice President, Shaanxi Industrial Investment View intro » Jin Xu is currently a post-doctor at MIT Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of MIT-Plato Project, a new collaboration between MIT and China that was formed to explore potential barriers and develop pragmatic solutions. He specializes in economic globalization, management innovation and platform economics, as well as private equity. He is also a research supervisor at Shanghai University of Finance & economics, Deputy Director of Private Equity Research Center of XJTU-SOM (the School of Management at Xi'an Jiaotong University), China. As an inaugurator of platform economics in China, he has been devoted in platform theory research and practice since 2006. He has published 5 books and more than 30 articles, five of which being indexed by EI Compendex. In his latest book Platform Economics (Shanghai Jiaotong University Press, 2013), Jin Xu proposed several advanced theories and ideas including platform ecosystem, platform evolution and sub-platform etc. In China, he is appointed as Deputy General Manager of Shaanxi Province Industry Investment Group co. Ltd., a state owned institutional investor which has invested in Shaanxi Guantian Xixian Capital Investment Co., Ltd, the new material funds of Shaanxi Province, the aluminum project of the 4th Aerospace Co., Ltd, the overseas acquisitions of ARC Qinghua Co., Ltd, the 2nd capital increasing project for Qinghua automotive safety systems Co., Ltd. And with 1 billion registered capital invested in Caojiatan Coal Mine Co., Ltd the deal will create 2 billion estimated profits annually. He was an Asian Fellow of Harvard Kennedy School from 2007 to 2008.

Eugene Zhang 张于庆 General Partner, TEEC Angel Fund View intro » In summer 2010, Eugene co-foundered TEEC Angel Fund, a supper angel fund investing in both US and China early stage companies in Silicon Valley. Eugene was founding CEO of InnoSpring, a global cross border technology startup incubator in Silicon Valley from its inception to January 2014. Eugene founded JEDA Technologies, Inc., in December, 2002 and serves as President and CEO. JEDA specializes in next-generation SoC design methodologies and provides ESL (electronic system level ) verification automation products for leading edge SoC design companies world wide. JEDA Beijing R&D center was opened in December 2004 at Tsinghua Science Park. Eugene has been working in the networking and computer industry for thirteen years in technical and management positions. Prior to founding JEDA, he was with Juniper Networks from its start where he contributed greatly to the success of many complex ASICs for internet backbone routers. Prior to joining Juniper, Eugene was with Cisco Systems as an ASIC design verification engineer. From 1993 to 1995 while Eugene worked on the Sunfire SMP server project at SUN Microsystems, he co-invented industry’s first hardware Testbench language Vera, which is a part of today’s industry standard SystemVerilog ( IEEE 1880). Mr. Zhang received his M.S.C.E from Syracuse University, USA, and a M.S.E.E and B.S.E.E from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Min Zhang Founder and Managing Partner, Empower Investment View intro » Min Zhang is the founder and managing partner of Empower Investment - the fund which focuses on early stage investments in TMT industry. Prior to his own adventure, he was the investment director in Morningside Investment Group starting from 2002. Between 2002 and 2008 in Morningside Investment Group, Min Zhang was involved in seven different projects, covering industries such as internet, media, transportation and health-care. Also, he acted as CEO of Fastlane Media Group and Vice-President of Media Partners International (MPI) within Morningside Investment Group portfolio. Before joining Morningside Investment Group, Min Zhang was Senior Manager – Global Risk Management Solution of PWC. Before PWC, he was with Royal Dutch Shell International and worked in various functions such as brand management, network planning, M&A and global consultancy in different countries. Min Zhang holds an MBA from Norwegian Business School of Economics and Management, Norway.

VIP Dinner Speech

Gang Chen 陈刚 Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, MIT Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering, MIT View intro » Gang Chen is currently Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering and Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his bachelor and master degree from the Power Engineering Department, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in 1984 and 1987, respectively. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from UC Berkeley in 1993 working under then Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien. He was a faculty member at Duke University (1993-1997), University of California at Los Angeles (1997-2001), before joining MIT in 2001. He is a recipient of the NSF Young Investigator Award, the ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, the R&D100 Award, and the MIT McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, a Guggenheim Fellow, an AAAS Fellow, an APS Fellow, and an ASME Fellow. He has published extensively in the area of nanoscale energy transport and conversion and nanoscale heat transfer. He is the director of Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center funded by the US DOE’s Energy Frontier Research Centers program.

