Author: Tullio Siragusa

Brian Price leads Kion and the strategy to achieve the company’s mission to make people’s lives easier in the cloud. Before co-founding the company, Brian built software and led software teams at several industry leaders, including Northrop Grumman, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Jacobs Engineering to name a few.

This software helped these companies transform their internal processes and deliver advanced analytics capabilities to customers. One of these applications launched the first self-service internal cloud platform provisioning service, using AWS and VMware vSphere, for Booz Allen Hamilton. These leadership experiences paved the way for Brian in his current role at Kion to help organizations of all sizes realize success using the cloud.

Vi Friebertshauser went from ESL to becoming valedictorian. She made her first dollar in first grade by trading in soda cans he found. She then made his second dollar by convincing the principal to let her trade the school’s soda cans for cash. Vi got a full ride to the University of Texas at Austin and went on to spend most of her twenties living a 4-hour work week as a digital nomad until she got tired of beaches. Without the technical know-how, she assembled a team, brought in expert advisors, and launched a tech startup.

Vi stumbled upon no-code when she needed to build faster. She fell in love with no-code when she discovered its capabilities! Currently Vi is working on a stealth startup and loves learning about new technologies.

Vikram Chalana is an engineer turned serial entrepreneur. He is currently building Pictory to enable anyone to turn their message into engaging videos quickly & easily. He previously created and scaled Winshuttle, an enterprise software in the data management space, to over 300 global employees.

Vikram holds engineering degrees from Indian Institute of Technology and from University of Washington.

Tom Livne is the CEO & Founder of Verbit, the world’s leading AI-based transcription and captioning platform. Tom formerly served as a board member and investor in Convexum, which was acquired by NSO for $60M. He is an active investor in promising tech companies, including IronSource, Outbrain, Roundforest, Datadog (IPO stage), Snowflake (IPO stage), Jfrog (IPO stage) and Ncino (IPO stage).

Tom holds a LL.B. & B.A. (Cum Laude) from IDC Herzliya and an MBA from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Tom served in the Israel Defence Forces as a warrior and paramedic for the special forces unit of the paratroopers.

Karan Talati is the CEO and co-founder of First Resonance. Their Factory OS, ION, is used by over 30 companies building products in aerospace, automotive, robotics and more. Prior to starting First Resonance, Karan built machine automation and data systems at SpaceX, where he got to see the shift in manufacturing patterns and the enabling technology first hand.

After spending a few years building data and ML pipelines at a startup in LA, Karan started First Resonance with his co-founder and COO, Neal Sarraf. First Resonance is now 25+ people and recently closed its Series A round of funding. This year, they are expanding their customer base and accelerating product development to help more manufacturers meet increasingly dynamic and competitive demands across air travel, space exploration, autonomous vehicles, and more.

Cenk Sidar is the founder and CEO of Enquire AI, an insights software company that leverages artificial intelligence in a tool for businesses to find global subject-matter expertise in real time, from both internal and external resources. Sidar has written for, been interviewed by, and worked with the world’s leading newspapers and media organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNBC, Bloomberg, Foreign Policy, CCTV and Al Jazeera. Sidar has also addressed audiences around the world, including at UK House of Commons, Cornell, Tufts, Johns Hopkins (SAIS) and CFR.

Sidar holds an MA degree in international economics and international relations from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, a postgraduate degree in European studies from SAIS’s Bologna Center in Italy, and a BA degree in business administration and international relations from the Istanbul Bilgi University.

Yadhu Gopalan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Esper, the industry’s leading solution for Android DevOps. Yadhu has over 25 years of experience and 35 patents in embedded systems and security. His career includes past engineering leadership roles such as Chief Architect of the Windows CE and Windows Phone.

At Amazon, Yadhu designed back-end solutions for the FireOS, and AWS before he owned Systems Engineering for Amazon Go. Today, Yadhu is leading Esper to enable developers and organizations of all sizes to ship software updates without worry.

John Geary is the Co-Founder and CEO of Abodu, the ADU company. Abodu builds no-compromise backyard homes (also called Accessory Dwelling Units or ADUs) that expand a property’s livable space. John and Co-Founder Eric McInerney founded Abodu to streamline the process of installing an ADU. Together they have created an innovative concierge service that project manages the entire process of building an ADU from permitting to installation, in under six months.

Prior to founding Abodu, John spent over three years at Bain and Company, a global management consulting firm, where he worked as a real estate strategist to Fortune 500 company executives, and a consumer products consultant advising large utilities and tech companies to develop new products and services. John graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Industrial Engineering.

Jason Marsh is the founder of Flow Immersive, a 3D data storytelling tools company. Starting his career in Speech Recognition at Apple Computer in the 90s, he has been a serial entrepreneur and product creator. His interest in tools to help improve mental models of complex information led him through enterprise applications such as patient safety and quality, financial services, and public policy. He founded a K-8 charter Montessori school, writing curriculum and raising money to build out a 35-acre site.

Flow is a web-based 3D environment for data visualization and storytelling enabling collaboration on flat screens and in AR/VR headsets.

Daniel Choi is the CEO of Sequoia Games, Inc., a ground-breaking game development studio that fuses the physical and digital worlds. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, he spent 20 years as a regional executive for Fortune 300 companies, where he led teams of up to 200 employees.

Then in 2017, as a world-ranked gamer, he took a bold step: he saw an opportunity in the gaming space, left his successful career, and built Sequoia Games to take the technology of today and apply it to the explosive re-birth of old-school collectible gaming.  It’s a decision he appreciates every day.  Now, he lives his dream, leading a company with the vision to infuse more fun into the world.

Daniel is married to Diana, and they have two sons: Carter and Brayden.  He enjoys fine dining, cooking, and of course… sports!

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