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Bios: |
Jeff Weiss,
Managing Director
ASAP Ventures
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ASAP Ventures helps high-potential, early-stage companies
get to market faster and smarter. ASAP operates a networked
internet business accelerator in Alexandria, Virginia. ASAP
incubates early stage companies and deploys advisory teams
and board members to businesses in the community. Jeff
Weiss, Managing Director, is a long time e-business and
on-line commerce entrepreneur. Jeff helped found two firms
which deliver information and services to businesses online;
E-Motion, formerly Picture Network International, which was
sold to Kodak in 1997, and CDx (Certificate of Deposit
Exchange). He been a strategist advising numerous companies,
an investment banking advisor, a management consultant,
Chief Marketing Officer to a $100mm revenue network services
firm, and has raised substantial funding from sources
ranging from angel investors to corporate and venture
investors. As a result, he has broad understanding of how
young companies grow, how to create and communicate business
and marketing plans, in managing operations, as well as in
evaluating partners and closing capital transactions.
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 Laura
Lukaczyk,
Founder
and Managing Partner,
Avansis Ventures, LLC
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Laura
Lukaczyk is the Founder and Managing Partner of Avansis
Ventures, LLC, an early stage venture fund focused on
information technology in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C.
region. Since its founding in June 2000, Avansis has invested in
Codeon, Ecutel, Exent, iPhotonics, Jasmine Networks,
Opion and Seneca Networks.
She is a board observer at Ecutel.
Prior
to Avansis, Laura was a consultant for New Enterprise
Associates (“NEA”) in its Reston, VA office.
There she participated in investing nearly $85
million in companies such as Advanced Switching
Communications (ASCX), Codeon, DataCore, Exent, Navitar,
TeleGea.com and WNP (acquired by Nextlink, now called XO
Communications).
Prior
to NEA, she was the founding CFO at Denwa Communications
and the Director of Sales at International
Communications Corp. (“ICC”), a company, which grew
to $100 million in annualized revenues within 14 months.
Laura’s prior investment experience includes
working as the manager of private equity placements for
Multifinance Holding Corp. Her prior technical
experience includes semiconductor engineering and
manufacturing for the Delco Electronics Division of
General Motors. Laura received her MBA from the
University of Virginia Darden School and her BS in
Chemical Engineering from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
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Joan Winston,
Steve
Walker & Associates
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Joan
Winston has over a decade of experience in technology
assessment and has a proven track record of identifying
technology trends and emerging market opportunities in
diverse industries. In addition to directing
Walker Ventures' deal flow and business plan review
process, Joan is responsible for assessing the
technological aspects of new ventures as part of due
diligence for all of the investment funds under
management.
She began her
professional life as an aerospace engineer and technical
staff member at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory,
Inc., a leading systems engineering laboratory, where
she specialized in laboratory testing, simulation and
analysis of inertial instruments and strategic guidance
systems. After completing her graduate work in
technology and policy, Joan then progressed through
analytical and project management positions with the
Congressional Research Service and the Congressional
Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). At OTA,
Joan led numerous multidisciplinary assessments of the
impacts of emerging technologies, including studies on
information security and privacy, cryptography, digital
libraries and intellectual property rights for computer
software and electronic information. As Director
of Policy Analysis for Trusted Information Systems,
Inc., Joan represented the corporation before government
agencies and in industry forums regarding information
security and cryptography policies and managed export
licensing for the firm's numerous software security
products.
Joan holds an S.M. in
Technology & Policy and an S.B. in Physics, both
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Zim Putney,
NextGen
Capital
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Zimri Putney, Managing
Director and CEO, has over thirty years of
experience as a venture capitalist, investor,
executive and scientist in technology companies.
As co-founder of the management consulting firm
Putney & Eckstein, Inc., he assisted
technology CEO’s in areas of business and
marketing strategy, quality management, and
operations. For Solarex Corporation, the world’s
leading photovoltaic company, he headed research
and development, and marketing in over 70
countries before and after acquisition by Amoco.
For nearly ten years he served as an award-winning
scientist, inventor, and technology manager for
IBM.
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Moderator:
Esther Smith,
Qorvis
Communications
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Esther Smith is a
well-known and highly respected technology
community entrepreneur, having been founder and
CEO of the company that was the predecessor to
Post-Newsweek Business Information Inc. She is
part of several key technology and Internet
industry networks, with strong links to the
finance community and business media. Since 1998
she has been Managing Partner in charge of the
Internet Practice of The Poretz Group, the
investor relations component of Qorvis
Communications.
A leader in
business, Esther founded the Washington Business
Journal in 1982; she founded TechNews, Inc. in
1986, publisher of Washington Technology and the
Washington Technology Almanac. Continually
recognized as a leader in her field, she received
the prestigious Earle Williams Award in 1999. She
was honored as Washington Business Woman of the
Year in 1997, and recognized by the Virginia
Association of Female Executives as the recipient
of the Award of Excellence. In 1995 she was
"Champion" of Women in Technology and
has been named to Washingtonian magazine’s list
of Washington’s Most Powerful Women.
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