Ying Lee 李颖 Managing Director, YunFeng Capital View intro » Ms. Lee is the Managing Director of YunFeng Capital, and one of the founding members of its management team. She focuses on investment opportunities in TMT, healthcare, and cleantech. Prior to her current role, Ms. Lee was a Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) in the USA office. She helped start KPCB China and invested in innovative companies, including Autonavi (Nasdaq: AMAP), VenusTech (CGEN: 002439), and Sungrow Power Supply (CGEN). Prior to KPCB, Ms. Lee was the Deputy General Manager of UTStarcom’s IPTV business unit based in Hangzhou, China. She was responsible for product roadmap, marketing, and supply chain. Ms. Lee began her career as a management consultant in the Silicon Valley office of McKinsey & Company, where she worked with board members and senior executives in Fortune 500 companies on product strategy, marketing plans, business process optimization, and M&A projects. Ms. Lee earned three degrees from MIT (a BS in Computer Science, a BS in Economics, and a MS in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science), and was an Associate Editor of IEEE 802.3ah.

Pei Qi 祁培 Co-President, MIT-CHIEF View intro » Pei Qi is the Co-President of MIT-CHIEF 2013. He provides his leadership for organization's partnership development, business plan contest program and marketing. He led the first ever China Trip in MIT-CHIEF's history to bring 12 start-up teams selected from over 200 candidates to China this summer: Five Days and Five Cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shaoxing, Wuxi and Hangzhou) to meet with local investors, government agents and corporate partners. Pei Qi was the Vice-President of MIT-CHIEF 2012 responsible for speakers, panels and sponsorships. He was Co-Director of MIT-CHIEF 2011 for sponsorship. Beside his volunteering work with MIT-CHIEF, Pei Qi is the China Business Development Manager with EPM, Inc, a leading technology consulting firm for Nuclear industry providing engineering consulting, software solution and probabilistic risk assessment consulting to industries in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. In the past, he interned at the Bloomberg R&D department, and worked in China Customs. He holds an MBA and an M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Keynote Session 4

Weijia Victor Wang 王维嘉 Chairman, Mtone Wireless View intro » Victor Wang co-founded Mtone Wireless in 1994 in Silicon Valley and currently is the Chairman of the company. He holds Ph.D. of Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Mtone Wireless developed the world first mobile stock-trading infrastructure in Silicon Valley and commercially deployed in China in 1997. Mtone Wireless pioneered the mobile Internet industry in China by providing the first mobile-phone information and content services nationwide in China since 1999. Mtone developed China’s first location-based mobile commerce services in 2001, developed world first mobile networking game in 2005. Mtone today is one of the innovative mobile phone applications developers and service providers in China. Victor worked at Pacific Bell in California during 1987-1989. He worked at Cellular Data Inc. in Palo Alto, California during 1989-1991 leading the radio system and wireless network architecture design. From 1991-1994 he worked at Interval Research Corp. in Palo Alto, California as a Senior Research Staff, holding 6 U.S. patents in multimedia mobile communications. Victor Wang is a co-founder and the third Chairman of 2005 Committee, consisting hundreds of leaders all with overseas-studies background. He was also a By-Law Committee Chairman and Vice Chairman of Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology (SEE) in China, the largest environmental group founded by over 200 entrepreneurs. Victor is also co-founder and an executive board member of e-China, the largest industrial group in the information industry. He is also a permanent board member of Chinese Entrepreneurs Forum.

Keynote Session 5

Zhihao Peter Zheng Vice President, Tencent Inc. View intro » Joined Tencent in 2006, Mr. Zheng led the R&D, Product & Planning practice of Tencent Social Network Platform (Qzone). Mr. Zheng is also the founder and leader of Tencent Open Platform & Performance-based Advertisement Platform (Guangdiantong). Prior to Tencent, Mr. Zheng served in Intel & Boing as technology/management consultant, and led a group of product development in Microsoft. Mr. Zheng received his M.S. in Computer Science in University of Kentucky, and bachelor degree in Shandong University.

