THE MCs
KYM MCNICHOLAS
Kym is an EMMY AWARD WINNING Anchor/Reporter/Producer who is building her fifth video department from scratch. She joined PandoDaily after four years at Forbes where she built and ran the video department on the West Coast, wrote a blog, and contributed to the magazine.
The highlight of each week at Forbes was being on Fox News Channel Saturday mornings on “Forbes On Fox.” She also appeared on NBC 11′s pressHere monthly.
She continues to appear on NBC 11 as well as KRON as an expert in technology. Plus, hosts paid-for segments on KTVU.
Kym’s worked in the news business for 18 years during which she’s covered business, sports, and general news.
Damon Bruce
DAMON BRUCE
Damon Bruce is an American sports radio host from San Francisco who began his radio career as a producer with KNBR 680. He later hosted Sports Overnight America and became a reporter for the ESPN Radio and Sporting News Radio networks. From 2010 to 2014, Bruce hosted an afternoon talk show on KNBR's sister station "KNBR 1050" (KTCT) and joined CBS Sports Radio in 2013. Bruce also hosted pre-game and post-game shows for KNBR coverage of the San Francisco 49ers and San Francisco Giants games. At the end of March 2014, he joined 95.7 The Game as the weekday late afternoon host.
If his sounds familiar it might also be because he is the voice of the halftime host of 2K Sports' video game NBA 2k11, 2k12, and 2k13. Bruce is also the play-by-play voice for the video game, The Bigs and The Bigs 2 released by 2K Sports.
THE JUDGES
VISH MISHRA
Vish is a Venture Director at Clearstone and recently voted one of the 51 influential global Indian men
Vish joined Clearstone in March 2002 with over 30 years of leadership and management experience in the high tech industry including software, Internet, networking and telecommunications. He is a founder and served as a board member of Telera, a cutting edge voice web infrastructure company which was sold to Alcatel for $140 million in 2002. Vish was also co-founder of Excelan (1983), which was funded with $7.3 million in venture capital, went public in 1987, sold for $225 million in 1989 and went on to contribute $1 billion to Novell’s revenue in subsequent years.
Vish prides himself in being a mentor capitalist who sits or has sat on boards of many venture-backed companies such as Abeama, Cofix, Onjibe, PostMedia Group, Quantros, Ramp Networks (sold to Nokia), SloMedia, Verano, and Xalted IP Networks. His prior experience includes founding VP of Operations of Excelan and VP Novell and EVP of iPlanet (a unit of Sun Microsystems and AOL), and CEO of four start-ups: Info-Objects, Mindworks, IntelliMatch and Ace Software. Vish also serves on the board of Novariant (formerly IntegriNautics). In addition, Vish is a recipient of Angel Island Immigrant Station’s Immigrant Heritage Award, has been listed among the “10 Influencers in Silicon Valley” by San Jose Mercury News, and is also named one of the “10 Famous Indians in Silicon Valley” by Silicon Indian Magazine.
Dr. James Doty
DR JAMES DOTY
Dr James Doty is a neurosurgeon, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
In the late 90's, Doty became the CEO of Accuray, Inc. a high-tech company he rescued from bankruptcy by convincing some Taiwanese investors to put in $18.5 million. Accuray went public in 2007 (NASDAQ: ARAY) with a market cap of $1.3B. The CyberKnife Technology has revolutionized the field of radiation therapy. Doty is an angel investor and advisor to many medical technology companies and venture capital firms. He is an operating partner at Capricorn Health and Special Opportunities Fund.
Doty is also a philanthropist having given support to a number of charitable organizations around the world. His donation to Stanford University School of Medicine is one of the largest of any graduate or faculty member. And, he endowed the Chair of the Dean of the School of Medicine at Tulane University following hurricane Katrina and refurbished its library, in addition to setting up a scholarship for socioeconomically disadvantaged students to commit to a career of service.
CONNIE CHAN
Connie is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz where she focuses on big ideas in consumer tech.
Previously, Connie led business development and marketing efforts for HP Palm in China. At Palm, she also launched the App Catalog, developer portal and the Facebook application for webOS. Prior to HP Palm, she worked as a founding Senior Associate at Elevation Partners, a $1.8 billion media and entertainment private equity firm, where she fell in love with the consumer Internet and mobile space.
Connie graduated from Stanford University with a MS in Management Science & Engineering, anda BA in Economics.
ADEO RESSI
Adeo is the CEO of the Founder Institute
Adeo Ressi is CEO of the Founder Institute, an idea-stage incubator for aspiring entrepreneurs with chapters in over 75 cities worldwide. The Institute will launch over 1,000 companies worldwide in 2014, and the Institute's mission is to help create 1 million new jobs.
Adeo serves as the Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online resource for CEO's to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide. TheFunded.com has two goals: streamline the fundraising process and encourage more innovation through venture investment. Mr. Ressi also serves on the Board of the X PRIZE foundation, a non-profit chartered to inspire human achievements through competition.
Mr. Ressi has pioneered a number of advances in the field of venture capital and fundraising. He developed “convertible equity” along with Yokum Taku, Partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which is a financing vehicle that provides all of the flexibility of convertible debt without hindering a company with loans. It is estimated that as much as 50% of early stage angel deals use this structure, and well-known incubators, such as Y Combinator, have adopted the structure. He developed the Founder Advisor Standard Template (“FAST”), which provides a standardized equity sharing arrangement for early-stage companies to retain key strategic advisors. He has also created Class F, a founder-friendly incorporation structure that is adopted by the most successful technology companies in Silicon Valley.
ABRAM DAWSON
SV Angel
Abram Dawson is an Associate at SV Angel. Abram joined SV Angel in 2012 after graduating from Santa Clara University with a B.S. in Economics. While an undergrad, he designed and developed a number of mobile apps, tutored economics, and worked closely with the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.