Panel 3A: Venture Investment

Market never lacks amazing ideas, but only funds can turn the ideas into reality and profits. For start-ups, funding is the fuel on which a business runs. Nowadays there are more and more sources of funds for start-up founders, from traditional venture capital firms to newly created online venture capital platforms. During the process of funding start-ups, founders may face many challenges, e.g., identifying early stage funding sources, convincing them for a check and sometimes even making a choice among different funding sources. At the same time, investors such as venture capital firms are eager to embrace the era which can create giant miracles, like Google, Apple and Facebook. MIT has been a pioneer in hatching start-up companies in the world for many years with abundant experience of looking for appropriate venture investment. This year we will host a panel on Venture Investment, developing a deep-going discussion on roundly details in looking for funding and opening a window for people to learn more about funding status in China.

Anna Fang General Manager, ZhenFund View intro » Ms. Anna Fang is the General Manager of ZhenFund, an affiliate seed fund for Sequoia Capital China, where she is responsible for seed stage investments in the China region. Before joining ZhenFund, Ms. Fang was an Associate at GE China responsible for corporate business development initiatives. Ms. Fang was previously an investment banker at J.P. Morgan. She serves as a member of the board of directors for several internet start-ups in China and is a member of the Advisory Board of Columbia University's East Asia Center. She received her undergraduate degree from Columbia University, and a Master of Business Administration from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Charles Kane Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management View intro » Charles Kane is a Senior Lecturer in Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Kane is the president of One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a nonprofit organization that provides technology to enhance education in less developed countries. Prior to OLPC, Kane was chief financial officer (CFO) of RSA Security (acquired by EMC); CFO of Aspen Technology; president and chief executive officer of Corechange Inc. (acquired by Open Text Corp.); and CFO of Informix Software (acquired by IBM). He also served in financial executive positions at Stratus Computer, Prime Computer, and Deloitte and Touche. Throughout his career, Kane has been involved in developing and executing on sophisticated financial strategies in globalizing corporations and mergers and acquisitions. He is a frequent speaker and writer on these topics, as well as other international financial topics. Kane is the audit chairman on the boards of Progress Software, Applix Software, Netezza Corporation, and Egenera Corporation. He is a certified public accountant and has taught international finance at the business schools of Boston College and Babson College. Kane holds a BBA in accounting from University of Notre Dame and an MBA in international finance from Babson College.

Matthew Nordan Vice President, Venrock Capital View intro » Matthew Nordan is a vice president at Venrock, a premier venture capital firm originally established as the venture arm of the Rockefeller family. He focuses on breakthrough energy, environmental, and materials technologies from the firm’s Cambridge, MA office. Matthew is a board observer at FinSIX and Boston-Power and has been closely involved with portfolio companies Phononic Devices and Nest Labs. Prior to Venrock, Matthew was president of Lux Research, an advisory services firm for science-driven innovation that he co-founded in 2004. Under Matthew’s leadership, the Lux Research analyst team became a globally recognized authority on the business and economic impact of emerging technologies, advising corporations, start-ups, financial institutions, and governments. Before Lux, Matthew held a variety of senior management positions at emerging technology advisor Forrester Research in the U.S. and Europe. Matthew has testified before the U.S. Congress four times on emerging technology issues, advised the Committee to Review the National Nanotechnology Initiative of the National Academies, and been an invited speaker at universities including Harvard, MIT, and Columbia. He was a founding member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies and has advised the OECD on technology development for energy and environmental applications. A regular speaker at technology conferences, Matthew’s views have been cited by news outlets including CNBC, ABC News, The Economist, Forbes, and Newsweek. Matthew is a graduate of Yale University, where he conducted cognitive neuroscience research on the neural pathways mediating emotion and memory.

Michael Ming Quin Partner, zPark Venture View intro » Dr. Quin is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist with rich experience in business growth and market value creation. Michael is actively invested in early stage health care and mobile commerce O2O companies across the United States and China. Previously, he was a partner of Hejun Capital and Oriental Fortune Capital with multiple pre-IPO investment and extensive resources. Michael is a graduate of University of Science and Technology of China.

Elizabeth Riley Adjunct Professor, Babson and Olin College of Engineering President and Co-Founder, Mazza and Riley, Inc. View intro » Elizabeth was President and Co-Founder of Mazza and Riley, Inc., an internationally recognized executive search firm focused on recruiting general partners for venture capital and buyout funds, senior management for emerging growth companies in datacom, telecom, computer software and hardware. In addition she recruited top management for media and communications companies including paging, cellular, digital mobile, wireless data, satellite, multimedia, magazine and book publishing and broadcasting (including broadcast, cable TV, and radio). Her company grew a strong client base with recurring revenue based on providing superior value-added service in specific vertical markets to Boards of Directors and CEO's-including recruiting, money raising, mergers, and strategic planning. It developed and sustained long-term productive relationships with a core group of venture capitalists with significant telecom portfolios from early-stage to post-IPO companies.

Panel 3B: Start-up Development

When launching a new company, there are a number of factors to take into consideration. Yes, it helps if you have a unique product that perfectly matches customers’ needs. Yes, it’s great if you have an impressive business plan and an attractive pitch. Yes, it works if you have well-defined financial projections and decent potential return to investors. But at the end, after funding your company, the key to success is whether you have a talented start-up’s team that is able to effectively operate and manage your company. Unfortunately and understandably, not every start-up is gifted with an expert team who enjoys adequate experience and knowledge in coding, sales and marketing, product development, and business management. Especially, young college entrepreneurs who simply do not have enough real-world experience and business knowledge are often lack of the ability to have their ideas to be successfully commercialized. In particular, many problems may come up to the young entrepreneurs when managing and operating their companies in the early stage. For example, who should be invited to your board? What benefit plan should you provide for your employees? What is an appropriate way to divide equities between co-founders? How can you effectively market your products? Some of these problems are expected while some are changeling to handle. In order to resolve the concerns of young founders and provide valuable experience to operate and manage a start-up, this year we will host a panel on initial development of start-ups.

Dirk Ahlborn President and CEO, JumpStartFund Interim CEO, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies View intro » Dirk Ahlborn is the President and CEO of JumpStartFund, an online crowd-funding and crowd-sourcing platform that grows new ideas, collaborates with existing companies on their inventions from inception to product launch, and specializes in technology transfer, as well as patent development from federal labs. Some of JumpStartFund's projects-in-progress include the Hyperloop, an Elon Musk concept that employs 800 mph aluminum pods for high-speed transportation. A serial entrepreneur with experience in almost every element of business, Ahlborn was the Entrepreneur-In-Residence from 2009 to 2012 at the Girvan Institute of Technology, a non-profit, public-benefit corporation in California, originally chartered with NASA to foster the growth of high-tech startups. Previously, Ahlborn made his mark wearing a variety of developmental hats at such companies as Advanced Turbine Designs, Inc., Ronda USA, Inc., his own company, Rika Italia, as well as his own Diva Srl. He has helped to create, design, manufacture, market and distribute products all over the U.S. and Europe. Ahlborn began his professional career as a broker and investment specialist at Bankgesellshaft Berlin, AG, and holds credentials in banking and insurance from the Organization of German Industry and Commerce. He lives in Los Angeles.

Zen Chu Senior Lecturer in Healthcare Innovation, MIT Sloan School of Management Entrepreneur in Residence, Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship View intro » Zen Chu is Senior Lecturer in Healthcare Innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Entrepreneur-In-Residence for the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. Zen believes that engineers will create the data, systems and products to help medicine scale and serve more patients with higher quality and lower cost. He specializes in building early-stage medical device and healthcare information technology companies and has served as founding CEO of three healthcare companies [3D-Matrix Ltd, Clinical Future, and EviPath]. He invests and serves on boards of a few public and private companies through Accelerated Medical Ventures. Alongside MIT professors Shuguang Zhang, Alex Rich, Alan Grodzinsky, and Bob Langer, Zen co-founded and served as CEO for 3D-Matrix Medical Inc., a venture-backed MIT regenerative medicine company with a successful IPO in 2011. 3D-Matrix has wound-healing and drug-delivery products on the market outside of the US and multiple human clinical trials in process. Zen has managed and led new ventures for Harvard Medical School, Wyss Institute, NetVentures and Hewlett-Packard, where he founded the HPGarage new ventures group in Silicon Valley in 1997. As Entrepreneur-In-Residence at MIT, Zen founded and mentors the H@ckingMedicine program, channeling MIT's efforts to impact healthcare around the world. He has served as judge and mentor for MIT's $100K Business Plan Competition and created Innovation Grand Rounds, courses to teach physicians and health professionals to invent high impact clinical innovations, in partnership with CIMIT (Center for Integration of Medicine & Integrative Technology), Mass General Hospital, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He's married to a software entrepreneur and they are raising three aspiring inventors. Zen earned a BS in biomedical/electrical engineering from Southern Mehodist University and an MBA from Yale University.

Henry Cipolla Chief Technology Officer, Localytics View intro » Henry co-founded Localytics in 2008. He leads the Localytics engineering team and oversees the technology vision for Localytics. Before Localytics, Henry spent several years in the Windows Core OS division at Microsoft, contributing to its app analytics service, where his team received several Microsoft Engineering Excellence awards including the prestigious Chairman's award. His development experience covers many areas including software and systems for banks and universities. As a mobile platforms and big data expert, Henry has spoken at industry conferences including the Verizon Developer Conference and Xconomy Mobile Madness. He graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science.

Yong Liu 刘勇 Director of Open Innovation and Partnerships, Baidu View intro » Dr. Yong Liu is a researcher, entrepreneur, business writer and venture capitalist. He is now leading Baidu’s open innovation efforts, including strategic investment and partnerships in the US. Before joining Baidu, Dr. Liu set up Lenovo Technology Seed Fund in 2012 and Lenovo Silicon Valley office for M&A/strategic alliance in 2011. In his earlier career, Dr. Liu served Samsung Electronics, co-founded Dict.cn, and acted as an active business writer. Dr. Liu obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Nanjing University, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Indiana University Bloomington. His research areas include pervasive computing and diffusion of innovations.

Eugene Zhang 张于庆 General Partner, TEEC Angel Fund View intro » In summer 2010, Eugene co-foundered TEEC Angel Fund, a supper angel fund investing in both US and China early stage companies in Silicon Valley. Eugene was founding CEO of InnoSpring, a global cross border technology startup incubator in Silicon Valley from its inception to January 2014. Eugene founded JEDA Technologies, Inc., in December, 2002 and serves as President and CEO. JEDA specializes in next-generation SoC design methodologies and provides ESL (electronic system level ) verification automation products for leading edge SoC design companies world wide. JEDA Beijing R&D center was opened in December 2004 at Tsinghua Science Park. Eugene has been working in the networking and computer industry for thirteen years in technical and management positions. Prior to founding JEDA, he was with Juniper Networks from its start where he contributed greatly to the success of many complex ASICs for internet backbone routers. Prior to joining Juniper, Eugene was with Cisco Systems as an ASIC design verification engineer. From 1993 to 1995 while Eugene worked on the Sunfire SMP server project at SUN Microsystems, he co-invented industry’s first hardware Testbench language Vera, which is a part of today’s industry standard SystemVerilog ( IEEE 1880). Mr. Zhang received his M.S.C.E from Syracuse University, USA, and a M.S.E.E and B.S.E.E from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Keynote Session 6

W. Christopher Fang 方威凯 Worldwide Vice President of Medical Affairs, Johnson & Johnson, DePuy Synthes Spine & Trauma View intro » Dr. Christopher Fang brings a wealth of experience in both medical device and pharmaceutical industries. He has worked to improve healthcare through innovation in biomedical technology. Dr. Fang serves as the Worldwide Vice President, Strategic Medical Affairs for Johnson & Johnson, DePuy Synthes. He has been charged with establishing medical sciences, clinical evidence strategy, and product safety for the DePuy Synthes Spine and Synthes Trauma operating companies. He is appointed to a variety of strategic assignments related to technology assessment, licensing and acquisition, and new product development. Dr. Fang serves as the Chair of the Clinical Research Committee responsible for selection and funding of internal and external clinical programs. Representing Johnson & Johnson globally, he maintains an active role in working to influence healthcare policies that will impact the approval and payment of innovative technologies in the future. Dr. Fang’s career began at Idenix/Novartis Pharmaceuticals where he led global clinical development in the antiviral therapeutic area. He was later appointed Head of Cardiovascular Research and Medical Director at Mitsubishi Pharma Corporation before moving on to Medtronic Vascular. As the Director of Clinical Affairs and Head of Global Clinical Safety at Medtronic, he was responsible for coronary and peripheral device trials and clinical safety surveillance worldwide. Dr. Fang earned a M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, a Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and a M.B.A from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was trained in general surgery at University of Massachusetts Medical School and Medical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fang was awarded Eisenhower Fellowship in 2011. He is currently an Advisor for Global Health Corps and Harvard SEED Social Innovation Program for overseas Chinese students. He serves as a committee member for AdvaMed Program Committee.